Chapter 11
. . .
Reuben
Two Days Later
For all my misgivings, the next couple of days go very well.
The hotel was luckily able to accommodate us.
I eased away from Jez and Xavier in the mornings, saying I had phone calls to make or a friend to meet for coffee.
That left them to their own devices, and I’ve been encouraged to see how they seem to be using the time to get to know one another.
They’re starting to talk together, finding common ground in a similar dark sense of humour.
It’s exactly what I wanted for Xavier, and I’m thrilled.
It makes the decision to stay for extra time the right one, even though I’ve undermined everything by being unable to say no to Xavier in the evenings.
Each night he’s shown up at my door, and every time, despite my resolution to turn him away, I’ve pulled him in.
We’ve fucked and then lain for hours talking and laughing.
I have never felt so close to another person and it’s fucking dreadful that it feels so good.
“Reuben?” Jez’s voice is irritated, dragging me back to the moment.
I shift on my chair at the restaurant table. “I’m not going to the club,” I say again.
“What the fuck? Why?”
“Because I don’t want to.” The simple answer covers a variety of actual reasons, none of which he wants to hear about.
He throws his drink back. “You are such a buzzkill, Reuben. You’re like an eighty-year-old. It’s just a club, for god’s sake. It’s in an old cellar. Supposed to be very atmospheric.”
Atmospheric? I think of the atmosphere in a crowded basement and just stop myself from shivering.
The thought of being hemmed in by sweaty bodies with no clear exit is horrendous and makes my brain go blank with horror for a second.
I reach out for my drink, aware that my fingers are trembling.
I glance up to see Xavier’s gaze fastened on the tremor.
I clench my fist and slide it onto my thigh under the table.
Jez continues, as oblivious as ever. “There’s also supposed to be loads of really beautiful birds that go there.”
“Well, now you’ve tempted me,” I say dryly. “And don’t call them birds. Women aren’t avian as far as I know. I mean, I’m not an expert by any means, but I’m pretty sure of that one.”
He rolls his eyes. “Lovely. And you’ve suddenly become my dad.”
“You should be glad I’m not, because I’d definitely have spanked you if you’d been mine. You’d have done more time in a garret than a child in a Dickens novel.”
A smile crosses his face, and then he looks imploringly at me. “Come on. Please. We’ve only got another couple of nights here. Let’s do something fun for a change. This break has not been my idea of fun.”
I wince and look over at Xavier, but instead of looking devastated, he just rolls his eyes.
I repress a smile and turn back to Jez. “Nope. I’m going to bed. I’m knackered.”
“But I want you to come,” he whines. “Why won’t you?”
I sigh. “I wish I could. I used to love clubbing.” It’s the truth. I loved dancing and drinking. “It just doesn’t love me anymore,” I finish wryly.
“Bollocks,” Jez says. “Just get over yourself.”
Xavier’s lost the charming smile he’s worn on his face all day and now looks cross. I wonder why. His next words come out clipped and cool. “He won’t go because of his PTSD.”
I jerk. “What?”
His eyes are very bright in the dim light of the restaurant. “Oh no. Am I not allowed to say that word?”
“I do not have PTSD,” I say, trying for dignity but coming across as peevish.
“Of course he hasn’t,” Jez says, turning his ire on his son.
Xavier, as usual, doesn’t display any reaction to that. Instead, he steadily stares at me. “You know you have it, Reuben. I can see that.”
“Oh, you’re using your superior knowledge of him now,” Jez snipes. “Born of a few days. I’ve known him for fucking years.”
Xavier shakes his head. “I’m using my eyes, and it actually concerns me that you aren’t doing the same. I mean, you’re supposed to be his best friend.”
“I am.” Jez’s declaration is fierce.
“If you were,” Xavier intones, “you’d have put a name to what’s been happening with Reuben, because I’m pretty sure it’s a dangerous thing to have in the job you two do.”
“I am still here,” I say mildly. “Sitting here PTSD free.”
Xavier’s head snaps around. “Really? So it wasn’t you at breakfast today ducking like you were under attack when the waitress dropped a plate?”
I inhale sharply, but before I can answer, Jez turns on him. “Stop saying that shit,” he snaps. “He’s fine. He can ignore all that.”
“He can what?” Xavier says incredulously.
“Ignore it. He’ll plough through it. I’ve seen him do that with worse things.”
Xavier stares at him. “I can’t believe this. You don’t want to know if Reuben’s struggling,” he says slowly. “It interferes with your life too much.”
Jez flushes. “Oh, and you know so much. You only met both of us this week.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“No, not this,” I say, but they ignore me, both glaring at each other.
“You want him to ignore it,” Xavier says in a glacial, low voice.
“But the truth is that you’re putting both of you in danger.
I read about photojournalism and it's one of the most dangerous professions in the world.” I feel a wash of warmth in my chest that he’s been researching my job.
The warmth becomes irritation as he continues, “In a combat zone you face the same danger as a soldier in battle, but even worse, you can be targeted for kidnapping or made into some kind of political statement just because you're carrying a camera. Reuben’s PTSD makes that risk even greater. "
“That’s enough,” I snap, standing up and throwing my napkin on the table. “I’m going back to the hotel. You two can do whatever you want.”
The knock on my door comes hours later than I thought it would. I set my whisky down on the table with a small click. When I throw the door open, I blink. “What the hell? Why are you dressed like that?”
Xavier’s hair has been pushed back by a lurid pink bandanna, and he’s dressed in the tiniest pair of shorts I’ve ever seen, along with a muscle shirt that appears to be missing most of its fabric.
Like all the fashion he seems to favour, it has holes in it.
He thrusts a box at me, and my hands automatically come up to cradle it.
He crouches to pick up some carrier bags at his feet and then moves past me into the room.
I kick the door shut and turn to watch him as he dumps the bags on the bed. “What are you wearing?” I ask again.
“I am wearing clubbing gear. From the nineties,” he adds slowly and loudly as if I’m hard of hearing.
My mouth twitches. “You seem to have skipped back into the eighties and had a brief dip in the seventies. I never saw anyone wearing that in the nineties, and I went to a lot of clubs in that era.”
“Slutting it up, I suppose,” he says cheerily.
I watch him reach into the bags. He produces a box and sets it on the dressing table.
He flicks a switch on the box, and I blink as strobe lights flash out red, blue, and green.
It’s incredibly bright in the small hotel room, and I put my hand up to shield my vision from the apparent nuclear explosion.
He moves away to the middle of the room and sets his hands on his hips, looking at me.
I shift awkwardly. “What?”
He gestures at my shorts and T-shirt. “I suppose that outfit will have to do. You won’t be up to my sartorial splendour, but we can’t think of everything.”
“Oh. I thought I was dressing for bed.”
“Bed?” he echoes. “We’re not going to bed, Roo.”
I scratch my head. “I think I’m about fifty steps behind you as usual. What are we doing?”
Instead of answering me, he reaches into another bag and produces a small toolkit. After getting out a screwdriver, he drags a chair to the room’s centre and stands on it. Then he starts to dismantle the smoke alarm in the ceiling.
“Whoa. Hang on,” I say, alarmed. “You’ll have management up here.”
He rolls his eyes in a superior fashion that should not be displayed by anyone standing on a hotel chair wearing such short shorts. “Chill out. I’ve already done mine, and nobody noticed.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to smoke a joint. Smoke alarms are fucking awful things.”
“Yes, how dreadful for stopping us from dying a fiery death. What are you doing now?” I ask as he gets down and rummages through a bag.
He finds a small box and then demands in a distracted voice, “Put the kettle on.”
“That is the first normal thing you’ve said tonight.” I flip the switch on the hotel room’s kettle and then watch as he sets about opening the box and placing it carefully on the floor.
When the kettle clicks off a couple minutes later, I hand it to him. I’ll say this for him. He’s definitely taken my mind off my problems this evening.
He pours the hot water into the box, and smoke immediately starts to puff out.
“Is that… dry ice?”
He nods proudly. “Yep. It’s amazing what you can get delivered when it’s on Jez’s credit card.”
I want to laugh so hard. Instead, I cough as a gust of dry ice hits me. Using my distraction, he snaps something onto my wrist. “What the fuck is this?” I say hoarsely.
“Glow stick,” he informs me as if I’ve never seen one before.
“Yes, I know that. What I don’t know is what is it doing on my wrist?”
“For our rave.”
“Our what?”
He nods happily. “Yep. You said you liked clubbing but couldn’t do it anymore.”
“I never said I couldn’t,” I reply testily. “Just that I didn’t want to.”
“Okay, daddio. Whatever you say.”
I inhale and choke on my spit. “What did you just call me?”
“Ta da.” He waves a careless hand. “I have brought the club to you.” The box wafts out more smoke, and I inhale and cough again. I think he waves a hand in front of his face, but it’s getting quite difficult to see him in the fog. “Maybe I’ll switch it off now,” he calls.
“You think?” I choke. “If this were the Victorian era, Jack the Ripper would be opening his medical bag right about now.”