Chapter 16 #2
Last night I’d switched mine off to save the battery because I hadn’t grabbed my charging cable when I hadn’t even known we’d be staying over. I felt like my own gran, who only ever switched hers on to send someone else a message or give them a call as it booted back up.
A raft of messages swam in when the signal connected.
Matt
You back late then?
Don’t worry about me. I’m only in the house all by myself with no one to go to the pub with and nothing in for dinner because my housemate swore he was going to the shops so I didn’t need to bother.
Hope you catch an embarrassing and mildly annoying STD. If you’re not back by tuesday I’m subletting your room.
My battery warning slow-motion ding-donged as I thumbed out a reply and Simon looked up at the buzz of the vibrate.
“I would have lent you my spare charger.” Because Simon was helpful and organised and magnanimous. Even to employees he didn’t want growing feelings.
I eyeballed him, and purposefully stopped myself from signing. His hearing aids were back in. He wouldn’t want me to. Familiarity, consideration, liking each other: those were all well off-limits now. “Didn’t know you had one.”
Ben
Sorry. Engineering works. No battery. Back tonight.
Matt
Why are you messing about with the trains? You left in a CAR
Long story. Tell you later.
Simon held up a delicate-looking pot, with a thin curving spout, catching my eye. “Some of that coffee you’re in love with?”
The neck of yesterday’s t-shirt threatened to strangle me. What a shit. I pushed the equally delicate cup towards him.
“Cheers.”
The pot was proper china. No push down bit in the middle. Elegant. Probably dead expensive. No way it wasn’t going to dump a pile of soggy grounds into the bottom of my cup, so what was the point?
“Trains are running again.” Simon buttered his slice with military precision, right to the very edge of the crust. “I’ve booked a taxi to the station.”
“Great.”
He crunched into his toast loudly enough to echo off the sunlit walls.
“Did you bring this all up from the kitchen?”
He dusted crumbs from the front of his shirt. “Agniezka brought it up.”
“Who?”
A ripple of a frown forged Simon’s eyebrows together. “She’s the maid.”
“Of course she is.”
His tongue clacked loudly against his teeth as he leaned back in his seat, arms folded across his chest. “I knew you’d have a problem with that.”
“Oh come on. Normal people don’t employ someone to put the coffee on the table and toast the Hovis.”
“Would you rather they didn’t employ anybody and sat on their mound of gold coins counting every penny?”
“What, like Silas Marner?” I folded my arms too. Why was this so difficult? He was right. Last night had been a terrible, terrible idea.
“More like Smaug.” Simon’s laugh should not have felt like a victory. Or a relief.
I took another bit of toast, and dithered about double-dipping in someone else’s jam pot with a butter-smeared knife. I didn’t even want jam.
“Ben, what are you looking for?”
“They don’t have any Marmite?”
“No.” Simon confirmed reluctantly. “They do not. I don’t think a little pot full of noxious black sludge with a bright yellow lid would go with the aesthetic of the table.”
He took another little sip from his dainty cup. Which definitely did fit with the whole mood of the place. The same way he did.
“I’m not eating the aesthetic, am I? I’m eating disappointingly cold toast.”
Simon dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “What’s wrong with marmalade?”
“Too sweet, isn’t it?” Under the table, I stretched my legs, crossing my ankles in front of me. “You want a bit of salt first thing in the morning, right?”
Simon’s grin turned wolfish, splitting wide enough to flash his teeth. “Couldn’t possibly comment.”
He leaned back, legs stretched long under the table, next to mine, not quite touching. And then he shifted so our calves met.
“Look—”I said at the same millisecond Simon started to speak.
“Sorry.” He held his hands up, palms wide. “You first.”
“Nothing. I just…” I made a vague gesture towards the ceiling, hoping to indicate the bedroom. “About up there? It was alright, wasn’t it?”
His lips rolled in on themselves and his nostrils flared. “So much more than alright, Ben.”
Oh shit. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He who dares, wins and all that. “If you wanted, I’d be up for”—I cleared my throat—“extending the holiday?”
The air between us bloody well crackled.
I held my breath, waiting for him to draw his leg away from mine. Simon blinked at the half eaten slice of toast in the middle of his plate for an endless run of seconds, frowning. “You’d actually be okay with that?”
I held my hands up, showing him my palms. “Only because you can’t find anybody else to get you off, what with your incredibly busy schedule and all that. It’d be a pity fuck really.”
Held-back amusement tugged at his lips. “You shit.”
“Don’t let me twist your arm or anything. It’s just sex, remember?”
“Alright.” He was grinning. I was grinning. “I’d like that.”
He’d like that. Holy fuck. My ribcage could barely hold my hyperactive heart.
“Anyway.” The bastard nodded to my plate, notching an eyebrow upward. “Better hurry up if you want to get all that down you. Taxi’s here in five minutes.”
God help me, what had I just done?
On the train, we commandeered a four-seat table with a double plug socket.
Simon snapped his hearing aids into their charging case, glancing at me like he was waiting for a comment I wasn’t going to give.
He let me borrow his spare cable. And as soon as we got into signal range, out of the deadzone of the station, both our phones started jumping.
Ping! Tszzzt!
Ping! Tszzzt!
RICHARD WHITTAKER SEX TAPE HOAX!
Ping! Tszzzt!
RUGBY STAR’S PUBLICIST IN THE FRAME!
Ping! Tszzzt!
Oh god. Sev had got the footage out then. And now everyone in the world had likely seen me basically naked.
But the guy in a boring suit sitting in the seat on the other side of the train carried on tapping away on his laptop like nothing life-altering had occurred.
I didn’t have a neon sign suspended over my head telling everyone my freckled arse was making the internet blow up.
I was just some guy. I could keep breathing.
Ping! Tszzzt!
Tszzzt! Ping!
WHO DID THE DIRTY WITH WHITTAKER’S PUBLICIST? #Dickydidn’tdothedeed
MYSTERY MUSCLE MAN! #thisisDefinitelyahorse
JUST HORSING AROUND… #paperbagjob #faceforradio
Ouch.
I flipped my phone face down. Under the table, Simon nudged my knee and didn’t pull his leg back.
“The trick is,” he signed, “to remember people are arseholes. And then to ignore the lot of them.”