Page 14 of After Felix (Close Proximity #3)

He searches my face, but he must miss my turmoil, because he grins and kisses my forehead. “The bag’s in some coat cupboard that Henry showed me. It is a very fetching T-shirt,” he says. “I am sorry though. Maybe I should have waited upstairs with you or woke you up.”

“You think ?” Zeb says.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say quickly, heading off the confrontation that I sense brewing. The undercurrents suggest it’s not about me, and I have to wonder what’s going on between the stepbrothers. “Where can I get a drink? I’m parched.”

Max’s face lights up. “I’ll get you one and some food too. You must be starving. Wait with Zeb.”

“Are you coming back this time, or should I lay in stores, so he doesn’t starve to death?” Zeb says in a very chilly tone.

Max glares at him. “I’m not entirely sure what your problem is today, Zebadiah?”

“Are you not?” Zeb asks with a very funny expression on his face. “Are you really sure about that?”

“I’d love some food,” I say brightly. “Now would be good. Lots of food, now please, and a very large fucking drink.”

Still glaring at Zeb, Max squeezes my arm and vanishes into the crowd.

“What is the matter with you?” I mutter to Zeb.

He downs his drink in one gulp. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he says in a very grim voice.

“Well, maybe you should put it to one side. This is a wedding. Personal differences should be forgotten, and we should just try to like everyone.” The crowd parts to reveal Patrick. “Oh dear, I spoke far too soon on that matter,” I say faintly. “I’m afraid I’m going to be a gigantic hypocrite.”

Zeb shakes his head at me. “Get on with him please,” he says out of the corner of his mouth and then smiles faintly at his boyfriend. “Okay?” he asks, although there’s little enthusiasm in his voice.

“I’m fine,” Patricks snaps. “Despite us being put in a very poky room.”

“Really?” I ask. “Where are you?”

“At the back looking over a lavender garden. That’s going to play hell with my allergies.”

“Are these allergies ever fatal?” I ask sweetly and release my breath in a huff as Zeb elbows me.

Patrick’s gaze sharpens. “Well, I suppose you’ve been given a wonderful room,” he says in a poisonous voice. “Seeing as your man has such a close relationship with Ivo. ”

“ Patrick .” Zeb’s voice is as sharp as I’ve ever heard and Patrick has the grace to look abashed, although I’m buggered if I know why.

“Well, they are best friends,” I say. “I suppose it’s natural.”

Patrick’s laughter stalls and turns into a frown as Max appears with a huge plateful of food. “Max,” he says in a frigid tone

“Patrick,” Max intones, handing me the plate which I nearly drop as it’s loaded with enough food for twenty people.

“Did you think you were feeding me for the week?” I ask, laughing.

He grins at me. “You’re too thin. You need to eat more.”

“Not your usual type, is he, Max?” Patrick says with relish. “You normally go for the strapping men with foreign accents, don’t you?”

Zeb jerks and I shoot him a “what the fuck is the matter with you” look.

“Oh dear, Max. Have you got a boy in every port?” I say over-cheerfully. “I’m already exhausted coping with your sexual demands. Maybe we could share you. You could be like Louis the Fourteenth. Just put on a wig and wear some heels and develop megalomania.”

Patrick blinks, looking thwarted, and Max gives me a grateful look. “I could never have coped with all those mistresses,” he says mournfully.

I laugh. “Don’t ever do multiples,” I advise him. “You can barely manage with the singular.”

As if by mutual accord, we move to a big table and sit down while I eat my food.

It’s superb, with homemade quiche filled with bacon and sharp cheese and a salad that has a tangy dressing on it, but I only pick at it.

My appetite has vanished, probably drowned in the undercurrents currently swirling around us.

Max and Patrick continue to snipe at each other, and Zeb looks far more worried than I’ve ever seen him.

I ignore them after a bit and gaze around the room.

Ivo and Henry are easy to find, as they seem to glow in the late evening light.

Ivo has his arm slung around Henry whose red hair gleams. They’re talking to a group of men.

I instantly spot Asa Jacobs. He stands a head above everyone else, his arm wrapped around a slender young man with dark curls.

Another couple is talking with them, one of them tall and dark with a slightly wry expression on his face.

He says something and the others laugh and a slender man with brown-blond hair reaches out and hugs him, saying something that makes the dark-haired man’s face warm and fill with laughter.

Max’s chair scrapes back, and he stands up. I look at him enquiringly, and he grimaces. “Zeb and I are going to get another drink. Will you be alright?”

“I’m fairly sure I’ll manage the existential crisis that your absence will bring on,” I say mildly.

Max laughs, his face lightening. “Okay,” he says. “Red wine for you?” I nod, and he turns to Patrick. “Hemlock for you?”

Zeb shakes his head and steers Max away, leaving me and Patrick in a very loaded silence

I sigh and carry on eating my food. Patrick leans forward in a confiding fashion. “It’s lovely that you’re so easygoing,” he says.

I take a sip of my drink and look at him. “I can totally see that when I deal with you.”

He laughs in a very fake way and pats my arm. “No, silly. I mean you and Max. It’s good that you’re so easygoing because any other man would find him highly difficult to deal with.”

“He’s not Bluebeard,” I say lightly. “I haven’t suddenly discovered a stash of bodies in a secret room. Not even at The Ritz.”

“I’m not sure even Bluebeard would have brought the man he’s currently fucking to the wedding of the one who got away.”

Time seems to stop for a minute, everything going utterly still and silent. Then with a jumpstart, the noise comes back, and I blow out an unobtrusive breath. The food suddenly tastes like ash in my mouth.

He sits back in his chair and carries on talking. “I’m relieved, to be honest, Felix. You’re very flippant, but I thought even you might be bothered.”

“Bothered by what?” I say sharply. “Spit it out, Patrick. Which is something you probably do a lot of. What are you trying to tell me?”

“Have you met Ivo?”

“I have,” I say slowly. “Very nice.”

“I suppose I’m surprised you’d say that. It’s got to be difficult to meet the man who your boyfriend has been fucking for years. ”

“What?” I ask hoarsely before I can think.

He looks highly delighted. “Did you not know? Max and Ivo were lovers for years.”

With the unerring timing he likely honed during his reporting days, Max turns up with his hands full of drinks. “What’s up?” He suddenly furrows his brow, obviously gauging the atmosphere at the table as being at DEFCON 1. “What’s going on?” he repeats hesitantly.

“Oh, Max,” I say tonelessly. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

Five hours later, I let myself into the bedroom with Max following me.

I immediately move over to the window to open it.

The briny scent of the sea pours in, mingling with the smell of fresh-cut grass.

“Well, that was an absolutely smashing evening,” I say, staring out unseeingly.

“Ranks right alongside my root canal and the time that I broke my arm. I have to thank you, Max. You really know how to treat a boy.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, the slur heavy in his voice. “I should have told you.”

“Yes, you fucking should,” I hiss, turning to face him.

He’s sitting on the end of the bed, head in his hands, and listing slightly to one side due to the massive amount of alcohol he’d consumed tonight. I’ve never seen him drink like that before. One drink after another with a studied attention to the act, as though he’d be tested on it later.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it had been a shitty evening. We hadn’t been able to talk about it beyond a hissed conversation because we’d had to troop off to the rehearsal and then into the big meal, and a wedding isn’t the time for heated words.

At the thought of the wedding, my eyes narrow and the rage that’s been simmering all night boils over.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say heatedly and watch him wince.

“You could and should have said something.” He looks up, his eyes squinting to focus.

I shake my head. “I understand exes, Max, even if I’ve never been in enough of a relationship to get one.

But this was awful. You let me be totally blindsided by that wanker Patrick.

I had no idea that you were fucking one of the grooms, and I should have done because everyone else knew. ”

“I know,” he says hoarsely. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He hesitates, and I’m sure some tiny sober part of his brain is screaming at the drunk side to stop talking. I stare steadily at him, and he slumps.

“I don’t know,” he finally says with drunken earnestness. “That was in another life and not in the one I’m leading now. It was years ago and it wasn’t important, anyway. Ivo and I were only ever friends who fucked. It could never be anything else. I guess I never thought you needed to know.”

I stare at him, and he gives a long sigh. “I’m sorry.” He stands but then immediately lurches and falls back onto the bed. “Shit, I’m pissed,” he says in a tone of utter astonishment.

“I know. It’s truly been an amazing evening with you. If anyone approaches you for dating advice in the future, please swear you’ll never give it.”

I’m talking to thin air, as his eyes have closed.

“Great,” I mutter and lift his legs onto the bed, taking off his shoes.

His hand comes up suddenly, making me gasp. “I’m sorry,” he says with the sincerity of a small child. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

I sigh because his eyes close again. I lean over him and stroke his hair. I can’t help the tenderness despite the fact that he’s pissed me off majorly tonight. I wonder if that’s what caused his moodiness earlier in the day—the fact that he hadn’t told me of the connection between him and Ivo.

I don’t know what makes me so uneasy about it. I knew he had a steamy past with other men. Fuck it. I’d known his present and his future would likely be just as torrid. It shouldn’t matter because we’re only in a casual relationship.

Only we’re not. Or rather, I’m not in a casual relationship. Not anymore.

I stiffen with the force of the realisation that blows through me.

I’m in love with him. The maelstrom of feelings jumbled inside me can’t be anything else—anger and hurt and tenderness mixing to form an intense mixture for this complicated and charismatic man who is damaged in a way I might never understand.

But that’s the rub of it, isn’t it? Max won’t show anything intimate to me, and so I haven’t revealed my feelings to him.

I still inside. Maybe one of us should step up.

And maybe it should be me. Because if I tell Max that I want more with him, show him I trust him, maybe he’ll eventually open up and learn to trust me too.