Page 20 of After Felix (Close Proximity #3)

“Oh no.” I wave a hand in rebuttal and turn to Andrew. “Andrew, this is Max,” I say. “Don’t shake his other hand. With my luck, his whole arm will drop off.”

“You know, Felix, what I really love about you is your ability to tap into your compassion at a second’s notice,” Max observes.

I glare at him. “Just be glad I’m not tapping into a nearby stick. Because I’d probably beat you over the head with it today.”

Andrew has been staring at Max, and he suddenly exclaims, “You’re Max Travers.”

Max’s humour dies away. “I am,” he says coolly.

“That’s excellent. I followed you when you were a journalist and Felix bought me a copy of your book for my birthday.”

“Did he really ?” Max glances at me with a gleeful expression.

I blush. “It’s only right to help the older generation along,” I say quickly. “Money in your pocket, Max. You can buy yourself another Zimmer.”

Max chuckles. “Felix has a real feel for bookshops,” he says to Andrew in a conversational tone. How he manages it while sitting on the ground with one arm in a sling, is beyond me, but he does. Sometimes I envy his sangfroid.

“Really?” Andrew sounds offensively surprised.

The glee on Max’s face intensifies. “Yes, he gets so much out of bookshops. Why, when I met him for the first time it was in a bookshop and then he did this thing with his?—”

“Oh my God ,” I say loudly, drowning out his voice. “We’ve—” I falter for inspiration. “We’ve got some papers for you to sign.”

Max makes an apologetic face. “Darling, I’m sorry. I’m a bit out of commission at the moment as a result of you mangling my arm.”

“ Mangling ? You didn’t get it caught in a combine harvester. Put the pen in your mouth, then, and do it for England,” I snap. “And don’t call me darling,” I add as an afterthought.

“Felix,” Andrew says in a shocked tone.

At that moment an old lady steps out of the cottage and walks towards us, doing up her coat as she goes.

“See you tomorrow, Mr Travers,” she snaps at Max.

I gape at her. Does she not see what’s happening?

She gets a few steps down the drive and then stops and turns back.

“The house is done and clean. There had better not be any more experiments in your study or I won’t answer for my actions.

You’re resting on my last nerve since the incident with the gunpowder.

” She looks at me and Andrew. “He’s nutty as a squirrel’s dinner,” she remarks in a warning tone.

“You have my deepest and most sincere condolences,” I tell her.

Andrew shakes his head. “He does seem to inspire strong emotion, doesn’t he?”

“Mainly homicidal ones,” I snap. I look at Max and sigh. “Okay, get in the car,” I command. “I’m going to drive you to the hospital to get that arm checked out.”

“Isn’t that sort of a poacher turned gamekeeper?” Max asks, getting to his feet with suspicious obedience.

Andrew laughs and ruffles my hair. “He’s definitely not the best driver. I nearly had a heart attack being in the passenger seat this morning. ”

Max stares at him coldly, all the humour leaving his face.

“I’m sure he’d be brilliant if he put his mind to it,” he says stiffly.

“Felix has an amazing brain.” I stare open-mouthed at Max, but he just carries on glaring at Andrew.

“He hates driving though, and that’s not his car.

So why was he driving in the first place? ”

“Oh.” Andrew shifts position awkwardly.

I’m torn between glee at Max defending me and ire that he’s sticking his nose in my private life. “None of your business,” I say sharply.

At the same time, Andrew says, “I got a bit drunk last night and Felix offered to drive.”

I gape at Andrew. My open mouth gets even wider, when Max says primly, “Maybe have a bit more consideration for Felix and limit your alcohol consumption.”

“That’s like Marie Antoinette lecturing the guillotine operator on how to cut her hair,” I observe as I open the passenger door. “Get in,” I command.

Max obeys with suspicious obedience. I’m just about to start the engine when he says, “Wait,” urgently and jumps out and vanishes into the house.

“Where is he going now ?” I groan. “Christ, this is like a long car journey with a toddler.”

Andrew opens his mouth to reply but then Max is back and throwing something through the open car window at me. “What’s this?” I ask, picking up a bundle of fabric.

“A jumper.” He climbs into the car and smiles at me. “You’re only in a T-shirt and you’re shivering.”

“Oh.” I hesitate for a long second before finally saying awkwardly, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he says sunnily. “Now I’d better direct you to the hospital.”

We set off with a jerk. Max winces and I look at him in concern as Andrew groans in the back seat. “Fucking hell, Felix, try and be a bit more light-footed on the pedal.”

Max directs a glare back at him. “You’re doing fine,” he says gently to me. “Just ignore him. ”

Andrew huffs, and I look gratefully at Max before remembering that I’m not supposed to like him. I focus on the road, instead.

The hospital is fairly quiet and Max is quickly whisked away to get an X-ray. I settle back on my chair with a cup of disgusting coffee and prepare to wait.

Andrew fidgets on his chair and sighs.

“Still hungover?” I ask, attempting to sound interested but probably failing dismally.

“My head is killing me. Have we got to stay the entire time?”

“You’ve changed your tune. What happened to, ‘Oh, you’ve hurt him, Felix. You must nurse him back to health’?”

He shrugs. “He opened his mouth.”

I start to laugh and then I shrug. “We have to stay.”

“Why?”

“Erm, were you not a witness to what happened? I ran into him with a car. It’s my fault.”

Andrew settles back, resigned.

I wish I could be as sanguine. The truth is that I’d have come to the hospital and stayed, regardless of any fault, because this is Max. The thought makes me cross.

With perfect timing, Max appears with his arm in a sling, wheeled by a nurse.

We get up and follow as she pushes him into a cubicle. After giving us a smile, she vanishes.

“What did they say?” I ask, sitting on one of the chairs.

“They reckon it’s just a fracture,” Max says casually. “Apparently they’re going to put a cast on it.”

“I am sorry,” I say awkwardly.

Max just laughs. Andrew eyes him disbelievingly, but this is Max all over. Easygoing and charming and stoical.

“I still can’t believe I hit you with a car,” I say. “You’re going to send me round the bend eventually, Max. I’ll be as mad as a hatter.”

Max laughs again. “Well, in my defense I didn’t realise you were coming. I’d have made sure to welcome you properly if I had.”

The innuendo is clear in his voice and Andrew looks curiously between the two of us. I sigh. “Try and answer your phone,” I advise. “Zeb’s been trying to get hold of you for ages.”

“I was writing,” he protests.

I roll my eyes. “And thus life stops.”

“You’re a thriller writer aren’t you now?” Andrew asks.

Max barely shoots him a glance in response. He seems to be actively trying to pretend Andrew isn’t here.

“Yes,” I insert quickly. “He’s a bestselling author. Crime and mystery. ”

“That’s nice,” Andrew says.

Max snorts.

Silence falls and then I stir. “I’m surprised that your young man of the moment wasn’t around to whisk you to hospital,” I say waspishly. “Aren’t they normally hanging about your house in their underwear?”

“Not likely,” Max says primly. “That would send my heating bills sky high.” When I snort and shake my head, he leans closer. “There aren’t any men, young or otherwise,” he says quietly.

Andrew’s eyebrows rise. He’s obviously straining to hear every word.

“Oh really?” I scoff. “Pull the other one. It’s got bells on it.”

“I hope they play a nice tune, then, because it’s true.”

More silence falls. Uncomfortable, I grasp for something to say. “Did you know where the term mad as a hatter comes from?”

Max sits back with a wry smile on his face. “Is it something to do with Alice in Wonderland ?”

“No, it’s from the hatting industry in Bedfordshire. They used mercury in the felt and it led to symptoms of dementia amongst the workers.”

“Really?” Max’s eyes light with interest.

I used to love to come up with these facts when we were together, because he soaked them up like a sponge. I think I was inspired by Zeb, who seems to know everything.

Andrew laughs and, leaning over, ruffles my hair. “You and your little stories,” he says in his usual patronising manner.

“I like them,” Max says, glaring at Andrew and then smiling at me .

“You just like them because you want to see my cock again,” I say idly.

He laughs. “Well, it does so enhance all of your little stories.”

There’s a short silence. I realise what I’ve said at the same moment that Andrew says, “Wait. You’ve been together?”

“For a long time,” Max says.

I glare at him. “For a very short and eminently forgettable time we were together. Years ago.”

Max narrows his eyes, but before he can say anything, the cubicle curtain is whisked open and the doctor appears.

“We’ll wait outside,” I say hurriedly, spiriting Andrew out.

“You slept with him?” he hisses in the hallway.

“What feels like a millennium ago.”

“And you never thought to mention it to me?”

I stare at him in astonishment. “No, why would I?”

He opens his mouth to argue, but I jump in and say, “Max is old news. Such old news that the pages have gone yellow. It’s not important.”

The cubicle curtain opens and the doctor comes out. “I’m just sending him to get a cast on that arm,” he says, smiling at us before walking away to confer with a nurse.

I pop my head around the curtain. Max is staring at the wall with a very concentrated expression on his face. Wheels and cogs are turning at hyper speed in that big brain of his, and I’m pretty sure he’s plotting something.

“Everything okay?” I ask cheerfully.

He turns to me. “I’m afraid you’ll need to stay with me tonight, Felix,” he says slowly.

“What?” I gasp.