Page 24 of After Felix (Close Proximity #3)

In the month before the wedding, I’d found myself thinking far too much about him, and it had worried me.

I thought that I’d exchanged one obsession for another, but the painful truth is that I found pure gold in Felix and threw it away as if it was a chip wrapper because I was obsessed with the one who got away.

It never occurred to me that Ivo was meant to get away.

That he had his own person who at least had the good sense to hold onto him.

“Oh fuck,” I groan and collapse back on the sofa. “How did I not know? This is so fucked up. I love someone who I made hate me. If this is what love feels like, then it’s bloody awful. Take it away.”

He chuckles. “I can’t do that,” he says.

“And you wouldn’t really want me to. Maybe you never realised it before, because you’ve been moving so fast for years.

You were like a human hurricane, and the only one in the eye of the storm with you was Ivo, so you never looked elsewhere.

And then Felix came along and exploded all your ideas.

It probably feels so intense because you’ve come to real love so late in life. ”

“I’m not fucking eighty.”

He shrugs. “But you’re too old to adapt well to changing feelings. You never realised in all that time with Felix, but I saw it. I saw how soft you were with him. How fascinated you were by him. He was dancing along and drawing you with him but…” He hesitates .

I make a gesture. “You’ve come this far. Give me the truth.”

“The awful truth is that you fucked it up and you may not get another chance with Felix even if you want one,” he says quietly. He looks at me searchingly. “Do you want one? It might be too late to even try.”

Cold dread steals over me. It’s only now in this moment, after I acknowledged how much I love him, that I realise I might not be able to mend the trouble I caused.

“I do,” I say, and it’s a vow I’ve never made before.

With Ivo, I’d never seen the use of making such a promise, and now I realize it had made things safe for me. I could keep my heart protected, because I believed there was no chance for being happy. The irony is I could have been happy with Felix and the only person who broke that is me.

“Felix is very closed off to emotion,” Zeb says musingly. “Probably because of his upbringing. Like you, he never intended for any of this to happen. I think you’re a shag that got very complicated for him. He just realised the truth before you did.”

“That’s because he’s infinitely braver than me,” I murmur, my heart clenching at the thought of him on that boat. So valiant and sparkly despite being all alone. I look up at Zeb. “I need to see him to tell him…” I hesitate. “Do you think he still feels the same?”

He sighs. “The truth is, I don’t know, Max. He doesn’t confide in me at the moment. I’m too close to the whole situation. If anyone will know, it’ll be his cousin Misha or his friend Charlie. He tells them things. Maybe go and see them. I’ve got Charlie’s address because Jesse lives with him.”

He stumbles over Jesse’s name, and I narrow my eyes. “Ah, the mysterious Jesse. You make him sound very edible.”

I watch in disbelief as he flushes. “Well, he is,” he says quietly and then slaps the arms of the chair. “But that’s neither here nor there. I’m with Patrick, and Jesse is far too young for me.”

I let it go, planning to revisit it when he least expects it. “Okay,” I say peacefully, and he smiles with what looks like relief.

“Go and see Charlie and ask how Felix is and whether he still cares for you. From the way Felix talks about him, Charlie will tell you the truth, but kindly.” He pauses.

“But you might have left it too late, Max. I don’t think Felix is the type of man who’s happy playing second fiddle to someone else, and he doesn’t forgive things easily.

You’ve left it a long time to suddenly pop up and want him back. ”

“I wanted to see him,” I mutter. “Every day I picked up my phone to call him, but then I thought about what you said in Cornwall and that maybe he was better off without me, so I put the phone down again.”

Zeb bites his lip. “He’s been different this week. Almost brighter. Be careful this time with him. Listen to what he says, and if he doesn’t want you back, you must accept it. You’ve done enough damage.”

I did go to find Felix only to realise that Zeb was right.

I was too late, and he was involved with someone.

But I still tried. I went to his boat and waited for him.

I told myself that this new man was just a fling, and if Felix saw me, those hazel eyes would light up with that shy pleasure that so belied his snarky persona.

The look that he seemed to direct only at me.

I was determined to split him up from this man who didn’t deserve him, who wouldn’t appreciate what he’d got. I was that much of a bastard.

But then I saw that this unworthy stranger might be good for Felix.

He looked well. Happy and healthy. Zeb’s words rang in my ears, and I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t sweep into Felix’s life again and upset everything when he was moving forward.

I had nothing to offer him. I was a jaded ex-journalist with more scars than I’d ever acknowledged who hid them behind bluster and booze.

Why would someone as vital as Felix want me when this new man could obviously give him more?

The stilted conversation that followed bore no resemblance to any of the sparkling ones we’d had when we’d been together.

Those had been lively and snarky, like drinking champagne when the bubbles burst cold on your skin.

Instead, I stumbled through an apology, and he tried his best to look interested.

It had killed me to see that look on his face, so I’d walked away and picked up a bottle of vodka at the corner shop and a man in a club later.

I don’t think I was sober for months after that.

However, no matter how many men I buried myself in, I couldn’t replace Felix. And deep inside, I never gave up the tiny hope that rested in my heart that I could get him back. Somehow and at some point, we would find a way back to each other because that much feeling and love can’t be wrong.

It’s why I hang around when anyone else would have been driven away—first, by his anger, and then by his disinterest and the knowledge that other men are with him.

They get to fuck him and laugh with him, and all I have are the memories and the zing I still get from being near him in a group.

It’s made more painful by the knowledge that I could have had all of Felix and more, if I’d only opened my eyes in time.

My phone rings and I try to shake off the horrible memories. I groan when I see the name on display. He has impeccable timing.

Clicking to connect, I say, “Zeb?”

“Max,” he says, concern deep in his voice. “Are you okay? Felix said he’d run you over.”

“Did you think he’d finally snapped?”

“I wouldn’t have put it past him, but then I really thought about it.”

“And you realised he’d be much more vicious in the way he ended me,” I say.

He gives a startled bark of laughter. He pauses and then says, “So, he told me he’s staying with you because you have a concussion. Are you okay? Do you want me to come down? I can stay with you and?—”

“ No ,” I interrupt. “No, Felix is going to stay with me.”

There’s an even longer pause. “Max.” It's his long-suffering voice. The one he used when he was landed with a young boy as a stepbrother who was going to look up to him for the rest of his life. And I feel a sudden deep love for the man who has always been my role model for how to behave honourably in life. Maybe if I’d paid closer attention to what Zeb would have done, I’d never have lost Felix.

There’s a painful melancholic truth in that.

“Max, you can’t do this,” Zeb says. “Don’t make it worse for yourself. It’s?—”

“This is my chance,” I interrupt, my voice too loud in the quiet room. “This is my chance to get him back, and if he had to run me over to get that chance, then I’m happy.”

He sighs heavily. “I live for the day you get back together, and you become his problem again, do you know that? ”

“Thank you.” I sniff. “How brotherly.”

“Okay, if you’re still set on this crazy idea, what do you want me to do?”

Ten minutes later, I set my phone back on the table and lie back to finish plotting. My arm hurts, but I’ve planned and plotted through worse injuries than this.

I have a sudden memory of me and Ivo trapped in a cell, words being spat at us as we huddled together for warmth.

Sweat breaks out over my body, but then I hear a distant clatter of dishes from downstairs in the kitchen.

Felix. He’s here in my house with me. I’m not alone.

Taking several deep breaths, I’m able to push the awful memory away,

I don’t know when I slip into sleep, but I fall deeply, waking only to memories of Felix’s hand in my hair in the night and his soft questions.

When I wake up next, it’s to a knock on the door and Felix’s messy head appearing.

“Breakfast is almost ready,” he says. “Want a hand with anything?”

I sit up with a groan, feeling every inch of my years and probably someone else’s too. “Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’d love it if you could go out and purchase me a new body.”

He laughs. “Please can I buy Matthew McConaughey’s?”

“What has he got that I haven’t?” I ask, pulling myself up.

“Well, at the moment a fully functioning body,” he says, eyeing me.

“I’d like to be Matthew. He looks like his exes never run him over with their cars.”

He snorts. For a second, his eyes light up and fully focus on me.

I never get to see him like this anymore, and I look at him greedily.

He reads something in my expression, because the light in his eyes fades away like the last spangles of colour from a firework.

And then we’re back to being awkward again.