Page 31 of After Felix (Close Proximity #3)

“Motherfucker,” he mutters. He straightens. “Come on. We don’t want to be late for dinner.”

My laughter immediately dies as worry rears its head. We’d shared cocktails in a carriage filled with costly-looking people earlier. “It’s rather posh here, isn’t it?” I say haltingly.

“You okay?”

I nod. “Of course,” I say with conviction. He doesn’t move, so I wave my hands at him. “Didn’t you want to change so we wouldn’t be late?”

“We won’t be going anywhere unless you tell me what’s wrong,” he says steadily.

“We can’t be late on the Orient Express.”

“Oh, yes, we can. You’re more important than a load of strangers, and they’ll wait for us.” His arrogant tone shouldn’t make my heart warm as much as it does. “Tell me,” he commands.

“I don’t have anything to wear,” I confide. “We passed people going for dinner, and they were all in suits and ties and even evening dress. It’s so… So posh.”

“Go and look in the wardrobe,” he says. I stare at him. “Go on,” he prompts, and I cross to the small cupboard, opening the doors to view what’s inside .

Our clothes have been neatly unpacked, and my eyes are drawn to the suits hanging there.

One is Max’s—a black Armani dinner suit that flatters his body as if it was designed for him—but the other one must be mine.

It’s an Alexander McQueen evening jacket and vastly different from Max’s, as it’s made of burgundy jacquard patterned with black roses.

It’s beautifully dramatic and has been paired with a black shirt and black trousers.

Everything appears cut to a skinny fit which I know will flatter my body.

The sheen of the fabric tells me that it’s hideously expensive and has been chosen by someone who knows me very well.

I run one finger down the sleek fabric and glance at Max. He’s watching me with the softest expression I’ve ever seen on his face. I swallow hard.

“You?” I ask. He nods. “How?”

“I know your body, Felix. It hasn’t changed much.”

“You remember?” I whisper.

“I will never forget that body of yours.” His fingers make a languorous movement in the air, and my dick twitches as if he’s caressing me. The silence stretches and lengthens, and then he shakes himself like a big dog.

“Get ready,” he instructs me. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Why? You’ve seen everything there is to see a million times.”

“No, I haven’t.” His voice has a hushed quality, almost a reverence to it. “Not nearly everything. That would take a lifetime.”

Within the blink of an eye, a smile appears on his lips, and he’s once again the confident and assured man I know.

“I’ll get dressed in the bathroom of the carriage,” he says. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes. I’ll be the one wearing a pink rose and a very fetching sling.”

“You’ll need another one if you try any funny business,” I advise him darkly.

My smile dies when he leaves, and I catch my reflection in a mirror.

I look the same as always—my face is thin and angular with full lips and big eyes topped by a mess of tumbling black waves.

What’s unfamiliar is the light in my eyes.

I haven’t seen it since the day I left Max in Cornwall.

Seeing it there now worries me… It ma kes me feel as though I’ve been living only half a life without him in it.

“It’s just a reflection,” I say out loud. “The lighting is funny in here.”

The words mean nothing, and I know it even as I say them.

A few hours later, I reel behind Max as we walk back along the narrow train corridor, our bodies swaying to the rhythm of the train.

Dinner was amazing. We ate tender lamb chops sautéed with a mustard sauce, after which he had the cheese board, and I indulged in a rich lemon cake that was so lovely I could have eaten ten of the same.

What had been even more wonderful was Max’s attention on me.

It was a bit like my best memories of our past, only better because this time there were no shadows in his eyes, and he seemed to see only me, listening to me talk and laughing loudly, his expression happy and content in a way it never was before.

After dinner, we went to a carriage with comfortable seating and tables with fresh flowers and lamps glowing in the low light. A pianist played old tunes, and groups sitting with their after-dinner drinks chattered happily.

Max was immediately recognised. The combination of his good looks and fame as a journalist and thriller writer was irresistible, and soon he was at the centre of an admiring crowd, all clamouring to hear his stories.

But tonight was different from the usual Max-adoration scene.

He hadn’t lost his fascination with people, and returned as many questions as he was asked, but during the hours we spent in the carriage, he never once lost contact with me.

His hand was always at my back or on my shoulder, a constant reminder of his presence.

He also drew me into the conversations, so I never once felt left out.

I stop in the corridor, suddenly remembering something he’d said.

“You okay?” he asks, looking back, breaking off from humming one of the tunes we’d heard tonight. I think it’s the old Frank Sinatra classic, “The Way You Look Tonight. ”

“You introduced me as your friend,” I say before I can think about it.

“You sound surprised.”

The window next to us has been pulled halfway down, and I lean against it, staring blindly out at the dark countryside flashing past and feeling the wind blow my hair back. “I suppose I am.”

He leans against the wall next to me. “I don’t know why. You are my friend. At one point, you were my best friend.”

I shake my head wryly. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were,” he says. “It was only when you were gone that I realised it.” He shakes his head. “Come on. I fancy a brandy.”

Back in the cabin, I let him pour me a brandy from the bottle on a side table. I eye him as he sips his own small snifter.

“You’re not drinking much,” I say idly, settling into the small chair while he takes the lower bunk. “You hardly drank at dinner.”

He shrugs. “I don’t drink much anymore.”

“Why?”

“It was getting to the stage where I’d have had a problem on my hands if I carried on.”

The words make sense, but I have the strongest sense of duplicity. I guess I’ve never lost my strange ability to read Max Travers. I try to think of something sensible to say. Something empathetic. “Bollocks,” I say instead.

He chokes on his drink, and I watch with satisfaction. When he’s finished coughing up a lung, he asks, “How do you always know?”

“I just know when you’re stretching the truth, Max.”

“You’re the only one who knows me,” he says steadfastly.

I laugh. “I can’t be. There must be another man who can do the same. I’m a twenty-something twink from London, not a fucking unicorn.”

“You might as well be a unicorn to me,” he says.

“What?”

He puts his drink down. “Ask me when I packed up the booze.” He pauses. “Ask me when I packed up the random men.”

I swallow hard, panicking. “No. ”

“You must know when,” he says loudly. “Come on, Felix, think. It was June the eighteenth at a barbeque.”

I look at him in consternation. “But that was… That was the day Carl and I finished.”

He sits back in his chair, his face harsh with an emotion that looks like disappointment. “You remember him finishing it that well?”

“Not for that reason,” I scoff.

Max’s shoulders become less rigid.

“He threw a hotdog in my face, Max,” I explain. “It’s not something I’d forget. Especially as I got mustard in my eye. That stuff stings.”

I do remember it. Not because of Carl, but because Max had brought some bloke with him.

A thin redhead who had hung on his arm and laughed at everything he said.

It had been like nails down a blackboard, and I’d almost welcomed Carl’s final temper tantrum which had come when he accused me of only watching Max all day.

He watches me, his dark, clever eyes busy. “I remember,” he says. “And when he finished it, I went home and poured all my booze away and deleted the Grindr app.”

“Why did you do that?” I ask in a small voice.

“I had to stop because I realised one thing that day.”

“What?”

“That I wasn’t getting you back by drowning myself in booze and men.”

“Oh my God, Max.” I push my hands through my hair and hang them on the back of my neck. “You can’t say things like that.”

“I haven’t been able to before, but I have to now.”

“Why? Because I’m your prisoner,” I burst out. My heart is pounding heavily, and I’m almost lightheaded with the desire to go to him, to let him sweep me back into his world.

And that’s the tragedy of us. The sex was incendiary, but it was never anything else to Max. I’m abruptly furious with him for making me think otherwise for even a second.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I say in a warning voice.

For once he doesn’t force the issue. He watches me with sharp eyes, and maybe he reads the exhaustion that suddenly weighs me down because he inclines his head and says gently, “As you wish. ”

I grimace. “And now you’re Princess Bride-ing me. It’s not fair. I can’t concentrate around you, Max. I have never been able to. You make my head dizzy. You always have.” I bite my lip and feel my cheeks burning. Never in a million years had I meant to confess that.

He scrutinizes me and something that looks suspiciously like happiness settles on his face.

“Ugh!” I groan. “Why do you look so happy?”

“Never mind,” he says carelessly. “Let’s get some sleep.”

I eye him. “I need to get undressed.” His eyes kindle, and I shake my head. “Turn around,” I instruct him. “And don’t peep.”

“I’m not fourteen. I don’t peep ,” he says in a disgusted voice. I make a spinning gesture with my fingers, and he obeys with a huff.

“Tell me when you’re done,” he says. There’s a long pause. “But tell me immediately and not when you’ve been in bed for a few hours.”

I laugh because he knows me so well. I quickly strip off my suit, pulling on pyjama shorts and a T-shirt and opening the cubicle to get my toothbrush.