Page 13

T his was the thing.

Well, panic rising in my chest made it difficult to actually think clearly, but I’d woken up with my head against Dylan Scotland’s shoulder, and in my fragile masculinity and weird definition of who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to behave, I’d got up and fled.

I wasn’t proud. I wasn’t in any way happy with my behaviour. But now I was sitting on my sofa with my hands trembling, and I hadn’t even made a cup of tea.

What was even worse was that I was struggling to make sense of why I wasn’t making that tea and doing what any self-respecting man would have been doing: crossing that lawn with a tray of hot beverages and waking up the hardworking people so we could all sleep at night.

It was four in the afternoon, and Jean was a surprisingly lovely human being, smart and decent at the same time as she was warm, and she obviously cared a great deal about Dylan and his family.

She’d been gutted to have missed Constance’s visit, and I could definitely see where everyone was coming from.

Constance was clearly struggling, and if she, as a sixteen-year-old, could communicate that as honestly as she had, I believed she probably was.

Her siblings were struggling. Everyone was struggling.

I was struggling.

Mostly with admitting to myself what an absolute tool I was. Because I didn’t make that cup of tea. Instead, I stumbled across the room and curled up on my bed and lay there, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do.

I was a straight -laced man. I did not share beds with other men .

I had no idea why that was even an issue because I had spent a very large part of my life dealing with my son’s ideas of who he was supposed to be.

When reading between the very blurry lines of the mixed signals he’d always presented, Reuben had never been straight.

He’d been the most generous human being with that heart of his, and his crushes had been violently passionate and not easy to miss.

Yet here I was. I knew things. I knew how the human heart worked. How emotions and attraction made people do strange things. Also not-so-strange things, because at the end of the day, we were all just that: human beings in need of other humans. Touch. Affection. Understanding and…

Attraction. Love.

I couldn’t even think it out loud. Love. I knew all about love. I had loved my son with everything I was from the day I first met him. It had been an undeniable bond, and that violently passionate nature he possessed? I knew it because I had it too. Just in a more subtle way.

Attraction, though? A complicated beast that I wasn’t sure I’d ever truly mastered .

Or maybe I was, again, just lying to myself. I was not attracted to Dylan Scotland. I had absolutely no intention of him being anything but a very dear friend.

A friend whom I hugged. A friend whom I had shared a bed with. And there was absolutely nothing weird or wrong about that.

I roared in frustration, grabbing a pillow and hurling it across the room.

Then I rang my son, because I needed to hear his voice.

“Dad,” he scolded me, looking at the state of me, sat topless on the bed.

“I know it’s evening time here and far too early over where you are, but I pulled an all-nighter with Dylan.”

“DAD!” he shouted as Gray appeared on the screen. “You what?”

“We worked.” Oh, hell. “Look, he had to get a load of paperwork organised, and I helped him.”

“Of course you did,” Gray smarmed while Reuben made disgusted noises at me.

“We don’t want to hear about your sex life.”

“Stop!” I shouted. “It’s not like that. ”

“Of course it’s not.” Reuben grimaced. “Dad. Stop it. Whatever you’re getting up to with that hot neighbour, we don’t want to know.”

“I hope you’re getting some,” said Gray.

I hated him. Honestly. What had I been thinking? But then he appeared on screen and smacked a loud kiss on my beloved son’s cheek, and I suddenly loved them both again. Because they were happy, and that made me happy.

“We’re friends. I’m allowed to have friends.”

“Dad, you’re pathetic. Just own up. You think he’s hot. We already know that.”

“He’s a handsome man.” I’d said it before, and now I regretted even having mentioned him. At all.

“Have a fling, Dad.”

“I’m a straight man, Reuben.”

That made the two of them explode into hysterics.

“What was it you said to me back then? ‘You may not be gay, but your boyfriend is’?”

More laughter as I took it all back. Again.

“You may be a straight man, Dad, but you’re also pretty delusional. ”

“I’m nothing of the sort,” I tried to defend myself.

What were they on about? Well. I knew. We’d had these discussions once or twice, mostly when the subject of me dating and meeting women and again me refusing to engage in their pathetic games of going on dating sites and signing myself up for all sorts came up. I had no interest in that.

“I’m too old,” I tried weakly. The two of them just laughed again.

“No, you’re not. You said it yourself. You’re lonely. If you’re not going to hang out with the hot neighbour, then maybe you should take that lady out for a glass of wine.”

“Who?” I knew full well who they meant.

“Dad…” My son was a pain in the arse. A pain I loved.

“How are my grandchildren?” I asked, and the two of them just grinned at me.

“At sports camp. All day. Which means the two of us are finally having some well-needed alone time, and you should go and get yourself laid.”

I hung up on them, shuddering with unease.

Laid? Me? I didn’t even self-pleasure these days, having lost the will to actually engage with any kind of sexual thoughts. I was too tired. Too busy. Excuses, but I had no drive to do anything like that.

Perhaps I was scared, frightened that my equipment down there didn’t work anymore. How long had it been? Thirty years? Maybe that was totally normal. Or maybe not.

I went back to sleep, only to be awoken early in the morning by someone knocking on the patio doors.

Weird. But okay.

I must have looked a mess—half-dressed and dishevelled—but here was Jean, dressed in a power suit and holding a cup of tea. In one of my mugs.

“I do apologise for the wake-up call, but if I remember rightly, you have no further driving assignments this week, and we desperately need a lift. It’s rather urgent.”

“Oh?” I gulped out, managing to accept the cup in my hand while trying to cover my chest with the curtain. What was I like? She dutifully turned away.

“Stewart, Dylan needs to be at The Exchange for a meeting with Gun Larsen in twenty minutes. I have just about got him out of bed and into the shower and, well, it’s either you driving us or calling an Uber. It’s eight in the morning, and the wait will be ridiculous. Hence here I am, begging.”

“The Exchange. At least half an hour at this time in the morning.”

“Then we’d better get a move on.”

She flicked her hair. Short and sharp. Just like her.

I liked Jean. In another world, maybe I would have offered to take her out for dinner.

A glass of wine in a fancy bar somewhere.

Discussed the weather… No. I didn’t mix business with pleasure, and Jean…

I couldn’t even picture it, being intimate on any sort of level.

Shaking myself out of those weird thoughts that kept popping up in my head, I pulled on some trousers and sprayed deodorant under my arms like an unhinged teenager.

I probably stank. I needed a shave. God help me.

Still, I got the car running, having locked up my house, and Jean was already getting in the back with a large folder of documents in her arms. Dylan followed, looking as shell-shocked as I was.

“You two are like my sons in their university days. I outgrew getting men out of their beds decades ago. Seriously. Our working day starts at eight, Monday to Friday. Basics, gentlemen. I will expect better from now on. ”

“I didn’t get Gun Larsen’s message until ten minutes ago,” Dylan complained. “I can’t mind-read.”

“Neither can I, but we know her schedule now and will be up, awake and anticipating her next point of contact every morning from now on, like the professionals we are.”

“I have no idea what she wants.”

Dylan was trying to blend into the back seat. I caught his eyes in the rear-view mirror and blushed. I had no idea why, but he looked at me and I reacted. I hated that I did. That I couldn’t just be relaxed and behave like a normal human being.

Whatever that was, because I was honestly losing my marbles. I was never like this. I didn’t fancy people, I did not go on dates, and I certainly did not fancy my very handsome neighbour, who looked like he needed a hug.

I wanted to scream at my reflection in the rear view mirror as I overtook in a bus lane and cut up the car behind me.

My car was bigger. I usually drove with more care than this, but at the same time, I understood what was at stake here, and I hoped there would be a place to at least get a hot drink nearby while I waited .

Turned out I didn’t have to worry about that, since The Exchange had valet parking. A young man who didn’t look old enough to be away from his mother, let alone have a licence, opened my door and gestured for me to get out.

“The driver’s lounge is on the left. I will send word when you are needed again.”

For a second, I wondered if my car was being hijacked from right under my nose. But then, this was The Exchange. The most exclusive private club in London. Of course they would provide this kind of service.

Dylan and Jean had disappeared through the main entrance, and I felt out of place despite wearing a suit and tie, albeit one hastily thrown on in a bright moment.

But the doorman leading me through the side entrance was smiling, and the driver’s lounge was a nice enough room filled with plush sofas, where the whiff of fresh coffee made me swoon.

“Good morning, sir. How are you today?”