Page 5 of The Player

chapter

five

I put the phone down just as there’s a gentle knock on the office door, and Joan pops her head around.

“All done?” she asks.

I nod and stretch my neck, which has developed a crick after being on the phone for an hour. “Accounts say they can’t imagine why the payment wasn’t made.”

“Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they,” she says tartly.

“Anyway, they paid by bank transfer. Probably just to get me off the phone. I outstayed my welcome about twenty seconds into the call.”

“Then they should pay on time.” She wrinkles her nose. “Seeing as you’re in the mood for putting out fires, there’s one in the workshop that requires your attention.”

“What? I hope it’s not a literal one. My shoulders aren’t equipped to carry all the firemen’s gear.”

“Well, luckily for your childlike shoulders, it’s a symbolic fire. Con is shouting. A lot.”

“What?” I say in amazement. “Con? Our Con is shouting?”

Her lip twitches. “So it would seem.”

“Why?”

“Well, dear, if I knew that, I could sort it out myself. But, as I don’t, the job falls on you.”

“Do I have to?” I say nervously. I haven’t seen him all morning, which is highly unusual. Usually, Con will pop in and have a coffee in my office before he starts work. It’s time I treasure because it’s just him and me sorting out our days and gossiping idly. Today, however, he didn’t come to see me, and I’ve got the distinct impression that he’s ignoring me. It’s suited me, though, because I’m rather nervous about seeing him, and obviously, I’m right to be if he’s in such a mood. I wonder if he’s still cross with me, and then I remember his argument with Tim at my birthday party.

I rub my bottom lip. “Maybe someone else could do it,” I say in a cowardly rush.

Joan shakes her head. “No, it’s just you. And you should pop through pretty sharpish before all the staff leave.”

“He can’t be that bad. It’s Con, for goodness’ sake.”

“Oh, so it must have been someone else who told Mandy that gossiping hadn’t become an Olympic sport.”

“He’s not wrong,” I mutter. “She spends that long on the phone talking to her mates I think she’s wearing the plastic off the receiver.”

“I’ll leave you with it,” she says in a voice of doom and exits the room.

I swivel in my chair and look down at the quiet car park. Was it only a few days ago that I’d been looking forward to seeing Con because he was my best friend and nothing else? Instead, it seems like years ago that he became something more to me—someone who makes my pulse race and my palms sweat.

I stand up. The more I think about it, the more my mind comes back to that argument at the party. Con’s strange behaviour last night was probably because he’d carried on the argument with Tim when they got home.

I lean my head against the cold glass of the window. “I don’t want to do this,” I whisper. “I don’t want to go in there and smooth his mood so he can make up with that wanker. I want them to split up so I can have my chance.”

I still. But there’s the rub. Or not, as the case may be. The painful realisation had come to me as I lay sleepless last night. Con will never be mine. He’s never made a move on me, and he’s had the years since David’s death to do it, which rather points to his disinterest.

His type seems to be trendy musicians or pretty boys. I fit in neither category. However, the category I do sit in is as his best friend. That title means so much to me, as does Con, and I know I have to do the right thing, as painful as it may be. I have to walk in there and cheer him up and counsel him back towards Tim. He must feel something for him. He doesn’t usually invite men to stay at his house.

It was his family home, and Con has guarded it like it’s treasure since they died. It’s very special to him. The fact that Tim is there speaks volumes to me, and it tells me to stop daydreaming before I end up ruining our friendship.

I straighten from the window. “Time to be his friend,” I say grimly. “He’s done so much for me. I can surely do this one thing for him.” I sigh. “And then I can go home and eat chocolate and wonder why my timing with men is always so catastrophically bad.” I leave my office in much the same way Charles I did on the morning of his execution. Although my dress sense is better than his.

As soon as I reach the corridor, I can hear Con’s raised voice, and I pick up the pace. Even so, I stick my head around the door cautiously.

He’s standing in the middle of the room, gesturing at a guitar. “It’s a piece of shit ,” he proclaims. “I might as well go and work in a brothel for all the good I’m doing here. And while I’m at it, I’m going to live in one too. It’s got to be more fucking peaceful than around here. Phones ringing all the time, constant demands.” He stops abruptly when he sees me. He’s frowning heavily, an expression that’s completely alien to his usual easygoing self. When he sees me, his expression lightens for a second, but then the thunderclouds gather again.

“Goodness,” I say lightly. “That would be fine unless you ended up with someone like Lucy Scrimshaw as the madame. Then it would be all about lining up for inspection to see whose penis was the neatest.”

“What are you doing here, Frankie?” he says, turning back to his workbench. He looks at the guitar and kicks the bench in a disgusted fashion. He then immediately winces.

I eye George, who shakes his head with a smirk on his face.

I try a jaunty wink at Con. “Well, my day has really been missing a grumpy twat, so I thought I’d rush in to get my fix before you break your foot, Con.”

George chuckles, and Con sighs, scrubbing his hands through his hair. The brown-blond strands glint in the sunlight that’s pouring through the huge windows.

“Can I help you?” he says in a beleaguered fashion that shouldn’t make me want to smile as much as I do. Con in a rare strop is an adorable sight.

I eye him and then make up my mind. “Yes, come on. I need you.”

“I hope it isn’t talking to Jimmy Fitch’s people.”

“Not likely. I do want them to put in an order rather than run and hide in an air raid shelter.”

He heaves a sigh that suggests I’m the most irritating person alive, so I make my smile extra wide.

“Come on. Chop chop.”

“Where are we going?” he asks, wandering towards me, reluctance written all over his body.

“Somewhere you desperately need to be.”

“The pub isn’t open yet.”

“No, but the lavender farm is.”

“Oh fuck ,” he groans. “No way. George needs me here.”

“I certainly do not,” George says. “I’m looking forward to some peace. I can listen to Pop Master without you jumping in with your ridiculous answers.”

“You know some people would say I might have a modicum of pop knowledge seeing as I was a genuine bona fide pop star myself.”

“Then those people didn’t hear you answer that Phil Collins played the tambourine in Genesis.”

“Even I know he played the recorder,” I say cheerfully. I look at Con. “Come on. That lavender won’t buy itself.”

“I wish it would,” he mutters. “I wish it would buy itself and move far away.”

I shake my head, opening the outside door and holding it for Con. Mandy cranes her head from the reception desk to see what we’re doing but then blanches and immediately looks industrious when Con turns.

“I’m so sorry, Mandy,” he calls to her. “Sorry for the mood this morning. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, some of it undoubtedly was,” I mumble, but he ignores me.

“Take the afternoon off, Mandy.”

I shake my head as she squeals in delight. “Therefore, shortening the workday in which she does no work, Con.”

He shrugs as we move out into the car park. The sun is bright and hot. “I shouldn’t have shouted.”

“I’m pretty sure someone should have done that ages ago. She’s terrible at her job. You doing it probably carried more weight.”

“Why?”

I stare at him over the roof of my car. “Because you so very rarely do, Con.” My eyes narrow. He’s still not looking properly at me and seems ill at ease. “You’re the easiest-tempered man I know. So, what’s happened?”

He looks up, and I frown in concern. His eyes are turbulent.

“Nothing,” he finally says. “I just had to let go of something I never really thought I’d get in the first place.”

“What is it?” I ask immediately. “I’ll try and get it for you. I can—” I stop as a harsh laugh escapes him. There is no humour in the sound at all. “Con?” I ask.

“You’re so bloody blind, Frankie. I—” He stops his outburst and looks over at the building intently. I look myself, but there’s nothing to see. He turns to me, and the old familiar smile slides across his face, but this one seems to take a lot of effort, and his eyes don’t echo it. Usually, they’re full of laughter and light and warmth. Now they’re shuttered like my windows when Lucy is outside.

“Never mind,” he says lightly. But then, he suddenly seems to become aware that we’re standing next to my car. “ No ,” he immediately says. “Please, not the clown car. We can go in my truck.”

I twirl the keys around my fingers, trying to find my own light tone of voice the way he is. If he wants lightness, I’ll give him that. I’d give him anything if only he wanted something from me. Something more than friendship.

“Nope,” I say. “I want to take Fabio out.”

He shakes his head, looking down at my Fiat 500. It’s bright red and gleams in the sunlight. “That’s such a big name for Noddy’s car.”

I roll my eyes. “Fabio is a tricky thing. He looks like a little twink, but he tops from the bottom.”

“Are we talking about you or the car?”

I bite my lip. “That would be telling,” I say in the flirtatious tone that usually raises a smile from him. But, instead, he stares at me, his eyes dark and mysterious, and I shift as the silence grows. Then he shakes himself and climbs into the car.

I watch, biting my lip. Con is six foot four, and my car is tiny. He squeezes himself in, and I bend down and look in the car and snort with laughter. He’s crushed into the corner with his knees high.

“It’s like watching Jason Momoa get into a toy car,” I say. “He’d never fit his hair in here either.”

“I’m going to need a chiropractor to get out of the car.”

“Either that or a winch.”

I climb in and start the engine, pulling off with a flurry of gravel. “Here we come, lavender farm,” I cry, and he shakes his head.

“You can make this sound as exciting as you like, but we are still going to sit in a field while you drink and eat things that have been inexplicably flavoured with lavender, and I will get hay fever.”

“Well, we definitely don’t need the sun today when we already have your cheerful disposition.”

He chuckles, and I feel the tension in him ease. Unfortunately, it transfers to me. I’ve been in this car many times with Con, and I wonder how I ever missed how tight the confines are.

The road to the lavender farm is charming and one that I usually love. Honey-coloured dry stone walls bracket neat little fields while towering beech trees hang over the narrow winding road, sending dappled shadows over our faces. The windows are open, letting in a fresh, sweet smell. It usually makes my soul happy, but I can’t focus on any of it today.

All I can feel is how my arm brushes his as I change gear. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his hands on his knees. They’re big hands with prominent veins and long, thin fingers, and I swallow as I imagine them on me, caressing and stroking. To my horror, I feel my cock stiffen, and I shift position in my seat, drawing in a bolstering breath. Unfortunately, all I can smell is the scent of his skin. It’s a sweet smell, musky and warm and enhanced by the woodsy cologne that he’s worn all the time I’ve known him. I tug at my shirt collar.

“You alright?” he asks.

“Oh yes ,” I say forcefully. Far too forcefully because he jumps.

“It’s like talking to a twenty-eight-year-old cheerleader.”

“Well, be thankful I’m not because if I’d had my pom-poms, I might have smothered you with them this morning.”

He chuckles, and the warm, infectious sound doesn’t help my current condition. I hunch slightly over to hide my erection, and silence falls, but this time, it’s easier. I knew it would be. Con finds it impossible to maintain a bad mood.

We zip down a lane that’s so narrow in parts you could reach out and touch the hedgerow on either side.

“And this is why my car is better than your big truck,” I say as I pull into a passing place so a tractor can go by. “He’d have had to take a field out to get past you.”

The driver pauses as he comes level with the car. “Morning, Con. Morning, Frankie.”

“Hi, Mick,” I say, smiling at the young farmhand. “Beautiful morning.”

He tuts. “Rain’s on the way.”

I look at the blue sky. “Really?”

He nods, and there’s an ancient knowledge in his eyes. I suppose it comes from generations of farmers looking to the sky to determine their day. “Yep. It’s coming. Hope it holds off for the summer hop.”

I’d forgotten about that. The village has an end-of-summer party every year. It’s held in a huge marquee on one of Mick’s family’s fields that abuts the village. It’s usually a wild and brilliant night that fuels gossip over the winter months that follow.

Mick peers at Con. “You still playing?”

“You’re playing?” I say in surprise. “Why didn’t I know that?”

Con shrugs. “Didn’t think to mention it.”

I wonder whether he’s discussed it with Tim, and my stomach twists. It’s jealousy I’m feeling, and I can’t deny it any longer. Somewhere along the journey from becoming a widower in my early twenties and now, Con has become mine in my mind. I wonder how long I’ve been attracted to him. I think, looking back, it’s been building for a long time. I was just completely oblivious to it.

I become aware that they’re both staring at me. “I can’t wait,” I say brightly.

Mick touches his fingers to his forehead in a salute. “See you there,” he says and sets the tractor in motion.

“You okay?” Con says carefully to me. “You seem a bit—” He pauses.

“A bit what?” I say, staring hard at the hedge to the side of the car. It’s very quiet here at the passing place. Not much traffic takes these narrow roads, and all I can hear is birdsong as the sun warms the inside of the car, bringing the scent of wildflowers and grass.

“A bit frazzled,” he finally says. I can feel his gaze on the side of my head like a heat-seeking missile. “You’re a bit like a swan.” That’s sufficiently odd to make me twist to look at him, and then I’m held by his eyes. They’re full of some emotion.

“What do you mean?” I ask huskily.

“Well, you’re all serene and peaceful on the surface like normal, but I’m getting the sense that a lot is going on under the surface.”

I bite my lip, and his eyes drop to them, where his gaze stays.

“Con,” I say, my voice throaty, and he shudders.

His hand comes up, and then the moment is abruptly broken by the sound of a car horn.

I jump and look behind me, my pulse hammering, aware that Con seems to be breathing heavily.

A man in a huge SUV is waiting behind us, and as I watch, he applies the horn again. “Any time today,” he bellows.

I stick my head out of the window. “Really?” I call sweetly. “Okay then.”

Then I sit back. The silence grows, and I can feel the man’s confusion as he waits for me to move the car.

Con bites his lip, his beautiful eyes sparkling with humour again. “Frankie,” he warns.

“Really?” He nods, and I grimace. Finally, I pop my head out of the window. “Okay, I’m ready now.”

“You’re a twat,” comes the informed response, so I stick out my middle finger before setting off again, zipping along the roads until we come to the turn for the farm.

I sigh happily as I park the car in the gravelled car park. “Smell that, Con.”

He sniffs. “Exhaust and someone’s Marlboro Lights.”

I roll my eyes. “Inhale the lavender. It’s got soothing properties.”

“Maybe we should get some for that SUV driver, then. I think you managed to raise his blood pressure several notches above healthy.”

“Pah!” I say, getting out of the car. “Little man in a big car. He was just overcompensating.”

He laughs and falls into step beside me as we walk towards the kiosk. “No,” I say as he puts his hand in his pocket. “My treat. I dragged you here.”

He looks around as I pay and take the tickets that the man hands me, and we walk off the path and into the vast open expanse. The sky is as blue as a cornflower. The farmhouse is a low-slung series of buildings, but my attention is immediately drawn to the lavender fields. They stretch ahead as far as the eye can see in an ocean of purple. Butterflies dip in and out of the flowers, and there’s a constant buzzing from the bees that are feeding happily. The breeze plays with the fields, sending ripples over the surface and gifting us with a heavenly scent.

“You might have dragged me, but I’m glad you did,” Con says, drawing in an appreciative breath. “God, it smells lovely. Like your lounge.”

I nod. “I get the dried lavender in the big bowl on my coffee table from here. It’s quiet in the mornings too. I always come at this time. The tourists aren’t out yet, so I get the place to myself.”

“You’re sharing it with me today.”

“I’d share it with you any day,” I say without thinking, but I’m glad I did as a warm smile crosses his handsome face.

“Me too,” he says softly.

I smile at him. His brown eyes are very clear in the sunlight, and his angular face is peaceful as he looks out over the fields. I nudge him. “Let’s get a cup of tea.”

We wander to the kiosk that sells hot drinks, food, and more lavender products than you can shake a stick at.

“I’ll have a lavender tea,” I say to the girl and look at Con. “Do you want one?”

“About as much as I want a circumcision with a knitting needle,” he mutters. “I’ll have a coffee,” he says in a louder voice to the girl, who smiles at him and flutters her eyelashes.

“We’ll also have a couple of bacon sandwiches,” I say. I lean forwards. “He’s rather hangry this morning.”

“I am not,” he protests.

I nod. “Point proven.” I look at the shelves behind her. “And I’ll have a bag of the dried lavender and some of the honey, please.”

She hands me a bag and the honey, and after giving us our drinks, she promises to bring our food over.

We wander off. Dotted about the fields of lavender are old wooden benches, and I settle down at one, feeling the heat of the sun on my face. I take a big breath, smelling the lavender and feeling peace steal over me. When I look up, he’s watching me.

“This is my haven,” I say. “I love it here.”

“Do you come a lot?”

“When I’m feeling stressed. It has a very serene feel to it.”

He looks around as a breeze blows his golden-brown hair about his face. “I can see that.” He looks back at me, a crooked smile on his face. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

“Has it worked?” He nods. “Want to talk about it to me?”

He shakes his head immediately. “No, I really don’t,” he says with a funny intensity that makes me frown.

“Okay,” I finally say and smile at the girl as she brings us our food.

“Just like that?” he says.

I shrug, opening my sandwich and taking a bite. “Just like that,” I say after swallowing. “You’ll talk when you’re ready.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know you.” I reach over and tap his sandwich. “Eat your food. You’ll feel better after it.”

We eat our sandwiches, making idle conversation about work and watching the people moving about the fields.

When we’ve finished, we sit back and sip our drinks.

“That was good,” he says. “You were right.”

“I’m always right.”

“And usually irritating with it.”

I laugh. “You don’t mean that.”

He watches me, his eyes hidden by the sunglasses he slid on a few minutes ago. “No, I don’t.” A silence falls that’s not at all easy until he shifts and looks around. “How did you find this place? Did David bring you on a date?”

I snort tea out of my nose. “Shit,” I say, grabbing a serviette and glaring at him. “Stop being funny when I’m drinking.”

“I wasn’t aware I was being funny.”

“Can you imagine David bringing me here on a date? It’d be like John Mayer staying at a nunnery.” I pause to consider. “I don’t think I ever went on a date with David.”

He jerks. “What? Why not?”

I shrug. “We fell into bed within hours of meeting each other, and he married me after a month. I think he assumed he didn’t have to bother after that.”

He shakes his head. “I loved the man, but he could be an unmitigated twat.”

I laugh. “Sometimes.”

“No, really. He had you, and all he did was fuck you and then leave you here alone while he jetted off being the big I am. I could never understand that.”

I stare at him, struck for words because he isn’t wrong.

“Maybe I’m not dating material,” I finally say. “I can’t say I’ve been on that many.”

“You’re totally dating material,” he says briskly, balling up his serviette and placing it under his cutlery so it doesn’t blow away.

“What do you consider a date, then?”

He shrugs, and I wish I could see his eyes. “There isn’t one generic date. It depends on the people involved.”

I lean my elbows on the bench. “So, how would you date me?”

The question is slightly breathier than I’d like, and he studies me. I wonder what he sees. A thin, dark-haired man wearing pinstriped trousers, a black T-shirt, and red braces. I probably cut a ridiculous figure with my outfit and my hair escaping from its bun.

“I would pretend we were house-hunting so you could look inside all those big old houses that you pore over in the property pages. Then we’d order food from that fancy restaurant in Chipping Norton you like and eat it as a picnic at home while watching Made in Chelsea .”

I stare at him agog. “Bloody hell, that sounds wonderful . You’ve managed to cater to my extreme nosiness, greed, and love of posh trashy television in one date.”

He shrugs. “I know you. It’s easy.”

“I can’t imagine knowing me is easy at all,” I say lightly, but he shakes his head.

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Knowing you is the easiest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. You were my best friend between one breath and the next.”

I’m struck dumb, held in a spell consisting of the blue sky, the scent of lavender, and Con at the centre, his golden-brown hair lifting in the breeze and his attention on me. The way it always is. I want it to last forever but know it can’t.

I open my mouth, unsure of what to say but knowing I have to break the moment. This is a dangerous time for our friendship. I’ve discovered I have feelings for him right when he’s become involved with another man. One wrong step and I could lose the person who means the most in the world to me.

Luckily, my phone rings and breaks the moment. I pull it from my back pocket and look at the screen. “Joan,” I say to Con, who says nothing, still watching me with that funny intent regard.

I click to answer. “Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

“I’ve had Jimmy Fitch’s people on the phone,” she says. “Are you and Con still together?”

“Hang on.” I look around. We aren’t near anyone who the call could irritate. Everyone is off in the next field. “I’ll pop you on speaker, Joan.” I look up at Con. “Jimmy Fitch’s people have rung.”

He stares at me for another long second and then seems to jerk back into life. “What’s up, Joan?” he says.

“Jimmy wants to have a personal meeting, but he’s had to schedule some rehearsals for a new pop video, so he wondered if you’d go to him.”

“Where is he?” he asks.

“In Taunton, Somerset.”

I look at Con and shrug. “You’ve done it before.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “But it’s usually with real musicians,” he starts to say, and I blow a raspberry.

“Oh, dear. Here comes the music snobbery. Brace yourself, Joan.”

Joan laughs, and Con shakes his head.

“It’s not funny. I have no fucking idea what to say to him. He’s not interested in the music so much as the money. I can’t talk music the way I would with other people. And every time I meet him, he goes on about something on Twitter that I have no idea of what he’s talking about. Last time he went on about Love Island , and I thought it was a relationship counselling holiday.” I laugh, and he gestures at me. “You know what he’s talking about?”

“Of course I do. But that’s because I don’t live under a rock formed of old back copies of Melody Maker .”

I chuckle at his face, but my jollity dies away with Joan’s following words.

“And that’s why you should go too, Frankie.”

“ What ?” I say, and Con laughs.

“Not so funny now, is it, Frankie?”

“Why have I got to go, Joan? It’s about the guitars. We won’t be discussing money or arrangements at this point.”

“Well, you can kill two birds with one stone,” she says. “Jimmy asked whether you were going anyway. He seemed very insistent that you do.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say, but it makes sense to me. You always put Con at ease, and you’ll do the same with him. You speak his language.”

“The language of the pop twink,” Con says triumphantly.

“Then it’s sorted,” Joan says. “I’ll book your accommodation.”

“Okay,” I say and then jerk. “Wait. What accommodation?”

“Well, it’s a bit far away, and I know pop stars. He’ll keep you there talking about himself for hours.”

“This just gets better and better,” Con says, but Joan continues undeterred.

“I’ll book you a hotel,” she says with that steely cheerfulness that older women seem to be genetically blessed with. It’s nature’s way of getting them what they want. “Then you won’t be driving late at night.”

I breathe in sharply. A night away with Con. Shit. I’m not equipped for this at the moment. “You’d better book with three people in mind,” I say huskily.

“Three, dear?” Joan says.

“Yes, for Con to take Tim.” Con stares at me, and I tumble into words. “You can’t leave him at home on his own.”

“Perfect place for him,” Joan says.

“It would be rude,” I say, quickly talking over her.

Con eyes me for a long, fraught second. “I’m not taking Tim,” he says firmly. “It’s just you and me.”

I’m pretty sure everyone in the lavender field can hear my gulp for air.

“Excellent,” Joan says with far too much satisfaction.