Page 14 of Vine (Island Love #3)

CHAPTER 13

MAX

Seeing as I wasn’t obsessed or stalking, I didn’t own a single photo of Caspian. After he ended our call, I really wished I did, so I could look at him. He’d confided some very important information about himself, the types of things people kept private unless they really liked you. According to Perfect Peach, you couldn’t wear a mask in a healthy relationship, which I thought was the author being sniffy about sadomasochism until Colette explained it was a metaphor. The author was making the point (badly, we both agreed) that although it took courage, it was important to let your lover see your insecurities. Next time I saw him, I needed to explain to Caspian that I didn’t have any. Otherwise, he’d assume he was the only one of us sharing.

If I couldn’t have the real Caspian to hold close and comfort (and maybe make my penis more comfortable too), then a picture of him was the next best thing. So I searched him online, via the name of the television show the production company had given me when they leased the vineyard.

And then wished I hadn’t. As did my phone screen, my latest pot for Colette, my favourite blue mug, dozens of half-painted oyster shells, my bookcase and every book stored on it, and my floor. Even Noir, cowering in his basket. La mer Caspienne might have dropped one mask, but it had been hiding another, and one he had no intention of ever sharing with me.

After my rampage made me feel no better whatsoever, I did what I always did. I climbed behind the wheel of my favourite blue tractor and drove off.

I evaded Nico until the following afternoon. By then, my rage had spiralled to pain, though I still grasped a part of it, like a red-hot coal, ready to lob at my brother when he finally caught up with me. The pain part sat behind my rib cage, a dull achy thing. I’d lob that at him too, if I could.

Swinging his long legs up, Nico settled himself on the tractor bonnet as though he was planning on staying a while. When I was younger, he’d track me down, then squeeze onto the driver’s seat alongside me. I’d grown too big for that. But not too big he’d stop coming to find me when things got a bit much, although sometimes I’d make it tricky for him and find a quiet spot I’d not used before. Late last night, after I ran out of things to trash, I hadn’t been in the mood for games and parked up at a regular haunt, overlooking a quiet stretch of beach outside La Couarde.

He handed me a cigarette. Neither of us smoked regularly anymore, but it was part of the ritual. We both lit up, and I blew out a long stream of smoke.

“Do you feel like telling me what’s wrong?”

“Nope.”

“Suit yourself.”

We smoked some more.

“Did you and Dad get that shipment sent off to Niort before you destroyed your house yesterday?”

“Yes.” I flicked my ash out of the window. Nico flicked his beyond the bonnet.

“Good. Is this to do with that man? Caspian, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes.”

I stayed quiet, unable to express how I was feeling. There were no words for my thoughts. Words always deserted me when I felt upset. Colette once explained my brain was like a sheet of blurry glass, the opaque type used as shower screens. When my emotional reservoir overflowed, I was trapped on the wrong side. Desperately trying to express feelings, but only able to make out a few shapes.

“Can I say something, Maxi?” Nico began. A regular opener, it signalled his launch into the wise big brother talk. If I said no, he carried on anyway, so I usually pretended not to be listening. “You hardly know this guy. He’s landed here from an entirely different walk of life. He’s not even speaking his first language, and he’ll be gone by the end of the summer. And I know you’re desperate to find someone, but this man might not be it. He might just be a rehearsal for the real thing.”

“I know that. I’m not stupid.”

“Good.” He waved his ciggie at me. “I’m not saying it’s not okay to be cross and upset. It’s fine if you don’t want to share what’s happened, and if you want to damage your house, that’s up to you, too. Just don’t do anything crazy. Talk to me or éti first.”

Mon dieu, they all thought I was an idiot. I took a final drag then hurled the cigarette butt out of the window. Of course I wouldn’t do anything crazy. I was Max La Forge of La Forge Oyster Farms. I had self-worth. And a house, family, good teeth, and money.

Didn’t stop me wanting to continue breaking things, though. Starting with Nico if he carried on acting like he was my dad. The days he could best me in a fight were long gone.

“Leave me alone. I want to be cross by myself.”

At home, I took a hot shower, hurling my shampoo and Colette’s fancy shower gel across the tiled floor. Then I dressed and sat on the sofa with my eyes screwed shut and petting Kaa on my lap until a knock on the door meant I had to open them again. Honestly, why couldn’t these people leave me to stew in my own angry juices?

“Let me in, Max. I’m on my own.”

éti might be one of my favourite people, but I hadn’t finished sulking yet. “No. Go away. I’m not talking today.”

“That sounds very much like talking, my love.”

“Well, not to you.”

A rattle sounded at the door. A second later, my sister-in-law was in front of me, dangling my spare key. Noir nuzzled into her hand and thumped his tail, annoying me on several levels.

“You promised to use that key for emergencies only.”

“This is an emergency. Nico said you’ve been throwing things. You didn’t turn up at work. And you wouldn’t tell him what was wrong.”

“I’m fine. See? You can go now.”

I clamped my lips shut so nothing else came out. I was not fine. I was far from fine. But it was a short word, and I wasn’t ready to have éti or anyone else in my house. I made that as obvious as I could by not looking at her. Instead, I ran the backs of my fingers across Kaa’s dry scales as she slumbered in her shoe box and recited my three favourite types of fish under my breath, over and over until the urge to throw something passed.

Unlike Caspian, éti was not scared of snakes.

“Just talk to me, Max. Tell me what’s happened.”

“Don’t want to.”

As if éti would give up that easily. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her scan the room, her quick gaze landing on the mess I’d created. And then back at me before returning to the mess. Like her clever mind was calculating.

“Okay. Well, if you’re just going to sit there in silence, I might as well make myself useful.”

The first thing she picked up was a wooden spoon I’d launched at the fridge. Wooden spoons lived in the second drawer down. I thought she knew that. She’d used them enough times when we cooked together. But it seemed she’d forgotten, because she reached up and placed it with the metal ones in a jug on the shelf above the sink instead.

My fingers went into overdrive, counting themselves up against my thumbs like they were racing to be the first. “It doesn’t go there!”

“Oh, okay. My bad.”

The next item was my medium-sized wood chisel. I doubted she knew where that lived, but instead of asking, made an executive decision and put it on the top rack of my open toolbox next to my socket set.

A bomb exploded in my head. “In the cupboard by the door!”

éti sighed, as if I was the one getting it wrong, not her. “It would be so much quicker and easier if you helped.”

On her hands and knees, she dragged one of my boots from under the table, putting it with the other but at a slight angle. My leg jiggled. It jiggled even more when she lined them up to the right of the front door instead of the left. She’d piece together the two shattered plates next; she’d string that out for hours. “If you aren’t joining in because you haven’t yet got it all out of your system, then Nico says there are fifty oyster pouches out on the Ars beds that need tossing before the end of the week.”

“It’s not that! I’m too… too… sad to join in.”

“Oh, Maxi, don’t be sad, my love. Please let me help.”

Defeated, for the first time in over a year, I gave into the urge to rock. I rocked from side to side, not back to front, and with my eyes closed. More volition than compulsion. It started as a child. When I became overwrought, my mum would send me to bed for some ‘me time’, which initially felt like a punishment and then became a treat. I’d lie there, rocking gently towards the window and then away from it, feeling my pulse slow and my breath even out. My thoughts would wander to a distant place. I’d construct elaborate fantasies in my mind, then bore my mum with them afterward, about other worlds, other galaxies with many moons, with humming tides, with boats like spaceships and fish like giant monsters.

Naturally, as I grew older, my rocking sessions culminated in a calming wank. I didn’t bore my mum with the details of those.

Now my rocking spirit friend took me to another universe, as much a fantasy as my childhood one. To dreams of a man with cheeks as pale as bonfire smoke and lips as warm as flames. A really sad man, a man I thought might give me a chance. A vulnerable man I’d thought I could cherish and make happier.

I didn’t notice she’d stopped picking up my stuff.

When I opened my eyes, éti was on her knees at my feet and holding my restless hands in hers. “Let us help you, Max, my love. We’re so worried.”

I turned my head to the side and carried on rocking. I knew adults looked stupid doing stuff like this, but I didn’t care. I was stupid. A stupid idiot for thinking a person as beautiful as la mer Caspienne would ever belong to a man like me.

“I just wanted him to like me.”

“Who? This Caspian person?”

“He’s not this Caspian person . He’s my Caspian person, and I thought he liked me, but all the time he was lying.”

“Have you had a falling out?”

“No. But I hate him now. He pretended to be alone and unhappy, but he hid things from me. And I found out.”

“Max.” éti trapped me with her eyes. “What did you do?”

“Nothing! You all think I’m going to do something bad, and I won’t! I didn’t! I learned the Perfect Peach rules! I remembered that I had to smile with my teeth and flirt with nice words and let him pat my dog. And make him a drink when he came to see me. I’m not that stupid!”

“So what happened? Tell me everything, Max, right now, and right from the start.”

Her voice still held that stern edge, the one which made her sound angry with me. But it didn’t match the softness of her hands, nor the stroking of her thumb on my leg. Last time she’d spoken to me like this had been a long, long time ago, soon after we first met, when my mum died. Afterwards, she’d explained people used this voice when they were worried and couldn’t hide it politely. I’d been rocking then, too, but we made friends. Now she’s probably my best friend.

I missed out the very start of the story. She already knew that. “Caspian came here again, with a present for me. We talked and he patted Noir and I kissed him on his doorstep, and he didn’t mind.”

éti’s brows pinched together. Even I could read éti’s expressive brows.

“And then when I met him in L’Escale, I asked him if he wanted to come back to my house. And this time he kissed me back. He said I was a good kisser.”

After that first proper kiss, the little mew of helplessness Caspian made before our mouths separated had given me the best feeling in the world. Even better than tucking my pyjamas into my socks when my bed was cold in winter, or stroking someone else’s dog and the owner saying, oh, he doesn’t usually like strangers .

“I expect you are. You’re very good at most things.”

“But I didn’t crowd him. I stood back and let him breathe in between kisses.”

“Very thoughtful. You should suggest that to your brother sometime.”

“Okay, I will. And we kissed some more, and then…”

Some things were private. The skin on my face tingled at the memory, as if I was sitting next to an open fire. “We kissed in my bed. And talked a lot. We’ve done that many times now. He’s told me lots about his job on that stupid television show. But, and this is the important bit, he forgot on purpose to tell me he’s married to the other presenter.”

“What?”

éti’s surprised face was usually funny. Her mouth made a big ‘o’, and her eyes looked like they’d pop out of their sockets. She didn’t produce it very often, as she was generally one step ahead of everyone. Tonight, it wasn’t funny at all. It just made me even madder.

I raised my voice. “He’s. Married. To. The. Other. Presenter.” I’d begun rocking again and not noticed. “Are you deaf?”

“I am now. Putain.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, shutting her eyes briefly. “Are you… are you sure, Max? Is the other presenter with him here in France? Have you met him?”

“Yes, he’s here. I recognised him from when I googled the show.”

And he was tall and handsome and smartly dressed in designer jeans and designer baseball caps and stupid sunglasses. He couldn’t have been more different from me if he tried. “Caspian wouldn’t stay the night. Now I know why.”

éti and I stared at each other; I held her gaze for longer than I managed with anyone. Her quick brain was whirring. Mine was a heap of tinder waiting to be struck by a match.

“Are you absolutely sure, Max? Because if it’s true, then… then…” Her lips thinned into the fierce expression she sometimes used when interviewers attempted to needle her with non-football related questions. “It had better not be.”

“I’m a good kisser, éti. Good at everything! I’m not someone’s… side piece !”

“Absolutely you’re not.” éti rose rapidly to her feet. “You’re far too good for that. Show me. Fetch your laptop. Maybe you’ve made a mistake.”

éti spent quite a long while on my computer reading Caspian’s Wikipedia entry before moving on to the show’s entry and also Caspian’s husband’s entry. She spoke English fluently and obviously read it fluently too. The more she flicked through different websites, her usually smiley face turned to a frowny one.

“You were right,” she agreed flatly and slammed down the lid. “He’s married. Connard.” She spat the swear word out with as much vehemence as I’d ever seen. “Are you sure his husband is here with him?”

“Yes!”

“Good. I can give them both a piece of my mind instead of having to hunt them down separately.”

éti on the warpath was not pleasant. Plenty of interviewers had discovered that. I was struck by a thought. “But... he can’t have been here all the time because Caspian said he… he hadn’t ejaculated in ages and that he hasn’t had sex for even longer. Which is confusing because Perfect Peach says sex is an integral part of marriage and can be a barometer for it. And Perfect Peach also says that if stories don’t add up, that if a love interest says they do X and they do Y, then it’s a red flag that your love interest may not be what he seems. Caspian said he hasn’t had sex in months, and yet he’s young and married. Red flags!”

“Mon dieu, those aren’t red flags, sweetie. They’re air raid sirens.” She let out a low whistle. “Back up a bit. First of all, who is Perfect Peach ?”

“It’s not a who. It’s the relationship guide I’m following! A whole list of rules to Snag Your Man And Keep Him.”

éti blew out her cheeks and pulled a face. “I hate to break it to you, Maxi, but people don’t follow rules when it comes to their sex lives.” To stop me interrupting, she held up a finger. I loved following rules. “ Most people. Having said that, a couple of things here don’t add up. I’m not an expert on other people’s marriages, and I am trying not to be too judgmental of these people I haven’t met, but if he’s telling the truth, that does not sound like a terribly normal relationship between two healthy young men.”

Mon dieu. My head was screaming. Why did life insist on being so complicated? This was why I preferred dogs.

“The average number of times a week for sex in a fulfilling relationship between homosexual men under the age of forty is 5.2,” I offered because éti appeared to be struggling.

“Is that so? Fascinating.”

She sat back down again. “Listen, Max. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. Perhaps you should speak to Caspian before you… aah… go off at the deep end.”

We both looked around the room. That ship had long sailed. éti shrugged.

“Or you could carry on smashing things until you feel better.”