Page 8 of Vine (Island Love #3)

CHAPTER 7

MAX

Looking back, I’d never fit in. Especially at school, where everyone expected me to be another Nico. Naughty, clever, a jack-the-lad, always in trouble yet charming his way out of it. I coped; it was a nice school, and I wasn’t the only oddbod on the block. There was probably some bullying, but I don’t remember everything because kids have a great capacity for blocking stuff out and starting new days afresh.

I did remember a few rough periods, though. For a couple of years, I barely strung three sentences together, and my mum took me to see a fancy specialist who got very excited and labelled it selective mutism brought on by social anxiety on a background of social pragmatic communication disorder . Which was quite a mouthful for a kid struggling to speak. My mum declared he was the one with the communication disorder, coming out with bollocks like that. Anyhow, he reassured her I’d grow out of it. And then when it happened again and I hardly spoke for six months, another one said I was being an awkward, manipulative teenager and would grow out of it. Now I’m twenty-five, as tall as a redwood and as wide as a house, and I’m still waiting to grow out of it.

Home was generally okay. All families have misfits, but, like plain brown wooden furniture, they’ve always been there, so everyone takes it in their stride. Family life assimilates them, moulds itself around them, and no one really notices or cares until something bad happens. So being a bit of a weirdo was fine, truly, until the day my mum died. In the following dark months, everyone fussed around my sister Zo?, everyone fretted about my Dad, Nico fell headlong in love, and I drifted along like nothing had changed, lugging my sadness around on my shoulders, like another sack of raw shellfish.

Nico is married to the woman he fell in love with, a very lovely lady called éti. My only and favourite sister-in-law. When she’s not lending a helping hand at the oyster shed or winding my brother around her little finger, she is also an amazing soccer player. Not just at a local level, or even nationally, but one of the best the world has ever seen. Better than Neymar, which she points out regularly. Recently, however, at the grand old age of thirty-four, she’s hung up her boots. Now, she does punditry for one of the big television networks, heaps of charitable stuff, occasional shifts waitressing in the oyster shack (to the disbelief of unsuspecting tourists), and makes her own clothes.

Considering she’s more famous than God, éti isn’t weird at all. Lively, yes. Weird, no. And because she’s trans and kept that important secret to herself for years and years (quite miserably a lot of the time) I’ve entrusted her with a few secrets of my own. Today, I found her alone at her beachside home, sewing a zip onto a dress while chatting on Zoom with an obsequious senior exec from Nike.

The other thing I liked about éti was that family always came first. Though she wasn’t much older than me, she was the closest thing I had left to a mother figure, and I loved and trusted her like one.

The computer screen went blank. “Excellent timing, Max! Hold this up against you so I can get an idea as to whether I need to drop the hem a few centimetres or not.”

She darted out of her chair. Before I could object, I found myself draped in a sleeveless yellow dress. From thin air she produced a couple of pins and deftly tacked the garment onto my shoulders.

“I’m 24 centimetres taller than you,” I pointed out, pulling my shoulders up and back to show her.

“I just want to get an idea. And I suggest you don’t move, not unless you want this to turn into an acupuncture session.”

“I don’t need acupuncture.”

Pleased with her handiwork, she stepped away to admire me, rewarding my patience with one of the famous chipped smiles that turned not only my brother but half of the western hemisphere into adoring mush. I wasn’t totally immune to them either.

“It’s not my colour,” I pointed out.

“No,” she agreed solemnly. “I’m not entirely certain it’s quite your style, either.”

With a mouth full of pins, she knelt at my feet and fiddled with the hem. “You have something you need to get off your chest, Max. I can tell. You’re doing that thing with your fingers.”

That thing with my fingers. Tapping the hard pads, in strict order, against my thumbs, again and again, like I was repeatedly counting them off. I balled my fists, digging my nails into my palms instead.

“It doesn’t bother me, my love. Carry on if it makes you feel better.”

I started again.

She glanced up. “Spit it out then.”

“One of the television people tripped and fell in the middle of the night, and I looked after him instead of calling for help or taking him to the hospital,” I blurted, all in one rush of breath. Then I stared straight out of the window at the churning grey sea, because the sea always settled the churning in my head. I bloody loved the sea. “And now I don’t know if he is properly hurt, but if he is, it will be my fault, and I don’t know what to do. He banged his head.”

And he was sad and delicate and beautiful.

Her quick fingers paused on the hem. “Was he knocked out?”

“Yes. I think so. But he was all right by the morning. I removed his wet clothes, and he slept in my bed, and I gave him hot chocolate and Doliprane and soup.”

Such a lot of words. My head swam with them, and I focused on the horizon, taking deep breaths. Like anyone who wanted to extract information from me, éti had learned not to get all up in my face. She stayed on her knees.

“Okay, my love, let’s rewind a bit. To the… ah… the part about him being in your bed. Unconscious. And you taking his clothes off.”

I understood why she was worried, though it annoyed me. Once, I’d borrowed a kitten belonging to our neighbour and hid it in my bedroom for three days, and everyone panicked, thinking it had been stolen or run over. I was still a small child and desperate for a pet of my own. What a saga that turned out to be. And the little tiger scratched me. Honestly, even then, it was a lot of fuss over nothing; I’d always planned to give the cat back. Did they really think I would progress to stealing a grown man?

Since acquiring Noir, I’ve realised dogs are much more fun than cats. More fun than any pet, actually, although the couleuvre snake, Kaa, was mine, too. I mean, as much as a snake ever belonged to anyone.

In fits and starts, I told her everything. Well, I missed out how, in the light of my torch, silver points of rain glittered on the man’s pale cheek, as if he was an angel fallen from the sky. And how when I scooped him up and tucked him into my bed, I wanted to climb in next to him and warm him against my big body properly, like lovers. Strangers didn’t do that to each other without gaining permission first.

I also omitted the cuts on his arms, because people liked to keep that sort of thing private unless they trusted you enough to share.

“Did he walk back home unaided when he woke? Did his head seem okay then?”

It had been more of a brisk trot, really, and he’d glanced back at me a couple of times, like he was nervous, but I nodded. “Yes, he said thank you and walked just fine. He even patted Noir and told me what a nice dog I had.”

In a fluid movement, éti stood, reminding me she was an athlete and not a seamstress. She only came up to my shoulder, but she had a way of filling a room anyhow.

“I’ll tell you what I think you should do,” she said, which was exactly what I’d hoped, because I’d visited her for sensible advice, not to be a dressmaker’s mannequin. “Pop along when they’re out working the vines and see how he is. You’re the owner—you have every right to visit.” She laughed. “You never know. You might find yourself starring on film!”

Oh mon dieu , no. “They don’t know me. They don’t know I’m the owner. They probably think I’m just a strange person living in the gatehouse.”

“Aah, yes, quite possibly.” She flashed me the chipped-tooth smile. “Those two positions aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.” Her eyes levelled with mine, and I looked away. “That’s me teasing you. I love you just as you are.”

“I know.”

I liked éti teasing me; not many people did. It made me feel normal. She sighed, a happy sigh. “Sometimes, Max, usually after I’ve spent a week in Paris, I come back here and think you’re the sanest person I know.”

As did adorable comments like that. She tapped my fingers, just as they started to twitch. “Now I think about it, it would seem odder if you didn’t check up on him. After caring for him so well. Wouldn’t it?”

I’d love to. The man had a small birthmark in the shape of an upside-down scallop shell below his right nipple, which distracted me when I was pulling off his socks. “Yes, definitely. I should check up on him. See him again.”

That came out too eagerly, and éti, being éti, picked up on it. She cocked her head. “And…aah… this man. Is he, you know…” Her calm fingers stroked across my fidgety ones. “Attractive?”

I’d tried my hardest not to look at his cold, pale body while he slept, but it burned a hole in my mind. I shuffled my feet. “Yes, but you have to unpin the dress now. I have to go.”

Smiling, éti removed the dress without complementary acupuncture. I hurried to the door, eager to get back home now I had a plan. And to avoid more questions because éti was the only person alive who knew I was gay, even though we had never talked about it.

She called after me. “Max, my love?”

“What.” I waited impatiently because walking out when someone was still speaking was rude.

“Can you… could you…” She screwed her face up a bit, as if trying to find the right word. I knew exactly how that felt. “I want you… would you tell me if you think you are becoming… um… fixated on this man? I promise I won’t tell Nico. Just so that we can… um… make sure it doesn’t happen?”

“I won’t!” My voice was loud, too loud. That happened when I was annoyed. “I don’t do that anymore!”

“Please don’t shout at me, Max,” she said mildly. “You know I’m your biggest fan. I just want to be sure everyone else appreciates your assets too. And don’t slam the door behind you, my love, even though you want to.”

A few days passed before I plucked up the courage to accidentally bump into him. When I did, I slunk along the farthest row of vines from the filming vans, but the nearest to my house. I took Noir, to give the impression I was no different to any other normal person out walking my dog. Dogs were useful props, according to Perfect Peach , for blending in and striking up conversation.

The lady spotted me first, the busy blonde who instructed all the others how to prune the vines. She seemed to know what she was doing; I’d watched her at work yesterday from my kitchen window. Turned away from me, my man stood a couple of feet apart from her, and I was pleased to observe he wore trousers more suited to the weather conditions. From my very casual and not at all stalkerish observations over the last few days, the two appeared to be friends.

Spying and fixating were very different things. The author of Perfect Peach would not approve of fixating, whereas familiarising yourself with the rhythms of a potential partner were okay. So yes, I might have occasionally spied on the man, but only in a neighbourly way. For instance, when he was outside in a public space, and only when I didn’t have important things to do. And never with my binoculars. Whereas if I was fixated on him, then I would have followed him every time he disappeared off in the car with one of the camera crew. And told my dad I was ill so I could stay home from work. I would have recorded everything he wore too, alongside a list of everything he should have been wearing instead to keep himself warm. Because, honestly, in this exceptionally cold February, the coldest since 2012 when recorded temperatures dropped as low as -5 degrees Celsius? With a wind speed peaking at 23.2km/h? The man was a danger to himself.

A canvas tent had been erected beyond them, foolhardy given the incoming forecast, and another pair of men were huddling in it, doing nothing, while a couple of other people unpacked some lighting equipment.

The lady tapped my man on the shoulder and said something to him in English. He twisted to look. I had to pay close attention to read people’s faces, and I didn’t always get it right, but on this occasion, I didn’t think he was cross. Or, thankfully, forever maimed because I hadn’t looked after him properly. All his limbs were working fine. The woman didn’t seem too pissed off, either.

When I spoke, I tried to look him in the eyes— Perfect Peach stressed the importance of regular eye contact—but they were such a distracting shade of blue. I had to compromise and focus on his left earlobe instead. “I should have taken you to the hospital. Sorry I didn’t. And there will be a sharp frost tonight, only the fourth in the last sixteen months, so you need to shore up the roots along this outer row. And don’t go outside in your pyjamas again. It will be too cold for pyjamas; the estimated temperature range overnight will be between -2 and -4 degrees Celsius even without taking the wind chill factor into consideration. According to my meteorological app. You should download one.”

I made my mouth do a smile, ensuring he could see my teeth because my sister Zo? once informed me that they were quite nice, and she hardly ever complimented me on anything. Before I left the house, I’d practised. The words too, except the part about the frost. That just came out, in one big word salad. Partly because up this close, and vertical, not horizontal, the man was quite short and not especially hardy-looking. Not a man suited to battling frost.

A yellow bruise bloomed under his eye, but the eye was fully open, and his lip was back to a normal size except for the edge of the lower one, which had a cold sore. His brain must have been working okay too because he was trimming stems with a blue pair of secateurs and still owned eight fingers and two thumbs. Though, even without rain drops falling on them, his smooth cheeks were pale. This many days later, I still felt an urge to run my nose across one and smell it, or maybe kiss it.

To distract myself, I motioned towards the secateurs. “Keep your left hand out of the way when you cut with your right. Like she does.”

People had turned to watch us. Was I making a scene? I didn’t think so, but I backed off, in case I was standing too close. I did that sometimes. I knew he understood French, because he’d obeyed when I’d told him to put his clothes back on and go home. Anxious I’d be late for work, I’d rushed him out of the house. (And, also, him lying in my bed naked had made my penis grow erect, and I panicked he’d notice.)

Everyone fell silent. Was he waiting for me to speak again? People were always quick with advice about initiating conversations— Perfect Peach dedicated two entire chapters to it—but in my humble opinion, finishing them could be equally as awkward. “Your secateurs; they’re sharp, so be careful. And dry them when you’ve finished with them, maybe oil them. Don’t leave them out to rust in the frost.”

The man seemed taken aback at my useful advice. His mouth flopped open, but the woman appeared very chilled. Recognised a knowledgeable fellow country worker, no doubt. “He won’t,” she replied, in heavily accented French. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“I… um… won’t.” He indicated to his jeans. They were light grey and attractively tight around the crotch area. I zoomed my gaze back to his earlobe. “And these are more suited than pyjamas to outdoor work, I agree. Thanks for the warning about the frost.”

I agreed too. Denim wasn’t ideal, especially if the rain started up again, but a step in the right direction. I’d run out of things to say and wasn’t sure if my throat would let me say more anyhow, so I settled on a curt nod and retreated.

In an hour or so, as soon as the first rays of sunshine tipped in its direction, today’s dusting of frost would slink away. I never had the luxury of slinking anywhere, not with my bulk. As my boots crunched over frosty soil, the heat of a thousand curious stares scorched the back of my neck. I’d find no hiding places from them amongst the bare vines. One of the men, sheltering under the tent and not especially small himself, said something to the other in English, and they both sniggered. My face flushed. Mockery translated into any language.

“Hey, wait.”

The tug of a hand on my sleeve. The man with kissable cheeks caught up with me. This close, his right eye still wasn’t quite as open as the left. Below it sat two brown freckles.

“I just wanted to thank you for the other night. I should have come and found you sooner. I meant to drive into St-Martin and buy you a gift and drop it over, except everyone thought I’d better not drive, seeing as I must have banged my head. I did, though not very hard. And I’d have probably given you this dreadful cold. I’ve pretty much been in bed since, another reason why I haven’t been to visit. But a poor excuse, really. I’m Caspian, by the way.”

He held out his hand, and I took it before I had time to worry whether it was the right thing to do or not, especially as he was recovering from illness. And I also had a lot of words to process, not to mention the sensation of his skin touching mine. His fingers were cool from working outside and a bit damp too, but they didn’t prickle my skin like some people’s.

“You should wear gloves; your soft hands aren’t used to handling dirt.”

He laughed, but not in a nasty way, and the end of his small pointy nose shone pink. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ll add gloves to my shopping list.”

He rubbed his hands together to warm them. “I’m so, so grateful you found me. Goodness knows what might have happened if you hadn’t. I’d have ended up in hospital, I should imagine.”

His mouth made a good smile shape, wide and natural. And his cheeks creased at the corners. Like me, he also had nice teeth, very white, and mostly straight. Just the eyes were sad. I didn’t dwell on them for long, but long enough to know the smile didn’t match.

When his grin faltered, I realised he was expecting me to say something. My own name, for starters, because he’d shared his with me. Caspian.

Caspian. I’d practice it later, but I liked the name already. It suited him. The kind of name lingering on the lips, like smoke. Caspien. Caspienne. La mer Caspienne! The Caspian Sea! I felt a thrill of pleasure. He’d been named after a sea.

“M—" I began, then stuttered to a halt. Counting four of my fingers against my thumb, I tried again. “M?—"

Phonation, the ability to form speech, is a neat system. Basically, it starts in our brains. We decide what we want to say. For example, hi, Caspian, rescuing you was no trouble at all. Glad to see you’re better. Why don’t you pop over for a drink one evening? Then we take a breath and start speaking on the exhale. The flow of air moving up the windpipe makes our vocal cords come together and vibrate, chopping up the air flow into a buzzing noise, like bees. The really clever part is how we unconsciously manipulate our lips, teeth, and tongue to shape the buzz into speech.

As usual, the last bit defeated me. Thoughts were no problem, and the breathing part came naturally. I even got the buzz going, but stopped it immediately when the next bit didn’t follow. Instead, I focused on the nearest vine, clasped my hands behind my back so he wouldn’t see my fingers counting each other, then looked straight ahead and stayed that way until he left.

He didn’t leave.

“And you’re absolutely right about the secateurs.” He treated me to his warm smile again, as if he hadn’t noticed the excruciating gap in our conversation, nor the odd humming as I failed to put a simple sentence together. “I’ve already nipped my thumb with them once this morning. I’m popping to the hardware store when I finish today to buy some decent gloves. Hey, where’s your gorgeous dog run off to?”

“There.”

Single words often worked fine, as if I caught myself out with them. Noir sat on my doorstep, waiting to go back inside.

“Can’t blame him. Horrible weather. And your house is lovely. Mind you, it’s snowing in England. Two feet deep in London. I don’t suppose you get much snow here, do you? Being a bit farther south and so close to the sea?”

I bet éti could immediately place la mer Caspienne on a map. She’d travelled the world over. I’d only left France a few times, holidaying in Spain as a child and more recently with Nico and my dad, to watch éti play soccer in Italy and Germany. In my mind, it was somewhere to the east of Ukraine, bordering Russia perhaps. I’d look it up later.

“Anyway, I’m so glad we bumped into each other. It’s been nice talking to you. And I really should have dropped by sooner to thank you in person. With a present. I’ll come over tomorrow, if that’s okay? And now I’d better get b?—”

“Max,” I said.

Imagine if I’d been called something like Zachariah or Cornelius? No one would ever discover my name. “Max,” I repeated, just because I could.

“Oh…oh.” He stuttered, like he’d never come across it before. He should have done; it was pretty ordinary. “Max,” he parroted back to me. “Solid. It suits you. Well, it’s been very nice meeting you, Max. Until next time.”

More words spilled out of me, the ones I really wanted to say, because I wanted him to know it was okay that I’d seen the bandage on his arm and knew he was sad.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” I said. I hoped he understood what I meant.

Caspian smiled again, but not as happily. “I’ll try very hard not to.” He looked away, back towards the big house, like the roots of his sadness were buried there. “Thank you. But I can’t make any promises, I’m afraid.”

I watched him pick his way through the piles of chopped branches and shallow muddy puddles until he safely rejoined the others. All in all, ignoring the tongue-tied bit at the end, my flirting had gone as well as could be expected. And at least he’d swapped the thin jacket for something sturdier, with a hood, too. Nor had he tripped. And despite a pricking compulsion to draw the window shutters and spy on him through the cracks, like some sort of creep, I didn’t. Because I was not going to obsess, I was not going to obsess, I was not going to obsess.