After Felix - Lily Morton
Chapter One
Felix
I make my way through Waterstones, holding my phone and dodging around the people milling about in the shop. There seem to be a lot of them. Far more than is usual on a Tuesday afternoon.
“Felix, are you there?” my friend Tim says.
“I’m here,” I say into the phone. “Along with most of London. This place is bloody packed today.”
“It’s packed in a bookshop?”
I laugh. “I know. Go figure. People want to buy books. The world must be close to ending.”
“Why are you even there, Felix?”
I steer around a group of women who are clutching books and giggling together. I eye them, bemused by their air of febrile excitement. Last time I saw giddiness like this was when Harry Styles was in HMV.
“I’m here to get Charlie a book for his birthday,” I say, spotting the biography section ahead of me.
“Really? Isn’t he a librarian? That’s like coals to Newcastle.”
“Have you actually met Charlie? Books are his thing.”
“Saw him and immediately wanted to lick him,” he says seriously. “So gorgeous.”
“He’s far too nice for you,” I say.
“I can be nice,” he says indignantly.
I laugh. “Really? So it wasn’t you who let down your ex’s tyres and hid month-old double cream in his airing cupboard?”
There’s an affronted silence before he laughs. He can’t stay serious for long. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But he totally deserved it. So, what book are you buying?”
I spot a table packed with many copies of a single book. The cover is a painting in grey of a young boy in a war setting. The only colour is a splash of red on his face which could be blood. It’s haunting and memorable, and I recognise it because Charlie had the Guardian book review page open yesterday, and this cover was front and centre and rather helpfully ringed.
“Oh, some journalist’s account of his life,” I say carelessly. “Don’t know who wants to read that rubbish. Aren’t journalists supposed to be reporting news, not be the centre of it?”
“Oh my God, is it Max Travers’ biography?”
I look down at the author’s name. “Yes, that’s what it says on the cover.”
“Jesus, he’s fucking amazing. I saw him on the news this lunch, and he was so hot.”
“You were watching the news?”
“Well, the weather, darling. I wanted to see if it was going to be warm enough to wear my hot pants.”
“Tim, there is nowhere in the world that has weather hot enough for those shorts. They’re held together by spit and willpower.”
“I’ve never been a spitter.”
“You’ve never been discreet either. Anyway, go back to telling me about your crush on this Max person. I thought journalists were all squat little men who wear visors, and smoke and drink heavier than your auntie Val.”
“Jesus, that woman could pack it away.”
“I know. Do you remember meeting her in that pub in Battersea last year? I didn’t walk away from that meeting, Tim. I crawled.”
“I told you not to try to keep up with her. Your liver will fail first.”
“Her liver must be made up of bile and bad intentions like that nursery rhyme said.”
“Wasn’t that sugar and spice?”
“Not for Auntie Val,” I say darkly.
“So, you’re buying Charlie that book? Ooh, if it’s got pictures, take some photos of them for me.”
“I’m not taking photos of pictures in a boring old book so you can wank over them without having to pay the recommended retail price.”
A woman giggles, and I grimace apologetically at her. “He won’t,” I assure her. “He prefers his porn to be actually moving. This isn’t the dark ages.” She laughs and walks away.
“Are you going to have to do your usual thing with Charlie?” he says sympathetically.
I sigh. “Yep. I’ll have to read it too, so we can discuss it. Fucking hell, it’s huge. It’s going to take weeks of my life that I’ll never get back. I’m far too young for the wrinkles that reading this shit will give me.” I seize a copy. “Wow, it’s so fucking heavy too. Still, if Charlie doesn’t read it, he can always use it as a doorstop.”
A loud laugh comes from behind me, and when I spin around, I find a man leaning against the entrance to the travel section. He’s staring at me. He’s obviously the source of the laughter because it’s still flirting with the edges of his wide mouth and dancing in his dark eyes. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with thick black hair that falls in shaggy waves and frames a high-cheek-boned face.
I blink and consider