After Felix - Lily Morton Page 0,33

gives a long sigh. “I’m sorry.” He stands but then immediately lurches and falls back onto the bed. “Shit, I’m pissed,” he says in a tone of utter astonishment.

“I know. It’s truly been an amazing evening with you. If anyone approaches you for dating advice in the future, please swear you’ll never give it.”

I’m talking to thin air, as his eyes have closed.

“Great,” I mutter and lift his legs onto the bed, taking off his shoes.

His hand comes up suddenly, making me gasp. “I’m sorry,” he says with the sincerity of a small child. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

I sigh because his eyes close again. I lean over him and stroke his hair. I can’t help the tenderness despite the fact that he’s pissed me off majorly tonight. I wonder if that’s what caused his moodiness earlier in the day—the fact that he hadn’t told me of the connection between him and Ivo.

I don’t know what makes me so uneasy about it. I knew he had a steamy past with other men. Fuck it. I’d known his present and his future would likely be just as torrid. It shouldn’t matter because we’re only in a casual relationship.

Only we’re not. Or rather, I’m not in a casual relationship. Not anymore.

I stiffen with the force of the realisation that blows through me. I’m in love with him. The maelstrom of feelings jumbled inside me can’t be anything else—anger and hurt and tenderness mixing to form an intense mixture for this complicated and charismatic man who is damaged in a way I might never understand.

But that’s the rub of it, isn’t it? Max won’t show anything intimate to me, and so I haven’t revealed my feelings to him. I still inside. Maybe one of us should step up. And maybe it should be me. Because if I tell Max that I want more with him, show him I trust him, maybe he’ll eventually open up and learn to trust me too.

Chapter Eight

Felix

Those thoughts are still in my head the next morning when I wake up next to Max. I turn my head on the pillow to look at him. He’s asleep. I’d woken up in the middle of the night and prodded Max to get into bed properly, and now he lies with the white sheets pushed down to his waist, his olive skin glowing in the early morning light. His hair is an inky mess on the pillow and his stubble heavy. He looks like a very disreputable pirate and a hungover one at that.

I smile at him. My anger from last night has faded, and in the morning light, I’m slightly embarrassed by the fuss I made. So he fucked a mate. His relationship with his best friend is obviously much more complicated than he let on. It could have been far worse. Like if he’d admitted he’d fallen in love with someone—that would be the one thing I couldn’t compete against.

Snuggled against him, feeling the sun on my face and the warmth of his body, all my misgivings have begun to seem silly. After all, I’m a boy in bed with the man he’s come to love.

As if sensing my thoughts, Max stirs, stretching out and giving a contemplative grunt. He tries to open his eyes but groans and squeezes them shut. “Can you kill me now?” he says in a conversational tone.

I laugh, grateful for the normality. “Not sure I’m up for murder this close to breakfast.”

He opens one eye and squints at me. It’s bloodshot and bleary. “Please don’t mention food, Felix.”

“Too late.” I stretch and snuggle in closer. “Apparently, they’ll be delivering breakfast to our room to avoid crowding downstairs.”

“Are they? When did they say that?”

“After your fortieth brandy,” I say wryly.

He groans and rolls onto his back, scrubbing his hands down his face. “I’m so sorry,” he says, peeking at me through his fingers.

“Which bit are you sorry for, exactly?”

“Well, I was going to say for getting so drunk, but now I’m worried that there might have been even worse behaviour involved,” he says cautiously.

I smile because he does look very worried. “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “The sun is shining, and you’re suffering badly. Life is perfect.”

He laughs huskily. “Felix, you really are a very callous man.”

This characterization reminds me of the thoughts I’d had before I’d gone to sleep—my ponderings on intimacy and vulnerability. Am I brave enough to mention that I want us to be more to each other? There doesn’t