After Felix - Lily Morton Page 0,38
silkiness of his hair. Pain twists in my chest, like something is trying to gnaw its way out.
“No, please don’t go,” he explodes, staggering towards me and then swaying alarmingly as though he might fall.
I push him gently until he lies on the bed. He struggles up on his elbows, but the alcohol makes his movements heavy, and he lacks his usual grace. He falls back against the pillow. “Shit,” he mutters. “I’m so pissed. Felix, please don’t go.”
“I have to.” I raise his legs fully on the bed and hate myself for doing it.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he says, and there’s so much sadness in his voice that I feel tears in my eyes. “You were so valiant and sassy, and I wanted you the instant I saw you. I thought I could have you, and it wouldn’t mean anything to you. I thought you were hard, but you’re not, are you, Felix? You’re soft and wonderful, and I’ve hurt you, and I never meant to.” His voice is so earnest and melancholy. “If I could have loved anyone else, Felix, I would have chosen you.”
“And now you’re being cruel,” I say steadily, pulling back. “You need to stop talking, Max, and go to sleep.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he repeats stubbornly.
“I think it’s blatantly obvious that neither of us is getting what we want tonight.”
“I don’t want to love him,” he slurs, and I want him to stop talking right now. “It’s just always been him, and I can’t do anything about it. I would never do anything to spoil his life.”
“Shame you didn’t have the same consideration for me,” I say sharply and then shake my head. “Ignore that. It was a shitty thing to say.”
“Love is fucking awful,” he says slowly.
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “And I sincerely mean that. It’s nothing and will never be anything.”
His eyes start to close, and I pull the covers up over him. “Goodbye, Max,” I say steadily. “I hope you have a good life. Maybe stop drinking so much. It’s not doing you any favours.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he says. “I need to talk to you when I’m sober. I need to explain.” He grabs my hand. “Please don’t leave me. Promise you won’t leave me.”
His eyes are flickering shut. He’s on the verge of passing out, and I stare down at him, committing his face to my memory. The wavy dark hair, the high cheekbones and the full lips. As his breathing levels and he starts to snore softly, I lean down and press a kiss into his hair, inhaling the scent of sandalwood greedily for the last time.
“No,” I say softly. I grab my suitcase and leave the room.
I don’t look back, and on the long and costly journey back home, I steadily pack away all the love I felt for him that was so tender and new, and lock that shit down tightly. And by the time I reach London, I’m resolved to hate him for making me so vulnerable.
After
Chapter Nine
Two and a Half Years Later
Felix
I lower the paperwork to my desk and look at the young man sitting on the chair in front of me.
“So let me get this straight, Aaron. The customer requested that you deal with his shed. He intended for you to strip the paint off and paint it in the lovely yellow colour he’d chosen so painstakingly.” Aaron squirms, and I narrow my eyes. “And you did what?” He mumbles something, and I put a hand behind my ear. “Come again?”
“I set fire to it,” he mutters.
I grimace. “Yes, and that’s what Mr Harkin told me, but I said to him, ‘Mr Harkin, I cannot believe that a member of our staff needs so badly to clean his ears out. I will have to question the young man myself because he’s a model of integrity.’” Aaron stares at me, and I shake my head. “I was, of course, lying.”
He perks up. “You don’t need to cross-question me?”
“Of course, I do.” He instantly deflates. “You are the anti-model of rectitude. You set fire to a shed which then set fire to the poor man’s fence and entailed the fire engine making a little trip. It was quite a chain reaction, as Diana Ross would say.”
“Does she work for the fire service?”
I look at him for a long second and then give up. “Why did you burn the shed down?” I say, pinching the top