Kev makes me even later. “You know where you’re going?”
“Course I do.” I head off, impatient. Kev snags my elbow and checks the Underground app regardless, like I don’t have the exact same app on my own phone. “No line closures,” he grumps, before finally letting me go. We part ways, but at leasta day of hot and sweaty manual labour means no one comes too close on each train rattling underneath the city.
I finally emerge in South Ken, running late, and also badly in need of a shower. I plan on sending Alasdair a quick message, but turn the corner of my own street to discover I’m not the only one with a patience problem.
Alasdair has come to find me.
He stands beside my own front door, and with the afternoon sun low in the sky, his hair glows. His face does too, softly lit and even prettier than I remember, and I can’t help liking how my name sounds when he says it.
“I couldn’t wait to see you, Vincent.” He digs an incisor into his lip, but I’m almost certain his eyes laugh like they did last night. “Or should I call you Carpet Burns?”
I dig out my door key. “Vincent’s fine.”
He can’t be a foe. Not after what Charles said about him. It’s just hard to believe someone this friendly can be the kind of tosser Kev warned me not to help out again. And Alasdair is friendly—his smile strengthens as soon as he mentions Charles. “He said you lived just around the corner.” That smile turns hesitant and he looks over his shoulder in the direction of the address I was meant to visit. “Sorry to turn up like this, but I got a first quote from another firm to have Alice’s place cleared and I needed to get out afterwards. Had to walk away from it all before I set a match to the lot.”
His smile does fade then, and wow, what a difference that makes. I would have put him in his early twenties right up until this moment. Sadness adds years. So does his laugh turning hollow. “After what they told me, I thought I better warn you what to expect before you saw for yourself.” He digs that incisor into his lip again. “Maybe let you off the hook entirely. Save you from wasting your time too.”
“They said you wasted their time?” I open my front door a fraction. “Because?”
“Because it’s all…” He huffs out a long breath. “They said everything is worthless. That it wasn’t even worth auctioning off. I wouldn’t raise enough to cover the cost of removals, let alone pay a big bill I need to cover.”
Yesterday evening, I saw fire in his eyes. This evening, it’s a whole lot dimmer. “There’s a lot, Vincent. Most of it is china. But last night, one of the guys at the restaurant told me that you’re actually a furniture restorer, a skilled one, and that clearing houses was a waste of your talent.”
“Who told you that?”
“The one with—” Those soft eyes turn intense for a brief moment, boring into mine. “He was a wee bit scary, to be honest.” Alasdair describes Blake so clearly that I can almost see his laser focus. “I can’t help thinking he was warning me off.” And I can’t help thinking that all those teachers I disappointed would fucking marvel at my sudden increase in word power, because I can’t think of better descriptions for him than sweetly worried, concerned, and caring. About me. “I really don’t want to waste your time. Charles must have made a mistake about your line of work. And then I caught you on the hop by turning up like that out of the blue to ask for your help.”
He speeds up talking, tripping over his words like I used to at school.
“A-and I guessed that you only agreed to come take a look because I mentioned Charles had sent me.” He holds up his phone. “Then you didn’t turn up on time or message me.” There goes that incisor again, digging.
“I was about to message you.”
He sags. “To cancel?”
“No. To let you know I was running late. And that I’d need a bit more time to shower first.”
“Oh. Of course.” He nods and backs off. “I’ll…” He looks over his shoulder again. “I’ll go back and leave you to it.”
Believe me, he sounds all light and breezy, but I just did the same to Kev, didn’t I, so I know that bullshit when I hear it. He wants to go back to his place about as much as I want to walk into a home stripped bare of everything I’d worked so hard on. His place might be full of stuff, but he’s been stripped bare of a person he cared for.
It’s a reminder that both of us have loved and lost recently.
Alasdair isn’t a friend. Not yet. Maybe never. And I just promised my cousin not to get sucked in all over again. I still wouldn’t wish that heart-sink moment on my worst enemy. It’s too gutting. “I do need to shower.” I swing my front door wide open. “Want to come in and wait? We can walk back to your place together.”
He smiles, a layer stripped back to show he’s weak with relief, and fuck my actual life.
I like being the reason.
3
Of course,it isn’t until we’re inside that I remember I can’t even tell him to take a seat while he waits. Another removal company took all the chairs I bid on, refurbed, and polished to perfection. Before I can explain, Alasdair comes to his own conclusions.
“Oh. You’re just about to move in here?”
It’s a fair assumption. This place has the same kind of echo as the flat I emptied with Kev today. The real difference is that I don’t have a single stick of furniture to help fill it.
Alasdair takes a second guess while I heel out of boots that are likely contaminated from piss-scented stairwells, and he heels out of his own, still looking around and guessing. “Or you’re a minimalist?” He huffs a sound that is almost but not quite laughter. “That’s the opposite of Alice.”
