“Xavier,” I warn him.
I’m about to shut the door in his face, but movement catches my eye from along the corridor. Jez’s door starts to open.
“Shit,” I say. And rather than doing a thousand other things, I choose the nuclear option and drag Xavier into the room. I manage to shut the door behind him quickly and, I hope, quietly.
He responds with a combination of a squark and laughter.
“Shut up,” I hiss, pressing him against the door with my body and listening intently.
“Can I just say?—?”
“No. Stop talking.”
“Man, your foreplay isexcellent. Now call me a bitch and pull my hair.”
“What?” I pull back, abandoning my mission of listening for Jez. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” he says demurely. “Can I give you your present now?”
I step back, and he remains spread out over the door in an exaggerated cartoon fashion that shouldn’t make me want to laugh. Then I remember what he’s just said. “What present?” I ask warily. “It’s not anything sexual, is it?”
“Of course not. I’m not that sort of boy,” he says piously.
“We both know that’s not true. Well, where is it?” I snap.
“You must besucha delight at Christmas.”
I laugh, and he watches me with his eyes twinkling. Then he steps away from the door. “Am I okay to enter the room fully, or are you planning on having a coronary incident before that happens?”
“Does anyone plan that?”
He tuts. “Well?”
I sigh. “Okay.”
He wanders into the room, and I watch as he strolls around picking up things and putting them down. He lifts a bottle of cologne and sniffs it, takes a sip from my beer and opens the book on my bedside table, rifling through the pages. He sets it down and then runs his finger along the jacket on my bed. I repress a shudder. It’s almost as if he’s putting his hand on me.
“Xavier,” I warn him.
“Reuben,” he says in a sing-song voice. He walks over to my camera bag. “May I?”
I try to glare at him. “You haven’t asked permission so far.”
“Ah, but this possession means more to you than anything else here. You’d leave everything else behind and happily watch the world burn, but notthisone.”
I stare at him, struck into silence. How does he know that?
“Well?” he prompts.
I wave a hand. “Go ahead.”
He opens the bag and pulls out my camera. It looks battered in his hands, the metal scratched and dinged in places. “It’s not as heavy as I thought,” he says.
“It wouldn’t be much good if I needed a winch every time I took a photo.” I try for a casual shrug, but his keen eyes seem to be picking up on my tension.
He’s quiet as he looks down at the old bag. It’s covered in embroidered patches from countries we’ve visited. He raises his eyebrow, and I wrinkle my nose.
“Jez always buys me a new one whenever we go anywhere. It’s kind of our thing.”
