“I never said Icouldn’t,” I reply testily. “Just that I didn’t want to.”
“Okay, daddio. Whatever you say.”
I inhale and choke on my spit. “What did you just call me?”
“Ta da.” He waves a careless hand. “I have brought the club to you.” The box wafts out more smoke, and I inhale and cough again. I think he waves a hand in front of his face, but it’s getting quite difficult to see him in the fog. “Maybe I’ll switch it off now,” he calls.
“You think?” I choke. “If this were the Victorian era, Jack the Ripper would be opening his medical bag right about now.”
He cracks open a window, but it’s too late to avoid our room now looking like the set of an eighties rock video. I’m half expecting Jon Bon Jovi to stride out of the murk.
He fiddles with his phone. “Just got to find the music.”
“What music? We can’t have a fucking rave in here, Xavi. Jez is only next door.”
He rolls his eyes. “He’s out scoring with hisbirds. The poor women of Cirencester don’t know what’s about to hit them. Anyway, I think we can safely say the walls are thick, because otherwise we might have had far more awkward conversations this weekend.”
“Oh, my god.” I sink onto the bed like my strings have been cut. “What the fuck are we doing?”
“Having fun,” he says briskly. “Something you wouldn’t know about if it came up and punched you in the face.”
“I spend time with you instead. It gives me the same feeling.” He laughs. “Hang on. I haveplentyof fun,” I say indignantly.
He directs a level gaze at me. “Oh yes. How on earth do you fit it in around the bouts of PTSD and dealing with the adult baby next door?”
“Don’t say that.”
He pats my face. “Okay. Because you said so.” He sets his phone down, obviously forgetting about the need for music which I suppose I should be thankful about. I watch, my mouth twitching as he opens the bedside table drawer. He’s endlessly curious which I find strangely charming. He’s like a magpie flying around from nest to nest gathering information. I stare at him when he goes completely still.
“You okay?”
“I’m not sure,” he says in a funny voice. He pulls something out and I go still when I see it’s the caricature he drew for me. I’d folded it carefully and put it in the drawer and I don’t want to count how many times I’ve taken it out and looked at it with a smile on my face. “You kept it?”
“Yes, of course. Thank you for the very charming caricature of me.”
He brightens. “You liked it?”
“I’m pretty sure my nose isn’t that big, and I amneverthat grumpy.”
His eyes twinkle. “My art never lies.”
“It was brilliant,” I say simply.
His face is full of a soft, startled pleasure as if he never gets compliments. That can’t be true. He’s too bright and clever to go unnoticed.
“I have a place at art college,” he mutters.
I smile at him. “That’s perfect.”
He shrugs, and it’s an awkward gesture for such a graceful young man. “We’ll see,” he says rather enigmatically and thenpats my cheek. “Get ready. We are about to rave.Silentrave,” he stresses.
I blink. “Why?”
“We can’t have the music on loud, so I used my superior brain power to come up with the solution.” He edges nearer. “To be honest, I think my decisions tonight might have been powered by smoking Liam Sander’s grass that he gave me to hold on to last week.”
“And did hold on to mean smoking it?”
“Probably not, but that is future Xavier’s problem.” He shrugs. “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
