Chapter Six
FIRST THINGin the morning and there was another message from Kristen on Joe’s phone. He didn’t have the heart to delete it, but he couldn’t bring himself to listen to it either. To be honest, he didn’t need to. It probably didn’t differ much from the twenty other messages she’d sent him since they broke up—either promises that they could fix this if they tried or pointed,precise anger as she cursed him up one side and down the other.
He didn’t blame her.
Edward’s disapproval was palpable as Joe banished the voicemail to languish with the others in the saved file.
“Kristen’s beautiful. She’s clever. She’s accomplished,” Edward said as he sat down on the other side of the small round breakfast table. He laced his hands together around his chalkboard black mugof tea, old scars a lacework of threads over his knuckles and the backs of his hands. “You could do worse.”
“Maybe,” Joe said as he set his phone facedown on the table, in case an email came in that he didn’t want Edward to see. “Shecouldn’t have, though.”
“Maybe you should have let her decide that,” Edward said as he took a drink of his brew and made a disappointed face. His preferred cuppawas black Yorkshire tea, bitter as something cooked up in a boot. He always said he’d developed a taste for it while he was in the Army, along with curry too hot to taste anything but regret. Apparently the hotel’s tea bags weren’t old and papery enough for him. He set the cup back down on the table and looked at Joe. “She loved you.”
She did. Joe knew that.
“And I liked her,” Joe said. “That’snot enough.”
At the far end of the suite, the main door parroted its usual “welcome back” message as Cal let himself back in. Joe glanced around and listened to Cal slam the door and then go into his bedroom. He’d been out last night, and he’d come back late and kept to himself. Joe had thought about another text, another late-night tumble, but he… hadn’t.
The first time had been a Hail Mary,as likely to get his teeth knocked in as anything else. This time they would have both known what Joe expected, and that wasn’t a good look. Joe knew what he’d think of himself, and he didn’t want Cal to see him that way.
“Maybe you should have tried harder,” Edward said, and the rough edge of his voice dragged Joe’s attention back to their conversation. It took Joe a minute too long to realizethat Edward still meant Kristen, not Cal. He didn’t feel good about that. “Lust isn’t love, Joe. Don’t throw away what you had, what made you happy, to chase some… itch.”
Itch. That’s how it had always been done in his house—anything difficult was never said out loud, never faced up to. Things like his mother’s death, the fact that Joe was not quite the son his dad expected, were brushed underthe carpet and never mentioned again. All that was left behind was expectation and disapproval, like ghosts.
Joe had learned to stitch everythinguntidyaway behind a composed facade. He could ride elevators without sweating, even as his stomach clawed itself raw with the conviction that he was going to die, and he could convince people he was happy with Kristen—even himself for a while, untilhe found himself in the back room of some club or hotel bar with a man.
To be honest, part of the reason he wanted to find out the truth about his mother wasn’t even about her. He didn’t remember her, and no one had told him stories about her that he could stitch together and pretend were his. She was a blank form in his head, a few dreams that were as much wishful thinking as anything real,but she was somethinguntidyof his dad’s that Joe could throw in Harry’s face.
“Edward, I appreciate that you’ve been with my father for a long time and you think you know me,” Joe said as he pushed away the remnants of his omelet. “You don’t, and who I fuck isn’t your job.”
Silence for a second as Edward took a long drink of his tea. Then he set the cup down on the table and glanced at hiswatch.
“Six twenty-five. I’m not on the clock yet, Joe,” he said. “All I am right now is an old friend of the family, who doesn’t want you to make a mistake you can’t take back. Kristen could make you happy, give you a family, a place where you felt at home.”
Edward glanced away from Joe as though he could see Cal through the heavy, hotel walls. It looked like he was going to bite the bulletand actually talk about what they both knew had happened. Joe waited, a nervous prickle of anticipation on the nape of his neck. Instead Edward got up and walked to the sink to toss the oversugared dregs of his tea down the drain. He flicked on the tap to wash the sludge away.
“I don’t have your itinerary for next week yet,” Edward said. “What are your plans?”
The hollow space that cracked openin Joe’s chest was either relief or disappointment. It was beyond him to identify it. He rubbed his hand over his face. The scuff of last night’s stubble was still rough on his jaw.
“I’m taking the week off,” he said. “I haven’t been to England since I was a child. I want to see some of the sights before I go home.”
Edward paused midrinse of his mug. Water spilled over his fingers and into thesink for a second before he finished the job. He set it down to drain and turned around.
“Do you have time?” he asked. It sounded casual. “You have to wind up all the company’s business dealings in the UK by the end of the month. You’ve onlygotthree weeks left.”
Joe sat back in his chair and studied Edward’s face for a second. In the long run, Edward would back whatever decision Harry made,but how much did he already know? Edward had worked for Harry back then, although he always said he never met Joe’s mother.
“I’m going to spend a few hours at Buckingham Palace,” Joe said. He fastidiously wiped his hands on a napkin and then crumpled it. “Or the Tower of London. Not take a hike to John O’Groats. If an emergency arises, I’ll be available to deal with it. If my dad has a problemwith that, tell him he can call me.”
Edward gave him a disapproving look. Let him. Joe tossed the ball of his napkin into the bin and got up from the table. He paused on the way out the door.
“I don’t want to talk about Kristen again,” he said bluntly. “If you’re so worried about her love life, find someone to set her up with when we get back.”
“How many times did you cheat on her?” Edwardasked.
“Too many,” Joe said. Four times, four different men, but he doubted Edward wanted that information. “Now are wedoneon this topic?”
