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“Where are you hurrying off to?” Jerome queried after we’d bashed in the last tent peg.
“Nowhere special.” I gave a relaxed shrug, as if I hadn’t spent the last quarter hour fantasising about bending Charles over the huge granite island in his fancy kitchen. Most likely, that little scenario would never progress beyond a fantasy; he’d not shown any inclination to take our lovemaking beyond hands and mouths, and I hadn’t pushed.
“How’s it going with your Englishman?” He smirked. Seemed I was more obvious than I’d thought.
“Too well. I’m kind of liking having him around.”
“We noticed. We used to kind of like having you around. Have you had time to think about fighting the Selco bid, or are you having too much fun?”
I rolled my eyes. “Multitasking, actually. Charles manages an investment business. In London. He’s given me some pointers.”
He’d given me more than that. I’d read through his notes last night. Thorough didn’t even begin to cover it, even though he’d insisted it had been the work of minutes. And had taken his mind off other things. My confidence at being able to persuade the majority to reject the bid had swelled. A small comfort for when our brief love affair came to an end.
“Have you told your dad about the baby yet?”
I’d bumped into Léa last night on my cycle home from work. The way she was filling her clothes, he’d work it out for himself if Jerome waited much longer.
My old friend groaned. “Bah oui. Why do you think I’ve been hanging around here all day making myself useful?”
“I’m guessing he didn’t crack open the champagne because he’s about to be a granddaddy, then?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Not exactly, no. He gave me a huge spiel about the right way to do things—you know, get married and buy a house first, like he did, and that young folk like me wasted too much money on mobile phones and flash cars instead of saving for a mortgage. Blah blah blah. I pointed out that he bought his house thirty years ago, when they cost about as much as a wheel of brie, and that whether I spent two euros on a takeaway coffee or not wasn’t exactly going to be a deal-breaker. I thought it better not to mention that my car was a fifteen-year-old heap of rust.”
Never having had a father, I always imagined I’d missed out, even though Papi had done his very best to fill the gap. Sometimes, I was no longer sure.
Jerome let out a huge sigh. “We’ll cope. He’ll punch something and holler, but he won’t kick me out. He’s not an ogre. And he knows we can’t move into Léa’s place. And my mother is already talking about redecorating the spare room. So I’ve just got to suck it up.”
Charles was busy mopping the kitchen floor when I reached his house, an incongruent sight, seeing as he’d paired one of his usual cashmere sweaters with a bright yellow pinny. The pungent odour of bleach had my eyes watering; he’d done the floors in the sitting room and dining area too. The doors leading out to the garden were shut tight.
“I thought this extortionately priced place came with a housekeeper?”
“It does,” he answered, untying the apron. “And he’s already been this morning, but I thought I saw something running across the floor earlier, so I decided to give it another go. It was no bother.”
Mon dieu, I hoped he never looked too closely at my floors. I rubbed at my stinging eyes; Charles’s were reddened too. “Do you mind if I open the windows?”
There was the minutest hesitation before his shoulders relaxed. “No, it’s fine. Go ahead. I probably imagined the whole thing anyway. It was probably a leaf floating through the window. Let me make some coffee and we’ll take it outside now the rain has stopped.”
So much for lazing in bed or exploring the delights of the kitchen island, but we settled on a bench in the garden where Charles seemed much less tense. His business partner, Marcus, had kept him on the phone for most of the morning, running through some options regarding a big new client
“I thought you were supposed to be recuperating, not taking work calls?” I observed mildly. Seeing as diving on him wasn’t an option, I laced his fingers through mine instead. We had all weekend; I could be patient.
“Oh, Marcus doesn’t count. It was important and he needed my advice. He knows he can always call.” He paused, his gaze darting toward the house. “Anyhow, my mental health is much better now. I’m a bit closer to getting back to normal every day.”
I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince with the last part, him or me, but I let it slide. Did night terrors not count? And he was acting as if the call from Marcus had stressed him. Should I ask what colours it triggered? Somehow, that felt more intimate and intrusive than anything we’d done yesterday. I supposed the mopping frenzy this morning had been odd, but Papi and I had dealt with a wasp’s nest and an ant infestation this summer already, so perhaps we should take a leaf out of his book. And maybe wading through a little paperwork helped him feel he hadn’t been forgotten. He’d enjoyed doing some of mine for me without any ill effects.
With my coffee drunk, my hand wandered from the mug to his leg. Charles’s lips curved into a smile.
“So Florian, what would you like to do today?”
“Do you need to ask?” My fingers drifted higher, caressing the relaxed muscles of his inner thigh.
“As well as that?”
“I would like to take you for a walk along the beach.”
Since when did I take my lovers to the beach? Come to that, since when did I think of men I slept with as lovers?
“That sounds nice.”
