“Deal,” says Dis.
I’m quite certain this is the best deal I’ve ever made.
Chapter 29
Bros before…
Thisismysecondday of domestic bliss, which is an odd thought.
We’ve been sitting on the sofa for the better part of an hour, Dis and I, doing very little and finding it entirely satisfactory. He’s reading, which he started doing yesterday with the focused absorption he brings to everything, working his way through my meagre bookshelf with opinions about all of it. I’ve been drinking tea and listening to his critiques, and feeling, in a quiet and slightly bewildered way, extremely content.
The tea is better today. We’re improving.
Suddenly, the door bursts open.
Not knocked on. Not politely opened. Bursts, with the specific energy of someone who has been worried for a significant amount of time and has reached the point where social niceties are no longer relevant. Adam comes through it like a small determined force of nature, his hoodie on inside out, his hair slightly dishevelled in the way it gets when he’s been cycling fast, his face carrying the particular expression of someone who has been managingtheir anxiety about something for as long as they can stand and has abruptly stopped managing it.
Behind him, moving with considerably more composure but with slightly less grace than usual, is Hex.
Hex, I notice, has the look of someone who has been trying to intercept this exact situation and has narrowly failed.
“Felix, it’s been two days since your father…” Adam says, and then he stops.
Because Dis is on my sofa. Free, clearly, visibly free, not in a circle, not bound by anything. In my jumper. With a book. Sitting beside me with the easy, settled quality of someone who is exactly where they intend to be.
Adam’s eyes go to our joined hands.
They’ve been joined for most of the morning, mine and Dis’s, in the quiet way that has become ordinary remarkably fast. I become aware of this at the same moment Adam clocks it.
I don’t let go.
“Adam,” I say.
Adam looks at me. He’s running through something, I can see it, all the things he wants to say stacking up behind his eyes. His gaze moves to Dis, then back to me, then to our hands, then to my face.
“How long,” he says quietly.
And there it is. Not the anger, not yet. Just the question. The one that means he already knows the answer isn’t going to be recent.
I take a breath. “A while,” I say. And then, because honesty is apparently my thing now and I might as well commit to it fully, “I’m not sure, if I’m honest. I didn’t want it to be. It just... was.”
Adam is very still.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For lying. For keeping you out. I know that’s not...” I stop. Start again. “You came and checked on me, and I told you I’d been watching Bake Off and that wasn’t... I mean it wasn’t entirely untrue, but it wasn’t what you were asking, and I knew that and I’m sorry.”
Hex has closed the door behind them. He’s standing slightly apart, watching with those steady red eyes, and I can see him calculating, choosing his moment.
“He was going to kill you,” Adam says. Not accusing. Just saying it. The fact of it. “He used you as bait. He tried to kidnap me. He tried to…” He stops. Looks at Hex. Looks back at me. “Felix, he nearly killed Hex.”
“I know,” I say.
“You know.”
“I know. I haven’t forgotten any of it.” I look at Dis. He’s very still, watching Adam with the careful attention of someone who knows they have no right to defend themselves and isn’t going to try. “I know what he did. I know what it cost. None of that stopped being true.”
“Then how…”
The raw pain in Adam’s voice makes me wince. Dis’s grip on my hand tightens.
