Chapter Ten
Leo sat zombie-like at Dee’s counter with the world in ruins around him.
He’d lost everything. And it was all his own damned fault. If he’d gotten to know Alfie better last Christmas, or if he’d had the guts to walk into the Whiskey Jack and confront the truth, or even if he’d told Alfie last night…
At any one of those moments, he could have diverted disaster. But he hadn’t. He’d been a pompous prick, a snob of the worst order. And a coward. While Alfie might be wrong about how Leo saw him now, he wasn’t wrong about how Leo had seen him in the past. And maybe, if he hadn’t been so blinded by his prejudice, he might have done Alfie the courtesy of telling him the goddamn truth when it would have made a difference.
His vision blurred and he blinked, realizing something had dripped onto his glasses. Water. His own stupid tears. Fuck, he was crying in a coffee shop like a loser. And he couldn’t stop.
“Come on.” A hand squeezed his arm and he startled. But it was only Dee, leading him to a quiet table in the corner. Not that the place was busy two days before Christmas. Most people had places to be, people to be with.
He sat, as directed, and Dee put some kind of drink in front of him. He didn’t care what; his mouth was ashes, his stomach a knot of grief. Last night—Christ, this morning—he’d thought he had everything. And now it was all gone, blown away by his cowardice, snobbery, and stupidity.
“That bad, huh?” Dee said, sliding into the seat opposite him. For once, she’d made herself a coffee and sat there sipping it as she watched him over the frames of her glasses.
Leo nodded. “He hates me.”
“Hmmm,” Dee said, and sipped her drink.
“He’s got a right.” Leo pulled off his glasses, wiped at his leaky eyes with the cuff of his sweater. The same sweater he’d worn last night, the one Alfie had peeled off him, the one he’d worn while they snuggled on the sofa during that brief glimpse of nirvana. Something caught in his throat, and it came out a sob.
“Oh, honey.” Dee took his hand. “I had no idea.”
“I did,” he sniffed. “I knew he’d hate me once he found out. That’s why I didn’t—”
She tsked. “No, I mean I had no idea you felt so much for him.”
“Didn’t you?” Leo looked up, bemused. “I thought it was obvious.”
She squeezed his hand. “Then why don’t you go make it obvious to Alfie?”
“I have. I did.” He dropped his head, watched his vision blur once again. “He—” Leo squeezed his eyes shut against the memory, felt the tears on his face and dashed them away. “He doesn’t care. I’ve done too much damage. He feels…foolish, I guess. He thinks I was toying with him.” He opened his eyes, fixed them on Dee. “I wasn’t, I swear. I was just…stupid. And afraid.”
“And Alfie’s just angry,” Dee said, setting down her mug. “Shocked, too. Remember how you felt when you first found out who your mystery man was?”
That was true. Leo had been turned upside down that night, he’d felt as if all his foundations had fallen away. And that was without thinking he’d been played for a fool, lied to and laughed at by a man he’d trusted. Loved, even. He doubled over until his forehead touched the table. “Oh God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Yes you are.” Dee sighed. “That is, what you did was pretty darn stupid, Leo.”
He nodded, his forehead rubbing against the table.
“I guess the question is, what are you going to do about it?”
What could he do? It was over. Alfie had made that perfectly clear. “Do you have a time machine?” he mumbled into the tabletop. “A magic lamp? Three wishes?”
Dee snorted. “No easy fixes, Leo. If you want to make this right, you need to put in some hard work. You have to convince Alfie that you respect him, that you’re sorry for what you did, and that you deserve a second chance.”
He lifted his head to look at her. “But do I?” He felt too heart-sore to know. “Do I deserve a second chance?”
She squeezed his hand and pushed back her chair, standing up. “I guess that’s a question for Alfie. But it’s Christmas, Leo. Magic happens at Christmas if you put in a little elbow grease.”
He thought about that as he crept back to his store, head down, feeling like his shame was sewn in a scarlet letter across his chest. He thought about it some more as the day dragged on, a few more customers than usual coming into the shop on the day before Christmas Eve. Some faces he remembered from last night, which brought a mixture of pleasure and pain. Those happy hours behind the stall, freezing his ass off with Alfie, felt like a different world—the world of before. He’d felt similar after he left Grayson, only somehow this was worse. Because, after Grayson, Leo had burned with righteous indignation. He’d been the wronged party. But this time he had nothing to warm him, he felt only his own cold regret and shame.
What a damned fool he’d been.
He stayed in his shop long after the last customer left, sitting alone among his books. The lights of the little tree he’d bought with Alfie still burned bright, but his heart remained a leaden lump.
The magic of Christmas? Dee might believe in it, but Leo wasn’t so sure. He’d hurt Alfie badly, had seen his lovely eyes clouded with hurt. He never wanted to see it again, never wanted to be responsible for crushing another soul like that. And he needed to make it right. He wasn’t sure he deserved absolution, but at the very least had to apologize to Alfie in a meaningful way. Even if Alfie never forgave him, Leo had to make him understand that he had Leo’s respect and admiration.
But how? What could he do that would be enough, that would demonstrate how deeply he respected Alfie’s mind and heart and soul?
For a long time, he sat in the semi-darkness, watching the moonlight reflecting off the snow and into the shop, casting frosty shadows across the floor. And there, among his books, the answer came to him.
With a heart barely daring to hope, Leo got to work.
***
When Alfie woke the next morning, on a gray Christmas Eve, he felt no better than he had when he’d finally fallen into a miserable sleep last night.
He lay there alone, staring at the ceiling. His bed smelled like fresh laundry because he’d stripped the sheets last night, bundled the lot into the washing machine. He’d thrown out the pizza boxes, loaded the dishwasher with everything Novak had touched. He couldn’t stand any reminders of that pitiful dream.
He’d deleted his messenger app, too, blocked Novak’s number, and after Christmas he intended to buy himself a new phone. A different brand entirely. For now, his old one sat black-screened in the kitchen drawer. He didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want to remember LLB and their slow-burning friendship, because it had been incinerated when LLB—Leo Novak—had seen him sitting in the Whiskey Jack and walked away.
The pain of that truth hadn’t lessened in the day he’d had to brood. Leo had lied. He’d played Alfie for a fool. God only knew what else. Laughed, probably. Maybe he had other friends online and they’d laughed together. Alfie didn’t know. He didn’t know what was real anymore, and it hurt so bad it was difficult to breathe.
The worst of it was that he kept remembering Leo’s face when they’d argued. He’d looked devastated, and Alfie’s stupid, soft heart ached for him, wanted to reach out and comfort him.
What a joke. What a fucking joke. Could he be a bigger loser?
He spent the morning mooching about in the house, avoiding the living room. Nothing gave him pleasure, everything tarnished by what he’d lost. For close to a year, his life had revolved around his deepening friendship with LLB and now it was gone.
Maybe he should go out? Walk down to the beach and freeze out the grief. He was considering making the effort to get dressed when he heard a sound outside the front door. His heart jolted in hope, swiftly followed by anger and biting shame at his own weakness. But when he went to the door to check, there was nothing there save a plain white envelope sitting on his narrow porch. Alfie’s name was written on the outside in a spikey script. He knew, instantly, that it was Novak’s writing.
Unsure what to expect, he picked up the letter and brought it inside. For several minutes, he sat at the kitchen counter staring at his name on the crisp white envelope, willing his hammering heart to pipe down. Did he want to read an apology? What could Novak even say that would make a difference? No one was disputing the facts.
Out of spite, he left the envelope unopened and went to take a long hot shower. But it followed him, that envelope, lingering in his thoughts. When the water started to cool, he climbed out, dressed in clean clothes, and returned to the kitchen. Aware of the envelope in his peripheral vision, Alfie made himself a coffee and paced several times around the living room, avoiding the rug where they’d… What? Made love? Fucked?
His eyes found the envelope again, sitting stark against the granite countertop. With an irritable sigh he admitted that he wasn’t going to throw it out unread, so he might as well get it over with and open the damn thing. He picked it up with an irrational, anxious nausea fizzing in his belly. A single piece of paper lay inside. It shook as Alfie unfolded it.
Alfie—You owe me nothing, but please come to Bayside Books at 6pm. Leo
That was it. A summons. A fucking summons?
“Screw you,” he snapped, balling up the letter and hurling it across the room. It bounced off the Christmas tree and rolled across the floor before coming to rest against the rug.
Who the hell did Novak think he was, summoning him like that?
You owe me nothing? Damn straight.
Except that his eyes were riveted to that ball of paper, to the promise it offered of relief from the cavernous hole in his chest. And what choice did he really have?
Of course he was going to go. It was inevitable.
And so, at six o’clock, he stepped out into the snow, crunchy as it refroze in the icy night air. Despite the cold, Alfie felt hot beneath his coat, heart pounding with resentment and longing and unable to tell the two apart. He’d go meet Novak, he’d hear him out. But he made no promises about forgiving him. He couldn’t imagine what Novak could say to ease the hurt or salvage Alfie’s pride. But he had to find out. The last few days—these last twelve months—meant too much to him to just walk away.
The streets were quiet this late on Christmas Eve. Everyone was home, or heading out to see family, or to a party. Sean Callaghan, he remembered, was hosting his big bash tonight. But it was the last place Alfie wanted to be—he’d forgotten about it entirely until just now.
Bayside Books was shut, the sign turned over to read ‘Closed’, but there were lights on inside and the Christmas tree in the window twinkled cheerily. There was no sign of Leo. Frowning, heart thumping hard against his breastbone, Alfie tried the door. It opened with a click and he stepped inside.
A familiar scent wrapped itself around him, that mix of old books and cedar that had somehow come to mean Leo. He closed his eyes against a powerful rush of feeling, the sense-memory of Leo’s lips against his own, his thick hair running through Alfie’s fingers. Pushing it back, he looked around. “Hello?” he called softly.
No reply.
God help him, if this was a joke, he’d burn the damn place down. “Novak?” he called, louder and sharper.
Still nothing.
That’s when he noticed another white envelope propped up on the dark wooden counter, his name scrawled on the front. Fuck’s sake, what was this? Angrily, he ripped open the enveloped and pulled out another note.
My brilliant friend, Leo had written, I don’t have the words to explain myself to you so I thought I’d let our companions of the last year speak for me. I know you’ll understand.
Begin with the first of five Christmas stories by the 19th century’s finest social commentator.
Alfie stared. What on earth was this? “Novak?” he called. “Novak, what the hell?”
No reply, no sense of anyone listening either. The shop felt empty. He was alone save Novak’s… What? Quiz? Scavenger hunt? He was tempted to turn around and walk out—the whole thing was fucking ridiculous—but somehow he found himself rereading the words on Leo’s note, his mind turning them over.
Well, the 19th century’s finest social commentator was usually considered to be Dickens, and the first of his Christmas stories was A Christmas Carol. Glancing around without really intending to look, he found a copy of the book sitting just behind him on the table near the counter. Frowning, afraid he was being played again, he picked it up. It fell open to a page bookmarked with another piece of paper, another note. And there, on the pages of the book, a sentence had been underlined in pencil.
Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.
Alfie frowned. What did Ebenezer Scrooge have to do with anything? Unless… Was Novak comparing himself to that old misery guts? He lifted an eyebrow, aware that he’d made a similar comparison not so long ago. Opening the second note, he saw that Leo had written: More in that wretched classic of French rebellion.
His lips twitched, but he resisted the hovering smile. The wretched classic? He had to mean Les Misérables. Still feeling foolish, he searched around and found the book standing, face out, on the bookshelf next to the table. Another piece of paper marked a page and, sure enough, another quote had been underlined.
He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends.
A noise left Alfie’s lips, a reluctant huff of amusement. Fine, Leo was describing himself. The next clue—what else could he call it?—read: Rather too light, and bright, and sparkling.
He recognized that as Jane Austen’s wry description of Pride and Prejudice. Lips pressed tight, still refusing the smile valiantly trying to break free, Alfie hunted the book down. It sat with the rest of Austen’s works in a display near the window, its cover gleaming in the reflected brilliance of the snow.
Picking it up, Alfie turned to the marked page close to the end of the book where Leo had underlined three sentences:
I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
Something fluttered in Alfie’s chest, a helpless beat of pleasure like a butterfly arrived too early in spring and liable to freeze. The quote was from Darcy’s explanation of how he’d fallen in love. And, Alfie supposed, it was Leo describing how he’d fallen in love. He could relate; it had been much the same for him, in the middle before he knew he’d begun. He read the words again, hearing them in Leo’s quick, smiling voice, and deep down felt a low tremor. Perhaps it’s what cracking ice felt like as the thaw began.
Inside the book was another note. It read: Gilbert Osmond only paid lip service; I mean it.
Gilbert Osmond …? It took him a moment, then came in a flash. Isabel Archer’s asshole husband in Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady. The book lay two shelves below Les Misérables, face up. On the bookmarked page, two quotes had been underlined:
“It has made me better, loving you” and “it has made me wiser and easier and — I won’t pretend to deny — brighter and nicer and even stronger.”
Alfie paused, re-reading the words, gazing at the firm indent made by the pencil beneath them. It has made me better, loving you. He swallowed, found it difficult around the lump in his throat. But his anger loosened, relaxing its vicelike grip on his chest, and he took his first deep breath in hours.
The next note said, Dedicated to a happier year.
Alfie smiled, couldn’t help it. He understood right away: E.M. Forster’s novel, Maurice. It was that rarest of beasts in gay literature—a classic with a happy ending for the two lovers—and it was one of Alfie’s all-time favorite books. He’d listened to it countless times. Forster had dedicated the manuscript, published after his death, ‘To a Happier Year’.
The well-thumbed copy he found sitting next to the cash register had to be Leo’s own, with its cracked spine and dog-eared pages. Certainly, this copy was in no condition to sell. They’d talked a lot about this novel over the months of their friendship—they’d even watched the movie together.
Alfie picked up the book carefully, studied the sepia toned picture on the cover of two Edwardian gents, arms linked, as they sat together on a park bench. Then he lifted it to his face, riffled the pages and breathed in the papery scent. When he exhaled, his breath shook.
There were underlinings and scrawls in the margin throughout the book—evidence of it’s meaning to Leo. But Alfie turned quickly to the page marked by the next note, and read the paragraph Leo had chosen.
He snuggled closer, more awake than he pretended, warm, sinewy, happy. Happiness overwhelmed Maurice too. He moved, felt the answering grip and forgot what he wanted to say. Light drifted in upon them from the outside world where it was still raining. A strange hotel, a casual refuge protected them from their enemies a little longer.
Maurice and Alec, in love and happy against the odds. Alfie sniffed, felt his eyes prickle. Forster might have been describing Alfie’s own morning, waking with Leo in his arms—warm, sinewy, happy. Overwhelmed by happiness. Yes, that’s how he’d felt. Exactly that. And maybe, he realized with an aching lurch, so had Leo…
A swift rise of emotion caught him off guard, brought tears to his eyes, but he forced it back down with a harsh grunt. The enemy awaiting Alfie hadn’t been the law or social ostracism, it had been Leo’s colossal fuck-up. His denial, his deception. His disdain. But, God, if Alfie could have gone back to that morning again, lived forever in that liminal space, he would have taken the chance in a heartbeat.
“Damn you, Leo Novak,” he growled into the silent bookstore. “Look what you’ve done to me.”
Once he’d gathered himself again, he looked at the note that had fallen out of Maurice. It said, A heroine whom no-one but the author will much like.
That was Austen’s famous quote about Emma, Leo’s favorite Austen novel. At least, it had been LLB’s favorite... And it was the very book Alfie had been listening to on his way to the Whiskey Jack the night Leo had seen him waiting and walked away.
He found the book on the display near the window and, when he turned to the marked page, saw that Leo had highlighted several lines. A couple of them twice, for emphasis.
He had misinterpreted her feelings… They were combined only of anger against herself, mortification, and deep concern.
This was Emma, having been told a few hard truths by Knightley, the man she would soon realize she loved. It was her confession of guilt, of remorse.
Never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved at any circumstance in her life. She was most forcibly struck. The truth of his representation there was no denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal, so cruel…?
And there was more, underlined by two thick strokes of Leo’s pencil.
Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel it more. She never had been so depressed.
Alfie got the message. Leo was sorry. But Emma had insulted an old friend, Leo had done worse—he’d lied to Alfie, denied him. Broken his heart. At least, half an hour ago it had felt broken. Now…?
There were places on the beach where two waves collided, crashing against and over each other in messy turmoil. That’s pretty much how he felt standing there alone in Leo’s bookstore. Anger, loss, amusement, and, yes, affection, all crashing together in a hot mess of confusion.
He flipped through the book, pulled out the next note. It read: Your resentful, passionate captain.
That had to be Captain Wentworth, from Persuasion. Alfie’s favorite Austen hero. He found the book right there, in the display with Emma. Picking it up, he wondered if it was the same copy Leo had carried that night at the Whiskey Jack. Had he hidden it in his bag when he sat down at Alfie’s table? What would have happened if he’d brought it out, placed it next to Alfie’s copy and told him the truth? He considered the idea with a cooler head than when Leo had asked him the same question, and grudgingly admitted that he would have felt upset, shocked, and pretty disappointed. He might even have walked away. It was an unsettling admission.
Shaking off the thought, he turned back to the book and found the lines Leo had marked. And as he read, his fool heart leaped in his chest.
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.
Wentworth’s ardent love letter, the most romantic moment in all of Austen’s novels, and Leo was directing that heartfelt plea to Alfie. Directing all of this to him, all these snatches of books they’d read together, discussed together, loved and hated together. He was telling the story of their love affair through the books they’d shared, and the impact was…dizzying.
Thoughtfully, he pulled out the next clue. Only it wasn’t a clue, it was a letter in Leo’s now familiar spiky script. Alfie read it with a heart beating high in his chest, hardly knowing what he wanted it to say but no more able to stop reading than to stop breathing.
Alfie
I’ve been an utter fool. That night at the Whiskey Jack I was a judgmental prick. Later, a gutless coward. But understand this: yours is the most exciting, amusing, perceptive mind I’ve ever known. I’ve loved talking to you, I’ve loved listening to you. I respect you utterly.
I offer a thousand apologies for fucking up, but I don’t dare ask for your forgiveness. That’s for you to offer, if you wish, and I fear I don’t deserve it.
The Callaghan’s Christmas party is tonight at Hanworth Hall. I’ll be waiting outside at seven. If what we’ve shared has meant half as much to you as it has to me (which is to say the whole world), then meet me there and, perhaps, we can begin a new chapter together. If not, I’ll understand and wish you only happiness.
Yours, always.
Leo (LLB-LeoLovesBooks)
A strange sound filled the room and it took Alfie a moment to realize it was his own rasping breaths. Leo’s note trembled in his hand while all around him books lay open, their words rising up to fill the air—an apology, a declaration, a love letter in literary quotes.
It was touching. It was romantic.
But was it enough?