Chapter Nine
Sunlight streamed in through the bedroom window, smelling like coffee.
No. That couldn’t be right. Leo pried open one eye and found himself looking up at the handsome figure of Alfie Carter, perched next to him on the bed, holding a steaming mug. He smiled. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
Leo blinked. “What time is it?”
“Just after eight.” He offered the coffee and Leo struggled fuzzily to sit up.
“Thanks.”
His voice sounded scratchy and Alfie grinned, reaching out to tousle Leo’s hair. “That’s some impressive bedhead you’ve got going on there.”
“Oh God.” He reached up to flatten it down. His hair was stupidly thick and he couldn’t do a thing with it. “Needs a cut.”
Alfie’s grin softened. “Nah, I like it.” He leaned in and kissed Leo lightly on the lips. “We should get going, though. We told Dee we’d be at the hall by eight-thirty.”
“I need shower before I go anywhere,” Leo said, horrified by the idea of confronting Dee in his current state. If she guessed what had happened between him and Alfie, who knew what she’d say—or do.
Alfie’s eyebrows twitched up, one hand sliding along Leo’s thigh to where his cock was already showing interest in the situation. “Wanna share?”
“We’ll be late.”
Alfie took the barely-drunk coffee from his hands, set it on the nightstand. “That sounds like a challenge,” he said, and leaned in to claim another, deeper kiss.
In the end, they didn’t make it to the shower, chasing each other to release with hands and mouths right there where the winter sunlight warmed the bed, bringing out the auburn hints in Alfie’s hair, the golden tan of his skin glowing like copper.
By the time they rushed out of the house, splitting a toasted bagel between them on the run, it was five after nine and they were laughing too hard for Leo to worry about Dee. They plowed their way through a dazzling fall of new snow and up to the church hall. Being a Saturday, the streets were relatively quiet, and with the blanketing effect of the snowfall the world felt hushed, altered by its new coat of white into somewhere magical. Like a snowflake, Leo thought as they crunched along side-by-side, this moment was unique in its brief, fragile perfection.
Of course, it couldn’t last.
Dee met them at the door to the hall, her smile fading instantly. She must have noticed the way Alfie was standing so close to Leo, the tender touch of his hand on Leo’s back, the glow of happy contentment in his eyes. Maybe she saw the same in Leo’s face. But whatever it was, Dee saw something. Leo watched her joining the dots. His stomach clenched, a swooping dread chilling him deeper than last night’s storm.
“Don’s struggling with the gazebos,” Dee said, with jolly brittleness. “Alfie, honey, go and give him a hand would you? Leo and I can handle the tables.”
Alfie agreed with an obliging, “Yes, ma’am”, and left Leo with a quick, intimate smile that touched him like the brief kiss they’d shared before stepping out into the snow.
He swallowed, and tried not to catch Dee’s eye as he set about folding down the tables ready for the rental company to collect. He was fooling nobody, least of all Dee.
“Somebody looks happy this morning,” she said, coming to help him unclip and fold down the table legs. “Positively glowing.”
Ignoring the flush of heat in his cheeks, Leo said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh come on, Leo.”
“What?” He gave her his most innocent look, collapsing the set of legs at his end of the table and helping Dee turn it onto its side. “Where are we putting these? Against that wall?”
She nodded, and they carried it over between them. “Tell me he knows,” she said in a low voice. “Tell me you told him before you slept together.”
Panic. A hot flare in the center of his chest, driving out everything else. “Who said we slept together?”
“Don’t play the fool with me, Leo. You think I can’t see what’s right before my eyes?”
“Maybe your glasses are a little fogged up,” he suggested primly. “Ever think of that?”
She fixed him with a steady look over her pink frames. “Alfie’s looking at you like you hung the moon.”
Ignoring that, he headed over to the next table and flipped it onto its side to unclip the folding legs. “Truth is, Dee, it’s none of your business what I—”
“Alfie’s my business,” she said, joining him. “Hell, I used to babysit that boy when he was nothing but a scrawny kid. So don’t you tell me what’s my business in this town.”
Chastened, he ducked his head but didn’t back down. “Well, maybe Alfie is your business, but I’m not. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
After a silence, she said, “Just tell me he knows. Because, if he doesn’t, I’m gonna tell him right now. I’m gonnna walk over there and—”
“You can’t!” he hissed, mortified by her rising voice. And angry too. He was going to tell Alfie, but on his own terms and in his own time. “You don’t understand. It’s complicated.”
Dee made a disparaging noise in the back of her throat. “Uh-huh.”
“It is!” Panic gripped him; she’d ruin everything. “Look, I didn’t sleep with him, okay?” He flushed at the lie, but what choice did he have? “I wouldn’t do that.”
Silence.
Dee’s expression changed, her gaze shifting past Leo’s shoulder to something behind him. And Leo’s stomach plummeted. Shit. Stiffly, knowing what he’d find, Leo turned around.
Alfie stood there frowning, his gaze averted. “I’m, uh… Don needs a screwdriver. I’m just gonna go fetch one of mine.”
Leo felt a sickening twist in the pit of his stomach. But he couldn’t speak. What could he say that wouldn’t make things worse? Apologize to Alfie and let Dee know the truth, listen to her pour gasoline onto the fire?
Do you know who this is, Alfie? Do you know the secret he’s been keeping?
White noise buzzed in his ears and through narrowing vision he watched Alfie push open the door, admitting a dazzling lance of sunlight as he left.
It speared Leo in the eyes, blinding him and skewering him to the spot.
***
Alfie stepped out into the brilliant cold, glad of an excuse to escape.
Leo’s denial stung like a slap. All the more so because, if it had been up to Alfie, he’d have been shouting his feelings from the rooftops. The fact that Leo couldn’t even bring himself to tell Dee suggested he felt differently, and Alfie didn’t know what to make of that.
Or, rather, he was afraid he knew exactly what to make of it: Leo was embarrassed. He was ashamed to have slept with Alfie, and didn’t want anyone to know.
Hunching in on himself, he stomped home through the snow. He knew he could be touchy about other people’s opinions of him, and he knew it could make him overreact. Thinking about it rationally, there were plenty of reasons why Leo wouldn’t want to discuss his sex life with Dee—New Milton’s biggest gossip. That right there was one very good reason. Add to it the fact that Leo was a pretty private guy, and that it had only happened last night, and it made perfect sense.
And yet…
An unwelcome memory surfaced: No, Dee, I’m sorry but I require at a least basic level of literacy, even in a hookup.
This wasn’t the first time Leo had denied Alfie in front of Dee, was it?
Slipping into his house, Alfie dumped his snowy boots at the door and paced into the kitchen to fetch a screwdriver from the drawer. He avoided looking at the sofa where they’d made out, where they’d cuddled up together to watch TV, where he’d felt so ridiculously happy last night.
Last night…
He sighed. Last night he’d thought he’d found everything he was longing for—a companion of his heart and soul. But now he was second-guessing himself, wondering whether he’d imagined the emotion in Leo’s eyes, his tenderness when they’d made love. And making love is exactly what it had felt like to Alfie—not fucking, not hooking-up, but deeper and more profound. Christ, it had felt like falling in love.
He slumped down onto one of the bistro stalls at the breakfast bar, head in his hands. Two used mugs sat by the sink, and the sight brought a stupid lump to his throat. He’d thought they were starting a new story together, but now he was afraid he and Leo were on very different pages.
Suddenly he felt unbearably alone. Confused and lost. He needed to talk to someone, but who could he—?
LLB. Yes, of course.
He yanked out his phone as if grabbing for a lifeline and tapped out a message.
It might be weird to ask you about this, but I need some advice and you’re genuinely my best friend. Are you around?
He sent his words out into the ether, holding his breath as he prayed for a quick response.
A moment later the distinctive ping of a phone alert tinkled through the silence. Not his phone. It came from the other side of the room. Alfie looked up, surprised. Then his gaze arrowed in on Leo’s billfold and phone, sitting where he’d left them last night on the end table next to the sofa.
Alfie’s heart lurched, one step ahead of his floundering mind. On stiff legs he crossed the living room and picked up Leo’s phone, looking at it as if from a distance, observing from afar. Over the lock screen sat a message.
It might be weird to ask you about this, but I need some advice and you’re genuinely my best friend. Are you around?
For a moment, he didn’t understand. How had his message to LLB gotten onto Leo’s phone? He didn’t even have Leo’s number. But of course there was only one explanation. Improbable though it was, it remained the only possible answer.
Leo was LLB.
“Alfie?” He spun, startled to find Leo hovering in the doorway. “The front door wasn’t locked, and I wanted to…” His gaze fell on the two phones in Alfie’s hands and his face turned ashen. “Shit. Oh shit.”
Leo knew. Of course he knew; he must have known since the night he walked into the Whiskey Jack and saw Alfie sitting there with his copy of Persuasion. In the fluorescent glare of that truth, everything else became clear: the ‘coincidence’ of Leo’s taste in books being so close to LLB’s, the inexplicable connection Alfie had felt they shared, the vagueness of LLB’s recent texts and his indifference to Alfie’s friendship with Leo. It all became blindingly obvious.
Leo was LLB, and Alfie was a fucking idiot not to have realized.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said, embarrassed by the rasp in his voice. “Was it—? Was it a joke?” Horror gripped him, closing his throat. “Has this all been a…a…game to you?”
“No!” Leo took half a step forward, hand outstretched. “God, no. Alfie, listen—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anger started to build now, burning away his shock, leaving only the ugly bare-boned truth behind. “Were you—?” He had to swallow around a sharp knot of pain. “That night in the Whiskey Jack… You were disappointed, weren’t you?” His worst fear had been realized. “You couldn’t stand that…that you’d fallen for a dumbass like me. Could you?”
“I—”
“Don’t deny it. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Leo hung his head, shoulders slumping. “No,” he said, so quiet Alfie could barely hear. “I don’t deny it. You’re right. That’s what I thought.”
Alfie sucked in a breath, dismayed by how it trembled. “So you thought you’d have a laugh at my expense? Poor, dumb Alfie Carter, sitting in a bar waiting for a guy who’s never gonna show up.”
“No!” Leo’s head jerked up. “It wasn’t like that. I was upset. I didn’t know what to say or—”
“The truth! That’s what you should have said. You—” He shook his head, the ramifications pouring in too fast. “When you kept messaging me after you knew who I was, were you mocking me?”
“No, I swear.” Leo’s voice shook. “I just didn’t know what to do. I was afraid—”
“So you thought you’d pretend to be two fucking people and play me like a dumb puppet? Great choice.” He spun away, blinking through hot tears to stare out the window.
After a long, intolerable silence broken only by the sound of Alfie’s own ragged breathing, Leo said, “I always intended to tell you. Dee kept pushing me to—”
“Dee?” Alfie swung back around. “Dee knows?” A new wave of humiliation washed over him. “Christ, who else?”
“No one.”
Alfie wasn’t sure he believed him, he wasn’t sure he believed a word Leo said. “So you and Dee were, what? Conspiring? Deciding when to spring the fucking surprise?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Leo said faintly. “Don’t blame her. Dee said all along that I should tell you. I’m the one who…who fucked up.”
“Yeah,” Alfie growled. “Yeah, you did.”
Leo flinched but Alfie ignored it, told himself didn’t care about liars. Leo Novak could go to hell and take LLB with him.
“At first I was…upset,” Leo said in a shaky voice. “You weren’t who I was expecting. And then, later, I didn’t know how to tell you. I was afraid you’d…” His eyes were impossibly wide behind his glasses, the sea-glass green washed out by the cold morning light. “I was afraid you’d hate me.”
“Yeah, well.” Alfie’s chest squeezed around his leaden heart. “You got that right.”
Leo’s gaze dropped to the floor. He said nothing.
“You lied to me. You let me sit in that fucking bar thinking someone I— Fuck, someone I thought I loved didn’t want me. You…you pretended to be him—“
“I wasn’t pretending.”
“Even yesterday, Leo. Even fucking yesterday. I can’t—” He was walking then, desperate to get away. “I can’t process this. I can’t imagine how fucking stupid you think I am, how little fucking respect you have for me, that you’d do this to—”
“Alfie, wait.” Leo grabbed his arm, trying to keep him from reaching the door.
But Alfie shook him off, voice cracking. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
Hands raised in surrender, Leo said, “What would you have done? If I’d been the one to get there first that night, what would you have done? Don’t pretend you’d have been happy.”
“I don’t know!” Alfie snapped. He didn’t want to think about that, angry at the needling spike of doubt it introduced. “I don’t know what I’d have done, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have lied. And I wouldn’t have treated you like a dumb fucking idiot, either.”
“I’m sorry,” Leo said, arms dropping to his side. “I’m sorry I screwed up, but I don’t think you’re an idiot. Alfie, I… I love you.”
“Bullshit.” But Leo’s confession agonized him, pierced him with its broken promise. “This isn’t how you treat people you love.”
“Let me explain why—”
“No.” Alfie shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed his coat. “I don’t care. I don’t care why you did it. I don’t even know who you are.”
With that he slammed out of his own house and stalked away into the frosty morning, leaving his heart in pieces in the snow.