Chapter Four
Camaro89: It’s okay that you didn’t come tonight. I’m sure you had a good reason, even if it was only that you were scared. I was scared too. Just tell me you’re okay.
Leo lay in the sleepless dark, staring at the blue glow of his phone.
It was the eighth message from Camaro89—Carter—and he hadn’t replied to any. How could he? What could he possibly say?
He was chewed up by emotion. A rootless anger lashing out, directionless. But as much as he wanted to blame Carter, he couldn’t. He’d seen the disappointment in the man’s face last night, knew he was as much a victim as Leo himself; the universe had played a cruel trick on them both. And maybe Leo should have said something in the bar last night—he’d come close—but Carter’s words had stopped him. In the face of Carter’s hostility, he’d been unable to render himself so vulnerable. More than that, he’d realized that the cost of telling Carter the truth would be losing Camaro89 forever. And he couldn’t stand that.
Yet reconciling the two into one man felt impossible. He simply couldn’t wrap his thoughts around the fact that the mind he’d fallen in love with belonged to a man he couldn’t abide. A man who despised him. The fact that Leo was the only one privy to the secret just made it worse, trapped him in this absurd nightmare. And the one person he’d have turned to for solace, the only friend whose advice he’d have trusted, was the one person he couldn’t tell.
He felt bereft.
When dawn finally broke, a faint lightening of a heavy snow-filled sky, Leo dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. The hot water pounding against his skin helped, warming him from the outside even if it couldn’t reach the chill inside. Then he dragged on some random clothes, tried not to remember how carefully he’d planned his outfit last night, grabbed his heaviest coat and trudged downstairs, through the shop, and along the street to Dee’s.
The morning was sharp with the promise of snow, Christmas lights glowing against the steely sky, but where yesterday the promise of the holidays had lifted his spirits, today it only added an extra weight. Yesterday, he’d known he’d spend Christmas with Camaro89—either online or in person. Today, he knew he’d spend it alone.
What a horrible joke.
Bells jingled cheerily as he opened the door to Dee’s, the welcome aroma of coffee and baking hitting him as he stepped into a wave of warmth that fogged up his glasses. Dee lifted a hand to wave as she finished serving another customer—Liz, Leo thought vaguely, a teacher up at the school. Swiping off his glasses, Leo slid into one of the chairs at an empty table to wait, gaze fixed out the window. Warm white lights hung in swags between the buildings and a large Christmas tree was being erected in the church parking lot opposite. There was some kind of event at the weekend, he recalled. Dee was organizing Christmas caroling or a market or something. He couldn’t quite remember the details. He thought it was for charity.
Looking at the preparations through a window misty with condensation felt appropriate. Everything was out there behind a fog, he was in here alone: it was pretty much how he’d always experienced the world—until he met Camaro89.
With a sigh, he shucked off his coat and was cleaning his steamed up glasses on the hem of his sweatshirt when Dee set a vanilla latte down in front of him, followed by a large almond croissant—his treat of choice. He looked up, her face blurry without his glasses. “What’s this?”
“On the house,” she said, sliding into the seat opposite. “You look like you need cheering up.”
“Do I?” He put his glasses back on and Dee’s expression came into focus, uncompromising but steady.
“Are you okay?” she said. “How did things go last night?”
He picked up a sachet of sugar and ripped it open, dumping it into his latte. It was an extra sugar kind of morning. “Not great.” The words came out strangled and he realized how much he didn’t want to admit she’d been right.
But Dee wasn’t triumphant. She just put her hand over his and squeezed. “What happened, honey?”
She’d never called him ‘honey’ before. He almost smiled. “You’ll never believe it,” he said, stirring in the sugar, watching the whirlpool of coffee spin around the handle of his spoon.
“Go ahead and try me.”
He flicked a quick glance up, found himself caught by her steady gaze. “Turned out…” He shook his head, blew out a breath. “Turned out I knew the guy.”
Dee’s eyebrows rose. “From where?”
“Here.” He bit his lip against the thickening of his throat. “It was Carter.”
“Alfie?” Dee barked out a laugh. “You’re kidding me.”
He shrugged. “Told you you’d never believe it.”
“No, no,” she said, still laughing. “I believe it. I always thought that boy had hidden depths. So, what did he say? Was he as surprised as you?”
Leo shifted in his seat and took a sip of coffee. Then another.
“Leo?” Dee sounded suspicious. And when Leo still didn’t answer, she said, “You did tell him, didn’t you? You did not let that poor boy sit there waiting.”
“I— No, I met him. But… He was so obnoxious, Dee. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him.”
She stared. “So you just left him there?”
“Hey, he told me to piss off. So I did.”
She winced, shaking her head. “But— What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know.” He stared out the window again, watching the men securing the Christmas tree in place. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Nothing? Uh-uh. That is not an option. You can’t leave it like this, Leo. It’s not fair.”
“Fair on who?” He turned back to her. “Nothing about this is fair.”
Her expression softened and she patted his hand again. “Listen, you guys got off on the wrong foot last year. But I’m telling you, Alfie Carter is a real sweetheart—and he is the guy you’ve been talking to all these months.” She smiled. “Maybe there’s more to him than you think?”
But Leo shook his head. He just couldn’t knit Carter and Camaro89 together into one person. “Maybe he was getting help from someone else.” He winced at the idea. “Christ, what if I’ve been falling in love with…with his assistant or someone? What if it’s some kind of twisted Cyrano De Bergerac situation?”
Dee looked sceptical, but all she said was, “Well there’s only one way to find out. Tell Alfie the truth. You know you have to, right?”
“No. I don’t know that.” He slumped in his seat, rubbing at his eyes. “I can’t even think straight. I— I didn’t really sleep last night.”
Behind Dee, the door opened. Leo’s heart jolted but it was only a couple of teenagers on their way to school. He sank back in his seat, relaxing as the door swung closed—only to be stopped halfway and pushed back open by none other than Alfie Carter.
Of course. Of fucking course.
Glancing over her shoulder, Dee stood up and fixed Leo with a meaningful look. “Okay, get your head together,” she said softly, “but then you do need to tell him, Leo. It’s only right.”
Leo wasn’t sure he agreed. What would be the point in making Carter as miserable as himself? Besides, if he told him… Well, that would end everything, wouldn’t it? And as twisted up as this was, he wasn’t ready to lose Camaro89 just yet.
While Dee went back behind the counter, Leo’s gaze fixed on Carter. He was only visible in profile as he ordered his coffee but he looked tired, his shoulders slumped, hair hidden under a black woolen hat. Unshaven, Leo realized, admiring the dark scruff on Carter’s jaw. He was an attractive man, no doubt about it. Rugged. Handsome. Nothing like he’d imagined Camaro89.
As he watched, Carter pulled out his phone, looked at the screen, and shoved it back into his pocket. Leo’s heart skipped a beat or several, tense with the realization that Carter was waiting for him to reply.
That he was hurting.
With trembling fingers, Leo pulled out his phone and re-read the last messages from Camaro89. It was strange how his heart ached for his friend at the same time it sank when he remembered Carter’s belligerence last night. But the longer he stared at his phone, the more he understood that Dee was right about one thing.
He couldn’t leave it like this.
Swallowing hard, heart racing, he hit reply.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there last night. I’d intended to be, but when the time came I just couldn’t. His throat closed around rising emotion and, blinking back tears, he added, Your friendship means a lot to me. I’m sorry it ended the way it did.
That, at least, had the virtue of being true.
With his eyes fixed on Carter’s back, Leo hit send.
The result was instantaneous. Carter jumped, reaching for the phone in his back pocket, and yanking it out so fast he fumbled it. Leo had never understood the phrase ‘heart in your mouth’ until that moment, sitting there watching Carter’s tense shoulders as he read the message and started typing a response.
In his hand, Leo’s phone pinged and—panicking—he quickly turned it to silent. But Carter hadn’t heard, he was typing a second message on his phone. Leo closed his eyes, the sudden flood of adrenaline making him jittery.
He couldn’t bear to read Carter’s reply.
He couldn’t bear not to.
Holding his breath, he looked down. The message displayed over the lock screen.
Camaro89: Does it have to end?
Leo’s heart jolted in relief and dismay. His gaze flashed to Carter, still tapping at his phone, his expression serious and intent.
Oh God. Oh God, what should he do?
***
Alfie couldn’t breathe.
Around him he was distantly aware of sounds—people talking, Christmas music playing, the hiss and splutter of the coffee machine—but his world had narrowed to the screen in his hand and his last message.
No reply.
He felt nauseous. Partly, it was relief that LLB was okay, that he’d replied at all. Partly it was a desperate frustration. His only tenuous connection to the man he’d fallen in love with was this damned phone, the future of their friendship hung by a thread, and all Alfie could do to save it was type out words. He’d rather reach into the screen and grab LLB by his shoulders, hug him, make him understand how he felt. But words were all he had, so that’s what he’d have to use.
We never have to meet if you don’t want to. We can just keep talking like this. I don’t want it to end. I don’t have any other friends I can talk to like I talk to you.
He felt a lump in his throat when he hit send. Please, he begged silently. Please.
Three dots started dancing and Alfie’s heart jackknifed, eyes fixed on the screen. And then a message appeared. Alfie could hardly read it, his gaze skipping past words in his haste to understand their meaning.
LLB: I want to keep talking too. But let’s not meet. I’m sorry, but I can’t.
His knees gave way as he sank onto the closest empty chair, a bewildering mixture of relief and disappointment making him lightheaded. He wished he knew what had changed since yesterday, but at least this was something. He still had LLB’s friendship, and that was a lot.
While he tried to make sense of his feelings another message popped up on the screen.
LLB: I don’t exactly have friends in real life. People don’t tend to like me.
Alfie couldn’t believe that. LLB was so open and funny and cute.
LLB: People think I’m pompous. I don’t have a winning personality, I guess.
Alfie hesitated over his reply. Not knowing LLB in real life made it difficult to judge, but it was difficult to imagine anyone not adoring the man he’d come to know over the last twelve months.
Maybe they just don’t know you, he suggested eventually. Maybe you should go out there and win them over. He bit his lip, then dared to add, You won me over.
His only reply was a smiley face and a heart. And then he was distracted from his phone by a sudden kafuffle. Glancing up he saw Leo Novak tripping over a chair on his way out of the coffee shop. He seemed to be in a hurry and, in contrast to last night, looked as scruffy as Alfie had ever seen him—a worn-looking sweatshirt over his ubiquitous skinny jeans, a heavy parker he was pulling on as he walked, his dark hair peeking out from beneath a dark beany hat. As always, Novak looked cute, but today he also looked pale and emotional. Alfie noted with surprise that he was scrubbing his eyes with the back of one hand as he yanked open the door and left, striding down Main Street.
Feeling upset himself after the emotional turmoil of the last twelve hours, Alfie experienced an unexpected pang of sympathy for Novak. He’d been a dick to the guy last night, and in retrospect Alfie wondered whether Novak had only sat with him in the bar because his own date hadn’t worked out.
Still watching Novak’s retreating figure, that precise, neat walk of his, Alfie stood up and went back to the counter. Dee had already made his coffee—an unpretentious Americano—and it sat waiting for him. “What’s up with Novak?” he said as he pulled out his wallet. Dee was unusually silent. Silent enough that he lifted his eyes to hers. “Dee?”
She gave a tight smile. “Maybe you should ask him.”
“Uh…” He pulled out five bucks. “We’re not exactly friends. You know that.”
Another silence as she took his money and fetched the change. “What I know,” she said, handing over a fistful of coins, “is that Leo Novak is lonely. He could use a friend like you.”
It was on the tip of Alfie’s tongue to say, Then he shouldn’t act like such a prick. But then he remembered LLB, and how people in real life didn’t know what a sweet guy he was, and he figured, in the spirit of spreading good karma, maybe he should reach out to Novak in the way he hoped someone might reach out to LLB.
With a smile for Dee, he took his coffee and headed out into the freezing morning. Last night’s promise of snow still hung heavy in the air, a few flurries blowing about in the bitter onshore breeze. He could see Novak at the end of Main Street. He’d walked past his store and was heading for the boardwalk. Alfie followed.
In the summer season, the promenade was full of life—ice cream vans surrounded by kids, the Surf Hut staff taking newbie surfers into the water, folks strolling along the boardwalk. But New Milton was a different place in the long dark winter. Quiet and empty. The benches running along the sea front, always full in the summer, stood desolate and there was nobody down there but Novak. He stood leaning on the railing and staring out toward the ocean which sat like slate beneath crouching clouds, the surf hissing against the beach.
Alfie hesitated, unsure how to approach. Then he remembered he had an apology to make and figured that was as good a way as any to start.
“Hey,” he said, joining Novak at the railing. “So I wanted to say I’m sorry about last night.”
Novak jumped, staring at him with that same deer-in-headlights look Alfie had found irritating yesterday. Today, somehow, less so. Maybe because the guy looked so distressed. “What?” Novak said in a scratchy voice, eyes wide behind his glasses.
“For being an asshole.” Novak just stared at him as if he didn’t understand, so Alfie soldiered on. “I wasn’t…in the best frame of mind when you ran into me at the bar. Sorry if I was a jerk.”
“Oh.” Novak turned back to the ocean. Was that relief on his face, or disappointment? Hard to tell. But it was a stark expression, some strong emotion Alfie couldn’t figure out. “That’s okay,” Novak said. “I— I guess I wasn’t expecting anything different.”
Alfie nodded tiredly. He felt fragile after a sleepless night of worry and disappointment, raw if he was being honest, and didn’t have the energy for his petty feud with Novak. Somehow, it felt senseless now. “How about we call it quits?” he suggested. “Start over.”
Novak turned and blinked at him. “Start over?”
“Sure.” He tried a smile and when Novak’s lips curved faintly in response, he felt a surprising pulse of warmth for the guy. Alfie held out his hand and, after a brief hesitation, Novak shook it. His grip was firm, even if his slender fingers felt icy, and the handshake lingered a couple beats longer than Alfie expected.
When Novak let go, he shoved his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat a couple of times before he said, “I should go open up, I guess. For what it’s worth.”
“Business slow?” Alfie said, as they turned back toward town together. In the distance he could see Don Brennan, from the Majestic Hotel, giving orders to the guys erecting the tree in the church parking lot, ready for the Christmas Market.
Novak shrugged. “It’s winter in New Milton.”
“I thought Christmas would be big for you.”
“Not really. Who has time to poke about in a used bookstore when they can one-click anything they need and have it delivered?”
Alfie slid his gaze back to Novak, took in the pensive press of his lips. On impulse, he said, “You should run a stall at the market on Friday.”
“The market?”
Alfie nodded toward the Christmas tree. “Dee’s helping organize it. Josh Newton used to do this carol singing thing every year with the kids from the school, but since he’s not around now Dee’s organized a Christmas market instead. You pay thirty bucks for a table, and then you can sell whatever you like. Might boost your Christmas sales?”
Novak looked hesitant. “It’s probably too late to—”
“No way! Believe me, the more the merrier. In fact, we’ve got a meeting about it tonight to finish up the final arrangements. Why don’t you come along? Seriously, you’d be more than welcome and having a stall at the market could be good for business. You’ve got some Christmas titles you could sell, right?” He made a rueful face. “I’ll be handing out flyers, but auto repairs are nobody’s idea of a merry Christmas.”
“No, I guess not.” Novak gave a cautious smile, and—Hell, it was transformative. He’d always been cute, but that shy smile was adorable. His eyes crinkled, a dimple appeared in one cheek, and Alfie felt a bizarre impulse to loop an arm around his shoulders and protect that fragile mirth. He put the urge down to lack of sleep and the relief of finally—finally—hearing from LLB this morning.
Even so, he had to clear his throat before saying, “Meeting starts at seven at Dee’s. And—if you need further encouragement—she always bakes something awesome to bribe people into coming along.”
Novak nodded, hands dug deep into his pockets. “I’ll think about it.” And then, meeting Alfie’s eyes with a cautious look, “Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome. I wish I’d done it before.”
He thought, with satisfaction, that LLB would be proud of him.