Chapter 7

7

Thirty minutes and five Tube stops later, we’re in Soho where the streets are already busy. I dodge Christmas shoppers and walk briskly towards our destination with Reece one step behind me. I only pause once we’re in Carnaby Street. “Hold on a tick, will you?”

Taking a snap of both me and what hangs high above this busy walkway isn’t easy, but Mum says Gran only really smiles if the photos I send home include yours truly, so, like it says in the PA handbook, I persist.

I also have a horrible feeling my tongue makes an appearance as I try to frame a shot to include at least part of my face.

I’m jostled not once by shoppers, but twice. A third time comes with Reece getting up close and personal, and I’m shielded. Sheltered. Carnaby Street might as well be empty instead of crowded when he says, “Here, let me.”

He takes my phone, crouches, and, a moment later, I get to send a rare shot of an iconic street sign spelling Welcome and my whole face.

“Thanks.” I shove my phone back into my pocket only to take it out again a few minutes later outside Liberty of London’s grand mock-Tudor frontage. This time, I don’t even try to take my own selfie. “Sorry, sorry. Would you mind…?” I gesture up at this black-and-white timbered building. “Could you try to get the window display in as well as me?”

He does a much better job than I could have managed without him.

I cradle my phone when he returns it, and there I am on the screen, only a tiny bit mottled with pink at having an audience for what must seem oddly tourist-like behaviour from a full-time city dweller. “They’re for my gran, because…”

“London is life?” he offers.

“Yes!” I pounce on that descriptor. “Exactly. And she loves to see it.” Him nodding and those crow’s feet seeming to soften makes it so easy to get chatty about myself rather than about business. “She brought me here every Christmas.”

“To Liberty’s? Want to go in?”

We don’t have time for strolling through a winter wonderland of homeware and festive decorations, but I accept his offer, although I don’t linger over baubles, garlands, or Advent candles. I inhale the scent of cinnamon and vanilla and keep moving, all while explaining more than I could have predicted about how I spent my Christmas breaks when I was younger. Reece being a professional listener must be the reason. He’s so good at letting me rattle on. I must bore him rigid when we reach the fabric department.

“Gran was a housekeeper until she retired. At a big country house where Gramps ran the stables after he left the Blues and Royals and stopped being a Horse Guard.”

“Here?”

“In London? Yes. It’s where they met. Later, she virtually ran a stately home. Had lots of staff to manage, tons of parties to plan. She still found time to make sure I had fun each Christmas when Mum and Dad were busy at work.”

We’re surrounded by vibrant bolts of Liberty print cotton. By linen. And by velvet I can’t help touching. I’m drawn to a basket of off-cuts where fabric is printed with a street map of this city. Silk shimmers when I shake it out. “Gorgeous.”

“Yes,” Reece breathes. He clears his throat before adding, “How did she make sure you had fun?”

“By not treating me like I was too young to be useful. She taught me how to make a to-do list. How to be organised, so life ran as smooth as this for her employers.”

I don’t think. I rub printed silk against his cheek and am instantly flustered into folding the fabric tightly and speaking even faster.

“We planned projects together, like cutting down one of my grandfather’s old Horse Guard cloaks so it fit me. She taught me how to sew on his regimental buttons. And how to line it with silk.”

I can still feel the little scrap she sewed inside my school trouser pocket for days I needed a reminder that Horse Guards were brave on the outside but soft-centred like Gramps. I could be brave too when big boys laughed and pointed, all I had to do was touch silk and remember.

Now I gesture around us. “She bought everything I needed right here at Liberty’s when I was little.” I leave that busy blue off-cut behind and snort. “When I was little? I still am.”

Silk suddenly drapes me.

Reece turns me to face a mirror. “You’re one of the biggest people I know.” I’m cloaked in blue. It catches the light, as iridescent as I feel when he adds, “At least your vocabulary is.” Reece echoes what I spent the last few days thinking. “Missed it over the weekend.” He pulls the silk away to refold it, and I could make a much tidier job of that for him if I could move.

I can’t.

I’m fixed to the spot until he says, “Want a photo for your Gran?”

I do. He takes one of me hemmed in by festive fabrics, which gets an almost instant response.

Mum: She’s loving these pics!!!

Mum: Thanks, love.

I’m not sure what makes me feel more of a hero—silk around my shoulders or Mum’s confirmation that I’m making a sad day better, but my God, I can’t stop yapping all the way to our actual destination.

“Gran always made a special trip here at Christmas to revisit all the special places her and Gramps went together when they met. Places he’d send her postcards of before they married. These days, I try to grab daytime shots if I’m out and about for Rex. Then I make special trips into town to take nighttime ones when the lights really sparkle. The angels over Regent Street are her favourites. Bonus points if it’s snowing.”

Reece doesn’t walk one step behind me now. He’s beside me, still listening. I can’t tell if he thinks my annual mission is cute or the height of stupid. I continue regardless.

Continue?

I can’t stop.

“I’ve done it since I first came here.”

“Because?”

“Because it reminds her of Gramps. He only had eyes for her. Bet he’s still watching from…” I point at a sky heavy with clouds and glance sideways, a little bit horrified at how I’m rambling like a drunk on the Tube, convinced strangers need to hear his whole life story.

Reece isn’t a stranger. And he doesn’t look bored or cornered. His expression actually stops me in my tracks, which could prove fatal given the busyness of this shopping district. I’d get mown down if I tried the same without him as a wall between me and oncoming foot traffic. With Reece in the way, it parts around us as he does something else rare in London—his face creases with compassion.

“I’m sorry you lost him, Jack. I bet he’d like how you’re keeping up the family tradition. Letting your gran know you’re thinking about her, I mean. How you care enough to send her what she most enjoys. And she must enjoy getting to see where you’ve been so happy too.”

We walk on until his next comment.

“I know getting texts from you always made my morning.”

I grind to a halt for a second time, much to the annoyance of shoppers, which prompts Reece not only to shield me again but to land an arm across my shoulders before I duck into a quieter side street.

His arm drops. I can still feel that sheltering weight as I scurry to our destination, and I guess Reece is about to apologise for a moment of physical contact like Rex apologised to me again this morning. I appreciated hearing sorry from my old boss. I don’t need to hear it from my temporary new one for only being thoughtful. I nip it in the bud by speaking before he can.

“Here we are,” I say brightly, reminding him of why we left Kensington together. “This is where I bring Rex after tough rescues.”

Reece studies a sign on a building, and this sounds dubious. “To a beauty therapy studio for”—he squints—“all of his waxing, Botox, and filler needs?” He touches worry lines that deepen as he asks, “You think I need fillers?”

My huff of laughter billows like that silky off-cut. “No. Although letting a beautician loose on Rex with wax might work wonders for all his dog hair. And if they accidentally paralysed his mouth with Botox, I might even pay them double.” I face a different building. “ This is where I bring Rex.”

“To a gallery?”

“Yes, although it’s more of a photography museum really. I spent time here when I first came to the city.” I head inside, and he follows, waiting in line for me to speak with a staff member. “Yes,” I tell an assistant, “I emailed ahead for an hour’s private access to the Heligan exhibition.”

Reece must have closed the distance between us. His question is a surprising gust across my ear. “Why?”

I turn to be faced with his broad chest. I look up. “Why did I ask for private access?”

“No.” He smiles down at me. “Why did you spend time here?”

“Because Patrick and Sebastian brought me with them.” The line shuffles forward. So does Reece, which brings him even closer.

He’s a lot.

He also looks so much better for a brisk walk, so I go ahead and show him phase two of what never failed to get Rex’s head straight. Reece follows again as I tell him, “Whenever Rex needs a reminder of why getting back into banking mode matters, this exhibition always does the trick for him. Did the trick for him, I mean.”

I can’t help adding this on the way through gallery spaces where I don’t stop to look at photos.

“It’s good his corporate schmoozing days are almost over, not that he’ll be able to entirely leave it behind him. Fundraising will be even more important now the foundation is expanding.”

Reece sighs. “Yes. Which he wants me to learn about from you before you leave.”

“From me?” I stop between displays of this city through the ages. “I don’t do the actual fundraising. That’s all Rex.” Reece’s raised eyebrows beg to differ, and, thinking back, I can guess why. “I don’t really plan parties. They’d only be fluff and glitter, not the foundation’s real bread and butter.”

“Fluff and glitter that magicked up an extra twenty-thousand-pound donation in a single phone call.”

It’s silly to puff with pride for essentially telling barefaced lies to a banking wanker. I puff up some more when Reece notices that I’ve brought him to see photos taken by someone we both know.

Reece reads the title of this exhibition. “ Safe Harbours . Wait, this is Ian’s work from last spring?” He stands in front of a shot easily as big as the painting in Rex’s study. This photo mirrors the same island harbour with the same castle perched above it, only the boats are different. “He sent me some of this shoot. They… They didn’t look anything like this on my phone.” He moves from image to image in silence, and it’s my turn to follow and to remember the first time Rex walked this path through a journey told in pictures.

Rex had paused too in front of photos of rough water and wet faces, had stood in silence before images of storms and lightning with his family home in the background. Reece stops the same way as Rex did in front of a close-up of a lifeboat being steered through the sea gate.

“That’s…”

“You,” I confirm. “I always have to look twice.” Heat instantly clambers up my throat. “Because I mistook you for Calum the first time I saw this. You know, when he goes full hockey D-man.” It’s true, but Reece isn’t only streaked with his middle brother’s determination in this shot. “The longer I looked, the more I saw Patrick.”

Great. Now I’ve told him I’ve spent a whole lot of time staring at this photo and thinking about him. I compound it by blurting, “He must have learned how to care from you.”

“We both had pretty good role models.” Reece must mean his parents. Maybe that’s why his next family-related question sounds logical. “Your Gran doesn’t come to see the Christmas lights for herself?”

I don’t think. I simply answer, which I guess is down to years of see word, say feeling practice.

“She can’t.”

“Can’t?” he asks quietly, his gaze still fixed on a happier end to a rescue mission than this weekend’s disasters.

“Won’t,” I admit.

I hurry away then, following this wall of photos, which flows around a corner of the gallery. Then I speed up, walking even faster past shots of lives saved by the foundation, which is why I brought him here in the first place. Reece matches me step for step until I come to the end of my escape route, in front of a blown-up photo of a toddler.

A foundation sweatshirt swamps her. She clings to Rex’s grandfather like he’s the only safe harbour left in the whole world for her, and I almost feel a heavy blue cloak swish around me. “It doesn’t matter if Gran hardly ever leaves the house since...” I lift my chin the way Gramps taught me. “I make sure she gets to see plenty of?—”

“Lights and sights. So she doesn’t have to miss out.” Reece doesn’t probe beyond that. He only adds a quiet, “The bigger and brighter the better? No wonder New York is on your shortlist.”

He walks on. I don’t. I can’t now he’s neatly summarised a driver I haven’t told anybody, but understanding what motivates people is his specialty, isn’t it? The next photos prove it.

This series is set on French beaches where Ian has caught Reece steering parents towards safer options as the artist he recruited keeps their kids busy by drawing brighter futures with them. Those art supplies were only a column on an expenses spreadsheet until I saw who Reece trusted to use them. Now he tilts his head at the worried mother in that photo, but he mentions my own. “Your mum...?”

“Keeps Gran company? Yes. Dad too. As much as they can around their work.”

Reece pauses, and this is quieter, even though we’re the only visitors to this section. “Does she get any help with?—”

“She’s got me.” The silk he wrapped me in was as light as a feather. What cloaks me now is heavy. It drags as I study another photo without really seeing the people in it.

He follows me and murmurs, “Of course she has you. I’m just saying how people who get stuck sometimes need help from more than one person.”

He’s referring to another photo that only now comes into focus. There I am in a castle kitchen. I’m also surrounded by sticky notes, and even more cover the front of the refrigerator. I used it as a whiteboard at a meeting, I remember.

So does Reece.

“You crunched the foundation year-end numbers in a different way than Rex. You didn’t break down what the project spent like he did. You factored what it cost us all in terms of time and travel. Then you read us a riot act about our work-life balance. How Rex couldn’t keep up his old banking workload and expand the foundation. You’d already worked out a new schedule for him. Then you did the same for me so I got more time doing my play-therapy work. It was you who said we should stop relying exclusively on volunteers and hire more permanent help. Do you remember how you justified spending that money?”

I do.

He voices it for me. “Because neither of us could save anyone if we were struggling to keep our heads above water.”

“I’m not drowning.”

“Of course you aren’t. You’d plan ahead so it couldn’t happen.” He uses the next photo as proof. “Like here.”

I’ve seen this one so often. It’s the same image Rex always stops at. For the second time today, I notice what has been right in front of my nose the whole time—Reece is at the same castle kitchen table as me, and I don’t see either of his brothers in his expression. All I notice is what Ian might as well have used a zoom lens to highlight.

Reece gazes across the table.

At me.

That was almost a year ago. Today, he looks at me the same way in a Soho gallery a whole world away from Cornwall. His voice is still low-pitched and gentle. “You told us we didn’t have to make rescues alone. How I wasn’t the only person on the planet who could help children play or draw away their trauma. That I should keep my eyes open for someone with the same outlook, so I did. I’m just reminding you, Jack. And I’m reminding you that cities don’t have the monopoly on lights and sparkle either, not even New York or London. Maybe think about that if it’s your driver for relocating.”

“I’m not trying to rescue anyone.”

He’s already moved on.

I hurry to catch up, about to tell him that I’m not leaving London purely to fill Gran’s phone with glitter. He stops me by letting out a soul-deep sigh in front of the only other photo of me in this gallery.

I’m at the kitchen table again, mid-breakfast meeting this time. I can tell by what Cornish sea air always does to my hair, and I can’t help touching it now even though my reflection in the glass promises I’m neat and tidy.

Seeing myself like this—as rumpled as Reece—is disconcerting. Ostensibly, I’m minuting this meeting for Rex on my phone. I know that isn’t why I grin down at my handset. The reason is right there across a breakfast table in a castle.

Reece.

Perhaps the sight of a shared breakfast is what prompts him to steer me away from this exhibit. He follows his nose to find the gallery café, and that’s where I discover that neither of us could face eating earlier this morning.

Reece piles a tray with gingerbread covered in festive sprinkles and I carry coffee cups to a table offering a view of puffed-up pigeons. We eat in silence until Reece sets down his cup to pull out his phone in a reminder of what was in that last photo.

He meets my eyes. His are no longer stormy. They’re as soft as his voice. “You were smiling at what I sent you, weren’t you?” He lays his phone on the table, open on the chain of words that used to start my mornings. He doesn’t read a word aloud for me to respond to with a feeling. He tells me about one of his own.

“We started this game at our very first dinner together. You, me, and Calum, until the time zones meant he dropped out. Then I had months of waking up only to you. Yes, we emailed about foundation business. But the weekend when you brought Ian down for that photoshoot was the first time I’d seen you face-to-face in ages, and I couldn’t believe how good it was to see you. How it felt like I knew you better than anyone else around that table.” He looks up from his phone. “Or how I really wanted to know you even better.”

His smile is somehow helpless, and who the fuck cares that he’s creased and crumpled or that gingerbread crumbs dot his sweatshirt. Wintry sunbeams gild Trelawney trademark fairness and…

He’s golden to me.

Always has been.

I’m not certain the whole Atlantic could dilute my response not only to how he looks, but to what he next tells me.

“For the first time, I got to see you read one of my texts, Jack. That smile? How you reacted? I told myself I’d do more than send you a single word the next time we messaged. That I’d break the rules we both agreed on. I’d do it to test the waters—type more to you as a low-pressure way to gauge if you were interested in more than playing.” He ducks his head. “I even checked in with Pat to find out if you were seeing anyone.” His eyes rise to meet with mine. “Really hoped you weren’t, but he said you were seeing lots of people.”

“Not seriously.”

He snorts. “Pat’s so literal. I should have asked Seb.” I’m not prepared for his next confession, or for storm clouds gathering in his gaze like in some of those rescue photos. “But I got too busy.”

“Busy?”

He nods. “Because an hour after you and Rex flew back to London, I pulled Valentin from the water.”

A moment ago, my gingerbread was Christmas flavoured. Now I chew on ashes.

Fuck knows what my face does.

This café is empty apart from us. The scrape of his chair is loud as he switches seats to the one beside me, and if there are any of Ian’s photos on the walls in this room, I don’t see them. I only see the same version of Reece who steered a lifeboat out of a safe harbour. He’s determined again now. So is how he cups my jaw so I face him. “Jack, I should have asked you before that happened.” His hold on me instantly gentles. “Only I got caught up?—”

I almost expect him to say in a new relationship.

He doesn’t.

“—in a filming production schedule Valentin said could make a real difference to kids and families. That could help publicise the foundation if I let him make a fly-on-the-wall documentary, which coincided with our busiest few months yet. He stayed with me in both France and Cornwall to record every single minute, right up until September.”

I find my voice. “What happened in September?”

“Two things. Or maybe three.” His hand slips from my jaw, and I miss the contact. I can’t miss what flickers across his face when he mentions a family member. “You know how Mum likes to plan ahead for Christmas. How she tries to schedule at least one day at home or in London where we can all eat together before she and Dad fly to the States to be with Calum.”

I do know. That’s why Patrick and Sebastian will be gone when I get home this evening. Their weeklong break will end with the same family meal on Friday that Reece will leave London to share with them. I attended one of those early Christmas meals during my first year here, which means I can nod with conviction when he says, “They’re important to Mum. So is us bringing along whoever is important to us.”

“Same.” I clear my throat. “My mum always asks if I’m bringing someone special home with me.”

“She does? That’s… That’s good.” His forehead furrows. “And have you? Taken anyone special home at Christmas?”

I shake my head, which Reece mirrors before saying, “I wasn’t with Valentin. Not sure anyone could be.” Those forehead furrows deepen. “Because I’ve never met anyone as isolated. As closed off. I gave him openers. Chances to talk.” Reece shakes his head again. “The whole time he stayed at my place, he never once volunteered information about his own family. I couldn’t imagine leaving anyone alone at Christmas, so inviting him along to share ours seemed like the right thing to do. But he just shrugged when I asked him.”

Reece replicates a movement that should look charmingly French or sophisticated.

Somehow, it’s plain dismissive.

“He said I shouldn’t bank on it. By December, he’d be busy with parties and boat shows. Plus, he’d probably be done filming his rescue series way before then. Turning it into a documentary would be his first venture outside of YouTube, and if it was up for any awards, he’d call me. Only I’d need to tidy myself up if I wanted to be seen on a red carpet with him.”

My jaw drops, which must give a lovely view of gingerbread from this close up.

Reece closes it for me with the tip of a finger under my chin. He also looks confused.

With himself.

“I learned about crewing lifeboats from Dad. All of us were volunteers years before I studied psychology to understand human behaviour. I needed even more certificates to be a trauma counsellor and play therapist. I’m qualified to know how people tick, so how the fuck did I end up?—”

“Playing a bit part on the Valentin Juno show when you thought you were a co-star?”

“Co-star?” Reece actually laughs, which is better than all that sad confusion. He just as quickly sobers. “Believe me, I’m not interested in being the centre of attention. But that’s how come I sent you the word Christmas in September while wondering how the fuck I’d let someone suck up so much of my time. Time I could have used to find out if Patrick was right about you seeing people. Do you remember what you sent back to me, Jack?”

I don’t, but he just said Christmas , so I go with my gut feeling.

“Family?”

He nods. “It isn’t a good time of year for everyone. I get it. Had a few really shitty ones of my own when I was younger, and even now I get uneasy before going back to spend it at home, so I understand how it isn’t a happy time for everyone. If a big family gathering was a line in the sand, I wouldn’t push any friend to cross it. But Valentin didn’t think twice about stamping across my own line in the sand.”

“Which was?”

He huffs out a long breath that sends sprinkles flying, but I don’t feel a single urge to tidy our table. Those sprinkles can stay right where they landed. I’m too busy soaking up the sweetness he next shows me.

“You know how I feel about the foundation kids? How Rex does too?”

I do. They’re both peas out of the same soft-hearted pod, so I’m surprised how firmly he says this.

“I told Valentin he couldn’t film any of the children the foundation fished out of the water.” This is even firmer. “That he mustn’t record them, especially mid-therapy session. I do most of that outdoors. That’s where kids can really let go, and that’s where he recorded them without me knowing. I told him to delete the footage, and he argued. Turned it around to me being selfish. If I wanted him to break into documentary making, I’d let him film more, not less. Besides, he’d only videoed a bit of play and what did that matter?”

I don’t like this frown on him. It’s everything I’ve seen already. Reece is bruised and confused all over again. Most of all, he’s disappointed.

With himself.

I hear it after he inhales slowly, then admits, “I can’t help thinking I projected the idea of Valentin being a friend, you know? Friends want the best for each other. He didn’t want that for me or the foundation.”

“He only wanted the best for himself?”

Reece shrugs again, uneasy. “I’m sure he had his reasons. People always do. But once I realised, I told him his rescue series was sunk and I haven’t seen him since. Months later, my lifeboat capsized, and I saw something else much more clearly.” He scrubs his face. “Had a hell of a weekend, Jack.”

“You capsized this weekend?”

“Lifeboats do that.” He shrugs. “They’re designed to roll with the waves and then right themselves. That’s what the foundation boat did just fine. It bobbed to the surface like always. I didn’t.” He huffs out a huge breath, grey all over again like first thing this morning, and I can’t ignore it.

I don’t know which of us moves first. Or if this hug counts as lines crossed. It feels pretty mutual.

And needed.

“I went overboard,” he huffs against my shoulder. “Got snagged between rocks. Thought I wasn’t going to make it back.”

“To the surface?”

Reece gives me a final squeeze before letting me go. I see him shake his head again, although he doesn’t huff out a huge breath this time.

“No, Jack.”

He sighs this so gently.

“To you.”