Twenty-three

The day started like all the others had since we’d begun this again. The scent of Cas’s skin in my nose and the heat of him spooned against my front. He turned in my arms and kissed me softly. “I’m hungry,” he whispered, then slipped out of bed.

I groaned and twisted onto my back, watching as he pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. “What time is it?”

“After twelve. Shove some clothes on and come down and eat. We can always come back to bed.”

“Or you could just let me eat you here?” I did some mildly disgusting thing with my tongue.

He laughed and shook his head. “I promise I’ll make you something far tastier.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that.”

He yelled something about being insatiable and disappeared out of the room. I should have been able to sense what was coming by the weather: it was the first overcast day of the whole summer, a watery-looking grey sky that felt heavy and foreboding. I remember thinking I should put the cover over the pool.

When I arrived downstairs, Cas had set the nook, and after checking whether he needed a hand with the cooking, I did as he told me and sat down and waited. It was some egg concoction he called ‘Turkish eggs’: perfectly poached eggs on a bed of garlicky yoghurt sprinkled with chilli flakes and drizzled with oil. Toasted buttery sourdough on the side. It was the best thing I’d put in my mouth since him.

“That was incredible,” I told him after I’d cleared my plate. “How did you learn to cook so well?”

“YouTube,” he said as he popped a piece of yoghurt-soaked bread into his mouth. “I don’t have much of a social life, so I watch a lot of cooking videos.”

I was about to ask him why he didn’t have much of a social life when I heard voices from above. At first, I thought it was Ken, dropping something off, but he wouldn’t have come in without ringing us first. Then I heard Gideon’s voice.

We both turned as he came down the stairs.

“Ah, here they are!” he said, beaming at us.

He wasn’t alone, and I begged, pleaded with the universe, for it to be Ken behind him on the stairs.

But, of course, the universe had never been that kind to me. It had never been kind at all and it wasn’t about to change its habit at this point. Blackwell came down the stairs behind Gideon and took in the sight of us both sitting there together. A cloud rolled over his face to rival the one outside. Dark and violently thunderous.

Beside me, I felt Cas stiffen, before he sat down his fork and stared at his plate, making no move to get up and greet them.

It occurred to me then that we hadn’t showered. I still had him on me, he was still covered in me, and a delicious sense of satisfaction spread over me despite how awful this was.

I’d finished eating anyway so I slid out of the nook and stood to carry my plate to the sink. When I turned, Xavier was by Cas’s side, smoothing a hand over his hair even though Cas still wasn’t looking at him.

Frowning, I looked at Gideon.

“Jude, I’m so delighted you’re still here. I was just saying to Xavier that we should all go to dinner tonight at Isabel. It’s this fabulous restaurant in Mayfair. I’ll have Ken call them and reserve us a table. How is eight for you?”

I couldn’t think of anything worse. I thought about telling him that Isabel wasn’t as good since Jean-Georges had poached their chef, but I was too focused on Cas and how I couldn’t decide if it was my imagination or not, but it looked like he had ever so slightly leaned into Xavier’s touch. I made my excuses and left the three of them in the kitchen.

I stayed in my room the entire day, pacing, biting my nails, and reliving the last five days in excruciating, painful detail until I thought I might go crazy. I came out to find Gideon by the pool reading the Financial Times.

“Where’s Cas?” I asked him.

“They’ve gone out,” he said before folding the paper and setting it down on the small metal outdoor table. He looked at me very intensely. “I expect they’ve a lot to talk about.”

It hadn’t rained yet, but the air felt muggy from the threat of it, thick and opaque. Resolutely ignoring his gaze, I sat down and pulled out my phone. I thought that I should text him and make sure he was okay.

“I’ve booked the table for tonight,” he said.

“Great,” I muttered without looking up.

It was several moments before he spoke again. “Jude, you know, after last time, I really did hope that you’d have been more careful with him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He let out a loud sigh. “He isn’t going to leave him; surely you know that.”

I froze.

Gideon uncrossed his legs and sat forward. “Caspien is a realist, Jude. He’s always been the same. He’s also extremely stubborn, and will never ever admit to having made a mistake. Even if that means a life of unhappiness.”

I pounced on that. “So he is unhappy? With Xavier?”

“Of course he is, but it hardly matters. He’s made his bed, and he’s far too prideful to consider getting up from it. He’s also far too smart to leave Xavier Blackwell on the promise of something as fleeting and pointless as happiness and childish notions of love.”

“That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever bloody heard.” I scowled. “Everyone deserves to be happy, Gideon. Everyone.”

“And when were you last happy, young Jude?” Gideon cast a sad smile over me.

I stood.

“This morning,” I said and left him sitting there.

They came back about a half hour before we were due to leave for dinner. I’d been coming out of the bedroom as Cas passed to go to his own, Blackwell I could hear talking to Gideon in the living room.

I moved in front of him to block his path. “What the hell’s going on?” I whispered, urgently. He’d not responded to any of my messages.

He let me press him against the wall but glanced nervously toward the living room.

“Jude,” he shook his head.

“Did you know he was coming?”

He gave me a look. “Of course not.”

“Cas, I don’t know if I can do this, stay here and watch you with him.” I buried my face in his neck, and he let me, his body going soft under my touch. Recognisable, frantic lust raced up my spine.

“Please don’t leave yet,” he asked me, his voice a little desperate. “I don’t think...just please stay a little longer.” He pressed his mouth to mine, and I nodded, touching my forehead to his.

“Okay.”

I felt him relax a little. He pulled back and gave me a tender sort of smile. “I need to go change for dinner.”

I watched him retreat to his bedroom and close the door. When I walked into the living room, Xavier turned, some dark cloud coming over his features as he glanced in the direction of the bedrooms. I gave him a forced smile and went to sit across from him on the couch.

“Oh, why don’t I go fetch us some aperitifs,” Gideon said, standing. Then, quite purposefully, he disappeared from the room and left Blackwell and I alone.

His stare was as black as I remembered it, a void as deep and dark as his name, though it sparkled with something sly. Like he was enjoying a joke I didn’t understand.

He was still objectively good-looking; healthy deep tan and black thick hair, chiselled jaw dusted with dark stubble. It wasn’t hard to understand Cas’s attraction to him. Now or back then. Gideon’s neither. I imagined reams of women and men falling over themselves to gain Xavier Blackwell’s attention.

Personally, I’d never loathed another human more except maybe the man who’d killed my parents.

“How have you been, Jude?” he asked, relaxing into the couch a little more. His gaze was intense as he stared at me, and I wondered if he looked at everyone the same way. If it was just me, did that mean something? I’d had a glass of wine, so there was a boldness in my veins as I stared him down. I was also an adult now; when the last time I’d seen him I’d been a frightened little boy.

“Pretty fucking wonderful until you showed up,” I replied.

The look in his eyes didn’t change, but he let out a small huff of laughter. “Cute. I can see why he likes playing with you.”

The chill spread from the top of my head all the way down to my toes.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Before he could answer, Gideon came flouncing back into the room carrying a bottle of champagne. He pulled four glasses from the drinks cabinet behind the couch and proceeded to pour us all a glass. Cas arrived a few moments later looking freshly showered and wearing a black shirt and trousers, which were cinched in quite dramatically at his waist. His sleeves were rolled up, and strips of thin gold hung from his wrist and neck. The only colour he wore was the white splint around his right hand. The effect was an almost feminine look, chic and classic. I knew I was staring, but I didn’t care.

He lifted a flute of champagne and downed it in one. “Can we go now?” he said, looking at his watch. His manner was easy, casual, and I wondered where the panicked, desperate Cas from the hallway ten minutes ago had gone.

I can see why he likes playing with you.

The staff at Isabel seemed to know Gideon well, shaking his hand and ushering him straight past the people waiting to a circular table near the centre of the high-ceilinged space. I felt uncomfortable almost immediately. It wasn’t the sort of place I’d ever come on my own, stuffy and formal, and with lots of gold and mirrors for people to look at themselves in. I watched as Xavier pulled out Cas’s chair for him, bending to kiss the top of his head as he sat in it. I took the seat directly opposite and lifted the wine list, determined to get very, very drunk.

When Blackwell chose Cas’s wine for him, I put it down to his very obvious snobbery, but when he ordered his starter and main course for him too, I felt my face rearrange itself. The glasses of wine and champagne only emphasised the other emotions swirling inside of me.

“Maybe he doesn’t want the lamb,” I said, causing everyone to look at me, including the waiter.

Cas shot me a warning look, while I glared at the pervert across the table.

“He always has the lamb when we come here,” Blackwell told me dismissively. “He’ll have the lamb.”

“Yeah, well sometimes change is good. Variety being the spice of life and all that.” I dropped my eyes to my menu. “What do you think, Cas? I think the fish looks good? I’m going to have the fish, I think.”

“And I’ll have the short rib,” said Gideon, handing his menu back to the waiter.

“So it’s two lamb, a fish and a short rib.” The waiter was looking at Blackwell for confirmation and it only pissed me off even more.

“That’s it,” the pervert smiled. “Thanks.”

Gideon began talking about some opera he’d seen in Italy which I tuned out, focused only on the stiff way Cas sat and the very determined way he avoided looking at me. I couldn’t work out why it was strange; all I knew was that it was unlike any version of Cas I’d ever seen before.

The Cas I’d known these last few weeks had been some version of this one here: dulled, careful, almost hesitant. A far less dangerous version of the boy I’d known at Deveraux. Like a knife that had gone blunt.

Blackwell liked the sound of his own voice, that much was evident over three very rich overpriced courses, and so it was hard to find an opening in the conversation where Caspien might have entered it. But even when the talk turned to subjects I knew he was interested in, he said very little. I counted six or seven words in total throughout the starter and main courses. He drank his wine, ate his food and spoke only when someone asked him a direct question. He was nervous, clearly, and I could have put it down to my being there – me, the guy he’d been fucking for the last few days – sat across from his oblivious partner if not for the thing niggling at the outer edges of my understanding.

By the time the dessert menus were set down in front of us, I was drunk. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, hold myself back a moment longer.

“You going to order his dessert for him, too?” I said as Xavier picked up the menu card and scanned it. I set my own menu down. “Why don’t you order mine for me, too, while you’re at it? Go on, try and guess what I like.” I sat back in my chair and stared at him over the rim of my wine glass (some ￡400 bottle of white that tasted like water by this point). When he levelled a nasty look at me, I knew the meaning wasn’t lost on him. To my right, Gideon let out a jittery laugh while Cas cleared his throat.

“I don’t want dessert,” he said. “I think we should get the bill.”

“I’d like dessert,” Blackwell said, his eyes not leaving mine.

My voice was lively when I said. “Me too; I bloody love dessert.”

I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, though I could not now tell you what it was, and ate it slowly while glaring at the piece of shit sitting opposite me.

Gideon waffled on about French cheese while Cas drank his wine. When he set it down and stood, saying he was going to the bathroom, he turned his body and knocked his splint against the glass. It toppled his red wine straight into Blackwell’s lap. The pervert shot to his feet, eyes dark and voice violent. “You stupid, fucking idiot,” he growled at Cas.

Cas, before my eyes, shrank back, face paling with fright.

I shot to my feet. “What did you just fucking call him?!” I was rounding the table towards Blackwell, but I felt Cas pull me back.

“Jude, please don’t,” Cas said, but his voice was very far away.

We were about the same height, Xavier Blackwell and I, and about similar builds, though I suspected he was fitter. I didn’t care.

“What did you call him?” I asked again.

People were now staring, but I didn’t care about this either.

“Oh, for the love of god, sit down, little boy,” Blackwell said, dabbing at his crotch with a napkin.

“Little boy?” I laughed, coldly. “Oh, well, then I should be careful you don’t try and fuck me, I suppose.”

He froze at this, lifting his black glare to mine. It was murderous. He took a slow step toward me, and Cas pushed himself between us.

“I would urge you to be very, very careful what you say next,” he said implicitly.

“Darling, let’s go, please. I think we should leave now.” This was Cas, his voice soft and soothing. I’d never heard it like that before, and I could only blink in horror when I realised he wasn’t talking to me, but Xavier.

I watched in a daze as he slid a hand around Blackwell’s waist and pulled him away from me, away from the table, and out of the restaurant. When I came back to my senses, I charged after them. I heard Gideon shouting my name as I went.

Outside in the street, I saw Cas opening the door of a black taxi, Xavier practically shoving him inside. I called out to him, running a little way after the taxi, but it pulled out into the busy London traffic and was soon lost to the lights and engine noise. I flagged down my own, and gave them Gideon’s address, playing over every second of the dinner in my head. I knew what I’d seen, what it meant, and I felt ill from it. Furious at myself for being so fucking blind. It had been in front of me the entire time. How had I so readily ignored it?

I thought about the hollow sound of his voice when he’d told me everything was fine, when he’d told me how last minute his coming to London had been, when he’d told me in too much detail about the tennis match where’d he’d broken his hand. Imagining Blackwell’s face, I punched the seat of the taxi, ignoring the way the driver watched me in his rear-view mirror.

I’d kill him for this. I was going to kill Xavier Blackwell. He’d put his hands on Cas, my Cas, and I was going to murder him for it.