by Lily Morton
“I suppose not,” Felix says doubtfully.
She smiles at him, taking his arm and drawing him after her, leaving me to trail happily after them while the porter brings the luggage.
They talk and laugh as she signs us in, but as Felix wanders over to the bank of lifts that Giulia points out, she grabs my arm. “You look good, Max,” she whispers, her eyes warm. “Is that for him?”
“To some extent,” I say quietly. “I needed to get better, and I need him, so the two things are mutually inclusive to me.”
“I’m glad to see it, my friend. He’s lovely.”
She looks over at Felix, who is staring at an old oil painting. He’s slim and lithe, his skin pale and his hair a mess of dark waves. I remember strolling through the Louvre once, killing time before I had to meet a contact. In a quiet corner of one of the museum’s less-travelled galleries, I’d found a painting of an Italian count who was lounging against a tree. I was fascinated by his slumberous eyes with their winged eyebrows, and the silky hair that was as dark and shiny as a blackbird’s wing. I’d lingered over that painting far longer than I should, caught by the image. Looking at Felix now, I realise how much he looks like that long-ago young nobleman.
He glances back at us and smiles. I catch my breath because it’s the smile he used to flash at me so often—full and wide, with a wicked edge.
“He’s very beautiful,” Giulia murmurs. “And sharp. But fragile too. It’s there under the pretty exterior. Be careful with that boy, Max, or you’ll lose him completely.”
It had taken her only a few minutes to see him clearly, and I’m jealous of her talent. I’d been dazzled by his sparkling exterior and sharp tongue and recognised his layer of fragility far too late.
“I will,” I vow. “I’m getting him back, Giulia. This is my chance.”
“Yes, I think you will too,” she says. There’s more hope than certainty in her voice, but I can work with both.
She hands me the room key. “Two bedrooms, Max? You’re losing your touch.”
“Thank God for that,” I mutter. “If I’d touched many more men, I’d have been in danger of losing the skin on my fingertips.”
She laughs and turns to deal with another customer, and I gesture to Felix to join me at the lifts.
“She seems nice,” he says as the doors open, and we get in.
“She’s lovely. She and her husband have run this place for twenty years. They restored the building from scratch, as it was falling down. Their sons do a lot of the work now, but she still likes to keep her hand in.”
The lift pings and Felix follows me out and into a corridor carpeted with a gorgeous blue-and-gold oriental runner. “She seems to know you well.”
“I’ve been coming here for years. It’s a home away from home.”
He smirks. “Only you would call a fifteenth-century palazzo a home.”
I search my pockets for the key to our room. “I’m at home anywhere. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an expensive hotel or a tent in Afghanistan.” I pause. “Although I have to say, I prefer a hotel. Hot water and a nice bed should never be taken for granted.”
He leans against the wall. “I have to say it’s one of your best qualities,” he says in a contemplative fashion.
I’m startled, and I must show it. “I’m astonished that you think I’ve got one good quality, let alone a few.”
He walks into the room as I gesture him in. “You have many good qualities, Max. That’s what makes it all so difficult. Wow! This is bloody amazing.”
I follow him in, shutting the door and leaning against it unconsciously, as if my body wants to keep him from escaping. It’s a beautifully lavish suite. Two bedrooms run off the main room, which has an antique sofa and rather delicate-looking chairs. They’re upholstered in rich blue fabrics that echo the silk paper on the walls, the whole effect one of quiet opulence, as if we’re staying in someone’s home. I eye Felix and see him relax as if he senses that vibe. He’d had a wobble on the Orient Express, but now he seems to be at home. Good.
He makes a beeline to the floor-to-ceiling patio doors that lead onto the balcony. It has a spectacular view over the Grand Canal. Opposite us is the church of Santa Maria della Salute and, despite the sunlight dipping into night, the water is busy with boats and gondolas.
He hangs over the balcony, his eyes everywhere and his face alight. “This is amazing,” he murmurs, shooting me a quick glance before being drawn back to the view. “It’s too expensive.”
“No, it isn’t,” I say briskly, preferring to watch him rather than the view. I never get tired of his face. His cheeks are flushed with the cold, and his hair is a wavy mess from the wind, and he has never looked more beautiful to me. I never get tired of him, period. He’s endlessly fascinating to me.
“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that there are two bedrooms in this suite,” I say. “Just to fend off any accusation of being some sort of rake.”
He grins at me. “Bagsy the biggest bedroom.”
“Well, of course,” I say sourly. “Why discontinue the theme of our trip so far?”
He laughs and heads off to explore the suite. I smile when I hear his shout from the bathroom. “Oh my God, Max, this bath is huge. It’s big enough to swim in, and it’s right in front of the window. I can lie there and look out on the water.”
“Don’t stand up though, or the boaters will get a lovely view of your dick,” I say. My knowledge is born of experience—I’d startled a boatload of nuns a few years ago. “I suppose my role in this scenario is to fetch you food and drink.” I smile as I pick up his luggage and follow the sound of his voice.
“Oh my God, look at this bloody bed. It’s sodding huge. Is it an antique?”
I come round the corner to find him sitting on the huge four-poster bed, bouncing up and down lightly. I shake my head. “You look like a kid.”
He laughs. “I feel like one. This is amazing.” He stops bouncing. “Thank you,” he says seriously.
“What for?”
He arches one eyebrow. “For world peace.” I laugh, and he shakes his head. “Thank you for all this. You shouldn’t have done it.”
“I should have done it when I first met you,” I say, keeping my tone brisk so he doesn’t startle away. “We should have gone straight from the bookshop to Venice and stayed here. I should have romanced you.”
“Well, nothing says romance quite like dangling a room key and promising a good shag. And if we’d headed to Venice, you’d have missed out on the world-class shagging within ten minutes of meeting me.”
I make some remark that I’m hardly paying any attention to, and he laughs, but I was speaking the truth. I should have got to know him the first time we’d been together. I should have romanced him. If I had, would we have missed out on the heartbreak and the lost years? My cynical side says we’d have imploded in the same way anyway because of Ivo. But my more idealistic side insists we’d have lasted. I would have realised almost immediately what I had, rather than throwing it all away on a silly and ancient dream and realising my error far too late.
He crosses to the window, as if magnetically attracted to the view, and I contemplate the best time to bring up the subject that will allow us to finally move forward. We have to talk about Ivo. Every time we get close to discussing him, I freeze, or he changes the subject. It’s as if neither of us wants to spoil the delicate detente that we have going between us.
I’ve always thought that if I could have just stayed sober at Ivo’s wedding and talked to Felix properly, he’d have stayed, and now I have this deep-seated fear that if I finally address the Ivo issue, it still won’t make any difference, and he’ll leave. And then I’ll have nothing, because even hope will finally have fucked off and left me.
“I’m going to unpack,” I tell him. “Get changed, and we’ll go and have dinner.”
Tonight we’ll talk, I tell myself firmly. No more prevaricating. Get the job done.
Three hour
s later, we’ve finished a post-dinner walk, and I follow Felix back into the hotel room.
“Well done, Max,” I mutter under my breath, “Great talk.”
I never got near any of my chosen subjects, because Felix started to ask me questions, and I’d been swept up in his company. He was always interested in a wide variety of topics, but now he’s more widely read, and he’s become fanatically interested in politics. We ate on the hotel terrace, watching the sun sink into the horizon while drinking a bottle of wine and arguing passionately and amicably about the state of UK politics. I completely forgot to turn the conversation the way I wanted.
“What did you say?” Felix asks, glancing at me. He’s dressed in skinny black chinos, a white shirt, and a grey V-neck jumper with a heavy shawl-collared black cardigan slung over the top. His cheeks are flushed from the cold wind and wine. He looks beautiful.
“It was a lovely walk after dinner,” I say quickly.
He grins. “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, Max.”
His words hit me in my heart because Venice will always be my special place. I want to take him everywhere. To the small bars I know, the little squares that tourists don’t find. I want to climb the staircase of the Scala Contarini del Bovolo with him and show him Venice in the early morning light.
“You have a planning face on,” he informs me, taking off his cardigan and throwing it over a chair. He opens the tall doors to let in the cold night air. I miss the scents that linger in Venice during the summer months, but the chilly wind is exhilarating.
“Not at all,” I say. “You know me, Felix. I like to take life as it comes.”
“Only if it comes at one thousand miles an hour.”
“You know me so well.”
“A fact that my therapist and I continue to bewail,” he calls as he walks out onto the balcony.
I laugh. “Do you want a drink? Giulia keeps a cocktail cabinet in here.”
He pops his head around the door, his face alight with mischief. “Going to get me drunk and try to have your wicked way with me?”
I swallow hard. “It never took much alcohol before,” I say feebly and wince because I just made him sound like a tart.
He laughs and walks back into the room. “You are quite right, Max. I’m just easy.”
“You have never been easy for a second of your life,” I inform him.
His laughter is rich and bright in the high-ceilinged room, and, as always, it makes me smile. “I’m going to put some music on,” he declares as I open the cocktail cabinet and pull bottles out.
“Oh dear,” I say faintly into the depths of the cupboard. Our musical tastes will never coincide. He likes poppy stuff with lyrics that make me want to gouge my eyes out, while he declares that all of my music is “Dad Music.”
A second later, I wince at the tune. “Is this someone from One Direction?” I ask.
He grins. “I’m awarding you points for getting a band name right. I was very sad when they split up.”
“It was such a tragedy to music,” I say solemnly.
He laughs. “This is Niall Horan.”
I cock my head to one side. “You actually like this?”
“I do, Grandpa. I really do. I always liked him best.”
“Not…” I rack my brain. “Not Harry?”
He shakes his head with a wry look on his face. “No. I overindulged my taste for complicated men in my private life. My harmless crushes are reserved now for nice men.”
“So, why this song?” I ask, steering the subject to hopefully safer topics.
“I like the way he speaks French.”
I listen to the song for a few moments. “That isn’t French,” I say disgustedly. “He’s just saying he likes the sea. It’s hardly the language of poets.” I step over to him and draw him close. “I’ll speak French to you,” I say far too possessively.
He stares up at me, his eyes dark, and I realise what I’ve done. “Sorry,” I say.
I try to step back, but my arms have another say in the matter, and they refuse to let go. I automatically inhale his scent of oranges and fresh cold air and revel in the feel of the contours of his body against mine. It’s an extraordinary relief. Almost painful in its pleasure. Like coming home.
I expect him to pull free, but he just stares at me his face unreadable. “Go on, then,” he says, his voice low and slightly unsteady. “Say something in French.”
So, I do. I tell him how much I adore him; how sad the years have been without him. I tell him how beautiful his eyes are and about the fullness of his red mouth. I tell him how I turn around a thousand times a day to tell him something and how it still surprises me that he’s not there. How it baffles me that someone I knew for so few months could have worked their way into the marrow of my bones, and there will never be any removing of him. I tell him I never want that.
The words trail away into silence, and he stares up at me, his cheeks flushed and his eyes dark.
“Oh…” He clears his throat. “Oh, that was lovely.” He seems to recall himself and steps back slightly. “I mean well done on your language studies at school, Max.”
I gaze into his eyes, and when he makes to move away entirely, I say, “Wait!” and pull him back possessively. He stiffens and I work to moderate my caveman tone. “I’ll show you some decent music,” I say.
“Was it composed by a man with a mullet who takes off beer bottle tops with his teeth?”
I snort. “There’s nothing wrong with doing that,” I say primly. “Saves on buying bottle openers and those people are very in demand at parties.”
He laughs and pulls his phone from his pocket. “Go on, then. Show me.”
I take his phone and scroll through Spotify, shaking my head in despair at the playlist called “Happy Pop.” Finally, I find what I’m looking for and press Play.
“What is this?” he asks as the first notes spill into the darkened room like liquid gold on the air.
“Paul Weller’s ‘Gravity’,” I say. Keeping him in my arms, I begin to dance slowly.
“What are you doing?” he asks, sounding more scandalised than if I’d bent him over the balcony and rimmed him. Knowing Felix, he’d probably have preferred that.
“I’m dancing,” I say. “It’s romantic.”
“Since when are you romantic, and why on earth are you doing it with me?”
There is no one else on earth I would ever want to do this with.
I pull him closer and notice that he isn’t struggling. “I should have done this a long time ago,” I say.
“I can’t think when we’d have had the time in between all those bouts of shagging we did,” he says, his voice muffled against my shoulder. “Just know that I’m enduring this for you, Max.”
I chuckle. “You’re such a brave little soldier.” I spin him in the darkened room. The moonlight on the water outside sends ripples of light over his sharp features. I tighten my arms, feeling his unruly hair brush my chin.
I will do anything to keep you. Anything, I think fiercely.
“This song reminds me of you,” I say out loud.
“Why?” he whispers.
“Because since the day I met you, you’ve been the thing that stops me floating away.”
“So I tie you down? How lovely.”
“Being tethered isn’t always a bad thing,” I say. “And floating free isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” I pause. I’m known for my way with words—I’ve written thousands of sentences, conveyed myriad ideas—but these feel like the most important words I might ever say. “You strengthen me, give me a reason to stay and not go hying off. You give me peace. You always have.”
For a few moments all I hear is the song and his shallow breathing. “You hate romance, Max,” he finally says. “I remember that very clearly, so where is this even coming from?”
“I don’t hate saying such things to you because they’re not throw-away lines or things I’ve made up to sound pretty. They’re the u
nvarnished truth. And the way I was with you before was my mistake—one of the many I made. I never romanced you. I never said nice things. I just tumbled you into bed and never got my head out of my arse after that.”
The song finishes, the last notes dying away to be replaced by silence. When he pulls away, my arms want to keep him again, but I know I’m pushing my luck. I force my body to relax and watch him take a few steps back.
“It’s too late,” he whispers. “Far too late for that now. It’s all water under the bridge.”
“Water has a way of circulating, and Venice is full of bridges,” I say steadily, my eyes fixed on his face. “It’s not over for me and you know that. It never will be.”
“It is for me.”
I note his flushed cheeks and the tremor in his hands as he clasps them together. His body language does not say, “unmoved.”
“Okay,” I say placidly. “I’ll take your word for it.”
His eyes narrow. “You should do,” he says, drawing himself up and gathering his control. “I’m immune to you now, Max. We’re friends, and that’s all it will ever be.”
“Of course,” I say and lean back against a handy cupboard. “Well, friend, tomorrow I’ve got a lot planned for us, so go to bed and get an early night.”
“You’re not going to try and get me into bed?” He sounds bemused and adorably put out.
“Perish the thought,” I say cheerfully. “We need our energy for tomorrow.”
“What have you got planned?”
“Seeing some sights, eating out at restaurants I know.”
His expression becomes nonplussed. He nods, murmurs, “Goodnight,” and he walks away.
“And getting you back,” I whisper to his retreating form. “That’s my only real plan, Felix Jackson.”
Chapter Seventeen
Felix
It’s late when we wind our way back to the hotel, and I don’t mind admitting that I’m knackered. We seem to have walked the length and breadth of Venice today, and I’ve fallen in love with the city. It’s indescribably beautiful, with its old buildings that seem to be in danger of tumbling into the water at any moment. The whole place has an air of timelessness. Every time we’d rounded a corner, I’d been sure we’d come across some masked aristocrats on their way to a hedonistic ball.
