Page 25 of Hearts Colliding
Curled up in the corner on the other side of the sofa, Alex hugged his legs in closer as he buried his face in his coffee mug.
Alex’s mum, the woman who was a ray of sunshine… Ryan wanted to ask, but Alex might just as well have had aKeep Outsign flashing over his head. He turned his attention back to his coffee, closing his eyes as he sipped the smooth, nutty brew.
“This coffee would be improved with the addition of biscuits.”
Ryan jumped, his eyes snapping open at Alex’s sudden words. Before he could say anything, Alex was unfolding himself and getting to his feet, every movement as graceful as it was economical, as he crossed to the door and left the room.
He moves like a dancer.Ryan snorted. Definitely not the bump and grind kind, like the ones he saw in the clubs when he made occasional trips into Exeter or Bristol, or beyond… Although Alex, all lithe and sinewy…
Ryan groaned and glanced over at the door, adjusting himself in the too tight tracksuit bottoms, not half as loose and baggy as Alex said they were.
Ryan got up, and pulled the tracksuit bottoms further down on his hips, loosening them a little around his groin. He needed a distraction.
The room that had been Alex’s mum’s refuge was partially set up as an office. The sleek desk with the equally sleek laptop; a large leather office chair; a small filing cabinet and a printer. But the room was more than a temporary office and Ryan frowned when his gaze fell on a neatly stacked pile of bedding, on a chair in the corner. What was Alex doing dossing down in the drawing room when he’d said there were plenty of bedrooms to choose from?
Looking around slowly, Ryan studied the room properly. A large book case stood against one of the walls and Ryan went over to it, examining the titles of the leather bound books which looked as if they’d not been lifted from their place on the shelves in years. Next to them, a handful of battered paperbacks looked out of place and incongruous. One set of shelves didn’t contain books, but instead was crowded with framed photographs. Ryan moved in closer.
Almost all were of Alex as a child or teen. But it was no display of vanity. In most of the photos he was with a woman, a stunningly beautiful woman with a bright and open smile, a smile as bright and open as the smile on the Alex in the photos, a smile he’d never seen on the living, breathing man.
Ryan picked one up and studied it. The likeness was startling between mother — because there could be no doubt that’s who she was — and son. Both were slim and whereas Alex was a gangly young teenager the woman possessed the poise and grace the Alex in the photo was yet to grow into. Two pairs of big light blue eyes, bright and full of laughter, stared out of the photo as both mother and son held back thick dark hanks of hair which threatened to flop forward over their foreheads.
There were plenty of others in similar vein, taken at the New House, in the village — one even showing a corner of The Fisherman’s Arms — with others set against a backdrop of tropical beaches or mountain top ski chalets.
Another photo, nearer the back of the display, caught his eye. Ryan’s heart sank. The laughing woman with the heavy dark hair had turned into a gaunt shadow of herself, with her head covered in a bright scarf, so at odds with the dull shadows in her eyes. Alex was next to her, no older than about fifteen, his smile small and strained as he held his mother’s hand. Ryan averted his gaze, the feeling creeping through him he was intruding on a private and painful moment he had no right to be a voyeur to.
About to return to the sofa, another photograph snagged his attention. Not Alex and his mum, but Alex with a man. He leaned forward, his brow crinkling as he studied it.
The smiling, happy Alex who gazed into the lens was a little younger than the one who had gone in search of biscuits, but only by a handful of years. They each had an arm wrapped around the other’s waist, their free hands clutching champagne flutes. The guy was good looking, taller and heavier built than Alex, and radiated confidence. They looked good together, they looked like a couple. Ryan’s frown deepened as he stood up straight. Whoever the mystery man was, it was no business of his.
He turned round and jumped as Alex stared at him from the doorway, holding Ryan’s tumble dried jeans in one hand, and a packet of biscuits in the other.
Putting them down on the sofa, he came and stood next to Ryan.
“My mum, if you’ve not already guessed.” He inclined his head to the photos on the shelf. He picked up the one in which she wore the scarf, and gazed down at it.
Ryan said nothing as Alex bit down on his lower lip, almost as though to stop it from shaking. Other than the beat of rain against the windows, the room was silent.
“The last photo of us together.” Alex’s voice was so quiet it was as though he was speaking to himself. He put it back, quickly, as if eager to distance himself from it, and swung around and made his way back to the sofa. “Biscuits, to go with the coffee.”
“Thanks.” Ryan glanced back at the photos. Friendly and full of fun, his nan had said, always had time for people. Popular in the village, and something of a novelty, at the time, being an American. But there was the other photo, too, not of a teenage Alex, but as an adult, happy and smiling, with his arm around—No, not his business, not his business at all.
On the sofa, Alex hunched himself into his corner. Perfectly still, he hugged his legs close, his face tense and closed off.
The silence was lengthening and growing awkward. Ryan took a biscuit, swallowing a bite as Alex burst back into life as he released his death grip on his knees and swung round, his ice blue eyes searing into Ryan.
“What are they saying about me, in the village?”
Ryan choked and spluttered, his eyes watering. What were people saying? Did Alex really want to know?
“What do you think?”
Alex snorted. “It’s nothing I haven’t come up against before. I don’t understand why nobody can see the benefits of my plans.”
Ryan’s shoulders tensed. They’d not said a word about the development, and he'd almost believed that for a few hours it could be forgotten, but it was a delusion to think it wouldn’t cast its shadow. His lips curled into a humourless smile, recalling what his nan said, when he’d phoned home for a second time, to tell her he was staying over.Try to get some inside info…Some hope. He wasn’t a spy, and he wasn’t that subtle.
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Nobody here wants hundreds of new homes for rich newcomers.”
Alex narrowed his eyes, as his lips twitched into a crooked smile. “It’s convenient to forget about the affordable housing, isn’t it? But as to the rich newcomers, as you put it, the village has already accepted a large number, so why not accept more? From what I’ve seen, the place has benefited very nicely. Including your pub. More people coming to buy into the bucolic, rural dream will put more money in everyone’s pocket. Why don’t you people see that?”
