Page 27 of The Redemption of Alex Cade
I headed for the kitchen, opening my mouth to call out what was taking so long, choking back the words when I heard his voice. It was low, almost secretive, little pauses before he spoke again. He was on the phone, and I wondered what it was that he didn’t want to say in front of me. I peered around the corner of the kitchen. Kelvin had his back to me, his shoulders hunched over, his head nodding in agreement to something or another.
“It’s going to—I know, I know. I’ll call you later.” Kelvin shoved his phone into his pocket.
“Who was that?”
Kelvin span round. The flash of shock on his face was just as quickly replaced with his cocky grin.
“Somebody who might be doing some work on the house. Right, let’s go through that slimy bastard Ibrahim’s accounts that are strictly not for the Inland Revenue.”
Work on the house? Really? I let it go, for the time being, as I pulled out a chair and sat at the big, heavy wooden table.
On the face of it, I was at Kelvin’s for one of our regular meetings, reviewing a business that was growing and thriving and making us more money than we could spend in a dozen lifetimes. But it was only one of the reasons I was sat at the table, poring over the laptop. I had other stuff totalk to Kelvin about, and I would come to that in my own time.
Column after column, the numbers didn’t lie. The profits from the parties that had already taken place read like the GDP of a small nation, and there were more to come. Kelvin was right when he’d said there was a lot of money in kink. Every event was fully booked, with the guests including some of the so called great and good of the land. We had a full list of names, should it be needed for insurance purposes, but it was understood that the house party and so called hotel businesses were built and operated on mutual trust. Didn’t stop us having insurance, if we needed it, though.
We finished up quickly. Everything was running like clockwork. Kelvin began to close down the laptop.
“Why did you go round to Kit’s?” I kept my voice calm, almost conversational.
Kelvin didn’t miss a beat. “Because I wanted to check out the competition.”
That was the last thing I was expecting him to say, and it took me a moment to respond. “What do you mean, the competition? You and me, we’re not?—”
“‘Boyfriends’” he said, air quoting the word. “No, we’re not. We’re much, much more than that and you know it. I just wanted to know what it is about him that’s got you interested beyond a quick shag. There must be something special, for you to change your M.O. He’s cute, he’s what you like, but beyond that, I’ll be buggered if I can see the appeal. Got to be honest with you, babe. But maybe you can enlighten me.” He shrugged, and leant back in his chair, a vision of ease.
My teeth ground down hard and I counted to five in my head before I spoke. Why bother to explain when he had no way of understanding. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could properly explain it to myself. All I knew was that Kit hadcome into my life, bringing with him a light that made the shadows recede. But, even if I had been able to say why, I wouldn’t have exposed myself to Kelvin’s mockery.
“Kit’s my business, not your’s. I don’t want you forcing your way into his home and threatening him. Keep away from him, Kel. I mean it.”
Kelvin’s brows arched high. The O.T.T. look of hurt surprise might have been funny, any other time.
“Is that what he told you? That’d I’d forced my way in? Kitten’s inventive, I’ll give him that.”
“Don’t call him that.”
Kelvin snorted. “Okay, okay. He might not have wanted to, but he did invite me in. He even made me a cup of tea. Nice little place he’s got. Very neat. A bit like him. Got to say, babe,” Kelvin said, his head tilting to the side, “although Ireallycan see the attraction, he does seem a little, hmm, wholesome for your tastes. All those books on the shelves about British garden birds, and Thailand—bit obsessed with the place from the looks of it.” He laughed quietly and shook his head, as under the table my fists clenched hard. “Come on, Alex. You know I’m just trying to protect you, the way I always have.”
“Protection? From Kit? What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t need your protection, Kel. Not anymore.”
“But you do. You just can’t see it. Okay, maybe not quite like before, when we weren’t much more than kids, when we were in that house and you needed protection from?—”
“Shut your mouth. I mean it.”
Our gazes locked. We rarely spoke about that time, about the foster home or what’d happened when we made our escape, and in the months that followed. If any of it was referred to at all, it was in an oblique, vague way. And that was just how I was going to keep it.
“Yeah, let’s not go there,” Kelvin said quietly. “But I’m only looking out for you. This time, though, it’s different because the one you need protection from is yourself.”
“What the hell do you mean by that? I make the decisions about my private life, not you.”
“Come on, Alex. Get real. What cosy little day dream are you trying to live in all of a sudden? Playing at boyfriends with a sweet piece from the suburbs, how does that fit in with your real life? You know, the one I bet you haven’t told him about. Face it, he doesn’t fit into the world we live in, as much as you don’t fit into his.”
“Maybe I don’t fit, either, not anymore.” The silence, sudden, hard, and oppressive, pushed down like a lead weight, squeezing all the air from the room. I’d said it, and there was no going back. “We need to talk about the business.” My voice rasped. I’d wanted to talk about Kelvin keeping his distance from Kit, not about turning the business Kelvin and I had built up together on its head. My ideas were still too new, too nebulous. I needed a solid plan, and the cast iron arguments to go with them. But somehow Kit and the business had become interlinked in my head, and I’d shown my hand too early.
“Oh, I think we do, Alex. I really think we do. We need to talk about all of it.” His voice was low, almost a purr. “Do you think I can’t read you, after all these years? Bit of a coincidence that these thoughts of yours coincide with the arrival of Kitten?—”
“Don’t,” I growled.
No, mythoughtshad been scratching at the back of my head for a while, but maybe meeting Kit had just brought them into sharper focus. Yet, I couldn’t deny the truth of what Kelvin said: Kit and I weren’t just from different worlds, wewere from different universes and I had no idea how or if they could be reconciled.
