Junction X by Erastes (digital ebook reader .TXT) 📗

short. In no time at all, we were pulling up outside our respective houses. “Thanks,” he said again, but he made no move to get out. His fingers moved restlessly over the handle of his briefcase, making a fist and then opening out to stroke the brown leather. Brown-white-brown went his knuckles and I couldn’t stop staring at them.

“You’ve got ink on your hand,” I said. “You’re late home.” I sounded like a schoolmaster.

“I’ve joined an evening club. Extra coaching.”

“Do you need it?”

“For Oxford I will.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. What subject?”

“Maths.”

I didn’t say ‘Oh,’ again, like some kind of idiot, but I was surprised. I’d known a lot of mathematicians and they didn’t have faces like Alec’s. Mostly they looked like ferrets in corduroy.

“Where did you go?” he asked, twisting on the seat.

I tried to will myself not to look at him, but I had my first lesson in the effects of Alec on my will power that evening. I learned that I didn’t have any. I turned and looked him full in the face and my stomach did that flipping thing again, leaping straight up and kicking me hard in the diaphragm. His new haircut had snipped away those recalcitrant white curls but the shortness around his ears suited him, brought his cheekbones into relief and accentuated the slenderness of his neck. His shirt was undone, his tie stuffed casually into his jacket pocket. I could see a glimpse of collarbone that made my breath burn. He wasn’t wearing anything beneath the thin white shirt that I could see. I knew I should feel uncomfortable even noticing that, but I didn’t, and I felt rebellion surge through me.

“Me? Uni?” He nodded, and his lips parted, which caused my groin to stir. I coughed and shifted uncomfortably. “I did Engineering at Queens.” I braced both hands against the steering wheel and pushed back against the seat.

“Not very useful, in your job.”

“That’s an understatement.” I shrugged. “But then I wasn’t expecting to be a wage slave. I was going to build things. Bridges. Airports.”

“You had different dreams.” His voice had changed, and when I looked at him again, he’d turned away and was looking out of the off-side window.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I lied. “I shouldn’t have been surprised that life included a wife and family. Life generally does. It’s not as if I thought I was going to be Isembard Kingdom Brunel.”

The words were out of my mouth before the old dream hit me hard. I had. I had wanted to be Isembard Kingdom Brunel. I realised that I hadn’t admitted that to myself for a long time. I wondered where my life had gone.

“Or anyone like that,” I ended, lamely, wishing I hadn’t said Brunel’s name, wishing I hadn’t tainted Alec with my failed ambition.

He was silent for a while and then said, “Yeah—you’re right. Thanks for the lift.” He opened the door, dropped a leg into the road and waited for a car to pass.

My chest got that tight feeling again and I caught hold of his right arm. “Alec,” I said. He turned to me with an expression that looked like the children on Christmas morning, and I was still too stupid to read it. “I’ve been thinking. There’s the toy fair in Aliston on Sunday the fourteenth.”

He pulled his leg back in and shut the door. “Yeah, I know. Dad can’t go. He has to work.”

“The twins might want to.” I couldn’t help but smile. It seemed conspiratorial. Secret plans being made in a Bentley. It was worthy of Bond.

He grinned a little, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Would they?”

“Probably.”

“No golf?”

“Of course not. Not if they wanted to go somewhere else.” I made myself sound like Super-Dad, and with that, Alec and I were back to that easy banter. It seemed natural, and I enjoyed talking to him so much, that I hardly cared anymore that he was half my age. It was addictive; I’d not had this with anyone else, not with Valerie, not even with Phil. I wanted more of it.

“I’d like that.” He got out, then stuck his head back into the car and said, “Thanks.”

I think that was the first time that we weren’t awkward with each other. From then on—apart from a few rare notable exceptions—the way we spoke was almost intuitive, sometimes not even needing to finish sentences, or questions.

I sat and watched him walk down the path to his front door, my knuckles whitening as I gripped the steering wheel. I knew then what I was, how I felt and what was wrong-not-wrong with me. For about thirty whole seconds, I didn’t bloody care. My blood was on fire and my skin tingled. I was warm and complete. I felt like a boy who’d just asked the girl of his dreams out on the best date he could afford.

Thirty perfect seconds. Then the real world crept back and the colours bleached a little. Elation is a bubble that lasts for tiny tiny moments but leaves something of its memory in scents and sounds so that later, when you need that boost, you can close your eyes and remember happiness.

Like an automaton, I put the car away and went straight upstairs to see the children before lights out. They were pleased as Punch to have an outing with Daddy to look forward to. That feeling of smug rebellion stayed with me for a while.

The guilt and the worry took longer to resurface. I argued with myself over coffee and liqueurs. What was I doing that was so wrong? All I was doing was taking Alec somewhere he’d enjoy, and I was going there anyway. There was nothing odd that he should accompany us. No one, no one could point a finger and say there was anything strange about that.

But I remember sliding down into my chair, closing my eyes as I wrapped my hands around the brandy glass. I remember smiling as the music poured from the radio.