Page 43 of By His Side

It would be easy to call her a bitch and shrug it off. I’d done it before in prison when someone had asked why she only visited once every six months. Hell, sometimes it wasn’t even that often. She’d once gone a year without setting foot in there. But if Darien truly meant it about believing I was innocent, then he deserved the truth. He deserved the unfiltered version of me. “It does. Back when I was first arrested, I thought her attitude was just shock, that she’d think things through and realize the truth.” Darien’s hand crossed the space to settle on my knee. He squeezed it in a show of reassurance and I appreciated the gesture more than I could ever put into words. “I’m still waiting for that day. I should probably face up to the truth and realize it’s never going to happen.”

Perhaps sensing I’d shared enough for the time-being, Darien turned his squeeze into a pat before standing. He gave an exaggeratedstretch. “Chili would be great. And in answer to your question, I can take quite a lot of heat.”

“I know you can.” Slipping back into flirtation felt safe, like going for a long swim and then finding yourself back on solid ground. I pulled on a baseball cap and dark glasses, my willingness to hide my identity more for Darien’s sake than my own. I’d go for a walk before going shopping. It would give me a chance to clear my head.

Chapter Eighteen

Darien

As Saturdays went, today had been eventful, and all without leaving the house. It had started innocuously enough, Felix and I barely getting out of bed before we’d found ourselves back there, bodies entangled and Felix fucking me so long and slow that there were times it resembled torture more than sex. There’d been nothing torturous about the orgasm the slow build had led to, though. No one had ever made me come like Felix did, the man able to play my body like he was a virtuoso and I was his violin. It was inevitable after such exertions that we’d fall asleep afterwards.

And then Hayden had arrived like a mini typhoon to interrupt the post-coital bliss. I might have played it down to Felix by claiming that my brother’s intentions were pure—which they were—but that hadn’t stopped the conversation from being fraught. Hayden hadmade me feel like I’d let him down, like he’d put me on a pedestal as a perfect human being, only to discover I was human after all, with all the frailties and base desires that came along with it.

Felix listening in on the conversation had come as a shock. Which, in retrospect, was naïve of me. Had I really thought he’d cower upstairs? Felix wasn’t the cowering type. The worst thing about what he’d overheard was that I should have said it to him first. It was hard to work out why I’d never told him I believed in his innocence when I knew it was precisely what he wanted to hear.

After the conversation where I’d done my best to right some of the wrongs of not talking to Felix, he’d gone out. Supposedly to get ingredients for the chili he planned to make, but the passage of time said he’d gone elsewhere. I hadn’t questioned him on it when he’d returned, letting him hide away in the kitchen and use cooking as his therapy. He was so intent on what he was doing that the few times I’d popped my head in the kitchen to check he was alright, he hadn’t noticed.

That meant that sitting down together to eat at the kitchen table was the first opportunity we’d had to talk for some hours. Felix had outdone himself, producing not only chili and rice, but tortillas and a sour cream dip he’d made himself as well. The flavor burst on my tongue as I took my first bite of the chili. There was heat, but nothing I couldn’t handle, Felix gauging it perfectly. “Jesus! This is good,” I enthused. “One of the best things I’ve ever tasted. I hope you cooked enough for there to be leftovers.”

“You don’t need to go overboard.” Felix’s stare was as cool as his words and I wondered if the snarling dog had wandered into the kitchen to take up a position at its master’s feet, ready to jump into action if need be.

“I wasn’t. It’s really good.”

There was no wine tonight, Felix perhaps realizing things were too uncertain, too raw, between us to introduce alcohol into the equation. I studied him as he ate, his expression giving nothing away. “If you ever need to talk about him, you can, you know.”

Felix’s fork stilled before he caught himself and carried on collecting chili and rice on it. He brought it to his mouth and chewed slowly before speaking. “Talk about who?”

I was walking on eggshells, the need to get him to open up warring with the niggling suspicion that I should let it go. For today, at least. “You know who. Julian.”

Felix’s mouth twisted, but he said nothing. We both carried on eating, enough time passing for me to assume that was the end of the conversation. When he put his fork down halfway through his meal, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d got up and left. He didn’t, sitting back in his chair instead. “What do you want to know about him?”

“Anything you want to share?” Realizing that was too vague, I fine-tuned my question. “How did the two of you meet?”

“At a work do. He was dating a friend of mine.” Felix gave a little laugh. “I sometimes wonder if everything that happened after was karma for flirting with someone who I knew had a boyfriend.”

“Did you steal him from your friend?”

The look from beneath Felix’s long lashes told me the question required thought before he could answer it. “Define steal.”

“Deliberately setting out to take him away from your friend.” He wouldn’t be the first person, and it wasn’t the biggest sin in the world. There were worse crimes. Like murder.

More consideration. “No, then. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel an immediate attraction toward him. I thought he was incredibly handsome.”

“I’ve seen photos. I don’t think anyone can dispute that Julian Blackwell is a good-looking man.”

“And I’m sure I did a shitty job of hiding my attraction to him. There was a quick turnaround from him splitting with Theo and dating me.”

“How quick?”

He shrugged. “A week. Ten days at most.”

“And how did Theo take that?”

“He wasn’t happy. You know, bro code, and all that.”

“You probably saved him.”

“Yeah.” There was very little conviction in Felix’s voice, though.

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