Page 24 of His Until Christmas

He blinks. “Wrong? Nothing. I’m fine.”

Reece sits on the edge of the same chair Rex would usually tilt back in, ready to have a good long gossip, all loose-limbed and easy in his skin. If he were here, his feet would be up on the desk already. My new boss sits stiff-backed under a portrait of the island castle where Rex grew up, and perhaps today’s bright sunlight is why I notice the artist didn’t only paint a castle above a harbour. They also captured a boat race in progress.

Men pull hard together on oars like Rex and I pulled together right here in this room when he started the foundation. Now his chair squeaks as uneasily as Reece sounds. “Actually, that was a lie. Sorry, Jack.” He scrubs his face and gets more honest than I did this morning over a green and lumpy smoothie. “Nothing is fine. Absolutely everything went wrong this weekend, and I don’t see this week going any better if it involves partying instead of what I should be doing.”

He meets my eyes, his as stormy as the sky painted behind him, and I’ve spent three years facing this artwork. Today is the first time I grasp that it might not actually feature a boat race. Those men pulling on oars might not be desperate to win a medal or a trophy. They could be setting out on a shipwreck rescue mission, and that’s what Reece describes next by telling me what has happened since he last saw me.

It’s brutal.

“Got to an incident too late. We weren’t fast enough. The boat—” He seems to change his mind mid-sentence about sharing. “Sorry, sorry. It was shit, but it isn’t your job to deal with it.”

“Not my job?” It’s my turn to blink. I reopen the calendar on my tablet and pass it over the desk between us. “See how theseslots are blanked out? They’re the transition periods I built in for Rex after his shifts on rescue duty.”

I fill Reece in on why I guarded those time slots so fiercely. I also make a mental note to add this task to a column headedvitalin the handover chart I’ll make for my replacement.

“Rex needed time to get his head straight. Because it often wasn’t, Reece, not even a little. I mean, he’d be hauling kids out of the sea one minute and then flying to tax havens for billionaire clients the next. That’s the actual definition of a mindfuck. Do you know what Ididschedule for him?” I touch my tablet to show what those blank slots in Rex’s diary kept hidden.

Debrief with Reece.

I turn the screen to face him. “Have you spoken to Rex about how the weekend went?”

He shakes his head. “No. I came straight here, and?—”

“And nothing.”

We’re alone, no reason for me to speak this quietly, as if someone might eavesdrop. This conversation feels intensely private.

I want to protect it.

And him.

“What do you do when Rex calls you?” I go ahead and answer for him. “You listen.”

I sum up what I’ve witnessed. “You listen to every single person on the foundation payroll. When someone needs to get a disaster off their chest, you’re the first port of call for them. For everybody.”

I can’t help how softly this question slips out.

“When rescues go wrong, who listens to you, Reece?”

He doesn’t reply, which is enough of an answer, so I place a call to Cornwall and pass Reece the phone. He takes it from me. He also says, “Hey, Rex,” quietly as I close the study door behind me, and when Reece finds me a half hour later, he looks better.

I mean, he’s still rumpled and crumpled. Still most likely hairy, but much less grey, which feels like the first win of this long week we’ll spend together. It’s one problem solved, which is still my favourite occupation. I aim for solving another by barking an order like I’m the boss here instead of the assistant.

“Get your coat.”

“Why?”

“Because a debrief was only phase one of Rex getting his head on straight after a rescue went wrong.” He doesn’t move, so I grab his coat from the stand for him, and he only fights me a little about putting it on when we should be working on our party planning. I even get as far as fastening his buttons for him before he covers my hands with his.

This look he gives me?

This small smile, which isn’t exactly happy, but is aimed directly at me?

It only means a wild urge to give him a good long hug almost swamps me. But we’ve been here before, haven’t we?

No repeats,I tell myself, and I slide my hands from underneath his in order to loop my own scarf around his neck.

“No,” he insists. “I don’t need this. You wear it.”

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