Page 39 of Best Man
For now, though, he doesn’t get that worry frown he always getswhen I’m being flirty. Instead, to my surprise, he grins happily. “I’ll get the car.”
I look down at my outfit. “I’ll get changed.”
He stares at me. “Why? You look fine.”
“Won’t you be embarrassed? I don’t exactly dress like–” My words trail off before I can mention Patrick, but I know he knows who I’m talking about. He draws me to a halt, holding my arm loosely, but I can feel his skin against mine and the slight roughness of his fingertips. His isn’t the hand of someone who sits in an office full time, which makes me curious.
“Do you want to dress like Patrick?” he asks baldly.
I consider him. “No, but you obviously liked the way he looked.”
He looks suddenly awkward. “Jesse, I chose to be with Patrick and lived with him, so that was a very different–”
“Oh no,” I break in quickly, feeling my heart flop and sink. He couldn’t have made it clearer if he’d written it in the sky that he doesn’t consider me a viable proposition to date. “I just don’t want to embarrass you,” I finish lamely, feeling my face burn.
He stares at me and a kind look crosses his face. “You couldn’t,” he says staunchly. I raise an eyebrow at him, and he smiles. “Come as you are.”
“Well, thank you, Kurt Cobain,” I say tartly.
He laughs. “I like the way you dress.”
“Really?” I say doubtfully. I pull myself together, still thinking of that almost pitying look in his eyes a few seconds ago. “Well, that’s good, I suppose,” I finish coolly. “But I think I’ll still get changed.”
The outfit that had seemed okay a few hours ago now feels like a red flag. As if I’ve embarrassed him in front of his peers by dressing like a kid. I think of the story Max told me, and all of a sudden I feel small. This kind, gentle man asked me here to help him. He trusted me to do that, and all I’ve done so far is muck about and make passes at him that obviously make him uncomfortable.
He hesitates like he wants to say something and then settles for looking worried. The silence stretches, and I watch him. “Okay then,” he finally says. “I’ll be in the car.”
I nod and walk away and give myself a talking to in the lift. By thetime I get to the room, I’ve settled my mood. Just because I fancy him doesn’t mean he has to fancy me back. This isn’t a rom-com. It’s real life, and in real life he’s a wealthy older man who probably has far too many well-groomed men throwing themselves at him to be interested in a walking disaster of a twenty-four-year-old undergraduate who still dresses inSesame StreetT-shirts and doesn’t keep enough control of his mouth in social situations.
I change into smart grey chino shorts, a pale pink shirt, and leather deck shoes. I look in the mirror and decide I definitely look more suitable now.
“At the end of the day, I’ll be gone from his agency soon,” I say out loud. “And I’ll become that funny story he tells about his old member of staff at dinner parties he throws with his very perfect boyfriend.”
The thought is peculiarly painful, so I do what I always do. I push it to one side and focus on being friendly. I’m going to make him happy this week.
“I’m going to behave and not let him down so I’ll be more of a pleasant memory to him,” I say solemnly and my face looks back at me carefully. I let that settle, and by the time I reach the car and hop in, I’m smiling more or less naturally.
ZEB
I watch him worriedly as he gets into the car. I don’t know what happened earlier. One minute he was full of life, fairly glowing with fun and a simple sort of joy that seems to hang around him like glitter. Then he visibly shut it down, and I can’t work out why. Catching hold of him is like trying to cup water as it runs through my fingers.
The only thing I can think of is his peculiar insistence on getting changed. I’m slightly disappointed in this buttoned-up version of Jesse in perfectly ironed shorts and shirt. I preferred the earlier Jesse with that shiny hair held back by a bandanna and that ridiculous T-shirt. It was so him. So vibrant. Now, he seems almost colourless.
I can’t say anything, though.I’m his boss,I think desperately. It seems like I’m clinging onto that lately like it’s a raft that’s slowly disintegrating underneath me.
“Where are we going?” he asks, thankfully interrupting my thoughts.
“Bourton-on-the-Water.” I steer the car down the drive. “It’s pretty, especially in the summer,” I say somewhat desperately.
“Sounds lovely,” he says politely.
I shoot him another quick glance and open my mouth to speak but he reaches over and quickly switches on the radio.
I fall back into silence broken only by his increasingly cheerful conversational asides.
He brightens up, however, when we get to Bourton-on-the-Water. It’s a pretty, quintessential Cotswolds village with beautiful golden-bricked cottages and little stone bridges that span the River Windrush that runs all the way through the village. And tourists. Hundreds andhundredsof tourists.
“Why is everyone in the world here today?” he marvels as we step around what feels like twenty thousand pushchairs and wandering children to get out of the car park.
