Page 13 of A Box of Wishes
“You what?” Ben spun around. His eyes locked on Ryan’s, searching, studying… and then his lips curled in the sweetest smile Ryan had ever seen. “Wait until you’ve slept and I’ll accept.”
Morris yelled his displeasure when Ben stepped into the hallway. He set down the shopping bags and picked up the cat, cradling him close. “I know, sweetie. I’m late and you’re hungry. Let’s get your dinner first, shall we?”
He kicked out of his shoes as he spoke and carried Morris into the kitchen. The tabby wound himself around Ben’s ankles as he washed the empty breakfast bowl and opened a packet of cat food. “There you go, big boy. Nice salmon.”
Morris scarfed his food, ignoring Ben.
“I see I’m in the doghouse.” He returned to the hallway to hang up his coat and retrieve the shopping bags.
Before he could leave the coffeehouse, a sizeable chunk of filing completed, Ryan had added to his haul. Instead of pie, defrosted and heated in the microwave, he would dine on flatbread smothered in chicken, green chillies, and cheese. There was even a custard tart for dessert.
Ben pondered drink choices and settled on red wine over Earl Grey tea. Ryan O’Shaughnessy had asked him out. That called for a bit of a celebration.
It wasn’t until later, when Morris had decided that sharing the custard tart was better than sulking in the kitchen, that Ben considered more than the hug Ryan had given him or the fact that he’d told—actually told!—another person about his breakup with Keith.
“He left me alone in his office,” he said to a purring Morris. “Let me see all his paperwork. It didn’t bother him at all. There wasn’t so much as an order for icing sugar that looked as if something was wrong with it.”
Morris meowed, and Ben’s grin grew wider. He loved it when Morris talked back. They could have endless conversations, and it used to piss off Keith no end. “Ryan’s asked me out. If that goes well, you’ll get to meet him, too.”
The next meow sounded like a question. “I know I’ve only just met him. But I don’t think he invited me out because he felt sorry for me.” He stroked the tabby’s head. “It didn’t feel like a thank you, either. Did I say he hugged me? It felt good.”
Custard tart finished, Morris settled half on the sofa and half on Ben’s lap, inviting strokes. “I meant to ask him about the box and the coloured papers. Because really? It’d be a clever way to hand out drugs and collect the money. I didn’t in the end because I found out he hadn’t slept. Then I offered to help him put his office back in order.”
Ben’s mind refused to shut down.
He wondered if he should go shopping for rugs at the weekend, booted up the laptop and searched for dining tables, chairs, a new chest of drawers… all the things he’d not had enough motivation to replace after Keith had left.
He thought about Ryan, who kept the coffeehouse open long after its advertised hours, who baked through the night, and who insisted his staff stay home—paid if he wasn’t missing his mark—if a child was ill.
The box was a mystery, the dance of the coloured paper squares a riddle he’d yet to solve. But it was only a matter of time before he found the solution. Meanwhile, he could tell Tarbert that Ryan had no qualms about letting him see his books and papers, and they held nothing suspicious.
Help
“Damn it!” Acrid black smoke oozed around the door of the small oven. Ryan pulled out the tray and threw the charred remains of a cheese and ham croissant into the bin. He switched the overhead fan to a higher setting and flapped a dishcloth. “I need a fucking do-over button. For the whole damned morning.”
He’d shared dinner with Alastair the previous evening. His cousin had been wide awake. Body and mind still out of sync with English time, he’d quizzed Ryan about the goings-on around town. As a means to avoid answering Ryan’s questions, it had worked like a charm. It had also left Ryan exhausted.
Going to bed after one had made him doze past his alarm. Then he’d set the oven to pre-heat at a higher temperature to make up for running late, only to forget all about it. And the pot of tea he’d started at the same time was now stewed beyond redemption.
It shouldn’t surprise him that Ben wasn’t here yet.
Maybe it was just one of those days, though Ryan didn’t think so. All the tiny setbacks strung together gave him a creepy feeling.
Something was wrong.
He pasted on a smile and served the first of his regulars while worry churned in his gut. Ben had never been late. Ever since coming to investigate the break-in, he’d walked into the coffeehouse at twenty-five past seven. Every single day.
Now eight o’clock had come and gone, and there was no sign of Ben.
Ryan fixed coffees to go and bagged pastries and sandwiches while his gaze kept straying to the door, waiting.
Ben arrived when he should long have been at work. He wore neither coat nor jacket, and his face was pale despite the winter cold. The colour of his aura wavered through shades of grey and sludgy yellow, and Ben’s anguish sliced through Ryan like a knife.
It didn’t need the sudden fire in his chest, or the vicious tug in his gut to propel Ryan into action. He reached into the cubbyhole under the counter and plucked a square of paper from the stack, a deep slate blue that matched Ben’s eyes. He slapped it on an empty tray, then circled the bar and stepped into Ben’s path.
“Ben? What’s wrong?”
Too preoccupied with the horrors in his mind to breathe, move, and speak at once, Ben stood motionless in the middle of the room until Ryan wrapped an arm around his shoulder and guided him to the nook. He settled him on the bench, not on his usual one giving him a view of all the patrons in the coffeehouse, but on the seat facing away, so he wouldn’t have to share his grief with anyone else.
