Page 38 of He's the One

“Let’s swap numbers.”

Theo saw no issue with that.

“It could work,” Charlotte whispered and tucked her arm into his. “Let them think we’re actually getting on and it will make them happy.”

Theo opened the door for her to go into the house. As they stepped inside the drawing room to see a sea of smiling faces—I, at least, have been set up—he patted his pocket, pulled out his phone and looked at it.

“Sorry. I have to go and deal with something.” Nodding to everyone in the room, he fled.

In an ideal world he’d have kept running but that wasn’t his world, so he didn’t. But he did keep walking, pretending to be on his phone. That had been too neat, too rehearsed and he suspected their mothers were behind it. He didn’t believe that Charlotte had had a relationship with a woman for that length of time and no one in her family knew. Maybe she wasn’t even a lesbian. Theo didn’t like being manipulated.

He found himself heading for James’ place. He had to wait ages before James answered.

“I hope you’ve not come to tell me I’m wanted,” James said.

“Only by me. I know you don’t like watching people do unspeakable things to the gardens.” Theo mock-shuddered. “Can I come in?”

James raised trim grey eyebrows and beckoned Theo inside. “Are they doing unspeakable things?”

“Walking on the grass.”

“As long as no one is picking flowers or taking cuttings.”

“Only from the bonsai trees.”

“Don’t tell me that.” But James was smiling.

Being with James always cheered Theo up.

“I’ve come to ask a couple of favours. You’re probably going to say no.”

“Can I say no?”

“You know you can. I’m not my father. I wish I was as good as you at getting him to say yes. He only has to look at me to say no, even when I’ve not asked him anything.”

“I can’t always persuade him. Sit down.”

James leaned back on his old brown leather couch and crossed his legs.

“In those worn jeans and that shirt, you look like Kevin Costner,” Theo blurted. “Well, if you had a cowboy hat and shorter hair and bluey-grey eyes and a few million dollars.”

James laughed.

Theo adored James. He’d taught him such a lot about plants and trees and nature right from Theo being a small boy. Apart from his father and Sarah, James was the only person Theo had looked forward to seeing when he’d come back from boarding school. James was gay, though no one but Theo knew that. James had told him one evening when Theo had turned up on his doorstep in tears after his mother had made her views on homosexuality very clear. James’s partner had died thirty years ago, before James had come to work at Asquith and he’d been on his own since then.

“You still have a crush on Kevin Costner?” James asked.

“He’s too old for me now. But hell yes to the younger version.”

James smiled. “Seen Isla recently?”

Theo nodded. “She’s fine.”

The only argument they’d ever had was about Isla. Theo had brought the fox to James after he’d found her and James had thought Theo should let someone else take care of her because he wouldn’t ever want to let her go. Theo had been determined to prove him wrong, though it had broken Theo’s heart when he’d finally watched her wander off into the woods to fend for herself.

“What’s happened?” James asked.

“Three things. Well, a lot more than three but I’m trying to pare things down or I’ll bore you.”

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