Page 38 of White Noise

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said, pushing me gently away so he could wipe the tears from my cheeks like I was a child. I felt like one. “I was going to go straight to the gym, but I wanted to see if you were here first, so we could talk. Because this has to stop. Right now. OK?”

Matt

“Whatneedstostop?”Con snivelled, wiping his face with the back of his hand. At least he was wearing his own clothes, so his T-shirt was stretchy enough for him to pull up and dry his blotchy face. It was a pointless task since the tears kept on coming.

“All this messy panic you’re carrying around. I mean. You’ve been like this since the first time I met you.”

“I’m not messy,” he protested feebly. “I’m just over-emotional. It goes with the territory.”

I didn’t believe a word he was saying, but he was here, in my arms, and I was strangely level-headed and on track, so I just held him.

“Conny, you’re the most brilliant person I’ve ever met, yet at the same time the most chaotic. And yeah, perhaps you’re a little over-emotional, but that’s a good thing, don’t you agree?”

“So I don’t need to stop the crying?”

I was a bit lost with how to handle him because even though he was a full-on adult human being, there was something incredibly naïve about the way he sometimes worded things. It brought out all my protective traits, in overload.

“What’s with the bags? You leaving?” I asked, having spotted the two large holdalls by the door. “Please don’t move out.”

“No.”

“No, I’m not leaving or no, I’ve just packed my bags for fun?”

“I picked up the rest of my stuff from the hotel. I can’t stay there anymore. It’s…a long story.”

“OK.” I had to stop. Breathe. Stroke his hair. Smile at that ridiculous face I’d been dreaming of all day. I wanted so badly to kiss him again, but I didn’t dare. The fact was that he was this big lump of a man, and I wasn’t, and that I was struggling to stand up when he was hugging me like he was because he…

God help me.

“Conny, we need to stop this thing we have going on where we’re basically boyfriends who don’t talk to each other. At all. We need to hash out what’s going on here and not just jump each other in the kitchen and then go to work like nothing happened…” I had to stop again because he wasn’t crying anymore. He was laughing.

“You’rethe one who jumpedmein the kitchen.” There was that twinkle I adored, even though his eyes were still full of tears.

“Uh-huh? I just gave you a supportive, friendly kiss. Thenyoupushedmeinto the kitchen counter and snogged the living daylights out of me.”

I was being somewhat economical with the truth there, as I’d run to the Tube station trying to disguise my semi under my cheap work suit, and I wasn’t proud of that. It was one thing dreaming about being kissed by Con Telford, another actually being assaulted by him naked apart from boxers and bed hair. He was irresistible in the morning, and had I not had my wits about me, I’d have dropped to my knees and given him a blow job.

I’m glad I hadn’t. That would’ve no doubt had him sobbing. Seeing what one small innocent kiss had done to him, he was nowhere ready for anything like that.

But it hadn’t beenjust a kiss. I kind of understood that.

“Come here,” I said and towed him over to the sofa. I got my suit jacket off and threw it on the floor, then tugged at him until he sat next to me.

I’d only intended to initiate a friendly chat about where we both stood. Instead, he pretty much plonked himself on top of me and snuggled his face into my shoulder.

I wasn’t complaining. Not at all. I hugged him, stroking my hands up and down his back.

“Yesterday looked like an absolute shitshow,” I started carefully. Not that I knew anything about Con’s line of work, but it was clear the photos told a story that had absolutely no anchor in reality—the set-up, Tara Marie trying to kiss him, both of them looking wasted—mostly because the sheer amount of alcohol involved would’ve put him in a coma. I may not have been an expert, but the Con I’d kissed at six o’clock this morning had been stone-cold sober.

“It was,” he said into my shoulder.

“You don’t drink, and you were definitely not drunk this morning. I would have smelled it a mile off. I have a little brother who insisted he didn’t drink on nights out when his beer intake was ridiculous. He was seventeen at the time. He learned his lesson, but yeah. I was that big brother. The one who picked him up in the middle of the night and sobered him up enough to drag him through the house so our parents wouldn’t know he’d been smashed. So, I know.”

“It’s business,” Con said. “I have a show to promote. A play coming up and a potential big deal in the States where Con Telford needs to be seen as the man of the moment. It’s all fake. I’m told what to do, what to say, who to talk to…” He snivelled again. “I mean, I can say no, but it’s easier to play along…”

He shuffled up so he was looking at me.

He was terrifying this close up. Because of who he was. How he made me feel. How I just wanted to wrap him up in my bed and kiss him until we both fell asleep.

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