Blowing It (8 page)

“Last Friday.”

“And your agent saw it?”

I nodded miserably.

“Did you get in trouble?”

“I’m not allowed to be seen with you,” I said, a
shamed blush making my cheeks burn.

Magnus withdrew his hand. I felt cold where he’d
touched me. “Oh.”

“Yeah. So, I mean, I’d understand if you didn’t
want to see me again. There’s no reason to make your life complicated, right?
You didn’t sign up for this shit.”

“You were going to break up with me?” he asked
incredulously.

Even through my misery, I couldn’t stop the little
flutter in my chest at the realisation he thought we had something that required
breaking up.

“I don’t want to.”

“Do you have to?”

I considered his question. “No,” I said finally.
“They can’t make us split up. But we can’t go anywhere or do anything, and what
fun is that?”

“I don’t know.” Magnus relaxed in his chair, a grin
on his face. “I thought we had fun in your flat.”

I smiled, remembering. “Yes, we did,” I said with
fervour. “But don’t you want more than that? If not right now, then one day?”

“Do you?”

“I-I’d like to think so. Yes. I don’t want to sneak
around like I’m still an ashamed teenager, okay?”

“What are you saying?” Magnus asked.

“I don’t
know
,” I groaned, screwing up the
napkin, twisting the fibres until a thread snapped.

Magnus took it off me. “Don’t you think we’re a
little early in the day for all this angst?”

“But you don’t know what it’s like,” I protested. “I’m
not exactly plastered all over the tabloids, but I might as well be, the way
they treat me. It’s all ‘image management clause’ this, and ‘palatable to the
American market’ that. All I wanted was to write books.”

Magnus smiled. “And you’re bloody good at it. It’s
not only Abi who loves your stories, you know.”

“I—oh.” I grinned as his meaning became clear.
“Thanks.”

“Cards on the table, Owen.” Magnus laid his hands
flat before him, gazing at me with an expression of such earnestness, I sat up
and paid attention. “I like you. I think we get on well, and I’d love to see
where this goes. I’d say that whether you were an author or a plumber. I’m not
interested in having my face plastered all over the newspapers, I’m not
flamboyant or even particularly demonstrative in public, so if we have to date discreetly,
I’m all right with that. In fact, I’d prefer it.”

“You say that now,” I objected. “What happens in
six or twelve months’ time, if we’re still together? What about the Carnegie?
My agent is negotiating a film deal with
Hollywood.
Whether we like it
or not, I could end up actually famous at the end of this, and will you still
feel okay about me leaving you out then?”

“Who’s J.K. Rowling seeing?” Magnus countered. “Even
I would probably recognise her if I passed her in the street, but I don’t know
a thing about her private life. Is she married? Dating? I haven’t got a bloody
clue. I don’t care. So why do you assume people would be interested in me, even
if they were interested in you? One doesn’t automatically follow the other.”

“I bet it’s on Wikipedia,” I said, although I
wasn’t sure why I was still arguing the point. Magnus was right, wasn’t he? Even
if—and it was a big “if”—I got famous enough people started accosting me in the
street, Magnus would be all but invisible at my side. If he was prepared to
accept that, why wasn’t I? “I don’t want you to end up resenting me,” I
admitted.

Magnus smiled gently. “I’m thirty-one, Owen. Not
some fame-hungry teenager. And I know myself well enough to know what I can and
can’t live with. Setting aside your agent’s orders, I don’t think either of us
are the type to want to be seen out on the town every weekend. Avoiding the
places where people are likely to photograph us isn’t going to be difficult, is
it?”

“Probably not,” I grudgingly conceded.

“If this was just an excuse, if you’re really done
with me, tell me. I can handle the truth. Otherwise, let’s not worry. We carry
on as we were and see how it goes. If we get to a point where things change, or
one of us is unhappy, we can revisit it.”

“I’m not making excuses,” I said, alarmed he would
think such a thing.

“Good.” Magnus smiled, his gaze flitting from my
face to someone behind me.

A moment later, the waiter excused himself as he
leant between us to place two cups of black, steaming coffee and a small pot of
cream on the table. Magnus added a splash, then turned the handle of the pot
towards me to help myself while he slowly stirred his drink.

Feeling decadent, I added a sugar lump in addition
to most of the remainder of the cream. After stirring, I sipped cautiously at
the piping hot coffee, enjoying the strong flavour, the sugar taking just
enough of the edge off that the aftertaste wasn’t bitter.

“Let me cook you dinner,” Magnus said once the
waiter was well clear of our table. “I’m busy tomorrow, but what about Monday
night?”

“You cook?”

He laughed. “It seems unlikely, doesn’t it? I’m not
up to anything like this”—his loose hand gesture encompassed the table and the
meal we’d so recently enjoyed—“but I do a decent lasagne.”

I grinned. “I could be persuaded to try that.”

“I promise not to poison you,” he said solemnly.
“If for no other reason than Abigail would have my head if anything happened to
you before the series was finished.”

“We can’t have that, can we?” I asked.

“Certainly not.”

“Well then, I suppose it’s a date.”

“Excellent.” He raised his cup in a small salute.
“You won’t regret it.”

CHAPTER TEN

Magnus lived on the ground floor of a gorgeous
three-storey Victorian house with pretty dormer windows in the garret, the roof
slates laid in a zigzag pattern, ridge tiles topped with ornate curved leaf
finials. The exterior was neatly kept, the white paint of the window sashes and
frame columns gleaming. Venetian blinds shaded the ground floor windows, angled
up to prevent passersby or nosy neighbours from prying inside. As I skipped up
the half-dozen steps to the front door, the blinds moved, and Magnus let me in
before I’d knocked. The door to his flat was right in the entrance hall, and he
ushered me inside.

My first impression was of blinding whiteness. The
entry led into a small kitchen. A couple of pans bubbled on the stainless steel
hob, and the scents of garlic and oregano hung heavy in the air. The kitchen opened
onto a large room which ran the length of the house, ending in a pair of French
doors, out of which I could see steps leading up towards the garden. The walls,
cabinets, and furniture were all white, as was the retaining wall outside. A
touch of colour was added by a colourful throw in several shades of green and
blue draped across the sofa. Silver-framed black and white photographs hung on
the walls, each depicting an atmospheric street scene. Here, St Paul’s
Cathedral in winter; there, a street lamp glowing through the fog of Trafalgar
Square.

“It isn’t much,” Magnus said, taking my jacket and
hanging it on a hook by the front door. “But it’s mine.”

“It’s nice,” I said, meaning it. In design and
layout, it wasn’t so different to my flat, although I couldn’t see any
additional doorway for a bedroom. I did a quick mental calculation of the
floorplan and realised the sofa probably pulled out into his bed. It added an
extra element of intimacy to the simple act of sitting down. I wanted to sniff
the cushions, see if they smelt like him.

“Drink?” Magnus asked, hovering. “You like
Bordeaux, right?”

“Well remembered.” I smiled. “I’d love a glass.”

The wine glass he gave me was one of those great,
oversized balloons, and I noted with some alarm he’d more than half-filled it.

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Mr. Cassidy?”

Magnus chuckled and swallowed a mouthful from his
bottle of beer. “Not at all. The glasses were a housewarming gift, and I can’t
stand people who only put a poncy little dribble of wine in them. Feel free to
leave as much as you like.”

“You’ve given it to me now,” I protested. “It would
be rude not to finish it.”

Magnus smiled. “If you say so.”

My stomach rumbled as I sniffed expectantly. “What’s
for dinner?”

Magnus took a seat on the sofa beside me, the
cushions sinking under his weight. He was dressed casually in faded blue jeans
and a thin sweater, a dark curl of chest hair just visible at the point of the V-neck.
He didn’t appear to have shaved since I’d seen him on Saturday, and I longed to
run my fingers through his beard. “Lasagne.”

“From scratch?”

“Of course.”

“Sauce as well?”

“What do you think I am?” He looked wounded. “You’ll
find no jars in the bin.”

I sipped my drink, watching him over the rim of my
glass. “Smart, handsome, and you can cook as well? My mother might kill me if I
fuck this one up.”

Magnus laughed. “You need to taste it before you say
I can cook.”

“But you’re not disputing the smart or handsome
assessments?” I smirked. “Modest.”

He toyed demurely with the label on his bottle. “I
try my best.”

Laughing, I gave him a playful shove. “I don’t
think your best is good enough.”

Magnus let the teasing go. “Your mother often passes
judgment on your boyfriends?” he asked, aiming for nonchalance but missing by a
country mile.

My insides knotted at his use of the word
boyfriend
.
“Sometimes,” I said. “Usually it’s Ryan they have to watch out for.”

“How do you think I’m doing there?”

I grinned. “I think if he wasn’t already married to
Sameer, I’d be worried.”

“How long have they been together?”

“Five years.” I told him a bit about their history,
losing myself in a lengthy description of their lavish wedding. “Of course,
that was when it was only civil partnerships,” I concluded.

“They’ll change the paperwork to marriage, though?”

I nodded. “The moment they’re able.” Same sex
marriages had only been legal for about a month, and there was still no date
for when existing civil partnerships would have their status upgraded. For Ryan
and Sameer, it wouldn’t really make much difference to their day-to-day lives,
but the very word “marriage” held weight that plain old “civil partnership”
didn’t.

Something beeped from the kitchen, and Magnus got
to his feet. “That’ll be the lasagne. I hope you’re hungry.”

I followed him to the kitchen, leaning against the
wide doorway, watching as he put on an oven mitt and produced a large,
multi-layered lasagne, the cheese on top browned and bubbling deliciously.

“That smells wonderful,” I said, salivating. “I’m
starving.”

“Good.”

He set the dish on the hob, took two square plates
from a cupboard above the sink, and placed a generous portion on each one. Salad
came from a bag from the fridge, assorted curly leaves of deep green and
reddish-purple lettuce. I put the plates on the small wooden table pushed
against the wall opposite the doorway, which Magnus had already laid with
placemats and cutlery. He joined me, a basket of crusty slices of white bread
in hand.

The chairs were of the sort of curved plastic more
usually seen in bars, and I winced as I scraped the tiled floor with the metal
legs. Magnus sat opposite, waiting expectantly for me to pass judgment on his
cooking.

 The lasagne was blisteringly hot but delicious,
and I told him so effusively. Looking pleased, he picked up his fork and tucked
in.

“How long did this take?” I asked, indicating the
decimated remains of my dinner.

“Not long.”

“When did you get off work?”

“I left my diary open after three, so I got back
here in plenty of time.”

“Your boss doesn’t mind you doing that?”

Magnus shook his head. “I work hard enough. I
schedule surveys around the homeowners, and as long as I meet the timescales,
he doesn’t bother. I’m not tied to the office.”

“So what exactly is it you do?”

Magnus explained a bit about his job, what he
looked for on a survey, how he determined if an insurance claim was legitimate
or not. “We had this one couple,” he said, draining his beer and leaning on the
table. “Nice, respectable-looking people. Nearing retirement, smart house, the
works. Every year, like clockwork, they’d put in a claim. Say the grandkids had
drawn on the wallpaper in felt tip or something. Wanted the place redecorated.”

“And their insurance company bought it?”

Magnus grinned. “Not the last time.”

“So what happens to them? Will they get prosecuted?”

He shook his head and stood, holding out his hand
for me to pass over my cleared plate. “The insurance declined the claim, and
come renewal time, they’ll probably price them out of the policy. It’s easier
than confronting them.”

“So when I hear people bitching about their rates
going up, it’s probably because the insurance knows they were trying it on?”

Magnus laughed. “Quite possibly.” He loaded the
plates in his tiny dishwasher. “People still think insurance is a blank cheque.
It hasn’t been like that for years, and they can turn up at a house to check
we’ve actually done the work we’ve billed. If I’m even a metre out with the
coving, or forget to deduct the windows from the wall area, they’ll take the
money back.”

“That sounds like it makes your job more
difficult.”

“Not difficult,” he said, rinsing his hands in the
sink. “Just pedantic. My first boss, the place I trained, he could go to a
house, look at a job, and tell you there and then what it would cost. These
days it’s all set rates and get-out clauses. Do you know if I fell into a
cupboard, say, and broke one of the doors, if they can’t find the same colour
or style again, they still won’t replace them all? I’d have to cover that out
of my own pocket.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wish.” Magnus turned and leant against the worktop,
drying his hands on a white and blue striped tea towel. “And I’m the poor sod
who’s got to tell the homeowner.”

“Do you like it?” I asked curiously.

“Not that part.” Magnus chuckled. “I like my job,
though. I like the transformation. Starting with a flooded kitchen, or
collapsed roof, or whatever, and ending with something beautiful. I find
satisfaction in a job well done, and most people are grateful in the end, even
if it takes them a while to get there.”

“You never considered making things instead?”

“What, like woodturning?” He shook his head. “It’s
a nice hobby, but it isn’t exactly a career.”

“You want stability.” I could understand that.

“I suppose so. What about you? You never considered
quitting writing and getting a day job?”

“I had a day job,” I pointed out. “And a night job.
And something on the weekends. I’ve waited most of the tables in Central
London. Writing was always my first love; the rest just paid the bills.”

Magnus smiled. “It’s nice you’re passionate about
it. There’s not many people who get to do something they love for a living.”

“I’m lucky,” I agreed, rising from the table and
advancing on him, swaying my hips a little with each step. Magnus rested his
hands on the worktop and watched me approach, pupils dilated. I hooked my fingers
into the belt loops of his jeans and leant against him, looking up to meet his
eyes. “I spent all day working on my new book—which I’m really excited about,
by the way—then I got to come here and have a handsome, talented man cook me a
delicious dinner.”

Magnus huffed with amusement and made a show of
avoiding my breath. “A delicious
garlicky
dinner.”

“It was pretty strong.”

“You complaining?”

“Not at all.”

“Good.”

I put my hand behind his head, and he obediently
lowered his face to mine, catching my lips in a gentle kiss.

“We’ll just have to stink together,” I said with a
snigger.

“How do you know that wasn’t my plan all along?”

I narrowed my eyes. “When I’m sweating it out on
the tube, I’m going to wear a placard telling people who to blame.”

“Just remember to thank me when you get a whole
carriage to yourself.”

I pretended to consider his statement. “Maybe I
should carry it with me. People get too close, I pull a garlic bulb out of my
pocket and take a bite.”

Magnus pulled a face. “Gross.”

“Effective.”

I kissed him again, and we smiled at each other,
our faces so close his eyes blurred together in my vision.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked, his
invitation clear.

I ran my hand across his flank, splayed my palm against
the curve of his stomach, and smiled as I felt him suck it in, muscles pulled
tight for me. I clawed my fingers, scraping his skin gently through his shirt,
and felt a shiver run through him. I liked his responsiveness, his naked desire
to please me. He might look calm and strong, but underneath he was soft and
sweet as a newborn lamb.

Demurely biting my lip, I continued tormenting him
until he was squirming with the effort of remaining passive under my wandering
hands. Finally, I put him out of his misery. “I thought I might show you my
underwear,” I said, whispering the words in his ear. I curled my fingers through
the short hairs at his nape, rubbing my cheek against the rough scratch of his
beard.

His breath caught. “Worth seeing, is it?”

I pressed my face into the crook of his neck,
inhaling his scent. “I like to think so.”

Magnus grunted in the back of his throat. “It seems
rude to decline such an inviting offer.”

Smirking, I unfastened my belt and the top button
of my jeans, took his hand, and pushed it into my loosened waistband. He dug
deeper, brushing over the lace covering the curve of my arse. I felt his nails
dig in, the jolt of lust which shot through him, electric sparking. I thrust my
groin against the unmistakable hardness growing between his legs.

“Come on, Magnus,” I said, pressing my words to his
lips. “Show me just how much you like it when I dress up for you.”

He didn’t need telling twice.