Heart (2 page)

The fudge making process came to him as naturally as breathing, swirling the butter and sugar in a pan that was older than he was, pushing the finished fudge around on the cooling slab until it was ready to set and be cut. Most days, he thought he could make fudge in his sleep. Some days, he probably did, especially in the summertime.

Nicole joined him around ten, and at midday, he left her assembling gift boxes and took a break. He wandered down to the waterfront and bought a crab sandwich from the wooden shack whose owner had seen the same promise in the weather he had and opened his doors early.

He sat on the big stone wall by the boats and ate his lunch. When he was done, he cast his gaze around the bustling seafront. It wasn’t anywhere near as busy as it was going to get come July, but there was still an undeniable shift in the air, an energy that would remain until the middle of September. Even the casual tourist stalls were already set up down by the small sandy beach and open for business—the candy floss, the popcorn, the fake tattoos, and hair braiding….

Wait.

Seb swiveled back to the hair-braiding stand. The vendor was engrossed in weaving brightly colored thread into the long hair of a wriggling child, head down, eyes down, but even with his face hidden, the shock of white-blond hair was unmistakable. Seb twisted farther round to get a better look, taking in the thin, undernourished arms and the pale skin he’d hardly seen in the dark of their midnight encounter.

It was him, it had to be.

As though he could feel eyes on him, the young man glanced up. For a moment, it felt like his fathomless gray gaze locked with Seb’s, but in reality, Seb knew it was unlikely the lad had noticed his lone figure sitting on the portside so far away.

Seb stared at him far longer than he should have, and long after the man had turned his attention back to his work. For some reason, he was strangely reassured the beautiful young vagrant had found himself a job. At a couple of quid a pop, braiding children’s hair wouldn’t pay much, but it would at least buy him a hot dinner every night.

Or the drug to feed whatever addiction has him out on the streets….

Seb silenced the judgmental monster in his brain by getting to his feet and dusting crumbs from his worn-out jeans. Growing up as the token gay in a small, traditional town had taught him harsh stereotyping ruined lives, and somehow, Seb knew the young blond deserved better than that.

I
N
TYPICAL
British style, the warm weather didn’t hold, but it lasted long enough to keep Seb busy. In recent years, that seemed to be the trick with the fickle Cornish summer: start off with a golden blaze of clear blue skies and end with a damp, gray squib.

It was the middle of June when the weather took a turn for the worse. It wasn’t all that cold, but it was wet, and the wind sweeping in from the Atlantic Ocean was vicious without the sun to temper it.

The chilly snap made Seb think of his parents enjoying their retirement in sunny Spain, but more often than he cared to admit, he found himself wondering about the mysterious blond vagrant. He caught sight of him on the beach from time to time, so he knew he was still around selling hair braiding, and by the look of him, sleeping rough down by the water.

One blustery Saturday evening, Seb closed the shop and paused a moment before turning to face the music. After one of the busiest days of the year so far, the place was a mess. The weekend staff had left for the day and Nicole had dashed off early to deal with a family crisis, so he knew he was in for a long night if the place was to be ready for another crazy day.

Seb opened the fridge. If he was tackling this bombsite alone, he needed a beer, but the shelves were bare. Cursing, he pulled a hoodie on over his grubby chef whites and braved the rain to run to the off-license a few streets away.

He was on his way back with a four-pack of Stella when he spotted the young blond. He was sheltering in the doorway of the beachwear shop across the street from Alfie’s and didn’t seem especially worried that he was already soaked to the skin.

Something pulled at Seb’s chest. It took just a few seconds to decide to cross the street, and less than that to actually do it. He was on top of the vagrant before he realized he hadn’t planned what to say. “Er, remember me?”

The blond raised a lazy eyebrow and ran his inscrutable gaze over Seb. “Should I?”

“You rescued my wallet a few weeks back.”

Recognition colored the young man’s features; recognition and an infinitesimal shade of suspicion. “I didn’t take anything from it.”

Seb held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I know. I wanted to say thanks, and see if you wanted to come inside and get out of this rain.”

“Inside? Like,
in
your shop?”

Seb jerked his head toward Alfie’s. “Yep. That’s it, right there. I’m going to be there awhile cleaning up. You’re welcome to come in and dry off for a bit.”

For a moment, the young man stared at him like he’d grown two heads, and then a shiver passed through him, and he shrugged with an indifference that couldn’t be faked. “Okay.”

Seb led the way around to the back door. Once inside, he rooted out a towel and tossed it the young man’s way. “What’s your name?”

“Why?” The question was flat, but the young man’s face was hidden by the towel as he rubbed it over his hair, and Seb couldn’t see if he was offended or not.

“Why not? Is it a secret?”

“No, it’s Dex.”

Seb filled the kettle. “Dex? Short for Dexter?”

“No, just Dex.”

Seb turned the name over in his mind.
Dex. Dex. Dex
. It seemed to suit the enigmatic young blond, though he couldn’t say why.

“Is your name Alfie?”

Seb swallowed a laugh. “No, that was my great-granddad. I’m Seb.”

Dex smirked. “Sebastian?”

“Only my mum calls me that. Do you want a brew?”

Dex lowered the towel and folded it into a neat square. “No, it’s okay. I should probably be going.”

“It’s still pissing down out there.” Seb pointed to the window. “Stay, it’s no worries. I’ve got lots to do, anyway. Are you hungry?”

Dex glanced around, taking in the mess of a chaotic day. “For fudge? Doesn’t look like you’ve got much left.”

“I have more in the storeroom, but no, I meant real food. I can make you a sandwich, and I think I have some crisps somewhere.”

Seb rummaged in the cupboard beside the fridge without waiting for an answer. He could tell Dex wanted to say no, but at the same time, the kid was hungry. He had to be. No one got that thin on three square meals a day.

He unearthed a multipack of Hula Hoops and slid them across the counter. “There you go. I’ll make you a butty. Cheese and pickle do you?”

Dex pulled a face that made him look even younger than the twenty-two years he claimed to be. “Have you got Marmite?”

As it turned out, Seb did. He shoved his forgotten beer into the fridge and set to work making sandwiches for them both. When he was done, he brewed mugs of hot, sweet tea. Both sandwiches were gone by the time he turned around.

He suppressed a smile, knowing Dex wouldn’t take kindly to being ribbed, and watched with amusement as Dex absently slid a Hula Hoop onto the end of each finger. It was an endearing, childish thing to do, and he found himself fascinated.

To break the spell, he picked up his cooling mug of tea. “I’m going out front to clear up. Help yourself to anything you want.”

As he left the room, he pondered the sanity of leaving a vagrant unattended, especially one with the rough lilt of a Traveller accent, but he couldn’t bring himself to go back and watch over Dex. Something inexplicable told him to give the kid some space, and that’s just what he did.

Later, when the shop was in some sort of order, he came back to the kitchen to find Dex with his hands in the sink. Around him was a whole day’s worth of used equipment, clean and stacked, ready to be put away.

“I didn’t know where to put it,” he offered by way of explanation.

Seb raised an eyebrow, running his gaze over the spotless kitchen. Dex had probably saved him another two hours of work. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Dex dried his hands on a tea towel and averted his eyes. “That’s how it works, isn’t it? You don’t get nothing for free.”

“You gave me my wallet back.”

Dex shrugged. “And you gave me shelter from the storm.”

Three

O
VER
THE
next few weeks, they fell into a strange kind of routine. Seb would send Nicole home early and shut the shop alone, all the while waiting for the tentative knock at the back door that signaled Dex was done for the day too.

Dex ate everything Seb put in front of him and scrubbed every pot he could find. He didn’t say much, but Seb didn’t mind that. The youngster didn’t waste his words, and he possessed a caustic wit that made Seb laugh. His quiet company was more than worth the price of a bland sandwich and a safe place to eat.

The extra pair of hands was useful too, though Dex never ventured to the front of the shop. Civilized he may have been, but he still looked―and smelled―like the vagrant he was. Instead, when he was done with the cleaning, he invariably turned his hand to packing up the Internet orders Seb had let slide, and it fast became clear he was far better at folding gift boxes and tying ribbons than Seb was, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Nicole.

“Is it me, or are you getting much better at this?” she said one day, holding a box up to the light. “Your boxes usually look like a five-year-old packed them.”

Seb scowled but averted his gaze. He’d neglected to tell Nicole about his regular evening visitor. In fact, he hadn’t told anyone about Dex at all. Distracted, he glanced at the clock. It was nearing 5:30 p.m. and closing time. Time for Nicole to leave and Dex to arrive. Without answering her question, he sent her home and locked the front door, trying to ignore the familiar bubble of excitement in the pit of his stomach.

Because, vagrant or not, and despite Dex’s often sullen silence, there was no denying the growing attraction Seb felt. His shock of angelic hair, his shrewd, intelligent eyes. Even his grubby, nail-bitten hands haunted Seb’s dreams.

Sometimes he thought he imagined the invisible current between them. The half smiles, the lingering looks. The zap of energy when their hands brushed. Other days, he allowed himself to become convinced Dex felt it too. After all, it wasn’t the crappy sandwiches that kept him coming back. It couldn’t be. No one liked Marmite
that
much. Seb drifted to the kitchen to make Dex’s supper and wondered how he’d feel today.

And wondered, and wondered, as, long after the shop was clean and ready for the next day, the sandwich and obligatory bag of Hula Hoops lay on the counter, untouched.

For the first time in weeks, Dex hadn’t stopped by.

Seb hung around at the shop, stretching out jobs that didn’t need doing, buying time before he called it quits and went home. But he couldn’t relax. Time ticked by and the hour got later, and when daylight faded around nine, he admitted defeat and decamped to the pub at the end of the street.

He felt better with a pint of ale in his restless hands, but the gnawing worry in his belly was persistent. He thought over the last few times he’d seen Dex. Had anything been different? Had he given any indication he was in trouble or going to skip town? He mulled it over until his second pint was done and his brain hurt, but he discovered no clue as to where Dex might be.

It was close to eleven when he slid from his bar stool to go home. He was tired and more than a little tipsy, and it was only by chance that he caught the conversation going on between two elderly local tradesmen at the end of the bar.

“Awful business,” Jonah, the butcher, said. “And in front of all those kids too. The coppers turned up eventually, but of course, they were all gone by then. They always are.”

“That’s what happens when you let the gypos in,” the other man chimed in. “I said this would happen when they built that site down at Redruth.”

“That’s thirty miles away,” Seb said. “What’s that got to do with here?”

The old men glanced up, noticing him for the first time. “They’re spreading out,” Jonah said darkly. “And they’re bringing their trouble with them. There was about ten of them brawling on the beach this afternoon, fighting over those little stalls of crap. Animals, they are, scrapping over a few quid.”

Seb refrained from pointing out a few quid to one man was everything to another. “Which stalls were they fighting over?”

“All of ’em, as far as we could tell. They kicked seven bells out of one poor kid. He got away, but I doubt he got far.”

Seb’s heart began a slow, insistent tattoo in his ears. They were talking about Dex, they had to be. There were five stalls down on the beachfront—two were run by women, and the other two by older, homeless men. Jonah and his friend were old, but even through their faded eyes, Dex was the only vendor who could be described as a kid. “When did this happen?”