Heart (3 page)

The old men looked his way again, startled, like they’d long forgotten the conversation and were talking about something else. “This afternoon,” Jonah said. “But don’t you worry yourself, laddie. That kind of scum sticks to the beach and the street carts. They won’t come near your fancy shop.”

Seb was halfway to the door by then and didn’t bother to reply. He stepped out onto the street and spun in a slow circle. Dex was in trouble, of that there was no doubt, but he didn’t have a clue what to do about it. He had no idea where Dex slept at night, no idea where he called home, and certainly no idea where he would go if he was hurt or scared.

He looked everywhere he could think of: the beach, the harbor, and the back alleys. He even braved a trip to the disused boat dock, but the leery, threatening stares of the drunks and junkies sheltering there drove him back.

Eventually, he ran out of ideas and trudged home with a heavy heart. Dex could’ve been anywhere. Perhaps he’d even fled the town, or worse, his attackers, whoever they were, had caught up with him and finished the job.

He drifted back through the deserted streets in a horrified, nauseous daze, and was halfway home before it occurred to him to check the shop one more time. As far as he knew, it was the only safe place Dex knew in Padstow. It was worth another look, wasn’t it?

Even in the darkness, from fifty feet away, he detected the shape of Dex huddled in a ball by the back door.

He broke into a run and dropped to the ground beside him. “Dex? You all right?”

It took some persuasion, but Dex raised his head and met his gaze. Seb was horrified. Dex’s beautiful pale face was bloody and bruised, one of his eyes completely swollen shut.

“Bloody hell. You should go to A and E.”

Dex shook his head. “No. No hospitals. Just need a… plaster or something.”

It was going to take more than a box of Elastoplast to heal the wounds on his face, but without a car, Seb had no way of taking him to the nearest hospital. Somehow, he knew Dex wouldn’t wait around if he called an ambulance.

“Come inside.”

His tone left no room for argument, and for once, none was forthcoming from Dex. He let Seb help him to his feet before he walked inside of his own volition and all but fell onto the countertop stool Seb thought of as his.

Seb fetched the rudimentary first-aid kit from the bathroom. There wasn’t much to it, just antiseptic and dressings, but it would have to do. He cleaned the injuries he could see. When he was done, Dex looked marginally better, though the bruising to his face still worried Seb.

“Did they knock you out?”

“No. It was nothing, really. Just a scuffle.”

Seb frowned. “About what?”

“Territory.”

“Territory?”

Dex lifted his gaze from the countertop and shrugged. “Yeah. They want to put one of their own on all the carts. I think today was a warning to my boss.”

Seb reached out and touched Dex’s swollen cheek. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing.” Dex shrugged again. “My boss won’t care. All he wants is his money. He won’t be scared of skanks like that. It’s all part of the game.”

Seb was lost, but he knew one thing for certain: he didn’t want Dex used as a pawn in
any
game, especially one as violent as this turf war appeared to be. “Can’t you do something else?”

“Like what?”

“You could work for me.”

Dex snorted and slid from his stool. “And be your bitch? No, thanks.”

Seb caught his arm as he turned away. Dex winced and pulled back, clearly more hurt than he wanted to let on.

“That’s not what I meant,” Seb said, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he
did
mean. “I just… I worry about you out there, and I like having you around the shop. I missed you tonight.”

Dex’s expression softened, though the glare in his one working eye remained, mutinous and stubborn. “I don’t want your charity. I don’t want that from you.”

Four

S
EB
STIRRED
a thick, sludgy pan of chocolate fudge, distracted by a head full of Dex. It had been a week since he’d discovered Dex bloody and bruised on his doorstep, and even after all that had happened, there was only one thing on his mind.

“I don’t want that from you.”

As Seb stirred the precarious molten mix in the pan, the softly uttered words swirled around his brain, drowned out only by the question he’d failed to ask at the time.

So what
do
you want from me, Dex?

Not that he’d have gotten an answer. Soon after that particular discussion, Dex had refused his platonic offer of a couch to kip on and disappeared into the night. Seb hadn’t held out much hope of him appearing for his supper the following night, but he had, and he’d turned up like clockwork every night since, keeping his reluctant promise to check in every day. There had been no further incidents down at the beach either, though Dex remained defiant he wasn’t giving up his stall for anyone.

The smell of burning sugar brought Seb out of his daydreams. He looked down at the smoking pan and swore, startling the last few customers milling around the shop. He muttered a contrite apology as he took the pan from the heat and turned the flame off. Chocolate fudge was tricky and required concentration, something he seemed to be lacking today.

He took the pan to the back, dumped its contents in the bin, and filled it with water, hoping to soak off the worst of the damage. Catering-sized copper-based pans were expensive, and he could do without having to replace one.

Sighing, he retrieved a fresh pan and slung it onto the backroom stove, effectively confining himself to the kitchen for the rest of the day. He didn’t have the patience for any more public mistakes.

Weighing the ingredients by eye, he prepared a fresh pan and attempted to fire up the hob. Nothing happened. He tried again, and again, and even tried the stove in the shop, but both hobs remained cold and unlit.

Brilliant.
It was Friday night, the shelves were bare, and the bloody gas was out. He swore again. There was nothing for it; he would have to gather his equipment and take his work home to his tiny ceramic oven.

He was on his third trip between the cottage and the shop when the heavens opened. He couldn’t believe his rotten luck, until he spotted Dex shuffling up the street, once again soaked to the skin.

For a moment, he stared. The bruises on Dex’s face had faded to a dull shade of greenish yellow, and from a distance, they could hardly be seen. The image of him huddled in the doorway of the beachwear shop flashed into his mind, and Seb found himself suddenly, irrationally furious.

Were they really still there? Really still in a place where Dex was hiding from a summer storm with nowhere to go? Still in a place where Seb went home to his comfortable bed every night with no clue where Dex laid his head?

Hell no.

Something inside him snapped. He propped the heavy cooling slab he carried against a dry stone wall, pulled his hood up, and started down the road.

“Come home with me.”

Dex blinked. “What?”

“Come home with me. You can’t sleep out in this.”

“Says who?”

The defiance in Dex’s eyes broke Seb’s heart. Dex had never admitted he had no place to call home, and it seemed he never would. “Says me,” Seb snapped. “I’m working at home tonight, and you’re coming with me.”

Dex stared at him, his face inscrutable, and the silence stretched on and on, punctuated only by a brutal clap of thunder. “What do you want from me?”

Seb stepped closer and touched the fading marks on Dex’s face. “I want you to be safe and dry, even if it’s only for one night. I can’t… fuck. I can’t leave you out here. Please don’t make me.”

He expected a fight, stubborn resistance, or even downright rejection, but Dex had been surprising him since the night he’d stepped out of the shadows and into his life.

Dex shrugged and shifted his ever-present backpack to his other shoulder. “All right, all right. You don’t have to drag me. I’m coming.”

Seb hadn’t realized he’d grabbed the sleeves of Dex’s tatty sweatshirt. Startled, he let go. “Really? You’ll come with me?”

“Said I would, didn’t I?”

Seb had no answer for that. Instead, he turned and dashed back to his abandoned stack of equipment, trusting Dex would follow.

He did, and though he seemed a little confused by the task, he helped Seb hoof the remainder of the equipment back to the cottage.

Once inside, he seemed a little lost… lost and
wet
. They’d both been caught in the rain, but it was obvious Dex had been out in it far longer than Seb. Chances were the cottage was the first time he’d been indoors since he’d had supper at the shop the previous night.

Seb kicked off his trainers and opened the cupboard under the stairs. He found a clean towel and tossed it to Dex. “Go take a hot shower. I’ll find you some clothes.”

Dex glanced toward the steep stairs of the cottage. “You want me to go upstairs in your house?”

“Bathroom is first door on the right.”

Seb headed for the kitchen without waiting for a response. He felt better having Dex safe in his home, but that didn’t change the fact that he had twenty kilos of fudge to make before morning.

He was on the first batch of the last flavor, vanilla, when Dex reappeared, dressed in the tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt Seb had left for him on the landing. The clothes were huge on him, clinging to his slender frame and highlighting the protruding bones of his hips and shoulders, but without the perpetual layer of dirt, Dex’s pale skin seemed to shimmer in the fading light of the day. With his damp hair sticking up and out in every direction, it was a startling combination.

With considerable effort, Seb tore his gaze away and focused on the pan of bubbling fudge. He didn’t have time to make any more mistakes, and he didn’t look up as Dex skulked to the sink and slipped seamlessly into his well-practiced role of cleaning up Seb’s mess.

They worked in companionable silence for an hour or so. Esme appeared at some point and watched them suspiciously from the cardboard box she’d claimed on top of the fridge. When the last batch of molten fudge reached the perfect soft-ball temperature, Seb poured it onto the marble cooling slab and pushed it around with the wooden paddle. The rhythm of the task was soothing and the one part of his job he found vaguely relaxing.

He’d fairly dropped off the face of the earth by the time he became aware of Dex beside him, closer than he’d ever been before.

“All right?”

Dex peered at the cooling slab. “Why are you doing that?”

“To cool it down so it sets. Then I can cut it.”

“It smells nice.” Dex sniffed the air. The sweet, buttery scent of vanilla seemed to travel through his lean frame. “It smells like you.”

Seb smiled, remembering Dex had never seen the fudge being made before, just the messy aftermath. “Want to taste it?”

“Really?”

Seb swiped his work-hardened index finger through the still-hot fudge and held it out. “Here you go.”

He expected Dex to take the fudge from him with his newly clean thumb. The last thing he expected was the slippery heat of his tongue.

Dex sucked Seb’s finger into his mouth and swirled away every trace of fudge before he drew back. “Doesn’t taste like the purple one.”

Seb snorted, ignoring the warmth stirring in his groin. “Cadbury’s? That’s because this is the proper old-fashioned stuff, handmade with real ingredients, not chemical crap.”

“How long have you been making it?”

“Me? My whole bloody life, but my family has been making this recipe since the twenties.”

“That’s nice,” Dex said absently, his reflective gaze still on the fudge Seb had started pushing around again.

Seb pondered the brooding haze that had suddenly descended over Dex’s pensive eyes. Bad memories? Or good ones that seemed too far away? Whatever it was, it made him want to take Dex in his arms and hold him until the sadness was gone forever.

Instead, he held out the wooden paddle. “Want a go?”

It took some silent persuasion, but eventually Dex took the paddle from him and tried his hand at pushing the cooling fudge around the marble slab. He did a fine job at first, but as the fudge cooled and thickened, it became harder to handle, and he didn’t have the strength in his undernourished arms.

Against his better judgment, Seb reached around and closed his hands over Dex’s. Dex faltered a moment before he let out a shaky breath and resumed the motion of manipulating the fudge.

It was a few minutes before Seb realized the effect Dex’s close proximity was having on him. The way they stood, pressed together with Dex all but enveloped in his arms, left Dex’s hair tickling his face and the bare skin of his pale neck just inches away.

Before he could stop, he leaned closer and inhaled the clean scent of Dex’s freshly washed skin. He smelled like Seb’s minty shower gel and shampoo, mixed with a natural, musky scent that smelled like the earth.

Dex leaned back against him, arching his neck to give him better access.