Breaking Joseph (2 page)

The food
arrived and I leered at Matt’s oozing, sunny eggs. Where had this
appetite come from since we arrived in New York?

We took it in
turns to talk about ourselves as we ate. Deacon played squash and
had three children; Elise had been to Harvard. I was instantly
jealous. Kenji was an artist on weekends. Matt got stung and had to
explain rugby. I talked about helping with my parents’ holiday
estate, Poppy enthused over Wall Street and Joseph reeled off a
list of favourite authors that surprised me a little. It shouldn’t
have–I’d seen the heaving state of his bookshelves. Sadie chattered
about having worked in the city previously, and Yves bragged about
his vineyard in France.

What would the
reaction have been if we’d talked about our other interests?
I’m
Leila–I like running, and my boss chops me up for shits and
giggles. I’m Joseph–I like Nabokov, Golding and fucking women with
inanimate objects. Pass the milk?

I’m Poppy and
I sometimes have sex with my glasses case. I’m Matt–I like full
English breakfasts with brown sauce, and I am secretly Batman.

Gah. Where was
Aidan when I needed bad innuendo? In bed, probably. He’d promised
that he’d be useful, but so far, all he had done was help Matt get
regrettably drunk, and tout for business with meat-packer
trannies–or so I’d heard. A good manwhore never tells.

“So,” Deacon
said as our plates were cleared, “you guys are going to show us
your stuff after lunch.” He arranged his knife and fork neatly.
“You know, Joseph, I like that you’ve brought your interns over. We
don’t really do that here. You don’t scrimp.”

“That we
don’t.” Joseph shot me a sharp glance. “We pick the most talented
graduates. Why should they have to waste two years doing boring
things?”

Elise laughed.
“We waste three years doing boring things.”

“Should have
come and trained in England,” Joseph said with a wry smile.

“Either way, I
like it.” Deacon got to his feet. “Now, we have to dash–sorry we
couldn’t spend longer. But it’s been a pleasure getting to know you
all. I guess we’ll see you in the boardroom.”

We said our
goodbyes and sat to finish our coffee while Sadie dealt with the
bill.

“That went
well, children.” The chair creaked as Joseph sat back. “Let’s see
if we can’t pull this one off.”

“Are we free
for a bit now?” Was he headed back to the hotel, and would he let
me pounce on him? Or would he pounce first?

He nodded.
“Yves and I have some things to go through, so you’re all free to
go. I’ll see you in the hotel lobby at one.”

I caught his
eye. His lips twitched. It was a flicker of a pout, and made for
kissing. Just two hours ago, he’d spent himself in my mouth before
we fell into the shower, and I could still taste him through the
coffee and the sweet, sticky mango. A man who echoed in my throat
was not one I could ignore from across the table.

Poppy and Matt
gathered their things…and lingered.

“You can carry
on,” I said. “I’ve got plans.”

“Oh.” Poppy’s
eyes darted between Joseph and me. “Catch you later then,
maybe.”

Matt watched
her leave with an anxious hand in his hair. “Actually, I…I was
hoping we could talk for a bit. Is this a good time?”

“I don’t know.
Is it?” Joseph had already turned his back to collude with Sadie
over paperwork. Maybe our game was off for now. I was hardly his
first priority. But deliberately putting myself in Matt’s company
after his outburst last night…the thought made the pulse at my
wrists pop.

“Can’t see why
not.” He held my jacket up so I could slip into it. “After
you.”

The streets
were busy and I had to take his arm to keep up. He offered it to me
with an absurd amount of ease–even now, that gesture felt natural
between us, and I clung to the tall shape of him for fear of being
lost in the sea of bodies.

“There’s a park
not far from here. Me and Aid found it yesterday,” he said. “It’ll
be a bit quieter there.”

He led me along
a sandy path to a bench beneath a candy pink blossom tree.

“So.” I wrung
damp hands together. The air was mellow and saccharine, but the
memory of our last conversation was a bloodbath, and the remains
gnashed their teeth in my ears.

“Aid thinks I
should apologize.” There was a rough edge to his tone, like he
dragged the words out of bed on a weekend.

“Aid thinks a
lot of things, most of which are inappropriate.” I tried to smile.
Failed miserably. “Illegal, actually.”

“I
want
to apologize. For last night. I know I did then, but–”

“It was hardly
very genuine,” I said drily.

“No. It
wasn’t.”

Silence. This
wasn’t what I’d expected.

“See, Aidan was
right.” He still wouldn’t look at me. His shoe carved a pattern in
the dust. “I was drunk. I regret it. I shouldn’t have spoken to you
like…ugh. Look. I’ve got more respect for you than that.”

“Thank you.” My
cheeks fizzed. I didn’t deserve this; I was the one who’d tried him
on for size and declared us a bad fit. “I wouldn’t blame you if you
didn’t.”

“You know how I
feel about you. It’s just…all this…it’s so fucking hard, Leila. I
feel like he’s rubbing my face in it.” Joseph, that was.

“Before you say
it, I’m not defending him–”

“Yes, you
are.”

“We’ve talked a
lot. I don’t think it’s personal.”

A sarcastic
laugh twisted on its way out. “What is it then, exactly?”

“I think…he
doesn’t understand why you’re doing what you are. Why you’re so
hurt. He’s a very different creature.”

“You want a
cold fish?”

I looked at
him. “I think we already had this conversation, didn’t we?”

“I don’t really
know what I’m supposed to say. This week is a bit of a bad dream,
to be honest.”

“It would have
been cruel of me to let you think I wanted the same things,” I
said. Cruell
er
, even.

“How did you
know what I wanted?”

“You didn’t
want me to be with other people.”

“Yeah, but
that’s kind of what a relationship is, Leila. Or am I missing
something?”

“I’m no good at
it. I wanted to be, but only for you.” I bit my lip. “Not for
me.”

He sniffed.
“Would you be faithful for
him
?”

“I’m not sure.”
The laugh turned sour in my mouth. “Not even sure if being faithful
is a reliable measure of anything. I used to think I could fix
that.”

“And you
can’t?”

“I’m not so
sure I should. What do you want me to say?”

“You already
know that. I’m not going to make a bigger twat of myself by saying
it.”

More silence.
It had been only three days since we’d broken up–in his mourning,
there was the echo of hope that our fling might survive. I
remembered what Joseph had said about Isobel:
I had to give her
a catalogue of grotesque reasons to finish with me.

Then I thought
about Charlie, the man who’d shaped Charlotte when she was just a
lump of school uniform and clay. Matt’s stepfather. That was a
secret more serrated than any knife.

No, no. I
couldn’t be that cruel.

“I wish I was
enough for you,” Matt mumbled.

I touched his
knee and he swatted me away. “It wasn’t ever about that.”

“Of course it
was. You know, I sat in that hotel room last night and looked
around at all your stuff with his stuff. You wouldn’t have known
that he bought you. D’you know what I realized? I could give you
all the money in the world, but you’ll never put your dress over my
shirt on the back of a chair. What a fucking gay thing to notice…I
can’t shake it. Keep seeing it.”

“Matt.”

“No.
Eventually, you’re going to find someone and settle down and have
this thing you say I want. Everyone does.” He cleared his throat.
“But it won’t be with me.”

We’d been
involved for less than two weeks. Hardly a lifelong obligation,
huh? These words simmered on my tongue. But then to Matt, it was
never about what he deserved to get from me. Just whether he’d been
punished hard enough. It almost sounded like he talked to himself
more than me–maybe this apology wasn’t for my benefit.

Aidan was
cleverer than he let on.

“I’m sorry,” I
said.

“Sorry doesn’t
fix anything.”

“That’s half
the problem though, isn’t it?” Like two pieces of broken glass,
we’d never heal each other. We’d just slowly disintegrate, the
longer we tried. “All this
fixing
.”

He sniffed
again. “I would try.”

“I know you
would. Your persistence is quite admirable.”

“Cheers.”

“And if it
makes you feel any better, you’re officially the only boyfriend
I’ve ever been faithful to,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“That’s quite
an honour.”

I peered
beneath his hair–he tried not to smile. “And I would totally still
jump you,” I added, “if it wasn’t for…well, you know.”

“As much as it
pains me to say it, that’d be a bad idea.”

“My life mostly
consists of bad ideas.”

“If it wasn’t
for one of those bad ideas, I’d have never been with you in the
first place,” he said. “And I wouldn’t take it back.”

I narrowed my
eyes. “I never said the whoring was one of them.”

“Yeah…well.” He
sat back against the bench–the first time I’d seen him relax since
we arrived in New York. “We’re going to agree to be friends now,
aren’t we? Why do I feel like we’ve done this before?” He squinted
at me in the collage of sun and tree shade.

“We have. Only
we hadn’t emotionally fucked each other with a cattle prod at that
point.”

“Speak for
yourself, Leila. I can’t handle being friends right now, not
full-on. Maybe eventually…ah, I don’t know.” He gave a shrug and a
heavy sigh.

“I understand.
And I’m sorry.”

“Will you tell
me something, honestly? I need to know.”

“Okay,” I said,
cautious.

“Is Joseph more
than your client?”

“Honestly?” I
pushed my tongue into my cheek. “I’m not entirely sure.”

“I heard that
he dumped his girlfriend, and what with you finishing with me–”

“It wasn’t
planned.” I almost choked in my rush to speak. “We’re not having a
secret affair. He has said things that make me wonder if he wants
more, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested…but I don’t
know.” The admission lingered between us, swelling silently.

Matt flexed
fingers from balled fists. “If something does happen, will you tell
me? I don’t want to hear it from anyone else.”

“I will.”

“Shall we walk
back to the hotel?”

It was a relief
to walk away from that claustrophobic little bench. “Are you out
with Aidan again this evening?”

“No idea. I
last saw him at about two AM and he wasn’t looking particularly
conscious.”

“Oopsie.”

“I was teaching
him to play rugby in the hotel car park,” he said. “We got an
American football from…er…I don’t remember. I hope we didn’t steal
it.”

“Aidan probably
swapped it for sexual favours in an alley, or something.”

“He is a bit
slutty, isn’t he?”

I grabbed hold
of his arm as we dove into a group of pedestrians, and once again,
he didn’t flinch or shake me off.

“Don’t tell me
you were never slutty, Matt.”

“I’m not in his
league.”

“And what
league might that be?”

“I think he
phrased it well with
three cocks away from syphilis
,” he
said with a wince.

As we walked, I
let his arm slip from mine. In that touch, there were echoes of a
lost intimacy that I had mourned ten times over. Back at the hotel,
I was surprised when the lift zipped past his floor, but I didn’t
voice it–just glowed in our rekindled friendship, sudden and
fragile as it seemed.

We stopped at
my door and I was reminded of the night of his rugby fundraiser–the
ridiculous uniform we’d escaped home in, the awkward longing to
drag him into bed. We had just decided we were a couple, then.

Now we were two
separate entities again. No point being nervous.

I reached up
and wrapped my arms around his neck, squashed my face against his
shoulder. He stiffened…but then his hands spanned my back, and he
hugged me so tightly I thought I might split down the middle.

My breath hit
his first, and then his mouth. It was a sweet little kiss, slow and
deliberate, barely lips brushing lips, and yet the history behind
it all meant it felt ten minutes long.

“I didn’t want
that awful Saturday to be the last time I kissed you,” he said
softly.

“S’okay. It was
nice.”

“Yeah.” He
knotted a hand into his hair, looking away. “I suppose I’ll see you
around, then.”

“Later.”

“Right.” He
went to walk away. Paused. “If you…well…you know where I am if you
want me, Leila.”

“Okay.”

Joseph waited
on the other side of the suite door. Between the black marble
tables, cream velvet sofas and dishes spilling scarlet roses, he
looked every inch the wolf, groomed and stuffed into a suit.

“He thinks
you’ll go back to him,” he said, not looking up from his file.

I nodded.
“Perhaps.”

“Is that what
you want?”

“Yes.” The word
felt prickly. “But not enough.”

“He grates on
you.”

“That
sounds…mean. But like you and Isobel, we’re badly matched, I
s’pose.”

He sat back.
“And did you set out to corrupt him too?”

“I think you
did.” I sat in his lap and he nudged my legs apart, making me
straddle him. It all felt so easy. “I didn’t mean to change
him.”

“He thought he
could change you, though.” He gazed up, bit his lip. “All those
things he liked least about himself.”