New Lease of Life (4 page)

“Oh. Very smart.”

Pip didn’t sound impressed. In fact, he sounded downright disappointed.

“Sorry, do I not meet your exacting standards? I thought I looked okay. Handsome, even.”

“You do. Very James Bond.”

“Yeah, if Bond was a builder from Billericay.”

“Don’t put yourself down.”

Colby shot his companion a disbelieving look that was meant to convey the old adage about pots and kettles, but apparently the message got mixed up in the silent communication.

“You
do
look handsome. I thought, from what you said earlier….” Pip shrugged and forced a smile. Compared to the blinding grin he’d displayed in the wedding photo, it might as well have been a grimace. “She’s a lucky lady.”

“I don’t see why. I got the looks and the brains.” Colby glanced at the screen and couldn’t stop his own smile from peeking through. “Nah, she’s beautiful. I still say I got the brains, though.”

“You make a lovely couple.”

“You should see her husband. Six foot four. Muscles everywhere. In fact you could say he’s full of them.” Colby grinned, pleased with the word play.

“Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?” Pip frowned. “Don’t. It’s weird. I wouldn’t have said you were quite six four, though.”

“What? I’m six two. I was talking about my brother-in-law. He’s Australian. You know? Like the song?” Before he could bemoan Pip’s lack of eighties pop knowledge, realization crashed into Colby. “You thought we were married? Ewww, no. That’s my sister. I gave her away.”

“Isn’t that a father’s job?”

“Normally.” Needing something to do, Colby locked his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. “Ours forfeited the right to that job when he walked out on us as kids.”

“Sorry.” Contrition softened Pip’s voice, and Colby had no trouble believing that this stranger wasn’t just paying lip service.

“I got over it a long time ago. And I wasn’t kidding earlier. Out and proud.” Colby smiled. “But my point still stands. People dress up for weddings. And they rarely wear tweed, knitted waistcoats, or slacks.”

“Don’t know why. Tweed can be combined in so many ways. No reason why it can’t be smart enough for a wedding.”

“Careful, your enthusiasm is showing.”

Dumbstruck, Pip spluttered, and Colby took advantage of the distraction to steal the photo album.

“Let me see.” Colby hummed as he turned to the next page and found a couple of informal shots of Pip, the combination of a variety of layered tweeds and a Fair Isle knitted waistcoat working on his slim frame despite—or because of—the differing patterns, textures, and colors.

The next page showed the same outfit in a staged setting, a group of four photographs: the tweed combined with a belted herringbone wool coat in one, front and back shots of the original outfit, and one shot with Pip’s head cropped out of the photo.

“What’s with the headless horseman shots?” He turned the book to show Pip what he was referring to but kept it out of the smaller man’s reach.

“Give that back.”

Colby flicked to the next page, barely acknowledging Pip’s protest.

Pip and Davy.

“Davy” was dark where Pip was fair. His olive-toned skin, beautifully contrasted against Pip’s healthy glow, hinted at least one Mediterranean parent. One of Davy’s arms was slung casually over Pip’s shoulder, and the pair leaned into each other with an ease that proclaimed more than a passing friendship.
So where’s Davy now?

The camera loved Davy, and it was obvious that the feeling was mutual, but it was Pip’s smile and the gentle mischief in his expression that drew Colby’s attention away from the more classically handsome man.

A nudge against his bicep warned Colby of Pip’s presence at his side. He could have sworn he heard Pip mutter “Davy, of course” under his breath. Instinctively, Colby shifted the book out of reach.

“Close your mouth,” Pip snapped. “You’re catching flies.”

“I was just admiring—”

“Davy. He was a photographer.” Pip caught his breath. “Is…. Davy is a photographer. He was my….”

Pip trailed off as if the words had simply dried up on his tongue. Thankfully, because Colby suddenly had no desire to know what Davy and Pip had been to each other. Not when the passing of that relationship had apparently left Pip a shell of his former self. Colby could fill in the gaps, even though he’d never had a relationship that intense.
World. Life. Reason to get up in the morning.
Colby had to say something to stop the maelstrom of unfathomable jealousy from twisting around in his head.

“He looks more like a model.”

“That would make his day, hearing that.” Pip sounded fond, as if he’d forgotten the circumstances he found himself in, just for a moment. “He took that shot. He’d been playing around with the timer on the camera.”

“He’s good.”

Pip snorted, an exhale of air from his nose that might have been amusement but for the muttered “good-looking” barely loud enough for Colby to hear. “Strictly amateur. Photographer is not a suitable
job
for a diplomat’s son. Not when he has a First from Cambridge.”

“Is that where you met? At university?” Why was he torturing himself with these questions? Because it would tell him more about Pip, obviously. About just how far he was out of Colby’s league. Cambridge. Not some grubby inner city polytechnic that tried to pass itself off as a paragon of higher learning.

Unfortunately that was a question too far for Pip’s newfound tolerance.

“None of your bloody business.” The anger flared bright, and Pip reached for the album. “I asked you to give that back.”

“Just one more.” Colby was more than aware that he was pushing his luck, but a desire to ensure that Pip remembered him, even if for the wrong reasons, urged him on.

At about six inches shorter than Colby, Pip could be tucked quite easily under Colby’s arm. Colby would be able to tug Pip against his larger bulk and surround him. And as Colby stared at the smiling man in the photos, Colby found himself itching to do just that. But the reality of the bitter, angry man standing in front of him reasserted itself.

“Give that back, you… you bully.”

Bully? That would be the last word any of his friends or former clients would ever use to describe Colby. It struck him as so out of place that he laughed.

He flipped a couple of pages, hoping to land on a more summer-focused photograph, and the laughter died on his lips.

“Oh my,” Colby whispered on an exhale as all his breath seemed to be squeezed from his chest.

The scene before him, a candid shot of a group of young men picnicking on the banks of a river, could be the most perfect thing he’d ever seen. Well dressed and good-looking as an ensemble, it was Pip who drew Colby’s attention even though he far from held center stage in the composition. To the far right of the picture, in the dappled shade of a tree, the photographer had caught Pip stretched out on a blanket, his head thrown back as he laughed at the antics of his friends.

While the others seemed content to wear chinos and short-sleeve button-down shirts, Pip’s legs were encased in perfectly creased slacks; the pristine white of the trousers accentuated the vibrancy of color in his burgundy, ocher, and blue boating blazer. Propped up on one elbow, with the buttons of his blazer undone, the wide stripe that patterned the material led Colby’s gaze up to the open neck of Pip’s shirt and on to the exposed column of his throat.

A boater, adorned by a burgundy and navy ribbon, had been discarded on the blanket to Pip’s left. Colby would bet a month’s wages that he would find that hat somewhere in the dressing room. But the headwear only held his attention for a fraction of a second before the laughing blond with an infectious smile caught his gaze again, and Pip—his presence even bigger than the statement his clothes made—held center stage once more.

The clatter of metal hitting the wooden flooring jerked Colby out of his thoughts and back to the reality of the situation. Pip’s crutch had been discarded on the floor. Thrown, if the noise and distance were any indication.

“Are you planning on taking this stuff or not?” Pip’s voice tightened, anger riding roughshod over any other emotion that might try to put in an appearance.

“You might want to wear them again.”

“No.” Pip’s expression—mouth set into a determined, thin line—didn’t even waver.

“Not even the boating blazer?” Colby turned the album so Pip could see what he’d been looking at. “You’ll need it for Henley Regatta again this year.”

Longing that couldn’t be disguised flashed across Pip’s features before he turned away. Colby followed Pip’s gaze to the open door of the dressing room and all of the outfits now exposed where Colby had left the sliding doors pulled back.

Pip cursed. Spinning on his heels, away from the sight before him, he teetered precariously without the stabilizing influence of his crutch. Determined not to let him fall, Colby grabbed at Pip’s arm, and he curled his fingers around the cool flesh of Pip’s bicep. Pip’s gaze landed on the point where their bodies touched, just for a moment, and then he pulled away.

“Won’t you miss them? Your clothes. You look good.”

Pip’s snort of disbelief punctuated his sentence.

“You do,” Colby insisted. “In the photo, laughing with your friends, you look….”

Amazing. Beautiful. Incandescent. All too intimate words to describe a complete stranger. Colby settled on something less stalkerish. “Happy.”

Pip stopped in the doorway and turned around, leaning against the frame. “I’ve nothing to laugh about. And I’m certainly not
that
man anymore.”

“Why not?”

An astounded look accompanied Pip’s words as he gestured down his body. “Who’s going to want this?”

“Because you’re a grumpy bastard?”

“Excuse me!”

“Well, that’s the only reason I’d turn you down.” Colby’s words caught in his throat, not because he’d outed himself—he’d already done that several times since stepping through the front door—but because they were the truth. “What? We’re both gay. No point trying to hide it. Earlier… I thought I saw interest in your eyes.”

“And I thought I saw pity in yours,” Pip snapped back, but denied nothing. “You’re interested in the man in that photo, not me.”

“No pity fucks here. And you are that man, if you’d only….” Colby huffed and resisted the urge to throw his hands into the air. Instead he placed the album, still open at the regatta photo, on the side table. “You know what? It’s none of my business.”

“Truest words you’ve said since you rang my bell.”

“You wish I’d ring your bell,” Colby muttered under his breath.

“Why?” Pip persisted. “Why would you want to date a cripple?”

“The question is why would I want to take out a grumpy bastard who jumps down my throat every five minutes?”

“Is this your idea of customer service?” Pip shifted against the doorframe. “Calling me names and hitting on me in the same sentence?”

Colby shrugged, trying to regain his composure. “You called me in. I’m just saying, I’d date you. Well, maybe not, because you have a chip on your shoulder the size of a potato, but I’d get all up on that, regardless. You’re fit.”

What the hell am I doing?

“You’d fuck me, but you wouldn’t date me?”

“Don’t need to like you to fuck you. Especially if I can find some way to keep that mouth of yours busy.” Colby grinned, hoping it covered up the nervousness he felt. He couldn’t believe he was saying such things to anyone, let alone a prospective client. Yet the urge to push all of Pip’s buttons compelled him to continue, and from the sudden intensity in Pip’s expression, he guessed he’d hit at least one. He just wasn’t certain if angry sex or the implication of filling Pip’s mouth was the catalyst.

He couldn’t keep the indifferent persona going for too long, though. He gathered up the crutch, and, dialing down his grin from feral man-eater to something softer and more in keeping with his actual personality, he moved toward Pip. “I’d date you if you smiled more.”

Pip pressed himself back against the doorframe. “Do you want this stuff or not?”

“Sure,” Colby said, hopefully making it clear he was talking about Pip as well as the clothes. He moved past Pip, his arm brushing against Pip’s torso, and then handed him the ugly metal crutch. “I could probably get rid of it. I’ll be back with a van on—”

“I want it gone now.”

“I’m not throwing these gorgeous things in the back of my car. Jesus, I’ve got a Fiat 500. I’d never fit them all in anyway.” Colby paused at the top of the stairs. “I’ve got a friend with a lorry decked out with clothes rails. I can use that—”

“Fine. Pick them up later.”

“He’s doing a market on the South Coast. He’ll be back in two days, so I can be here early Thursday. It’ll take me most of the day, so if you have a parking space….”

“Fine. Thursday,” Pip bit out abruptly, as if talking to Colby caused him physical pain. “You can use my parking permit. I don’t have a car anymore.”

“Brilliant.” Colby smiled and took the first few stairs, pausing when Pip took a step forward. “I’ll let myself out, Pip. See you Thursday.”

The words that followed him down the stairs were clear and distinct but lacked the anger of previous altercations.

“Only my friends call me Pip.”

LOCAL HERO
Saves Dog from Watery Grave

When local resident and early morning jogger, Phillip Longhampton, discovered a dog trapped in discarded rubbish in the lake at Greenhill Park, he didn’t expect his kind act to end in a trip to the hospital.

The news article went on to describe how the small dog had been trapped and in danger of drowning when Pip had tried to rescue it. How in its distress it had lashed out and bitten Pip even as he managed to free the animal. There was no information on where or how badly Pip had been bitten. The article was a perfunctory piece appearing to praise the heroic act of a local resident but spent more copy space having a dig at the local council for the state of the lake, tying the article in to a reduction in street-cleansing services. It finished up stating that the dog was being held with the RSPCA while they attempted to find the owner.