Free Junction X by Erastes Page B

he’d been looking right at me when it happened. He’d looked away, and his brow contracted like he knew what I was thinking. I remember sitting down again and hoping that he didn’t know, that he’d take a grown man blushing to be shyness or something—even if I couldn’t think for one moment what else it could be.
    I lapsed into a silence that suffocated and strangled the words even as they formed in my mind. Everything I thought of was trite or seemed heavy with double meaning.
    At last, he pushed his chair back. “Well, I’d better go.”
    “I’ll help you with the engine.”
    “No need. I can manage.” He lifted the cardboard box easily and I had to look away because I found I was watching at the shift of the muscles in his bare arms.
    All I could do was follow him out of the French door and open the gate for him. My mind was racing as I tried to think of something to say.
    “Let me know when you’ve got it running, then.”
    He stopped on the other side of the gate. He was looking at the ground and his brows were contracted, as if he was deep in thought. I had the feeling that if he could have given back the train and never seen me again, he would have, but his good manners prevailed. He rested the box on the fence between us and held out his hand. “Thanks.” And then he smiled.
    I knew it was all right then, that he hadn’t taken my behaviour for anything strange. Feeling a groundswell of relief run through me, I shook his hand, then watched him walk down the drive.
    If he hadn’t smiled, I wonder how different this account would have been. If he’d really been embarrassed or angry and hadn’t made that one small gesture, would I be writing this now?
    Strange that for all that I do or do not remember, that smile of his, golden and warm, stays with me. Easiest to recall, and the last thing to fade—like the grin of the Cheshire Cat.
    That afternoon, I attempted to do some paperwork and read the week’s Financial Times again from cover to cover, but I was restless and distracted. I couldn’t settle. In Valerie’s absence, I had a couple of whiskies, though it was unsuitably early.
    The weather echoed my mood, turning changeable and blustery through the afternoon. Eventually, I found myself staring out into the garden, thinking terrible thoughts of long legs in denim. As soon as those thoughts drifted into my mind, I tried to wipe them away, but that wickedness was replaced by one of a mobile mouth and grey eyes whose expression constantly changed, each expression better than the last.
    I stood. I paced. I had another drink.
    The afternoon passed in a scatter of pink newssheets and turbulence. I tried to think, to rationalise, constantly returning to thoughts of Alec, but it was all pointless. For one terrible moment, I even wanted Valerie to be there; maybe I would have spilled it all out there and then, after three—or four—whiskies.
    Or would I? Is that more self-delusion? I wanted to make this account as honest as I can. Even this early on, I wonder if that’s going to be possible. Or am I seeing it all wrong?
    I got nothing much done that afternoon, and I was unpopular that evening for drinking during the day, for not clearing up the dust sheets and for being so quiet when the children wanted to tell me of their day. In the end, Valerie told the twins that I had a headache and that they were not to bother me, but the look she gave me left me certain she would bring this up with me later.
    I sat up long after she had gone to bed, wrapping myself in music and black thoughts. When I went to bed, I still hadn’t been able to erase the image of the boy next door and his innocent, elusive smile.
    I didn’t sleep well, either. I had the strangest compulsion to hold Valerie tight—wrapped in my arms, and I did, until she got restless and irritable and slid from my embrace complaining of the heat. As dawn crept through, dragging a wet Sunday morning behind it, I made love to her, but it was