Hello You

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Alex hadn't seen Miles properly in two days. They'd fallen into a pattern where Miles went for his run, Alex would shower, go downstairs to grab some breakfast and make a flask of coffee, before retreating to his room until late in the evening, when he would suddenly remember he hadn't eaten and he would go down to the kitchen and fetch the food Miles had left in the oven for him. There would be a cursory hi to Miles who was either watching TV, chatting with his mates over Skype, or else playing his guitar, and Alex would return to his room. He was pleased that a lot of places were still open for online delivery and he'd ordered himself a laptop, TV and a Fender acoustic guitar from Amazon. He didn't want the whole album written on piano, and him and Jamie had arranged that as soon as Alex had a laptop and could communicate via Zoom or Skype, then they were going to have a jamming session.

For now, he wanted to finish the song he had provisionally called Mirrorball, the one he couldn't bring himself to tell Miles about. He wanted it to be perfect before Miles got to hear it because he'd written it about their final goodbye back in Paris, after La Cigale. One day he would find the courage to tell Miles that when he'd walked away from him he'd looked on a street map to see how far away the Seine was, so he could throw himself in. He wasn't even sure he wanted to die, he just wanted to float away from his horrible life and all his problems. But pain of thinking he had lost Miles for good was the worst Alex had ever experienced. Even now, living in the same house as Miles, but barely speaking to him, was a million times better than not having him in his life at all. At least he could lie in bed at night, trying to read a book on the Kindle app on his phone or thinking about song lyrics, and find himself distracted by Miles laughing at one of his trashy TV shows downstairs, or him having one of his late night singing sessions, when his sweet voice would echo through the house. It was Heaven compared to those bleak months when there was no communication between them at all.

He had to get to the point in the song where he could sing 'so do you wanna walk me to the car' without crying. Originally the lyric had been 'please let me walk you to the car' but the little bit of pride he had left stopped him from keeping it, because Miles would have automatically known it was about him. But even so, it still made Alex cry because it took him back to that fateful night...

"Al!"

Miles was calling him. Alex practically jumped off his chair and ran out of the room. Miles was at the bottom of the stairs, still wearing his parka, taking his face mask off. At his feet were two Sainsburys bags. Alex had been so absorbed in his songwriting he hadn't even noticed him go out.

"Forty five minutes I had to queue to get in that shop," he complained. "Anyways, I got yer some Marmite and apples, and a carton of grapefruit juice."

"Thanks, do you want the money for them?"

"Please don't insult me."

He took off the parka and Alex saw he was wearing his red striped Breton top with the slashed neck that showed off his broad, boxy shoulders. Miles looked so good in everything. Alex had to have stylists and fashion advisers to pick things that suited him. Miles just had this inbuilt ability to know what suited him. And of course that innate confidence helped him carry things off. A confidence Alex could dream of, unless he was pretending to be someone else.

He wanted to carry talking to Miles, he didn't care what it was about, he just wanted to be in his company for a while. He ventured down the stairs, thinking hard and fast what they could talk about.

"Can we talk about money?" he asked.

"If you want," Miles shrugged. "I'm going out or a fag. You coming?"

"Sure."

As ever with those two, Miles acted cool as a cucumber, picking up the shopping bags and sauntering off into the kitchen, while Alex practically ran to catch up with him, desperate to follow his lead.