Second Chance - Chapter 15

The day couldn’t pass quickly enough for Chris. He was eager to see James again. To distract himself and try to make the day go faster, he spent the majority of it looking for whatever photographs he could find around the house, not that he found many. Taylor didn’t seem fond of holding onto the past, whatever her reasons were. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but he’d assumed that he’d find a couple of pictures of Taylor, her parents, her sister maybe. But there didn’t seem to be that many photos anywhere, or any photo albums.

The only picture that he had found had been on her mantelpiece, above the fireplace in the lounge. A polished wooden frame, surprisingly not all that dusty, and it was a picture of a man and his dog, and a couple of abandoned tennis balls beside them. The dog was a beagle, looking to be about three or four years old, at a guess. The beagle was rolled over on its back, and the man was on his knees, making a fuss of it, rubbing its tummy. The man looked quite a bit like Drew, Chris thought to himself. His hair was straighter, and darker than Andrew’s, and his eyes were darker too. He also had a rough chin—little more than stubble, but more than Andrew regularly had. But they were of a similar build, and height, at a guess, and just looked vaguely the same. Apart from the hat, Andrew was practically never seen without the black felt hat, and this guy wasn’t wearing one.

He wondered the relevance of this man and his dog. It looked like it could have been taken locally – the grassy field the two of them were in was backed by trees, possibly forestry, and there were a couple of those that he’d walked through a couple of days previously. Could it be a family member that she remembered fondly? It was possible, he guessed. A picture of her father, when he was young? He dismissed that idea. The man bore little resemblance to her, and the picture still looked to be relatively new, only two or three years old, at a guess. Could this be the guy that she’d mentioned earlier, the one that she’d cared about and didn’t live here any more? It was possible, but it seemed unlikely to him. If he was an ex that she’d genuinely cared about, why would she keep a picture of him in plain sight? Surely that would hurt, looking at him day in, day out. He also wondered about the dog. Who had it belonged to? Where was it now? He hadn’t heard any barking whilst he was here, or seen a dog here for that matter either. The photo gave him several more questions, but no more answers.

He looked away from it, and to the clock on the wall. The time was 6.30 pm. Looking out of the window, he indeed noticed that the sky was darkening, as it did during October and the later months of the year. Soon, James could leave the basement without fear of being burned by sunlight, and Chris could ask all these questions he needed the answer to. What had happened to Danielle? Had he had any kind of hand in her death, which Taylor had implied?

He remembered back to that argument on Taylor’s doorstep in the early hours of the morning. James had burst out asking what two people would think of Taylor leaving him like this. One of them had been Danielle, he could remember that. He now knew who that was, she was James’s late wife, Taylor’s sister. But who was that other person again…?

“What would Dylan think about this?”

Dylan. That’d been the name that had caught her attention. Whoever Dylan was, he meant something to her. He looked back to the photograph on the wall.

Could this be the mysterious Dylan, whoever he was? It would make sense, because if this mysterious Dylan was someone who meant something to her, then she probably would keep a picture of him around. And of course, the picture was a pretty good one. It was completely clear, not blurry at all, and he looked genuinely happy. It was the kind of picture that one would want to keep of someone they cared about.

“It’s a good picture of him, isn’t it?”

Chris jumped when he heard the voice speaking behind him – he’d thought he was alone in here. But the moment afterwards he regained composure, smiling, turning to face the location of the voice. He knew this person well, and could place whose voice it was anywhere. It brought a smile to his face. Who wouldn’t recognise the voice of the person they loved?

“Yeah, it is. Whoever he is.” He replied, looking from the photo, to James, and back again.

James placed a hand on Chris’s shoulder, a faint, sad smile gracing his cheeks. There was a faint glimmer of guilt in his blood red eyes, and he wiped a solitary tear from his left eye.

“That was a good friend of mine.” He swallowed, his throat going dry.

Chris looked across his shoulder to his fiancé and back again to the photo, and back again to James.

“Who was he, James?”

James fell quiet for a couple of minutes, uneasy and deep in thought.

“Chris, I’m going to tell you everything that happened. Everything to do with why my previous marriage failed, and why Taylor hates me now. Why I was such a wreck afterwards. I’m going to completely honest and sugar-coat nothing. I’m sure you’ll understand why I never wanted to talk about it once you know…”

If the situation wasn’t so serious then Chris would have punched the air in triumph. Trying to get any kind of response from James had been like trying to get blood from a stone, but finally, he would be getting some answers. No more “I’m just trying to protect you.” He was getting some serious answers. At last.

“James, that’s all I want. Some truth. I want to know what that whole shouting match on the doorstep was. I want to know something about why I’ve been brought back to help you.” Chris looked at James in the eye, a meaningful tone in his voice, “I love you, James. But you haven’t been making it easy by pushing me away all the time.”

James tried to smile for a moment, but it just looked like he was in pain.

“I know, Chris. I’ve been a really bad boyfriend recently… well, not just recently. I should have told you at the time, I’ve left it so long that it’s just made everything really complicated. I just didn’t want to drag you down into this mess I made…” he looked down and turned away for a moment, slowly looking back as he felt a hand wrapping around his.

“James,” Chris spoke softly, “I signed up to be dragged down into all these tight spots with you the moment I agreed to be your boyfriend. It’s in the small print in the terms and conditions. If I can’t be there for you when you need someone, I don’t deserve you.”

James fell quiet again, this time coming into a hug. He rested his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder, his words grazing his neck.

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Chris spoke in little more than a whisper, laying a kiss on James’s forehead as he spoke, “It’s okay. Just tell me everything. It’ll be okay…”