“She was.”
I glance across at him. “She’s dead?”
“When I was nineteen. Car crash.”
I look down, leaning back against his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
His voice is robotic. “I didn’t tell you.”
I squeeze his elbow, my heart thudding. God, no wonder he’s locked away in here, having a breakdown. The rest of England is spending time with their mums today, and he’s stuck here with no one.
I try to think of the right thing to say. “She’d be so proud of you, for everything you’ve done.”
He sighs, his breath rushing over my cheek. “I hope so. She was the reason I came up with the idea for the podcast in the first place.”
“Did she like advice shows?”
He shakes his head. “Her and my dad’s relationship was… bad.” He stares at the photo, his face blank. “He met her in Vietnam, on a month-long business trip. She was a maid at the hotel he was staying at. Working fourteen hours a day for pennies, while rich men spent ten times her daily salary on one drink in the hotel bar. She and my dad had a fling, and then he brought her back to England and married her.” His mouth twists. “My grandparents thought it was so romantic. He’d met this pretty, poverty-stricken foreigner and dragged her out of the gutter. Like a Cinderella story.”
I find his hand and hold it. “But it wasn’t.”
He snorts. “My mum used to say that he picked her because he liked the way she cleaned his hotel toilet. He didn’t want a wife; he wanted a silent, beautiful maid who’d share his bed, have his kid, and never ask anything of him. He was always complaining about how Western women were too ‘modern’， and I guess she was his solution.”
“They fought?” I ask, grazing my lips down his temple.
His eyelashes flicker as I kiss his brow bone. “No. It would have been better if they had. Instead, my dad just… ignored her. Blanked her completely.” He takes a sharp breath. His voice is level, but I can feel the energy thrumming through him. “It tore my mum to bits. She was convinced she could make him love her. She’d spend all day cleaning. Making him these massive meals. She’d cut flowers for the dinner table, set out all the nice china, and be waiting by the front door to kiss him when he got home from work. And he’d step inside the house, grunt at her, and take his dinner to his office. Every single day.” He touches the ends of my hair.
“That’s horrible,” I murmur.
He looks down, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “When I got older, I realised how badly he was treating her. I used to beg her to divorce him. But she never understood. And over the years, it’s like she just faded away. By the time she died, she was just… a shell.” He takes a deep breath. “That’s why I do the show. I want to help people like her. I want to help them see that they deserve better.”
“You’re so much more than you let other people see, Josh.”
His hand flexes on my hip. He dips his head, and for a second, I see a flash of the emotion hidden behind his carefully blank expression. Then he clears his throat, and it goes away again. “You can stay, if you like,” he murmurs, tugging at the belt of my coat. “I can’t promise I’ll be very good company, but—” he pushes aside one of the panels of my coat, and stares at the corset I’m wearing underneath. I wait patiently as he visibly struggles to speak.
“You’re not wearing any clothes,” he manages eventually.
“Yes. And I see now that it’s not really appropriate for the situation.”
His mouth turns up slightly, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You came here wanting to have fun. Sorry.” He hooks his finger under the straps. “Sorry Zack’s not here. He’d have taken this off you before you’d even made it through the front door.”
I push his hand off me, offended. “Okay. Can you not act like I’m a total bitch?”
He blinks. “What?”
“You don’t have to apologise for grieving. For God’s sake, you’re my friend. I don’t just want to sleep with you.”
His gaze flickers. “What do you want?”
I run my fingers through his thick hair. “I want you. I want to see you happy, and proud, and sad, and tired. I want your low moments, as well as your high ones. I want all of you. I want as much of you as you’ll give me.”
He looks up at me, his eyes dark, and I’m shocked by the raw grief in his face. Josh seems so cold and aloof, but he has so much going on under the surface.