Junk (12 page)

All useful. All books he’d brought home for a reason.

Jasper looked up into Lewis’s patient gaze.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t think I can let go of any of these.”

Lewis smiled sadly, and Jasper’s heart broke just a little.

“Please,” Jasper whispered. “Please help me.”

Chapter Eleven

“Please. I can’t do it on my own,” Jasper said and began cracking his knuckles.

Lewis leaned across the table and took Jasper’s hand. No, he probably shouldn’t keep touching him—overstepping therapist/client boundaries and all that, but seeing how he’d already jumped over them all with that hug…

Besides, the knuckle-cracking thing was seriously irritating.

“Of course I’ll help you. That’s what I’m here for.”

The panic seemed to ease. Jasper’s shoulders dropped and his breathing returned to a normal rate.

“Okay, I want to try a little thought experiment,” Lewis began. Best if he took charge at the moment, guiding Jasper into healthier habits of thinking. “We’re going to use a scale of discomfort. One hundred is the most distressed you’ve ever felt, and zero is absolutely fine and dandy.”

“The most distressed?” Jasper blanched, his tan skin turning sallow.

“Or the most discomfort, if you prefer. Just think of a time when you really couldn’t bear what was going on, and use that as your baseline.”

Jasper nodded, his lips tight and his eye twitching like crazy. Whatever that memory was, it was a traumatic one. Perhaps at some point he’d tell, but Lewis certainly wasn’t going to press for that now. Not when the aim was to get him to relax.

“Let’s start with right now. I’ve just asked you to choose a couple of books to let go of. What’s your discomfort rating at this moment?”

“Erm…” Jasper licked his lips and swallowed like he had something stuck in his throat. His hand convulsed in Lewis’s grip, but he wasn’t about to let go. “I’d say about fifty.”

“Can you tell me more? What are you feeling right now?”

“I’m nervous, and I don’t like having demands put on me.”

“What are you nervous about?”

“That I’ll disappoint you. I won’t be able to choose. I’ve got reasons for keeping all of these.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about those reasons, then. This one.” Lewis picked up
The Art of War
. “Why do you want to keep this book? You told me yourself you don’t plan on reading any of these.”

“It’s a classic.” When Lewis didn’t respond other than to nod encouragingly, Jasper continued. “It was listed in the Times as one of the most influential ancient books.”

“We’re in the twenty-first century now.”

“I know that. But it’s a piece of history. It shows us something about humanity. How we’ve got to be where we are. What’s shaped our thoughts.”

“So would you say you feel a certain reverence for it?”

“Reverence? Yes, I suppose so. Yes, that’s a good way of putting it.” Jasper’s lips curled a little. “Now you put it like that, it sounds a bit silly. Like I’m treating it as a holy book or something. Or a Shakespeare, at least.”

“Hey, no dissing the Bard.
Hamlet
is my holy book.”

Jasper’s mouth was a perfect O. Eventually he shook his head as if to clear it, before speaking. “
Hamlet
? But everyone dies.”

“Okay, I know the ending isn’t exactly upbeat, but there’s so much wisdom and drama on the way there. You know, I love his sonnets and his comedies too, but Hamlet does have a special resonance for me. I sort of…” How much of this did he want to confess? It wasn’t exactly a professional thing to share personal information with your client, but then again, he was asking so much of Jasper, it felt right to reciprocate. “I’m a bit of an amateur dramatics fiend. Always have been. And I played Hamlet when I was in the sixth form. That play’s responsible for my sexual awakening.”

“But you were out already.”

“Yes, but I’d never done anything about it till then.”

Jasper fiddled with the book in his hands and avoided Lewis’s eyes. “I suppose there was a dashing Horatio who swept you off your feet or something?”

“Or something. But not Horatio. It was the director. Mr. Cartwright.”

“The drama teacher?”

Lewis couldn’t tell if Jasper’s obvious shock masked a censure or acceptance, but he wanted to tip it into the latter, at the same time demonstrating to him that everyone made mistakes. “I let him seduce me. I encouraged it, to be honest. And he treated me well. Respectfully. Could have been much worse. At least I didn’t have to fumble around with another nervous virgin.”

“But still… He was your teacher.”

Lewis shrugged. “He was lonely, and I was a very available and up-for-it young man he ended up spending a lot of time with. I don’t think he made a habit of sleeping with his students. It all got hushed up anyway, and he had to move schools.”

“I can’t believe you slept with Mr. C.” Jasper shook his head, but the shocked expression had a hint of amusement in it now, so Lewis relaxed.

“He was a nice bloke. Used to quote sonnets to me when he was feeling randy. I still get shivers when I read some of those early ones to W.H.”

A frown of concentration marred Jasper’s brow; then he cleared his throat. “Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface in thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d.”

Lewis stared, dumbfounded, before whispering the next lines. “Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place with beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-kill’d.”

A smile quirked Jasper’s lips. “Didn’t realise I’d actually read some of my books, did you?”

“And memorised them too.”

“I love Shakespeare. Wish I’d been confident enough to take drama at school.” The wistful expression on Jasper’s face evaporated with a wry chuckle. “Although maybe it was for the best, considering what happened to you.”

Lewis grinned back at him. He wanted to quote “’Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d” and watch Jasper’s reaction, but it would have felt too much like seduction, and that definitely wasn’t what they were here for. No, they had these books to deal with. He took
The Art of War
out of Jasper’s hands. “Okay, back to work.”

“Do we have to?” Jasper said, a tease in his voice.

“Yes, we have to.

“Thinking back to that hundred-point scale, what level of discomfort do you feel when considering donating this to a charity shop?”

Jasper looked like he wasn’t going to play along for a moment, but then his expression collapsed into serious mode. “Erm…seventy? Seventy-five, maybe. Yes. Seventy-five.”

Quite a bit of discomfort, but not unbearable. That was promising. “Taking it further, what do you imagine would happen if you gave this to the charity shop to resell?”

“It might sit on the shelf for a long time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Most people don’t read this kind of thing. It’s hardly a JK Rowling or an EL James, is it?”

“And how would it make you feel if you saw it on the shelf in a month’s time?”

“I’m not sure. Sad, I suppose. Sad that nobody else cherished it like I could.”

“What if I were able to find someone who really wanted to read it. How would you feel about letting go of it to them?”

Jasper bit his lip, and his hand tensed. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to get it back then, would I? Not if it was in their house.”

“On the scale?”

“Oh, an eighty, I’d have thought.”

“So you see the charity shop as a preferable option, because you can always buy things back.”

Jasper ducked his head. “Dumb, isn’t it? There’s me, saying the reason I should keep a book I’m probably never going to read is because I would cherish it, yet I’d rather give it away to a shop than to someone who’d actually read it.”

“It’s not dumb. It’s just that we’re figuring out the unconscious thought processes determining your attitude towards your books. They’re likely to be emotional rather than rational responses to the problem, or you’d never have accumulated so many books that you couldn’t use your house properly.”

“Hmmm.” Jasper sat for a while, apparently deep in thought, while their coffee arrived.

Yusef tipped Lewis a wink he’d almost categorise as a come-on. “Enjoy the milk, young man. You need your energy for the job ahead, yes?”

Energy? As Yusef made his way back to the counter, Lewis stared at Jasper’s ducked head. Yes, they probably did need excess energy. Jasper appeared to need an infusion of it.

But then Jasper met his gaze for a brief moment and cleared his throat. “I suppose that the books here I feel the least emotion about would be the ones to, erm, move on to a new home?”

Lewis nodded.

Jasper pulled his hands away and laid them on the two green-covered statistics books. “These two. They’re not classics. I suppose they could be useful in the future, but maybe they’d be more use to someone now. I think… No, they’re not likely to sell in the charity shop, but they might sell from the library. Students sometimes want stuff like this.”

“But isn’t that where they came from in the first place?”

“Yes. I, erm… I saw them on the cart, marked down for sale. Only one pound each. I couldn’t resist.” He mumbled the last sentence in the direction of his coffee and pastry.

They definitely needed to work on this acquiring problem before they tackled the main hoard.

“Okay, using the scale again, what level of discomfort would you have felt just walking past the cart so someone else could have had a chance to buy them?”

“An eighty. No! Eighty-five. Definitely. Like having my toenails pulled off. That kind of discomfort.”

Lewis winced. “That’s pretty painful.” Then it sank in. “You’re working somewhere where you have to face that kind of decision every day. Wow. No wonder you—”

“—have so much stuff,” Jasper said, finishing Lewis’s sentence. “Yep. I bring stuff home every day. There’s always a newspaper being chucked out, or second-hand books for sale.”

“And where else do you acquire things?”

“It’s charity shops mainly, but I pick up free papers in places too. Only if they look like they have an interesting article in them, though. I don’t collect the ones that are just advertising.”

“But you have a hard time throwing away your junk mail?”

Jasper flushed. “You must think I’m such a hopeless case.”

“Not at all. I have huge hopes for you. We’ll get this all figured out. Together.” Lewis grabbed Jasper’s hand again. “Just you wait and see.”

The wistful smile on Jasper’s face made him want to reach out and crush the man to him in a tight embrace. Instead, he grasped Jasper’s hand then made himself drop it, to pick up the battered anatomy textbook. “Right. You’ve chosen two, which is brilliant, but I still want to find out about the other books. Why is this one so important for you to keep?”

“It has good pictures. Take a look if you don’t believe me.”

Lewis picked it up and did the spine-flop trick. It fell open on a page with detailed drawings of the male reproductive system. A rather well-endowed and shapely male reproductive system, he had to admit. “Okay. Good pictures. I agree.”

“It was like that when I got it. Honest.”

“Uh-huh. I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t. So tell me, besides the pictures, what reason do you have for hanging on to this?”

Jasper looked at him. Really looked at him, then got this mischievous smile on his face. “It’s in case of a zombie apocalypse. I want to be able to research anatomy then. Figure out how best to kill them. Actually, it could be pretty handy with all kinds of monsters. Knowing where all those arteries and things are.”

Lewis glanced down at the page again. “I’ve got a fairly good idea where these sorts of
things
usually are. Shouldn’t think you’d need a textbook for that.” Oh blast. Was he flirting? It was so difficult not to, with Jasper being so adorably nerdy and shy.

But the heated look Jasper gave him was anything but shy. “Oh no. I definitely don’t need a textbook for
that
.”

How the hell was he meant to stop himself returning a smutty remark? But Lewis railed against temptation. He made himself look at the books, zoning in on the only one they hadn’t yet discussed. “And the self-sufficiency one? Actually, I know someone who might be interested in this one.”

“Oh, well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? I mean, when the apocalypse does come, we’re going to need to start growing our own food. This one has huge survival value.”

“Unless we become zombies ourselves. I think they have an all-brains diet.”

“I’m not letting the zombies get you,” Jasper said and the ferocity of his tone made Lewis look up. “I know karate. They’re not getting anywhere near you. I’ll kick their heads off first.” He scowled, but the frown quickly melted into a grin.

Oh my. That was sexy. That possessive machismo. It was like Jasper had tapped directly into Lewis’s fantasies and taken all the best bits. Not only was he a gentle, kind soul who loved books—loved Shakespeare, no less—but he could do the alpha-male thing to protect the people he cared about.

If Lewis wasn’t careful, he’d be a goner.