Page 343 of Double or Nothing

His third message, a few days later.

I shrugged your words off at the auction, by the way. I do care when nobody’s watching.

I care about you, BT. I care about Alice. I cared so much about getting her out that I stopped noticing what I was doing to both of you.

I’m sorry.

I don’t know how to fix this without making it another game, so I’m not going to try. I’ll just give you some space to figure things out.

Jack says he cared.

No joke beneath it. Just honesty. He cared so much that he stopped noticing anything else.

That’s Jack all over. Single focus at all costs. He sees an obstacle and attacks it, certain that coming out on top is the same as making everything right.

After the auction closed, I believed he used us. Nothing but fun, games and winning. Now I can see the more complicated truth. The truth hiding under the surface.

Jack hurt both me and Alice because we mattered too much, not too little.

It twists me up in knots.

For two weeks, I allowed Bill to tell me who Jack was.

An idiot. A playboy. A careless gambler who uses other people’s lives to relieve his boredom.

All that time, Jack was answering the accusations himself. Privately. Without an audience. I just didn’t want to hear him.

The fourth message, three days after that.

Still giving you space. Found I dislike space. It’s vastly overrated. I also dislike unread messages, but I don’t want to go straight through to voicemail, so giving you space is better.

The Calder painting is now hanging opposite your side of the bed, by the way. Yes, apparently you have a side. Horrifying development.

Come on please, BT. Message to let me know you’re ok.

That one strikes deeper than the rest.

My side of the bed.

I picture the Calder portrait hanging opposite where I slept. The obscured face. The broken gold. A man partly hidden but still visible beneath the fractures.

Jack’s final message arrived over a week ago.

I went back to work today. Properly. Suit, tie, sobriety and everything. Eli nearly called an ambulance.

I’m trying, Bryce. Not to win you back. Just to become someone worth coming back to.

Message me if you want to see me again. Or even if you don’t.

Over and out. Jack x.

A tear lands on the screen before I can stop it.

I’ve been turning Jack into a villain since the moment I left him and walked away. Convinced myself he wouldn’t give a shit and never had done.

I was so wrong, it makes me dizzy with the disbelief.

I’ve been sitting on my sofa for over an hour since I got home, trying to digest my new reality. I’m still in my coat, still in my suit, tie not even loosened. I should be terrified. I am terrified. A man with no salary and no job prospects lined up. But that isn’t the real fear, not anymore.