Page 92 of Double or Nothing

Jack would laugh at this. Not because it’s funny, but because he’d see the board in one glance. The players. The stakes. The cowardice. The move I’m too afraid to make.

I hate him.

I need him.

I need Alice more.

I know where she lives. I could look her up online. I could search out a website. I could look at her latest gallery pictures and seek out her number. I could drive there in a fucking taxi and pour out my screaming heart and soul.

But a knock comes at the door while my head is still spinning.

“Bryce?” Caroline says, peering in. “Bill’s asking for you again. He says he needs you in the boardroom.”

Of course he does.

My mind goes blank, just like the soul inside me.

“Tell him I’m on my way,” I say.

And I’m back in my place, just where Bill wants me. Mr Boring, safe and responsible, reporting for duty.

I hate him almost as much as I hate myself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

JACK

Idon’t give a toss that Bryce is probably back in his Canary Wharf tower, trembling his puppy boy ass off and kissing Daddy Parker’s brogues.

I don’t give a toss that Alice is probably still in her studio painting away, beautiful and stark naked, pouring her Soul Girl soul into our sex fuelled canvases.

I don’t give a toss about either of them. That’s not my bag.

It never is.

I’m on my sofa in nothing but a pair of boxers, eating a share pack of crisps and flicking through the TV channels like any regular Monday afternoon. I’m chilled. I’m cool. I’m definitely not a guy with two emotionally deranged lovebirds squatting in the back of my skull like they’ve paid rent in advance.

I should have opted for Netflix and taken the easy route. Regular channels are just a blur of utter crud.

News. Boring.

Cooking. More boring.

Some woman crying because her husband has been secretly hoarding vintage train sets in the spare room. Slightly less boring, but not enough.

Football highlights. No. Definitely fucking not. I’d rather eat dog turd.

A documentary about motorway service stations. Jesus Christ, absolutely fucking not.

I keep clicking the remote, faster and faster, the TV flashing colour across my living room in useless bursts of godawful.

None of it sticks.

Ok, I give in and get with the real beat, searching out club events online. If a near-endless catalogue of people desperate to get laid can’t distract me, then something is seriously wrong with me.

I will not sit around wondering whether a finance boy in chinos is having a nervous breakdown or whether an artist is still nude, fucking around with jizz streaked paint and gold foiling.

Soho has a queer night kicking off at ten. Shoreditch has some underground rave event with terrible lighting, but some decent looking bodies on their Reddit thread. Vauxhall has a proper late one. Sweat, bass, asses on full display, the kind of atmosphere where using your brain power is practically illegal. Get it on, baby!