Page 146 of In Too Deep

Jake stopped.

Turned.

Harrison.

He loosened his grip almost instantly, as if he’d realised too late where they were and Jake followed his gaze automatically. Across the pub. Over the heads at the bar where the rest of the police stood. And further still. To Brodie. Watching.

When Jake looked back, Harrison dropped his hand. “Can we talk?”

Jake felt the pull of his gaze. The want. The frustration twisting tight in his chest. But the hurt was still there too, sitting stubborn and raw beneath it. “I’ve got another set.”

“After?”

Jake let out a breath. “I don’t know, Harry. I get home late.”

A body knocked into Jake from behind then, someone trying to push through to the fire exit with drinks, and it sent him stumbling forward. Straight into Harrison. Chest to chest. Too close. Too familiar. Heat and sweat and the faint, clean edge of aftershave cutting through it all, and for one stupid second Jake nearly forgot why he was so pissed off in the first place.

So he stepped back, putting space between them before he did something he couldn’t take back. “Maybe later.”

Then he shoved the fire door open and pushed out into the night air without looking back.

Chapter nineteen

Full Disclosure

By the time Jake’s second set ended, Harrison had rehearsed at least half a dozen ways to begin the conversation and rejected every one of them.

He waited near the bar while Jake exchanged a few words with Deacon and Raff beside the stage, trying not to look as though he was waiting. Then his phone vibrated in his pocket. He considered ignoring it until he saw Pollard’s name on the screen and knew he couldn’t.

The call lasted less than five minutes. It was still long enough because when he looked back at the stage, Jake was gone.

He searched the thinning crowd despite knowing he wouldn’t find him, then checked the corridor leading to the toilets and the fire exit where Jake had disappeared earlier. Nothing. He could have asked Deacon where he’d gone. He could also have accepted the answer Jake had already given him and left the man alone.

Maybe later.

Hardly an invitation. Not quite a refusal either though.

So he left.

Outside, the night air caught against Harrison’s overheated skin. He loosened his tie as he stepped away from the pub, and folded his suit jacket over one arm, standing beneath the glow of the King’s Arms sign while the sensible part of him assembled a convincing argument for going home.

Jake had made his feelings perfectly clear at the salvage yard. Harrison had responded by shutting him down, or saying nothing, then spent the next few days ignoring it all until he’d been invited here by the police lot. Then he’d had to watch Jake from across a crowded pub as though turning up straight from work and buying a pint could substitute for an explanation. So appearing uninvited at his flat close to midnight was unlikely to improve matters.

Yet he found himself walking in that direction anyway.

Hartswick had quietened around him, the high street reduced to shuttered shops and pools of amber light beneath the streetlamps. With every step, he told himself he could still turn back. At the next junction. At the end of the road. Before he reached Jake’s street. He passed each opportunity without taking it, his jacket growing heavier over his arm and his collar too tight despite the loosened tie.

The walk took less than ten minutes.

Not remotely long enough to decide what he intended to say once he arrived.

He slowed as the bedsit came into view. For one absurd moment, he considered walking past and pretending this had never been his destination. Then he took a breath and rounded the corner to the back of the array of shops where he noticed the figure sitting on the steps leading up to the flats behind.

Jake.

Forearms braced across his knees, hair loose around his face, he twisted a small black vape between his fingers. Then he lifted it to his mouth, its tip glowing briefly before a cloud drifted into the night. Harrison allowed himself the indulgence of just watching him for a while. The beauty of him in silhouette. Then Jake must have sensed him as he glanced up, surprise crossing his face first, followed by something more guarded. But he didn’t stand or tell Harrison to leave. That was enough to carry Harrison the rest of the way.

“Hey.” He stopped in front of him, suddenly conscious of how ridiculous he must look: suit creased from a day at work, tie hanging loose and jacket draped over his arm as though he’d wandered out of the pub without deciding where he was going.