Page 85 of In Too Deep

“What’s your name?” he called before he lost the chance completely.

Because he had the horrible feeling this wouldn’t be the last time he came looking down here. Not now. Not after tonight. Next time, maybe he’d have a plan. Maybe he’d know what the fuck he was actually searching for. The woman paused beside the waiting car long enough for Jake to see the hesitation cross her face, as if deciding between the real answer and the safer one.

Then, in a voice sounding entirely her own, she said, “Kayleigh.”

She then climbed into the car and disappeared into the night, leaving Jake alone beneath the rain, wondering whether he’d just uncovered something important…

Or whether he was finally losing his fucking mind.

But he couldn’t stay here any longer. Not if he wanted even a couple of hours’ kip before climbing back onto a roof. So he shoved himself back into the van and started the engine, then plugged the phone into the charger again out of pure stubbornness. The screen remained black. Dead as ever. He left it attached to the cable anyway and pulled away from the kerb.

At least the roads were empty at this time of night. No traffic. No tractors crawling across country lanes. It was all wet tarmac stretching endlessly ahead of him while music pounded through blown speakers, loud enough to drown out the mess in his head for five bloody minutes. Hull disappeared behind him, then the motorway, then dark stretches of Yorkshire road, lit only by his headlights and the occasional lonely farmhouse window burning gold in the distance.

By the time he reached Hartswick, exhaustion sat heavy in his bones.

He parked outside the shop beneath his flat, got out and yawned hard enough for his jaw to ache. Two in the fucking morning. What had he been thinking? He grabbed the cold metal railing and started up the stairs two at a time, boots clanging loudly on the iron steps. Halfway up, he stopped.

Someone was outside his door.

Not someone.

Harrison.

Curled up awkwardly on his doorstep, coat damp from the mist, head tipped back against the black-painted wood behind him, he was out for the count.

Christ.

The sight of him there hit Jake harder than anything that had happened in Hull. Because Harrison Black wasn’t built for this. He had sharp edges, a man who held himself together so tightly Jake sometimes thought if he stopped moving for too long, he might crack straight down the middle.

Yet there he was.

Asleep on wet concrete outside his shitty bedsit above an off license.

Jake’s insides twisted. Went a bit warm too.

So carefully, quietly, he stepped onto the balcony, placing his boots so the metal wouldn’t rattle beneath them and startle Harrison awake. God knew what a trained copper might do if he thought someone was coming at him.

Then he crouched beside him and brushed the backs of his fingers over Harrison’s cheek. “Hey.”

“Mm.”

Jake smiled. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

The corner of Harrison’s mouth lifted. Tiny. Sleep-drunk. Fucking beautiful. He leaned towards Jake’s voice before his eyes even opened, as though some part of him recognised Jake before the rest had caught up.

“M’tired.”

“No shit.” Jake brushed his lips beneath Harrison’s ear. “Reckon you’ll sleep better in my bed.”

Another faint smile. “Hm.”

Jake kissed his cheek, slow and soft, then trailed his lips beneath his ear and down the side of his neck. Harrison smelled of rain and office heat and that expensive cologne he wore through long days of pretending he had everything under control.

There wasn’t much control left now.

Not in the way Harrison melted into the attention. In the exhausted little breath that escaped him. Nor in the hand that lifted blindly until it found Jake’s thigh and closed around it, holding on.

And definitely not when he whispered, “…Missed you.”