“I don’t mean Patel and whatever operation she had you in.” Freddie’s eyes met his. “I mean everything else. When we asked if you were okay, you could’ve said something. We’re here for you.”
Jude’s throat tightened. “I know. I just… trust is hard to believe in when you’ve had it stamped out of you.”
Freddie and Nathan exchanged a look, one Jude pretended not to see. Whatever passed between them didn’t belong to him. Not anymore. Then a soft throat clear from the end of the cubicle had them all turning.
Jude smiled.
Because there was Warren, clutching a bunch of flowers and the sight hit like air after drowning.
He looked different out of his cover: faded T-shirt, worn jeans, locs a little messier than usual. Clothes that had been dropped off by someone else because he’d never left Jude’s side long enough to fetch his own. From the moment they wheeled Jude in from the scene, he’d been there. Quiet. Constant. Asking the same two questions over and over.Are you in pain? Do you want me to leave?
The answer to the second was alwaysno.
Now, watching him, Jude could see the exhaustion around Warren’s eyes. The toll of everything they’d both survived. A career up in flames. A disciplinary inquiry waiting. A life that had no clear shape anymore. Yet he was here. Still. Solid. The only steady thing Jude had left to hold on to. Relief hit hard. It wasn’t peace. He doubted he’d ever know that again.
But it was close.
Warren caught his gaze and smiled back.
“Sarge.” Freddie nodded.
“PC Webb.” Warren stepped past him, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to Jude’s cheek before handing over the flowers. “Ready to go?”
Jude inhaled the scent. Fresh, green, a little wild. He nodded. Words wouldn’t have worked anyway. So Warren helped him up, steadying him with one hand, their fingers finding each other as naturally as breathing. Together, they walked the long corridor out of the hospital, Freddie and Nathan trailing behind. At the doors, they said their goodbyes, leaving Warren to guide Jude into the passenger seat of his car.
The world outside smelled of rain and cut grass, that earthy, unsettled scent coming before a storm. Jude held the flowers in his lap, their sweetness rising like a shield against the silence between him and Warren. A silence thick with all the questions he hadn’t dared voice.
Questions about Callum.
About Radley.
About what happened now it was over.
And the one that hollowed him out most—Them.
All the things they’d skirted around, because Warren had insisted Jude rest, heal, breathe. They hadn’t spoken about the future. Or whether they had one. Jude kept telling himself it meant Warren was giving him space. But sometimes… sometimes it felt as if the space was simply Warren easing himself out the door.
As the car turned into the narrow lane to his cottage, Jude felt that tight, familiar pinch behind his ribs. Home used to mean safety. Now it meant reality. He’d spent days pretending the world had paused, pretending Warren’s presence was permanent, pretending that when the case ended he wouldn’t lose him.
But the world had unpaused.
A black SUV sat in the gravel drive, its tinted windows reflecting the grey sky back at him. And just like that, everything he’d been holding together snapped loose.
Of course.
Of course it was ending.
That’s what the flowers were about. A goodbye.
Jude tensed, tightening his fingers around the stems. “What’s this?”
“S’alright.” Warren slowed to a stop. “They’re here to talk to you. Not me.”
Not me.
The words sliced straight through him.
“You’re not coming in?” Jude turned, eyes wide before he could hide the fear. Because if Warren didn’t walk through that door, Jude wasn’t sure he’d survive hearing the rest.
