Outside in the garden, I didn’t feel the cold. I sat on the bench I’d built with Lucky one summer night when he’d been feeling twitchy. I’d never told him I’d spent the whole time jonesing for something as much as he was. Only it hadn’t been the oblivion he craved—it was something more than I had, more than I was. It was something—someone—I’d left behind forever.
Shula crept into the garden, her mate a heartbeat behind her. She scoured the grass for anything I might’ve left out for her, but I hadn’t tonight, and any guilt I might’ve felt was held at bay by the knowledge that feeding her every night was crueller than it was kind. She couldn’t rely on me, and neither could anyone else. I wasn’t the man who’d taken Rae home and fucked him, but I wasn’t the man he thought I was either.
***
Rae:Heading out this weekend. Wanna come?
Groaning, I rolled over and stuffed my phone under my pillow. It was the third message Rae had sent me, and he always seemed to time it just right—when I was on my own in bed with nothing but him and his fucking righteous gang on my mind.
It had crossed my mind to find someone to keep me company at night, to distract me from the last person who’d shared my bed, but I’d only got as far as peeking on Grindr before Rae’s second message had popped up. After that…fuck. There was no way anyone could come close to how he’d made my body sing.I wish I’d never met him.
I had the mantra on repeat, blasting my brain cells with negativity every time thewhat ifsgot too loud. It worked during the day when my hands were busy at work, and in the evening when Lucky and Dom kept me occupied, but at night, when I was alone with my thoughts, there was nothing—just a pull in my heart that hurt like a bitch, and a boner for Rae that wouldn’t fucking quit.
By Friday, he’d given up texting me. I missed it—I missedhim—even though I’d failed to respond to a single message.
I came home to an empty house. Lucky and Dom, perhaps bored with my sulking, had gone back to Dom’s place. At least, I figured that was why they’d gone until I checked my phone, and spotted the paparazzo lurking in the back hedge.Fuckers.Dom had been out for ages now, and the press still acted like it was brand new. As if he was the only gay bloke who’d ever played football. I considered hauling the twat out of the bushes and kicking him into next week, but respect for Dom stopped me. It wouldn’t have helped.
Still, having someone watching my house made me antsy. My mug had never wound up in the snaps lurking photographers sometimes caught of Dom, but I’d spent so long under the radar—living like Rae—that the idea of my face splashed across the tabloids was enough to drive me to drink.
At least it would’ve been if I’d had anything in the house worth drinking.
Irritated, I resorted to pacing the living room, only stopping to peep through the back curtains like a fugitive. I was debating spraying the pap with the hosepipe when Lucky called.
“Come here,” he offered. “Or Dom will get you a hotel. Please, Cash. Don’t let our shit hold you hostage.”
The irony took another chunk out of me, and I laughed. “Nah, you’re all right. I’m just being dramatic. I can go out if I want. What are they gonna do to me?”
“That’s not the point,” Lucky said. “You shouldn’t have to worry about it.”
“Neither should you or Dom. Besides, I’ve got places I can go if it gets too much.”
“Same place you went all day last Saturday?”
“Piss off.”
Lucky sighed. “Seriously? You’re still not talking about that?”
“Nope.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yep.”
“And a fraud. You were the sunniest fucker in the world when I met you.”
It was banter, but it hit home. Lucky knew more about me than anyone outside of my family and the sab world, but he didn’t know it all. And even if he had, it wouldn’t have made up for the cloud I’d cast over his home. “I’m sorry, mate.”
“So are we. Doesn’t change anything, though, does it?”
We left it at that. He went back to loving Dom, and I went back to fantasising about what I’d do with an empty house if I wasn’t brooding over persecuted foxes and their enchanting protectors.
Hourslater, or at least it seemed that way, I retreated upstairs to the relative sanctuary of my room. Despite fighting it for days, opening Rae’s blog seemed the logical next step, and I was eyes-in on his latest post before I truly comprehended what I was doing. The hunt he’d sat out of with me had played out as expected. Rae was their fastest, most agile sab. Without him on the ground, and with less neutral monitors than usual, Rae’s gang had been outmanned and outgunned. It had ended badly, and Rae’s guilt and pain seeped from every word on the page.
Fury tore through me before I could check it, a blind rage that joined forces with every loitering emotion and drove me off my bed. I ripped my phone from my pocket, jamming out a message as I made a mental list of every bit of kit I’d never managed to part with.
Cash:I’m coming
***
