In case we don’t get round to talking about it, I want you to know that I started therapy this week. It’s not much, just an hour a week—in London, or online if I’m away—but it’s something. It’s everything, really, when I think about it. I learned yesterday that I’ve held on to my fear of cars, roads, fires… whatever it is, to protect me from reliving what happened. That it was easier to assume I was afraid of it than to accept it.
Go fucking figure. It’s a thing, apparently.
I didn’t believe it at first, but I do now, and I feel better just knowing. Because accepting what happened to me is easy. Unlearning years of unhealthy behaviour, thought patterns… yeah, that’s harder. But I know I can do it.
Did I ever tell you I’m like a dog with a bone when I set my mind to something?
I hope I did. So you’re not too surprised when it happens.
Anyway, I had three words planned for this note: gonna be late. I hope somewhere in my rambling I’ve made that clear….
I’ll be late, but I’ll be there.
I love you,
Ollie x
Ollie snapped a picture of the note and sent it to Shay. Then he turned his back on the accident scene, closed his eyes, and meditated himself to sleep.
Hours later, the train rolled into Leeds. The city was unfamiliar, but the alternative music club that was hosting Smuggler’s Beat seemed to be everywhere. Billboards, bus stops. Ollie even spotted Shay’s face on a recycling bin outside a KFC.
The pull to Shay was stronger than ever, so Ollie braved another cab. The tour bus was parked outside a hotel two streets away from the venue, dark and quiet. The gig was over, but the band were likely still clearing the stage. Or drinking. Or both.
Ollie swiped the door open and jogged up the steps. The bus was deserted save for a lone figure curled up on Ollie’s bed.
Shay sat up, arms outstretched as though he’d been waiting for Ollie his whole damn life. “You’re here.”
Ollie smiled. “I am.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Shay wokeOllie with silent kisses—his lips, his neck, lower. He wanted to dip his hands under Ollie’s waistband and wake him with the kind of blow job that would send him straight back to sleep, but mindful of a bus full of sleeping bandmates, he settled for a quick squeeze.
Ollie groaned, cracked one eye open and then another. His gaze was as dark as ever, but the flinty edge that not even Shay had always managed to dodge was gone. The guardedness had left his slow, lazy grin, and he didn’t seem entirely like Ollie at all.
What a difference a few days could make. Shay pictured Ollie’s note—he’d committed it to memory—and tried to imagine what Ollie had been through to get to this point. But he couldn’t, because Ollie was unimaginable. And Shay loved him for it.
They kissed. Ollie pulled Shay on top of him, letting him know without words exactly how much he might have appreciated Shay’s first choice of a wake-up call.
Too soon, though, he drew back. “What time is it?”
“Nine.”
“In the morning? Shit. I’m supposed to be somewhere in half an hour.”
“Where?”
“A police station.”
“Do I want to know why?”
Ollie shook his head. “Later, maybe.”
Fuck. Shay had forgotten that today marked the last day of filming for the genealogy program. That if whatever had bloomed between him and Ollie hadn’t happened, by the end of the day, Ollie would’ve been gone.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Where am I supposed to be, and when?”
“Midday, and I’ll text you a postcode. I need to finalise a couple of things this morning.”
