“Everything okay, you guys?”
All three of us jump. Cece has materialised beside us, a tea towel over one shoulder and a ‘this bullshit ends now’ look on her face.
“I was just leaving,” Jake tells her. “Sorry we didn’t get to chat.”
“That’s okay, Jake,” Cece says, giving me and Davis a hard look. “I’ll walk you out.”
The two of them head for the door, and Davis and I grimace at each other like kids caught messing with a mailbox. We turn to watch Jake and Cece, deep in conversation, and when I see Jake give her his Captain Popular smile, my fingers twitch.
It’s not jealousy. It’s worse. It’s sick. It’s twisted. I thought it had gone forever, but it’s back. Notes are ringing in my head, crystalline sounds that slice as sharply as Jake’s stare. I want to play the flute.
Jake Graves-Holland makes me want to play the flute.
7
Cece
Jake’s a walking storm as I steer him away from Ada and Davis. The pair of them are clearly up to no good, but my immediate crisis is the fuming rugby player who looks one second away from wrecking my front bar.
I ask after his Nan, and he gives distracted, half-ass answers until the moment we step into the crisp night air and he turns to face me, a manic look on his face. “Are Ada and your bouncer fucking?”
“God, no. They hate each other. Well, they don’t hate each other,” I backpedal. “It’s more like... brother-sister vibes.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
“I’m serious. It’s not a thing. They don’t feel that way, and even if they did, Ada would never hook up with?—”
I cut myself off before I can finish with‘a guy I like,’ which is stupid. Because I don’tlikeDavis.
“Forget it,” I say. “But no, there’s no way they’d go there.”
Jake stares at Afterglow’s entrance, clearly considering whether to believe me or march back in and thump Davis.
“Hey, please leave it?” I ask. “This place has enough bad press without the face of Sky Sport starting a brawl in it.”
That gets him to crack a smile, which immediately fades back into a scowl. “You swear Ada’s not fucking him?”
I pointedly look at my watch, and Jake lets out a breath.
“Sorry. I know I'm acting up... I just... I’ve got a massive thing for her, and I’m kinda losing my mind here.”
“Is the ‘massive thing’ your penis? ’Cos I heard she’s already had that.”
Jake does not find this as amusing as he should.
“Chill,” I say, holding up my hands. “No one cares that you gave my best mate your, uh,thing.”
“She told you?”
“Uh, yeah...?”
“She say how it was?”
“Um…?” I mentally run down a list of options for how to tactfully inform him Ada’s exact words were ‘I’ve had better.’
“Shit.” Jake ploughs a hand through his hair. “Is this about when she went on top? Is that why she left? I swear, I don’t usually… Look, the girl of my dreams was riding my dick, telling me I’m the biggest she’s ever had, any man would’ve… And I was all set to go again, but then she just bailed and… Fucking hell.”
I watch him, open-mouthed. Even as a teenager, Jake was all control—cold steel and locked jaw. Sportscasters call him ‘serious as the grave,’ because they’re lazy pun addicts. Yet here he is unravelling in front of me over not fucking a flautist good enough.
