He hadn’t wanted to stop. Wouldneverwant to stop. Hannah affected him in a way no other woman ever had, or could; he knew this to be true in the same way he knew the square root of pi, or the formula for standard deviation. At this point, it was an immutable law of his existence.
They were living in the same village, physically closer together than they’d been in four years – and yet the distance between them didn’t seem to have lessened at all. It was a space filled with anger, sorrow and resentment, which seemed to flow from both sides. They’d agreed that traversing it – trying to find a way through it – was too dangerous to risk when Hannah was responsible for organising their brothers’ imminent nuptials. Yet they’d discovered their bodies connected across this emotional divide; that their physical attraction remained visceral. Urgent. Irresistible, as far as Jude was concerned.
He was living proof that microdosing was no cure for chronic addiction. A single taste of what he’d spent the past four years craving had only made the burn of wanting Hannah fiercer. As he contemplated the forty-eight-hour ‘shag party’ that was set to begin this afternoon, he found himself wondering how on earth he was going to cope with it. From what Joe had told him, there’d be a series of outdoors-y team activities (Ed’s contribution to the programme), plus an evening barbecue and a wine-tasting event (Joe’s input). Hannah would be there throughout, and every cell in Jude’s body seemed to thrum at the prospect of seeing her, speaking to her. He was past pretending; past trying to convince himself he could be in her presence and not feel half wild with the desire to put his hands on her skin.
And she’d wanted that, too. She’dsaidit.
Touch me.
He wanted her to say it again. Hearing her ask for it – for him – had been the single most erotic moment of his life.
He sighed and scrubbed a palm down his face, knocking his glasses out of position and emitting a loud groan.
It was of course at this moment that Joe appeared, poking his head around Jude’s bedroom door to say, ‘Are you in some sort of pain?’
‘Something like that.’ Jude sighed, picking up his bag and hoisting it onto his shoulder.
Joe grinned, far too knowingly for Jude’s taste. ‘Time to go,’ he said. ‘And you never know – maybe a few days of forced fun will sort you out.’
The venue for the shag party was a former farm on the Derbyshire-Cheshire border, its fields now given over to a range of ‘fun’ activities (about which Jude was mostly dubious), as well as a glampsite. Glamping, he knew, meant posh camping – but as usual, it turned out he’d underestimated Joe’s propensity for finding the most bougie version of literally anything.
When Jude was shown to the shepherd’s hut he’d be staying in for two nights, he was astonished; it had double-glazed windows that looked out over a large, presumably man-made lake. There was also a kitchenette, a massive, beautifully made-up bed and a log burner. When he poked around in the fridge and cupboards, he discovered coffee-making essentials, organic milk and a punnet of freshly picked strawberries. There was also a sourdough loaf, a pat of locally churned butter and a jar of artisanal marmalade. His brother, he had to admit, never did anything by halves.
‘This place is .?.?.’ He found he was lost for words.
‘I know,’ Joe said smugly. ‘But no sharing it on socials. We’re on lockdown until after we leave – at which point I’ll be posting the shit out of everyone’s pictures in return for the hefty discount we got.’
‘You know I don’t even have profiles. I have zero interest in “sharing”,’ Jude scoffed, with a shake of his head.He found the whole idea of social media baffling, though he could concede the maths behind the algorithms fascinated him.
‘That’sfor sure,’ Joe said. ‘I’m still waiting for you to ’fess up to whatever happened between you and Hannah on the night of the suit fittings. Ed reckons you argued. I say you boned. Who’s right?’
‘Jesus, Joe, the door’s wide open,’ Jude hissed. ‘And .?.?. neither of you.’ He somehow managed to keep the words ‘so there’ from escaping his mouth – but only just.
Joe narrowed his dark brown eyes. ‘Hmm. I think that means we were both at least abitright.’
‘There’s nothing going on,’ Jude assured him, taking no pleasure whatsoever in saying it. ‘Things are .?.?. fine. Civil. Exactly how I told you they’d be when you interrogated me at your engagement party.’
‘That wasnotan interrogation,’ Joe said. ‘I merely asked a few pertinent questions, the answers to which were already quite obvious.’ He let out a long breath that somehow managed to sound both weary and aggravated. ‘You do realise that, if you’re not careful, you’re going to fuck this up again?’
Jude felt his irritation with Joe heightening. ‘There’s nothingtofuck up, Joe. Hannah and I aren’t even friends.’ Again, the truth of the statement gutted him, and he resented his brother for making him say it.
‘Really? I guess we’ll see,’ Joe said, supremely unbothered that Jude was annoyed with him. ‘The two of you are paired for the activity competition. You’ll work together on every challenge between now and the end ofthe party. There are eight teams of two – selectedentirelyat random – and the team with the most points on Friday wins.’
‘You are fuckingkiddingme,’ Jude said, hating that he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to punch Joe or thank him. On one hand, his brother might be the most devious bastard he’d ever encountered. On the other .?.?. he was going to get to spend alotof time with Hannah, one to one, which it would be pointless to claim he didn’t want. He was eager for whatever scraps of her he could get, even if they’d ultimately leave him starving.
‘I assure you, I’m quite serious,’ Joe said blithely, descending the steps of the shepherd’s hut to stand on the grass below. Then, as if delivering a parting shot, he gestured to his right and said: ‘Hannah’s in the cabin next door, by the way. Happy shag party!’
If Jude had been asked before today, he’d have said he was bound to be awful at clay-pigeon shooting – and he’d have been absolutely right.
Hannah, by contrast, was horrifyingly good. Her competence with a shotgun did something surprising and unspeakable to his insides, and it was entirely down to her that they ended the party’s first activity only halfway down the leaderboard.
Jude wasn’t an especially competitive person – a fact that endlessly frustrated his mother – but it stung to feel he’d been worse at this than almost everyone else. The two exceptions were Viola Mills, a fashion influencer friend of Joe’s who had a manicure so elaborate she could barelypull the trigger on her gun, and Lewis Clarke, another semi-celebrity who ran a gaming YouTube channel. Well used to taking out a broad range of targets on screen, he’d been irate that he could barely hit a single one in real life.
‘Sorry I was so shit at that,’ Jude said to Hannah as they trooped away from the shooting range in the direction of the bar. Ed had declared that, now there’d be no more gun-toting, the drinking part of the day could commence.
‘You weren’t that bad,’ Hannah said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.
‘Come on. It wasembarrassing,’ he argued. ‘Whereas you were so good I’m actually a bit concerned you’ve got a sideline as a hit woman. Is wedding planning just a cover? Are you secretly in MI5?’
