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Work. Murder. Jake. Press. Hull. Robyn.
Everything in his life now seemed tangled together into one endless knot he could no longer separate.
On the drive home he’d stopped at a petrol station and bought one of those miserable instant meals clearly designed for people no one waited up for. He shoved it into the microwave, loosened his tie and ate standing against the kitchen counter while the cottage hummed quietly around him. Halfway through the tasteless pasta, Harrison wondered when exactly his life had become this.
Eventually, he abandoned the half-finished tray in the sink and dragged himself to his bedroom, where he stripped down to his boxers and crawled into bed. The sheets still smelled faintly of Jake. That earthy, masculine scent of dust and sweat permanently attached to him after working roofs all day. Or maybe he just wanted it to smell of Jake.
And all of a sudden, that’s all he wanted.
Jake sprawled half atop him again. Heavy and warm and impossibly alive. Curly hair draped across his chest while he snored without shame and stole all the bloody duvet. Strange, really. How quickly the ache left behind by one man could begin reshaping itself around another. Though perhaps quickly wasn’t fair. Three years was a long time to survive alone.
But now Harrison had managed the impossible feat of pushing Jake away only to lie awake wondering which loss might hurt more: the husband buried years ago or the man still alive somewhere across Hartswick whom Harrison suddenly missed with frightening intensity.
He couldn’t sleep with all that noise in his head.
So he gave up trying and wandered barefoot into the spare room where the storage boxes Jake had brought over were stacked against the wall exactly where he’d left them after emptying the unit. Harrison crouched beside them and absently sorted through the contents beneath the weak overhead light. Old paperwork. Vinyl sleeves. CD cases cracked with age. He smiled at the smell of old cardboard and plastic. The strange comfort of objects once loved enough to survive multiple house moves and years shoved into storage. David Bowie. Fleetwood Mac. The Smiths. Old indie compilations Chris used to insist sounded better on actual speakers than headphones.
Then a CD caught his eye.
Neon Arcade.
Harrison pulled the case free and opened it.
The front cover was all abstract shapes and dark colours, trying very hard to look edgy in the way bands from the early 2000s had. But inside the lyric sleeve sat the band photographs. Four lads standing shoulder to shoulder beneath harsh studio lighting, introduced as Yorkshire’s newest rising indie obsession.
And there he was.
Jake Whitton.
Eighteen-years-old and heartbreakingly young. Long curls draping over one eye. Drumsticks hanging loosely between his fingers. That same brash expression sitting around his mouth even back then, untouched by the years of grief and prison and loss waiting ahead for him.
Before his life had detonated completely.
Harrison sank back against the wall with the sleeve still in his hands.
Chris had loved this band.
Loved them.
Years ago, they’d gone to see Neon Arcade in some overcrowded tent at the Leeds Festival while Chris drank overpriced lager and loudly declared they were going to be massive one day. Harrison hadn’t known then that Chris would end his life in their garage years later. Hadn’t known then that Jake would lose that band before he’d ever truly had it. And he hadn’t known then that somehow, impossibly, both roads would eventually lead back here.
To him, grieving both.
He rubbed hard at his eyes before standing abruptly. Then he tore through the boxes. One after another. Dragging them across the floor until eventually, he found what he was looking for buried beneath old cables and case files. A battered portable CD player. He carried it back into the bedroom and plugged it into the socket beside the bed. The speakers crackled when he pressed play. Then music flooded softly through the dark cottage. Not gentle enough to be soothing. Too raw for that. The tracks carried all the rough arrogance of boys desperate to escape their hometown and become immortal. But Harrison didn’t listen to the lyrics. He listened to the drums. To the rhythm underneath everything else.
And he closed his eyes as Jake’s voice came back to him with ridiculous clarity, sleep-rough and faintly embarrassed by his own words, as though he hadn’t realised until they were out of his mouth how much of himself he’d just offered: “I’ll have to learn the rhythm of it.”
God, Harrison wanted that.
Wanted him.
And so sometime long after midnight, Harrison fell asleep alone beside the sound of Jake Whitton’s heartbeat echoing softly through Chris’s old speakers.
Chapter fifteen
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Harrison arrived back at the station just after eight.
