Page 38

Fuck.

That was new.

“No, I’ll handle it when I get in.” Harrison tucked the phone between his chin and shoulder as he fought his way into his shirt. “Yes, sir. Twenty minutes.”

He ended the call and dropped the phone onto the bed.

“There a problem?” Jake flexed his toes beneath the sheet as though this were nothing. As though the morning hadn’t just been ripped clean in two.

Harrison blinked as if only just remembering he wasn’t alone. “Yeah.” He didn’t stop moving, fingers working through the buttons of his shirt. “Sorry for waking you.”

Jake tipped his chin at the useless blinds leaking early light. “Sun would’ve beat you to it.”

That earned the faintest ghost of a smile, but it vanished almost immediately. DI Black was well and truly back.

“Superintendent wants me in.” Harrison stepped into his trousers. “Press have got hold of something. Needs shutting down before it gets legs.”

“Right.” Jake nodded. “This about the case you’re on?”

“Yeah.” Harrison kept his focus on his zip, dragging it up, controlled. “It’s likely nothing solid yet. Just chatter. But once it’s out there, you don’t get it back in the box.”

Jake watched him for a beat. “Sounds like more than chatter. Or it did last night.” He widened his eyes. “Murder?”

Harrison stilled. Only for a second, but Jake caught it.

Then his belt was through his loops, and he pulled the buckle tight. “Please don’t repeat that.”

Jake made a show of zipping his lips shut.

Harrison exhaled, dragging a hand back through his hair. “It’s my job to treat this as undisclosed until there’s evidence. We’re nowhere near saying anything to anyone.” His face pinched. “Least of all the press.”

“Sounds like a shit morning.”

“Understatement.”

Harrison stepped into his shoes, although the first one took two attempts. He missed the heel, muttered something under his breath, then shoved his foot into it hard enough to make Jake wince. His phone followed into his pocket with the same clipped impatience.

Then silence.

Not the easy kind they’d fallen into hours ago either. This one felt thinner. Tighter. Stretched between them by everything neither seemed to know how to say.

Jake certainly fucking didn’t.

He’d told Harrison last night that this was the bit he didn’t know how to do. The staying. The waking up together. Whatever came after you opened your eyes and the bloke you’d wanted beside you was actually still there.

Apparently there weren’t instructions.

Jake wanted to say something. Ask what happened now. Whether last night had changed anything or whether they were supposed to carry on exactly as they had before.

But he didn’t.

Harrison lingered instead of leaving.

He stood there looking at him and Jake held his gaze, wondering what was keeping him there.

The case?

Or me?