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“Jake Whitton?” A man’s voice. Older. Brisk. Northern, but not local.

“Who’s asking?”

“Paul Levenson. Levenson & Sons Construction. We’ve had your name passed on. Told you’re decent on pitched work and not afraid of height.”

Jake pushed himself upright, rubbing sleep from his face. “Who you been talking to?”

“Local man vouched for you. Said you know your stuff.” Levenson heaved a breath as if his morning was as fucked up as Harrison’s. “Listen, I’m managing a redevelopment contract, been here a few days already, but one of my subcontractors has just dropped a man at the worst possible moment. We’ve got scaffold up, materials delivered, and a programme already running behind. I need another pair of hands.”

Jake glanced towards the door Harrison had just walked out of, then back down at himself. Bare chest, tangled sheets, the lingering heat still in his skin. He was supposed to be finishing Harrison’s place today. But… “What sort of work?”

“Warehouse roofing. Partial strip and repair. Bit of reinforcement work where the structure’s taken on water. Not a quick patch job.”

“How long for?”

“Today to start with. Longer if you don’t turn out to be useless.”

Jake snorted. “Generous.”

“Not paying to be liked, son.”

“Fair enough. How much?”

“We’ll pay you a day rate plus a bump. Cash top-up if you finish with us. You’ll be working for my lad and the rest of the roofing crew. Can you get here?”

That translated well enough. Rent. Fuel. Maybe even a night out. And cash meant the tax man didn’t have to get his mitts on it. “Depends where?”

“Industrial Estate.”

Jake swung his legs off the bed, reaching for yesterday’s jeans. “Can be there in ten.”

“Good man.”

It took him less than five minutes to get ready.

Jeans on, boots dragged tight, hoodie shoved over his head, tools thrown into the van with little thought, the job slotting into place in his head. Along with what he could do with the money. Proper money. He could get tickets for Leeds, take Teddy. Get him out for the day. He could sort the kid a decent pair of boots that didn’t split after a month. And his kit…fuck, he could get new skins, for a start. The snare was dead as anything lately. Maybe a new crash too. One that didn’t sound like a bin lid every time he hit it. He could actually make it sound right again.

Or…he could take Harrison out.

Properly. Like on a date.

Not just… this.

He smiled as he got into the van and turned the key; the postcode pinged through on his phone. Jake tapped it into the satnav, then pulled out, tyres crunching over the uneven street as he headed out of the row of terraces and towards the edge of town.

He rarely got calls like this.

Most of his work was small. Repairs, patch jobs, the odd re-roof if someone local trusted him enough. Word of mouth kept him going, just about. Enough to scrape by. Luckily, he had the income from the band, too, or he might be on the breadline. But he’d done the occasional bigger contracts before. Enough to know he could handle them. Enough that the odd firm had his name floating around as he wasn’t on the sites. Didn’t advertise properly, though. Didn’t chase where the money was.

Because when people looked him up…

Yeah. They found the rest.

The conviction. The Whitton name. The forums. Comments. Ones that never quite went away. People who still thought they knew what had happened to Robyn. Who still thought his family had something to answer for. Jobs had fallen through because of that. More than he liked to admit.

So yeah—this call?

Bit of luck.