Page 60
“No?”
“No. You work until you physically can’t anymore, sleep for considerably less time than you should, then someone hands you a coffee and tells you to keep going.”
Jake snorted. “Imagine if roofers worked like that. We’d all fall off.”
“Which is why I keep telling you to be careful.”
Jake rolled onto his back, tucking an arm under his head as he stared up at the ceiling. Harrison knew exactly where his thoughts had gone. The river. The girl. There wasn’t much he could do about that. So he shuffled closer and pressed a kiss to Jake’s shoulder.
“What about you?”
Jake glanced across. “What about me?”
“What does your day look like?”
Jake sighed, staring back at the ceiling. “Got called onto a contractor job yesterday. Big industrial refit. Big money, too.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Was.” Jake scratched his stomach. “Until I vanished halfway through cause Mum rang crying.”
Guilt twisted sharply through Harrison again. “I’m sorry. I did everything I could to stop information getting out.”
“I know.” Jake shrugged. “But the official stuff don’t bother her half as much as what gets shared online or talked about in the Co-op. Whole town turns into detectives online soon as there’s a helicopter over a field.”
Harrison rested his lips on Jake’s shoulder, thinking. “Why don’t you go back?” He peered up to meet his gaze. “To the site. Explain what happened.”
Jake scoffed. “If some bloke walked off one of my jobs halfway through the day, I wouldn’t hire him again.”
“You said it was a larger contractor. They’ve probably dealt with worse.”
“And they’ve probably already replaced me with some bloke off TrustATrader.” Jake glanced sideways at him. “Maybe I should just stay here and finish your roof instead.”
“If you do, I’ll pay you.”
Jake smiled. “No, you won’t.”
“I absolutely will.”
“I told you my rates, right?” Jake lifted his arm to let Harrison tuck himself closer, then ran his fingers slowly along Harrison’s spine.
And as much as that felt really bloody good, Harrison’s gaze dropped.
Because, yeah. Jake had told him.
Find my sister.
The one thing Harrison couldn’t promise him.
So his fingers wandered instead to the chain resting against Jake’s chest, catching the pendant between thumb and forefinger. He turned it gently, grateful for something else to look at, and studied it properly for what might have been the first time.
A silver swallow, wings in mid-flight.
The metal had been worn smooth in places and scratched in others, marked by years of work and weather and being tucked beneath T-shirts and hoodies. Harrison traced one wing with the pad of his thumb.
It was still beautiful.
“You never take this off,” he remarked.
