The Greening of Thaddeus Grey

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

THURSDAY

THADDEUS

Where the hell are you?

I glared at my phone sitting in its cradle and raised my middle finger to the screen, telling my best—ex-best friend, Phillip, to “Fuck off.”

I’d no sooner got the words out when the interior of the antiquated Rover lit up like a Christmas tree, and a boom of thunder loud enough to rattle my eardrums shook me in my seat.

“Holy shit.” I peered through the windscreen, my heart racing. I must’ve lost my freaking mind driving through this.

In response, another crack of thunder blasted overhead, and the persistent drizzle became a deluge of monsoon proportions, blurring any distinction between the edge of the gravel road and Langley Forest beyond.

At five o’clock on a late spring evening, it may as well have been midnight for all I could see through the sheeting rain.

I gave my cheek a slap to wake my brain the fuck up, so I didn’t get myself killed, and tightened my grip on the steering wheel.

Another crack of lightning starkly illuminated the trees on either side of the road, resulting in a ghoulish tableau of twisted branches that seemed to reach toward each other over the tarmac like I was in a fucking horror movie.

And yes, I was definitely losing my goddamn mind. The irritating click-swish, click-swish, click-swish of the old windscreen wipers wasn’t exactly helping, either.

“Get a grip, Thaddeus.” I leaned forward and squinted over the steering wheel just as another crash of thunder boomed.

“For fuck’s sake.” I surveyed the weighty black clouds looming overhead and muttered, “Go ruin some other poor sod’s day, why don’t you?

I think you’ve put me through enough already. ”

My phone dinged with another text, and although I tried not to look, I just couldn’t fucking resist.

We need to talk.

I huffed and turned back to the road, which was growing bleaker and narrower by the second. I flicked on my lights, grumbling, “No, Phillip, we don’t. We really, really don’t.”

Ding.

Please let me explain. You owe me that much.

“I . . . what?” I almost choked on the words, fury bubbling over.

“I don’t owe you a thing, you . . . you .

. . you total fucking arsehole,” I shouted into the empty car.

“There is nothing you could say to me that could possibly explain you fucking my boyfriend behind my back. Zero. Zip. Nada. Have a nice life, dickhead.” I stabbed my finger repeatedly at the screen until I finally hit the right spot and the text disappeared.

Ding.

Come on, Thad. We’re best friends. We can get through this.

I gaped. Had the man lost his fucking mind?

But instead of Phillip, it was Judd this time.

This is so like you. So immature. At least let us know you’re okay.

Us? Immature? What the actual fuck? Were they together, maybe at Phillip’s place?

Together and talking about me? My ex-boyfriend and my best friend.

Maybe even laughing about how it had all gone down.

‘You should’ve seen his face. It was priceless.

’ A funny story they’d retell in the future, maybe even to our friends.

A thought occurred to me. Jesus Christ. Did they—shit—what if they .

. . loved each other? My cheeks burned, and I buried the thought as deeply as I could.

Bad enough that Judd had cheated on me with my best .

. . ex-best friend, but the idea that they might actually care for each other— No.

I slammed my fist against the steering wheel. I refused to go there.

Focus. Focus. Focus. I squinted through the slashing rain, trying to get my bearings.

I had a vague idea of where I was, but that was about it.

I was hardly what you’d call a traveller.

I’d left Wellington about a dozen times in my entire life, and ninety per cent of those times had been in an aeroplane.

Except, of course, for today, when I’d haired out of Wellington city and up the Hutt Valley like my arse was on fire.

Anywhere that wasn’t my brand-spanking-new apartment with my boyfr—ex-boyfriend packing his stuff to move out, which was just fine with me.

I didn’t need the drama. Lord knew there’d been enough of it for one day.

My neat and tidy life ruined by a single text which had been sent mistakenly from my best friend Phillip to me instead of its intended recipient, my live-in boyfriend, Judd.

Can’t wait to have my arse owned at lunch if you can manage to ditch Thad for fifteen minutes.

Oops.

What followed was as predictable and pathetic as most cheating break-ups tended to be. A lot of shouting, recriminations, apologies, promises never to do it again, tears, reciprocal accusations—all untrue, since I’d never cheated in my life.

There wasn’t nearly enough genuine remorse on Judd’s part for my liking.

And when he realised I wasn’t going to change my mind and launched into a sermon about how I’d really brought it on myself by being emotionally unavailable and pushing him to find solace and attention in another man’s arms, I called it a day.

I stormed off, uttering a slew of expletives, followed by a hefty slam of the door and a directive to have his stuff out of my apartment before sundown.

Childish? Absolutely. Satisfying? Damn right.

The man could go fuck himself with a cactus for all I cared.

I made it as far as the parking garage only to find my brand-new Audi blocked in by my father’s old Rover, which I’d collected from its service the previous day.

I had the key to the Rover on my keyring, but the Audi’s fob was still hanging on a hook by the front door.

Goddammit. I unlocked the Rover and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Guess it’s just you and me again, huh?” I ran my hands almost affectionately around the steering wheel.

“Another day, another Grey family crisis, right?” The Rover had been my only form of transport since my father had left my mother and me when I was twelve—his only concession to a family he seemed to care so little about.

When I’d left home at eighteen, my mother had given it to me, and for some reason that I didn’t want to look at too closely, I’d never replaced it until Judd had taken me car shopping to find something more .

. . reliable. Luxurious was what he’d really meant.

I’d obliged but held on to the Rover as well.

I took a second to calm down and suck in a few deep breaths. Then I threw the Rover into gear and fled my apartment and the life I’d spent ten years building. But as far as planning went, that was it.

I’d realised my mistake almost immediately.

It would’ve been infinitely more sensible, not to mention satisfying, if I’d stayed and kicked Judd out.

Instead, I’d been left with time to fill in and nowhere to go.

Judd was in my apartment clearing out his things, and my arsehole best friend and business partner, Phillip, would be lying in wait for me at work with yet more apologies, explanations, and downright fucking lies.

Hell to the no on dealing with any of that shit.

Instead, I’d spent the morning in a café, ensuring my blood caffeine levels hit DEFCON 1, all the while ignoring the onslaught of texts blowing up my phone.

When my hands got so jittery that I didn’t dare risk another cup, I left the café and wandered the city for hours with my coat collar pulled up against the blustery spring storm.

It was a fitting accompaniment to my plummeting emotional state as the depth of the betrayal finally began to sink in.

Where did you go and who did you talk to when the two most important people in your life had been the ones to fuck you over?

I had no memory of getting back in my car and heading north out of the city, only the crushing need to avoid my apartment and office at all costs.

All those gut-wrenching but necessary decisions about the company and my about-to-be-defunct business partnership, in addition to tying up the loose ends of a broken relationship and answering a ton of awkward questions from friends and family, were about as appealing as a root canal.

Next thing I knew, I was negotiating the winding road up the Remutaka Hills in treacherous weather and with no destination in mind.

But after crossing the centre line and almost getting sideswiped by a container truck heading the opposite direction, I came to the realisation that I was gonna get myself killed.

That in mind, I pulled over, waited for my heart to stop hammering in my chest, and consulted the map on my phone.

Driving back into Wellington in the middle of a tempest seemed an equally stupid idea, so I’d looked for somewhere quiet to wait things out.

A small country road just a little north of where I’d parked caught my eye.

Crighton Road. I knew that name. I’d expanded the map and almost laughed.

Crighton Road led into the Langley Forest, the site of a proposed development for which our company was currently preparing a bid.

It was a specialised software contract that had the potential to be very good for our brand.

Studying the map closer, I’d seen that Crighton Road had a small rest area/car park about halfway up, the starting point for several walking tracks.

It seemed the perfect place to hunker down and wait while the storm did its thing. I plugged in the location and set off.

Thirty minutes later, I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake.

According to Google Maps, I should’ve hit that rest area a couple of kilometres back, but I hadn’t come upon anything that looked remotely like it.

The tarmac had fizzled to gravel, and Google Maps had my car icon floating in a green off-road purgatory where no road apparently existed.

Except it did because I was still driving on it, moving forward, toward . . . something. Who the hell knew what?