Chapter Eight
Theo
“Seriously? Fourteen years?” Noah asked, his eyes full of the sweetest concern as he looked across the table at me.
“Yeah, I was eighteen and he was ten,” I said. “And now he’s like a full-grown adult and everything. It’s fucking weird!”
We were sat in the beer garden of the Sleeping Goose, our regular Friday haunt, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.
There were so many of us now we’d had to push three picnic tables together and all squeeze in, but the upside was we could put half the seats in the shade for anyone who burned easily and half in the sunshine.
Laurie and I were sat virtually on the dividing line, with Laurie in the shade and me in the sun. Spencer, Noah, and Alex were sat opposite us, Oliver was on my right, and all of them were doing a wonderful job of listening to me moan.
To be fair, I had good reason to whine. It’d been four days since West’s email had dropped a nuclear bomb into my life and I’d been in a funk ever since.
“I wonder what made him reach out now,” Oliver said as he sipped his cider. “There has to be a reason.”
“Maybe,” Noah said. “Maybe not. Perhaps it’s been something he’s been thinking about for a while and he finally plucked up the courage to hit send.”
“Yeah,” Alex said with a nod. He was wearing his customary sunglasses, which I realised had been sneakily upgraded to a very swish designer pair, and a familiar frown.
“That’s a bloody long time and it’s not something you do lightly.
It shouldn’t be anyway. You have to think that shit through before you blow a fucking hole in someone’s life like that! ”
“That’s exactly my point,” Laurie said, a glass of red wine in hand. It was so dark it almost looked like blood. “Whatever his intentions, he should have considered the consequences of his actions.”
“True, but how many people actually do that?” Noah asked. “I think a lot of us act selfishly, even when we don’t mean to.”
Laurie hummed and pursed his lips. He’d been angrier this week than I’d ever seen him but he was still trying to pretend everything was fine.
I wished he’d tell me what he was thinking, but he seemed to think he wasn’t allowed an opinion on the situation.
Which sucked because I really wanted one from him.
Out of all my friends, Laurie was the only one who knew all the messy details of my life and saw the full picture. Everyone else only had bits and pieces. Laurie’s opinion was the one I trusted above everyone else’s, including my own, and he wouldn’t give it to me.
I was starting to wonder if begging would work, and I never begged. Pleaded, whined, and pouted, yes. But begging was reserved for special occasions only.
“Even if he didn’t mean anything bad, that doesn’t mean you owe him a response,” Oliver said, giving me a gentle smile.
He really was such a sweetheart. It was easy to see why Lane adored him.
“I’m sure you already know that, but it’s worth repeating.
You don’t owe anyone anything, Theo, especially if it means hurting yourself. ”
“Thanks,” I said, returning his smile. “What would I do without you lot? You’re so fucking adorable.”
“It’s because we love you,” Noah said. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told Alex earlier this year—if your brother turns up here, if he so much as puts a toe out of line, I’ll personally make sure they never find his body.
” He sipped his Coke while I stared wide-eyed.
“Don’t look so surprised. I have access to chemicals and I know how to use them.
Besides, Will has, what, ninety hectares of farmland?
And most of that is moorland. Nobody will find anything out there. ”
“And people think I’m the fucked-up one,” Alex said with a wry chuckle. “You’re a fucking serial killer.”
“Not yet I’m not,” Noah said.
Oliver snorted. “Spencer did say you’d be the one most likely to have a murder dungeon. You’re too sweet to be suspicious.”
“Nah, not sweet,” Alex said. “Like… mild-mannered. You’d be the one assisting the fucking police and shit, making cups of tea and feeding them lunch. Everyone would dismiss you straight off the bat.”
“Everyone would think it was you instead,” Noah said with smirk.
“Fuck that shit,” Alex said. “Can you imagine all the fucking reporters sniffing around? God, I’m so sick of the fucking press.”
“Do you need me to come scare them off again?” I asked.
Ever since Henry, Alex’s very sexy and famous boyfriend, had declared his love for Alex in the middle of Novel Tea one lunchtime, the coffee shop had become ground zero in an explosion of nosy journalists and photographers.
I’d enjoyed coming in to glare at them and ask them loud, awkward questions when they tried to talk to Alex. It was an endless source of amusement.
“It’s okay. Siren’s doing a bang-up job, but I appreciate your offer.
I just need Stephen and Cleo to stop fucking drooling over her—I swear the pair of them only possess half a brain cell when she’s around.
” Alex huffed and shook his head. Siren was a friend of Henry’s bodyguard, Cas, and she’d come in to help keep an eye on things at the coffee shop until everyone got bored and decided Alex and Henry were old news.
Not only was Siren tall, tattooed, and muscular with lavender hair and an undercut that just screamed queer, she also exuded “Step on me, Mummy” vibes.
I loved her, but getting to talk to her was hard because she wasn’t very chatty to start with and Novel Tea’s book club-slash-new neighbourhood watch-slash-elderly vigilante group kept stealing her attention!
“I think Cleo’s got a better chance,” I said thoughtfully. “Or Mina.”
“Nah,” Alex said. “Mina’s got a boyfriend.”
“She could have a girlfriend too,” I said. “Polyamory is a thing.”
“I know, but I still don’t think Mina’s interested,” Alex said with a smile that suggested he knew something I didn’t. I opened my mouth to ask him but was interrupted by Spencer holding out his hand.
“Okay, so like, I know we moved way past this but I’ve gotta know.
Theo, you said your brother was ten when you left, right?
And it’s been fourteen years… but that’d make you, like, thirty-two.
” He sounded confused, like the maths wasn’t making sense to him.
I’d always been very secretive about my age, and everyone always assumed I was younger than I was.
It was probably because I had a baby face and I never made much of a fuss about my birthday, which threw a lot of people because I normally loved being the centre of attention.
Everyone at the table turned and looked at me. Watching. Waiting.
I grinned and shrugged. “Yes, and?”
“Holy shit,” Oliver said, mouth agog. “You’re not thirty-two?”
“How the fuck are you the same age as him?” Alex asked, gesturing at his brother in disbelief. “There’s no fucking way.”
“Hang on a second,” Spencer said. “Are you saying I look old?”
“Or are you saying I’m too immature to be in my thirties?” I asked with a sweet but sharp smile. Alex was smarter than that, though, or maybe he just gave zero fucks.
“Both,” he said. “And let’s face it, you can both be bloody childish. We all can.”
“Growing up is a trap,” Oliver said with a shrug. “And how many of you know any actual ‘grown-ups’? I don’t think they exist in the same way anymore.”
There was a pause as we all thought about it. “Noah’s pretty grown up,” Spencer said finally. “And Anders.”
“Anders is definitely a grown-up,” I said with a nod, glancing down the table to where our resident writer was sat next to his boyfriend, Bastian, and chatting to Will, Jamie, and Lane. I didn’t think any of them were listening to us. Around me, everyone hummed in agreement.
“Laurie seems pretty grown up too,” Spencer added. “I don’t think you can run a funeral home if you’re not grown up.”
Laurie smiled kindly. “I think I’m supposed to take that as a compliment. But there’s a difference between being professional and being a dick, and if I were the latter, I wouldn’t have a business for very long. You and Alex know that too.”
“I don’t know,” Spencer said with a sly smile. “Alex was rude as fuck to this one guy in the spring and now they’re buying a house together.”
“I wasn’t rude,” Alex snapped. “Henry was being a fucking arse and he knows it.”
I giggled. “Where is your beau tonight? I thought the filming was nearly done?”
“They’re just doing the last little bit—a few reshoots and shit like that. They wrap up next week and then there’s like, a party or something. I don’t know.”
“Please, please tell me you’re going,” I said.
“You cannot refuse to go to a party like that! Think of all the awesome people who’ll be there—like all Henry’s friends!
” Henry’s friends were all gorgeously wonderful people who I adored.
He’d introduced them to us several times and I’d loved each and every one of them.
It had been strange to find out Henry and I already had a point of connection through Austin and Kane—Austin and I had been filming together for ages, and Henry and Kane were playing love interests in the sexy new period drama he’d been filming in Heather Bay since the end of March.
I didn’t think Austin was coming up to the party, but I’d have to message him and ask. Although that meant he might start asking annoying questions, like whether I’d talked to Laurie yet, and I didn’t have the energy to deal with that. I had to work out what I wanted to do about West first.
I’d read his email countless times over the past few days and I wasn’t any closer to figuring out what to do.
A couple of times I’d thought about responding, and once I’d even clicked the little reply button before the pressure had become too much and I’d nearly thrown my phone at the wall.
I’d thought about deleting it too and pretending I’d never read it, but deep down I knew if I did that, I’d never be able to forget it.
Right now my plan was just to ignore it, but every day the weight of it grew a little heavier. It was like I could feel it staring at me from my phone, with glowing eyes and sharp teeth, waiting to bite me.
I hadn’t been planning on telling anyone else about it, but as soon as we’d all sat down in the pub garden it had come spilling out of me.
Clearly the whole thing was bothering me enough I needed to get it off my chest, but it hadn’t actually helped with the decision.
Noah was right that I didn’t owe anyone anything, but what about myself? Surely I owed myself something.
Ever since I’d left home, I’d tried to put myself first and think about what made me happy. It hadn’t always worked and I’d fallen into numerous traps along the way, but over the past few years I’d been determined to live my life for me.
So what did I want?
In the back of my mind, a tiny voice asked whether it would be the worst thing in the world to email West. After all, it didn’t mean I had to see him again, and if it turned out to be a giant trap set by my parents, I could just block them all and move on.
Although I highly doubted my parents would try that shit. If they hadn’t been interested in me for fourteen years, I doubted they’d try now. They probably pretended I didn’t exist in the same way I did about them.
The conversation at the table moved on from Henry and his wrap party to everyone’s plans for the weekend, and for once I was happy to just listen.
A weight on my thigh made me jump and I glanced down to see Laurie’s hand resting on my bare skin where my dress had ridden up. His touch was warm and comforting, and I pressed my leg up into his fingers.
Laurie’s hand stayed there for the rest of the evening, the perfect reminder that he was there for me.