Chapter 15
CONFESSIONS SHOULD BE BETTER PLANNED
Johnny
Johnny stared straight ahead as he helped Kat up the uneven steps into reception. The fire service were pissed—oooh they were pissed, because apparently they didn’t like anyone messing with their equipment.
“Thanks,” Kat said, tapping her cane against the wooden floor.
She rolled her shoulders, working out a crease in her floral summer jacket before looking up at him with tired resolve.
She looked just as exhausted as he felt, except she probably hadn’t been up all night having sex with her best friend.
Johnny had to stop himself sucking his bottom lip.
“Here we are again,” Kat sighed, signing her name in the visitor book. “I really hoped I wouldn’t be seeing him again so soon.”
Johnny nodded, taking the pen and signing his own name. “Did anything come of the report Taylor made last week?”
She shook her head. “We had a strategy meeting, talked around the issue for most of it and then I went out and did a home visit like always.”
“And?”
She shrugged, but not in an uncaring way. “The house was tidy-ish, there were a couple of pot noodles in the cupboard and William had sheets on his bed. Mr Manders and I had a long talk, he said all the right things and I left.”
“You know he does that shit on purpose, right? The bare minimum so it gets you lot off his back?”
She nodded empathetically, tucking a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear.
“I know, John-Paul. Believe me, I know. We talked about William’s schooling and he promised to get his attendance up.
It doesn’t help that we’re in the middle of the summer holidays so we can’t monitor what they’re up to.
He signed a parental agreement and that was it. ”
Johnny scoffed and shook his head. “Yeah, because the five previous parental agreements worked so well.”
She shrugged again. “Well, things are different today, aren’t they? Today he got up on a roof and was found with drugs on him.”
Johnny sucked his teeth. “Please tell me Manders isn’t on his way over to collect him.”
She shook her head. “No. Can’t get hold of him. Or William’s mum, so I’m waiting for a call back on an emergency foster placement.”
Johnny let out a breath. “Good. Thank you.”
“But, John-Paul?”
“Yeah?”
“Please don’t antagonise Mr Manders. If the courts get wind of your family dispute they’ll have William back in his care quicker than you can say ‘red tape and pay cuts.’”
“You know we don’t go looking for trouble, right? Manders brings it to our door.”
Turning the corner, they reached the dining hall and found Taylor and William sitting at a table across from one another. Johnny sighed, smiling softly when he saw that they were eating toasted tea cakes and finishing off a jigsaw puzzle.
Taylor glanced up, then looked at William and said something Johnny couldn’t hear. William looked over his shoulder, his expression turning sullen when he saw Kat standing in the doorway.
She sighed. “I’ll take it from here,” she said, giving William a tired smile. “I’ll do my best to get William out of that house, but…”
“I know. Red tape and pay cuts,” Johnny said, squeezing her shoulder. “Thanks, Kat.”
The rest of the day blurred into never-ending paperwork, with Taylor making up some shitty excuse about needing to feed the hedgehogs whilst Johnny and Amil sent off all the safeguarding referrals.
They were so knackered by the time they returned home that they both fell into bed without ever having the chance to talk.
Well, that was about to change, because Johnny had bribed Isla with chocolate buttons and a shoulder massage in order to let him and Taylor crew together the next day.
“Just wake me up when it’s home time,” Taylor said, sliding his chair back and resting a foot against the dashboard.
“Not a fucking chance,” Johnny replied, slapping the front of his stab vest. “If I have to suffer through another six hours, so do you.”
Taylor groaned. “Six hours? Fuck my life.”
“Yep, and we’ve still got feeding time at the pharmacist to deal with.”
Taylor groaned, because something they’d learned over the last week was that the most action they were ever likely to see in Dingly Heath were the squabbles between the elderly residents as they waited in line to have their prescriptions refilled.
Every morning, ten o’clock sharp, they’d all line up with their elbows out.
Taylor had suggested they place bets on who made it to the front first, but Isla had poo-poohed it and said betting on the general public was probably illegal.
“Please, no. I can’t deal with that today. I’ve still got bruises on my arse from last time,” Taylor moaned, because the elderly were pinchy little bastards.
“So do I, from cops and fucking robbers. You are being the robber next time, mark my words.”
Johnny took a left off the main housing stretch, following the road towards the woods.
“Where’re we going?” Taylor said, rubbing the tops of his legs.
Johnny didn’t really know. Somewhere quiet.
Somewhere Johnny could let off steam and rid himself of the unbearable sense of urgency that had started squeezing every part of his body.
His arms felt heavy with it, and his heart was hammering.
It was his wolf, he realised, giving his body a massive fucking adrenaline dump and telling him to just get on with it.
Drifting beneath the trees, he followed the fire road all the way up to a picnic area and stopped when they reached the clearing.
“JP?” Taylor said, when he finally turned off the engine.
Johnny let out a breath. “Tay,” he said, rubbing a hand over his chin. It made a scratchy sound as his five o’clock shadow started to poke through. “About the other night.”
Taylor’s knee immediately started bouncing, so Johnny closed a hand around it. Colour crept up Taylor’s neck from beneath his black shirt, and it was taking all of Johnny’s self-restraint not to lean across and press his face into it.
“Yeah?” Taylor said, his expression tight.
“I… uh,”
Fuck.
Five minutes ago he’d been ready to tell Taylor everything.
To just say ‘fuck it’ and hope for the best. Confessions should be better planned, he knew that.
He’d even had some of the words figured out, but now Taylor was looking at him, and they were alone, and maybe telling him how he felt wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“I’m… sorry, for pushing you about Sam. That was really shitty of me.”
Taylor let out a breath, his eyes darting all over the car. “It’s… uh, yeah it’s okay, JP. It’s… Don’t worry about it. It was probably a surprise.”
Understatement of the century.
“And sorry for pushing you about whether you like alphas. Dragging it out of you like that wasn’t fair.”
Taylor wet his lips, leg bouncing again.
“Tay,” Johnny whispered, tucking his fingers around the back of his knee and rubbing his thigh with his thumb. “Taylor, I—”
“Do you hate me, JP?”
“What?”
Taylor’s nostrils flared, and he pushed his lips together so tightly they turned white. After several seconds he sighed and looked up. “Do you hate me for all the shit I keep putting you through? It’s… it’s okay, you know. If you do. You can just tell me.”
Johnny let out a soft breath and leaned across the gap between the chairs. “What shit, Tay? There is no shit.”
Taylor let out a strangled sound and pulled away, flattening himself against the door. “You mean apart from making things worse with Manders? Not coming home? Losing our spots in West Newton, getting kicked out of our old house, the biting, th-the…” he trailed off, looking down at his hands.
“The sex?” Johnny said, eyes trailing over Taylor’s face.
Taylor swallowed and looked up as though praying for divine intervention. Johnny couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah. You weren’t into it, that was plain as day. I should have just… I should’ve just dragged you out of there rather than going along with it.”
Johnny let out a humourless laugh, fingers tightening around Taylor’s knee. “You’re right,” he said, pressing his lips together. “I wasn’t into it. Not with Theo. But when you came in I wanted to stay.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No? I asked him to get you, Tay. I wanted you there because I had to know.”
“Know what?” Taylor’s voice had taken on a breathy edge, and he was staring at Johnny like his entire world was collapsing.
“I had to know if you… if you felt something for me. Outside of…” He gestured to the space between them. “This.”
Jesus, it felt like his stomach had twisted into a million little knots. Was he doing this? Was he actually doing this?
Taylor shook his head. “I don’t… What do you… Why is this happening? Why did you kiss me, JP? In the drive-through, why—” Taylor abruptly cut himself off and just stared at him.
What Johnny should have done was touch his face and kiss him on the mouth, gently, that time.
He should have said that he’d kissed him because the scales had tipped in that moment, and that over the last few hours Johnny’s future had flashed before his eyes.
How, after sharing a body and a bed again, he knew with absolute certainty that continuing to go on as they were was going to drive him to insanity.
How, now that Johnny knew how Taylor tasted, his grip on his own self-control would erode pretty fucking fast, and that it probably wouldn’t be long before he kissed him again.
Maybe at work, maybe at the pack house, or maybe at home when they were under the covers watching Taylor’s latest obsession.
Taylor would blame himself, run away and probably fuck the first omega who batted their eyelashes at him. Johnny couldn’t do it, because he would rather die than have Taylor come home with someone else’s scent on his skin.
He should have said all that, but instead he just snapped, “Because I wanted to. Okay?”
The silence that stretched out between them was heavy and cold, and Johnny couldn’t fight the urge to fill it. “Because I’ve wanted to kiss you for the last fourteen years.”