Chapter Seventeen
The pub across the street from the hospital was full.
Half locals, half healthcare workers. An eclectic mix of tunes droned out from an aged juke box near the bar.
Beside it, a lone man sat, pushing in coin after coin between sips of a pint.
Voices filled the spaces between songs until the air was a tangle of noise.
Too many voices, too much noise. I inhaled slowly.
“What do you think, Sophie?” someone asked. The sound of my name jolting my attention.
“Sorry, what was that?” I confessed.
“Those new shift patterns they’re bringing in.”
“Oh. I didn’t know they were.”
Course I didn’t know. Because I never engaged with people. I’d spent the last ten years moving around, changing addresses, ending relationships because no one ever felt right. And I stopped making friends because there was no point when I left them all behind every time.
I glanced around again, at the people next to me that I worked with. I didn’t know a single thing about them, other than a name, and I got that wrong more often than I got it right.
A little way off, a table of locals erupted into laughter.
A loud roar that stopped conversations momentarily, with others looking up from half-drunk pints and glasses of wine before resuming their conversations.
An intense game of dominoes was being played out two tables away.
Onlookers watched like the stakes were high.
And then, suddenly all conversations stopped.
Just for a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime.
I saw the cause by the bar. Leather jacket.
Patches on the front. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, but it caught under the lights in an amazing dark russet, and even half hidden under the dark auburn beard, the tattoos danced down his neck, disappearing into the leather of his jacket.
Everyone stared. Men uncertain of whether to feel threatened or in awe, and women not sure whether he was an Adonis or the devil.
“Err, I think he’s looking at you,” Kirsten nudged my arm like I hadn’t noticed the huge man in leather stepping into the pub.
He tipped his head upward at that point, like he was acknowledging an acquaintance and not the woman he’d disappeared on thirteen years ago.
“He’s coming this way. Do you know him?”
“Sort of,” I answered, my eyes fixed on the man advancing through the pub, every head turning as he passed.
“Shit,” the nurse on the other side of me whispered, “wasn’t he in a few weeks ago?”
I nodded.
“Hi,” he said as he stopped in front of the table.
“How’d you find me, Ry?” I asked, hearing the silence descend in a thick hush around me.
“Asked security.”
“And they just told you where I was?”
He shrugged, his eyes not moving from me. So much for security.
“I’m out with my friends, Ry.” A lie. I knew it, and Kirsten sitting next to me knew it too, but she said nothing.
Two leather-clad bikers in one day. This didn’t feel like a coincidence.
“Just thought I’d watch you home,” he said, his voice vibrating into the charged atmosphere around us.
“Why?”
“Trying to be a gentleman, I guess?”
I glanced at the glass on the table, at the half-drunk pint of Coke I’d sipped on for the last hour while trying to make small talk with a group of people I should know better.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“No,” he said quietly. “Didn’t say you did.”
Something in his tone made me look up. Not the same edge as before. I pushed my chair back anyway, the scrape of it loud enough to turn a few heads.
“I should go,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
Kirsten frowned. “Already?”
“Busy day. But thanks for tonight. I really enjoyed it.” I reached for my bag, my eyes casting back to Ryan.
I stepped around him, close enough that the scent of leather and something darker brushed past me, catching in my chest for a fraction of a second, too short to really recognise it.
“Night,” I muttered to the table, not quite meeting anyone’s eye as I headed for the door.
All noise stopped as the door closed behind me. Cool air hit my skin, sharp and intimidating. I breathed it in slowly this time. Footsteps followed. Steady. Unhurried. I didn’t turn around.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, my voice quieter now, the fight draining out of it without my permission.
“I know, but I’m going to, anyway.”
I stopped at the edge of the pavement, my hand tightening slightly around my keys as I glanced left, then right. Cars passed. Headlights cutting through the dark. Normal. Everything looked normal. And yet there was that feeling again. Low. Persistent. Watching. Ryan.
I stepped off the curb. He stayed a pace behind me as we walked. Not beside me. Just there. Close enough that I could feel him. Far enough that he wasn’t taking anything I didn’t give. The street stretched ahead, familiar and not at the same time.
I found myself checking the cars as we passed them. Windows. Reflections. Shadows. My chest tightening with each step.
“You alright?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head before I could stop myself.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
The words felt strange. Too honest. Silence fell between us again, but it wasn’t heavy this time, just quieter. By the time we reached my door, my shoulders had dropped. Not relaxed. Not even close. But safer. I hovered, my thumb poised over the button on my car keys.
“You can go,” I said, softer now.
His eyes held mine.
“Get in first.”
A pause.
I nodded once, turning back to the car door, the button depressing under my thumb. The movement made me jump, my heart jolting to life inside my ribs. Ryan’s arm brushed my stomach. The lightest, tiniest of touches, but I felt it like he dragged his fingers across my skin.
The door pulled open, and around us, the silence held.
“You can get in now, Soph.” His voice was light, a hint of a laugh.
I let him follow me home, his bike rumbling directly behind me.
Every turn, every acceleration, and he was right there like I needed protection.
And then, when I indicated to change lanes on the Central Motorway, he pulled out first, taking up the space and flashing me out in front of him, like he didn’t trust my driving skills, or my ability not to kill myself.
In the quiet leafy street, Ryan’s bike became louder. The deep rumble of the engine echoing off the rows of three-storey terraces lining each side. Curtains moved. Neighbours peeking out, and quickly dropping the drapes when they saw the size of him and the machine he’d ridden in on.
“I’m home safe. Thanks Ry.” I said, half shouting over the noise of the motorbike.
“Good,” he answered, not pulling down the dark cloth that covered the bottom half of his face, three laughing skulls staring at me from a black background, and even though I knew who he was, for a moment the sight of him made me nervous.
“I’m sure I can make it up the stairs by myself.”
“Noted.” He nodded, and then the bike leant to the left and the street became silent. “Could do with a coffee though, Soph. It’s cold out here.”
I watched him a moment, knowing I should send him on his way and not give him the opportunity to walk out of my flat and leave me again. Internally I shrugged, surrendering my better judgement and led the way up the little path.
“Beer or coffee this time?” I asked, not turning to him but hearing the door click back into place.
When I did turn around, I half expected him to not be there. He was good at leaving. Like an apparition.
“Coffee, please. Fuckin’ Baltic out there. Pretty sure me bollocks dropped off before the Tyne Bridge.”
His face pulled into a smile. Big and wide, and even the green in his hazel eyes lit up.
There he was. Not the man who’d stood in my flat days ago, all sharp edges and guarded silences. Not the one who’d backed out of my flat like we’d meant nothing.
Him. Ryan.
The boy who used to grin at me like I was the only thing in the world worth looking at. The one who laughed too easily, lived too fast, loved me like it was the simplest thing he’d ever known how to do.
It didn’t last. I saw it go. Just a flicker. A shift. Something closing back over. The weight dropping into place behind his eyes again, dragging him back. But I’d seen it. And that was worse. Because now I knew he was still in there somewhere.
“You’ve changed so much, Ry.”
Silence. Just for a moment, but it felt like a lifetime, and I was worried he’d go again. But then he spoke. Slow. Careful. Like he wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“Of course I have. I’ve been in prison twice. For the best part of seven years.”
He paused, watching me. He was looking for a reaction, and I knew he’d found it.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered, not sure how I was supposed to answer that.
“I know you didn’t. But that’s not what’s on your mind right now, is it?”
It wasn’t. But I didn’t move. Didn’t dare say a thing. He answered it anyway.
“Job for the club, second time. I took the fall. Kept my mouth shut.”
I breathed long and slow, trying to act normal, not like that new information would unsettle me. But I was rattled, and my hand shook as I reached for a coffee mug.