Chapter 22
Of course, I didn’t sleep a wink.
My mind was racing. Thoughts of the men in both bedrooms were in my mind. Thoughts of being chased by Dhapinder Bliss. Thoughts of Riz’s face. The one time I got close to sleeping, his glassy open eyes appeared in my mind, and I jerked awake.
We were no closer to finding out who killed him, and the election was twenty-four hours away.
I gave up on sleep and sat on my phone, hoping that Instagram would cure my ills. Like most things related to my phone, it made everything worse.
By 5 a.m., I’d put my clothes back on and dozed on the sofa as best I could. Ollie wouldn’t be up for hours; he usually went into the office for 10 a.m., as barristers started a little later than most. The benefits of being self-employed.
At around 8 a.m., the door to the spare room opened, and an angry red-haired bastard emerged. He was wearing nothing but his boxers and looked dishevelled. He took one look at me, walked into the bathroom, and closed the door.
A few minutes later, I heard Ollie get up and turn on the shower in the en suite. I lay there in my sweaty T-shirt and wondered where my life was going.
Simon came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, freshly towelled off and once again in his boxers. A tight white pair.
“Good morning,” I offered diplomatically.
He nodded. “I’ll get dressed.”
I hopped up and took his place in the bathroom. I spent too long under the shower, wanting the world outside to disappear.
Eventually, feeling somewhat refreshed, I turned the water off and dressed.
I made do with the meagre toiletries in the bathroom – luckily, there was always toothpaste in here for people who stayed over – usually Ollie’s friends or his parents or one of his annoying brothers.
So, with some vigorous brushing, I was able to get rid of the dead animal that had crawled into my mouth in the night.
The living room I emerged into was very different from the one I had left twenty minutes earlier.
Ollie, freshly showered and wearing one of his dark blue suits, was pouring cafetière coffee for Simon as they each munched on toast. Simon stood at the counter, fully dressed, with his shoes on and ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
The pair were laughing and joking and getting along. Why did that make me annoyed?
“Good morning, sleepy head,” Ollie said. “Have you left any hot water for the rest of London?”
“Not intentionally,” I said. He pushed a cup of coffee towards me.
“Made the way you like it. So, stultifying sweet and milky that you can’t even tell it’s coffee.” He gestured to Simon. “I’ve been asking for more details on some of the aspects of this that don’t make sense. It kept me up all night.”
“None of it makes any bloody sense,” I said, sipping my coffee as I sat to put my shoes on. “There’s the whole Jed aspect we didn’t even get to last night.”
“The vicar?” Ollie asked. “What about him? Wait, the chap who got attacked?”
Simon’s demeanour had completely changed in seconds. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” I told him. “Whatever it is, you need to tell us.”
Ollie looked between us. “Wait, there’s a whole other part of this you still haven’t told me?” He glared at Simon. “Are you fucking joking, mate?”
“Oh, yes, there’s some secret between Simon, Jed, and Guy Frobisher, which they’ve already lied to me about once.” I was quite enjoying Simon’s furious expression. His scowling and judgements had taken their toll on me, and well, I wanted answers. His endless moods be damned.
“Go on, tell us,” Ollie said.
Simon hesitated. “There’s more to it than that. Arden, you know the job I do, you know what could happen if I started talking about this stuff.”
“No, I don’t, Simon. I have no idea what you do. So don’t try and fob me off with spy bullshit.”
“Spy?” Ollie said, dribbling a bit of his coffee down his chin as he choked in surprise. He wiped it away before trying to ask more questions.
“I can’t say anything in front of him,” Simon said, jerking his head at Ollie.
“What’s that mean?” Ollie asked. And the entente was gone. We’d lasted, oh, about fifteen minutes before it all went tits up. Ollie and Simon were both now yelling at each other. In the back of my mind, I was aware that this was mostly my fault.
“Pissing contest,” I muttered under my breath. Honestly, if they wanted to know which of them had the bigger dick, I could tell them.
“It’s none of your business!” yelled Simon.
“If it involves Arden, it is my business,” Ollie yelled back.
In the middle of this, there was a knock at the door. A sudden silence descended. Ollie’s eyes widened, and I could tell he was desperately trying not to look in the direction of the front door.
But all three of us did. “Are you going to get that?” I asked.
“Ignore it. They’ll go away,” he said.
Simon raised an eyebrow. “It might be your downstairs neighbour with more soup.” I blanched – he’d understood our conversation yesterday? Wait, could Simon speak Polish?
I looked over at Ollie. He was flustered. He kept looking at the door out of the corner of his eye but trying to stay focused on me. There was another knock. I spun on my heel and walked to it.
Simon watched me go even as he resumed trading insults with Ollie.
I opened the door and had the breath taken out of my chest.
In front of me, standing proud, was a handsome man.
He was younger than me by several years and several inches taller.
He was wearing an immaculate charcoal grey suit and a crisp white shirt.
His black ringlets were cut close to his head.
His mouth was wide, his teeth straight and white, and his skin was olive and perfect.
The hands that gripped his work bag were large and led to muscles on his arm that were sculpted from hours in the gym.
And he looked pissed off as hell.
“You,” he snarled at me.
“Jamie,” I said. My stomach dropped to the floor. He stormed past me into the flat, and I was left standing too dumbstruck to move.
He reached the kitchen. I could hear him behind me start to yell at Ollie, and Ollie yell back, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn around. My feet were rooted to the spot. I couldn’t breathe.
Did this mean … yes, Arden, it meant that. That was the only thing it could mean. Slowly, I closed the door and turned to face what was coming.
Jamie was yelling at Ollie, who was desperately trying to get past him, towards me. But Jamie waved his hands and tried to crowd him. Simon stood off to the side, watching the scene with his perpetual scowl. He saw me and looked concerned. “Arden?”
At my name, Ollie managed to push past Jamie and made to come towards me.
“Arden,” he breathed.
“What is he doing here?” Jamie hissed before I could say anything.
“We were in the area,” Simon said amiably.
“I didn’t ask you; I don’t even know who the fuck you are,” Jamie spat out at him. “Ollie, did you invite him here?”
“Arden, I can explain,” Ollie said, his voice strained. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“You cancelled on me last night for him?” Jamie asked.
Ollie opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it. “Are you two together?” I demanded. Before Ollie could even answer, I turned to Simon: “Where are my manners? Simon, this is Jamie, with whom Ollie had an affair last year. Who he swore blind to me he hadn’t seen in months.”
“Excuse me?” Jamie yelled. “Just because he chose me—”
“We’re not together,” Ollie said, his eyes bearing down on me. He tried to move towards me, but I put my hand out to stop him. “It’s just – it’s casual, him and me. It’s just an arrangement.”
“Does he know that?” Simon muttered.
“Casual? We’ve been back together since Christmas,” Jamie snapped.
I felt the last little part of my love for Ollie drain away. Everything had been a lie. Again.
“Since Christmas? Five months,” I said to no one in particular. “All the begging and pleading to get back together was … what? An act. If I’d said yes, you’d have kept him on the side like before?”
“Of course not. Look, Jamie, you know we’re just casual,” he said, giving him a serious look. He turned back to me. “We were just passing the time—”
“Excuse me?” Jamie yelled again. Louder this time.
I stood for a few seconds and took a deep breath.
I felt like I was going to be sick. “So … the one person I begged you to never see again. The one man I couldn’t even stomach being in the same room as” – I threw Jamie a look at this, but he didn’t even flinch – “is who you ran back to for a comfort fuck the moment I collected the last of my stuff? Jesus, Christmastime, I had clothes in the wardrobe here and you were still begging me to come back.”
“Always the victim,” Jamie muttered and rolled his eyes.
“I know, I know, it was stupid, but I was lonely and—”
“Anyone but him!” I yelled, my temper snapping and flying to opposite ends of the room.
I picked up one of the stupid ornaments on the console table that I stood beside and threw it on the ground.
“ANYONE ELSE! But. Him.” Spit was forming at the corner of my mouth.
I must look demented, and I didn’t care.
“You humiliated me for months with him, you invited me to that stupid summer barbecue with your chambers and introduced me to him.” I pointed at Jamie, and this time he did flinch.
“Half your fucking colleagues already knew; your secretary was already lying for you about it. We all stood there laughing, while you two had probably just finished fucking before I got there! And after all that, you couldn’t find anyone else, out of all the thousands and thousands of gay men in London, that you could go with instead. ”
“Arden,” he said again.