Chapter Five Out Field #3
“Mm.” She let that sit, then glanced at the time on her watch. “Where to?”
“Quiz night at The Dog and Duck.” He adjusted a flyaway loc. “Ellison’s on the team. Chance to see him out of the gates.”
She arched a brow. “Getting close already. Good work.”
He shrugged, casual. “It’s a good angle. The staff like him. He’s involved in a lot. Keeps a tight schedule.”
“Sounds like you’re listing his dating profile.” She then stood to fix the collar of his shirt. An excuse, he knew. To look closer.
He didn’t flinch. But his pulse did something it shouldn’t have.
Naomi caught it. “You ready for the briefing?”
Warren exhaled. Least that gave him the chance to get his head into surveillance mode. “Not got any eyes on Callum Reid. If he’s here, he’s not showing anywhere I’ve been. Not the school. Nor have I seen him outside Ellison’s when I’ve run surveillance there. You got any intel on him?”
“Not since the last CCTV. It’s like he’s vanished. But he’s here. We know he’s here. And Ellison?”
Warren paused. “He’s…clean. Keeps himself busy. Part of every committee going. Runs clubs most lunch hours. Has a good rep with the students. Friendly. Guarded, though. There’s something… heavy there. Not criminal. Personal.”
Naomi gave a small nod, confirming little but noting everything. “And you’re logging that. Professionally.”
He met her gaze. “Course.”
“Right.” She tapped his chest with two fingers to the middle of his sternum. “Then let’s keep it professional, Bailey. You get sloppy with this one, I’m pulling you out.”
He said nothing.
Didn’t have to.
She already knew.
“And get eyes inside his house,” Naomi called as she disappeared down the hall. “Reid could be in there.”
Warren turned back to the mirror. Buttoned his shirt to the top.
Looked. Then, he shook his head, undid the top two buttons, and rolled his shoulders back.
Better. Less like a narc. He grabbed his keys from the bowl by the door and headed out, the slam behind louder than intended, then got in his car.
He was driving for two reasons.
First, it gave him a clean out if drinks were offered.
No need for the awkward refusal. No declarations, no explanations.
He didn’t have a problem. Never had. But during his last op, the line had blurred.
After-shift beers became pre-shift rituals, which spilled into desk duty habits.
He caught it early. Stopped cold. Never looked back.
People gave all kinds of reasons for not drinking.
But he didn’t want his to raise questions.
And second, to offer a lift home. If the moment opened, he could offer Jude a ride. Friendly. Helpful. Normal. And maybe he’d get eyes inside. So far, nightly surveillance had offered nothing but a dim porch light and a view of curtains drawn tight.
He started the MG, the engine grumbling to life, and drove the quick route towards the coast. Worthbridge’s high street was already buzzing.
Friday night foot traffic spilled across the pavement.
Teenagers with paper bags of chips, dog walkers pulled by soggy leads, early pub goers staking out beer gardens while the air still held a bit of warmth.
The smell of sea salt mixed with diesel and fryer grease.
The Dog and Duck stood lit among them, one of the livelier haunts along the seafront strip. Stone frontage, hanging baskets, the low thump of bass bleeding from inside. Warren found a spot right out front, slid the car into it, and killed the engine.
He paused. One breath. Then stepped out and moved through the doors.
It was a far cry from the sleazy backroom bars he’d been assigned to in recent ops. Fewer deals happening under the table. Less powder on the sink. But the noise and the heat, the way people looked too long or not at all, that part was always the same.
Only difference tonight was who he was watching.
And the fact he maybe wanted to be seen back.
Warren scanned the crowd until he spotted Jude at the bar, tapping his fingertips on the worn wood as he waited to be served. So Warren threaded through the bodies until Jude clocked him, smile breaking over his face like sunlight through fog.
“You made it,” Jude called over the noise as Warren eased in beside him at the packed bar. “Thought you might bail. Realise you’d oversold yourself and blame it on a marking backlog.”
“I marked one worksheet and decided I’d rather humiliate myself in public than stare at a kid’s half-written warm-up drill.” Warren had to lean in to be heard over the drone of music, chatter and drinks being made, and he got the whiff off Jude’s skin. It was almost edible.
What was this?
Jude chuckled. “Bold move. But you know they’re all watching, right?” He angled his head towards the table of Worthbridge Academy teachers all waiting for their weekends to start. “They’re taking bets on whether you’re the classic PE stereotype. All brawn, no brains.”
“And what’s the stereotype for history teachers, then?”
“Someone who lives in the past.”
Warren gave him a languid once-over. Dark fitted jeans, a white V-neck clinging in the right places and dipped low enough to reveal a flash of chest—apparently, he had a new thing for that—topped off with a blazer, sleeves rolled enough to show forearms and deliberate effort.
Add in the dark curls and those glasses that shouldn’t have worked but did, the whole package came together as if he knew exactly what he was doing.
“Looks to me like you’ve got your finger on the pulse.”
Jude smiled, and Warren’s barren heart warmed. “So, I get the first round. What you having?”
“Uh, a Diet Coke.” He hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “I got the car.”
“Okay. Great. Same as me.”
Dammit. He drove too. Maybe he’d had the same idea.
Jude ordered the full round for the table, then angled his head for Warren to follow him. Warren carried the tray of drinks over to a table near the window where a group of staff were already arguing over the spelling of “Ljubljana.”
Everyone welcomed him in easily, passing around drinks and shuffling coats to make room.
Warren ended up wedged between Jude—now fully in captain mode, scribbling confidently through the picture round with Miss Linley peering over his shoulder—and Angie Patterson, who was knocking back her Pinot as if it was hydration therapy.
“He always gets the first round in,” Angie said, leaning towards Warren with the easy intimacy of someone halfway through her second glass. “Never drinks, though.”
“No?” Warren glanced over at Jude, mid-debate with Linley about whether picture five was Gorbachev or a trick angle of Elton John. “He drive here, then?”
“Not always. Car’s in the garage more than it’s out. He just… doesn’t drink, I guess.”
“Huh.” Warren took a sip of his Coke, the bubbles burning a little more than usual.
Did Jude have his own reasons? Had he, too, once gone too far with it? Blurred lines, letting it bleed into real life before cutting it off clean? Warren didn’t know. But now he was wondering.
And watching Jude a little closer.
The quiz kicked off. Rounds spun by. TV theme tunes, geography, obscure bird species.
Sian nailed every science question. Darren argued over decimal points.
Warren surprised them all with an uncanny memory for Olympic trivia.
Jude leaned in to whisper sarcastic commentary in his ear, every so often tapping Warren’s wrist to emphasise a joke.
By the end, their table was one point ahead of the next closest team.
Then, victory.
A cheer went up as the host handed over the prize. Four Dog and Duck gift cards and a plastic trophy someone had spray-painted gold.
Jude held it up as if they’d won the World Cup. “For the staffroom shelf of broken dreams.”
They lingered long after most of the staff had filtered out with hugs, laughter, and the scrape of chairs on scuffed pub floorboards.
The quiz host was packing cables into a duffel.
Last orders had been called. It was just them.
Jude and Warren. Two nearly finished drinks, low light, and a silence sitting comfortably between them.
Warren reached for his jacket. “Need a lift?” He kept his tone light, measured. But his pulse betrayed him, ticking faster. It was officially about getting eyes inside Jude’s house.
Unofficially… it was about being alone with him.
No pub noise, no audience. Just space.
They stepped out into the coastal dark where the breeze rolled off the sea, cool and salt-laced, lifting Jude’s curls and his arms brushed Warren’s, as if he couldn’t help leaning into him.
“Oh.” Jude slowed his steps as a Prius pulled up at the curb. “Thanks. That would’ve been great, but…” He gave a sheepish nudge of his head towards the waiting taxi. “Booked it earlier. Bloody car’s still in the garage.”
Warren paused. “Cancel it.”
Jude met his gaze, framed in the low wash of headlights and the amber hush of the streetlamp. God, he was stunning. And Warren didn’t even know when that word had entered his vocabulary, let alone why he used it now and why it fit so cleanly around a man he barely knew outside of a case file.
That alone was dangerous enough.
“They’ll charge me for the whole thing.” Jude’s half-smile curving his mouth betrayed his regret. But beneath it, there was restraint. A boundary held. For now. “You did well, PE. You’re officially on the team.”
He held out his hand.
Warren took it. Gripped it. Let it linger. That split-second longer.
The contact buzzed. Skin to skin. Warm. Charged.
Jude’s cheeks coloured. He coughed into a closed fist, then stepped back. “Goodnight, Mr Bailey.”
“Goodnight, Mr Ellison.”
Jude sauntered over to the taxi. The door closed behind him, and the car pulled away into the night while Warren stood still, hand tingling where they’d touched.
Then, with a sigh and a kick of himself into gear, he climbed into his car, pulled out slowly, and tailed the Prius from a comfortable three-car distance.
Watching. Always watching.
The taxi turned onto a quiet side street near the harbour. Jude got out, shoulders hunched in the breeze, and made his way up to a narrow stone-fronted cottage with a crooked gate and a porch light left on.
He unlocked the door.
Stepped inside.
Warren waited until the door clicked shut, until the light in the front room glowed warm behind drawn curtains.
Another day, then.
He leaned back in the seat, exhaled from rounded lips, and let the silence wrap around him.