Chapter Sixteen Covert Mission
chapter sixteen
Covert Mission
Jude slept in his car.
Although, sleep was a generous word for it.
More like hours of half-conscious shifting, jolting awake every time a headlight flashed through the windscreen or his spine protested the contorted position he’d wedged himself into.
Still, it was better than being at home.
Better than feeling Callum’s presence saturating the walls.
He woke with the world, grey light bleeding through the steamed-up glass.
Every joint ached from the cramped position, neck locked from curling in the back seat.
He rolled his shoulders until they cracked, then slid on his glasses and stared out at the sea.
And even though it was right there, it still felt unreachable.
He could have gone to a hotel. He had enough for maybe one night, but he wasn’t exactly flush.
Starting from scratch on a teacher’s salary didn’t leave much beyond rent, bills, the car, and bare essentials.
What little he put aside each month wasn’t meant for the extortionate prices of the Harbour Hotel and Spa, nor the coastal B&Bs charging tourist rates.
And Worthbridge was full of them. Small, family-run places where the owners probably had kids in his classes.
People who’d ask questions. People who’d talk.
Besides, it was instinct by now: keep moving, keep to himself, rely on no one.
The car was familiar. Contained. No forms to sign, no receptionist with a polite smile and curious eyes, no trail for Callum to sniff out later.
It was a locked door, four windows, and a steering wheel if he needed to go.
It wasn’t comfort, exactly. But it was control.
And control was all he had left.
Starting the engine, he shook Irene’s voice from his shoulders then drove on autopilot towards the twenty-four-hour Tesco where he picked up a shirt and trousers from the bargain rail.
A tie to hide the creases. Underwear, socks, a travel pack of shampoo, shower gel, deodorant, toothpaste, a cheap toothbrush, knock-off cologne, and hair gel that would absolutely smell of alcohol.
He’d have to use the blazer in his boot to make it all look intentional, along with the trainers he had just passing for professional casual.
Then he drove to work.
By the time he pulled into the school car park, it was seven thirty.
He’d have the gym showers to himself if he was quick, out before the football lads flooded in for pre-school training.
The quiet was a small mercy. Steam on cold tiles.
The soothing rhythm of hot water on skin.
He stood under it until the knot between his shoulders eased, then killed the flow and wrapped a towel high around his waist, higher than normal to hide the ink and meandered back into the changing room.
He took a corner, dragging on trousers, shirt hanging open, glasses folded beside him on the bench.
He was bent to pull on his socks when the door opened.
Even without his glasses, the silhouette in the doorway was unmistakable.
Warren.
He stopped dead in the doorway, staring at him as if he needed a second to believe what he was seeing. Jude’s pulse kicked hard. He bent to pull on his sock, but his fingers fumbled the fabric, useless against the thud of his own heartbeat.
Warren waited for the door to click shut, then stepped fully inside and stopped opposite Jude. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Jude stood, buttoning his shirt, keeping his eyes down.
“I didn’t know you used the school gym.”
“Sometimes.” Jude tucked in his shirt. He turned for his tie, then flicked it around his neck.
“You should’ve said.” Warren’s tone was calm, but underneath there was a faint tremor Jude caught anyway. Not nerves, exactly. More… unsettled. “I’d’ve spotted for you. Helped you reach.”
Jude furrowed his brow. “Reach what?”
“Whatever your goal is.”
Jude spun, snorting. “Bench pressing isn’t my thing. I have no goal weight to lift.”
“Right.” Warren worried on his lip, watching him. Waiting. As if Jude might say more. Or get some double meaning he was clearly missing.
So he dropped back on the bench to pull on his trainers and Warren’s gaze caught on them instead, noting they weren’t the usual dress shoes.
Nor the polished brogues Jude wore for work.
Or if he was trying for causal then the Chelsea boots.
Or the boat shoes. No, they were the trainers he’d worn on the school trip.
Warren sat across from him, elbows braced on his knees, as if closing the space was the only option. He pointed at the Tesco carrier at Jude’s side. “Where’s your kit bag?”
Jude stamped his heel into the shoe and looked up, meeting Warren’s gaze.
Too direct. Too sincere. It landed somewhere deep, where it had no business landing, in the foolish part of him that thought maybe this man cared.
That maybe he’d already worked out what Jude was hiding.
That somehow, in less than a month, Warren had shown up at the right times more than the people Jude had known for years.
What the hell was that about?
“Jude—”
The door banged open and a pack of lads barrelled in, laughing and shoving each other, bags slung over their shoulders, cutting off whatever Warren had been about to say.
Warren stood. “Keep it down, lads,” he barked, stepping towards them. “This ain’t no nightclub.”
The volume dropped, though a couple muttered under their breath. Warren’s gaze swept the group, until one by one they found somewhere else to look.
Warren pointed to a lad at the back. “Boots off before you hit the benches. Drag half the pitch in here and the cleaners’ll have my head.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jude used the moment to slip his glasses on, rake a hand through his hair, and gather his things. When he turned, Warren was still watching him. Hard to speak with eleven loud teenagers bouncing around the changing room, but they didn’t need words.
It was there in the look.
Who was this man?
This quiet wall of muscle who somehow kept appearing at the exact moment Jude needed someone. This intuitive bastard who seemed to hold his heart without even trying.
Too good to be true.
Which meant he was.
Jude knew better than anyone that people weren’t always what they looked like on the surface.
Take Callum. Hero at first, swooping in to pull him out of a bad scrape in a Leeds nightclub.
Rescued him from a situation that would have left a bitter taste in his mouth.
But that hero had rotted fast, revealing the man Jude now wished he’d never met.
If he’d just taken the tenner that night, let that stranger have his five minutes, maybe he’d have swallowed the disgust and been done with it.
Instead, he’d signed up, without knowing it, for ten years of misery and regret.
Longer now. Maybe eternity.
Til death us do part.
“Have a good day, Mr Bailey.”
Warren’s breath hitched almost imperceptibly. “I’ll catch you later, Mr Ellison.”
Jude threaded his way towards the door, but it swung open before he reached it and Mr Stanmore, Head of PE, barrelled in, loud and bullish, clapping his hands.
“Alright, lads, look lively. Get dressed, get to class. That training was abysmal if you think you’re going to beat Northbridge High next week.
” He then clocked Jude. Very out of place for the history teacher who spent more time nosediving in books than into headers.
“Mr Ellison. What brings you to the dark side?”
“Uh… just… school spirit.” Jude slipped out before any more questions, marching the corridor to his classroom.
Door shut, bag stashed in his desk drawer, deep breath taken. He straightened his tie as the bell rang and his form group rattled in. Then he shut it all off to get on with what made sense.
Teaching these kids how not to repeat history.
The way he evidently was.
* * * *
When the final bell went, Jude was grateful for it.
He loved his job.
Even more so now, as it gave him purpose and made him remember who he could be, not who he was.
But lately, it felt as if he was always bracing for someone to knock on his classroom door and haul him away in handcuffs.
Or worse, that Callum would enter his classroom and give a detailed, thorough history lesson to all who would listen.
Not the text he taught, but Jude’s history.
But another day unscathed and Jude was on exit duty.
Unfortunately, so was Warren. He’d managed to avoid him the rest of the day, having chosen to eat lunch in his car and done his marking there too.
Now they were rostered on different gates, different ends of the main drive, funnelling kids towards the road without letting them walk into traffic.
Jude took up his post. There were two exits, a good thirty yards apart, and he caught glimpses of Warren at the far gate.
Straightening blazers, tugging ties, talking to groups of girls with whatever ridiculous question they had for him.
Jude tried desperately not to feel his eyes on him.
The attempts to make contact. It was all too much and somehow, hopelessly not enough.
He concentrated on working his side, instead.
“Shoelace, George.”
George, Year Seven, saluted. “Yes, sir!” Then immediately tripped over the offending lace, setting off a chorus of cackles.
“Eyes up, Sinead. Keep your nose in that phone and you’ll end up under a bus.”
“Sorry, Mr Ellison.” Sinead, Year Nine, stuffed her phone into her blazer, only to pull it straight back out once she was over the threshold.
“Where are your shoes, Reuban?”
Reuban, wearing spotless Jordans, shifted his bag higher. “In my bag, sir.”
“You better put them on, then.”
“I’m walking home.”
“And when you get there, you can change. On these grounds, it’s school shoes.” Jude pointed to the spot beside him. “Change. There.”