Chapter Two Feedback Loop
Feedback Loop
Jake flung his phone onto the passenger seat.
It bounced once, skidded over a stack of crumpled invoices, and vanished into the footwell.
“Bollocks.”
Bloke hadn’t even let him finish his sentence.
Jake bet he’d be straight onto TrustATrader.
Filling in forms. Quote, quote, quote. Then pick whichever one came with a logo, a receptionist, and a cheery little hold tune.
Five-star reviews written by bots and blokes called “Sanjay from Surrey.” Sounded like the type.
Due diligence. Spreadsheet. References. Not someone who chooses the first name on a bit of card left on a kitchen table.
“Fuck’s sake.” Jake thumped the steering wheel as he took the hairpin too quickly, tyres whining on the damp and the van fishtailed a fraction before catching.
Mist sat low over the fields, thick as wool. A tractor could get lost in it if it weren’t paying attention. That was Hartswick, though. Permanently wrapped in white. Hiding things. Swallowing things. Letting them sit quietly undisturbed. Letting people vanish.
He gripped the steering wheel.
Then scrubbed a hand over his forehead and shoved his beanie further down over his shoulder-length curls. Could’ve been a good job, that. Full slate replacement if it was as bad as he reckoned. Easy three weeks’ graft. Proper money. Instead, he’d been cut off mid-sentence.
“Fine,” he muttered to the cracked windscreen. “See if I care when your roof caves in before anyone rings you back with a quote.”
He did care. Quite a bit.
Money wasn’t exactly flowing lately. Roofing and drumming in Static Youth only stretched so far. And he couldn’t exactly stick himself on one of those glossy trade sites and pay for someone chirpy to answer his phone.
He snorted.
He’d tried that once. Let his mum take bookings for a fortnight while he was flat out. Never again. Not her fault. She’d been too honest. Costing Jake a tidy packet. She had enough on her plate as it was, though.
He sighed. Thing was, he’d had a quiet word with Deacon about that roof.
His oldest mate, and frontman in his band, ran the local Froggat estate agent with his old man.
And that roof on the cottage they were selling had been knackered since before Mrs Greengage’s husband dropped dead in that armchair by the fire.
Jake had patched it up more times than he could count.
Never charged her either. She’d never been able to afford the full works.
So he’d made it last. Enough to get her through winter after winter.
When she’d sold up to go live in the residential place, he told Deacon to leave his card on the table for whoever bought it.
Deacon would sell his own nan if there was commission in it.
So that roof should’ve been his job.
Yet he’d bet that bloke on the phone, who sounded as though he ironed his socks before putting them on, would go find someone online.
Nice voice, though.
Different. Proper polite. Southern. London or Essex, if he had to guess. Apologising for ringing a number that literally said call anytime? Twat. All clipped authority and tidy vowels. Older, too. Forties, easy.
Jake rolled his shoulders against the seat.
He had a thing for blokes like that. The quiet ones. The reserved ones. The ones who sounded as though they’d never had mud on their boots. Who carried themselves as if they were in charge.
Until they weren’t.
That was the bit he liked. The moment the authority slipped. When the voice dropped half an octave. When the shoulders relaxed. When they stopped trying to control everything and let someone else take over for a while. That was when they felt real.
Jake chewed the inside of his cheek.
Shouldn’t be thinking like that.
Besides, he’d already scratched that particular itch after the gig last night.
The pub had been heaving; the toilets even worse.
While Raff had been drumming up business for the garage and scrap yard, and Deacon had been chatting up anything with a pulse, Jake had slipped away with one of the lads who’d been watching the band all evening.
It was usually that sort who found him. The ones who insisted they were massive fans of live music, then probably went home and stuck Kylie on.
Fine by him. A win was a win.
The bloke from last night had been a one-and-done thing though. Against the sticky cubicle wall, forgotten almost as soon as they’d walked back into the pub.
They all were.
Jake indicated late and swung the van towards town, the engine rattling underneath, another not-so-subtle reminder that he needed to sort the exhaust before winter.
Least he had a few more months of easier weather.
As that was one more thing to add to his growing list he couldn’t afford to tick off.
Then he turned onto the high street and slowed automatically as he caught sight of three young lads loitering outside the Co-op.
School uniforms covered by hoodies. Cans in hand.
“Fuck’s sake.” He yanked the wheel and mounted the kerb half on purpose, brakes squealing as the van lurched to a stop.
The boys jumped, one nearly dropping his fluorescent energy drink. And the other, familiar mop of dark hair Jake had known since it had been sticky with baby food and mashed banana, blew out a cloud of vapour.
Jake wound the window down. “Oi. Teddy.”
The kid ducked his head deeper into his hood as if he could hide and shoved the hand, no doubt holding the plastic bit of vape, into his pocket.
“Theodore Leonard Whitton,” Jake called, “don’t make me get out.”
Teddy looked up, face flushed as his mates all jeered and shoved him. Jake didn’t give a toss if he was embarrassing him. He shouldn’t be here. Kid should be in school. Second year of secondary and already thinking he could bunk and take the piss out of his gran.
Not happening.
Teddy shuffled over to the window; hands shoved in his hoody pockets. “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me.” Jake rested his elbow on the window frame and looked him up and down. “Why aren’t you in school?”
“Free period.”
“Year eights don’t get free periods, you muppet. You think I was born in this van?”
“It’s enrichment,” Teddy shot back. “Don’t have to go in till later.”
Jake stared at him. “Lie to me one more time and I’ll slap you in front of your mates.”
The laughter behind Teddy died fast.
Jake jerked his chin towards the passenger door. “Get in.”
“I’ll walk.”
“Oh, aye?” Jake widened his eyes in threat. “That what you told my mum this morning? You were walking yourself in? And somehow ended up here?”
Teddy adjusted his blazer.
Didn’t answer.
Jake leaned closer. “Get. In.”
The kid huffed and stalked round the bonnet while his mates jeered behind him. So Jake leaned out the window and pointed.
“Know each of your folks an’ all. You don’t get to school, I’ll be paying them a visit.”
That shut them up quickly enough.
Teddy hauled himself into the far passenger seat and slammed the door hard. Yeah, it was a piece of shit transit that had seen better days, but it didn’t need that level of disrespect. But that was an indicator. And Jake knew better than to have a go about that and all.
Jake pulled away. “What the fuck, Ted?”
“Don’t start.”
“Don’t start?” Jake shot him a look as he steered out of the high street and back into the lanes towards Hartswick Academy. “Why you hanging about outside the Co-op before ten in the morning? Bunking?”
“Weren’t bunking.”
“No? Scenic route, were it? With a vape in your gob?”
“Vape were Liam’s.”
“Congratulations. Liam’s lungs are screwed. Yours don’t have to be.” Jake switched the indicator on. “Specially if you’re still banging on about that rugby academy.”
Teddy shrugged and stared out the window. Jake watched him for a bit. Same stubborn jaw. Same way he went quiet instead of fighting back. Same bloody eyes.
It hurt.
Twisted Jake’s gut the same way it always did when he looked at him.
“Oi,” he prodded Teddy’s arm, “I’m talking to you.”
“You ain’t my dad.”
Jake tightened his grip on the wheel. “Lucky for you.”
The silence that followed was as thick as the mist outside. Jake worried on his bottom lip. He shouldn’t have said that. But he had a habit of doing and saying things before his brain kicked in. Got him in too much trouble as it was. Like fights. Courtrooms.
Prison cells.
“Your old man pissed away every chance he had.” Jake swung the van around a bend. “You want that?”
Teddy said nothing. Nor did he look at him.
Jake swallowed.
Too harsh.
“You’ve got a shot, Ted.” Jake ripped off his beanie and chucked it onto the dash before raking a hand through his curls. “Proper one. Don’t bin it before you’ve even started. There ain’t much better waiting if you mess it up.”
“What about this?” Teddy shot back, turning in his seat.
“This?” Jake glanced around the van. The cracked windscreen spidering out from an old chip.
The dash that rattled whenever he went over forty.
Tools knocking in the back. All had belonged to his old man once.
Handed down when Jake lost any hope of doing anything else.
“This is what you get when there’s nowt else. ”
“You could still give it a go, y’know?”
“Give what a go?”
“The band.”
Jake snorted. “That ship’s sailed, mate.”
It hadn’t just sailed. It’d left without him.
He’d stood on the dock and watched it go.
Let it go. Not because he wasn’t good enough.
He was good. Better than good. Leeds had proved that.
But someone had to stay. And in doing so, he became a once-decent drummer who’d nearly made it.
Nearly been someone. Nearly got out. Playing in sticky-floored pubs smelling of stale lager and disappointment.
Bashing out covers for blokes who didn’t listen and girls who only clapped when Deacon took his shirt off.
Superstardom wasn’t “on hold.”
It was dead. Buried.
Least of that, he was sure.
Jake glanced at Teddy. “You got a future, Ted. Whatever you want.”
“What if I want this?”