“They’re not your friends when you’re shooting the life out of each other, hoping that one of you dies so you can either have the rest of their junk, or be finally free—” Jamie covered his mouth with his other hand and sucked in a shaky breath before letting his hand drop again. “They weren’t my friends.”
“I don’t believe you.” Marc spoke with a sad smile and started to pull his hand back, but Jamie gripped it tight.
“There was one person I cared about, right at the beginning... Um, she was kind of my girlfriend, without actually being my girlfriend, because we were both gay.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen. We ran away together after I got expelled from school.”
“What was her name?”
“Chloe.” Jamie chewed on his lip as Marc and his big old house evaporated, and in his place came the wild blonde hair of the girl who’d been his constant companion until one day she hadn’t been. “She wasn’t like me, though. She ran off for a while, but she always went home at the weekends. Her parents knew about the junk, but they didn’t get it, you know? They thought she’d just stop one day and it would all be okay.”
“What about your parents?”
“I don’t want to talk about them.”I can’t talk about them.
“Sorry. It’s the doctor in me. I can’t help pushing when I know there’s more. Carry on, please.”
“There’s not much to tell. Eventually, she stopped going home, and her dad stopped coming by the squat to get her. She couldn’t go home anymore, you see, because she was hooking by then, we both were. And it killed her.”
“How?”
“She was strangled by a john and dumped in the woods. It took them five months to find her body. I knew she was dead, of course; I could feel it. But it didn’t stop me looking for her. Even now, I do a double take when I see hair like hers. Sometimes it feels like I’ll never stop looking.”
“You probably won’t. I’m still looking for mates who’ve been dead more than a decade. But it does get better... for a while, until you lose someone else, and then it’s like the first time all over again.”
“You don’t get used to it?”
Marc shook his head. “I never did, because I didn’t want to... because it would have meant that my friends weren’t really my friends. And in my line of work, you need your buddies. It isn’t worth it without them. Nothing is.”
Jamie stared at their entwined hands, and then at Marc, losing himself in a desperate desire to kiss him, until he saw that Marc looked suddenly and profoundly tired.
“I should go,” he said reluctantly. “You need to get to bed.”
Marc snorted. “Fat chance. I crash on the couch most days.”
“Is your bed upstairs?”
“No, I just can’t be arsed with it. When you’re used to sleeping on bunks, a big empty bed feels weird. I sleep better in here.”
With the warmth of the AGA warming Jamie’s back, he could well imagine why; he didn’t relish the idea of a windy walk home. And it felt entirely wrong to leave Marc, even though Marc’s enduring grip on Jamie’s hand was the only sign that Marc wanted him to stay.
With herculean effort, Jamie detangled himself and stood. Marc’s cat appeared like a disapproving ghost and used his shoulder as a bridge to the windowsill. Her claws digging into his flesh brought some much-needed perspective, and Jamie turned away from Marc and drifted to the front door. He was dimly aware of Marc following, but he didn’t look back.
“Jamie.”
I don’t want to go.
Jamie glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks for breakfast. Sorry it got a little heavy at the end.”
“Jamie.”
“What?”
Silence.
Jamie turned to find Marc behind him, strong arms folded across his chest, his expression similar to the one he’d worn on the plane all those weeks ago. Damn. Had that only been weeks ago? Right now, it seemed like a year.