With that in mind, I dropped the phone onto the passenger seat and drove to Chigwell to put my kids to bed.
Eleven
Jude
Isha didn’t reply to my message. He didn’t even read it. After a while, I forgot what I’d said, and I was too stubborn to go back on WhatsApp and check.
Days of silence went by. I didn’t know if he’d been active on Grindr, because I didn’t look there either, and by the time Friday rolled around, I was over it. Isha had the ability to make me come like a fucking freight train, but the rest of him was a mess, and I didn’t care enough to wonder why.
At least, that’s what I told myself when I was busy. It was harder when I was alone with nothing to do, so when the RSPCA buzzed my phone about ten seconds after I’d woken up, I jumped at the chance to haul arse to Milton Keynes to retrieve a snake someone had left in a car park.
It was only when I’d hung up that I remembered the bus didn’t go to MK on Friday mornings. Fuck’s sake. It would take me two trains to get there, plus the cab fare home. Fuck my life.
I took a quick shower and hightailed it across the road to the shop. Shaqueela was already there, running through the extensive checklist she ribbed me for on a weekly basis.
She eyed me over her clipboard. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be having a lie in.”
“RSPCA woke me up. Gotta snake loose in Milton Keynes.”
“What kind of snake?”
“They didn’t say.”
“How big?”
“They didn’t say that either.”
“Helpful.”
“Not really.” I stepped around her to retrieve my earphones from under the front counter. “And I don’t know how long I’ll be, so I might not be back before twelve.”
“That’s fine. I can stay until three. Are you sure you don’t want me to go? I’ve got my car.”
“Thanks, but I could do with getting out.”
I didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask. What was the point? She’d heard me moaning about shop-induced cabin fever often enough. I grabbed my earphones and cast a quick glance around the shop, checking everything was in order—
“Go.” Shaqueela shoved me towards the door. “You weren’t supposed to be here anyway, so nothing you see out of place now counts.”
Shaqueela was even better at manhandling me than Isha. I was out of the door and on the street before I knew it, still clutching my tangled earphones. Damn it.
And I still had to catch the bus to the nearest train station.
I jammed my earphones in and took off at a swift walk. As luck would have it, the quickest route to the bus stop I needed took me past Isha’s housing development. I tried not to look at it, but my pace slowed all the same. At first glance, it seemed like any other building site, but closer inspection revealed newt mitigation licences that were probably a result of the conservation surveys Rae had mentioned, and notices from the construction company, detailing their social mission statement.
It was nothing I hadn’t heard before, but the company name caught my attention. The Phoenix Trust. I pondered if it was significant. Despite what he’d told me about his Grindr handle, Isha didn’t strike me as a man who did much without reason. Then again, he wasn’t the only name listed as a company director.
I walked on, trying to push Isha out of my mind, a herculean task when I’d taken to dreaming about how it had felt to come down his throat, and waking up sweating and with a boner so hard I was scared to touch it. I’d always had a high sex drive, but meeting Isha had sent it out of control. Some nights it felt like I’d combust if I didn’t see him again. Then in the morning, my natural apathy would return enough to let me believe I was just a horny bastard.
So why haven’t you hooked up with someone else?
Because I didn’t fucking want to.
The bus stop came into view at the end of the road. It was opposite the entrance to the building site, a fact I hadn’t registered back in the good old days when housing projects didn’t make my heart jump. It started to rain. I ducked into the wooden bus stop and sat down, flicking through my Spotify playlists until I came to my favourite Foals album.Spanish Saharafiltered through my earphones, building to a crescendo just as a grey SUV pulled up.
The blacked-out window rolled down. Isha’s face appeared, his expression unreadable. “Need a lift?”
* * *