Page 11 of Too Close To Home

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?”

Jake almost laughed, but it caught in his throat. Right alongside the lump. “I hope you don’t mean that.”

“Why not?”

Jake swallowed hard. “Your mum would want better for you.”

Teddy looked back out the window. “She ain’t here to say owt for me.”

The van suddenly felt a whole lot smaller.

“No.” Jake gripped the steering wheel. “She ain’t.”

He took him in then. Blazer sleeves creeping up his wrists. A bruise fading yellow along his knuckles where he’d clearly hit something instead of saying what he felt. Thirteen and already wired tight as a snare drum. And there it was again. That weight in Jake’s chest. Not grief exactly. Nor even anger. Something knotted between the two. A responsibility he hadn’t chosen but wouldn’t drop if it killed him.

Jake would shoulder every bill, every whispered comment, every five-in-the-morning call to drag the lad out of trouble if that was what it took. Anything to make sure Teddy got the chance Jake and Robyn never had.

He cleared his throat on noticing Lou’s hut up ahead. “You had brekkie?”

Teddy glanced down at his hands. Shook his head.

“Alright.” Jake swung the van around and pulled up outside Lou’s greasy spoon, a little tin box parked opposite the builders’ yard where steam clouded the serving window and the smell of frying bacon cut through the cold.

He hopped out and went to the counter.

“Eh up, Jake. Bacon buttie, is it?” Lou reached for the rolls, knowing his order like she knew his entire life. Apron streaked with grease, hair shoved up in a claw clip. She’d known him since he’d been Teddy’s age.

“Y’alright, Lou? Two of those, please, love.”

He leaned on the counter while she worked, glancing back through the windscreen. Teddy sat hunched over his phone, chewing on his chapped lips and pretending he wasn’t still angry.

None of this was fair on him.

Lou wrapped the rolls in paper and passed them over. “That your Teddy?”

“Aye.” Jake grabbed the ketchup and drowned one side of the roll. “Thirteen going on permanently hacked off.”

Lou gave a low hum. “Teenagers hit different, don’t they?”

“Aye.” He bit into his roll, and a blob of ketchup burst out the side, splattering down his hoodie. “Fuck.” He smeared it with his thumb, making it worse. Looked like someone had shot him in the chest.

Lou passed him a napkin. “You’re hopeless, you.”

He took it with a grunt, dabbing uselessly. “Ta.”

She leaned on the counter. “How’s your mum these days?”

“She’s… hanging on.”

That was the safest answer.