Page 150 of Too Close To Home

“Jake.” He closed his eyes in frustration, at himself more than anything. He’d welcomed this, hadn’t he? He’d been warned. Yet he’d given Jake an inch—more than an inch—and now Jake was here. “I’m working against time here. If you’ve got something—”

“Brodie.”

Harrison stilled.

Two things hit at once.

First—that sharp, unwelcome flutter in his gut. Brodie. “Jake’s my boyfriend.” That still sat wrong, grinding against what Harrison knew had happened the night before. The way Jake had looked at him. Touched him.

He shut it down. Hard.

Not his business. Not relevant. Not now. What they’d done was…A mistake. Complication. Nothing more.

The second thought cut cleaner.

Brodie’s inconsistencies. The way his story had changed under pressure.

So he straightened. “Go on.”

“This might be nowt.”

Harrison looked down at his notebook. “How about you let me decide that?”

Jake nodded. “Right. It’s just…this morning he said summat.”

“You were with him this morning?” The question came out before Harrison could stop it. Too quick. Too pointed.

“Aye. Well, no—” Jake cut himself off as if realising what Harrison was thinking. That after Brodie had finished at the bar, he’d gone round to Jake’s and given him what Harrison hadn’t been able to. “He turned up. Uninvited.”

“I see.”

“Look…him and me. It’s nowt. Was nowt.”

“He said you were his boyfriend.”

“What?” Jake frowned. “When?”

“When I spoke to him last night. When I went to the King’s Arms.”

“Fucker.”

“Is he?”

“No.”

Harrison waited.

Jake scrubbed a hand down his face. “Aye, we messed about a bit. That’s it. It weren’t owt serious. Not for me. He wanted more. But he knows I’m not really one for…” He stopped. Abruptly.

Harrison arched an eyebrow. “Relationships?”

Jake took a moment. Then, almost inaudibly, said, “But that’s…I dunno, circumstance.”

Harrison felt his own reaction to that worm its way somewhere he didn’t want to examine too closely. Wriggling under the surface, quiet but insistent. He ignored it. Like everything else.

Jake held his gaze. “Look, what happened last night, between you and me, that wasn’t—” He stopped. Breathed. “I felt summat with you—”

“Jake.” Harrison cut him off before he could say anything else that would compromise him, Jake and this whole bloody investigation that was getting out of hand. “I really need you to stick to why you’re here.”