Page 27 of Too Close To Home

Pete moved faster than Jake expected for a man pushing sixty. He stepped in hard, planting a broad palm on Jake’s chest to drive him back from the bar before he could vault it.

“Cool off. I get you’re rattled. But you lay a hand on anyone in here again and you’re barred. I don’t care who you are.”

Jake sucked in a breath, scraping his lungs raw. Then he dropped back onto his heels as the old surge flared. That blind, red rush meaning he was about to do something stupid. He tried to swallow it. He couldn’t do that here. But as his ankle hit the stool lying on its side on the floor, he lashed out, kicking it hard and sending it skidding across the floorboards. It hit the wall with a sharp crack.

Silence followed.

“Sorry.” Jake ran a hand through his hair, fingers snagging as if he could comb the temper out of himself. “Sorry. I’m good.”

Because the last thing he needed, the absolute last thing, was to be barred from this pub. It wasn’t just his drinking hole. It was the band’s anchor. Their regular slot. Their crowd. Their history.

And he’d already cost himself enough.

Pete gave a single, measured nod.

“Jesus.” Brodie took a cautious sip of his coffee. “Didn’t know you even knew her.”

“I don’t.” Jake pushed his hair back from his face.

“Then why are you so bothered?”

Jake looked over at him.

Could he really be that oblivious? Not put it together? Alright, their thing had mostly been sweat and noise and Jake working off the adrenalin after a set. They hadn’t exactly lain there sharing life stories. But this…this wasn’t obscure. This was Hartswick. Everyone knew. Years of whispers, searches, and sympathetic looks might as well stitch themselves into the town sign. By lunchtime the butchers would be talking. The post office. The lads in the builders’ yard. Everyone would hear how a girl hadn’t made it home and think of Robyn. His mum. The family that never got an answer.

So how was it that Brodie, who’d had Jake’s hands on him, who he’d been in, still hadn’t made that connection? Still looked at him as if this was local gossip and not a knife sliding between his ribs?

Still, it gave him reason.

This was why it’d never gone deeper with Brodie. Because he might know Jake’s body, but he knew nothing else.

“If you don’t know…” Jake let it die there. The rest of the thought scraped against his throat and refused to come out. He didn’t want to give it breath. Didn’t want to name the pattern his life kept threatening to repeat.

A heavy bang rattled the front door, stopping him from having to say what Brodie should’ve already known. Brodie pushed off the bar with a sharp exhale, as if grateful for something solid to react to that wasn’t Jake’s temper. Though Jake couldn’t fathom why he was the one pissed off here. Especially considering…well, fucking everything.

Brodie stalked around the counter, flicking back the bolts one by one. “You could, y’know—” He yanked the door open, clearly expecting a delivery or an early punter. “—open your mouth for summat other than a fucking cock for once.”

The words rang through the empty pub and sailed straight out into Hartswick’s quiet high street, where DI Harrison Black stood on the step with his warrant card raised.

Jake froze.

Well, fuck.

His stomach clenched, quick and instinctive, before his brain caught up enough to tell him this was a copper standing in the doorway and therefore probably the last man on earth he should look at like that.

Attraction wasn’t new to him. Christ, Jake had built most of his sex life on it. See a bloke he fancied, catch his eye, have a laugh, find somewhere private. Scratch the itch and get on with his life. Simple. Easy. He knew exactly what to do with wanting someone when wanting was all it was.

This landed differently.

He couldn’t even have said why. Harrison Black was older than the men Jake usually went for. Neater. Shirt, tie, dark wool coat. Everything about him looked controlled and put together in a way Jake absolutely fucking wasn’t. But there was a tiredness beneath the sharpness. Jake caught it in that first ridiculous second he’d seen his face and wanted another chance to look at it.

Then Harrison’s eyes found his.

Fuck.

Jake felt that one properly.

Harrison lowered the warrant card. “Might I have a word?”