“Man, you really do hate the whole world.”
I spared Micah a flat glance. “Fuck off.”
“I will when the booze runs out.” Micah topped up his glass from the three-hundred quid a bottle champagne—Dom Pérignon, obviously, ’cause life was a fucking box of chocolates right now—and sat back in his seat. “You need to chill and get laid. I’d be all over that shit if any girl could see past you to notice me.”
“Are you taking the piss?” The bar was teeming with wannabe WAGs and plenty of them had come by Micah’s personal space in the last few hours. “Take your fucking pick.”
“Says you.”
“Yeah, says me. Fuck the taxi driver for all I care if it gets you out of my face.”
Micah gave me a strange look, but it was fleeting and gone before I could even begin to figure it out.
It didn’t help that I was drunker than I’d been in a good while, something I’d pay for tomorrow when I was training with some of the best players in Europe.
I turned away from Micah and surveyed the bar. The place was tacky as hell in a super expensive way. With its deep purple furnishings and black accents, it was everything newly rich people thought they wanted, and everything I hated. My skin crawled with the need to escape, but it was too kicking for me to bail now—I’d have to wait until someone more recognisable than me made for the door, and then slip out behind them. Fuck’s sake—
A girl dropped into my lap, older than the last few who’d tried their luck, but still not far out of her teens.
“You look sad,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” I replied in the bored tone I’d perfected over the years. “Maybe I am.”
“Maybe you’re lonely too, but I can help you out with that.”
“Doubt it.”
“Why?” She flicked her hair back, and despite everything about her being the last thing I’d ever want, I realised she was beautiful: auburn hair, huge eyes, legs that went on for miles. She wasn’t dressed quite like the other women I’d seen tonight either. Her full breasts were covered, and the only real skin in my eye line was her long, elegant neck. I wished with everything I had that I wanted to fuck her.
I put my hands on her hips, twisting her slightly so we were face-to-face. “I’m gay, darling, so unless you’ve got a dick in your handbag or some shit, there ain’t nothing you can do for me.”
Wide eyes got wider. She stared at me, and I stared at her, even as the bar carried on hyping around us. For a moment, my world narrowed to this perfect stranger I’d just split myself open to, but then her shock melted into amusement, and she started to laugh. I laughed too, though more through hysteria than humour—there was nothing funny about my life right now.
The woman swiped my glass, tipped its contents down her throat, and she turned back to me with a wry smile. “You had me going for a minute, but if you’re that desperate to get rid of me, I can take a hint.”
“I’m not desperate to get rid of you,” I said honestly. “Just not in the market for whatever you’re looking for.”
“Seriously? A footballer not looking for an easy lay?”
“Nothing about this is easy, love. If it was, you wouldn’t still be circling the pack this late in the day.”
“Arsehole.” But the woman’s smile remained, like she’d been around this block as many times as me, and I kind of liked her.
I turned in my seat with the woman still on my lap and nudged Micah. “Dude, this is…?”
“Rhia,” the woman supplied, extending her hand. “I’m a real good pal of your friend here, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Micah was like a pig in shit—though his canary grin seemed to have a slightly hysterical edge to it. I waited for Rhia to ditch me for him, but she stopped as she began to slide off my lap, turned back, and planted her lips on mine in a long sensuous kiss that had no destination. “Thank you,” she murmured. “He looks cute enough to have some respect. Look after yourself, Dominic.”
She was my second kiss. Horror filled me as I compared it to my first, and I fleetingly wondered how she knew my name, before I remembered that everyone knew my name in a club like this. And though it had been that way for as long as I’d been old enough to drink, I suddenly couldn’t bear it.
The bar blurred out as I lurched to my feet and stumbled towards the exit. The place was guarded by a pack of thirsty paparazzi, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I pushed past anyone who got in my way, ignored the voices that called my name, and shoved my way to the big glass doors that stood between me and some desperately needed air.
A group of people I vaguely recognised were on their way out too. I trailed them past the doormen and jogged down the steps. A big dude was right in front of me, and I thought I’d got away with it, but he stepped aside at the last moment, exposing me to an explosion of camera flashes.
Wankers. I shielded my face and sacrificed the fresh air I craved by jumping in the nearest executive car. I garbled out the team accommodation address, and shut the partition between me and the driver.
Safe behind blacked-out windows, I hunched up on the seat and buried my face in my knees, covering my head with my arms. Fuck this. Fuck this. Fuck this. I wanted to go home. Nah, I wanted to go back to the hotel room with Lucky and rewind to those precious few hours before I’d fucked it up by letting the monster my career had become control every moment of my damn life.
I wanted Lucky.
Needed him.
Craved him.
The drive back to the team house took fifteen minutes. By then, the booze I’d drunk had started to wear off, leaving me still entrenched in self-pity, but with a headache for company.
I slipped up to my room and locked the door behind me, thankful for the discreet driver who’d barely looked at me as I’d stumbled out of his car. He’d probably thought I was wasted, and he was right, but it wasn’t champagne or chemicals screwing my synapses. It was everything else.
My legs gave way and I slid to the floor, landing in a heap by the bathroom door. A shower to wash away the grime of tonight called my name, but I couldn’t make myself move. A low, animalistic groan pierced the air. It took a few anguished heartbeats to realise it had come from me.
I felt like crawling into the bathroom and sticking my fingers down my throat, like I could retch all my problems away. Or finding a sharp to carve the pain out of my skin. But I didn’t move. Couldn’t. Because without the rare peace I’d found with Lucky, this was who I was—a puddle of flesh and bone that meant nothing real to anyone, not even myself.
Misery was like a trance, but without the euphoria. I let it carry me for a while, half-asleep, but convinced I’d be awake for the rest of my life. Loud music echoed in my head, thumping in time with the migraine clinging to my skull, and I had no idea how much time had passed when I belatedly figured out that it was real.
Wincing, I sat up, and searched the dark room for the source. My blurred gaze was drawn to the pillow where I’d abandoned both my phone and Lucky’s.
Lucky’s was flashing, and vibrating in time with the obnoxious EDM track that was apparently his ringtone.
Fuck.
I scrambled to my feet and threw myself across the bed, snatching the phone and swiping at the screen and activating the speakerphone function. “Hello?”
“Hello,” a female voice drawled suspiciously.
I frowned. “Who are you?”
“Nah, mate. Who the fuck are you?”
Fifteen
This was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing I’d ever done, and I’d made some pretty bonehead decisions lately, including leaving my security blanket slash baseball cap at home.
I parked my car behind a barber’s, locked it, and then made my way to the fried chicken shop where I’d agreed to meet the woman who’d claimed to be Lucky’s best friend.
Jamila was waiting for me outside, picking at a styrofoam tray of the worst chips I’d seen since I’d bought Lucky a McDonald’s.
A
fter an aborted phone call to identify each other, she narrowed her eyes at me in greeting. “I repeat,” she said. “Who the fuck are you?”
That she didn’t already know should’ve been a bonus, but the guilt that I’d never even told Lucky was too strong for me to feel any relief. “I’m a friend,” I said. “I’ve brought Lucky’s phone.”
“Why do you have it?”
“Because he left it with me last time I saw him.”
Jamila dumped her chips in a nearby bin and fished a cigarette box out of her coat pocket. She lit up and blew smoke in my face. “When was this?”
“Five days ago.”
Something flickered in Jamila’s eyes. “That was the last time I heard from him too.”
Fear banded around my pinched heart. “Are you worried?”
“Should I be?”
I spread my hands. “I don’t know. I don’t—uh—know him that well.”
“But you know him enough to drive your fancy car down Kingsland Road in the middle of the night to hand over his phone. What are you? Some kind of pimp?”
Fuck. In my hurry to get here, I’d been less careful than usual with my car, and I’d neglected to account for Jamila being as curious about me as I was about her.
She was the BFF Lucky sometimes slept with. Why it hadn’t occurred to me from the moment I’d answered his phone, I had no idea.
I studied her as she glared at me, taking in her dark eyes, brown skin, and entrancing mane of onyx-coloured hair. She was the second beautiful woman to turn me round that week—where the fuck was my head at?
“I’m not a pimp,” I managed eventually when the loaded silence began to suffocate me. “I’m just a friend. And if you’re who I think you are, so are you.”
“Who do you think I am?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re Lucky’s BFF who he was sometimes living with until he got a new place. He told me he loves you, and you’re the best friend he’s ever had. Happy?”
Jamila was far from happy, but my knowledge of her relationship with Lucky softened her sharp edges. She took my arm and guided me away from the chicken shop and along the high street that apparently never slept. “I am worried about Lucky,” she said. “He’s been off grid for days. I went to his new place, but I couldn’t get in, and I don’t know where his job is.”
“You don’t?”
“No. He never told me. We spend most of our time together asleep.”
I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do than curl up and go to sleep with Lucky. The prospect of meeting Jamila had kept me up most of the night, and the drive back from Manchester had just about killed me.
And now I was more worried about Lucky than ever. I retrieved his phone from my pocket and held it out. “You should probably take this. There’s more chance of him turning up in your yard than mine.”
“I bet.”
“What?”
Jamila shrugged. “If you’re the Grindr bloke then I know he doesn’t know jack about you—where you live, where you work…your whole name.”
“I don’t know those things about him either.”
“That’s your choice. Lucky doesn’t hide—he’s been through too much to live like that.”
I could believe it. Painful heat stung my eyes, and I turned away from Jamila. “I need to go.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thanks for meeting me.”
Jamila nodded. “Thanks for returning Lucky’s phone. Hopefully he’ll come by my place soon and I can give it back to him.”
“I hope so.”
“Do you?”
I spun around. “Yeah. I do. Then maybe I’ll get the chance to tell him how fucking sorry I am. Take care, Jamila.”
Lucky
Silence had become my best friend. Even with the blaring radio, the shouts of the other mechanics, and the relentless clang of metal on metal, I heard—and felt—nothing.
I was numb, and for once it wasn’t chemically induced, though the craving for a sweet hit of something was getting harder to ignore.
Friday was the worst day of the week. The garage closed early—at five instead of seven—leaving me two days and three whole nights to amuse myself until work started again on Monday morning. I kept offering to cover shifts on Saturdays, but Jim wouldn’t have it. Five days a week was enough, according to him, especially now he’d hired a new full-time mechanic, and I couldn’t think of an argument that wouldn’t get me sacked.
After work on the second Friday since I’d last seen Dom, I sloped out of the garage and made it as far as the first bench before deciding I couldn’t face my room just yet. Weekends there were bad—worse than I remembered—and I usually tried to be drunk before I went home. And stoned.
Tonight, I felt like taking it further, but something inside me stubbornly held out—something that felt suspiciously like loyalty to a man I’d probably never see again, especially now I’d lost my phone.
I leaned forward on the bench and pressed my fists into my eyes. Losing my phone had gutted me until I’d remembered there was no one who’d be calling me anymore anyway—well, except Jamila, but I was going to drop by her place any day now. I just had to find the energy to drag my sorry arse back to Dalston.
Right. ’Cause Tottenham’s on the fucking moon.
I snorted and screwed my knuckles harder into my eyes. I was losing my mind—I was sure of it—and all because I’d turned out to be the worst pro Grindr ever. Falling for my first—and last—paid hook up hadn’t been in my carefully laid plans, and putting my heart through a blender hadn’t either.
You daft twat. All you had to do was take his money and suck his cock. How the fuck had it come to this?
I had no idea. All I knew was I had a billion hours to kill before I could go back to work and staying right here on this bench was the best plan I could fathom.
“Lucky.” Someone shook me. “Lucky. Come on, babe. You’re not supposed to be tramping it anymore.”
“Wha—?” I opened my eyes, pondering distantly why I hadn’t jerked awake like I usually did when something on the street disturbed my sleep.
My vision cleared and focussed on the pissed-off face staring down at me. Huh. Perhaps I wasn’t awake after all. Or maybe I was, and I’d simply forgotten trudging back to Dalston. “J?”
Jamila glared. “It’s raining, Lucky, and you’re sleeping outside like a vagrant, which had better not mean you’ve been kicked out of the halfway house again.”
I straightened up, rubbing my drizzle-damp face. “I haven’t.”
“So…what are you doing conked out on a bench? You’d better not be using.”
“I’m not using, you mad cow.”
That earned me an arched brow, but we’d been mates long enough for her to let me wake up before she expected a sensible conversation out of me—’cause calling Jamila a mad cow was definitely not sensible.
I pulled myself together and lit the cigarette she stuck in my mouth. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “I’ve got something else for you too, but I want answers first.”
“Is it your ma’s peanut soup? Because I’ve been dreaming about that shit.”
“Sure about that? You look like you haven’t slept for weeks.”
She knew me so well. I shrugged and wiped my scratchy eyes. “The centre is pretty rowdy…you know what it’s like.”
“But you’ve got your own room this time, surely that’s not as bad?”
“That doesn’t make it good.”
Jamila sighed and flopped back on the bench. “I wish I could help you.”
“You have helped me. I’d have spent a lot more nights on benches like this if it wasn’t for you.”
“You shouldn’t be spending any nights outside. You have a job now…is there nowhere else you can go? An HMO, or something?”
“I might try for a multiple occupancy soon. I’ve heard they’re just as bad as the hostels, though. At least, the ones I can afford are.”
�
�There must be a room in a house somewhere that isn’t a hell pit.”
“You’d think.” I blew out a lungful of smoke. “But it’s not that bad, honest. Give me a few more months and I’ll have saved more money. I’ve even started using my bank account again.”
“Get you all grown up.”
“Fuck off.”
Jamila smirked, but her teeth dug nervously into her bottom lip as it belatedly occurred to me that she had tracked me down to a bench in the middle of Tottenham.
“How did you know I was here?”
It was her turn to shrug. “I didn’t. I just remembered that you said your new job was at a posh garage in Tottenham. I’ve been wandering around all afternoon looking for it. I only spotted you by chance after I tried chatting up some hot guy at the Lexus place.”
“That’s Cash,” I said tiredly. He’s new and never speaks. Why were you looking for me?”
She speared me with an incredulous glare. “Are you taking the piss? You’ve been MIA for weeks, not answering your phone. I thought you were dead or something.”
Guilt clawed at my conscience. Even after all this time, I often forget that she worried about me. “Sorry, sista. I lost my phone.”
“I know.”
It made sense that she did—that she’d joined the dots and concluded the obvious—but something in her face, in the features I knew so well, gave me pause. “What’s that look for?”
“What look?”
“The one you get when you’re about to try and set me up with one of your dickhead mates from work?”
“I don’t do that…anymore. Is it my fault you hate relationships?”
“I don’t hate relationships. Just your dickhead mates.”
Jamila rolled her eyes, but her fidgeting remained, and after I’d stared her down a moment longer, she sighed. “Fine. Here you go.”
She pulled her hand from her pocket and held a phone out to me—my phone, though without its cracked screen, I barely recognised it.
“What the fuck? Where did you get this? Please tell me you didn’t reinstall that Find My iPhone app and stalk me?”
Lucky Page 12