The radio crackled. “Stand down, team one. Stand down. All persons accounted for. Withdraw. Repeat. Withdraw.”
Or not.
He picked his way out of the chip shop as the hose crews continued to tackle the blaze. It wasn’t the biggest the crew had seen that week, but they didn’t have long to get it under control before it spread to nearby homes. Rupert glanced back over his shoulder. Smoke still billowed from the roof and windows, but the flames were no longer visible. Green Watch had it covered.
At the rig, he stripped out of his breathing apparatus and scrubbed a clammy hand down his face. Briggs appeared from nowhere and passed him a bottle of water. Rupert took it gratefully. Whatever the weather, crawling through burning buildings was sweaty work. “So the old boy turned up then?”
Briggs grunted. “Old git, you mean. His daughter found him up the road in Corals. Reckons he probably left the fryers on in his hurry to catch the dogs.”
“Dickhead.” And Rupert meant it. He’d seen too many tragedies to forgive such blatant idiocy and knowing he’d risked his life searching for some twat who’d been in the bookies all along just about summed up his day.
Briggs moved off to check on the other crews. Rupert climbed into the rig and retrieved his phone from the dashboard while he waited for them to regroup. It had been a few hours since he’d had to tell Jodi a major incident with the station’s other rig meant he couldn’t come off shift until dawn. Jodi had replied with a flat OK, and with calls rolling one after the other ever since, Rupert hadn’t had time to check that he really was okay, that he felt well enough to be by himself all night when he’d already spent the day alone, a day Rupert had spent reminding himself how to put his worries for Jodi to one side while he got on with his job.
He swiped his phone. There was nothing from Jodi, but the screen was jammed with four missed calls from Jen. He called her straight back; she’d only keep calling otherwise until she’d got what she wanted.
She answered on the first ring. “What took you so long?”
“I’m on shift. What do you want?”
“My dad’s had a stroke. They don’t think he’ll be able to come home, so I need to drive up to Coventry in the morning to get things sorted.”
“Okay.” Rupert couldn’t find the words for sympathy he didn’t mean. His ex-father-in-law had made his life hell, even before the truth had come out. “Are you taking Indie with you?”
“I can’t really do that, can I? You know what that house is like. There’s nowhere for her to sleep, and she hates it. You need to have her for a few days.”
“I can’t.” Rupert cringed, hating himself for being caught between the two souls he loved so much. Since Jodi had come home, he’d been having Indie at Sophie’s place—the world’s girliest apartment in Primrose Hill—but Sophie had gone away and wouldn’t be back until the end of the week, leaving Rupert with no access to her apartment and no one to care for Jodi in his absence. He’d already left him for far too long. “I’m sorry, I just can’t. I have to—”
“I’m not asking you, Rupert. I’m telling you. You need to get over here and take care of your daughter. I don’t care if you have better things to do. I need you here tomorrow morning.”
She hung up before Rupert could respond. He called again, but she didn’t answer, and by then the rest of the crew were boarding the rig, ready to go back to the station. There was barely time for a piss before they were called out once more, and the calls kept coming. It was three in the morning before he checked his phone.
He activated the screen. Three messages, all from Jodi, and spaced three hours apart, the last one more than two hours ago.
Come home
Please
I need you
“Let me out here.”
The taxi jolted to a stop. Rupert threw the fifty quid he’d withdrawn for food shopping at the driver and jumped out. He dashed up the steps and jammed his key in the exterior door. The door stuck. He kicked it open, slamming it into the wall behind, and took the stairs two at a time.
He shoved his way through the flat’s front door. “Jodi? Jodi? Where are you?”
There was no reply. Rupert charged through the flat. Living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom. But they were all empty. Jodi was nowhere to be seen.
Rupert pulled out his phone and hit Jodi’s speed dial for the hundredth time since he’d read his messages, but it went to voice mail.
Panic swept over Rupert. He dashed back to the hall, heading for the front door. What the hell had happened? Had he fallen and hurt himself? Called 999 himself? Or one of the neighbours? With Sophie away, his ad hoc double shift had been badly timed. Fucking idiot. Why the hell hadn’t he told Briggs to do one, and come home?
He fell over Jodi’s feet, landing on his knees to face an expression he’d never seen on Jodi’s face before. “Jodi?”
Jodi didn’t blink. His bloodshot gaze remained bewildered, exhausted, and . . . something else. “You came home.”
“Of course I did. I would’ve come sooner, but I didn’t get your messages until I came off a job.”
“That’s why I didn’t call you. Because you were at work and you can’t answer the phone at work.”
Jodi recited the words, repeating the instructions Rupert had given him when he’d left the day before.
“That’s right,” Rupert said. “They let me carry my phone on silent and leave it on the rig, but I can only use it in an emergency. That’s why I left you the station number as well, so you could call for help if you needed it. What’s happened? Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”
“No. It’s not me. It’s her.”
“Her? Who? Sophie?”
“No. Her.”
Rupert followed Jodi’s gaze through the open doorway he was slumped in. Followed it into the pink and blue bedroom, all the way to the tiny humped body of Indie, curled up in the bed she hadn’t slept in since Jodi came home from hospital five long months ago.
A surreal calm came over Rupert. He stood and went to Indie’s bedside. She was fast asleep, clutching the battered wolf toy Jodi had bought her from London Zoo soon after Rupert had introduced them. She always slept with it when she came to the flat. In her absence, Rupert had stashed it on top of the fridge, unable to face his failure to give her a stable base while Jodi had been so unwell. Somehow it had found its way home.
Rupert touched Indie’s cheek, for a moment lost in its ethereal smoothness. He hadn’t seen her all week. Had she grown again?
“Rupert?”
Rupert closed his eyes to Jodi’s hoarse whisper. Something had happened in this room while he’d been at work, something huge, and he felt it in every fibre of his being, but he needed this quiet moment, the calm before the storm. And in this turbulent new world, only Indie could give him that. He needed her as much as he needed Jodi. More. But Indie was sleeping, at peace in her world of princesses playing football, or whatever it was she dreamed about. In all her eight years, he’d never known her to have a nightmare. No. The nightmares were his, and he’d take every one if he could spare her a moment of pain. He’d take a bullet for her, and Jodi. He’d die for them both.
Jodi. Rupert breathed a silent sigh and turned away from Indie, treading noiselessly out of the room to Jodi’s side. He crouched down and tentatively brushed Jodi’s hair from his forehead. “What happened?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Tell me from the beginning. Why is Indie here?”
“Her mum brought her.”
Rupert had figured that much but swallowed his impatience. Jodi looked shell-shocked, and no good would come from pushing him to explain himself faster. “When?”
“Seven, maybe? Her mum said it was nearly her bedtime.”
“What else did she say?”
“That she’d be back in a few days.”
“That’s it?”
“I think so.”
Jodi’s gaze faltered. For a moment, Rupert thought Jodi might f
aint, or worse. He slipped Jodi’s good arm over his shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you up. What are you doing out here anyway?”
“I couldn’t sleep, Rupe. I was so scared I’d break her.”
Rupe. Rupert wanted to cry. It had been so long since Jodi had last called him that. “I can’t believe Jen left her here without telling me. I’m so sorry.”
“Jen? Is that her mum?”
“Yes. She called me earlier, asking me to have Indie here for a few days, but I told her no. This is her way of getting even.”
Jodi took slow, shuffling steps across the hall into the main bedroom, leaning on Rupert for support, a telling sign of how tired he was, until he reached the bed and sank down on it. “I didn’t know her. I opened the door, and she just started yelling. She wouldn’t let me speak, and she was gone before I could tell her I didn’t have a fucking clue who she was.”
Rupert was livid. It was so Jen to show up and dump Indie like a stray cat without a thought for anyone but herself. Lord knew, she’d done it before, to him, to Jodi, but that was before Jodi had survived an accident that could’ve killed him, only to live a life trapped behind a shadow on an MRI scan. Before Jodi had become a man barely able to take care of himself, let alone a child. Rupert had long ago lost the will to bear Jen much ill feeling, but fuck, in that moment he hated her.
Movement on the bed brought him back to the present. Jodi had scooted across the bed and wrapped his arms around his knees, making himself as small as possible, his gaze apprehensive, perhaps, even afraid.
Rupert touched his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know her.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Jodi’s voice rose. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember her, or Indie, or you. I’m sorry I can’t remember anything that matters. I just— I’m trying. I’m trying all the time, then people tell me stuff that doesn’t make any sense, and I don’t know what to do. Then Indie came, and I didn’t know what to do. I made her toast and milk and put her to bed. She made me sit with her, and she was talking to me like I was her best friend, and I didn’t know what to do. I never know what to do. I’m sorry, Rupert. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Jodi broke off with a racking sob that obliterated what was left of Rupert’s shattered heart. He took Jodi in his arms before he truly knew what he was doing, crushing Jodi against him, holding him as tight as he dared, like he could draw the hurt out of him with a simple embrace. “It’s all right, boyo. It’s all right. You’re okay.”
“I’m not, though, am I?” Jodi raised his head. His face was wet, and his eyes more lost than Rupert had ever seen them. “Your daughter knows me better than I know myself, and I can barely remember her name. What’s okay about that?”
Rupert sat back on the bed so Jodi could relax against him—or escape if he needed to. “It’ll get better. It is getting better.”
Jodi said nothing, but he made no move to disentangle himself. If anything, he pressed closer, like he was trying to hide away in Rupert’s chest. Rupert hugged him tighter. Seeing Jodi so distraught was gut-wrenching, but he couldn’t deny it felt amazing to hold him. To feel him, touch him, breathe him in, and revel briefly in the fact that Jodi had chosen to be so close. He shut his eyes. Perhaps if neither of them spoke, the world would stop turning and they could stay this way forever.
“Indie showed me the dress she wants to wear to our wedding.”
“What?” Rupert’s eyes flew open.
Jodi stared back at him. For the first time since the accident, he didn’t look bewildered.
“She told me I was your boyfriend, that I had been since she was tiny, and she wants us to get married.”
Words failed Rupert. He’d always known Indie would give him away, if Jodi even believed her, which was doubtful. He hadn’t believed anyone else. “I—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Jodi—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jodi’s voice was low, but the anger in his tone left nowhere to hide. “All this time I thought I was going fucking mad and you knew. Everyone knew, didn’t they?”
“Knew what?”
“Don’t give me that shit.” Jodi scrambled from the bed, lurching to his feet. Rupert stood too and moved to steady him, but Jodi blocked his reaching hands. “Why didn’t you tell me? Some bloke stopped me in the street and called you my boyfriend, then I come home and a child I can’t even fucking remember does the same. Can’t you see how messed up that is? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rupert took a deep breath as he absorbed Jodi’s fury. He’d waited so long to finally tell Jodi the truth, part of him had made a tired, warped kind of peace with the fact he probably never would. That all he and Jodi had shared would remain confined to a past Jodi would never remember. “Indie told you whatever she told you because she was the only one I didn’t ask not to.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“What does? Oh God.” The enormity of what was about to happen nearly sent Rupert to his knees. “Jodi, please, you have to understand. You’d been awake for ages, but you hadn’t spoken . . . I didn’t know what to do.”
Jodi stared, his gaze a potent mixture of rage and confusion. “I know all this. I know I was a walking zombie for months. It doesn’t explain why you never told me something so fucking important.”
Rupert should’ve found hope in the fact that Jodi felt what Indie had told him was important, but his mind was in bits. What if Jodi believed it and rejected Rupert anyway? Rejected him once and for all? Living in limbo had left Rupert a broken man, but with no end in sight it had been too easy to imagine another world, a world where Jodi had woken up remembering how much they loved each other.
How much I still love him. “I tried to tell you when you first woke up, but you didn’t understand. Then the doctors tried to tell you too, and you got really ill—you deteriorated, you didn’t speak for days. It was like you couldn’t bear it, like it horrified you so much you’d rather be dead—” Rupert faltered. “You came back, but you didn’t remember being awake, and you didn’t remember me at all.”
“I still don’t remember you.”
Rupert tore his gaze from the floor. “I know, and I’ve come to accept you probably never will.”
“I should, though, shouldn’t I?” Jodi took an unsteady step forward. “I should remember you because I was in love with you.”
Was. Rupert swallowed the bile in his throat. “Is that what Indie told you? That you were in love with me?”
“No. She told me I was your boyfriend. I’d already worked the rest out for myself.”
“Eh?” Rupert felt dizzy. “I don’t understand.”
Jodi snorted. “Not nice, is it? To feel so much about something that doesn’t make any sense?”
Rupert sank backward onto the bed. “You had your voice back. You could speak up for yourself, tell the doctors what hurt so they could help you get better. Tell Sophie you needed her. It seemed like you’d been trapped behind that fucking scar on your brain for so long, I couldn’t be the reason you lost yourself again.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make. You should’ve told me who you were to me. All that time I thought you were some creepy flatmate who stared at me a lot. Scared the shit out of me when I found myself gawping at you too.”
Rupert blinked. “What?”
For a moment it seemed Jodi might leave the room, but he didn’t. He sat down beside Rupert, close enough that their legs almost brushed. “I wish I could remember how it felt to be in love with you, but I can’t, because I don’t know you.”
“I get it,” Rupert said. “The doctors kept warning us not to put ideas in your head, that we couldn’t lead you to the memories that meant the most to us—to me. I’m so sorry, Jodi. I just didn’t know what to do.”
Jodi sighed. “I’m tired, but to be honest with you, I’m fucking relieved. I thought I had a glitch in my noggin that was making me gay or some shit, like
the accident had twisted my dick and pointed it in the wrong direction. To know it’s real—that it’s tangible. Fuck. It makes more sense than anything I’ve ever known.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Rupert felt like he’d been dropped into a vortex that took his wildest dreams and stretched them around a muted reality that didn’t quite fit. “If it’s any comfort, as far as I knew up until the accident, you still liked girls too.”
“So I’m not gay? Jesus Christ. I’ve only just caught up.”
Rupert laughed a laugh that wasn’t as hollow as he expected. “You’re not anything, boyo. You’re you, like everyone else.”
Jodi rolled over in bed and collided with a warm, comforting mass. He reached out, finding soft cotton and then skin, smooth skin that felt like nothing he’d ever touched before. He opened his eyes, and the last time he’d been awake, whenever that had been, came flooding back to him. The day that had seemed to go on and on, and the night that felt never-ending until Rupert had finally come home.
The rest of the previous day was a little blurred. The session with Ken, the dazed Tube ride. The never-ending wait for Rupert to return. And then the knock at the door that had accelerated the slow journey his damaged brain was taking to the conclusion that, by now, felt almost inevitable.
Couldn’t say he cared for Rupert’s ex much, but the girl? Indie? Despite the bombshells she’d unwittingly chucked Jodi’s way, he’d found himself spellbound by her. Indie was bright, fierce, and beautiful. Jodi couldn’t remember loving her any more than he remembered loving Rupert, but he’d adored her from the moment she’d pulled on his beard and told him he looked like a troll.
“Don’t let Daddy grow a beard. It turns orange when it gets too long and scratches my face.”
“How would I stop him?”
“He listens to you. That’s what boyfriends do.”
Jodi stared at Rupert. In his hazel eyes, there was a lot of Indie, but beyond the beautiful little girl, he saw Rupert, really saw him, perhaps for the first time since he’d set eyes on him after the accident. Rupert seemed nervous, and tired, like he hadn’t slept a wink in days. Jodi tried to speak, to tell him something, anything, to let him know he was okay—that they were both okay, together—but nothing intelligible came out.
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