Everything stemmed from Steven’s arrival.
Ben took that as his reference point and worked forward.
After a while, removed now to the shower and letting the hot water stream over him, he began to see a pattern emerging.
He’d been sent to Devon.
He’d been distracted by a visit from Molly Rose he hadn’t even organised.
He’d been pushed away.
He’d tried to take Steven to Denmark but had been…retrieved.
And when he’d retaliated by going anyway, Nikolas had…
Nikolas had…
Had Nikolas just succeeded in a more devious pushing away?
Ben turned off the spray and stood with his head hanging down, water dripping off his chin.
He replayed that awful night in the London house again.
He’d heard a sound in the bedroom. What had that been? You couldn’t hear anyone in the bedroom from the hallway. He knew this.
The noise must have been from the landing outside the bedroom.
Someone on the landing.
He’d gone upstairs.
Jackson had been on the bed. Stoned.
And Nikolas had come out of the bathroom.
Naked, holding a towel, as if he’d been taking a shower after sex.
Except he had been dry. Hair dry. Feet dry. Who dried their fucking feet after a shower? Nikolas certainly didn’t. Nikolas’s hair was wet after a shower for an hour at least. Ben knew this.
He rewound the whole scenario and played it again.
He’d come into the house. Someone was on the landing, listening for him.
When he’d got up to the bedroom, Jackson Keane had been in their bed, too stoned to speak. Nikolas had greeted him, faking a shower, and then corralled him into the kitchen. Fucking hell! The bike! The car! They weren’t there because Nikolas had known what would happen and had not wanted him to drive!
Fuck him! Fuck him!
Ben couldn’t think.
Nikolas wouldn’t do this to him. Nikolas wouldn’t make up this elaborate scenario to push him away. Would he?
Nikolas wouldn’t kill him with grief, would he?
He might if…
Only a few weeks ago, Nikolas had confessed that he loved Ben enough to leave him, to destroy himself by leaving him, that he loved Ben more than he loved himself…and now this.
So this wasn’t that. Ben had got it all wrong.
Steven had arrived. Nikolas had instantly swerved and pushed Ben to safety.
Nikolas had protected him the only way he could think to do so.
Doing the only thing that would make Ben leave him.
The only thing.
The unthinkable thing.
Ben ran from the bathroom and dragged his jeans up his wet legs. He seized a T-shirt and his boots, and ran across the swim lane. He was about to emerge into the kitchen when he flattened himself against the wall out of sight.
Squeezy.
No one would believe him. They’d say he’d lost it. They’d say that he was still in thrall to Nikolas, that he was deluded and sad. That if he went to London he’d find Nikolas back in bed with Jackson Keane.
He wouldn’t believe it himself.
Perhaps he didn’t.
But he wanted it to be the truth.
CHAPTER TEN
Babushka was knitting a sweater for Nikolas and watching a show about a cannibal. She didn’t understand a word, but she liked his suits, so she told Ben. She was surprised to see him, clearly, but even more shocked when he asked if he could borrow her car. Nikolas had bought her an old Land Rover to drive around the grounds to practise before she took her test. Technically, the vehicle wasn’t street legal—no licence, no MOT, and no insurance—but Ben reckoned he had more important things to worry about than prison.
He discovered why it wasn’t fit for street use when he made it out onto the first B road. Usually by this time, he was doing seventy and cruising up to the habitual ninety he liked before cresting over a hundred on the duel carriageway to Exeter. Then it was a hundred and twenty on the motorway all the way to London—if he was in no particular hurry.
The old vehicle complained at forty, and at fifty was screeching. He dropped down to thirty-five and cursed it. Nikolas said you should never praise mechanical things, for they always heard you and immediately failed, either out of spite or puffed up pride. He’d never told Ben not to swear at one, however, so he did, and because he enjoyed profanity when Nikolas couldn’t hear him.
The irony that he was spending the entire journey thinking about Nikolas who he had only the day before declared he hated—both to himself and his friends—didn’t escape Ben. He just swore some more when it hit him.
Hate Nikolas?
Yeah.
That would be like loathing sunlight or air. Food.
Water.
Life itself, basically.
The trip to London at the speeds he usually drove only took them a little under two and a half hours. It was why they were able to do it so often. At the pace Babushka’s lawnmower could achieve, it took Ben five.
It was past midnight by the time he arrived at the quiet mews street.
He went around the back of the house and climbed nimbly over the wall from the alley, mindful of the glass embedded in the top, which had once cut Nikolas badly. He still had scars on his chest from falling onto the jagged edges, shot and bleeding as he’d been.
Ben landed lightly in the courtyard and stayed low.
The light was on in the large, extended kitchen, just a cold, blue glow from the extractor fan. The edges of the room were in shadow, but he could see Nikolas sitting at the kitchen table.
He was alone, his head in his hands. It was possible he was reading something on the table, but in the feeble light it was unlikely. He didn’t have his reading glasses on. He wasn’t drinking or smoking either.
To Ben he seemed like a man utterly defeated.
The temptation to just enter the kitchen and force the truth from Nik was almost overwhelming, but Ben had done that very recently, handcuffs, imprisonment, and all, and look where they were now.
Breaking Nikolas had clearly only been a temporary solution. He’d regrown his shell, tucked his head back in, and was hunkered down for the long haul.
Ben wasn’t worried about Nikolas now. He was okay.
Nikolas appeared torn and twisted with worry and exhaustion, but that was fine. Ben had endured a shitty few days, too.
He went back up over the wall and landed in the alley. He abandoned the Land Rover where he’d parked it illegally in a nearby hotel car park. If it was towed, it was.
He found his bike back where it should be.
Perhaps he should instigate a new policy of testing all of Nikolas’s pronouncements if they were as easy to prove false as this had been. Maybe he should assume everything Nikolas said was a lie and be done with it. Except Nikolas hadn’t deceived him about everything. He hadn’t actually said anything about Jackson. He hadn’t mentioned one word about his relationship with Ben.
Ben had seen what he was meant to see and made up a truth all his own.
§ § §
Ben climbed onto his bike, no helmet, and told himself that if he was going to prison anyway, then it was better to go out with a bang.
He went to an apartment in Battersea. Jackson Keane lived in The Tower. Ben had been to his place a few times, to a few parties. He’d once called it a block of flats, and had seen the anger flick across his host’s face. Nikolas paid Jackson too much money, in Ben’s opinion, for loyalty that should have been given freely. But it was Nikolas’s money. He was entitled to waste it as he saw fit.
He rode the elevator to the seventh floor and exited.
Jackson didn’t answer Ben’s ring.
He picked the lock and let himself in.
The apartment was a homage to excess. Without its occupant, whom Ben had never denied was extremely good looking, it was a tribute to vacuous male vanity.
Did anyone seriously have black satin bed sheets? A mirrored ceiling? Ben had seen enough of Jackson’s naked body recently. He checked through a few drawers but found nothing of any interest. It was hard to tell, but they didn’t appear cleared out. The wardrobe wasn’t depleted of clothes, as far as he could judge. He had the distinct impression that Jackson Keane wasn’t aware that he’d cheated on Ben Rider. He wasn’t running.
Ben stood at the floor to ceiling window in the living room, gazing out over the view of the river and began to get very angry. Even if there was nothing going on between Nikolas and Jackson, which Ben believed was now the case, he had been put through the emotional wringer. Shock, denial, and heartbreak were now followed by seething rage that Nikolas’s arrogance had brought him to this—giving credence to anything Jackson Keane said or did, skulking around his apartment like a thief in the night. Why didn’t he go back into the bedroom and sniff the sheets? See if he could smell a familiar scent of—actually that wasn’t a bad idea. Ben was halfway there before he swore, kicked over the glass coffee table, which unfortunately didn’t shatter, and left.
Riding back down in the elevator, no further forward and at something of a loss, Ben pulled out his phone, tapping it idly while he thought. Before he could talk himself out of it, he dialled Jackson’s number.
It was answered quickly, and Jackson appeared to be shouting over loud music. “Ben?”
Ben held his phone away, staring at it incredulously, before realising this gesture was becoming a bad habit. “Where are you?”
“Dormant Club. What do you want?”
Again with a glance at the phone. “What do I want?”
“Uh-huh. Wait.” The background noises faded, and Ben could hear ice clinking in a glass as Jackson strolled to find a quiet spot. This casual attitude only added to Ben’s slowly forming certainty that Jackson Keane was unaware of the little drama he was participating in. If he knew, he’d be moving a great deal faster.
“’kay, buddy, ’sup?”
Ben had been planning to say something else, but when he spoke, it came out as, “Nikolas wants to see you. Now.”
§ § §
When Ben got back to his vantage point in the courtyard of the London house, Squeezy and Tim were in the kitchen with Nikolas. That was fine. It was exactly what he wanted. He was curious to see that an argument appeared to be going on between Nikolas and Squeezy, while Tim stood unhappily on the sidelines, occasionally interjecting but being ignored.
Ben had never seen Squeezy advance furiously on Nikolas before. It was interesting. He couldn’t hear what was being said, and debated getting closer. It occurred to him for the first time that each of his friends—their friends—had a different relationship with Nikolas when he wasn’t present. It surprised him that he’d not realised this before.
Jackson clearly had a very different one.
The altercation was still simmering—angry glares being thrown, pacing and pointing, and Tim sitting with his head in his hands—when Jackson came in.
If Ben had not already worked out that they weren’t lovers, he’d have known it by the way Nikolas greeted Jackson—curt, angry questioning, and no sign of embarrassment on either side.
Ben rose from his spot in the courtyard and slipped in through the patio doors to join the fun.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Occasionally, Ben reflected, Nikolas wasn’t as good a liar as he tried to be. The expression on Nikolas’s face as he appeared from the gloom of the courtyard was priceless. Ben stored it away to enjoy later. It wasn’t the indifference of a man who’d recently broken up with him and didn’t care about his whereabouts anymore. Nikolas pulled himself together though before actually making a move toward Ben, and as his back had been to the other three, only Ben saw his intense anguish lift and a kind of desperate, false calm descend over his features.
Ben only gave him a nod and told him to sit down.
“Ben, lis—”
“Sit down!”
The other three dropped as if felled. Nikolas hesitated for a moment more but then sat as well.
Ben pointed at Jackson. “You first. Tell me about—”
“Ben, pl—” Nikolas began to rise. Ben got up close and personal and in Nikolas’s face before he could get fully to his feet.
“I said sit down. I’ll add shut up, too.” Nikolas tried to speak. Ben put a finger to his lips.
Standing so close forced Nikolas to collapse back into his chair once more.
Ben felt very powerful all the time, but his personality, he knew, enabled his extreme physicality to be mostly overlooked by those who knew him well—easygoing, willing to please and be pleased. Fuelled by rage as he now was, he knew he must seem a different man…as if the excesses of the one partner had somehow rubbed off on the other. The finger on the lips was a simple gesture, but it radiated menace.
Ben pointed at Jackson again. “Speak. Last night. Tell me what happened.”
Jackson frowned. “Last night?” He scrunched his face up, moved his lips around, then confessed, “Nope. Gone. I got wasted, sorry. Came round here to work with the boss—” Jackson flicked his gaze to Nikolas. “Last thing I remember we were drinking—shit, man, I was so wasted.”
“So you and Nikolas didn’t fuck each other in my bed?”
Ben knew Jackson could move fast. He’d lived with him for many months in harsh circumstances that had demanded quick reactions. But he’d never seen the American shift that quickly or be that instantly maddened. Jackson flew to his feet, swearing, denying everything and anything. He wasn’t fucking gay. He didn’t fuck men. As his chair skittered across the tiles, Ben nodded to it. “Pick it up and sit down.”
Nikolas took a breath as Jackson sat once more at the table glaring furiously at him, and he seemed about to try and speak again. Ben returned his full attention to Nikolas for just a moment, a jaw clench indicating exactly what he was thinking, and Nikolas got the message, turning back stonily to face front and be silent.
Ben moved around so he was by Jackson’s shoulder, then leant down and whispered in his ear, “Okay. Now you can leave.” Jackson didn’t wait to be told twice, snatching up his keys, and departing.
Ben stood where he could see Squeezy clearly.
He could tell by the disbelief on his friend’s face that all of this was new information to him. Squeezy was considering Nikolas, and then apparently concluded, “You are a stupid fuck.”
Ben agreed entirely. He snapped at Squeezy, “Your turn. What’s happening?”
“This dumb fuckwit here made me agree to keep an eye on you. Said to keep you busy, get your mind off it, feed you, not let you out of my fucking sight.”
Nikolas looked away to the darkness outside. He seemed to have given up trying to stop the inquisition.
Ben made a quick gesture to Tim. “You had no idea about any of this?” At Tim’s wide-eyed incomprehension and furious slap at his boyfriend, Ben nodded and pulled up a chair. “Okay, now we all know where we stand.” He eased back, staring across the table at Nikolas.
All three of them were doing that.
Nikolas rubbed at a small mark on the table, frowning. He crossed his legs then uncrossed them. He glanced at a packet of cigarettes on the counter. “I may have miscalculated slightly.”
Tim rose suddenly and his chair made a screech on the floor as he paced to the window, his back rigid. Ben knew exactly what he was thinking. They’d been so close to…If Squeezy had not come in…
Nikolas didn’t react to Tim’s departure or mood; he was apparently deep in thought. Finally, he folded his arms on the table and enunciated very deliberately, “I tried to get you to stay away. You refused to cooperate. I had no choice. You wouldn’t listen to me.” Then he seemed to come back to himself and muttered, “We need to talk about this in private.”
“This is as private as it’s going to get.”
Nikolas gritted his teeth and hissed through the lockdown, “I would have gone myself, but you…stopped me le
aving the last time. I had no choice.”
“This is about Steven?”
Nikolas ground out a reluctant nod.
“You…” Ben floundered. “What? What do you think is going to happen? That I’m going to leave you for a younger, nicer version?”
Nikolas’s jaw dropped open for a moment, slammed shut, and he frowned. “Nicer?”
Squeezy groaned and put his head in his hands, swearing, then he stood and said to Tim, “You coming? I’ve had enough of this.”
Tim nodded, his back still to the room. Squeezy went toward the door, but Ben caught his wrist. He gave it a squeeze. “Thanks.” Ben knew both Squeezy and Tim knew exactly what he was thanking him for.
Pins dropped some more when the other two left.
The house was so quiet Ben fancied he could hear his own heartbeat, which wasn’t all that odd, he reflected, as he felt faint with repressed anger and tension, and suspected it was beating way too fast.
He wanted to surge across the table in a tsunami of power and pain and take Nikolas down, beat him, hurt him, split him open, lay him bare. Add to the vast, dark bruise on his cheekbone, the semi-closed left eye, the split lip—actually, Ben reflected, those must have been courtesy of Squeezy. Ben had only hit him once on the nose.
Nikolas turned his gaze back from the darkness in the courtyard, which he’d been studying with such intense concentration, and Ben saw the tracks of tears on his cheeks.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Nikolas cry. But in over ten years, he could count the number of times on the fingers of one hand. He rose swiftly and embraced him, wrapping his arms around Nikolas’s battered head tightly, pressing it to his shirt. He pushed his own face into the greying blond hair, and with the familiar smell of vanilla and coconut, he came home.
§ § §
Later, Ben realised that much of what had happened was actually his fault. You can’t crack someone open, lay them bare, and expect them to stay like that. What had he thought would happen from the awful thing he’d done to Nikolas? He’d broken him and exposed him, leaving nerves raw, emotions scattered. Nikolas had tried to pick up the pieces and reform, but he’d been fractured, and the pieces had realigned badly.
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