Bait

by Jade West

Optimistic enough to log into my social media accounts for the first time in months and not feel a crippling sense of loss.

  I browse my newsfeed, smiling at posts by my friends back home. I even comment.

  I laugh. I smile.

  I’m human again.

  Human enough to realise that the new contacts I’ve been making at work, the people I’ve been spending my time with, are becoming more than just empty connections.

  I add them, one by one. I add Lauren and Kayleigh and even pink-shirted Jack.

  I catch sight of a glorious sunset over the cathedral from my living window and capture it on camera.

  I save it as my phone backdrop.

  I smile at life – at the life a stranger in the night gave me back.

  A stranger who watches me.

  Who wants me.

  Who’ll be lurking around some shadowy corner when I least expect it. The thought gives me shivers.

  I walk to work on Monday with a smile on my face and my head held high. I walk with a thrum of excitement in my belly, as if his eyes are on me. Always on me.

  I make a round of coffees first up, as though I really belong in the office.

  Maybe I do.

  Lauren seeks me out at my desk. She fans her face and leans in close, and my heart does a little burst at the thought of juicy gossip.

  Sandra and Frank from the Worcester accounts team. Both at Diva’s, hitting up the dancefloor and snogging each other’s faces off at 2 a.m.

  I haven’t met them, so I pull a face.

  “Summer barbeque, you’ll meet them all there,” she tells me, and I grin. Summer barbeque is bigger than Christmas here, so they tell me. “You missed a great night,” she continues, and I actually believe her. “Say you’re coming along to George’s leaving party on Thursday! You have to be there, it wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t. We’re all dressing up as vicars and tarts. Wear your sluttiest.”

  “I think I’m washing my hair,” I reply, and she rolls her eyes. I laugh. “I’ll be there. Sounds too entertaining to miss.”

  And it does.

  Sarah from next door is struggling to open the communal door on Tuesday evening when I arrive back home. She’s loaded up with enough shopping to feed the five thousand for a week.

  I pull the door open for her and she grins.

  “Lifesaver. Got a bit carried away with the special offers.”

  I take a couple of bags from the floor. “No shit. Those buy one get one frees are fatal, right?”

  I help her upstairs with her haul, and when she invites me in for coffee, I accept with a smile.

  Her place is so different to mine. The mirror image in layout, but so much warmer. So much more lived in.

  She tells me she only moved in a few months earlier than I did. I find that hard to believe as I look around.

  “It gets lonely sometimes,” she says as she sits down at her kitchen table. “My family are all up north, I got relocated down here for work. New branch. They’re all old where I work. I haven’t made it out once yet.” She takes a breath. “So, what’s your story?”

  “I had a break up,” I tell her with surprisingly little hesitation. “I left everything behind. Even my nail varnish.”

  It makes her laugh. “Must have been pretty dire to leave without beauty essentials.”

  I look at my chewed-up nails and find myself laughing back. “It was pretty dire, yeah.”

  Was.

  I said was.

  “Where are you from?” she asks.

  “Hampshire. Fleet.”

  She nods. “Was he worth it? All the shit? Worth running across the country for?”

  I’ve never been asked that question before. Never even contemplated it.

  The answer comes easily. “No. Had a nice dick, though.”

  She splutters her coffee. “Did he know how to use it? That’s the clincher.”

  The memory of Stephen is hazy. Distant.

  Sore feet and soil and barbells are the only things that feel real.

  My definition of knowing how to use it has changed somewhat in my frame of reference.

  “He was okay.”

  She tips her head. “He was okay? Just okay?”

  I nod. Giggle. Sip my coffee. “Just okay, yeah. I thought he was the best ever at the time.”

  “But not now?”

  I think of my monster. The dark soul in his dark eyes. The way he pushes me, pins me, stretches me and makes me love it.

  “No. Not now.”

  “Intriguing.” She laughs, but I don’t elaborate.

  I look at the woman opposite me, her kind eyes and her easy smile. I see a loneliness in her that’s gone from me, floating just under the surface.

  “I’m going out to Diva’s on Thursday with the crowd from work,” I tell her. “Vicars and tarts. You could come, if you wanted to check out the Hereford nightlife.”

  “I could?”

  “You sure could. Just wear your sluttiest – I’m under strict orders. No suspenders, no tequila.”

  Her eyes twinkle. “I’ll see what I can cobble together.”

  I’m strangely pleased by her acceptance.

  “I’ve got plenty of nail varnish,” she says. “Just tell me what colour you’re wearing. I’ll pick some out.”

  “Red,” I say, even though I have no idea. “Scarlet harlot.”

  “Red,” she repeats. “I’ll bring a shortlist over. Give you a knock.”

  “Thanks.” I finish up my coffee and put my mug on the drainer.

  And then I head back home for some late-night online shopping.

  Twenty

  It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

  Mark Twain

  Phoenix

  My message to Jake was simple.

  Stay away from my house. Stay away from my son.

  The barrage of abuse I received in response was even more vehement than I anticipated.

  I barely gave it any credence whatsoever until his sign-off message on Sunday evening.

  I want a fucking paternity test.

  He can fucking want.

  I’m busy at work on Monday – a shitload of fresh shipments arriving in from Germany. I’ve barely got a spare minute to think, and yet she’s always there, a flashing circle on my GPS software.

  It’s easy to take a second to find out where she works – a place called Office Express on the edge of the city centre. I look up their website and find a standard, generic-looking office supplies company. I click on their meet our staff page and find her staring back at me.

  Abigail Summers, administration clerk.

  It strikes me as odd, that job title. Whichever way I look at it, it feels like a major career back step. I guess that’s what happens when you get as chewed up as she did – you run, fast. Take whatever you can find.

  We lost our office manager here after the fire. Just one of many who drifted away when the business was on the ground. Gillian had been good, at the heart of operations, equally positioned between the pair of us – me and Jake. Close to Marianna, too. Her resignation had been just another unfortunate piece of shit in the aftermath. Tears and apologies and a ‘see you around’.

  I haven’t replaced her.

  I don’t even know why Gillian presents herself in my consciousness. I wouldn’t even consider having Abigail here. Not for a single sensible second. Not for a fraction of one.

  Never.

  But my cock is throbbing like a motherfucker under my desk. My heart a pounding fucking mess at the thought of chasing her around the warehouse after hours.

  My Germany shipment can wait a few more minutes. I click on the Office Express company blog and scroll through, searching for snippets, photos, anything that will give me more insight into my pretty black swan. That’s when I notice their updated events schedule listed loud and clear.

  Office Express summer barbecue. Castle Green. In aid of Herefordshire Air Ambulance.

  S
ummer ball theme, dress to impress.

  Staff, suppliers, and clients – all welcome.

  Clients welcome. My cock twitches.

  Interesting.

  It’s on the twenty-eighth of the month. A Saturday three-weeks away.

  I flick back to their company brochure. Most of our furniture at this new depot is odds and sods from clearance sales – the best I could do under the circumstances at the time.

  I need a new filing cabinet and a fresh batch of printer cartridges. That’s what I tell myself when I fill in the online form and click submit.

  Order confirmed. A representative will contact you shortly. Thank you for your business.

  And just like that I’m an Office Express client.

  I check my calendar. The twenty-eighth is clear. I’m sure Serena won’t mind taking over duck pond duties for the day.

  I key in the date and smile as my calendar turns to busy.

  The circle is still firmly in her office location when I check my phone again. I’m sure she’ll be there, at the barbeque. I’m sure she’ll be dressed to impress amongst her co-workers chowing down on a burger in the sunshine.

  I’m sure I’ll be there watching her, too.

  I turn my attention back to my shipment logs, busying myself before the last of the trucks arrive back for reloading. I’m finally knuckling down with paperwork when the office door squeals on its hinges and slams against the wall. I’ve barely turned my head when my piece of shit brother comes flying in with his fists in the air. I can smell the drink on him before he’s halfway across the room.

  “You gonna fucking message me back then, or what?” he grunts. “Gotta use our fucking sister as your fucking guard dog now when you’re not around?”

  He’s easy to out manoeuvre as he swings a clumsy fist across the desk at me, and he’s easy to spin on his haunches and disorientate enough to slam to the ground.

  The guy’s like an angry fucking bear as he scrabbles to his feet. He tears my paperwork to the floor with his efforts, and I resist the urge to kick him right in the gut while he’s on his knees.

  “Back the fuck off, Jake,” I bark, but he’s too gone. Too fucking drunk.

  His lip twists into a sneer as he glares up at me. “It’s Ash,” he spits. “Ash, because there’s no rising from the flames for me, Phoenix. I’m still fucking dead inside.” He pauses. There’s enough hate in his eyes to make my neck prickle. “He’s my fucking boy!” he yells and I curse his loud fucking mouth. I’m aware of people gathering in the corridor outside, aware that news of brothers at war is spreading like the pox through this building.

  “Fuck you, Jake,” I hiss. “She was mine. Cameron’s mine.”

  “You’re a fucking fool,” he snarls. “She was mine. I saw her first. I loved her first.”

  I grab him by his filthy t-shirt and haul him to his feet, and I’m as bad as he is, all restraint lost to me now the beast’s boiling in my blood. “Tell me what fucking happened that night. Tell me what started that fucking fire.”

  His eyes are full of hate. “You did. You sent her running.”

  My fist tightens against his throat. “Why were you there? What were the two of you fucking doing?”

  His hate turns into a sneer. “What do you fucking think?”

  I throw him over my desk. He hits the floor hard, but still he’s flailing, grappling. “You were fucking her the whole fucking time?” My eyes fill as full of hate as his. “That’s really what you’re saying? The whole motherfucking time, Jake?”

  “More than you fucking were,” he snarls, and he’s back on his feet. “The boy’s mine, Leo. You know it. I know it. Ain’t no fucking way he’s yours and you know it.”

  But I don’t.

  He’s drunk. Full of fucking shit.

  “Get out!” I bark and point to the exit. “You’re a fucking wreck. Go sort your fucking life out.”

  “I have no fucking life,” he growls. “You stole it from me then let it fucking burn. You should have left me there to fucking burn with it.”

  “I’m beginning to wish I fucking had,” I tell him. His eyes flash with pain. “Maybe you should. She could’ve been still breathing.”

  But no.

  That’s fucking bullshit.

  For the first time I don’t feel the gut punch of guilt. Or self-loathing. Or failure.

  I feel nothing but disgust at what he’s become. What we’ve become.

  “I’d never have gotten to her in time,” I tell him, and I’m so calm it takes me aback. “The explosion loosened the racking, that door was barricaded tight.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” he rasps. “You didn’t even fucking try.”

  My scars are burning all over again. I can smell them. Taste the seared meat in the air.

  “You have no idea how hard I fucking tried,” I tell him. “You’re a fucking disgrace, Jake. A loser drunk on his knees. You’re not Cam’s fucking father and you never will be. You’re just the sad excuse for an uncle that everyone feels pity for. Maybe that’s why she chose me and not you, ever think about that? You always were a fucking loser.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth, Leo.”

  “Straight up choice, Ash. She chose me. Meeting you first made fuck all difference, it was always me.”

  “Is that fucking so?”

  I nod. Don’t take my eyes off his. “Yeah, that’s fucking so.”

  “She called you a cunt that night,” he snarls. “Said she hated you. Said she was sorry she ever fucking met you. Wanted us to take the boy and get away from here. Away from you.”

  I smile a terrible smile. “Glad that little gem managed to make it through the amnesia. Care to enlighten me with any others while you’re at it?”

  “You took everything from me!” he booms. “Let me see my boy, or I swear to fucking God, I’ll take everything away from you too. Don’t make me tear you down, Phoenix. I’d hate something to happen to this sweet little place you got set up here. Be bad luck for lightning to strike twice now, wouldn’t it?”

  He pauses. I stare, unwavering as he continues with his shit.

  “Be a fucking shame if you were the one who didn’t make it out next time, Leo. Poor little Cam would need good old Uncle Ash around to make it better.”

  “You’re a piece of work, and you’re fucking leaving.”

  “Paternity test!” he snarls. “I want a fucking paternity test!”

  “And I’m telling you, Cam’s my boy.”

  We glare.

  Simmer.

  Fester with fists clenched and ready to go.

  And then my phone vibrates on the desktop. I see Serena’s name flashing.

  He does too.

  “I’m gonna fucking answer that,” I tell him, “and you’re gonna fucking leave.”

  He kicks my desk chair flying. Stamps on the calculator he’s knocked from the tray. “You’ve got until the end of the fucking month,” he says. “Plenty of time to organise a fucking test.”

  “Fuck you,” I sneer. “Close the door on your way out.”

  “End of the month,” he repeats, “or I’m fucking coming for you.”

  He barges my scarred shoulder with his as he passes. I fight the urge to tear his skull from his neck.

  I wait until I hear his truck tyres skidding on the gravel, and then I listen to my sister’s voicemail.

  It tells me Jake might be on his way down here. That he might be drunk, too.

  Better late than fucking never, I suppose.

  Twenty-One

  Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.

  Matthew Arnold

  Abigail

  Tarts and vicars is a whole lotta fun. I open my parcels with glee as Sarah looks on.

  I hold the tiny red slip dress up to my chest as she watches from my sofa. It’s ridiculously short, ridiculously split, ridiculously everything.

  I’m laughing as I do a twirl. “It looks like a nightdress. I’d feel like a slut ev
en in bed alone in this thing.”

  “You’d look like a slut in bed alone in that thing.” She pours another wine for both of us.

  I pull out the stockings and suspenders from the parcel.

  “Yes!” she says. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  I’ve got a black feather boa and black elbow-length velvet gloves, and some actual hooker heels that I’m likely going to break my ankles in. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” I say and take another swig from my glass.

  In fairness, Sarah doesn’t look any more demure than I’m going to look. She’s wearing a leopard print boob tube and satin micro-mini. Her heels are red PVC with a heel that could be classified as a lethal weapon.

  I wonder where she’s dug all this stuff out from, since she hardly struck me as being some kind of vixen behind closed doors. Still, I guess you never really know someone until you’ve seen their bedroom wear.

  I feel like I’m getting to know Sarah. I feel like I’m getting to like her too. A lot.

  She digs a bottle of nail varnish from her handbag. “Should match like a dream,” she says, and she’s right.

  I’m glad we’re doing this. Really glad.

  I’ve been excited for days, giggling over outfit choices with the girls at the office, checking out websites during quiet minutes. Sarah was over last night to help me confirm my orders for real, and was straight back round this evening for the great unboxing.

  “Any hot guys I should keep an eye out for?” she asks, and straight up I tell her about pink-shirted Jack and his oh-so-conventionally attractive cheekbones. She tips her head. “So, how come you aren’t out to hook up with Mr Cheekbones?”

  I flash her a smile. “Too clean cut for me. I prefer my guys a little more… rugged.”

  “Rugged?” She sips her drink. “Rugged like hairy and sweaty and built like a bear?”

  I shake my head. Smile to myself. “Partially. Maybe.” The wine has gone to my head, clearly. “I like them wild. Dark. Dangerous.” I glance at my phone, knowing full well he’s out there somewhere, watching me. Maybe.

  Maybe tonight. “Unpredictable,” I add.

  She nods, waves a finger. “I got it. You like the excitement. The chase.”