Dirty Games

by Barbara Elsborg

  What was going through this guy’s head?

  I am such a shit. Linton had just had some of the best sex in his life and guilt was spoiling everything. He wasn’t sure he could have fucked Thorne face to face. Linton had to close his eyes before he blurted out the truth. He needed to speak to Owen and Max first, and end this while there was still a chance it wouldn’t blow up in his face.

  Who am I fucking trying to fool?

  Except, if he lay here with his eyes closed and his breathing even, he’d fool Thorne into thinking he was asleep and Linton wouldn’t need to talk. He’d almost betrayed himself with his thoughts about a house for Thorne. He wasn’t sure or not whether he wished Thorne had called him out on it. The longer he’d let this go on, the worse he’d made it.

  Eventually sleep did come and Linton went deep under until something woke him. As he jerked awake, he woke Thorne too.

  “What?” Thorne groaned.

  “I heard something.”

  Thorne sat up and reached for the zip.

  “Don’t pull that down. What if it’s a bear?”

  Thorne laughed but there was a sudden roll of thunder and Linton’s heart pounded. Rain slammed onto the tent.

  “Shit. It’s chucking it down with rain, our clothes are outside and there’s water coming in.” Linton looked down. “And the mattress is deflating.”

  “And the good news?”

  “We haven’t been struck by lightning. I once was. It’s not fun.”

  “Christ, Linton.” Thorne switched on the hanging light and they looked around. Water streamed in. “Why the hell is the tent leaking?”

  “There must be a hole.”

  There was another bright flash followed by a loud rumble of thunder.

  “We’ll make a run for the car,” Thorne said. “Leave everything.”

  “Our clothes?”

  “Grab those but forget the rest.”

  Linton picked up the car keys and handed them to Thorne. “You go to the car with my bag.”

  “I could help pick up the clothes.”

  “I’ll get them. Wait until the next flash has gone.”

  Thorne unzipped the tent, pressed the remote to open the vehicle, scooped up Linton’s bag and as the light faded in the sky, he made a run for it. Linton lifted the lantern down from the roof of the tent and followed him. He picked up their shoes, jeans, shorts and shirts and stuffed them in the boot. As he leapt into the passenger seat, there was another bright flash overhead and he slammed the door.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Linton snapped. “Keep your hands on your lap.” He’d clenched his fists so Thorne couldn’t see his fingers shaking.

  “Aren’t we safe in here? Rubber tyres?”

  “In strong electrical storms rubber tyres are better conductors than insulators. The reason we should be safe in the car is because lighting will travel around the surface and then go to ground. But better not to touch anything metal inside. Nor your phone.”

  “Oh shit. My phone was in my jeans.”

  “It might be okay. Not as if it was submerged in water.”

  “Where the hell did this come from? The forecast was good. And what the hell was that about being hit by lightning?”

  Linton hated remembering that day but every time there was a storm, the memories surged back. “I was in a field, in the middle of open ground but luckily I was crouched down.” Only because he’d not been able to find the strength to get up. “If I’d been hit by a direct strike it might have killed me but I just ended up with something called Lichtenberg figures. An intricate, red fern-like pattern appeared all the way down my left arm. Called a lightning tree. Looked kind of cool until I was told it was second degree burns caused by capillaries bursting.”

  That explanation was punctuated by another bright flash of lightning. Linton just about managed not to jump. He’d had panic attacks for a few years after that day whenever there was a thunderstorm but not so much recently.

  “Shit. Were you okay? Your arm’s not marked now.”

  “It was sore and blistered but the marks disappeared over a few weeks.” He looked back onto the rear seats, empty but for his messenger bag. “I was hoping for something to dry ourselves with. There isn’t even anything in the boot. All the blankets are out there soaking wet.”

  “When I turn the engine on we’ll dry out.”

  “After the storm’s passed over I’ll get our shorts. You want your shoes?”

  “I can drive without them but we’d better be wearing something in case the police stop us.”

  When there was no rumbling from the sky, no sudden surges of light, Linton retrieved their underwear, and Thorne’s phone. They both groaned as they struggled into cold, wet shorts.

  “The upside is the Discovery has heated seats,” Thorne said as he turned on the engine.

  “And they work fast.” Linton hummed in delight.

  “I don’t remember you moaning with that amount of pleasure earlier.”

  Linton laughed.

  Thorne messed around with his phone and tsked. “Shit. I shouldn’t have looked at that. A message from my agent telling me I need to be in Ireland all week instead of a few days.” He tossed the phone on the back seat and headed up the field to the road. “I wish you’d come with me.”

  Linton’s heart twisted in his chest. “I can’t. I have to work.”

  “I won’t be back until Friday. How am I supposed to manage without you for that length of time?”

  Oh God.

  Thorne touched Linton’s knee. “I need something to look forward to. Will you come to my place on Friday night? Stay for the party. Stay the weekend.”

  “Okay.” What else could he say?

  “Will you be good while I’ve gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me to be good?”

  “When did you start doing as I told you?”

  Thorne laughed. “Talk to me. Keep me awake. Tell me something interesting about yourself.”

  I’m a liar. I’m a deceiver. I’m a coward.

  “Such as?”

  “Do you run?”

  “Depends who’s chasing me.”

  Thorne chuckled.

  “Yeah, I like running,” Linton said.

  “Where do you run?”

  “Thames Path mostly. What about you? You like running?”

  “Yep. I have a circuit. Bring your gear and we can run on Saturday morning.”

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  “Ride a bike?” Thorne asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t have one.”

  “You could borrow River’s.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to fuck me,” Thorne suddenly said.

  “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to.”

  “Glad we’ve settled that.” Thorne grinned and Linton tried to grin back but he felt sick with guilt.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thorne hoped Linton would invite him inside when he pulled up outside his building in Wapping but he’d been almost certain it wasn’t going to happen. Linton had been withdrawing from him since they’d set off from the field and he didn’t know why. Well, he guessed it had something to do with this thing Linton wanted to tell him, but there had been plenty of opportunity and Linton hadn’t spoken out. Thorne’s imagination was still running wild. Had an ex come back on the scene? Was Linton dying?

  Linton didn’t offer a kiss goodbye and Thorne didn’t either. He sat in the vehicle waiting for Linton to retrieve his bag and wet clothes from the back and was shocked when Linton opened the driver’s door, leaned in and kissed him. A sweet, gentle kiss that made Thorne’s toes curl.

  “Apart from the near drowning, and your failure to provide a massaging shower, I had a really good time,” Linton said. “Thank you. I hope everything goes well for you…next week.”

  “You sound like you’re not intending to see me again.” His heart thumped hard. “Don’t you wa
nt to?”

  “There’s nothing I want more.”

  Then what’s the fucking problem? “I’ll text you details of where I’m staying in Ireland. I want you to come.”

  Thorne slid his hand to the back of Linton’s neck and tugged him in for another kiss. When Linton finally pulled back, his eyes looked haunted.

  “How did we get here so fast?” Thorne whispered.

  “You broke the speed limit.”

  They both knew that wasn’t what Thorne meant.

  Linton slipped away and hurried up the steps of his building. Thorne watched until he’d disappeared inside. Linton didn’t look back.

  By the time he reached Holland Park, it was three thirty in the morning. Luckily there was a place to park not far from the house. Thorne dumped his wet clothes in the laundry room, collapsed into bed and fell into a troubled sleep.

  Linton threw his clothes in the washing machine, and took a shower. He thought about going to bed but knew he wouldn’t sleep. Instead, he dressed and went online to see if there had been any interest in the items he’d listed on eBay. He swallowed hard. Everything had sold which was great, though it was hard not to be sad about it. He started the process of contacting the buyers to arrange collection.

  Anything other than think about Thorne.

  He packed most of his clothes into two suitcases. His books, a few CDs, DVDs and personal items that he wanted to keep went into several small boxes and bags ready to take to wherever he ended up. After a moment’s thought, he cut up his credit card. Better that he wasn’t tempted. When he looked at what his life had come down to, a small pile of possessions in the corner of his living room that wasn’t going to be his much longer, he bit down on the inside of his cheeks. How fast everything had come undone since he’d arrived back from the States.

  At nine he’d go and see Owen. Until then he’d occupy his time drawing up plans for the house Thorne had liked the best. Even caught up in gnawing depression, Linton still nursed flickers of hope that he’d find some way to work this out, that Thorne would believe he’d never intended to humiliate him in the way Max wanted. Thorne knew Linton now. He’d surely not believe Max over him.

  But the guy had already told him he had a trust issue. People he’d thought were friends had let him down. Oh fuck. It was tempting to just walk away and say nothing. Or text him and end it. Linton was moving out of his apartment, he wasn’t going to work for Max. Thorne wouldn’t be able to find him even if he tried. But as much of a coward as Linton had been in keeping quiet for so long, to walk away and say nothing would be even more cowardly.

  He had to be man enough to tell Thorne face to face. He’d do it on Friday. No more fucking around. Linton wouldn’t let Thorne hug him and kiss him because he knew how that would end up. Linton would sit him down on the other side of the room, ask him to listen to everything he had to say before he spoke, and plead with Thorne to understand and forgive him.

  Linton wasn’t allowed in to see Owen until ten. He paced until he was finally shown to a private room. Owen lay in bed looking battered and pale.

  “What are you doing here?” Owen croaked.

  Linton dropped in the chair next to the bed. “Why did you do it?”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. It was an accident.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” But had it been an accident?

  Owen chewed his lip.

  “Thorne told me you cheated on him with Nate.”

  Owen sagged against his pillow. “Nate said Thorne knew. He must have seen us.”

  “Why the hell would you think he’d want you back if you cheated on him?” Linton kept his voice steely calm when he wanted to shout at Owen for being such a selfish wanker. “Why push me into getting revenge when he’d done nothing wrong?”

  “He was horrible to me in front of everyone.” Owen’s whiny voice grated.

  Linton’s jaw twitched. “You don’t think that was something you deserved? Can you imagine how you’d have felt if the situation had been reversed? If you’d walked in on Thorne fucking some guy or a woman? You hurt him, Owen.”

  Tears trickled down Owen’s cheeks. “He hurt me.”

  “You’re a grown man not a kid. This isn’t a playground.” Light dawned. “Does Max know?”

  “No. Don’t tell him. Please. He was so angry after Thorne made his speech and everything snowballed. I know you think Max is using you to get his own back after Thorne sacked him as his architect, and that’s true but it isn’t only because of that. I know it isn’t. Max was so kind to me that day. It felt really good to have someone from my family on my side standing up for me, supporting me.”

  And Linton understood this all went back a long way, back to when he and Owen were fifteen year olds.

  “I had no idea Thorne had seen me and Nate,” Owen whispered.

  “Couldn’t you have guessed, for fuck’s sake? You two are getting on fine and then suddenly you’re not, and the one thing that happened is that you cheated?”

  “I was sure he didn’t know. He was abroad. It was just that one time. I had no idea he’d seen us.”

  “In what world was any of this right? I get that at the time it was hard to speak out, but you could have told Max the truth later. Thorne doesn’t deserve to be hurt.”

  Owen rubbed his cheek and shifted his gaze from Linton. “I know. But after, when Max came up with a way to…well, it was a way to hurt you too.”

  “Me?” Linton’s heart sank.

  “I’ve always been angry with you.”

  “Half of your life? Fifteen fucking years?”

  Owen clenched his fists on top of the green bedcover. “It’s all right for you. You got away. They hurt me. They…damaged me.”

  Linton was dragged straight back to that day. The dam burst, events unrolled in his head and his heartbeat raced. Losing their way on the school trip, meeting those guys…

  “If you’d got help sooner, I might have had a chance,” Owen sobbed. “You ran. You left me with them.”

  “I didn’t get away,” Linton whispered under his breath.

  “We promised each other we’d stay together, help each other and I fell and you kept running. You got away and I didn’t. They took me back to the car, tied me up and locked me in the boot. They drove me to a farmhouse and they…and they…did stuff that… Oh shit.” Owen was almost hyperventilating.

  “I didn’t get away.”

  Linton didn’t think Owen was listening, but Owen froze and stared at him without blinking.

  “I know what we agreed,” Linton said, “that we’d stick together. But you fell and I thought if I don’t run, they’ll catch both of us. If I do run, there’s a chance I’ll get away and be able to get help. I hadn’t planned what to do if you fell. I hadn’t thought about that, but when it happened, in that split second I chose to keep going. I was a runner. You weren’t. So I ran.”

  It had been a hot day and a stormy evening had followed. Just like yesterday.

  “I sprinted as fast as I could. I threw myself over a gate and bolted across a field but two of them caught me. They must have driven to the other side. I ran straight into them. They took it in turns to fuck me in the pouring rain. It started to thunder and they walked a little way away, left me lying on the ground, arguing about whether to take me back, whether I was worth the trouble.”

  Owen’s breathing settled to trembling gasps.

  “The sky lit up in a brilliant flash. I was on my knees with my arse in the air, my arms over my head wishing I was dead, and I was hit by lightning.”

  “Christ.”

  “If I’d believed in God I might have thought he was giving me his version of a slap on the backside, telling me not to be such a jerk. Or maybe it was his way of saving me from whatever else those guys had planned because when I came round, they’d gone. But then why didn’t God make the lightning hit them and not me?

  “It was a while before I could get to my feet. Eventually I found a farm. I was wet through, plast
ered in mud from head to toe with a weird branching shape on my arm from where the lightning had struck. I told the farmer and his wife some of what had happened, that we were on a geography field trip and had got lost and been taken, and they called the police.

  “I sat on a chair in their kitchen, wrapped in a blanket, shivering.” He remembered dripping puddles of muddy water all over the floor. “The farmer’s wife asked if I wanted a hot bath. I said yes. I knew I’d be washing evidence away and I thought—no one has to know what those guys did. So I bathed, and didn’t tell the police I’d been raped. I didn’t want to be feel a victim for the rest of my life.”

  “Nor did I,” Owen wailed.

  “But you let yourself stay one. You act like one.”

  “You just hid from the truth.”

  “Maybe. But I still managed to put it behind me. You never have.”

  “You had that option. I didn’t. Everyone knew what had happened to me.”

  Linton nodded. “I know. I said then and I’m saying now that I’m sorry I ran when I’d said I wouldn’t. I’m sorry that what I was able to tell the police didn’t help them find you sooner. But what happened wasn’t my fault. It was the fault of the guys who took us. Even so, I’ve always felt guilty and when it suited you, you played on that guilt. At school and beyond. I even wondered if you’d chosen to go to the same university as me to continue the guilt trip. God, you even started flinging more emails at me when you and Thorne started going out. You were always trying to impress me, do better than me. And now you want me to hurt Thorne. You’re playing a long game and I didn’t realise I was always intended to be the loser.”

  Owen looked contrite but said nothing.

  “I would never have done it,” Linton said. “I’d never have stood up at that event and pulled him to pieces in the way you and Max wanted. If you have an issue with Thorne, you need to handle it yourself.”

  “So why did you agree to do it?”

  “Because I needed the money to pay for Dirk’s rehab. Max’s offer came at the perfect time. I agreed because I thought you might see sense before the five weeks were up. I agreed because I do feel a debt to you because I left you after promising I wouldn’t. Coupled with Max making all sort of threats about my job, my future as an architect and about Dirk’s wellbeing if I didn’t go through with it. Max told me he could get drugs to him in rehab. I dread anything happening to Dirk. But this ends now. No more. I’ve already hurt Thorne by keeping this from him. I won’t hurt him further.”