Closer by Morning

by Thom Collins

  He looked at the house again and noticed for the first time there was a light on in the upstairs window—the master bedroom. A place he knew so well. The curtains were closed but the light shone through.

  Motherfucker. Whoever this guy was—this Audi-driving twat—he was up there. In Matt’s bedroom. His Matt. In the bed where he used to sleep.

  “Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.” Jamie slammed his palm against the wheel.

  What the fuck could he do now?

  He couldn’t go in, that was for sure. Matt would never forgive him if he created that scene—jealous boyfriend interrupting his tryst with a new guy. But what? He couldn’t just drive away and do nothing either.

  He sat for a moment, gripping the wheel, his knuckles turning white.

  He would fight, that’s what. Nothing he’d ever wanted had come easily. He wouldn’t let Matt go without a struggle. But not tonight. He needed to calm down. Think rationally. He would win back Matt but not like this.

  First, he would find out who this bastard with the Audi was.

  Knowledge was power.

  He pulled closer to the car and saw the sticker in the back window. Richardson’s. A rental company based in Durham. He made a note of the registration plate and the company number. It was enough to go on. First thing tomorrow he would find out exactly who was in Matt’s bed.

  And once he did, God help the bastard.

  Chapter Ten

  “Do you have to go?” Matt wrapped an arm around Dale’s bare waist. Dale had just silenced the alarm on his phone. The bedroom was in darkness, not a suggestion of dawn came through the curtains.

  “Afraid so,” Dale answered. “I need to get home before heading to the studio.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Five. I have to be on set by seven today.”

  Matt groaned. Monday morning always came too soon. The night, peppered with frequent bouts of lovemaking and orgasms, had been too short. He moved his hand lower, fingers grazing the shaft of Dale’s hard cock. He cupped his balls and gave them a gentle squeeze, which he’d quickly discovered was one of Dale’s favorite things. “Can I persuade you to stay?”

  Dale’s cock throbbed. “All too easily. But it won’t do any good. I’d like nothing more than to stay in bed all day. Screw you in every conceivable way. I feel like we should make up for lost time. I want to be inside you all the time. And if I’m not, I want you inside me. But unfortunately, I have to work today. And so do you.” He rolled over, covering Matt, pressing down with his weight, with his dick. He kissed him in the dark. “See you tonight?”

  “Yes,” Matt said, planting hands on Dale’s bare buttocks and pulling him tight. “But it might be late. I’m on call. There’s at least one out of hours interview that I know about.”

  “I’ll wait. Even if I have to get up in the middle of the night to see you, I will.”

  They said goodbye on the drive with a long, lingering kiss. Dale drove home while Matt headed to boot camp. He figured as he was awake, he might as well put the time to good use. Despite the lack of sleep, he felt completely refreshed and invigorated.

  He smiled as he drove to the car park. This was crazy. In the very best way. That he should feel like this already. Only a week since he had met Dale at their first boot camp. But what a week. So much emotion, so much sex, so much happiness. It was dangerous, feeling all of this so soon, but it was magnificent too.

  Just go with it, his inner voice said. No pressure or expectation. Enjoy it all you can.

  Early March and there was still a hard white frost on the ground. Matt barely noticed the cold. He parked the car and joined the crowd gathering at the assembly point.

  Clint Dexter waited with his notebook and pencil. He added Matt’s name to his list. “Good morning. Are you on your own today?”

  There had been no word from Annabel, not even a text. “It looks that way.”

  Clint smiled. “Not everyone is cut out for this. But you—you’ve got what it takes. Inner strength. I’m glad to have you back.”

  Matt returned the smile. Best not tell him boot camp was well down the list of things he would like to be doing right now. Lying in a warm bed with a hot American between his open thighs—now that was much more preferable.

  ****

  Dale was in his trailer, partially dressed, when there was a knock on the door. Aaron Oxford entered. Dale hurriedly fastened his trousers and grabbed a shirt.

  “C’mon, Aaron, don’t you wait for an answer anymore?”

  The production assistant smirked. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Don’t be sensitive.”

  “Well, it’s something you won’t get to see again, so wait next time. Okay?” Getting involved with Aaron had been a mistake. He could hardly write it off as a location romance—there was no romance. They had infrequent, meaningless sex in his trailer. Nothing more than that. Now that he had Matt, someone he really did have feelings for, the dalliance with Aaron was something he would rather hadn’t happened. He couldn’t change what he’d already done, but he could draw a very clear line under it.

  Aaron shrugged. He didn’t seem too bothered. “You’re wanted in the production office.”

  “I’m due on the set at seven.”

  “Change of plan. They’ve called a crisis meeting. Johan Turner’s come up from London for it. There are a lot of unhappy faces in that room.”

  Damn. After a great weekend and night with Matt, he’d been optimistic for this new week. That it was a chance for a fresh start. The protestors at the gate were noticeably reduced this morning. Those who remained had a fatigued look about them, as if the fight had gone. He hoped that things would return to normal now.

  It was a premature hope.

  The meeting room was full when Dale arrived. He saw heads of departments, supervisors and all the main cast members. At the head of the table sat Johan Turner, creator of Blood Falls on Stone. Johan was a veteran of TV dramas and had won numerous awards for his writing over the last twenty years. Dale had met him only once before, at his final audition for the show. As one of the most sought-after writers on television, Johan had final approval on all casting.

  His talent as a writer could not be denied, but on a personal level, he was less impressive. Heavy set with suety features, his dyed hair was an unconvincing shade of mahogany and he wore oversized tortoiseshell glasses. He always wore a navy blazer with a customary polka dot handkerchief in the pocket. It was a considered, artificial look. Dale suspected the young acolytes and yes-men he was surrounded by had convinced him it was a quirky, individual image.

  Johan was a grandiose, ever-smiling figure, but the bonhomie never reached his eyes. He was a carefully constructed character, a façade to hide what lay behind it—a nasty old queen.

  Dead eyes watched Dale over the top of old-fashioned glasses as he entered and took a seat between Roxanne and Elton.

  Next to Johan, pen poised and watching with viciously tight eyes, sat Edward, his latest assistant. Never smiling, Edward had a helmet of chestnut hair and wore so much fake tan that, for a white, middle-class boy from Surrey, he could pass for Middle Eastern.

  “Welcome, welcome, everybody.” Johan’s southern Welsh accent boomed across the room. He smiled, raising open arms, looking very self-satisfied. “So lovely to see you all, however impromptu this meeting is. Really, really lovely.”

  Beside him, Dale felt Elton bristle. The director made no secret of his dislike of the writer. “Overly proud, untalented, fat shit,” he’d once spat when Roxanne had asked why they were deviating from Johan’s dialogue. “By all means, say the words as written, darling. Dig down deep and drag up every ounce of acting talent you possess. Do all that and more but I can promise you something—you will look and sound fucking ridiculous. Because that’s what this script is—fucking ridiculous. It’s up to us, all of us, to pull it apart and m
ake something that people will actually want to watch.”

  “Well, you all had quite a time of it last week, didn’t you?” Johan beamed as though they had just come back from a summer break. “Quite a time, yes. And very, very sad. But I’m here to do something about it.”

  “Our fucking savior,” Elton muttered, none too quietly.

  Dale struggled to maintain a poker face. Stale alcohol fumes were coming off the director in waves. The pong of Roxanne’s cloying perfume failed to mask them.

  “So,” Johan continued, undeterred. “Nicola, Russell, dears, why don’t you tell the lovely people what we plan to do?”

  Nicola Donahue and Russell Jones, producers of Blood Falls on Stone, looked as if they hadn’t slept all weekend. Both were in their early forties, with a wealth of experience between them. They showed none of the verve or enthusiasm that had been so evident at the start of filming. Dale had faith in them. He trusted them and enjoyed working for them. If anyone could sort this situation out, he’d put money on this pair.

  “Thank you, Johan.” Nicola took the lead. A petite, quietly spoken woman, her mannered, businesslike approach was the polar opposite of the writer’s oily flamboyance. “Some of you may already be aware of this, but what was predominantly a local issue last week was picked up in several of the national papers over the weekend. To say we, collectively, have been portrayed in a negative light would be a gross understatement.”

  Dale had been so busy over the weekend that he didn’t think to check what was happening in the press. Only now did he remember the newspaper Jack had spied in the coffee shop. Shit. Why didn’t he check later what that story was about?

  “How bad was it?” he asked.

  “Most of the papers went with the usual stuff, reporting on the similarities between what we’re filming and the recent murders,” Nicola said, sounding quiet, calm. “But the Sunday Sun obtained an interview with one of the relatives. The sister of the first victim.”

  “She doesn’t even live in this country,” Johan said, with a sugary smile. “She’s in Portugal of all places, but the dear lady had plenty to say about our show.”

  “Yes,” Nicola said firmly. “That may be so, but the family are grieving and this kind of exposure is very damaging for us.”

  “She has plenty to say about my scripts,” Johan continued undeterred. “Quite how the paper obtained a copy in the first place, I don’t know, but they’ve blown the whole thing. I’m going to have to rewrite the entire final episode.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Elton spoke up. “I’ve already made changes to the second half of the series. What leaked is from the original script. It’s been much improved since then. What we’re going to film bears no resemblance to what the papers are talking about.”

  Dale looked toward the writer. The smile had finally faltered. Johan looked just as sour and venomous as his pissy assistant, Edward.

  “You have no authority to change my scripts,” Johan said. The eyes behind the glasses had narrowed to reptilian slits.

  “If directors didn’t rewrite your scripts, no one would ever watch.” Elton grinned. Like a shark sensing blood in the water, he moved in for the kill. Arguing was his favorite pastime.

  “That’s a conversation to be had later,” Nicola said, brusquely. “In private. Right now you all need to be aware of what we’re doing to address the immediate situation.”

  Roxanne thumped the table. “You should have done something last week. I told you all but you allowed the situation to escalate.”

  “I have to agree,” Dale spoke up. “A few well-chosen words of support and sympathy would have gone a long way to defuse the community anger. The family might not have gone to the papers if they thought we were listening.”

  Johan’s smile was back in place. “Dale, Roxy darling. I get what you’re saying, I really do, but we can’t give in to mob pressure. They want to change my scripts entirely. As if they know the first thing about making fantastic television.”

  “The important thing is that we’re doing something now,” Nicola said, taking control of the room. She turned to her co-producer. “Russell.”

  Russell Jones was a nondescript man of forty-two. Like Nicola, his quiet, unassuming manner belied a strong and efficient character. He needed to be, running an efficient production while managing the inflated egos of people like Elton and Johan.

  “We’ve put out a detailed and forthright statement this morning,” Russell said. “It should go some way to appeasing the protestors and the press. But that alone is not enough. Later this morning, Johan, Nicola and myself will meet some of the protestors and family members at the hotel. We will do everything in our power to assure them of our good intentions.”

  “I should be there,” Roxanne said quickly. “I am the star after all.”

  “No,” Russell said firmly. “The shoot is already way behind schedule. You’re needed on the set today. All day.”

  “But—”

  “Hear him out, Roxy,” Johan said. “You will be involved. Just listen.”

  “Tonight,” Russell picked up, “at the hotel, we’re going to hold a reception. Every person in this room is required to attend. We will be welcoming the journalist Keeley Rank. Keeley is joining the production for the next few days.”

  A unified groan went round the table.

  “Who’s the hell is Keeley Rank?” Dale asked.

  “A total fucking bitch,” Roxanne fumed. “Russell, Nicola, c’mon. What are you thinking? Letting that old cow onto the set.”

  “Damage limitation. Public relations. Call it what you like, but Keeley will be joining us for the next week to write a behind the scenes feature for next weekend’s Sunday supplements.”

  “What she’ll do is a hatchet job,” Roxanne warned. “Take my word. That’s what she’s good at. When I did Sweet Bird on stage, the producers thought it would be a good idea to let her chronicle the rehearsal period. She crucified every one of us.”

  Johan raised his arms and voice. “You’re being overly sensitive, Roxy. I know Keeley. She’s an absolute sweetheart. I allowed her similar access to the set of Expose and she wrote a wonderful piece on us. Besides, she owes me a favor. Trust me, the only stories we’ll see in print about this show from now on will be wholly positive. I’ll make sure of that. It’s my promise to you all.”

  ****

  “Just how bad is this Keeley chick?” Dale asked as he walked back to the set with Roxanne. “I don’t like journalists. Never met one I could trust.”

  Roxanne’s high heels echoed along the corridor of the old school building.

  “Then you’re gonna hate this bitch. Johan might think they’re friends but she’d sell him out entirely if she thought he’d make a juicy story. She’s not coming to calm troubled waters. If there’s a way to aggravate the situation she’ll find it.”

  “Is this not just something personal between the two of you?” he asked hopefully.

  Roxanne looked at him sideways. There was a half smile on her glossy lips. “Go ahead then, give her the benefit of the doubt. I just hope you don’t have any secrets in your closet. Because if you do, and you can take this from me, Keeley Rank will find them. And she’ll expose them without a second thought.”

  ****

  Matt’s last client of the day was seeking a divorce after sixteen years of marriage. The only man Ellie Coatsworth had ever loved, her schoolyard sweetheart, was no longer the man she had married. Matt discreetly shifted a box of tissues across the desk and listened patiently as she told her story. It was a slight variation on one he’d heard a million times before.

  After one too many ‘late nights at the office’, her husband had come home rolling drunk. So drunk she’d had to undress him and put him into bed. As she had folded away his clothes, Ellie had found a mobile phone in the pocket of his trousers. Not his regular phone. A v
ery cheap pay-as-you-go handset.

  “He had the balls to accuse me of snooping on him,” she said.

  The phone was only used to exchange texts and calls with a single number. Dan Coatsworth had been having an affair with a woman at work for over two years. The affair alone was grounds for divorce but the deception ran deeper than that. There were gambling and credit card debts totaling sixty thousand and Ellie had caught her husband just as he was about to secure a second mortgage on their four-bedroom home.

  “His share of the house won’t even cover his cards,” she said. “I want him out. The bitch is welcome to him and all his stinking debt.”

  Matt admired her steel. The tissues were not touched. There were no tears from this lady. She knew exactly what she wanted. “I can start proceedings right away,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

  “The sooner, the better,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “I’ve wasted too many good years on that bastard. I want rid of him ASAP.”

  The office was closing down as Ellie Coatsworth departed. Matt made a few notes in her file and left it on his desk. He would set the divorce process in motion the following day. It was straightforward enough, as long as the husband’s lawyer didn’t push for anything more than he was entitled to, which wasn’t much of anything, given what he’d done.

  He checked the time. Six-twenty-five. He had to be at the police station at seven. So far no other calls had come in for that evening. If it stayed that way he should be home before nine. Enough time for Dale to come over. Matt couldn’t wait. He was happy just thinking about him. He’d been like that all day.

  Matt headed to the watercooler and checked his phone for messages. There were several texts from Conrad. Trivial stuff, telling him how his day was going and a reminder to ask Dale for help with the charity.

  A donation and/or a personal appearance would be great.

  Conrad was beginning to sound like a broken record. Nevertheless, Matt had promised to ask Dale for something and as yet he hadn’t.

  He would do it tonight, before they had sex. He couldn’t account for anything he did afterward. Dale literally fucked his brains out.