Give Yourself Away

by Barbara Elsborg

  Of course the bus wasn’t the one he needed, though it was going in the right direction. When that was no longer the case, he got off and half ran, half walked the mile back to the house.

  He was drenched in sweat and his eyes were sore, but he didn’t want to hang around long enough to take a shower. He took out his contact lenses, washed his face and put on his glasses.

  Packing didn’t take long. One large zipped suitcase for his clothes. An overnight bag for essentials. A couple of boxes and plastic bags for his bits and pieces. The little birds he’d made were still in bubble wrap. Maybe it was significant he’d never shown them to Mike. He regretted giving away his duvet and pillows to a homeless guy two months ago, but he’d thought he wouldn’t need them anymore. He’d been so excited at the idea of moving in with someone for the first time that he failed to factor in it might not last. Caleb took a good look around for anything else that belonged to him, and snagged a few items from the kitchen cupboards.

  It took three trips to carry everything to his car. He left the house keys behind and pulled the door closed. He’d paid Mike two months’ rent, contributed toward the bills, but his name wasn’t on any document. It wouldn’t take Mike long to find someone to take his place, though he didn’t need the money, just someone to cook, clean, share his bed and constantly tell him how wonderful he was.

  Oh shit. How blind am I? How could I mistake control for security? I should fucking know better.

  Chapter Two

  When Baxter came round, he thought he was in his bed and dreaming until the bad taste in his mouth and strange scent in his nose snapped him back to reality. He opened his eyes to see Tye sprawled next to him, taking in juddering breaths. The two of them lay on a thin mattress in a room with damp concrete walls and floor, a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling.

  There was no one else with them. A short flight of steps led up to a wooden door and their bikes were leaning against the wall opposite. Apart from a sink and toilet in the corner, and a folded blanket near their feet, there was nothing else in the room. It looked as though there’d once been a wall around the toilet but it was open now. High up on the wall on their left was a long, narrow window, a hint of daylight showing through flickering undergrowth. Too high to reach. Too narrow for him to fit through. But not Tye.

  Was Liam, or whatever the fuck his name was, watching? Baxter scanned the ceiling and flinched. Were those things cameras? Probably. Baxter shuddered at the idea of using the toilet. He reached out, shook Tye, and his friend jerked awake with a cry of alarm.

  “What?” Tye sat up and looked around. “Where are we?” His voice sounded croaky.

  “Don’t know.” Baxter’s voice was equally husky. He stood and immediately felt sick.

  When the room stopped spinning, he staggered up the stairs and yanked at the door. It wasn’t a surprise it didn’t budge. He banged on it. “Let us out. Fucking let us out.”

  The worst word he knew. His mother would— Oh God. Baxter wanted his mum, his dad.

  Tye appeared at his side, looking as if he expected Baxter to say some magic word and get them out of there. Tears trickled out of Tye’s beautiful green eyes and Baxter’s heart clenched. He pulled Tye back to the mattress. He could tell Tye wanted him to keep hold, but Baxter let him go.

  “What’s happening?” Tye asked.

  Baxter bent his head and whispered, “There are cameras. Careful what you say.”

  “He’s kidnapped us?” Tye pulled down the sleeve of his T-shirt and dragged it across his cheeks to wipe away his tears.

  Baxter bit his lip. He hated seeing Tye upset. And this wasn’t Tye’s fault. It was his.

  “What do you want?” Baxter called out. “Why have you brought us here?”

  There was no answer.

  “I told my mum where we were going,” Baxter lied.

  “No you didn’t.” Liam’s voice came from the other side of the door.

  Baxter pushed himself to his feet and stumbled up the stairs, Tye on his heels. He thumped the wood. “Let us out. We won’t tell anyone.”

  “Your second lie. Don’t let there be a third.”

  “I thought you liked us,” Tye blurted.

  Liam laughed. “Oh I do. You’re going to make me a lot of money.”

  Baxter’s stomach lurched.

  “How?” Tye whispered.

  Baxter wasn’t sure he wanted to tell him.

  * * *

  March spotted a couple of vacant chairs in the staff common room at Langbourne College and set off with his coffee. The sudden nudge in his back almost made him spill his drink.

  As he began to turn, Andy whispered, “No, don’t look.”

  March rolled his eyes as he continued to a chair by the window.

  Andy dropped in the seat next to him and muttered, “Ten o’clock. The blonde.”

  Oh God, not again. March glanced up to show he’d at least checked her out. “Not interested.”

  “What? Are you blind? She’s super smart. Speaks four languages. Already got her doctorate. Probably knows a few sexual positions we haven’t even thought of.”

  “You’re not allowed to think about things like that. You and Sonia are happily married with kids.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not.”

  March winced.

  “Shit, sorry,” Andy muttered. “But you have to get back on the horse. Not literally. God, that sounded bad. I didn’t mean horse. I just… Shut me up now, before I make matters worse.”

  “Try not talking.”

  Andy pressed his lips together. He managed three seconds of silence. “You’re invited for supper tonight. Sonia told me to tell you she won’t take no for an answer.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “No you’re not. You told me you were on standby, which means all you’re doing is sitting on your arse at home in case your pager goes off. You can sit on your arse in our house. If you have to leave on an emergency, that’s fine, but we want you to come.”

  March volunteered at the town’s lifeboat station. One week on, one week off.

  “We’re worried about you,” Andy said in a lower tone.

  Christ. Am I that obvious? “I’m fine. I really do have something I need to do tonight.” He’d think of something if Andy pushed.

  “We’ve already told the kids.” Andy had a hint of triumph in his voice. “They want you to read them a story in that growly voice you use. They’re going to be really disappointed when I tell them you were too busy washing your hair.”

  March groaned. “That’s not fair, playing the kid card.”

  “Since when did I play fair? Come on. It’s just a meal. What is there to lose? You get fine dining, scintillating conversation and fabulous cuddles that we ought to charge for.”

  “Your cuddles aren’t worth jack shit.”

  Andy put an affronted look on his face. “My wife would beg to disagree.”

  March stared at his friend. “Promise you’re not setting me up? I’m not going to arrive to find it slipped your mind that you’d also invited some single, desperate blonde? Because you remember what I told you I’d do if you tried that again?”

  Andy shuddered. “Just you, I swear. Seven o’clock? And you can read my horrors The Bears’ Picnic because we’re bloody sick of it and it’s all they want to hear every flipping night. It’s the main reason we want you to come.”

  “Fine. Seven.” March knew Andy would just pester him if he didn’t agree. “Late for a tutorial,” he muttered and left with his coffee.

  Andy had set him up on three blind dates in the last month. March hadn’t turned up for the first. He got a lot of earache for that but he’d thought Andy was tricking him. The second time was when Andy had invited him around for a meal and March had spent the evening fending off creeping hands and feet. The third time he’d endured an excr
uciatingly boring meal in a mediocre Chinese restaurant with a woman who cut up dead bodies up for a living. If she’d talked about that, March might have enjoyed himself, but she spent the entire time moaning about her ex-husband, whom she clearly would’ve liked to have had on her slab. She asked March back to her place, but he wasn’t interested and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

  Lying to myself? Yep, I am. He was quite an expert at it.

  March was dragged upstairs by the four-year-old twins the moment he arrived at Andy’s house. March had bought them two small packs of Playmobil toys. He gave the motorbike to Annie, and the woman with a baby and pram to Ryan. March thought they’d pull faces at him and swap, but they didn’t. Annie zoomed her figure around on his bike and Ryan put the baby in the pram, though he did keep tipping it out for Annie to run over. March had to read the book three times before the twins would let him stop.

  “Doggie kisses,” Annie demanded.

  “Really?” March hoped Andy didn’t come up and catch him.

  “Five for me and five for Ryan. Me first.”

  March moved back to the door. Annie’s bed was near the window, and her brother’s on the other side of the room.

  “Greyhound,” March said. He shot all over the room at high speed before dropping to his knees by Annie and giving her lightning-fast kisses on the cheeks, then zooming away again.

  March turned to Ryan. “Chihuahua.” March did a lot of yipping and pretended he couldn’t get up on Ryan’s bed because he was too small.

  He’d just finished his last performance as a circus dog, balancing a ball on his back, both kids in hysterics, when he sensed someone at the door.

  “This is supposed to be quiet time,” Sonia said.

  “Uncle March is a circus dog,” Ryan shouted.

  “And now he’s a disappearing dog.” March slipped out of the room.

  He left Sonia to calm the kids back down again. Playing with the twins made him feel happy and sad at the same time. He wanted children, though he wasn’t sure it would ever happen. Nor was he sure they’d fill the hole in his heart.

  Sonia’s food was delicious but it didn’t make up for the torture of the conversation.

  “How are things?” Sonia asked.

  “Fine.” March’s standard answer but he knew Sonia wouldn’t stop there.

  “Have you heard from Annabel?”

  “No.” Actually, he had, in a way. Another invoice had arrived in the mail that morning. This time from the company that was due to supply the fireworks, even though not a rocket had been fired. March had paid for everything without question. It was the least he could do.

  “There’s a new woman joined the badminton club,” Sonia said. “Her name’s Keely. She’s pretty. Long, dark hair. Long legs. Killer serve. She beat Andy.”

  “Only because I wasn’t feeling well after that dodgy curry,” Andy said. “Anyway, badminton’s a bit tame for Mr. Adrenaline Junkie. March has no interest in anything that doesn’t involve risking death. He only wants to dive off cliffs, throw himself out of a plane or ski down triple-black-diamond slopes—backwards.”

  March gave an uncomfortable laugh.

  “Keely was chatting to me about trying kitesurfing.” Sonia gave March an expectant look and he ate faster. “Maybe you could give her a lesson.”

  “She’d be better going to one of the local outfits. They’re more geared up to help beginners.”

  “We’re worried about you,” Sonia said.

  March was saved by screams from upstairs. Both Sonia and Andy rushed off.

  If March had gone through with the wedding to Annabel, this could have been him, living the dream. Annabel wanted a big family and so did March, but he’d realized, though not in time, that he didn’t want one with her. The problem was he didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know how to make himself happy. It was as if he were swimming underwater, running out of air, with no idea which way to go.

  Sonia and Andy slunk back into the room.

  “Ryan fell out of bed and landed on his teddy bear,” Andy said. “He was worried he’d broken the bear’s arm. Sonia put a plaster on it. All’s well.”

  “I better be going.” March pushed to his feet. “Thanks for a great meal. I don’t know how you manage to work, look after two little kids and one big one, and produce food like that.”

  “She does have help,” Andy said.

  Sonia rolled her eyes. “You laid the table.”

  “That’s helping, isn’t it?”

  March laughed. Although he’d tried to get out of tonight, he enjoyed spending time with them, even if he envied their togetherness. It reminded him of what he didn’t have.

  At the door, Sonia put her arms around him. “Are you really okay? As in, over Annabel? No regrets?”

  “I should never have let it get that far,” March said.

  Andy clapped him on the back. “Six months is long enough to beat yourself up about it. You need to start living. God, these are the best years of your life. Not getting woken in the middle of the night because your daughter thinks a fish is going to eat her, not having to cope with a tantrum at the zoo because the meerkats won’t come out of their holes. You can go to bed when you like, get up when you like, watch what you like on TV, you can—”

  “In. Now. Clear the table. Fill the dishwasher,” Sonia said.

  “See what my life is like?”

  “You wouldn’t change a thing,” March said.

  “I just want it for you,” Andy said quietly.

  March headed down the path. He didn’t need Andy to look for it for him. If it was there, he’d find it himself.

  As March drove home, he slid back into inertia. He couldn’t look for something when he didn’t know what the hell he was looking for. Except he did know what he was looking for—sort of. But it was his own private nightmare.

  March put his pager on the bedside table and crawled into bed with his laptop. He’d intended to check his emails but instead he clicked on to a porn site. He never subscribed to any, or kept them in his favorites, or shut down the machine before wiping his history. He worried in the event of his sudden death and an investigation by the police, his mother would think— What the fuck did it matter if he was dead? He knew wiping his history didn’t erase anything forever but unless he was murdered, there would be no reason for the police to go dicking around with his hard drive. Paranoid much?

  A couple of minutes of watching a bored, unattractive man fucking a woman with huge tits, who appeared to have been to the Pinocchio school of acting, and March’s cock was still soft. He found a site showing threesomes and the guy-on-guy-on-woman action had him more interested. His dick perked up until the camera concentrated on the woman’s face. He gave in and went on to Men Going Down.

  Five clips later, he’d come all over his hand. To be honest, he could have come watching the first clip but had made himself wait in the hope of prolonging the pleasure. Maybe his orgasm was stronger for waiting, but when it faded, it was still replaced by disappointment.

  What the hell was he doing? How could he not know what he was? What he wanted? He laughed out loud. He did know what he wanted; it was just that what he wanted was impossible. That ache in his heart would be there forever, no matter what he did.

  March wondered if this uncharacteristic wavering was because he was trying to punish himself. If that was the case, he was doing a good job.

  Chapter Three

  Baxter and Tye huddled together on the mattress under the cover of the blanket. They’d been holding hands for a long while. The first time they’d ever done that and Tye wished they were doing it anywhere else but here.

  “No one’s going to find us,” Baxter whispered. “We don’t even know where we are.”

  “If he’d left our bikes by the beach, they might have thought we’d drowned.”

 
“Instead they’ll think we ran away.”

  Tye had a brief, happy vision of him and Baxter cycling away together, finding a place to live… Then it dissolved. Tye had plenty of reasons to run away from home but Baxter didn’t. “I might have, but your parents would never believe it.”

  Baxter squeezed his fingers.

  “We have to come up with a way to trick him,” Tye said. “That’s how I handle my dad. Let him think he’s won when he hasn’t. Liam can’t keep us in here forever. If we work together, we might be able to overpower him and escape.”

  “Maybe.”

  Tye knew they’d only get one chance at that. If they didn’t succeed, Liam would split them up and Tye didn’t want to be away from Baxter.

  “What about the window?” Tye suggested.

  Baxter squeezed his fingers again and Tye felt a surge of longing for him to be squeezing elsewhere. His face flooded with heat. Not the right time.

  “Too high,” Baxter said.

  “Not if we used the bikes. Propped them up like a ladder.”

  Baxter poked his head out from the blanket and, a moment later, came back underneath. “It might work, but we can’t both get out that way. I’d have to stand on the bike while you climb up my back.”

  Tye swallowed hard. “Or the other way around.”

  Baxter gave a quiet chuckle. “I’m too heavy for you and, anyway, that window is narrow. I wouldn’t fit through, but you would.”

  “I’m not leaving you here.” Tye meant it.

  “Yes you are. It’s a brilliant idea. I should have thought of using the bikes.”

  Tye basked in the praise, but he didn’t want to leave Baxter behind.

  “We’ll wait until after he brings the next meal,” Baxter said. “He’ll think we’re busy eating.”

  Tye let out a choked sob. “If I get out, I could look for a rope or wait for him to leave.”

  “No. The moment you get through that window, you run and you don’t stop until you find someone to help. You can describe Liam. His messy blond hair, his moustache, his brown eyes, that scar on his face. Tell the police everything you remember. Promise me.”