Page 62 of Corrupt

“Well, I realise now…” he said as if stepping around a crack in the floor. “Because of your… lines of questioning, and now I’m sober…that perhaps the reply you sent to my message last night wasn’t an invitation to invade your personal space. Unlike my reply to yours on Sunday was.”

I inhaled slowly. Held it. “Right.”

“Yeah.” He gave a short laugh that never made it past his throat. Nerves, not humour. “I’d had some rather upsetting news and dealt with it in the very healthy manner of two bottles of Rioja and a generous pour of Rare Cask. And in that delightful haze, I read your message as… positive. Warm. Something it clearly wasn’t.”

Cold settled in my chest. “I see.”

He nodded, eyes fixed on the canal as if it might rinse him clean. “I seem to keep making that mistake around you. So, please accept my apologies. Maybe it’s an east–west divide thing.”

“Maybe.”

Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe we were the same kind of coward when it came to grief. Looking for somewhere to put it. Someone solid to lean into. A body instead of silence.

“So, yeah.” He exhaled, shoulders dipping. “I came to the club thinking you’d be waiting for me. Which… obviously was insane. And when you weren’t, I drank more. Because that’s what one does when one’s an idiot.”

Jesus.

I’d done the same thing, hadn’t I? Different night. Same instinct. I’d gone to him after Levi’s vigil with the same half-formed need. Not for answers, not even for comfort. Just to not be alone with it.

He frowned, blinking back into the present. “Is it always that busy in there?”

“On a Friday, yeah.”

“Right. And they’re all…” He gestured vaguely, suggesting drink. Laughable really.

“That’s a quarter of what they’re on.” I held his gaze when I said it.

“Right. Of course.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Brilliant. A barrister who works in criminal defence forgets what drugs look like in the wild.”

My mouth twitched before I could stop it.

“Well, whatever it is you sell, it works. Gets them utterly delirious. I got accosted. Propositioned. And I think I might’ve been too drunk to hold myself upright.”

“Hm.”

“Somehow, I ended up on the dance floor. Things are…” He winced. “…vague after that.”

I looked back out over the canal. The oil-slick shimmer on the water. A moorhen cutting through it like it didn’t give a fuck what floated on the surface. My jaw tightened, worrying my teeth on the inside of my cheek.

I remembered too much.

I wasn’t going to give him details he didn’t need.

When I turned back, I kept my voice even. “What bad news?”

“Hm?”

“You said you’d had upsetting news.” I tilted my neck. “What was it?”

“Oh.” He knitted his brows. “My father. He… he has cancer. Lung cancer.”

My chest gave. Sharp and sudden. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Oddly, I’m more annoyed he didn’t tell me. Everyone else has known for months. And while I realise I haven’t exactly been son of the year recently, and have made a point of… rebelling within comfortable, well-funded boundaries, I still thought I might have heard about it.” He shrugged. “Perhaps in the Hale-Fitzroy press release.”

“You have a family newsletter?”

“No. I was being facetious.” He huffed again. “Though the WhatsApp group often reads as if it’s been professionally edited.”