Page 113 of In Too Deep

Another small, broken sound came from the bathroom.

Teddy stood, as if Jake had handed him an escape route he’d been desperate for someone to offer. Then he disappeared upstairs. Donnie muttered something bitter beneath his breath, pacing once towards the television before stopping again. And maybe this really was just grief talking. Maybe losing Robyn had left permanent fractures in all of them. But there was still something about the sheer force of his dad’s reaction that sat wrong.

And Jake wasn’t leaving a thirteen-year-old boy alone in the middle of it.

So when Teddy came back downstairs with an overstuffed sports bag slung over one shoulder, Jake simply nodded him over to the door. Donnie sank back into the armchair, all the fight drained out of him as quickly as it had arrived. The television still muttered away in the background, news moving onto something about how to care for hedgehogs and spring flowers in bloom.

Jake paused beside the chair and pressed a quick kiss to the top of his dad’s head. No hard feelings. Or at least not ones either of them knew how to untangle tonight. Then he crossed the hallway and knocked lightly on the downstairs loo where his mother had locked herself in.

“Mum?” He leaned his forehead on the frame. “Call me if you need owt.”

All he got back was another muffled sniff.

“Right. Night then.” He then wrapped an arm around Teddy’s shoulders and steered him outside before the house could swallow either of them whole again.

The evening air had cooled, damp creeping back through the streets now the heat of the day had finally broken. Jake unlocked the van and climbed in beside Teddy.

He then leaned across and ruffled his hair. “They’re just upset.”

“I know.” Teddy shoved him away with little force.

Jake started the engine and pulled out onto the road, Hartswick sliding past beyond the windscreen in washes of amber streetlight and shuttered shop fronts.

“It’s tough on them,” Jake offered because he had nothing else to give.

Teddy chewed his thumbnail as he stared out the window. “I know.”

Jake tightened his grip on the wheel. “The constant not knowing… every time hope gets ripped away again. That messes with them.”

“I know.”

“And Dad…Gramps, he don’t mean half the shite he says. He’s just…” Jake exhaled through his nose. “Angry.”

Teddy finally looked at him then, eyes tired and older than thirteen had any right to be. “I know.”

Jake snorted. “Oh, aye? Know-it-all, are ya?”

“Know more than you do.”

That drew a rough laugh out of Jake before he could stop it. Then he sighed. This was all really fucking shit. So he drove home, parking outside the off license by his bedsit.

Teddy glanced over at him. “You expecting your fella?”

Jake snorted, reaching for the door handle. “Not bloody likely.”

They climbed out and headed up the metal stairs.

The bedsit still held traces of Harrison the second Jake stepped inside. The faint smell of his aftershave lingering beneath dust and washing powder, with the bed unusually neatly made instead of tangled in chaos. Harrison had done that before leaving.

He tossed the van keys onto the kitchen counter and sighed.

“Why not?” Teddy dumped his bag into the corner amongst Jake’s usual clutter of boots, tool belts and half-folded washing.

Jake frowned. “Why not what?”

“Why ain’t it likely?”

Oh.