Page 148 of In Too Deep

Jake inhaled sharply and stared at him, all the fight draining from his expression. Harrison felt just as exposed as he looked. There it was, the truth he’d spent weeks disguising as professional concern and sensible restraint.

A small, incredulous smile pulled at Jake’s mouth. “You are?”

Harrison released a tired breath. “It’s deeply inconvenient.”

Jake laughed softly, and something inside Harrison eased at the sound. Then Jake reached for his hand, fingers warm and rough against his skin, before they found his gold wedding band.

“But you’re still tangled up with him.”

Pain struck so quickly Harrison had no chance to hide it. He pulled in a breath, but it lodged high in his chest as Jake twisted the ring around on his finger.

“I’m trying here, Harry.” Jake let his hand go. “Really fucking trying not to care about how you look at me as if wanting me feels wrong.”

Harrison should deny it. Tell him that wanting him had never been the part that felt wrong. The words refused to come.

Jake looked away down the alley. “And I don’t know how long I can keep comparing myself to him. Wondering if you’ll ever want me the way you wanted him.”

“Jake—”

“I don’t even fucking know him.” Jake scrubbed a hand through his curls. “That’s the worst part. He’s there between us all the time, but you never talk about him, so I make shit up in my head. What he was like. What you were like together. How fucking perfect he must’ve been for you to still—”

“He killed himself.”

Silence.

Jake blinked.

And Harrison’s breathing altered. The alley seemed to narrow around him, the air turning dense despite the warm night. He’d avoided this conversation for so long that he no longer knew how to enter it without ripping everything open. But the words were out. Flat, blunt and irreversible.

“Hanged himself in our garage.” Harrison dropped his gaze to the concrete as the aftermath hit. Fear first, followed by exposure and the immediate urge to take it back. But there was no taking it back, and when he forced himself to look up, the shock on Jake’s face had erased every trace of anger. “I found him.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Harry…”

Harrison twisted the wedding ring around his finger. He hadn’t realised he was doing it until the metal caught painfully against his knuckle, but he couldn’t make himself stop.

“How…? What…?” Jake shook his head as though none of the questions were the right one. “Why?”

“An operation went wrong.” Harrison looked at the wall opposite, fixing on a broken line of mortar rather than Jake’s face. “Chris was firearms. A sergeant.”

Jake said nothing. For once, he didn’t fill the silence or rush to drag more from him. He simply waited.

“There was an ongoing organised-crime investigation. Child trafficking. Sexual exploitation. A network involving some high-profile people. Everything was moving fast. The target was believed to be armed and the authorisation came down from above. The team went in, and Chris pulled the trigger on the wrong man.” Harrison heard his own voice flatten beneath the weight of words repeated too many times inside his head. “A teacher. Father of two. No criminal record. No connection to the investigation. Nothing.”

He could still picture Chris sitting at their kitchen table with the man’s photograph open on his laptop. Reading the same articles until Harrison had wanted to tear the computer from his hands.

“The intelligence was bad. Somewhere up the chain, someone got it wrong. Someone misread something or pushed information that should never have been trusted. None of that mattered by then. The investigations started, the headlines followed and everyone wanted someone to blame. Chris wasn’t interested in mistakes made three offices above him. He wasn’t interested in procedures, oversight panels or the chain of command. He saw that man dying by his bullet every time he closed his eyes.”

Harrison dragged in a breath that did nothing to steady him. “He knew the names of the man’s children. What subjects he taught. Where he lived. He read every article, every statement, every tribute. No matter how many people told him it wasn’t his fault, he never believed them.”

Jake’s expression tightened, but he remained quiet.

“There were inquiries. IOPC. Internal investigations. Media outside the house some mornings. He was suspended while they investigated possible misconduct, but he never believed they were looking at the system. He thought they were investigating him.”

The off-licence door opened and closed behind them. Bottles clanged inside, followed by a burst of laughter belonging to a different world. Harrison rubbed his forehead, and kept going.

“He stopped sleeping properly first. Then he stopped eating. Lost nearly two stone in a few months. Wouldn’t touch me by the end. Barely spoke some days.” Harrison searched for a way to describe the man Chris had been before all of that. “He used to be solid. Built like a bloody tank. All muscle and testosterone. Loud. Funny. The sort of man who walked into a room and somehow became the centre of it without even trying.” A fond smile tugged at his mouth, painful in its familiarity. “And, yeah, we were physical. Always had been from day one. Years together and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Then suddenly he wouldn’t even let me hold him. It was as if someone had turned his volume down and I was watching him disappear right in front of me.”

Jake’s eyes shone beneath the weak light, but Harrison couldn’t look at him for long.