Page 149 of In Too Deep

“I kept thinking that if I loved him hard enough, said the right thing or got him through one more week, he’d come back. But grief and guilt don’t work like that. I know none of it was actually about me, but being unwanted by the person you love still finds somewhere deep to live. It gets in places logic can’t reach.”

He pressed a balled fist to his mouth. He’d come here to explain why he kept pulling away from Jake. He hadn’t intended to give him all of this. Yet now that he’d started, the memories seemed determined to force their way out.

“The morning it happened, I’d been working on a major case. Came home after three. He hadn’t slept beside me in months by then, and the moment I crawled into bed, he got out and said he was going cycling. Wanted to do the Hampstead Heath loop.” Harrison laughed once, the sound small and broken in the quiet alley. “And even though it hurt that he got out when I’d just got in, I was relieved. Actually happy, because it meant he was finally leaving the house again. I remember thinking, thank God. He’s doing something. Maybe we’re finally turning a corner.”

Jake had gone completely still.

“So I slept. Maybe four hours. When I got up, I went downstairs and put the kettle on. Then I went into the garage because I wanted to see which bike he’d taken. Thought perhaps I could join him. Take my bike and catch him up.”

The garage door rose inside Harrison’s head before he could stop it. Grey morning light. The cold mug still in his hand. Chris’s bare feet hanging where no feet should’ve been.

“And there he was,” he said, his voice breaking at last. “Hanging from the rafters.”

“Oh my fucking God, Harry…”

Jake moved towards him, but Harrison couldn’t stop speaking. If he stopped now, he feared everything holding him upright would fail with it.

“And I was doing all right. Three years, and I was finally moving on. Truly moving on. I came here and met you and—God, fuck, I want you, Jake. I really fucking want you.” His breath hitched, painful and sharp. “I thought I could do this. Have something good instead of constantly thinking about him and why he did it and how he fucking left me here. Left me on my own when we promised forever.”

Jake’s hand closed around the back of his neck, firm and warm, but Harrison’s control had already begun to fracture.

“I hate him for that sometimes. I really fucking hate him. Then Nell called about reopening the case, saying there could’ve been internal corruption. That Chris might never have stood a chance, and I just—”

“Hey.” Jake caught Harrison’s face between both hands, forcing him to focus. “It’s all right. You don’t have to keep going. I’m here.”

For one awful second, Harrison remained rigid beneath his touch. Every instinct told him to step back, straighten his tie and force the grief into whatever locked compartment had contained it for the past three years.

Then something inside him gave way.

He grabbed fistfuls of Jake’s jacket and held on with enough force to make his hands ache. He dropped his forehead onto Jake’s shoulder as his breathing turned ragged and uneven, each failed attempt to control it making the next worse. And Jake held him without speaking, spreading one hand across Harrison’s back while the other remained at his neck, fingers pushing gently beneath the hair at his nape. The chill of the night enclosed them, along with the faint scent of leather, sweat and that appalling cherry vapour.

Harrison had forgotten what it felt like to be held through the worst of something. Not managed or watched. Not treated as though one wrong word might break him. Simply held.

Eventually, he lifted his head.

Jake looked back at him, his face stripped of anger and expectation. There was no pity in it. Only shock, sorrow and something so fiercely tender that Harrison couldn’t bear the weight of it.

So Harrison leaned in and kissed him.

And Jake answered by sliding his fingers into Harrison’s hair as Harrison flattened one hand over his chest, needing the solid beat beneath his palm. Jake was here. Warm, alive and wanting him back. The knowledge should’ve frightened him.

Instead, it pulled him closer.

He kissed Jake again, harder, brushing his tongue into his mouth and feeling Jake open for him with a quiet sound that went straight through him. Grief still sat exposed beneath his skin, but this wasn’t Chris. It wasn’t memory or guilt or an attempt to claw back something he’d lost.

This was Jake.

Infuriating, reckless, impossible Jake, who’d dragged Harrison back into wanting things he’d convinced himself he could live without. The man who made him angry because fear had rooted itself into every warning Harrison gave him. The man Harrison wanted so badly that even the possibility of losing him had begun to feel unbearable.

Jake kissed him as if he understood all of it. Not as though he could fix him, but as though none of the broken parts made him less worth holding.

Eventually, Harrison pulled back and rested their foreheads together. His breathing was still uneven, but for an entirely different reason now.

“I’m really sorry,” Jake whispered.

“You didn’t know.” Harrison closed his eyes and rubbed his thumbs along the sides of Jake’s neck beneath his hair. “I made sure you couldn’t.”

“I meant about the cherry vape flavour. It’s fucking awful.”