Heated Beat 01 - My Mate Jack (MM) (10 page)

“You saw my dad? Where? Back home? What were you doing there?”

“What do you think?” Jack lit a cigarette. “My mum was threatening to get on a plane. Figured I needed to show my face and head her off.”

“What about your dad? I mean, wasn’t that weird after what happened at Christmas?”

Jack blew out a lungful of smoke. “He wasn’t there. He’s moved in with his secretary.”

Fuck. Will didn’t know what to say. “Is your mum okay? What about George and Laurie?”

“That’s a lot of questions for someone who’s been blanking me for six months.” Jack lay back on the sun-scorched grass and closed his eyes. “George is like me. Doesn’t care. Laurie’s upset, though. She doesn’t want to sleep over at Dad’s new place. She’s too young to realize
he
probably won’t want that either.”

Jack’s tone was bleak. Will reached out, his hand hovering over Jack’s bare arm, itching to comfort his best friend, but after a protracted pause, he let his hand drop. Being with Jack felt good, almost normal, but touching him? Nah, Will wasn’t ready for that. “When did your dad leave?”

“A few weeks ago, but it’s been on the cards for a while. I think he was going to go at Christmas, but I fucked up his plans.”

It was the first time either of them had alluded to
that
photo since their terse e-mail exchange back in January. Will considered letting it go, ignoring the awkward silence and pretending it had never happened at all, but the months of tension hung over him like a cloud, and in that moment, he’d had enough.

Will sat up. The sudden movement roused Jack. He rolled over and stubbed out his smoke. But he said nothing. Still. After all this time.

“Who was he?”

“Who?”

“The bloke in the photo.”

Jack shook his head. “Fuck, no. You don’t get to do that. Don’t ignore me for months and then play it like you give a shit.”

Will blinked. “Give a shit? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think? That you can just—” Jack shoved a hand into his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. He opened them again with a heavy sigh. “Just forget about it, okay? I fucked up and dropped some pills. I was rushing my nuts off and thinking of the best kiss I’d ever had. I would’ve got off with anyone that night just to find it.”

Will took a breath, but he was cut off by someone calling Jack’s name. A big, bearded bloke who turned out to be Ray, Jack’s manager. Jack was due on stage in a few hours and he had shit to do.

Jack came and went for a while after that, busy with setup and stage prep. Will watched him work, oddly fascinated. How had he missed Jack growing up and becoming a man who made decisions about lighting and speaker feeds? What happened to the boy who cared for nothing but beats? Will found himself mourning the precocious teenager who’d rocked all-night raves armed with just a vague set list and a bucketload of balls.

Jack went on stage at midnight to a capacity crowd. He’d tried to convince Will to sit in the booth, but Will had shaken his head and slipped away into the arena, eager to see Jack the way everyone else did: from the ground. He found a space in the center of the crazy crowd, and like he’d been doing all damn day, he watched. From time to time, it crossed his mind that he looked pretty strange, standing stock-still in the middle of a buzzing festival crowd, gaze fixed on the dude half-hidden by the towering stacks of sound equipment around him, but he didn’t much care. Instead he compared the show to the one he’d seen in Ibiza and decided Jack looked much happier playing in the open air, away from the stifling claustrophobia of the Ibizan club. Jack wasn’t much of a showman, preferring to let the music do the talking. In Ibiza he hadn’t so much as glanced at the crowd, but it felt different here.
Jack
felt different. His stance, concentrated frown and… wait.
Why’s he grinning like an idiot
? Though Will could hardly see Jack, he’d recognize his smile from the ends of the earth. Jack was laughing, and when he played his last track, Will knew why.

Cheeky bastard….

Will burst out laughing and felt an instant pull to be by Jack’s side. The kind of pull that overrode the lingering disquiet between them. He pushed his way through the crowd and back to the VIP barrier. It took a while. He flashed his pass and reached the stage exit as Jack was jumping down the steps, wired and flushed, eyes bright, hair sticking up in every direction.

Jack jumped on Will and lifted him from the ground. “Did you hear it? Did you hear it?”

“Hear it?” Will let Jack spin him around until he felt so dizzy his laughter stuttered to a gargle in his throat. “Of course I heard it. The whole bloody world heard it. I can’t believe you remixed a Craig David track. You hate his stuff.”

Jack set Will down but held him in place with a stare that Will felt all over. “I know, but you played that song twenty times a day the summer it came out. Thought that garage shit might get you moshing.”

Will laughed again, like he would never stop. Garage music was a long-running bone of contention between them. Will liked it. Jack didn’t. At all. Refused to play it. Ever. “It didn’t sound much like garage to me, but I fucking loved it. You should mix all his stuff as drum-and-bass.”

“Fuck, no.” Jack chuckled and finally seemed to notice how close they were standing. He released Will and stepped back. “I only did that for you, and I don’t get to play much DnB these days. Ibiza’s all about the trance.”

Jack pulled a face that made him look about twelve. Will stared, transported back to a time when Jack
had
been twelve and that face had been Will’s constant companion. It felt like another life, like they’d both been somebody else, but at the same time, it felt like yesterday.

“What are you staring at?” Jack said. “Have I got something on my face?”

“Eh?” Will shook himself. “Your set was amazing. I loved it. And look….” Will pulled Jack to the barriers so they could see the crowd. “Listen to that: they’re still shouting your name.”

Jack grinned. “We should go and party with them. I haven’t been in a mosh for ages.”

“Won’t you get mobbed?”

“Nah. Hang on.” Jack ducked into a nearby tent and emerged with a baseball cap. He jammed it on his head and tucked most of his hair inside. “See? Perfect disguise.”

Will wasn’t convinced, but he led the way to the barriers anyway. It was two o’clock in the morning and the call of the kicking festival was too strong to ignore.

They passed through the barriers and lost themselves in the sweaty mob. For a while they partied by the main stage Jack had played on, jumping around like idiots, laughing and chugging back plastic pints of cheap beer. Then they moved on, swept away by the crowd until they reached the jungle tent. The beats were lower in there, grittier, and they danced close together, stomping in the dirt and knocking shoulders with strangers.

Jack met Will’s gaze and grinned, manic and high from the grimy rhythm of the music. He spun away and materialized behind Will, the heat of his body a hairsbreadth away.

“I’ve missed this.”

Will closed his eyes and resisted the urge to lean back. “Me too.”

He had to shout for Jack to hear him, and he didn’t dare look to see Jack’s face. Will was drunk… drunker than he’d been in a long time, and right here, right now, dancing with Jack under the stars, he felt like he’d been dropped in an alternate universe, a place where there was nothing but the scent of woodsmoke in the air and the sensation of Jack moving behind him.

Jack spun Will around. “I wanna tell you something.”

“Yeah?” Will kept his eyes closed, still lost in the haze of music and Jack. “Something good?”

“I want to tell you about that kiss. What I was looking for when I snogged that bloke.”

Will’s eyes shot open. He made a grab for Jack’s arm. Pulled him closer. Breathed him in, music forgotten. “Tell me.”

Jack shrugged. “I was looking for you.”

He danced away before Will could decide if he’d heard him right.

W
ILL
STUMBLED
through his front door, dry-mouthed and bleary-eyed. He went straight to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Do you want a Ribena?”

“Hmm?”

Will grabbed a carton and turned to find Jack casting his gaze around the shabby kitchen. “I warned you the place was a shithole.”

“It’s disgusting. I love it.”

“Yeah, right.” Will rolled his eyes. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up bringing Jack home. He’d caught the first early bus across the city, and for some reason, Jack had come with him. Neither one of them had questioned it. Perhaps it was the booze. Or the weed. Will felt too trashed to care much.

He drained his juice carton and chucked it on the side. “Do you want to see my room? It’s in the basement.”

Jack shrugged. He looked dazed and tired from their long night of partying. “Might as well.”

Will led the way down the steep stairs of the seven-bedroom Victorian house. It was a typical student building, bedrooms crammed onto every floor, but Will had the cellar to himself, and even his own miniscule bathroom. The only thing missing was windows, save a tiny air vent he could just about squeeze through in case of a fire.

“So this is it, eh?” Jack paced the small room and stopped by Will’s computer. “This is where the magic happens?”

“Magic? Don’t know about that, but, yeah. This is where I sleep.”

Jack made a noise that sounded like a grunt to Will’s ringing ears. He sat on Will’s bed. “It’s dark in here. Must be a good place to hide.”

“Not really. I live with a bunch of birds. I can’t hide anywhere. I can’t have a shower without one of them sitting on the bog, chewing my ear off.”

Jack chuckled and lay back on Will’s bed. He looked half-asleep, which made Will wonder if he should offer him a place to kip for the day.

Yeah, ’cause that won’t make this weirder.

Will drifted to the bed and sat on the very edge, keeping his distance from Jack’s long legs. “Where are you supposed to be right now? Will your manager wonder where you’ve gone?”

“Not likely. As long as I make the airport by noon tomorrow, no one gives a fuck where I am.”

Will couldn’t tell if Jack’s flat tone meant anything. “Fair enough. So, uh, are you gonna stay here, then?”

“That okay?” Jack cracked an eye open. “I can go and find my hotel room if you want.”

“No! Uh, no. Don’t do that.” Will pursed his lips and wished he could slap his hand over his mouth without making himself look more of a twat. “It’s fine. You can sleep in here. I’ll take Suki’s room upstairs. She left her duvet behind.”

Jack looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He kicked his shoes off and rolled over, facing Will, eyes closed. “Feels surreal being here with you. I’m scared to go to sleep.”

“Yeah, looks that way.”

Jack didn’t reply, and though they’d been separated for far too long, Will remembered him well enough to know it was the last thing Jack would say for a while. He’d always been the same: talking Will’s ear off one minute, dead asleep the next. Not like Will, who could lie awake for hours, pondering and wondering. Musing. Ruminating.

Which was exactly what he found himself doing an hour after he’d draped a blanket over Jack and retreated to Suki’s room in the attic. Away from Jack and the buzz of the festival, his mind was in bits. He’d spent months convincing himself that his feelings for Jack were nothing more than an unrequited crush on his childhood best friend, but now? Shit. Jack had said so many things in past twelve hours to undo all that. Too many to count.

I’ve missed you.

I think about you all the time.

This song reminds me of you.

I remember you.

I was looking for you.

What the fuck did it all mean?

Will had no idea, and he finally fell asleep, imagining what life would be like if his wildest dreams ever came true.

W
ILL
WOKE
to bright sunshine streaming through the sky light in Suki’s attic bedroom. He groaned and rolled over, but there was no escape. Suki’s room felt like a bloody greenhouse.

He sat up and rubbed his hands over his face. It felt like he’d just blinked, but he could tell by the vicious sun it was close to midday. He sniffed himself and wrinkled his nose—beer, sweat, and weed. Yep. He needed a shower.

He tiptoed to the third floor and stopped at the top of the stairs, listening. The house was silent and still, with no sign Jack had been up. Perhaps he’d gone. Will had taken his plans for “tomorrow” to mean Monday, but they’d been partying since Saturday afternoon. Perhaps he’d misunderstood and missed another good-bye.

Will made use of the girls’ bathroom and washed away the mud and grime of his all-night rave. Then he crept downstairs to the basement in search of clean clothes. His bedroom was dark, too dark, and it took him a moment to see Jack had covered the tiny window with a T-shirt, and even longer to register a Jack-shaped lump hiding under the covers.

He stayed
.

Will’s heart skipped a beat. He stared a moment before he tiptoed to the canvas-covered shelving unit that held his clothes. He grabbed the first pair of tracksuit bottoms he found and glanced at the humped shape in the bed. Jack looked out for the count, so Will took a chance, dropped the towel, and scrambled into his clothes.

He started to leave, but halfway to the door something stopped him. An uneasy sensation in the pit of his stomach. A tingle on the back of his neck. Something felt off.

Will padded back to the bed and searched out Jack, who, at some point in the night… day, had burrowed under the covers and pulled a pillow over his head. Will found Jack’s shoulder. Hard, tense muscles met his hand. Will frowned and shook Jack gently. “Jack? You all right, mate?”

Jack groaned. The sound was low and quiet, but unlike any noise Will had ever heard from him before.

Will leaned over the bed and pushed the covers and pillows away. Jack was shirtless and curled up in a ball, his face hidden by his arms. His hair was damp and he smelled clean, like he’d found his way to Will’s bathroom at some point, but beyond the distraction of Jack’s smooth skin, Will could tell something was seriously wrong. “Jack? What’s up, mate? Talk to me.”