Page 55 of Dream a Little Dream

Kenny chuckled. “He a copper too?”

“No. A personal trainer.”

“Ah.” Kenny nodded. “Explains the body.” He gestured to Jack’s broader frame. Not only had he put on bulk, but it was all honed muscle under there, Kenny could tell. Jack had finally shed the boyish charm to be all man. “Unless that’s all from chasing inner city crims?”

“Ha. No. It’s all thanks to him. Met him literally first week on the job. He was the PT for the Glasgow team and we…hit it off. Got engaged last year. When the opening for a DI came up here, he agreed to come with me. He’s opening a gym in a warehouse on Bond Way. Launching soon, hoping to rack up the client list he had back in Scotland.” Jack tilted his neck. “What about you? You seeing anyone?”

Kenny’s habitual response wouldn’t have been any different if Jack hadn’t told him he was engaged, but at least it wasn’t a total lie. “Uh, yeah. A woman.”

Jack nodded, face down. Jack knew he was bisexual. Prior to their relationship, Kenny had mostly been with women. A couple of one-night stands with men, but nothing serious. It had taken Jack time to get used to. Kenny often found it was the gay men who had a harder time with his bisexuality than the women did. Or maybe it was because he only really told the men. When he was with women, it was just easier to slip into the role they expected.

Did he like one more than the other?

It was a delicate balance.

“Heather,” Kenny said, grabbing the flask on his desk and leaving out they’d only had the two dates. “A primary school teacher. Divorced. Mother to a teenage daughter. Early days though.”

“She sounds…stable.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Just what you need.”

“Yeah, she is.” Which was why hehadto make it work, even if he had to fake it.

Taking a sip of cold coffee from his flask, an eruption of applause from outside caught his attention. He peered through the office door window where outside, the admin staff were giving Autumn, the Associate Dean of Faculty, the usual send-off comprising cards, flowers and streamers to celebrate the start of her maternity leave.

Kenny turned back to Jack. “Does Fraser know about—”

“No.”

“I hadn’t finished what I was going to ask.”

“I know what you were going to ask.” Jack straightened his back. “He knows about you, yes. He knows we were…” he lowered his voice as if he couldn’t even believe the word himself, “lovers…but he doesn’t know what you did for me.”

“That wise?”

“I don’t need it anymore.”

“Those needs don’t just go away. They’ll find another way to manifest—”

Jack held up his hand to stop Kenny mid-sentence. “Can you not.”

“Not what?”

“Fucking psychoanalyse me right now. Can we just have a normal conversation?”

“What’s normal?”

“Kenny.”

“Fine.” Kenny drank his coffee, and the silence thickened, spider-webbed cracks searing across the space between them, highlighting the fractures in their shared history.

It was a shame. Once, long ago, they’d been perfect for each other. They’d been each other’s saviour and distraction from the horrors they encountered. Jack’s need to be submissive, to bechildlike, gave Kenny his need to control and dominate. He took care of Jack the way he couldn’t any of the victims he’d come across in his work. The way he couldn’t take the pain away from his father. His mother.

Hissister.

But that world didn’t exist anymore. And all Kenny could see reflected in the eyes he once knew as well as his own were unfixable jagged edges. They couldn’t salvage their relationship any more now than they could have back then. He wasn’t sure they could even be friends. So he set the flask down upon his mounds of paper files, the noise barely breaking the tension, regret hanging over his head as heavy as his past mistakes.

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