Page 12 of Worth the Wait
He let out a measured breath. Told himself to drive. Go home. Not think. Dwell. Or wonder why Nathan fucking Carter was back in Worthbridge.
It didn’t matter.
Meant nothing.
He cracked his neck to either side, gripped the steering wheel, and turned the key, only to remember the engine was already running. He swore under his breath, shook his head to clear it, then threw the car into reverse and almost flattened Becca.
“Oi!” She smacked the rear window.
Freddie closed his eyes. “Shit. Sorry.”
“Too busy wondering when things are gonna godownin history, huh?”
He gave her the finger without humour. She grinned and wandered off to her own car, humming some pop tune under her breath.
After giving himself a stern internal bollocking, Freddie pulled out of the space, away from the station, away fromthe ghost that had walked back into his life, and, as always, took the scenic route. More out of habit than intention.
Worthbridge rolled past his windows in shades of salt-washed blue and fading gold. The narrow lanes of the old town gave way to the open stretch of coastal road running parallel to the sea, where the colourful strip of beach huts were opening up in the hope for an early summer. The tide was out, leaving behind glistening mudflats and the skeletal remains of the pier. Once grand, now rotting. The wrecked bones of it reminded him too much of himself.
Of him and Nate.
Soon the sun dipped below the horizon, the streetlights blinking to life in staggered succession. He should’ve turned inland. Towards the new build maisonette he called home. A modest shoebox bought on a shared ownership scheme. It wasn’t much, but it was his. Well, half his. The other half belonged to the local council or some faceless property group. PC wages didn’t stretch far, not when he still mostly paid the rent on his mum’s house and slipped the occasional tenner to his sister.
But he didn’t turn. Not towards the practical.
Instead, he kept driving. Let instinct take the wheel.
The streets narrowed again as he passed into the old suburbs. Rows of terraced houses, each one slouched next to the other like tired old men, paint flaking, gardens wild with years of neglect or defiance. Here, dusk felt thicker, heavier, settling deeper into the bones of the town.
Then he was there.
Faraday Road.
He parked without really meaning to, opposite a line of houses that hadn’t changed in decades. The one in the middle still had its red door. Faded now, but still vivid enough to punch him in the chest. It looked exactly the same as it had the last time he’d stood in front of it. Backwhen everything had been different. When Nate still lived there. When they’d still been… whatever they’d been.
Freddie stared at the house, clenching his hands on the steering wheel, heart pounding.
He shouldn’t be here.
But of course, he was.
Because this was where Nate had said they were staying. For now, he’d said. Temporarily. His old man’s house.
The house Nate had grown up in.
And as Freddie sat there, staring across at the red door, it all came rushing back. As if he’d opened a valve on a memory and let it flood him whole. This was the place where summer had always tasted like grass-stained knees and laughter echoing from the back garden. Where they’d spent hours booting a half-flat football around until it vanished into the hedge or Nate’s mum yelled that tea was ready. Where the living room had once been a battlefield of video games and shouted insults, cushions flying like grenades. Where Nathan had spent entire weekends under the bonnet of his dad’s car, engine grease on his hands and joy in his voice as he explained carburettors as if they were magic. And where Freddie had slept countless nights on the floor of Nate’s tiny bedroom, curled up in a sleeping bag that always ended up halfway under the bed.
Until that one night.
The night Nate had grabbed his wrist in the dark, dragged him up onto the single mattress without a word, and held him so close it felt like his heart might beat through Nathan’s ribs instead of his own.
He swallowed hard, sinking lower in his seat, the worn upholstery creaking beneath him as he peered across the road at the shifting silhouettes inside the glass. Shadows of life still moving inside that house.
Then Nathan appeared.
He stepped into the bay window, tall and broad and unmistakable, stretching his arms wide to reach for the curtains. Freddie shrank further into the darkness, breath caught in his throat as the fabric swept shut, cutting Nathan from view.
There was no way Nathan could’ve seen him. The street was too dim, the car too nondescript. Nathan wouldn’t even know what he drove these days. Wouldn’t have any reason to expect to find Freddie Webb parked across the road like a ghost in a marked grave.
