Page 2 of Worth the Wait
“Which is code word for boring.”
“No, it’s code word for—wait for it—sweet.”
“Then you’re clearly a diabetic.”
Freddie laughed, but it caught in his throat, and he turned back to the window, watching the gulls wheel over the flat grey sea, their cries piercing over the stillness of the morning. Judewassweet. Polite. A bloke who remembered birthdays and opened doors and would make sure he drank water between pints.
Safe.
But that was the rub. Safe didn’t do it for him. Never held his interest long. Didn’t light him up or make his pulse jump. No. He always gravitated towards themessieroptions. The ones who bit back. Had shadows behind their smiles and chaos stitched into their bones. The ones who burned too bright and left scorch marks when they went.
The ones who were oh so veryunattainable.
He stared out the window, the scent of salt and old chip fat curling through the crack in the glass. He scrubbed a hand over his stubble and forced a grin to cover the shift in his gut. But, as if right on cue, they passed the weatherbeaten pier, and he got the same old ghost of cider on his lips. An echo of a laugh tangled in the sea wind. And remembered when, for a heartbeat, life had been simpler. Lighter. When everything still felt fixable. By a crooked grin, a bottle passed between trembling hands, and a kiss that wasn’t sweet, wasn’t perfect, but lodged itself in him, anyway, rewriting the blueprint for every kiss that came after.
“It ain’t cause you’ve still got feelings for that Reece, is it?” Becca took her eyes off the road to deliver that punchline.
“The fireman?” Freddie laughed. “Nah. Not sure I ever had feelings for him. He was…”
A stop gap.
They wereallstop gaps.
Distractions. Warm bodies and easy smiles. Stop-gaps between the job and the bits of his life he didn’t want to sit with for too long.
He was starting to think they’d all be that way.Temporary.
Sighing, he looked back out the window at a group of late teens carving lazy arcs across the promenade, wheels rattling over the cracked concrete of the skatepark.Hoodies up. Heads low. Same faces, same patterns. No harm in them.Yet.
Worthbridge had always had edges. None the tourists ever noticed. Cause, sure, it looked like bunting and postcards in summer, but when the sun went down? Different story. Uni students necking pints, fights outside chip shops, lads shouting karaoke until their voices cracked. Freddie knew the routine. Not only because he was the poor fucker who had to clear up most of those things, but he’d alsobeenone of them once. Young, stupid, and three sheets to the wind under the pier with someone whose name he barely remembered. Those were reckless, golden nights. Sweetened by vodka and a cocky grin. But they’d left their mark too.
Irreversibly so.
Lately, though, Worthbridge had becomedangerous.
He knew he probably shouldn’t be policing in his hometown. All the complications. The conflicts of interest. He’d listened to the warnings when he’d joined the force. And for a while, he earned his stripes with an extended stint in Southend, saw the other side of the patch. But Worthbridge needed him. His mum was here. His little sister. Hisniece. New baby nephew. He had to make sure this town was safe for them. He couldn’t trust anyone else to do that for him.
Which, yeah, he was well aware and had been told sounded cliché as fuck.
Maybe there was something deeper going on. A reason he’d stayed put all these years, wearing this uniform in the same streets he’d got drunk in as a teenager. But he didn’t like to over-analyse it.
Especially not on a bloody Sunday.
“You’re doing it again,” Becca cut through his thoughts.
Freddie arched a brow. “Doing what?”
“That constipated thinking face. Usually means the Radley case is crawling around in that brain of yours again.”
Freddie grunted, resting his elbow on the window ledge. He didn’t have to answer. They wereboththinking about it.
Six months. That’s how long he’d been embedded on community detail, quietly feeding anything useful upstairs. Six months of tailing ghost vans and jotting down license plates leading nowhere. Six months of watching Whitmore Estate kids wander home with new trainers and older eyes.
Still nothing stuck.
Because Graham Radley was careful. Generous. Untouchable.
Everyone in Worthbridge knew the name. Radley Developments. Proud sponsor of the local sports teams, the Christmas lights, the bloody community day stage. Vivienne Radley chaired the town’s cultural committee. Their photo was still framed on the council website, cutting ribbons and shaking hands.
