Page 112 of For Real

He nodded and began to undo his knots.

I would have already been leaving had it been a workday, so it felt a little strange—chronologically dislocating—to be shedding my dressing gown and crawling under the duvet in the greyish half-light of an incipient dawn, my wrists still hot from Toby’s ropes.

But I slept regardless, with sudden and terrible ease.

* * *

I woke again in what had to be the early hours of the afternoon. I was relieved to find Toby still in the bed with me, but he was awake and watching me, and I didn’t know how much he’d slept.

I reached out to fluff his hair. “Are you all right?”

“I–I don’t know. It’s weird waking up with you like this.”

“But you often wake up next to me.”

“Yeah, but you’re usually hustling me out of the house because you have to go to work.”

Another unwanted but entirely deserved reminder of what a dick I’d been. “It’ll never happen again. And for the next week at least, we can do whatever you like. I’m… Well…I suppose I’m on holiday.”

“You…you”—his eyes widened—“took holiday? For me?”

I couldn’t lie. “Um, technically, I took holiday to get over you because I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“It’s about me. Still counts.” He nipped at my shoulder, possessive and playful at the same time. “I’m counting it.”

Here, at last, I had an opportunity to prove myself. To give him everything I had—for one reason or another—withheld. “Would you like… Would it help…if we went away somewhere? Together?” I heard his breath catch. And remembering his excitement at a night in Oxford, I couldn’t resist teasing him gently. Anything to reach him in his loss and bring him back to me. “You know, a minibreak.”

“Oh, Laurie.” He sounded heartbroken rather than amused, and I was conscious of yet another failure. “I’d love to, but I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He gave me a watery smile. “You may be on holiday, but I have to work.”

“Straight after your granddad’s funeral?” I frowned at the ceiling.

“It’s okay.”

It was not okay. He was surely entitled to some sort of compassionate leave, paid or…ah. “Is this about the money?” I hadn’t meant to ask it so baldly or abruptly, but concern made me clumsy.

“Like, hello. Tactless.”

“Sorry.”

He sighed. “It’s not about the money.”

“What is it about, then?”

“Um, it’s my job.”

I felt just a little bit like shaking him. His stubbornness, endearing though it was, came perilously close to destructiveness sometimes. “You work in a café, Toby. Jobs like that are two a penny.” It was obvious from the silence, the sudden rigidity in his body, that I’d said the wrong thing. “I just mean, you have rights, and you’ve suffered a bereavement, and you shouldn’t push yourself.”

“It’s not what you said, though, is it?” he muttered. “Look, it might not be worth anything to you, Mr. Consultant, but it’s what I have, and that means something to me.”

“Well, if it makes you happy, then of course—”

But this wasn’t the right thing either. “Now you sound like my mum.”

He was nineteen. Confused. Grieving. Patience, Dalziel. “I don’t know what you want from me right now.”

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