Page 36 of The Trouble With Love

Kai turned. ‘You use Nicholas to keep from having to build a real relationship. You encourage his dependence on you so that you can put him first, leaving, I must say, anyone else out there in the cold. Sex is so much easier, isn’t it, Holl, than having to try?’

‘There speaks the voice of experience.’

He gave a half-shrug and pushed his hands through his hair. ‘Yeah. That’s how I know. Don’t leave it too long though, to let someone in. You could find yourself like me, deep in the shit with no one to talk to.’

‘You’ve got me,’ I said, small-voiced.

‘Not really I haven’t, have I?’ He stepped closer, put his hands on my shoulders. ‘You’ve locked yourself away from everyone to save your brother from anything that might upset him. I know how it feels, Holl, to not let things out, to keep secrets and be afraid of consequences, but I’m starting to . . . Look, it’s fine to allow yourself to fall. You don’t have to always be in charge, Holly. If you let yourself go, you might find something else comes in. Some real emotion. Or have you spent so long keeping everything calm and unemotional that you don’t really know how that’s meant to go, hmm?’ He dropped his hands from me and moved away, casually, tucking them into his jacket pockets.

I sighed. I was a bit too tired for all this psychoanalytical chat this morning. ‘Okay, Kai, give it a rest,’ I said. ‘Will Nick be all right here this morning?’

‘Goes without saying, he can stay here as long as he likes. He’s really hit it off with Cerys, and I think he’s been a bit lonely in that flat of his. Blokes he shares with think he’s a weirdo, you know that?’

No, I thought, I didn’t know that. And I saw him every day. Perhaps they were right, seeing so much of Nicholas wasn’t doing any of us any favours. I’d got too close to be able to see any changes in him. ‘Okay, thanks.’

‘Although, she’ll be back off to Peterborough in the next couple of days. Merion rang and the flat is just about back to normal.’

‘Oh. I’ll miss her.’

‘Yeah.’ Kai looked around the multi-gargoyled kitchen, which was clean and contained piles of ironed shirts. ‘Me too.’

On the way to the Jeep I told him about the men in the Land Rover with the shotgun and he froze.

‘Shit, Holly.’

‘I said we should have reported it but the others . . .’

‘Were right. Don’t go getting involved on this one, Holl. I told you to stay clear of that place, didn’t I?’

‘Yeah but, you were doing all International Man of Mystery at the time. Why should I stay away from anywhere I want to be?’

‘Because of men with guns? Just a suggestion.’

‘Yeah, but . . .’

‘What is it with you? You’re threatened, then run off the hill and all you can think of is how indignant it makes you? Why not concentrate on how dead it could make you?’ Now he bent to unlock the Jeep.

‘Who are they?’

‘Get in the Jeep.’

‘Not until you tell me who they are.’

‘Holly, I’m going to Leeds. Where I have to be. You are coming along for the ride. Which you don’t have to do. You refuse to get in and I’ll drive away without you, all right?’

‘Oh for heaven’s sake.’ I got in, but flouncily, so as not to let the side down. Kai looked across at me. The dark of the garage made him look saturnine and inscrutable, he had his hair scooped back so his face seemed to be all eyes. ‘What?’

‘Are you really not scared?’

‘No. Leeds isn’t that far and you’re not a bad driver.’

‘Of the guys on the hill.’

‘This is Yorkshire, not Deliverance country. As far as I’m aware, armed gangs of vigilante yokels don’t have the right to shoot unarmed walkers.’

‘They might do it anyway.’

‘What, for the hell of it? Nah. They’re trying to be big scary men. Probably got one testicle between the lot of them, and they breed pit bull terriers or Rottweilers, so they can go out with them on short chain leads and feel like Real Men.’

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