Page 45 of Worth the Wait
“Yeah. Okay.” Freddie nodded, gesturing vaguely towards the school. “I should… Do you want…?”
Nathan didn’t wait to hear what Freddie might offer. Or see Mr Ellison sidle up to him. He couldn’t watch the exchange or the easy familiarity pass between them. So he turned. Walked back down to his battered Fiesta, eyes stinging all over again. Climbed in, turned the key.
Alfie sat beside him, hood up, headphones in, pretending not to notice anything. Nathan started theengine, and as he pulled away, he peeked in the rearview mirror. At Freddie. And how the teacher squeezed his arm. It wasn’t the same reaction to when he’d seen the fireman grope Freddie. No. This was way worse. Because the teacher wasn’t territorial.
He was affectionate.
Nathan looked away.
Kept driving.
“You know him?” Alfie didn’t lift his gaze from his phone.
“Who?”
“The copper.”
Nathan gripped the wheel tighter. Turned a corner. Took a beat before answering. “Yeah. I know him.”
And he did.Toowell.
Still.
chapter Nine
No Man’s Land
Fifteen years ago…
Nathan pulled his boxers back on, fumbling with the waistband as if it might help settle the churning in his gut. He stepped into his jeans without looking at her, zipping them up fast, hoping speed could erase the last ten minutes.
Behind him, the mattress creaked as Katie sat up, tugging her dress down over her hips and reaching for a cigarette from the bedside table. The click of her lighter cut through the muffled bass thudding up from downstairs as the pulse of the party still went strong beneath them. The sound had never stopped. Neither had the jeers. The slurred chants of the lads, egging him on as if they were all part of the same joke he didn’t quite get.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and felt nothing but cold under his skin.
“Where you going?” Katie exhaled smoke as if bored with the whole thing already.
It hadn’t beenherfirst time.
“Back to the party.” He yanked his T-shirt over his head.
This was supposed to have meant something. Hadn’t it? Hisfirst time. The sacred thing lads built up with bravado and beers and locker-room legends. But it hadn’t felt like anything except a dare he hadn’t been brave enough to turn down. A checkpoint ticked off with fumbling hands and a head full of someone else entirely.
Because when the finish came, yeah, his body had done what it was supposed to. But the rest of him? Numb. Heavy. Hollow.
Even worse that he was in her house. Katie’s mum was down at the community centre with the rest of the footy mums, knocking back box wine and lukewarm lager after the cup match, leaving the place wide open. No supervision. No limits. A house full of half-pissed teenagers with something to prove.
Nathan and his teammates had rolled in, raiding the cupboards, mixing spirits with squash, and turned a half-hearted game of Truth or Dare into something thick with bravado and hormones. Katie hadn’t even finished sending out her MSN invites before someone had broken out the cheap vodka and the girls started practicing dares on each other in the corner.
Then came Spin the Fucking Bottle.
And just like that, Nathan was upstairs. In her bedroom. On her bed. Katie’s hands at his belt like some unwritten teenage rite he’d missed the briefing for. If this were one of those glossy American teen movies, he’d be thestar quarterback, and she’d be the blonde cheerleader, all lip gloss and coy smiles.
But this wasn’t Hollywood.
This was Worthbridge. A dull, grey-blown seaside town clinging to the Essex coast, where the sand was more pebble than postcard and nothing ever felt like the movies.
He hadn’t even scored a goal in that match. Katie Brewer couldn’t tell the offside rule if her life depended on it, and he was pretty sure she didn’t even know his last name. Still, this was what you did, right?
