Page 33 of Worth the Wait
Nathan didn’t answer straight away. He glanced past Reece towards the road where Freddie’s car had disappeared minutes ago. As if some part of him still expected it to reverse back into view. Or wanted it to. Then he looked back. Maybe heshouldgive it a go. Do all the normal stuff. Join civilian life. He could bring Alfie, show him who he was. Or who he’dusedto be. Maybe they both needed that. Some stable ground beneath their feet.
“I’ll think about it.”
Reece slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Good man. Boots optional.”
Nathan let out a scant breath that might’ve passed for a laugh. Then he crouched back beside the bike, squinting at the gear shifter, checking the rod.
“You’ve got too much play in this linkage. Probably the ball joint’s worn.” He glanced back up. “I’ll need to order the part. Two, maybe three days. Bring her back in and I’ll fit it.”
“Perfect.” Reece grinned. “You’re gonna be an asset to me round here. Usually have to take this miles away for anyone to touch it.” He then winked. “Looks like me and you have things in common.”
Nathan didn’t respond, but he watched him go with a knot in his chest.
He didn’t need to ask what he was implying.
Didn’t like the way it landed,either.
Chapter seven
Marching Orders
So… yeah.
The whole tampering-with-his-own-car thing?
Massive fail.
Not only had Nathan been guarded as hell, but Reece had shown up like the universe’s idea of a cruel joke. Leather-clad, smug, and far too handsy and Freddie left feeling exactly how Nathan had always made him feel: as if the ground could vanish at any second.
He’d driven home in silence, the Peugeot purring like a dream now. Ironic, considering howbrokenhefelt behind the wheel.
The rest of the day was a write-off. He slumped on the sofa, filled the room with the background noise of some god-awful daytime telly, and stuffed himself with crisps and half a leftover pizza he probably should’ve thrown out two days ago. Anything to avoid thinking too hard. Or feeling too much.
The call from Piper came around three.
“Can you grab Tilly from school? Ryan’s screaming again, and I’ve aged seven years since breakfast.”
He’d considered saying no. For the drama of it. But in the end, he grumbled ayeah fineand got back behind the wheel. At least the school run gave him something resembling purpose. And as he drove past the secondary school, he noticed a couple of teenage lads loitering by the gates, hoodies up, throwing side-eyes at a teacher on duty. One of them he recognised immediately. Tall, wiry, lip pierced and cocky. Kye something. He was on the Radley case radar. Hanging out near the school violated his informal bail. And the other? He was ninety percent sure it was the same boy Alfie Carter had laid out during the skatepark incident. Different hoodie, same strut. Same bruised ego in the shape of a fading black eye.
Freddie pulled over to clock it. Didn’t approach. No grounds for it. But he noted the time, took a sneaky snap on his phone through the wing mirror, and filed it away for later. The case was going to explode at some point, and when he then saw Alfie Carter meander out of the gates and approached by them, Freddie had a bad feeling Alfie was already tangled in it or well on his way.
But he filed it for later, then drove on to get Tilly from the juniors and took her home without incident. There, he let her style his hair with unicorn clips while Piper took a nap and Ryan screamed bloody murder in the next room. He stayed long enough to calm the baby and help his sisterpretend she wasn’t hanging on by a thread, then slunk back to his own place before he could feel too useful.
That night? Two beers. Half a six-pack of mini rolls. Netflix turned up too loud on some comedy series he’d watched way too many times that it couldn’t even bring a smile. His phone buzzed a few times on the arm of the sofa. Jude’s name lighting up the screen. But Freddie didn’t have the energy. Or the nerve.
They hadn’t labelled anything, not really. No expectations, no claims. Which technically meant he wasn’t ghosting him. Still… it felt off. Wrong.Not him. Freddie wasn’t the type to vanish when things got murky. He was honest to a fault. Sometimes to the point of pushing people away. And yet here he was, dodging messages and pretending he had nothing to explain.
Maybe because what really got under his skin that afternoon wasn’t Nathan.
It wasReece.
Reece had known what they were from the start. Sex. No strings. And for a while, it worked. Easy, physical, uncomplicated. They even tried nudging it into something more once, after too many cocktails and an all-day shag-a-thon that blurred the lines. That was when Freddie, wrecked and a little too honest, had told him about Nathan. He hadn’t meant to. But the name had slipped out in the quiet, in that post-orgasm haze where the truth always came too easy and after Reece had asked about the photo he kept on his bookshelf of the two of them under the pier when they were eighteen. And fair play to him, he’d taken it on the chin. Said it was fine. They could keep things casual. He was going through some unrequited shit, anyway.
But Freddie couldn’t continue the Reece fuck fests after that.
Not after crying about Nathan into his chest like a bloody idiot.
So yeah. Seeing him there today, swaggering into the garage, handsy and smirking like nothing had changed? It had been a disaster. A full-body reminder of a chapter he never should’ve opened again. One that had already readNathan Carteracross every damn line.
