Page 92 of Worth the Wait
“You cuffing me?” he asked quietly.
“I have to.”
Nathan nodded once, then held out his arms. “Do it quick.”
The metal was cool against his skin, and it clicked into place like a full stop. But the realisation of it hit harder than any restraint. In his gut. His chest. Like concrete poured where hope had been.
Freddie secured them, eyes down. “You do not have to say anything, but—”
“I know the rest,” Nathan said, resigned. He even smiled when Freddie lifted his gaze to meet his because what stared back at him wasn’t authority. It was hurt. Longing. Bleak and helpless.
An ache they both knew too well.
Freddie swallowed it down and guided him towards the car, breath curling into the chilly night. The other officer stepped out from the passenger’s seat, and opened the back door. Nathan ducked his head and climbed in, the cuffs heavy on his wrists, heavier still in his chest.
Freddie lingered by the open door, fingers flexing once at his side before he exhaled a long, shaking breath then got in the driver’s seat.
The door shut with a dull finality.
Behind the window of the house, lit by the dim flicker of the telly, Alfie stood with his hands pressed flat to the glass. Watching his father disappear.
Again.
Chapter eighteen
The Thin Blue Line
The silence in the car was thick enough to suffocate in.
Freddie kept both hands on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road as the station loomed closer, each tick of the speedometer pushing them towards the inevitable. Nathan sat in the back, behind the partition. But the space between them felt miles wide.
Freddie’s shoulders ached with it all.
The in-car system recorded everything. GPS. Audio. Policy, procedure, protection. But it also meant he couldn’t breathe a word without it making its way back to the CID. Still, he couldn’t drive Nathan in like this. Notwithout giving himsomething.
So after parking up in the station bay, he turned towards Becca in the passenger seat, catching her eye, and mouthed,Two minutes.
She frowned. “Freddie—”
He didn’t wait. Reached down, flipped the toggle beneath the console. The red recording light blinked out.
“Two minutes,” he repeated. “Listen or don’t listen.”
In the rearview mirror, Nathan shifted, turning from the window to catch the exchange. Becca shot him a look pointed enough to cut glass but then shouldered open the passenger door and stepped out, shutting it with more force than necessary.
Freddie met Nathan’s gaze in the mirror. “First, I’m fucking sorry. Really fucking sorry. It was this or Alfie being dragged in, too. I’ll tell them he wasn’t there.”
Nathan inhaled. “Then thanks. Right call.”
“Second, you don’t know me. You didn’t see me at the raid. We’ve never spoken.”
Nathan nodded back, the ghost of something unreadable in his expression.
“And you weren’t at my place this morning.”
“I was.”
Those two words landed with a finality. As if Nathan was telling him that whatever this was, whatever they were, it still mattered. He hadn’t forgotten. He wasn’t discarding it as nothing.
