Page 87 of All Mine
Fox rubbed his hands around his bristly face.
‘No, it’s this game extension. It’s killing me. But if I can pull it off, it will be worth it.’
Etienne waited until they all sat with a beer in front of them. Their faces were as familiar to him as his own. Or Alex’s. Walker and Fox had become his family and he had sworn time and time again to never let them down or put a woman between them. To not let history repeat itself. But he rarely asked them for anything in return. He never gave them the chance to support him. It was enough for him to feel like he had their backs. Until now.
Isabella had hit home when she said that he didn’t have to do everything on his own. That he had friends that would support him. Looking round the table today, he was suddenly sure that he could tell them anything and they would still be there for him. They wouldn’t judge him for what he’d done, or not done, when Alex needed him. He needed to confide in somebody, he couldn’t keep everything bottled up any more.
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said and had their immediate attention with this serious tone of voice. ‘About my brother. I told you we weren’t close any more. That’s not strictly true.’
He didn’t leave anything unsaid. He told them of how Alex had been a gambler for years, starting small with the local arcade slot machines, working his way up to the bookie’s on the corner. But it was their parents’ deaths that sent him off the rails, when he started online betting and back-room poker games, placing higher stakes each time, burning through his inheritance and more. Selling his car, losing his house deposit, until he owed so much he had to run for his life, literally.
Etienne didn’t gloss over the part he’d played. How he’d lent him money in the past to help him out and Alex had always gambled it away. So when the call came in that night, he turned his phone over and ignored it so that he could carry on making out with Kira. How he hadn’t been there when he was most needed and it had haunted him ever since.
Etienne talked about wondering where Alex was for the past four years, blaming himself that his brother was living somewhere in fear. Even worse, wondering if the Dougalls had caught up with him and he would never come home again. He told them how the phone call a few weeks earlier had come out of the blue and now he could think of nothing other than having his brother home. His friends had finished their beers by the time he stopped talking. He took a long swig from his own bottle in the ensuing silence as Fox got up to replenish them.
‘So, you’re going to give him the money, to pay off the Dougalls?’ Fox said, passing him a new bottle. Etienne nodded and exhaled slowly.
‘I have to.’
Fox and Walker exchanged glances which Etienne couldn’t read.
‘What?’
They looked at each other again, before Fox said, ‘You’re going to give fifty thousand pounds to a gambler?’ Both of them studied his face, waiting for a reply.
‘Yes.’ Etienne shrugged.
‘How do you know he won’t gamble it away rather than pay the debt off?’
Etienne recalled Alex’s voice on the phone, his promises that he didn’t gamble any more and the shake in his voice when he talked about wanting to come back.
‘I’m certain,’ he said. ‘He won’t do that. Not this time.’
Fox and Etienne exchanged glances.
‘Will he pay you back?’ Walker said. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of money. That’s the extension you were talking about at The Bistro to open up the back garden.’
‘He will, over time,’ Etienne said, acknowledging that all these questions came from a good place. Their desire to look out for him, like Isabella had said. ‘I told you, I owe him.’
‘This seems above and beyond to me,’ said Walker, sitting back in his chair.
‘It’s not your debt to pay,’ said Fox.
‘It might not be my debt, but heismy brother and I let him down before. Because of that, I haven’t seen him for over four years. I can’t let him down again.’ Fox and Walker sipped their beers without passing comment. ‘I just need to find a way of raising the last chunk of money. I applied to the bank but they turned me down. I’ll find another way.’
‘So where is this money being handed over?’
Etienne told them what he knew, which wasn’t a lot, but added in the bit he was sure of.
‘I’m going to go with him.’
Fox sat forward. ‘They said he had to be alone.’
‘I’ll be nearby, in case Alex needs me. But I’m going to be there, somewhere.’
‘Don’t you want to tell the police?’ Walker asked, his uniformed training springing into action.
‘No. I can’t risk it,’ Etienne said. The thought of police cars or sirens would surely spook the Dougalls. And Alex needed this deal done if he was to come home.
