‘When are you leaving?’
‘None of your bloody business, but you’re leaving right now.’ Jake pointed at the door.
Marcus walked around the bed towards Jake. ‘Faye told me you were so concerned about me that you dropped everything this morning to look for me.’ Marcus spread his arms wide as though he were going to give Jake a hug, or worse, was expecting to receive one. ‘And I thought you didn’t care. Awww ...’
‘I don’t.’ Jake elbowed past him to pick up the notepad with his flight time. Returning to the wardrobe, he picked out a clean, pressed white shirt and hung it on the wardrobe door. He glanced at Marcus. ‘Why are you still here?’
Marcus sat down on the end of the bed.
Jake turned his back to him and managed to undo the top two buttons of his shirt. He gave up with the rest and just pulled the shirt over his head. ‘Blast.’ Jake’s hands were stuck in the sleeves of the shirt.
‘You need some help with that?’
‘No.’ Jake managed to prise his hands out of the sleeves without disturbing his bandages. He tossed the shirt on the floor, and in the corner of his vision saw Marcus’s hand reaching for it.
Jake put on the clean shirt. With his back still to Marcus, he attempted to do up the buttons. It wasn’t working. He was having difficulty manipulating the buttons into the holes with his fingers so tightly pinned together under the bandages.
‘Dammit.’ Jake let his arms fall to his sides in defeat.
‘Jake?’
Jake turned around.
Marcus was still sitting on the bed. Jake’s shirt was neatly folded beside him. ‘You need a hand with that?’ he said gently.
This time, Jake didn’t object.
Marcus stood in front of Jake and tentatively took the second button from the top. Jake rolled his eyes in frustration; he had a feeling he was going to regret packing so many shirts.
‘Feel like you’re five again?’ said Marcus in an amused tone of voice.
‘Yes. Thank you.’ Jake stared up at the ceiling.
Marcus finished and stood back. ‘Need tucking in?’ He chuckled.
Jake hadn’t thought of that. He looked down at his shirt. It looked okay over jeans; it was the look he had preferred in his student days. Of course, he wasn’t exactly twenty anymore, but he thought he looked passable.
Marcus slumped back on the bed and propped himself up onhis elbows, watching Jake. ‘Can you drive like that?’
Jake was having difficulty lifting the bag off the bed. ‘None of your damn business,’ said Jake irritably as he slipped the shoulder strap over his left shoulder and hoisted the bag off the bed. Jake walked straight past Marcus and out of the door.
Downstairs, Jake picked up his jacket and car keys and turned around to say a silent goodbye to his house and his new life – for now.
‘You’re going right now?’ Marcus had followed him back down the stairs like an abandoned puppy whining for some attention.
Jake turned on Marcus. ‘Look, they’ve given me the week off, and then it’s the school summer holidays. I’ve got over six weeks of free time.’ Jake wasn’t about to give him any details of the trip, but perhaps if Marcus thought he wasn’t going to be around for six weeks, he’d stop showing up at his house.
‘I am going on holiday right now. So why don’t you stop beating about the bush and get to the point – what do you want?’
Marcus looked at the floor.
Jake studied him. Here was a smart guy. He was the head of a global business in all but name. The events of a few months earlier had inadvertently propelled them both into success in their professional lives, albeit along vastly different routes. And it had propelled them both into chaos in their personal lives. Jake’s was practically non-existent, apart from the women he keptbumping intoin his local supermarket. He remembered them from the London offices of the Ross Corporation – and he knew who was behind it.
What did Marcus think he was trying to do? Fix him up on a date? Perhaps Marcus thought if he got really involved with one of those women, he might be persuaded to return to his old job with the firm.
But what really annoyed Jake was Marcus’s attitude to Lydia. Hadn’t Marcus learnt anything from that tragic event almostseven months ago? Jake would have thought that the loss of Ellie would have cemented Marcus’s relationship with Lydia – not driven them apart. Jake had expected that in time, Marcus would patch things up and make it work with his fiancée, but if anything, he seemed to be veering more violently off the rails.
And this gave Jake pause for thought.
