November 2006

ZOE

Mark takes clock-watching to a whole other level. In the space of half an hour since arriving at the wake, he's checked his watch at least five times.

"We can leave whenever you want," I say to him.

"Just a few more minutes. Do you want a tea?"

A hot drink will take more than a few minutes. Considering he wasn't sure about coming to this funeral, he's reluctant to leave. Maybe there's some kind of police protocol about it, where you can't be seen to be the first one out. More likely, he isn't ready to walk away from his best friend yet. That has to be the main reason, because he has zero interest in actually talking to anyone here. We've skulked in the corners, filling the gaps in stilted conversation with people-watching.

"I'll just take a water," I tell him.

"Really?" His brow furrows as he peers down at me. "You've usually had three teas by this point at home."

The caffeine-withdrawal throb battering my temple is also reminding me of that same fact, but I don't want to force him to stay here any longer than he wants to.

"I'll have whatever you're having," I say.

With a curt nod, he spins and strides towards the bar at the back of the room. I watch as nearby eyes follow his tall, lean figure cutting through the crowds. Even in a room full of formally dressed people, he stands out, yet I doubt he even realises it.

What has made him so reserved? So keen to blend into the shadows? Guilt obviously plays some kind of role at this funeral, but every day with him is a struggle for a connection. I don't ask for much, just to know a little more about the guy I live with.

Today might help. He's leaned on me more than he'll care to admit, which is exactly why I offered to come in the first place. Bottling up emotions and suffering through them alone is a sure-fire way to spiral into a bottomless pit, and this guy already seems to carry enough darkness.

"Zoe, wasn't it?"

I tear my eyes away from the bar and onto the man who's sneaked up next to me. The smell registers before his face does, a barrage of potent cologne assaulting my nostrils. I wrinkle my nose and take a subtle step away from him as I paste on a polite smile. For some reason, Mark doesn't like this guy, and even though Mark might just be the most judgemental person I've ever met in my life, I'm not picking up massively positive vibes myself.

"Hi again, PC Wright."

He flashes me a white-toothed grin and taps the arrows on his shoulder. "Sergeant, actually, but I'll let you off."

"Sorry... I'm not that familiar with..." ...With whatever faux-pas I've clearly made there by addressing him incorrectly. It seems a tad petty given the circumstances, but what do I know? Maybe it's a big deal in the police world.

A couple of awkward seconds pass by. Awkward for me, at least. The man in front of me is totally at ease, that creepy smile still present on his creepy face.

"So," I say, "you and Mark used to work together?"

"Yeah!" He shoves his hands into his pockets and pushes his shoulders back. "We trained together, as a matter of fact. Started off in the same area, same team, same rota. Different mindsets, though. Don't get me wrong, he's a good cop, but some of us have that ambitious drive and others are happy coasting along."

Okay, this is beyond weird. I can't tell if he's trying to impress me or if he's so obtuse that he doesn't realise how inappropriate it is to make that comment at another police officer's funeral—especially when that police officer is Mark's partner.

"I guess that's the same in all jobs," I reply.

I look back over to the bar. A tall redhead is now chatting to Mark. I say 'chatting'—she seems to be doing all the talking as he stands there with his jaw locked and fist clenched at his side. Not good. Is this someone else he's not a fan of, or are his social skills so poor that he's inadvertently hostile to every person he interacts with?

Either way, it's an excuse to rescue him and exit this equally awful conversation with Adam Wright.

"So, how come Mark has left you all alone?" Wright leans closer, and I almost gag on his aftershave. "He should know better than to abandon pretty girls when I'm around."

This time it's harder to hide my disgust, but at least he's given me an exit strategy. I'm no actor, but I reckon I call pull off insecure girlfriend easily enough. Plus, maybe Sergeant-not-a-PC will then get the message and realise I'm not interested.

"I think it's the other way round." I flick my wrist towards the redhead. "I should know better than to leave him alone when there are girls here who'll pounce the first chance they get. Anyway, it was nice—"

Wright's booming laugh attracts Mark's attention, his eyes swinging across to us.

"Too late for that," Wright tells me. "Those two have a lot of history. Like magnets." He lifts his palms and smacks them together, just in case I'm not bright enough to understand his magnet analogy.

"Even more reason for me to interrupt. See you later."

I sincerely hope I don't see him later, but I can't bring myself to be anything other than polite. Plus, he's a police officer, and he's wearing his uniform to remind me of that, so it's probably a good thing I'm not ballsy enough to vocalise what I actually think.

Before he can stop me, I take off and hurry towards the bar. The redhead falls silent as I near, her bat-winged eyes sweeping over my body with intrusive scrutiny.

I stand a little closer to Mark than necessary, just enough to offer my support. His subtle cologne, all warm and woody, is a welcome antidote which soothes my abused senses.

He hands me the world's smallest cup of tea. "Sorry. Got caught up."

"Caught up?" The redhead folds her arms. "I'm an inconvenience, am I?"

"Don't make a scene, Ruby. Today is hard enough for me."

"If you didn't want people to stare, maybe you should have worn your uniform like all your colleagues. It's not gone unnoticed that Ben's partner isn't representing the force."

Red tinges the tips of Mark's ears. Without realising I'm doing it, I angle my body until my bare arm brushes his sleeve. It's too late to back away now, so I ride it out and take a sip of lukewarm tea. Neither of them seems interested in introductions, and that's just fine with me. This doesn't sound like an exchange I should be involved in.

There's a familiarity between them, which marries up with Adam's comment about history, but I don't detect attraction like he implied. She's beautiful, though, with long, toned legs, an hourglass figure encased in a tight dress, and smooth, porcelain skin.

Bad break-up maybe? Honestly, I can't even imagine Mark having a girlfriend. That would require communication and affection, neither of which I've witnessed much of. Even the handholding earlier felt more like support than romance.

As if noticing me sizing her up, her focus snaps onto me. "There's no need to stake your claim, love. I wouldn't go back to him if he was the last guy on Earth."

My cheeks heat, and not just with embarrassment at her accusation.

"I wasn't staking my claim," I say, resenting the nervous wobble in my voice.

Her plump lip curls in mild disinterest. "Figures. You're not his type."

My stomach dips as any smart comeback dies on my dry tongue. If I didn't feel plain and unattractive next to her before, I do now.

"Ruby." Mark's voice is quiet but firm. "Don't be a fucking bitch."

I force another mouthful of tea down my throat and shift my gaze away from the two attractive humans in front of me. Several pairs of eyes are flitting in this direction as people divide their attention between their own conversations and the one happening right here.

Ruby smooths down her dress, then trickles her black-painted fingertips over Mark's wrist. His body hardens into a rigid statue as she presses a kiss to his cheek.

"Channel that anger into something useful, baby," she whispers in his ear. "You always did fuck better when you were mad."

He jerks his face away from her, like her words pack a physical punch as much as a verbal one. That parting taunt rings through my head.

"Take no notice of her." Mark's words are clipped and laced with bitterness. "She has a chip on her shoulder."

"I noticed. You must have hurt her bad."

Green eyes snap onto me, narrowing. "I didn't hurt her. She hurt me."

The unexpected confession knocks me back. Almost instantly, he presses his lips together and averts his gaze. Tension stiffens his shoulders. I try to be tactful with my response.

"That's not surprising... She wasn't particularly friendly."

He grunts. "You're being polite. Stop being polite to people who don't deserve it."

I take another gulp of tea, then set the empty mug onto the bar top. "I can't help it."

"Let's just get out of here." His hand lands on the small of my back to encourage me towards the door. "I wanted to pay my respects to Ben, but too many people here have no comprehension of respect."

*

Rain slaps against the pavement as we leave the wake, so Mark and I take refuge in a bus shelter. While we wait, he hooks his index finger in the knot of his tie and tugs to loosen it. The strip of black fabric flutters in the breeze, twisting against his crisp white shirt.

"I saw Adam cornered you."

I drag my eyes back up to his face. "Uh, yeah. He was a bit creepy, to be honest."

A puff of unamused air spills past his lips. "Sounds about right."

"What's the deal with you two? You don't get along?"

I don't expect a reply, or at least not a genuine one, so when a bus pulls up to the curb and Mark suggests we get on instead of walking, I resign myself to a silent ride of unanswered questions.

He pays for both tickets, then drops into the first row of seats. Long legs extended in front of him, elbow propped against the window, he angles his face towards the road and heaves out a sigh.

The bus is mostly empty, but I take a chance and sit beside him. Our hips brush, outer thighs pressed together, and I immediately regret my choice. As always, though, Mark appears totally unaware.

"It was about a girl," he randomly says, five minutes into the journey.

"Hm?" I twist my head to look at him.

"Adam." He continues to stare out of the window. "It's always about girls, right?"

Is it? In the four months we've lived together, I've never seen him bring home a woman. Not that I've been keeping tabs on him, but I haven't noticed anything outside his strict routines, either. He gets home at the same time, shift dependent, and he doesn't go out partying on his rest days.

"Was it Ruby?" I ask. "He told me the two of you have history. Magnets was the analogy, I think."

He scoffs. "Only in the sense that we repel each other."

Not the way he insinuated it, but okay. I can't deny there's some obvious repelling between them now, even if it was attraction to start with.

"But no," he says, "this was after Ruby. My rebound, I guess."

So maybe I've got this the wrong way round. Instead of being surprised that his cold, reserved nature didn't hinder his relationships, maybe it's his relationships that caused him to turn cold and reserved around people. I try not to come across too keen that he's finally opening up to me, lest I spook him into silence again.

"How long were you and Ruby together?"

"Two years."

"Oh, wow." My surprise leaks out before I can stop it. "I mean... I could tell you obviously knew each other well. There was a familiarity there, among the hostility... It was serious, then?"

"I thought so." His voice is hard. "But she had another boyfriend the whole time, so evidently she felt differently."

My mouth drops open. His eyes swing across to me, and I promptly clamp my lips together.

"I take it you didn't know about each other," I say.

"Of course not." He raps his fingers against his thigh and turns his attention back to the window. "I was her inside-work boyfriend, and he was her outside-work boyfriend. She's a receptionist on the front desk. I was talking to her one day when he came in to drop off her lunch."

A similar memory slithers its way through the mental barricades I've erected. Joel with his hand on a random girl's thigh, his lips at her ear. Smiling. Laughing. His palm sliding higher. I shudder as the nausea begins to swirl through my stomach.

"That was about a year ago, anyway," Mark says with a soft sigh.

"I don't know what her problem is with you when she's the one who... You know."

"She followed me to my locker and tried to bullshit her way out of it. I called her out in front of everyone. She didn't appreciate the 'public humiliation'." He uses air quotes with a sardonic shake of his head. "She wasn't the one humiliated. Think she just expected me to not care and carry on with her."

"I'm surprised she didn't move jobs."

"She's too stubborn for that. She probably thought she'd be conceding defeat if she did."

Conceding defeat? She'd been caught cheating. What kind of psychopath considers that a victory?

"And then the rebound?" I ask, since we're on a roll and I need to take advantage of his willingness to talk.

"Fiona. Adam and I were good friends with her. All on the same team. I thought there was something there, but apparently she prefers married men."

"So she knew he was married?"

"Mm," he says. "He's a good-looking guy, I guess."

Sure, if you like the too-much-time-in-a-sunbed look, paired with gel-laden hair and bleached teeth. I must make my disagreement known because Mark finally turns his eyes from the window and onto me.

"You don't think so?" he asks.

I shrug. "He's not my type."

"And what is your type?"

Tall. Dark hair. Brooding eyes. Strong jawline. Muscles. Good sense of humour. I can't say all that, obviously. Minus the sense of humour, it's essentially a description of him. Especially considering that I'm apparently not his type, it would be humiliating.

"I don't have a type," I reply.

"And here I thought we were opening up to each other."

His dry tone surprises me, and I can't help the laugh that judders up my throat, nor the blush that follows it. The timing of his joke is too terrifying. It's almost like he read my mind.

"Well, I know I'm not your type, so it doesn't matter, does it?"

Crap.

That came out wrong.

His brow lifts a fraction, like I've surprised him this time. God... We were just starting to get somewhere and now he's going to think I've got some kind of pathetic crush on him.

"I didn't mean it like that," I rush to say. "I just meant... You know..."

The bus jolts to halt at our stop, and I don't know if the interruption is a good thing or not. It stops me rambling myself into a deeper hole but means I don't have chance to backtrack. Silence returns as we climb the steps to our flat and, unusually, Mark is the one to break it once we're inside.

"Thank you for coming today." He places the keys on the breakfast bar then leans back against the front door. "I owe you one."

I shake my head as I kick off my shoes. "You don't. It's fine. I just hope that it gives you some closure, even if the actual experience wasn't as smooth as it could have been."

His throat ripples with a swallow. "Please don't take what Ruby said to heart. She's got a nasty streak. You just got caught in the crossfire."

I force a smile and try to lighten the mood. "It's fine. Blondes aren't your type. It's a fact, not an insult."

"Blondes are my type, actually. She knows that."

Wonderful. So it's something more intrinsic about me that turns him off. Something I can't change so easily. My height maybe. My figure? Probably my personality, too, although Ruby couldn't have known that from just ten seconds in my company.

What does it even matter? Apart from damaging my ego, it doesn't make a difference. Mark and I wouldn't be compatible romantically even if we were compatible physically. We barely know each other. Plus we're flatmates. It's a bad idea. Messy. Complicated.

"You don't have to try to protect my feelings, Mark."

His eyes trail a slow path down the length of my body. Every inch they linger on comes alight with tingling goose bumps. Maybe he's trying to find something about me that genuinely does turn him on. It's a long search, which doesn't help the feeling of rejection.

But when our gazes lock again, something in his expression has shifted. It's darker, a heat simmering within his green irises that I've never seen before.

"If I were a lesser man," he begins, his voice sinfully low, "I would prove just how much you are my type, Zoe."

My stomach flips, and all blood redirects to between my legs. The way he's looking at me... Nobody has ever looked at me like that before.

"A lesser man?"

He nods, slow and deliberate. "Because a lesser man would just think with his dick and not his head."

I clench my thighs, a heavy ache settling between them. There could be a thousand reasons why he's suddenly thrown this curveball at me. He might be trying to protect my feelings, like I'd suggested. He might still be feeling guilty about the comment he made a few weeks ago when I was on my knees tending to his wound. He might be trying to reassure me after my blunder on the bus.

But for all of Mark's faults, his honesty is the one quality I value the most. I always know where I stand with him. So if he's lying to me now rather than staying as honest as I know him to be, that hurts even more. And it spurs me to call his bluff.

Dropping my bag onto the floor, I take two small steps towards him, closing the distance until my thighs press into his thighs, until his belt buckle digs into my stomach, until my breasts crush into his chest.

"If I were a lesser woman," I say softly, "I'd encourage it."

One dark eyebrow arches. "Encourage it?"

I play with his tie, rubbing the soft material between my fingertips. If I had the nerve, I'd run my hand up to his heart, just to feel whether he's as detached as always or if my presence has any effect on him.

"Grief can make people horny." I peer up to find him staring straight back down at me, those dangerous eyes still full of promise. "Wasn't it you who told me that?"

"Not exactly what I said, no."

I trail my hand down to his belt and watch as his jaw tightens. "Maybe it's that we want to feel alive when we've lost someone. Or we want to seek comfort. Or a distraction."

His body is a hundred scorching slabs of powerful muscle, burning through my dress, incinerating rational thought. The temptation gnaws at me.

And that's why I release his belt and step back. "A lesser woman would take advantage."

"Take advantage?" He doesn't seem to like that suggestion.

"Look, I don't know if this is spurred by guilt or grief or by hurt over Ruby and Fiona—"

"It's definitely not spurred by Ruby or Fiona." He folds his arms.

"It doesn't matter, anyway. You're in pain today, and as much as I want to help you fix it, I don't want you regretting it in the morning."

His eyes close, broad chest rising with a deep inhale. Then he pushes off the door, clears his throat, and straightens his cuffs.

"You're right," he tells me. "It's not a good idea when we live together."

It's not, but wasn't he the one who started this by saying we shouldn't go there? And now he's suggesting it's me putting a stop to it?

I swallow. "I appreciate you opening up to me, though."

Cringe. That sounded lame.

"You did accuse me of keeping my cards close to my chest."

"That wasn't an accusation. That's a fact."

"I'm not much of a talker. Or a sharer." He averts his gaze to the far window.

"That's fine. I have a tendency to overshare, and life's all about balance, right?" I force a grin to try to lighten the crackling tension.

He says he doesn't want to think with his dick, but a nagging curiosity claws at me. Surely he's not this distant in the bedroom? Would he show interest with his body that he doesn't show with his words?

No. Cannot go down that path. Living with him would become a challenge if I dipped my toe into that forbidden forest.

For now, I'll take friendship. 

***

Thank you for reading :) xx

***

But will it stay as friendship..? 

I would love to know what you think of the book so far! Let me know your thoughts in the comments <3