He’s running from me.
He’s running because he doesn’t want me. He’s running because I made a stupid fucking mistake and showed him my tits and he hated them.
He hates me.
I try to calm myself down because things never end well when I get freaked out. I try to tell myself that I didn’t just fuck up so bad that I have to leave this place. That Jack isn’t like the others.
They let me stay because they had to, because I was a kid and they were obliged to care for me. Jack let me stay because he wanted to, and he hasn’t kicked me out yet, not even when he thought I was being a lazy bum all day.
Maybe he won’t throw me out for showing him my tits either.
I take a shower to get rid of the mud, and hope I can wash the embarrassment off with it. My plans for a passionate encounter in the kitchen seem so fucking silly now. He didn’t even touch me.
I thought he wanted to, but he couldn’t have. Not someone like Jack.
Jack’s the kind of guy to go for what he wants, I know him well enough to know that. And he didn’t.
He couldn’t drive away fast enough.
The more I think about it the angrier I feel. Two guys and neither of them want me. And why?
Am I hideous? Am I too fucked up for them to want to touch with a bargepole?
Eddie Stevens didn’t seem like that.
Bill didn’t seem like that.
Neither did Luke, or Eli.
They all wanted to fuck me.
They may not have wanted me, but they wanted my pussy.
But not Jack or Michael.
I guess my pussy just isn’t good enough for Jack or Michael, no matter what I do.
No matter if I spend all fucking week trying to prove to the both of them that I really can be good and work hard. No matter if I show Jack a hundred fucking pictures of how hard I work, it doesn’t matter.
They still don’t think I’m good enough.
I feel the anger brewing. Stupid anger that makes me act like a crazy bitch. Stupid anger that protects me against getting hurt and upset and pushed away.
I throw some clean clothes on and check out of the window.
He’s still gone.
I can’t believe they’ve both gone out and left me here on a Friday evening, like they think I’m just going to sit around and do nothing while they’re off having a good time or doing whatever fucking important shit is worth leaving me home alone for.
I don’t have any money, and once upon a time I’d have dipped into the envelope of cash I know Jack keeps in the kitchen drawer next to the tea towels. I’d have told myself I’d earned it with all the fucking manual labour I’ve been doing this week.
But I have no Eli demanding money, not this week, and I don’t want to take any for myself, either.
I don’t want to take anything from Jack, not now he’s been so kind to me.
Not now I care about him.
So I don’t.
I pull on my boots and head out the front door without so much as a penny in my pocket.
But this time I do have my ID.
Chapter Fourteen
Michael
Jack and I stare at each other for what feels like an age. My palms are clammy as I think the unthinkable; that I might have to watch my best friend become romantically involved with the girl I’m in love with.
It’s not that I’d resent Jack being happy, or Carrie either. Of course I wouldn’t.
But fuck, the thought makes me feel sick as a dog.
“If you want to be with her, I’ll back off,” Jack says. “You saw her first.”
“How could I make a move now, knowing you want her too?”
“I’d deal with it,” he says. “I’d have to deal with it.”
“And I’d have to deal with it if it was you she wanted to be with. And it might be. She’s barely spoken a word to me in days.”
“But she wanted you first. She almost certainly still does.”
“She showed you her tits less than an hour ago. I’d say her interest in you is pretty current, Jack.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t believe this is happening. Both of us going fucking crazy over an eighteen year old girl.”
“She’s not like other girls,” I say and he laughs.
“No, she fucking isn’t. She’s a whole fucking whirlwind of trouble.”
“I could lose my job,” I tell him.
“I’d be more worried about your bloody mind than your job, man.”
He’s got a point. I think of my colleagues back inside the pub, imagining their faces if they discovered I’d made a move on Carrie Wells.
Shit like that never ends well, especially around here. And it shouldn’t.
Professionals shouldn’t abuse their position. Professionals should never discard their moral ideals and pursue girls that were once in their care. Professionals definitely shouldn’t be sitting in a car outside a pub on a Friday evening trying to work out which one of them is going to make a move on a girl with a whole raft of behavioural issues.