Trust (London Love #5)

I don’t think I did. At all.

Lullaby

REUBEN

Relief , my dad said. He’d also muttered something about how it had been nice while it lasted.

That was in between the times he was telling me what an absolute wanker I was and perhaps I should take a good look at my options and figure out what on earth I was going to do to fix the mess I’d made.

That was when he was talking to me at all. The rest of the time, he locked himself in his room and sulked.

Yes, I was my father’s son all right. But at least one thing was good. My life was back on track, exactly the way it had been before The Dieter wiggled his bloody hips into my life and made everything weird.

I’d tried to clean up my room again, only to discover that most of the clothes on the floor were his. I’d scooped them up in a rage and chucked them in the wash. No idea why I’d burst into tears hanging them up to dry afterwards. How messed up was that?

Dad being all pissy with me was also weird, like he was the one going through some kind of crisis.

I wasn’t gay. Yet I wanked like some oversexed teen at the thought of Gray. His chest. His arse. His dick.

His mouth on my dick.

I couldn’t get him out of my head—I’d even had to run to the loos at work and knock one out.

I’d lost the plot.

His clothes were neatly folded into a bag that I’d stuffed under my bed. I’d drop it off for him at some point. Or maybe donate it to charity. There was another of those collection bags on the doormat at home. Some good could come out of this pathetic disaster that was my life, after all.

Everything was back to normal, nice and calm. So I kept telling myself. In reality, the week went on in what seemed like never-ending chaos. I worked, pretended to sleep, tried to eat, but nothing tasted right. I couldn’t concentrate and kept forgetting what I was doing. My dad brought home a takeaway one night, and I almost burst into tears just seeing the bag. It was from the same place I’d bought takeaway for Gray.

I didn’t understand. Well, I did. I’d fallen for his bullshit, pure and simple. This was no fairy tale.

I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. Tossed and turned, then grabbed my phone and brought up his number, staring at the blank screen. No messages. He’d probably changed his phone again. Lost it. Had it stolen. Given it away. Whatever, there was nothing I could do. Except…

I knew where he lived.

No. I was not going to go find him. Absolutely not.

Which was why I found myself driving over to his house the next morning. That new wank-castle of a building with gates on the alleyway, meaning I had to do a three-point-turn in the middle of a narrow street. I swore loudly.

“You all right, mate?” Some kind of security guard knocked on the car window. I remembered him telling me now. These houses had their own concierge office.

“Ehhr. I have a bag of clothes belonging to the owner of number five. Any chance I can leave them with you? I can’t park here anyway.” I shrugged like it was no big deal. Sorted that little issue in one fell swoop. Professional problem-solver. That was me.

“Number five? Dunno who owns it. They’ve never been here. There’s a load of mail, and the house is empty.”

“Empty?” This guy was talking too much. I mean, I worked in high-end customer service. We never gave away information about our guests to strangers. Security protocol and all that. Customer confidentiality. GDPR. Hello? Potential break-ins?

“You want to leave the bag anyway?” he asked. “If you have a number for the new owner, can you let them know I’ll be returning all that mail to sender at the end of the month? And if they don’t pick up the bag, I’ll bin that too. I’m not a storage facility.”

Okay. Rude. I half wanted to teach him some manners. The other half wanted to shove the bag of clothes at him and get out of there.

Yet I didn’t.

“Never mind. I’ll keep the bag. You want me to take the mail? I’ll get it to him.”

And off he went, back to his office for the pile of mail, which he shoved through my car window. It was official-looking stuff, and it made me nauseous because I knew what a court summons looked like.

“Cheers, mate.” The concierge patted the roof of my car and left me to it.