Trust (London Love #5)

“You know you can. And Gray?”

“Yeah?”

“Drop me your location. Someone should know where you are. Keep an eye on you.”

“’M’kay,” he drawled. “And Reubs?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for not giving up on me.”

“I might still do,” I said and hung up.

I knew he got me.

He always did.

Pretty words, pretty promises

GRAHAM

Having my mum slam the door in my face was another tiny wake-up call. I’d regretted the words the minute they had left my mouth, but yes. I really was that shallow, and my life was truly very, very strange indeed.

Mum had only asked me to accompany her down to Lidl for her weekly shop, and me trying to explain that if the press got hold of a photo of me shopping in a discount supermarket, it would set off a chain of speculation and headline stories that wouldn’t be good for anyone, had not gone down well. It probably didn’t matter anymore. My career was pretty much over anyway. Even so, I didn’t need it spelled out on every website imaginable.

The fall of The Mighty Dieter.

Is Dieter bankrupt?

Dieter caught shopping in a cut-price supermarket.

Dieter’s Discount Deals.

Has Dieter fallen out of favour?

Is The Dieter the new face of Lidl’s?

The Lidl?

My mum had not been impressed. She’d asked if I understood what garbage was coming out of my mouth and told me she certainly hadn’t raised me to be so rude and judgemental.

I got that, but that was another thing I’d come to realise. I lived in a fantasy dream world. My parents lived in the real world, and they had zero concept of the insanity that was my life.

Which was no life at all.

I wanted a proper life back.

And I was both strange and shallow. How I’d become this…this disgrace of a human being was…I couldn’t even explain it to myself. I’d once been normal. Smart. Now? I’d lost it. And I knew it.

After Mum left for her shop, Dad muttered something about me needing to apologise to her and that he was disappointed in me.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” I’d muttered back. “I’m disappointed in myself too.”

I’d figured out quite a lot over the past weeks. One thing being that I couldn’t stay here much longer. I already had the neighbours’ teenage daughters hanging over the fence with their cameras out whenever I brought my dad a brew. I couldn’t sit in the garden. Couldn’t even sit in the front room because Mum kept opening the curtains. And both of them were sick to death of walking into the front room with their morning cup of tea, to find me sprawled out on their sofa. Hiding.

For me, hiding was an art form, and I’d been doing it for so long that I had no actual skills when it came to being out in the open. Doing the simple stuff like taking a walk, going to the supermarket, talking to the neighbours over the fence like a normal person. Being polite. Saying hello when Mum and Dad’s friends popped in.

My parents were ashamed of me, and I didn’t blame them.