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.

But here we are.

“What is it you like about her?” I ask him.

He takes a breath. “Her spirit, her smart mouth, her wildness. Her laugh. Her smile. The sweetness in her when she lets her guard down. Her pixie nose. The way her hair moves. The way she argues the toss about every fucking thing in the world.”

His words make me smile. He’s right. She’s really quite something.

“We shouldn’t even be contemplating it,” I say. “Neither of us. She’s too young. She’s unpredictable. She needs stability.”

“She needs discipline.” A pause. One of those long pauses I’ve come to know means someone’s about to spit something out. “And love. She needs love too.”

Love.

It’s strange to hear the word come out of Jack’s mouth. He was evasive on the topic even after he got down on one knee for Diana, answering my questions on whether she was really the one with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders and an it’ll do.

“What the fuck are we gonna do, Mike?”

I have nothing. Nothing but an uneasy churn in my gut as I contemplate the potential outcomes. Jack and her, me and her. Neither of us with her.

Losing my job.

Losing our friendship. My best friendship.

Losing Carrie.

“You’ve known her for weeks. How do you know this wouldn’t be like the others?” I ask.

“She’s already nothing like the others.”

“She’s nothing like anyone.”

He smiles. “You got that right.”

I’ve a suspicion I’ve got everything right, and this whole setup is snowballing into disaster in front of our eyes.

He sighs. “She should choose. It’s not our call.”

Even the concept makes me edgy. Choosing me, choosing him – and I suspect she’d choose Jack, because who wouldn’t? The guy’s great. He’s my best friend for a reason.

“We need to think on this,” I tell him. “We need considered judgement. Her welfare has to be our top priority. Her security comes first, beyond anything else.”

“Agreed,” he says.

I look beyond him to the lights on in Drury’s. “I should get back. I’ve got to get through this leaving party before I can find my bearings. You’ve dropped quite a fucking bombshell on me.”

I’m expecting him to speed off back home to hole up with Carrie just as soon as I make a move, but he doesn’t.

He gets out of the car when I do and bleeps the central locking. “I think I need a drink after all this. Think prissy Pam will mind if I gatecrash?”

The prospect is a good one. Having Jack at my side in Drury’s will be a strangely comforting norm amongst the turbulence.

“I’m sure you’ll be very welcome.”

There’s a smile on my face as we cross the car park. A friendly slap on the back as we head in through the rear entrance.

But an ache in my heart that no amount of rational thought will ever make go away.

 

* * *

 

Jack

 

I feel like an absolute prize fucking asshole as we head into Drury’s. Mike might be putting a thoroughly gracious front on it, but my confession has him reeling and I know it.

That’s the thing with Mike – he’s always trying to be the reasonable one. Always trying to do the right thing, for everyone. Not least for me.

And certainly not least for Carrie Wells.

If he was a lesser man, I’m sure he would’ve fucked the girl already. If he was a lesser man, I’m sure he’d have told me to fuck off with my stupid fucking confession after one paltry week of knowing her.

But he’s a better man than I’ll ever be, and in my gut that’s why I know he should be the one to make a move on Carrie, even if I’m the one in danger of recklessness.

Even if I’m the one who’s seen her pretty little tits.

The thought crosses my mind that maybe the little minx is playing both of us for a fool, but I doubt it. If Carrie Wells is playing a game, she’s playing a good one. She seems too sharp to risk pitting the two of us against each other, not least because she seems awfully settled at my place.

It’s like she belongs there already.

I wave to Mike’s colleagues as we step inside the pub, cringing as prissy Pam Clowes jumps from her seat and grabs Mike by the elbow. I think she’s always had a thing for him, even if he’s always been oblivious.

I have to stifle a laugh as she presses her mouth to his ear, as though I’m about to witness another confession of devotion that will leave his brain spinning even faster than it is already.

Pam’s whisper is ragged and harsh and nothing like I was expecting. It’s loud enough that I hear it over the chatter from the leaving party table.

“Carrie Wells is here!”

My eyes widen as his do.

“Carrie is here?” he asks and she nods.

“Smoking out the front with Eddie Stevens. They just came in and got tequila. I’d have stopped the barman if she wasn’t legal.” She pulls her phone from her handbag. “We should call Rosie and Bill, or maybe the police.”

I’d leap into action myself, but he’s already on it. His hand lands on hers, stopping her as she scrolls through her contacts list.

“No need,” he says. “I’ll handle this.”

“But they’ll want to know…” she counters.

Mike shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate, and it’s the look she gives him, bewildered speculation that has me jumping in to save him the unwanted scrutiny.

“She’s staying with me,” I tell her, just like that.

Both of them stare. Pam takes a minute to find her words.

“Carrie Wells is staying with you?!”

“She’s doing some work on my land,” I elaborate. “She’s good with fencing.”

“Fencing?”

I nod. “Fencing.”

“Fencing,” Mike confirms with a grimace.

I don’t hang around any longer, prising Mike from Pam’s grip and asking him for his assistance outside.

We leave her open-mouthed as we march our way through the packed pub. I hope for some reason Pam’s losing her fucking marbles and Carrie is safe back at home where I left her, but I hear her wild laughter before we’re even out through the door.

She’s had more than one tequila, that much is certain. She sways outside the window with a cigarette in her hand, laughing along with Eddie fucking Stevens as he recounts some idiot fucking story that he probably made up on the spot.

His eyes are all over her, his tongue practically lolling as she braces herself against him for balance.

I have the strange urge to rip the bastard’s head off, but I think Mike is gunning for him even more than I am.

“What’s fucking going on here?” he asks, heading right between them to break the contact.

“Having fun,” Carrie sneers and laughs right through it. “You guys were long-gone, why should I stay home alone on a Friday fucking night?!”

Eddie is a stupid cunt, I see his challenged brain slowly turning as he registers the implication.

“You’re staying with these guys?”

She slaps his arm as she cackles. “Yeah, they’re my new fucking foster daddies. Daddy Jack and Daddy Michael.”

I reach a new personal low when my cock twitches.

A really low fucking personal low.

Daddy Jack and daddy fucking Michael. The gleam in her eyes tells me she’s not entirely joking either.

There are no words for the clusterfuck she’s bringing into our once quiet country life.

“You’re coming with us,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “I’m fucking not, Daddy Jack. Go fuck yourself.”

I grit my teeth and take a step forward, shunting Eddie out of the way as Mike takes hold of her arm. “You’re coming with us,” I repeat. “Right fucking now.”

“She’s my girl tonight,” Eddie protests, and this time it’s Mike that loses his fucking cool.

“You’re done here,” he says to the kid. “Take your drink and get back inside that fucking pub, before I tell the police you’re dealing again.”

“You fucking wouldn’t…” Eddie says, and if I wasn’t so pissed that Carrie was trashed on tequila in his company, I’d be amused at how Michael’s changing in front of my eyes.

Once upon a time he’d have defended Eddie to the ends of the earth, just as he defends all those kids whose paperwork lands on his desk.

But not anymore.

Not now Carrie Wells is involved.

“Get back inside,” Mike repeats and Eddie does.

He stubs out his cigarette and shrugs his shoulders at Carrie, and then he’s gone.

Good fucking riddance.

Carrie struggles in my grip.

“Get the fuck off me,” she screeches. “You’ve no fucking right to order me about!”

But I don’t. I don’t get off her and I don’t pander to her kicking and screaming either. I take one elbow, and Mike must have finally heeded my bastard advice about discipline, because he takes the other and together we drag her back to my car and bundle her into the backseat, be damned who sees the spectacle.

She tries to climb back out no sooner as I’ve shut her in, but I raise a finger and my voice with it.

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” I tell her, and she backs away.

I climb into the driver’s seat and check out her expression in the rearview mirror. She’s scowling, her arms folded across her chest as her foot taps furiously.

Difficult. Little. Bitch.

It’s about time this little cow learned some manners.

And I’m about to fucking teach her.