Michael

 

Three days and three long nights.

I’ve been calling every agency I can think of through my lunch breaks and driving around the streets looking for her every night, despite knowing full well that she’s probably long gone. I wonder how she celebrated becoming an official adult. I wonder if she celebrated at all.

I found myself at Rosie and Bill’s front door last night, just to check in person that they hadn’t heard anything. Their eyes said it all. They told me she’s a lost cause and it’s sad I haven’t accepted that yet. But I haven’t.

I can’t.

We’ve never had Carrie Well’s mobile number on her case file, simply because she refused to give it to anyone, me included. It was Rosie’s parting gift to me, followed up with the assurance that there’s no way the madam will answer, but it still felt like I’d been handed the Holy Grail as I left their doorstep and headed back to my car. I pulled over before I was even back in Lydney, my heart thumping as I keyed her number into my mobile.

Rosie was right, of course. The call rang straight to voicemail.

They’ve gone straight to voicemail ever since.

When the office is quiet and my meetings are done for the day, I sit back in my chair and stare at my handset. Nothing from Carrie, and only a string of unanswered texts from Jack in Germany. I haven’t replied because I daren’t. I can’t lie, and the moment I tell him Carrie has taken off somewhere and I’m on a one-man mission to locate her and solve her housing crisis, he’ll either have me committed or fly back home to scream some sense into me.

If Carrie would just pick up her pissing messages and think to let me know she was safe, life would be a whole lot easier. I’ve left several voicemails – all of them perfectly professional requests that she please let me know she’s still breathing. All of them guarded and work-focused – mentioning my calls with the housing agencies and how I’d appreciate her contacting me to push things forward.

Maybe I should try a more personal approach, but that would be more than my job would be worth should it ever reach the ears of my superiors.

So I don’t call again. I drive instead. My usual route, which up until now has proved utterly pointless. Another evening of fruitless searching. Picnic areas and back alleys and meandering lanes through the middle of nowhere, all for nothing.

I’m on autopilot as I drive back from Gloucester, contemplating whether I really do need to put this search to bed and move on. I’m thinking I should fill Jack in on what’s been happening and hope that his common sense manages to hammer its way through my thick skull.

I’ve all but decided this needs to be my final night scouring the streets for an adult woman who clearly doesn’t want to be found, when I notice a figure walking along the hedgerows by Forest Oak Farm. I slow down, but only a little, well aware that it’s probably just some random out walking their dog after dark, but my heart is in my throat when I see the backpack swinging heavily from the woman’s shoulder. It’s a she, it’s definitely a she, and she’s limping. I close the distance and a pale face turns to me, illuminated by my headlights for long enough that I recognise the glowering stare. Her long black hair is whipping in the evening wind, her mouth angry and tight as she glares at the stupid idiot with his lights on full beam.

I slam on the brakes in a heartbeat, and the car skids to a halt just past her.

She must recognise the car, that’s the only explanation for why she waves her arms and tries to run for me. I’m already out and rushing in her direction when she limps onto the tarmac.

Her backpack crashes from her shoulder and she’s about to crash down with it as I grab hold of her and keep her steady. She weighs nothing in my arms. My poor lost Carrie is nothing but a limp little bird with hollow bones. I’m holding her so tight I’m worried I’ll crush her, but she holds me right back and lets me support her without squirming. Her eyes are sunken and tired, even in the moonlight, and her lip is split and dried with crusty blood, but despite any of that she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’ve got you,” I tell her as she digs her fingers into my arms. “Are you hurt?”

“Sprained my fucking ankle this afternoon.”

She struggles in my grip, trying to hitch her backpack back up, but I hold her firm. “You’ve been bleeding,” I tell her, nodding to her lip as she stares right up at me.

“I’ll live.”

“I left you messages.”

“Got no battery, no minutes left, either.”

I pick up her backpack and sling it over my shoulder, being careful not to let her go for even a second. I take a step towards the car but she digs her heels in, even though it makes her grimace.

“I’m not fucking going back there!” she hisses. “I’m eighteen now, I don’t fucking have to. They don’t fucking want me there anyway!”

I stop. Think. And she’s right. Of course she is.

There’s no room waiting for her now at Bill and Rosie’s. There’s no room waiting for her anywhere, not this time of night.

“So where were you going if not to Bill and Rosie’s?” I ask. “Why were you heading this way?”

She looks away from me, staring into the shadows of the hedgerow so intently I think she must have spotted something. I look to my right but there’s nothing there.

“I was coming to you,” she whispers, and my pulse races.

“To me?”

She nods. “Had nowhere else to go, did I?” She still won’t look at me. “I mean, I know you wouldn’t want me around either and all that, it’s just… I needed somewhere to get warm…”

“And you were coming to me? To my place?”

She sighs. “You don’t have to make me feel like a total fucking dick.”

But I’m not. I never would.

“I’m glad you thought you could come to me,” I say, and her pretty mouth curls into a snide smile.

“Like I said, had no other asshole I could call on.”

Even exhausted and limping with a cut lip and nowhere to go, the girl has to be a brash little shit. Maybe I’d be taken in by her bravado if I couldn’t feel the way her fingers are grasping my arms for dear life.

I’d be a fool to believe this could mean anything. I’d be a fool to believe these feelings I have for her could be real, and even if they were, that they could ever amount to anything. But my mouth is dry and my breath is short and my heart is thumping so hard I can feel it in my temples.

“So, what’s it gonna be, Michael?” she asks. “You gonna take me to yours, or do I have to keep on limping down this road all fucking night?”

I hoist her back onto her own two feet and she winces at the pain.

“I can’t take you to mine,” I tell her. “Pam lives on the ground floor. You’re not officially on my books anymore, Carrie, I shouldn’t be…”

“Aww, you don’t want poor Pammy to think we’re fucking? Is she your girlfriend or something?”

I sigh. “She’s my colleague.” I help her along the road to the car. “A wrong impression could cost me my job, Carrie. I have kids to take care of, kids who need my help, just like you.”

She stiffens in my arms. “I’m not a fucking kid.”

She steadies herself against the car as I drop her backpack onto the back seat and open the passenger door for her. She sucks in breath as I help her inside.

She’s staring straight through the windscreen as I get behind the wheel.

“If I can’t stay with you, I gotta keep running,” she says. “I have to get out of here.”

“Running from who?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer.

“Carrie, where the hell have you been? People have been worried sick about you.” I set off on the empty road, shooting her sideways looks just to make sure I’m not dreaming all this.

“Nobody’s worried sick about me.”

“You think I’m driving these roads in the middle of the night for my health?”

She shrugs and it makes me sigh again.

“I’m driving these roads for you, Carrie. To look for you. I’ve been out here for days.”

Her eyes burn in the darkness. “You have?”

“Yes, I have.”

“You’ve really been looking for me?”

“Every spare fucking minute.”

She laughs that vivacious cackle of hers. It zips up my spine, even though it’s more muted than usual. “Guess you weren’t looking fucking hard enough then, were you?”

 

* * *

 

Carrie

 

Michael puts the car heater on and it’s warmth feels amazing on my cold feet. I want to tell him thanks, but the words won’t come. I want to reach out and touch his hand, but I’m scared he’ll pull away.

So I sit still, staring straight ahead as he drives us fuck knows where.

He’s nervous and it’s obvious. His fingers keep tapping the steering wheel as we head back to Lydney. It’s weird to be in a car again, travelling roads in a flash that would’ve taken me hours on foot. I’m guessing he really must be taking me back to his, no matter what Pam might have to say about it, but he turns right when he should turn left onto his road and carries on down the High Street.

“Where we going?”

“A friend’s.”

I stiffen in my seat, and even that stupid small movement sets my ankle off hurting worse. “What kind of friend?”

He glances in my direction and I feel a weird flutter in my belly. “You met him briefly. The guy in the suit from Drury’s.”

“The posh guy? Can’t see him giving me a warm welcome.”

I can’t believe he’s taking me there, to hang out with some rich snob who probably thinks I’m just a useless piece of shit. I’m tempted to open the car door, bail out and hope for the best, just to save myself the awkwardness, but I could do without any more injuries right now.

“He isn’t going to know about it, not yet anyway. He’s away on business.”

Even fucking better. I groan. “You’re going to break into his house while he’s away and let me squat there? Some friend you are.”

That makes him smile. “I have a key, which hardly makes it breaking in. I’m house sitting. And you won’t be squatting. You’ll be a guest.”

That makes me smile too. “I don’t think I’m the kind of guest he’d want there, somehow.”

“It’s only going to be for a few days, Carrie. I’ll be sure to smooth it over with him when he’s back.”

A few days. The thought of being back on the road after that isn’t great. Maybe it’ll be different when my ankle eases up.

I dare to ask the question. “And then what? When he’s back?”

He shrugs. “We’ll work something out.”

I want to ask him what we’ll work out. Whether he’ll be coming with me wherever I end up going. Whether him looking for me every night means that he likes me just as much as I like him.

I’m eighteen now, and it’s nobody else’s business if we like each other, it’s nobody else’s business what we do.

I’m not usually happy with vague answers and letting other people decide what I will and won’t be doing, but it’s different with Michael. He says we’ll work something out, and for once in my life I really want to believe him.

It felt so nice in his arms, so warm and safe. I wish he was still holding me. I’ve always felt alone, but never so much as I have these past few days. I’ve always felt like I should be on the road, but I’ve never tried to run so fast as I have these past few nights. It’s nice to let all that go, even if it’s just for a little while.

A few days.

Maybe a few days will just have to do. Maybe a few days will be long enough to convince him he should come away with me.

We drive straight through Lydney and out the other side. The big houses are out this way and I know most of them by sight. I used to wander past sometimes when I had a couple of smokes after my sessions with Michael. People might think I’m a filthy gypsy who belongs in a wagon, and I do – but these houses are nice enough to make even a traveller like me dream a little dream. Michael indicates left and pulls onto the driveway of a big white farmhouse. It’s not where I’d have imagined posh-suit man to live and I’m secretly impressed. I’d have put him down as a minimalist apartment kinda guy. One of those dicks who thinks a cream rug and a piece-of-shit modern art makes you a somebody.

“This is Jack’s place,” Michael tells me, like I need it pointing out.

I wait in the car until he comes around to my side, and my heart does a stupid sappy jump when he opens the door and helps me up again. I hold on a little longer than I need to, just to feel the warmth of him, hoping I don’t stink too bad from a couple of days without a shower. I probably do.

He takes my backpack from the back and helps me to the front door. It’s a big solid oak thing with an iron knocker. Very grand. Maybe this place really does suit posh guy after all.

Michael jangles his keys under the porch light until he finds the right one. It turns in the lock with a click and the door swings open into the darkness. Michael seems to know his way around. His hand lands right on the switch for the hall light, and he supports me right on through to the kitchen where he hitches me up onto the worktop. For once in my life I keep my muddy boots away from dirtying everything. Despite what Bill and Rosie would believe, I don’t really want another cream carpet incident. Especially not now I’ve nowhere else to go. I dangle my feet in the air until Michael drops down to slip by boots off for me.

I grit my teeth as he examines my sprained ankle.

“It’s swollen,” he says, once again pointing out the obvious.

“It’ll be fine in the morning,” I bluster, hoping to fuck I’m right about that. He takes a tea towel from a drawer and some ice from the dispenser on the fridge, then makes me up a weird icepack which he holds on the swelling.

“Nurse Michael,” I laugh, but he doesn’t laugh with me.

He looks so serious when he meets my eyes, and there are those flutters in my belly again.

“Does that feel okay?” he asks and I nod. I know he means the icepack, but it’s not that that’s making me tingle warm tingles, it’s the feeling of his fingers against my skin.

The strength in his grip as he supports my sore foot makes me feel so cared for.

Relief rushes over me. Relief that I don’t have to walk any further. Relief that I’m not going to be cold tonight. Relief that there was someone out there who really did give a shit about me.

“What happened to your lip?” he asks. His hair is messier than usual and a stray wisp hangs over his forehead. I’d love to reach out and brush it away.

“Fell over,” I lie.

“A likely story,” he says and follows it up with a sigh. He moves the icepack along my calf and I grimace. “Can you wiggle your toes?”

I wiggle my toes.

“Not broken,” he says. “That’s good.”

“Maybe you really are a nurse,” I comment and this time he smiles.

“I’ve done plenty of first-aid courses in my time, Carrie. Part of the job.”

I wish I’d sprained my lungs instead, maybe then he’d have given me mouth to mouth. It crosses my mind to hold my breath and pretend I’ve fainted, just to feel his lips on mine. I hope I’m not blushing like a fucking sap at the thought.

“We need to talk,” he says. “We need to work out a plan of action from here on in.” He pauses and all I can think about is how green his eyes look under the kitchen lights. “But not tonight. Tonight you should eat and drink and rest up.” He places my hand on the icepack. “Keep that there.”

I can’t hold back the rush of panic as he gets to his feet and leaves me on the counter. “Where are you going?”

“Only to put some food on, don’t worry,” he tells me, and I hate the way he’s seen through my armour. He opens posh guy’s big kitchen cupboards and talks me through the contents. So many things. Way more things than Rosie and Bill ever had at theirs.

He heats up a pan of soup at my request, because that’s all I think I can stomach right now, and I watch him like I’ve never seen him before. His shirt is crumpled and his jacket has a patch of dry mud on the elbow. It must be from me. He has really fine hands, long fingers like he should be a pianist or something, not some charity worker. His jaw has a shadow of stubble and it really suits him. The lights in here are harsh and show the fine lines around his eyes, but they really suit him too.

I’m not sure if it’s my belly rumbling, or the butterflies, or a bit of both, but I think I love this man. It’s the most crazy stupid thing to be thinking in some stranger’s house while my ex-charity-caseworker stirs a pan of chicken soup, but it’s true.

If I’m honest – which I rarely am – I think I’ve loved Michael for months. I think I’ve loved him since the day he called the cops and argued with them that I could be telling the truth about my bruises.

I haven’t loved anyone since the Evans family threw me out all those years ago. I don’t think anyone’s loved me since then, either. Not any of the families I’ve been palmed off on, and definitely not Bill and Rosie. And not Eli, no matter what crap he comes out with when he wants me to do something for him. But here, now, I think Michael could love me one day. Maybe.

He looked for me.

He called me and left me messages.

He made me an icepack for my ankle and stopped me from falling.

I feel in a lump in my throat and I’m so scared it might turn into stupid tears that I pretend it’s a cough. Michael gets me a glass of water and that only makes it worse.

He’s about to step back to the pan when my hand moves on its own. I watch my fingers clasp around his wrist, and he freezes dead. He doesn’t even breathe. I’d feel it on my face if he did.

“Thank you,” I say, and my voice is thick with that stupid lump in my throat.

His wrist turns in my grip and his fingers take mine. I close my eyes to stop the tears and focus on how warm his hand feels.

“You’re welcome, Carrie,” he says, and that’s it. Just like that. Like it’s a simple answer to a simple thank you, when what I really want to say is that I need him. I want him. That I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted us to run away together.

He’s back at the pan before I can say one single word, let alone all the others I want to say.

I choke them down after the stupid lump in my throat.

* * *

Michael

 

Carrie devours her soup like a starving person. She dips the bread right into the bowl and I watch with fascination as she dips her fingers right in after it. She cleans the bowl, the spoon squeaking against ceramic as she scrapes up every last drop.

I could watch her forever, and it surprises me, because I don’t remember ever feeling like this about Molly – not even back in the early days when things were new.

Even with tangles in her hair and an obvious layer of grime on her skin, Carrie Wells is a beautiful creature.

I’ve seen plenty of teenagers grow into attractive young women and never considered any of them as anything other than wards in my care, but this girl is different. Everything about her is different.

She’s unusually quiet as she places the empty bowl at her side, eyes fluttering as she struggles to stay awake. She shouldn’t be here, and yet having her here feels ridiculously good. Maybe Jack is right and this is a midlife crisis. Maybe I’m just a stupid old idiot with a stupid infatuation, but it’s only now the panic of losing her has eased that I realise how tightly wound I’ve been these past few days.

“You should get some sleep,” I say and she nods.

She’s limp as I help her down from the side. Her eyes are closed all the way through the house and upstairs, her body nestled into mine, her head pressed against my shoulder as she limps along in whatever direction I guide her.

Jack’s house isn’t really set up for guests. Aside from the master bedroom, the other upstairs rooms are used for storage and laundry. The room I usually sleep in has a small single bed amongst a load of old suitcases. It does me just fine whenever I’m visiting, and I hope it’ll do just fine for Carrie.

“I should shower…” she mumbles as I ease her onto the bed, and no sooner she’s said it than she’s wriggling out of her jacket and the couple of layers underneath. My breath is shallow as I watch her strip down to just a cami top and underwear. She winces as her jeans catch on her ankle and I’m forced to drop to my knees and help them off. Sleepy hands rest on my shoulders. A thumb brushes my neck and it feels electric. I pull away before I run the risk of doing something despicable, and without a word she pulls up her knees and wriggles herself under the covers, shower seemingly forgotten.

Her hair is so dark against the white bedding, and her skin looks so much dirtier against the clean sheets.

“Where are you gonna sleep?” she asks.

“Downstairs,” I say. “I won’t be far.”

“You can stay…” she whispers. “There’s room for two.” She backs into the wall and pats the bed to prove her point, but I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t.

“If you need me, you can holler,” I tell her. “I’ll hear you from downstairs.”

I hate the flash of rejection across her face. I hate the way she stiffens as though she’s done something wrong.

I hate how it feels to deny myself the pleasure of her body against mine.

“I’m not a kid,” she says, and I have to clear my throat.

“I know. I hope you had a good birthday all things considered.”

“I had a shit birthday, like always. I’ve no reason to celebrate, just me congratulating myself on being alive another year. Big fucking whoopee.”

I don’t know what to say, so I hover, standing over the bed of a barely dressed girl while she stares up at me. While she wants me.

I know she wants me. I’ve felt it in every touch of her fingers. In every flash of her eyes. In every moment her body pressed so perfectly to mine.

“Goodnight, Carrie.” The words feel like glass. “I have to work in the morning. If I’m gone before you wake up, help yourself to food. I’ll be back when I finish.”

“I’m not a kid, Michael,” she says again and there’s a roughness to it. “I’m not in your office. I’m not a pile of notes in your crappy folder. I’m a woman. And you should stay.”

“I can’t,” I insist, and with the words come the same nervousness I felt every week with her across the desk from me.

Her unpredictability. Her dramatic mood shifts.

Her impulsive gestures.

I know it’s coming before it happens. The sweet, sleepy Carrie who slipped between the covers disappears before my eyes, and in her stead is a siren from the deep. Her eyes are hooded but piercing, her breath is short and fast. She turns down the covers until I can see the swell of her tits over her cami. She hooks a finger in the fabric and tugs it down, offering me up the lacy cups of her bra.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” she whispers, and it’s not a request, it’s an order.

“This isn’t–” I begin, but she shakes her head.

“You’re hard. I know you are.”

My hand covers my crotch instinctively, knowing full well she’s right.

“You need to sleep.”

“Stay,” she says, and I have to close my eyes to block her out.

“Carrie, I can’t.” My voice is as firm as I can muster. I hear the hitch of my own breath as I fight for resolve.

And she changes again. Just like that.

She pulls up her cami and rearranges the covers on top of her. I’d believe I’d imagined the entire interaction if it wasn’t for the glint in her eyes.

“A goodnight kiss, then.” She says, and my dick fucking aches with the strain. “Just a peck, to say thank you. For the soup. And the other stuff.”

Just a peck. To say thank you. And then a sharp exit.

I lower myself over her, my arms rigid to keep my distance. Her fingers are lightning-fast, slipping inside my jacket and up my chest before I even lower my face to hers, her pretty mouth perfectly angled to meet mine.

It’s not a peck. Her fingers twist in my hair and hold me tight. Her lips press to mine and stay there, and so do I.

I’m not a man who gives into desire. I’m not a weak man who can’t control his urges. But I’m not the man I recognise as me as Carrie Wells sweeps her tongue across my mouth and begs for entry. I’m one heartbeat away from kissing her like I’ve never kissed anyone before in my life. I’m one breath away from tearing her grubby clothes from her and fucking her the way I’ve been dreaming of fucking her since the moment I first fucking met her.

She arches her back as if she knows it. She moans against my mouth as though she knows I’m about to break.

But I don’t.

It takes every scrap of resolve to pull away. I take a breath as I gather myself, ignoring the throb of my cock and the heat I’m packing under my suit.

“Goodnight, Carrie,” I say.

And this time I mean it.