Rae

Rae: You win

Cash: who’s this?

Rae: Rae

Cash didn’t reply straight away, so I set my phone on my burning chest and went back to dozing, still mourning the clean bed in his spare room, even though it had been eight days since I’d left it. Fletch had found me a mattress from somewhere to keep in the back of the van, but even away from the elements, it had nothing on sleeping on sheets that smelled like Cash.

Cash: what did I win?

Rae: I got bronchitis, so I was a walking microbe after all…

Cash: r u ok?

Rae: Yeah. I’m sleeping in the van—thanks for that—and mainlining amoxicillin. Be fine soon enough.

Cash: good.

Good? Was that it? After all he’d done for me at his house, I’d kind of been counting on more than that, though quite what I’d expected, I wasn’t sure. The burn in my chest had sent me crazy, and despite everything my people were doing to look after me, the concern in Cash’s gaze haunted me.

The concern I’d thrown back in his face.

God, I was an arsehole. A confused arsehole, no less. No one around here seemed to know anything concrete about Cash, but the general consensus was that he’d been an ultra sab until something huge had happened to break up his unit. Something that had hurt him enough to go to ground for years, only for me to rock up on his doorstep and drag him back.

This wasn’t a new conclusion, but I’d had a lot of time to think over the past week, and most of it had been about Cash. I didn’t get him in any way whatsoever, but something about him was painfully familiar. The hurt in his eyes hurt me too, and I didn’t know why.

Cash: are u heading out this weekend?

Heart skipping, I tapped out a reply.

Rae: Nah. Everyone else is, but you won that too. I’m no good to them right now.

Another long pause stretched out. I stared at WhatsApp, willing the two tiny grey ticks to turn blue, and it seemed like an age before they did.

Cash: sitting out is killer

Cash: want some company?

Rae: What kind of company?

Cash: me…if that ain’t too dull for you i can pick u up

His grammar was giving me hives, but the thought of spending time with him again, even though our last two encounters had ended with one of us storming off, gave me fucking life.

Rae: Yes please.

***

The rest of the week passed as though it was tied to a snail. Cabin fever didn’t help, but as my chest cleared enough for me to enjoy fresh air again, eventually I found myself waiting at the gatepost three hours before Cash’s ETA.

It was a crisp winter day, frost on the ground and sparkling in the trees. The kind of day fairy tales were made of when they didn’t involve posh cunts with dogs chasing wildlife through the fields. Guilt twisted my stomach, but I tried to ignore it. Meg and Fletch had agreed with Cash. “Stay home, Rae. We can’t risk you getting hurt again.”

Getting hurt was a risk with every operation, and I had the scars to prove it, but though my bruises were fading, I didn’t fancy trying to outrun anything beyond an elderly sheep just yet.

Carefully, I scaled the gate and perched at the top. It gifted me a view of the path leading to Fletch’s land and I wondered how long I could sit here before my legs went numb. Long enough to—

“Rae?”

I jumped a fucking mile, twisting my neck so fast I was surprised my head didn’t spin clean off. “The fuck? You’re not supposed to be here yet.”

Cash grinned. “And I reckon you’re not supposed to let any fool wander onto your camp, but here I am.”

“Dick.”

“Yup.”

We stared at each other, not quite friends, but more than two blokes who’d fucked around one time. Cash was dressed for the mud—weatherproof trousers, boots, and a hat that hid most of his glorious hair. He looked like a sab, and I fought hard to remind myself it was the last thing he wanted to be.

I turned my attention to the large bag at his feet. “What’s all that? Have you come to stay?”

Cash rolled his eyes. “No chance. I brought some stuff to make the van more comfortable for you.”

“Why are you so good to me?”

It wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but I didn’t regret asking, even when Cash’s only answer was a shrug. Perhaps he didn’t understand himself any better than I did.

Fuck it. I eased myself down from the gate. “You got me. I’m curious. Show me?”

We made our way to the van. Cash held my elbow to keep me steady. I didn’t need him to, but I didn’t stop him either.

“You look better than I thought you would,” he said. “Them bruises healed up?”

I dug in my pocket for the van keys. “Mostly. I’m good if I don’t move too fast.”

He nodded, and as his gaze drifted to the horizon, somehow I knew he was picturing the hunt in the next county—the horns, stampeding hooves, the salivating terrier men waiting in the wings.

I shuddered. Or was it him? With him still gripping my elbow, I couldn’t be sure.

Either way, I needed a diversion and focussing on the heat pulsing where he touched me was just about perfect. I nearly cried when he let go.

I opened the van’s side door, glad I hadn’t made much mess inside yet. “So what do you have in your Mary Poppins bag to make this shit homey?”

“You’ll see.” Cash reached around me and slid my makeshift bed out in one easy movement, lifting it over his head and slinging it onto the van’s roof like it weighed nothing. “You well enough to handle a drill?”

Mystified, I nodded, but my bemusement didn’t last long. Cash had brought rolls of material to insulate the van, and attaching it to the van’s interior turned out to be so easy I was embarrassed I hadn’t thought of it myself—for Meg and Fletch, more than me.

“There’s plenty left,” Cash said over his shoulder. “We can do theirs after, if you like.”

Where had this man come from?

I slid awkwardly out of the van to where he was standing by the third bag of tricks he’d fetched from his car. “What the fuck is that?”

Cash flashed me a boyish grin. “A telly, just a little one you can stick a memory stick in. Once upon a time, I had grand plans of living in this thing—hitting the road and never coming back.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “I guess I needed some stability more than the open road. Next thing I knew I was knee-deep in mortgage payments and ripped-up floorboards.”

I was more glad of that than I cared to admit, that his life had strayed off-piste enough to cross over into mine, but the sadness in Cash’s warm gaze eclipsed any relief I felt. My hand slid over his arm of its own accord and I knocked my head against his shoulder. “It’s not over for you, I can feel it.”

“That right?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

I shuffled away before he could answer, retreating to Fletch and Meg’s trailer to borrow their gas stove. It was ancient, and brewing tea was a drawn-out process. By the time I returned to the van, Cash was up to his elbows in electrics.

“Most of it was already here,” he said. “Told you…I got halfway in before quitting. Just a few connections and you’re golden. See this extension here? It runs off the battery, so it charges whenever you start the engine.”

“Can I plug my laptop into it?”

“And your phone. There’s a mains socket you can use anytime you’re near a hook-up, but I’m guessing you don’t spend much time on commercial campsites.”

“Nah, but we can plug it into someone’s house electric, though, right? If we park up on a driveway?”

Cash nodded. “I plugged it into mine before you left last week, so it should all work pretty well.”

He flicked a switch and the once dreary interior of the Transit was suddenly illuminated with soft light from the LED lamps Cash had installed. The TV flashed to life, and warmth inexplicably cloaked the air.

I glanced around. “Did you put a heater in here somewhere?”

Cash pointed to the lights installed under the front seats. “A tiny one. You’ll still need your arctic sleeping bag, but getting up won’t be so harsh if you flick them on first.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

Another vague shrug. “I did once. Try not to think much at all these days.”

He shut the lights off and went back to fiddling with the mess of cables he’d pulled out from who-knew-where, while I settled onto the makeshift bed, clutching my mug of tea, and utterly transfixed by his nimble fingers. I loved his hands. Aside from recalling in minute detail the fucking amazing things he could do with them, I saw a story in them too—many stories. Every nick and scar told a tale I was desperate to know, and only not wanting him to think I was a nosy weirdo kept me from asking a million questions.

But silence was dangerous, as was the contentment that came with having Cash close by. Watching him insert tiny parts of my world into a space that was undeniably his did odd things to me, but I was growing used to that. The way our acquaintance was perversely distant and intimate. Brand new, but so familiar. I loved it. I hated it.

And I really fucking liked him.

“Still awake up there?”

“Hmm?” I blinked a couple of times to find Cash right in front of me, lips twisted in another easy, crooked grin. “What?”

“One day we’ll spend more than five minutes together without you falling asleep.”

“I was up all night the first time.”

Cash raised a challenging eyebrow, but I had nothing else. Considering all that had happened since, that night was fucking sacred. I wasn’t in the mood to hear him dismiss it again.

I sat up from my half slouch and surveyed what he’d been doing while I’d apparently dozed off. The TV was now attached to the back of the front passenger seat, and he’d added warmly patterned fabric on top of the insulating felt on the walls. “It’s like a tepee in here. Are you trying to turn me hippie?”

Cash snorted. “As if you’re not halfway there already.”

“Piss off.”

“Nope.” He straightened up from burying the last of the cables under a cupboard I’d never noticed until now. “I’m hungry. You wanna go somewhere?”

“Around here?” It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “That doesn’t really work for me. Goon—uh, that’s the main landowner in the village—pretty much banned me from the pubs and shops. If I want a bag of chips I have to go into the next town.”

Cash snorted. “Sounds familiar. We couldn’t walk down the street without—” He stopped and shook his head. “Never mind. Okay, stay here. I’ll get something.”

“You don’t have to—”

But Cash was already getting out of the van. He slid out and shut the door behind him, leaving me to the luxury of the flash pad he’d built for me in a single afternoon.

Over the last few years, I’d built up a collection of blankets and sleeping bags. Most had been too damp and muddy to bring into the van, but I had enough to spread out into a pretty comfortable bed. I made it as nice as it was ever going to get, then tucked my feet beneath me and considered the TV. There was a USB slot in the side. I rifled through my laptop bag and retrieved the memory stick I’d burned the Go-Pro footage of the last hunt onto. Meg had asked me days ago to check it for anything we could hand to the police, but up until now, I hadn’t been able to face it.

I still wasn’t feeling watching myself get run over, but that was life—my life, at least—and in the comfort of my Cash-built cave, I felt safer than I had in a while.

Steeling myself, I stuck the stick into the USB drive and navigated the interface with the pixie-sized remote Cash had tossed at my head earlier. It was mostly in Japanese, but thanks to my grandmother, that worked in my favour.

The hunt filled the small screen, silent at first until I found the volume controls. Then I wished I hadn’t. The sounds of an active hunt often haunted my dreams. I didn’t need reminding of it.

I pressed the mute button as Sprig’s footage played out, and then mine. The quad bike knocking me down proved anticlimactic without the sound, and I watched it three times with morbid fascination before I realised what I was doing.

I’d left Meg’s footage till last on purpose, knowing that after I’d watched it, I wouldn’t have the stomach to face any more. Because it wasn’t enough that I’d been rinsed by a quad bike, we’d lost the day too. A fox had been chased down and killed, and Meg had seen it all.

I watched through my fingers, anger and horror fighting for dominance in my blood. My hand shot out to shield me from the worst visuals, but despite it all, we had nothing that would make the police finally give a shit about what was going down under their noses.

Heart pounding, I fumbled with the remote to kill the footage. The screen went blank just as Cash opened the van door.

He frowned. “Did you throw up again?”

“Nah. I’m good.” I ripped the memory stick out of the TV and stuffed it into my pocket. “What did you get?”

Cash’s frown deepened, but he let my deflection hold, and thrust two hot plastic bags at me. “Chips and a curry from the Indian place. I didn’t know what you liked.”

“Chips are grand, mate. You have the curry, I’m a veggie.”

“Duh. So am I, dickhead. Goes with the territory, don’t it?”

“You’d think, but there’s plenty of meat eaters around here.”

“Hypocrites. I’d be vegan if I had the willpower.”

“Me too. It’s pizza, man. Gets me every time. And my nan’s omelettes. She’s Japanese—there’s nothing like them.”

“Japanese, eh?” Cash lifted a paper-wrapped parcel from one of the bags and opened it to reveal a steaming pile of vinegar-soaked chips. “Is that where your family is from?”

“Vaguely on my dad’s side. There’s a lot of Greek blood in my mum’s family.”

Cash pushed the chips at me. “That’s a long way from Ireland.”

“You’ve never been travelling? You look the gap year type.”

“There are worse things to look like, I suppose.” Cash picked up a chip, but didn’t eat it. “And to answer your question, I wanted to…planned to, but I got caught up in sabbing straight out of uni. Wound up fixing cars to keep some money rolling in. I don’t sab no more, but I’m still fucking here.”

No trace of bitterness laced Cash’s soft words, but I sensed regret in him, and it hurt. Sabbing was my life, and I wouldn’t change it for the world, but I knew what it was like to leave everything else by the wayside.

Tension blanketed the air. To break it, I reached for the curry bag and peeked inside. “Oooh, is this the hot one with the spinach?”

Cash chuckled; humour lighting his face as though I’d imagined the shadows. “Maybe. I’m not sure what I pointed at.”

I loved how he switched from almost painful attention to detail to being so laid back he was practically horizontal. How he cared about things that mattered, and was gloriously lackadaisical about those that didn’t. Suddenly famished, I dug through the bag and found a jumbo pot of my favourite curry, a coconut naan, and a bhaji the size of a cricket ball. “How did you know?”

Cash laughed again.

I threw a chip at him. “Come eat with me.”

Cash grabbed a wooden board from beneath my bed and placed it on the covers. We set the food out and got stuck in like we were old friends who stuffed our faces together all the time. As the spicy curry heated my blood, camaraderie warmed my soul. Were we friends? I wasn’t sure yet, but if this was all we had, I could live with it.

We polished off the food in ten minutes flat. Cash stuffed the last chip into my mouth, then cleared everything away while I lay bloated on my warm, dry bed. Part of me pondered if I was dreaming, if I’d wake up tomorrow back in my shitty Millets tent, but most of all I wondered what would happen if I asked Cash to spend the night with me.

He came back to the van. I sat up and stared at him, absorbed his open gaze and easy smile, and took a breath—

The rumble of an approaching vehicle cut me off. The crew were back. For better or worse, the hunt was over, and Cash was already walking away.