There was no harm in saying goodbye, though. Jamie dressed, and then hurried back to the bedroom. Marc was up, prosthesis strapped on, and wearing a weathered pair of jeans—faded denim that hugged him in all the right places. His muscular chest rippled as he pulled a T-shirt over his head, and Jamie’s resolve wavered. “Um . . . so, I’m gonna go.”

“Okay. Got much planned today?”

“Just a meeting and tidying the flat up. It gets dusty when— Never mind.” Jamie shook his head. “You’re working tonight, aren’t you?”

“Yup. Seven till seven. Are you going to be okay?”

“Course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Marc sighed and kicked a drawer shut with his metal foot. “Because I’m judging you by how I feel, and I’m not looking forward to spending the night without you.”

“Oh.” Jamie dialled back his irritation and stepped into Marc’s personal space, winding his arms around Marc’s neck. “I’m sorry. I turn into a spiky bitch when I have to do something I don’t want to.”

“What don’t you want to do?”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

Marc smiled, but it seemed bittersweet, perhaps because they both knew that they had to part ways sooner or later. “This has been the longest goodbye I’ve ever known. It’s not just the raging horn that makes us act like teenagers, eh?”

“Apparently not, but I’m the one dragging my heels.” Jamie hid his face in Marc’s chest.

Marc rubbed his back. “You know you can come back anytime, don’t you? Whether I’m here or not?. Um, you can sleep here too whenever you like.”

“I think I knew that before I dropped my arse off that ladder, but I have to learn to be on my own sometimes. It’s part of my recovery, I guess. Thanks, though. Sleeping next to you is the closest to happy that I’ve been in years.”

There wasn’t much else to say, and they finally parted. Jamie left Marc in his bedroom and escaped the house as fast as he could, without chickening out and running back to the safety of Marc’s arms. He wanted to score some junk and hide away in his flat until he could see Marc, chasing the scratchy oblivion that paled in comparison to busting his load all over Marc’s chest, until he could have the real thing again. The ludicrous logic of his craving struck him as funny, but then the pessimist that lurked on his shoulder reasoned that the blissful twenty-four hours he’d spent with Marc had been a dream, and that shooting up would be the closest he’d ever get to it for the rest of his life.

Fucking drama queen. Jamie chastised himself all the way home and let himself into the flat in a foul mood. The dust that had collected in his absence taunted him as he put his shoes carefully on the rack by the front door, and it took everything he had not to attack each room like a whirlwind until it was gone.

Instead he rooted out his headphones and blasted Metallica. Music was the one thing he missed when he was at Marc’s house. Sorting through piles of Marc’s mother’s possessions was a task that seemed to suit sombre hush, but he couldn’t handle that in his own flat. It was too small for silence, the walls too close. Without James Hetfield screaming bloody murder in his ears, there was no escape from his own head.

But he couldn’t pace his flat all day, especially if he had any hope of resisting his compulsion to wipe away the minute layer of dust. Besides, he had a meeting to go to—two of them if he didn’t get the calm he needed at the first—and at ten o’clock, he wrapped up warm and left the house. The bus stop was next to the river, beside the shack that sold sausages butties, but Jamie forwent breakfast. He’d recently discovered that being hungry was a good substitute for fractious cleaning, and without Marc’s soothing presence, he didn’t feel much like eating anyway.

The bus ride was long and bumpy, but Jamie had grown to enjoy the trip through the hills. The Peak District was beautiful and made him wish that he spent less time hiding indoors. After all, how much trouble could he get into with the wind and rain in his face on a barren hillside? Don’t answer that. And for once, the monster within obeyed.

Around midday, Jamie rocked up at the community centre that played host to the local NA meeting. It started at half past, but Jamie had got in the habit of helping Billy, the crackhead ex-copper group leader, set up. A circle of plastic chairs—always optimistically too large—and a trestle table loaded with a tea urn and some stale digestive biscuits. Rumour had it that the AA group that ran on alternative days got jaffa cakes, but the NA scummers, as Billy so affectionately coined them, didn’t deserve such luxury just yet. “First fucker who gives me three months clean gets a packet of Jammie Dodgers. Until then, hold the phone.”

The fact that Jamie had more than a year apparently meant nothing. “Need to see it with me own eyes, boy. I don’t give away biscuits for nuthin.”

Jamie finished setting up, then nipped outside for a ciggie. He didn’t smoke at Marc’s house, though he was fairly sure Marc wouldn’t mind, which meant the few fags he squeezed in elsewhere were all the sweeter. He was mourning the end of his second when the first of today’s group began straggling in. Mostly men, but a pregnant woman brought up the rear. Jamie stared at her, transfixed by her swollen belly. He’d never been sexually attracted to girls, but pregnant women fascinated him, all curves and glowing skin. This woman was beautiful, despite the tell-tale shadow of addiction dragging her down.

Inside, Jamie took his favourite seat: near enough to Billy that it didn’t look like he was trying to be invisible, but close to the door so he could escape anytime he wanted. By chance, he ended up next to the pregnant woman—Della, apparently, a smack-head from Belper. The baby she was carrying was her third; she’d lost the first two when social services had taken them away. She seemed to think it was for the best, but Jamie wasn’t so sure. Zac had told him horror stories about his time in foster care, which made Jamie glad he’d dodged that shit and headed straight for the streets. Yeah, ’cause that worked out so well for you.

“Jamie? You got anything you want to share today, mate? Last I recall, you were considering going to work for that bloke up on the hill?”

Jamie shook his head, knowing Bill would let it go. And he’d actually been back to the group several times since he’d told Billy that, but Billy didn’t remember every little detail about everyone. How could he, when Jamie rarely saw the same face twice? Today, it was only Billy and the grubby guy directly opposite that Jamie recognised.

The stories were the same, though. Della’s was particularly depressing. “Every time I relapse, my life spins out of control,” she said. “If you’re an addict, you’re either using, clean, or dead. There’s no in between, and that’s what’s so fucking hard to live with.”

Jamie couldn’t argue with that. Getting clean had saved him, but in turn his so-called life had become a dedication to his addiction—a necessary homage that he’d never be free of. He’d thought it would be easier to accept under England’s grey skies than it had been in the California sun, but getting close to Marc had changed all that, and exposed his weaknesses for what they were: permanent wounds that would never heal. There was no prosthesis for Jamie . . . Just this. Just him. And it wasn’t enough.

An hour later, the meeting wrapped up, and outside with his faithful ciggies, Jamie found himself wishing he hadn’t deflected Billy’s gentle pressing. Marc was easy to talk to, but it wasn’t the same as spilling his guts to Billy and his carousel band of kindred spirits. Jamie got the impression that nothing would shock Marc, but that didn’t make his earnest understanding any easier to take.

Jamie wanted to sprawl out beneath him and fuck all night long, not confess that he’d happily destroy everything he’d ever held dear for ten more minutes of nirvana.

So why didn’t you fuck his mouth?

Because you’re a chickenshit, that’s why.

With considerable effort, Jamie pushed all thoughts of hooking up with Marc aside and pondered what he’d do with the rest of his day. The evening meeting wasn’t until six, and he usually spent the five-hour break in the nearby library, but he wasn’t in the mood for that today. For the first time he could ever recall, he was totally booked out, and lacking any better ideas, he drifted to the bench opposite the bus stop and sat down. It was drizzling lightly, but he didn’t mind. He’d found a North Face jacket in one of the rooms in Marc’s house, and Marc had all but forced him to take it home. “For your wanderings. No point getting the flu, is there?” Whatever. It was a few sizes too big, but it did keep him warm.

“Whatcha doing loitering out here, kid? Ain’t you got a home to go to?”

Jamie glanced up as Billy dropped onto the bench beside him. “What do you care?”

“Nice try, sunshine. I don’t particularly, but I don’t want you hanging around outside the hall looking like a vagrant that mugged a Boy Scout for his coat.”

Dick. Jamie pulled the too-big coat closer around him, but he couldn’t help grinning. Billy’s brutal humour was often the only thing that kept him going through a meeting. “I’m going to come back for the evening meeting. Just haven’t got round to leaving yet.”

“Two meetings, eh? Having a bad time?”

“Not really. I’ve had worse.”

“Don’t make what you’re going through now easy, mate. It means you’re a survivor.”

“Or a rash without a cure.”

“Whoa.” Billy whistled. “Ain’t you got your bitter boots on? Tell ya what you need, son, and I’m not in the business of bossing folk around—”

“Liar.”

“Shut it.” Billy ruffled Jamie’s already disastrous hair. “What you need is a change of scenery. You look like you’ve been indoors for weeks.”

“I have, but I’ve been working. I took the job at the big house.”

“Yeah? How you finding that?”

Jamie shrugged. “I like it.”

“But? What’s the matter? The boss an arsehole, is he?”

“No, no . . . it’s not that. Marc’s, uh, good to me. I love working at his house.”

“Then what is it? Scared of fucking it up?”

“Something like that.” Billy’s theory made sense—Marc and Jamie’s job in his house came together. If he messed up one, he’d likely lose the other, and both were Jamie’s lifeline to the real world. The thin thread tying him to the straight and narrow.

Billy sighed and stretched his legs out in front of him. “You’re not the first to get wobbly when things go right. We’re all fighting life and pain, but for us, one bad decision can derail years of a decent recovery. It’s about mindfulness, son. You have to learn to recognise when your addiction is talking louder than it should be, even if it don’t feel relevant.”

Mindfulness—Jamie hated the word with a passion. “This where you tell me to take up yoga?”

“If it helps, sure, but what I’m trying to say is that you’ve just got to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Take each day one at a time, and listen to what’s in here”—Billy tapped Jamie’s chest—“when it’s telling you to have a little faith.”

Jamie closed his eyes and tilted his face to the drizzling sky. He wanted to chuck derision at Billy and walk away, but the cynical snort stuck in his throat. “I’m hooking up with the bloke I work for.”

“Well that complicates things. Is that why he offered you the job?”

“Nah.” Jamie shook his head. “I wondered that too, but he’s not like that. He’s a good person.”

“So are you.”

“Am I?”

“I reckon so, but it’s a bad idea to have your entire recovery invested in someone else. You thought about looking for another job?”

“I’ll have to soon enough. It’s a temporary gig anyway, and I’ll be done in a week or so.”

Billy said nothing for a moment and plucked Jamie’s fag box from his open coat pocket and pinched a smoke. “I might know a place that could use you. You’re a chef, ain’t ya?”

“Hardly. I ran a canteen in California for a while, but it was cooking big vats of the same shit day after day, not fine dining. Any idiot could’ve done it.”

Billy grunted. “Just as well, ’cause it won’t take the brains of Britain to do what I’ve got in mind, but you might get a lot from it. Got nothing on right now, you say?”

“Free as a bird, mate,” Jamie said warily. “Not sending me down the mines, are you?”

“Worse. I’m taking you down the WI, or at least, the next best thing.”

“What?”

“You heard. Up you get.”

Jamie had spent too many years being told what to do—by johns, pimps . . . even Zac when he hadn’t had the patience to deal with Jamie’s shit—but curiosity got the better of his desire to tell Billy to piss off. He rose from the bench and followed Billy back across the road.

Billy fetched a set of keys from inside the community centre and directed Jamie to a battered white van. “Hop in.”

“Where are we going?”

“Ten minutes up the road. There’s another bus stop right outside the gaff, so you can sod off home anytime you like.”

Jamie climbed into the van. “That’s not why I was asking.”

“So? At least you know, eh?”

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Billy gunned the van’s engine and backed out of the parking space. He turned onto the main road before he looked at Jamie again. “I’m taking you to the local meal distribution centre.”

“The what?”

“Think Meals on Wheels,” Billy said. “But it’s not just for old folk. It’s a community kitchen that sends out hot food to people who can’t, for whatever reason, get it together enough to cook for themselves. It’s got a food-bank vibe going on too, but the main focus is cooking the food.”

Jamie had a strong inkling of where this was heading, but he asked anyway. “What’s that got to do with me?”

Billy treated him to a withering glance. “They need a cook, you can cook. You need a job, they’ve got one going. Ain’t rocket science, is it?”

Jamie supposed not. He turned his face to the window and watched Derby city centre fly by until Billy pulled into another nondescript car park. Then Jamie slithered out of the van and came around the bonnet to face Billy. “What’s the food bank to you?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because you’re getting all Billy about it.”

“You haven’t known me long enough to know what that is.”

“Uh-huh.” Billy could say what he liked, but Jamie saw the subtle fire in his eyes. It reminded him of Marc, but then, everything seemed to do that at the moment.

“You little shit,” Billy admonished quietly. “You’re a perceptive fucker.”

“Am I?”

“I’d say so. I opened this place ten years after I got clean. I’d been inside for burglary, and while I was gone, me old ma starved to death in her bungalow because there was no one else to check on her. My kids were too young back then, and they were in care anyway. I ain’t never forgiven myself for it, and I won’t, but I can do my bit to make sure no one else goes hungry, eh?”

Billy let his confession loose in one breath and then got out of the van, striding away towards a utilitarian building in front of them. Jamie trailed after him with a heart that was equal parts heavy and inspired. What Billy had lived through to get this far should’ve broken him, but he was a fucking hero. Just like Marc.

Jamie followed Billy through a set of fire doors and straight into the inner sanctum of a working kitchen. It was nothing like Sea Rave’s sleek operation, and it reminded Jamie of the kitchen at his old primary school, but he felt oddly and instantly at home, even before Billy dragged him forward to introduce him to the woman in charge.

“Jamie’s a bit of a cook,” Billy said. “Think you could use him?”

Sheila, who seemed every bit the stern dinner lady who suited Jamie’s first impression of the kitchen, looked him up and down. “What you been doing with all the dinners you’ve cooked? Because you haven’t been eating them. Thin as a rake, aren’t ya?”

Jamie scowled. “I can see why you and Billy get on.”

Sheila’s uproarious laugh filled the room before she nodded at Billy. “I like him.” Turning back to Jamie, she said, “I’ve got two positions going: one for a part-time driver, and another full-timer in here with me.”

“What does that involve . . . the second one, I mean,” Jamie asked tentatively.

“Training to take over from Sheila,” Billy said. “She’s retiring soon.”

“Am I balls.” Sheila cuffed Billy’s head. “But I could use a hand cooking up the big pots and packing the meals. There’s a couple of girls who come in and do the sandwiches during the week, but the fella who helps me is leaving at the end of the month, and I can’t manage it all on my own.”

Her explanation didn’t leave Jamie much the wiser, but another glance around the kitchen revealed the sandwich girls in one corner and a middle-aged man who looked like Gandalf washing dishes in the other. Two gas-burning stoves held a couple of large steaming pots, and a huge pile of potatoes filled a nearby prep counter. “What are you making today?”

“Beef stew and dumplings. Mash. Vegetable fricassee. We’ve got a hundred and eighty meals to send out, mainly on the next estate over, but some across the way too. If you’re interested, why don’t you hang around today and give it a try? The pay is rubbish, but we’re a good lot. You’ll like it, I’m sure.”

“Um. Okay.” It wasn’t like Jamie had anything better to do. Billy agreed to come and get him later on, and Jamie rolled up his sleeves and got stuck in.

The traditional school-dinner-style menu wasn’t something he’d cooked before, and it didn’t take long to figure that Sheila’s method of cooking was very much “chuck it in the pot and stir,” but Jamie got a kick out of that, and the familiar rhythm of a working kitchen was a balm to his scratchy brain. He peeled, chopped, fried, and stewed, and once everything was ready, moved to the packing area to help Sheila seal the plastic meal trays. “This really is like Meals on Wheels, isn’t it?”

“We try,” Sheila said. “We deliver to the Kingsbury complex too, and the No Fear project. We’d do more if we could, but we don’t have the capacity.”

Jamie was impressed by the volume of food the kitchen had turned out anyway. He sealed the last of the stew and dumplings, and then moved on to the apple crumbles Sheila had knocked up while he’d taken care of the huge vat of mashed potato for her. “Who delivers them?”

“Billy, mainly. We’re looking for someone else, though. He’s busy enough with his other work. You junkies keep him on his toes.”

Jamie had wondered if Sheila knew where he’d come from, but her ribbing was dealt with a kind smile, and he felt no shame. “I like Billy. He’s been good to me.”

“He’s a good man, and he should be back here any minute. Can you take these outside for me?”

“Sure.” Jamie picked up the first stacked box of meals. They were heavy, but after weeks of carting books up and down Marc’s steep stairs, he was stronger than he’d ever been.

He carried all the boxes outside. At the end of the fifth trip, Billy arrived and loaded them into his van. “Off on my run, then back to the centre to set up. You coming?”

Jamie glanced at the kitchen. “I might stay and help clear down. I’ll be there for the meeting.”

Billy’s grin was a mile wide. Jamie sneered at him and waved him off, then he retreated inside just as his phone buzzed in his pocket. The text message from Marc caught him off guard. They’d exchanged numbers to coordinate when Jamie would be around to feed the cat. Otherwise, Marc pretty much left him to it on the assumption that Jamie was usually there every day—or night—depending on Marc’s shift pattern. They’d never had cause to contact each other by phone, and Jamie’s heart skipped a beat.

He opened the message with his stomach in his throat. Perhaps this was the hammer he’d been waiting for—Marc coming to his senses and kicking him to the kerb. After all, he’d asked Jamie to fuck his mouth and Jamie hadn’t, and with the upstairs of the house nearly finished—

Marc: Eat, sleep, then eat some more. Can’t wait to see you x

The melodrama evaporated like it had never been there at all. Jamie beamed as his thumbs flew over the screen, tapping out a reply.

Jamie: Hurry home. I’ll be waiting with breakfast x

And what to make? Jamie had cooked for Marc a hundred ways with noodles, even on the days when they ate together at dawn, but his time in the kitchen with Sheila had brought him back to this side of the Atlantic. Perhaps he’d go shopping after the meeting. There was a big supermarket a mile away. Bacon sandwiches?

Fuck yeah.

The rest of the day flew by. Jamie daydreamed through the evening meeting, and then bounced as soon as it was over, promising Billy that he’d check in about the job at Sheila’s kitchen the following day. His gut told him that he’d bite their hands off if they offered it to him, but with his mind filled with Marc, he needed some time to think. If recovery had taught him anything, it was that impulsive decisions rarely worked out.

He walked from the community centre to the giant Sainsbury’s on the roundabout. Marc’s fridge had been pretty bare the last time he’d checked, so he stocked up on eggs, bacon, and sausages. Marc’s neighbour seemed to keep him supplied with bread, but Jamie got some floury baps, just in case.

The bus home dropped him off by his favourite bench. As was his habit, he stopped for a smoke before he went home. It was a cold night, and damp from a day of drizzle, but his giant jacket kept the chill at bay, helped along by a warmth in his belly that made him smile at nothing in particular. Self-loathing and doubt still ruled him, but it had been a good day. A day he was excited to tell Marc about.

After breakfast, of course.

Jamie finished his smoke and walked home. The dust in the flat taunted him like always, but after a quick shower and a load of washing, he abandoned it for the sanctuary of Marc’s house. He fed the cat, then padded upstairs to the final room on the landing. Much of its contents had ended up in the skip Marc had hired, but a walk-in closet full of old bags remained.

Whistling, Jamie sorted through them at a steady clip, eager to get the room cleaned up so he could return to the library and search out the ethnic cookbooks he’d catalogued a few weeks ago. Sheila was a great cook, but her repertoire was limited, and didn’t cater for the large Indian community who needed help as much as the white folk. Jamie had halfway promised her that he’d bring a few ideas to the table, but her kitchen had no woks, and the power of the gas burners was better suited to simmering than stir-frying. Which meant some kind of curry, which beyond chips and curry sauce, Jamie knew nothing about.

With his mind on vats of tikka masala, Jamie didn’t pay much attention to the pile of sports bags when he first came across them. He’d separated out the vintage handbags that could go the local charity shop, but the sports bags had felt full, so he’d set them aside for the end.

Jamie sat on the floor and opened them up. Predictably, they contained old clothes, but these were clearly Marc’s. Jamie folded them carefully, even though he intended to wash them, and turned his attention to the very last bag. It was empty, but the inside pocket was stuffed to bursting. Impatient, Jamie held the bag upside down and shook it. For a moment, nothing happened, and then three boxes of tramadol fell right into his lap.