Give Yourself Away (17 page)

But if March had driven out here, why hadn’t he come in to see him? Would he really drive all this way and then go back without a word? Maybe…if he wanted to make a romantic gesture. And it was fine if March had left the flower.

Caleb took out his phone. He’d missed a call from March. He had his phone on Vibrate and hadn’t heard it above the sound of the saw. There was a message too and he opened it.

Thx 4 the rose. Whose garden did u nick it from? Want 2 come 4 dinner?

Caleb slumped against his car. Shit. The panic he’d suppressed surged back and his heart pounded. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He read the message again, in case he’d made a mistake, but he hadn’t. Whoever was after him now had March in his sights. What was he going to do? Hyperventilating wasn’t going to help, but Caleb could feel his chest tightening. The prelude to a panic attack. Count…breathe… He dragged himself back under control and called Victor.

“Hello, darling,” Victor said. “I’ve missed the sound of your voice.”

Caleb assumed he’d been forgiven, or Mike was pissing Victor off and Victor wanted to piss Mike off in turn.

“How’s the invalid?”

“I’m exhausted looking after him. Fetch this. Get that. Buy the steak from Costco and not Sainsbury’s. Put a different channel on the TV, as if his finger has fallen off. I’m his new slave. I’d forgotten how demanding he is. I’m a fool— Yes, yes, it’s Caleb asking how you are. He’s been worried sick. Go back to bed. I’ll bring you something to eat. Something big and juicy.” Victor laughed. “Right, the pest has gone now. Did I say how exhausted I am?”

Victor’s tone of voice led Caleb to suspect the guy was reveling in having Mike to take care of.

“Is he feeling better?”

“Since he insisted we watch him perform in his favorite movie
Guy Play
twice last night while he checked his equipment was still in working order, I think we can assume the answer is yes. And the good news is—so is mine.” Victor rolled his
r
’s as he purred.

Caleb made himself chuckle. He didn’t care what Mike did anymore and it was a relief. By cheating on him, Mike had done him a favor.

“Are you all right?” Victor asked. “Jamie called twice asking about you. Wondering if you were okay, where you were staying.”

“I’m fine. This is going to sound a crazy question,” Caleb said, mentally crossing his fingers, “but do the words ‘red rose’ mean anything?”

No point asking if either of them had sent the roses. They had no idea where Caleb was living in Lymton, though Caleb had mentioned the town lifeboat, but they didn’t know about March.

“Funnily enough, there was a red rose on the doorstep of Mike’s place when I went to get him some clothes before he left the hospital.”

Oh shit.
Caleb dropped his phone and scrambled to pick it up.

“You still there?” Victor asked.

“Yep, sorry.”

“There was a card with it. It said ‘I’m the only one allowed to love you’. I thought you must have sent it. Though I didn’t know what you meant. You know Mike doesn’t do subtle. He needs everything spelled out. He thinks you want him back.”

“I didn’t send it. I’ve had one too. It was put on my car this morning.”

“Oh fuck.” Victor put two and two together, and quickly. “You think whoever stabbed him also left the roses and has his eye on you both?”

Caleb’s heart settled uncomfortably on his stomach. Set out like that, it was exactly what he thought. “Be careful, Victor. I don’t like this. I think the message was for me and Mike. Plus I haven’t told anyone where I’m working, but somehow this guy found out.”

“Should I tell the police? Are you going to?”

“They’d laugh in my face.” Caleb was torn. Once he’d opened that door, he’d give himself away, but if he didn’t speak to the police and anything happened to Mike or to Victor…or to March… He mentally groaned. “I’ve changed my mind. I think you should tell the police. Tell them I had a rose too and I’m worried.”

“Do you have a stalker?” Victor asked.

“I think I do.”

“Maybe I should take Mike away on a little vacation. Somewhere warm and sunny.”

“That’s a good idea. Can he fly?”

“If not, I’ll drive. You be careful, Caleb.”

“Yeah.”

Caleb had a lot of thinking to do. He left his lunch in the car. His appetite had gone.

Caleb erected flat-pack units all afternoon. He didn’t speak to the others or stop for a break, just plodded on while his brain went into overdrive.

Four years since he’d escaped from the house. Four years since he’d seen Liam’s body. If Liam was dead, he obviously hadn’t sent the rose to Simon, hadn’t been responsible for Simon’s death, hadn’t stabbed Mike, hadn’t sent a rose to Mike, to March or to him.

But if it wasn’t Liam, then who was it? It seemed so unlike Jasim and, anyway, Jasim had told him he’d never see him again. Had Caleb been stupid to believe that?

Which brought him full circle to Liam. Could Liam really be alive? If he was, why hadn’t he come after Caleb before? Why wait four years? What was the point of a cat-and-mouse game like this?

“I’m the only one allowed to love you.”

The roses were a threat. Simon dead, Mike almost dead and now March a target, and Caleb couldn’t tell him why without revealing everything. No question whether he’d want him then.
But how can I not tell him?

Caleb had two more messages from March.

Did you get my text? Dinner at 7? Okay?

The second said,
I’m assuming you don’t want to come. Why not?

Caleb didn’t answer either of them. He’d convinced himself the best thing to do was to cut off all contact. If he showed no interest in March, then whoever was watching would see that. Caleb would work out the week, collect his money and go.

But he felt terrible. Where was the person inside him who liked to help others? He and March had just started something that had given Caleb hope, and here he was, planning to walk away without a word.
I’m a fucking coward.

When the guys went home at the end of the day, Caleb took his sleeping bag and pillow into one of the unrenovated lodges, and put them on the floor. He left the light off, in case anyone came looking, and curled up in the semi-dark.

It was clear he had to leave Dorset, get as far away as possible. Northumberland? Cumbria? Why wait until the end of the week? Go now. Maybe he shouldn’t work as a carpenter. That might be how he’d been found. He could get a job in a café or pub. Until he’d figured out a way forward, maybe live off the money he hadn’t wanted to touch.

Seemed Caleb had finally discovered the full consequences of what he’d done the day he left his prison for good. He’d thought his plan was working, but all this time it had been slowly unraveling. All that was left of that tightly wrapped ball of string was a small tangle that would soon be undone.

Of course, he could always go to the police and tell them who he was. Caleb gave a quiet chuckle. He couldn’t even prove his name had once been Tye. Plus, there was Jasim to think about.

A car pulled up next to his, the headlights briefly illuminating the room, and Caleb froze. It could be March or Jed Morris, or the guy who’d left the roses, or some opportunistic thief. His guess was March.

He heard banging, not at the door of the unit he was in, and March calling him. Caleb could have stayed where he was, but he pushed to his feet and went to open the door.

March was outside the unit opposite.

“I’m over here,” Caleb called.

March turned and rushed over. “Thank God you’re all right. I was worried sick.”

But when March saw Caleb’s face, March’s worry slipped away to be replaced by a more guarded expression. “Ah, right. I get it. It wasn’t that you hadn’t had my texts because you’d lost your phone, or you’d sawn your arm off and were in the hospital. You chose not to answer. Don’t you think I deserve better than that?”

“Yes,” Caleb choked out. “Only I can’t give you more than that.”

“I don’t understand. Everything was fine. More than fine.” March’s jaw twitched. “Can I come in? Or do we have to have the ‘it’s me, not you’ talk on the doorstep?”

Caleb moved out of the way.

March stepped inside, switched on the light and stared at the sleeping bag. “Don’t tell me you’re sleeping here.” He walked around and pushed open the bathroom door. “You couldn’t ask to spend the night at my place? Worried I’d want to fuck you, or that I wouldn’t let you fuck me? What the hell’s the matter?”

“I didn’t leave you that rose.”

March straightened. “You didn’t?”

“I had one too.”

“Right. And it’s not Valentine’s Day.” March shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Someone’s fucking around with us. The roses aren’t a gesture of…goodwill.”

“You’re scared,” March said quietly. “You’re backing away for my sake.”

Caleb nodded, praying he didn’t have to explain more.

“Does this have anything to do with your ex getting stabbed?”

“I think so. And with the guy I went out with before him getting killed. He got a rose too.”

“You had a boyfriend who was killed, another who was stabbed?” March stared at him unblinking.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

March sucked in his cheeks. “Is this connected with your back?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt. That’s why I think it’s better that we walk away from each other right now.”

“Have you spoken to the police?”

Caleb shook his head. “I can’t.”

“I suppose there’s no point me asking why not?”

Caleb shook his head again.

March began to pace. “That’s it then. You’re just going to give up?” He came to a halt right in front of Caleb. “You know we have something.”

Caleb’s heart pounded. “We had fun.”
Finish this now.
“It was kind of cool being the first guy to give you a blowjob. But you should take a look at what’s on offer, not settle for the first guy you came out to.”

He cringed at the flare of anger in March’s eyes.

“I don’t fucking believe you,” March snapped.

Caleb didn’t trust himself to speak or to move, because his heart was going to beg March to hold him and never let go.

“Still, you can’t finish something that hadn’t even started.” March’s voice was cool. “You’re right. I should try out some clubs. Fuck a few guys, let them suck me off. Maybe what we did last night wasn’t as great as I thought. How can I know which is my favorite treat if I haven’t tried more than one.”

“Be—”

“Be what? Be careful?” March snapped. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t dump me and still care what happens to me.”

“Yeah, I can.” Caleb rushed to warn him before March shut him down. “They’ll be all over you in a club. You’re too gorgeous to resist. You have to make sure they don’t trick you into sex without protection. Giving an infected guy a blowjob carries risk. You shouldn’t—”

“You’re dumping me because you care about me.” March had softened his voice. “You think there’s some crazy stalker out there and you don’t want me in his crosshairs. You’re pushing me away because I won’t walk away. Cruel to be kind.”

Caleb kept silent.

“Your one and only chance to tell me the truth.” March took a step toward him and Caleb curled his toes in his shoes to keep him where he was. “If your fucked-up past didn’t exist, what would you be doing right now?”

Caleb stepped into March’s arms. Their lips clashed as they wrapped themselves around each other. He’d meant to walk away. He knew he should, but for the first time in his life he felt this was something just for him. There had to be a way to make this work. He could persuade March to move. He’d use that money to pay for a private investigator or a bodyguard.

You want to take the risk of him getting killed?

Caleb jerked away.

Chapter Seventeen

Things changed.
The subtle differences in the way Liam looked at him, spoke to him and touched him made Tye uneasy. He wondered if Liam didn’t want him anymore now he’d grown up. He wished he knew how old he was. He guessed he was twenty, but when he asked Liam, the answer was always the same—eleven.

Not to be wanted was something to rejoice in, yet something to fear. Not just because rejection might lead to Tye’s demise, but because Liam might take another child. It was only the amount of time Liam spent with him that made Tye believe he’d not already taken another boy to play with.

Tye longed, and yet didn’t long, to be sick enough to require a doctor, but he was never ill. He lived in a concrete bubble. He wished he had enough willpower to starve himself. Liam never gave him enough to eat and Tye knew that in keeping him hungry, it kept him eating.

But Tye craved revenge more than death. Revenge kept him breathing, kept dragging him back to be warmed by flickers of hope when he believed all hope had gone.

He thought he’d go mad. How could anyone go through this and stay sane?

One day everything changed.

Tye woke in a different room. One with windows and furniture. He lay on a large, comfortable bed facing a wall of glass that looked out over the sea. He blinked against the brightness even though it was a cloudy day. A dream. If he closed his eyes, it would be gone, but he was afraid to close his eyes in case it
did
disappear. The sea. The sky. The call of a gull. The faint hum of traffic. The sound of water.

He tried to sit up and couldn’t. His arms and legs were leaden. His head ached. His throat was sore and parched. His jaw hurt. Tye slid his hand over his chest and felt the sticky residue of come. The dull ache in his backside told him he’d been fucked hard.

He turned his head when he heard a door open and a naked stranger walked out of a bathroom. Tye began to shake. The guy was tall and narrow shouldered with straight, dark hair and olive skin. He looked foreign.

The man crawled into bed and stroked Tye’s face. “My beautiful boy with those beautiful green eyes.”

How could he have been fucked and not remember? What drug had Liam given him? Tye saw an opportunity and took it.

He mustered enough strength to lean over and kiss the guy’s stubbled cheek. “Can…stay?” The words sounded strange coming from his mouth. Had he made sense?

But after sex in bed and sex in the shower, after Tye had given the best performance of his life, he fell asleep and woke back in hell, not even sure any of it had ever happened. But the name Jasim convinced him otherwise. Too unusual for him to have made up.

* * *

March yanked Caleb back into his arms. “Don’t pull away. Give us a chance. Tell me about the roses, tell me about your boyfriends, your enemies. Let me help you.”

Caleb screwed up March’s sweater in his fists and buried his face in his shoulder. He wanted to say yes, but he was afraid for March.

“Come home with me.” March stroked his back. “If you have someone stalking you, we need to do something. Convince me why you can’t go to the police. Talk to me.”

One more night. Caleb didn’t want to leave the area until morning anyway. Whoever had left the roses knew where March lived, knew where Caleb worked. He’d go back with March, but he wouldn’t sleep. Caleb wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

“Okay,” Caleb said. “I’ll follow you in my car.”

March nodded and let him go.

Caleb scooped up the sleeping bag and pillow. He locked the door, with March hovering behind him.

“We can fix this,” March said and kissed him.

No they couldn’t.
But it meant a lot that March wanted to try.

It poured with rain as Caleb followed March up the winding road to his house. When Caleb saw a car’s lights in his mirror, his heart raced and his palms slipped on the wheel. At least he was between March and the guy behind, but concentrating on driving became more and more difficult as panic tightened its grip.

When the car pulled onto the drive behind him, Caleb leapt out, fists clenched, and sagged when he saw the pizza logo on the driver’s opening door.

March came past him to pay and gave Caleb a worried look. “You okay?”

Caleb nodded.

“Anything you want to bring in?” March asked as the pizza guy backed out of the drive.

He shook his head and locked the car.

March cleared his throat. “Toothbrush? Razor? Lube? Although I do now have a lifetime’s supply of the latter.”

Caleb wanted to laugh and he couldn’t. He took his bag from the car and followed March into the house. He dumped his stuff in the hall and shook off the rain.

March beckoned him to the kitchen. “Beer? Wine? Water? Help yourself. Would you get me a beer, please?”

Caleb took two Coronas from the fridge and opened them.

March lifted his books from the coffee table, put the pizzas there and went to get plates and napkins.

“Sit next to me,” March said. “And eat. You’ll feel better.”

Caleb forced down a couple of slices because March glared at him when he didn’t make any effort. After March had polished off what remained, he took the boxes away, brought over another two beers, sat back and waited.

“I can’t tell you everything,” Caleb said.

“Then tell me what you can. Tell me about your boyfriends. What went wrong? That might show us the way to put things right.”

Us.
Caleb had been alone for so long—not counting Simon or Mike because it turned out he’d still been alone even with them—that he couldn’t get his head around the idea of an
us
.

“I’ll start four years ago,” he said quietly. “I was twenty-three. What happened before that has to stay where it is.” As much as he could manage it. “I didn’t have boyfriends, just hookups. Brief encounters in club toilets, quick fucks in someone’s apartment when they made it clear, even though they didn’t need to, that they didn’t expect me to hang around until morning, or sometimes even after they’d come. It makes me sound like a slut and I wasn’t. I didn’t do it very often. It was just that sometimes I needed to be touched, but never twice by the same person.”

“Why didn’t you want a boyfriend?”

Caleb hesitated. “The fear of being trapped, of someone getting too close, too possessive. I’d been hurt. I didn’t want it to happen again.” He kept his gaze lowered, his attention fixed on his beer, twirling it in his fingers as he spoke. “I moved around a lot. Went where there was work. That didn’t help on the boyfriend front. But then I met Simon. He
did
want me to stick around.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I’d done some carpentry work for a friend of his.” Caleb gave a short laugh. “Simon seemed different and I was…happy. And Simon was happy until he got jealous and there was no reason for it, but he couldn’t help it. Someone had cheated on him and he couldn’t get his head around the fact that I would never do that. Every time I went out and it wasn’t with him, he wanted to know where I was going, who I was going to see, when I’d be back. We weren’t even living together. It wore me out. The anxiety wore him out too.

“I don’t get jealousy. I’m not like that. I don’t automatically think the worst of someone. I think the best until I’m proved wrong.”

Caleb had taught himself to believe the world wasn’t full of men like Liam. He’d been unlucky, that was all. “Simon thought the worst of everyone. When he was happy he was fun to be with, but he could change in an instant. He picked a fight in a restaurant over nothing and went batshit crazy.”

Even thinking about that night gave Caleb chills. “He read a message on his phone, then yelled at me, threw his wine in my face and flounced off. That was the last time I saw him alive. He was attacked, robbed and left to die in an alley. The police never found who did it.”

Caleb felt the words rushing out of him now. “I don’t think it was random. I don’t think it was a robbery. Whoever did it took his wallet and his mobile, but not his watch. He wore a two-thousand-pound watch. Why wouldn’t they take that? The police said the robber was probably in a hurry and only wanted cash. I told them about the text he’d had before he left the restaurant, and that it had upset him and I thought it had something to do with me. They got a copy from his phone company. It said ‘I’m the only one allowed to hurt him’.”

He heard March exhale but he couldn’t look at him. Caleb had lied to the police and said he had no idea what the words meant.

“It was a dead end. They couldn’t find out who’d sent it. It was a difficult time. His sister blamed me. She said a friend had told her I was cheating on her brother, and she’d told Simon and he was going to confront me about it. So it was my behavior that had adversely affected Simon’s mental state and that’s why he’d run off down a dark alley that night. Something he never would have risked if he’d been thinking clearly.”

“But—”

Caleb held up his hand. “That part was true. Simon was even more cautious than me. But I didn’t push him away. He pushed me. His family made it clear I wouldn’t be welcome at his funeral, but I decided to go to the crematorium later that day, say a few private words and put my flowers with the rest. At the side of all the tributes to Simon, there was a single rose and a card. It said ‘I’m the only one allowed to hurt you’.”

March groaned. “Did you tell the police?”

“The rose and the card had gone when they went to look.” A lie. Caleb had never told them. “I should have taken a picture. I kept thinking—‘they don’t believe me’. And if it was some crazy stalker, where had he come from? Where did he go?

“After Simon, I hardly went out with anyone for years. I had a few one-night stands and then I started seeing Mike four months ago. Moved in after two months. The night Mike hit me, I was already thinking of moving out. That just gave me a push. Then Mike was stabbed and might have died.

“When our mutual friend Victor went to Mike’s place to get him some clothes, he found a rose on the doorstep. He thought I’d sent it. Now you’ve had one and so have I.”

“Shit,” March said.

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve no idea who could be behind it?”

“No.”

And there was his lie. March knew it. Something happened prior to Caleb meeting Simon, and Caleb had shut the door on talking about it. That was when his back was fucked up. Caleb was just too sensible to have had something tattooed there if he hadn’t wanted it. This mystery guy’s name? His face?

March reached for his hand and when Caleb tried to pull away, March didn’t let him. “I know you’re scared. I would be too. I know you want to run. I understand why, but this isn’t going to go away. Whoever is doing this is going to follow you. Run from here and it will start all over again. Let me help you find this guy.

“You began telling me from four years ago—what happened before that? You were with someone? Who? What was he like? Controlling? Abusive? You can get court orders to keep people like that away.”

“I don’t need a court order. He’s dead.”

March gave a startled gasp. “You’re not saying you think whoever is doing this is a ghost?”

The color leached from Caleb’s face. “Christ. No. I don’t believe in ghosts…except sometimes… Oh fuck.” He yanked his hand free. “This isn’t a good idea. I’m going to bring you trouble. I’ve already brought it. If anything happened to you…” Caleb let out a choked sob. “I need to get as far away from here as I can. Running is the only thing I can do.”

“No it’s not. I haven’t hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. That means I’m not in danger. You were with Mike for four months with no roses, no interference. I think we could risk a little longer than a few days. I’m not the jealous type and there is no way I’d ever hit you.”

March’s pager went off in his pocket and he jumped up and yanked it out. “Shit. Bad timing. I have to go. There’s a call-out. Lock the door. If you’re worried, phone the police.” At the door he turned back. “But don’t leave. Please.”

As March drove to town, he’d hoped Brian would already have chosen his crew and he’d be surplus to requirements, but it was a yacht in trouble farther out. The seas were rough, and they needed the
Tyne
, the offshore lifeboat which required a crew of six.

He quickly kitted up and they were heading out to sea within ten minutes of the alert. March had to stop himself thinking about Caleb while he did his job, or he’d mess up. In a way it was better that he’d had this call-out, because it gave Caleb a chance to decide what to do. March didn’t want him to leave, but he couldn’t force him to stay.

Caleb was going to leave, despite March’s request that he not, but now he worried about March going out to sea on a wild night like this.
Fuck it.

Caleb locked up and drove to the lifeboat station. The weather was awful. Apart from the torrential rain, the wind was howling, and dark clouds scudded across the sky.

He left his vehicle in the parking lot and headed across to the lifeboat station, bent over against the force of the gusts.

He couldn’t see anyone around and decided he’d sit and wait inside.

“What are you doing here?” a man asked.

Caleb spun round to see the guy who’d opened the door when he brought the biscuits. “Waiting for March.”

“Well, you’ve got a long wait. It’s only October.” He laughed. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve been waiting to use that line.”

Caleb smiled but he was too nervous to feel amused. “Who have they gone to rescue?”

“A yacht’s in trouble. Mayday went out from the two-man crew. They were taking in water.”

“Is it okay if I wait?”

“They could be hours.”

“I’d like to wait.”

The guy smiled. “I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”

Caleb looked out of the window into the night. It was hard to see anything, but the waves were huge, rolling breakers crashing onto the shore. Exciting if you weren’t out on them, but terrifying to think March was riding them in a small boat. He was brave.

I’m not.
Caleb sighed. Could he risk staying? Could he risk telling March the truth? He’d have to trust him not to reveal his secrets and Caleb didn’t know March well enough for that. Not yet. But that he was even thinking about it said a lot.