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Jake’s stomach twisted. “And?”
Harrison hesitated.
That was enough.
Because if they’d already identified her, Harrison would say so. If they’d ruled Robyn out, he would say that too. Which meant they were still looking. Comparing. Trying to put a name to the woman in the river.
“Please. For fuck’s sake.” Jake rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand clutching the beer. “Tell me what you know. Please.”
“There is significant trauma.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that visual identification isn’t currently possible.”
Jake frowned, not getting the whole police-procedure speak.
Harrison sighed. “Her face has been so badly damaged that she no longer has one that we can use to identify her with.”
Jake closed his eyes. For a second he’d convinced himself Harrison was about to tell him it couldn’t be Robyn. That there’d be some obvious reason. Wrong age. Wrong height. Wrong anything. Instead, somehow, the possibilities had just got bigger. And nausea ripped through Jake so fast he retched and nearly lost the beer onto Harrison’s floor.
Harrison moved instantly, and in one stride, stood directly in front of him, gripping Jake’s neck, carefully but firmly, enough to steady him. “Easy.” He rested his forehead to his. “Easy. Breathe.”
Jake swallowed hard against the acid burning up his throat.
“Don’t think about it.” Harrison swiped the rainwater from beneath Jake’s eye with his thumb. Or at least he pretended it was rainwater. “Please don’t make yourself picture things that might not be true.”
Jake dragged in a shaking breath. “But you think it could.”
Harrison’s silence answered before his mouth did.
“Fuck.” Jake sniffed. “Teddy is thirteen, he doesn’t need to hear that could be his mum.”
“I was trying to stop exactly that from happening.”
“Well, you fucking failed.” Jake shoved him again, and this time Harrison caught his wrists before he could push away fully, grip firm enough to stop him without hurting him.
“Jake…”
“Don’t fucking calm voice me right now.” Jake’s breathing turned ragged. “If it’s her—”
“Hey.” Harrison drifted his hands up to cup Jake’s face. “Hey. Look at me.”
Jake tried not to.
Failed instantly.
And when he did, Harrison kissed him.
Soft. Tentative. But laced with a desperation beneath it, as if trying to stop the spiral in Jake’s head. Trying to drag him bodily back into himself. And Jake made a broken sound into his mouth. A strangled choke? A sob? He wasn’t sure. So he cut it off by kissing Harrison back. Fiercely. Devastatingly. Because suddenly he needed this more than air. Something to drown out the river. The body. The waiting. And he grabbed fistfuls of Harrison’s damp shirt to drag him closer. He knew grief sat between them. Fear too. But underneath was the desperate need not to be alone inside it anymore.
Harrison then rucked Jake’s T-shirt up, so Jake lifted his arms, letting Harrison strip it off him and toss it aside. Then Jake tore at Harrison’s shirt, desperate for skin, not letting him go fully clothed this time. He wanted the sweat, rain, and the goosebumps he knew would be there. ‘Cause it was all on him too.
God, this was it. Exactly what he needed.
A way to stop thinking. To just let himself want and take.
The way he’d used to deal with things.
