AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chloe leaves her breakfast and takes his clothes from him. ‘Do you want me to get you clean clothes?’
‘I can manage.’ Desperate to get away from the look of pity on her face, Tate turns away from her and drags himself upstairs relying heavily on the banisters to stop himself falling on his ass. He pulls on a pair of boxers then collapses on the bed to recover from that immense task. He’ll need a few minutes before he attempts jeans or a top.
∞
Chloe finishes tidying Tate’s house and brings the rubbish bag to the bin outside. She takes the empty rum bottle from the top of the bag and glares at it before throwing it into the recycling. Less than twenty-four hours had gone by since Gregg called her, but it feels like a lot longer. She barely got any sleep last night. While Gregg snored away in one armchair, she kept getting up to check Tate was okay. He’d slept for the most part, only waking to complain when she tried to check him.
Instead of coming back downstairs after his shower this morning, Tate had fallen asleep on his bed and hadn’t stirred since. He was exhausted from weeks of not sleeping properly and too drunk to force himself to stay awake any longer.
Gregg went to meet with Ellen a few hours ago to try to smooth things over with her. He’d told her Tate had picked up a stomach bug while he was away so he couldn’t do the interviews. Apparently she was less than happy but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. If Chloe needed him to come back later he would, but with Tate asleep, there was no point dragging him back.
She wanders into the spare room and looks at the expensive collection of art supplies Tate bought her, but she honestly couldn’t feel less like drawing if she tried. Chloe goes back upstairs and slowly lowers onto the bed bedside him. She rolls onto her side and tucks her hand under her head. As usual, Tate is asleep with his arm over his head, hiding his face from her.
With nothing else to do, she tucks the duvet around her body and closes her eyes. A few minutes later she hears his breathing change. His chest is rising and falling rapidly and his fingers dig into his hair. She places her hand on his hair like she’d done before but instead of soothing him, it’s like she’s struck him. He jolts away from her and mutters to himself, ‘Please stop.’
Chloe backs away from him and gets out of bed. As much as she wants to help him, she’s not keen on getting too close. If he lashed out he could seriously hurt her. His whole body is rigid, the muscles in his arms tremble as he covers his head.
‘Tate. It’s okay.’
A lump forms in her throat when she hears him moan. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t.’
She doesn’t know how much more she can listen to. ‘Tate. Wake up.’ Still not keen on getting close to his arms, she stands at the bottom of the bed and touches his leg. It does the trick. Tate lurches away and scrambles up the bed. She flicks on the bedside light and lowers onto the edge of the bed.
‘Are you okay?’
He pulls his legs up to his chest and rests his head against the wall as he takes a few shaky breaths. ‘Yeah.’ He looks over at her. ‘Where’s Gregg?’
‘He left a few hours ago. Do you want me to get you anything? Are you hungry?’
Tate shakes his head then winces. ‘Fuck. No, thanks. I’m not brave enough to try food yet.’ He slowly turns his head to look at her. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this.’
‘I’m not worried about myself, Tate. I’m worried about you. Maybe you should let Gregg take this latest letter in to his old colleagues.’
‘No.’
‘Tate—’
‘I said no.’ He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He doesn’t say or do anything for so long Chloe wonders if he’s actually fallen asleep again. ‘I’ve gotten... I guess you’d call it hate mail before. We all have. Kind of comes with the territory. But this is private shit, Chloe. That’s what’s throwing me. Someone found out private things about me and instead of doing what most normal people would do and ignore it or destroy it, they’re using it to fuck with me. And I’m letting them.
‘I can deal with this. I was just caught off guard. Seeing the photo of us got my back up and I reacted badly. That’s all it was. They’ll get bored and move on sooner or later. If I go to the Guards about it, I’ll just bring more people into this mess. I need to stop letting it get to me and move on.’
‘Okay, I understand that, but they’re trying to hurt you, Tate. They sent you drink knowing what could happen. What’s next?’
‘Anyone with internet access would know how to get to me. It was a messed up thing to do. I’m not taking away from that. But I was the one who opened the fucking bottle. Seriously, it’s nothing to worry about, Chloe. They just hit me in a sensitive spot and I caved. Won’t happen again.’
‘I know you said you don’t know who it is, but do you have any ideas at all?’
He shakes his head and opens his eyes again. ‘Not a fucking clue. Believe me, if I had even the slightest inkling who it is, I’d be having a one-on-one with them, and it wouldn’t go in their favour.’
Tate lies back against the pillow and squeezes his eyes shut.
‘Headache bad?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Can you take anything? I mean are you allowed to?’ The question sounds unbelievably naïve when she hears it out loud, but she honestly doesn’t know the answer.
‘Nothing I can take is going to touch this.’ He sits up again and winces. ‘Fuck this. I need some fresh air. Do you want to go for a walk?’
