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“Just walk. I’ll get you a cup of tea. Ben’s on his way. I called him an Uber ten minutes ago. He’ll be here any minute.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I didn’t know where the words were coming from. Ben. It was almost like I’d forgotten he existed, and now some kind of warmth hit me right in the feels. Ben.
“It will be fine. Tea. A sit-down in my office. Feet up. The police will need to speak to you, but they know where to find us.”
Oh. Okay. Yeah. Probably.
“Can I have a biscuit? One of those little square ones?”
As I said, no idea where the words were coming from.
“Biscuits,” Mark repeated calmly, snaking an arm around my back. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
Ben
Mark was with him, the two of them having some kind of tea party, and once again I was so incredibly thankful for the people in my life who had my back. And Hugo’s.
“Are you okay?” I huffed out before I’d even closed the door behind me. Hugo perched on a stool in Mark’s office with a cup of tea in his hand, crumbs all down the front of his jacket; Mark was in his office chair with his feet up on the table. Like everything was normal.
It hadn’t sounded normal over the phone.
“Did he hurt you?” I growled, throwing off my jacket, ready for a fight. “I’ll kill him if he did.”
Mark just tutted, shaking his head at me. “You’d better not. You’d miss his ugly mug and hurt yourself. Leave the fighting to Hugo here. He pretty much destroyed the bastard.”
Hugo grinned. Not for long, though. I didn’t let him and pretty much dragged him from the stool, mug and all, so I could hug the absolute goddamn shit out of him, feel down his arms, check for broken bones. Make sure he was actually still intact.
“I’m spilling tea all over you,” he mumbled against my cheek, but I could hear he was smiling. Thank God he was smiling.
“Your Hugo is a bloody trouper,” Mark said. “Police have been and taken his statement and Finn’s, so we’re all good.”
“I should go back to work,” Hugo said, easing away from me, but I tugged him back into my arms.
“Mrs Arnsdale’s gone to A and E,” Mark continued, casually sipping his tea. “Another botched face lift. Finn’s going to have to have a little word.”
“God,” I said, still reeling from the past half an hour, Mark’s phone call, knowing that Hugo was dealing with stuff I couldn’t save him from and wanting so badly to punch the passenger seat in front of me all the way here.
“I’m okay, Ben,” he said, leaning in and talking into my shoulder. “I really am…I think.”
“He’s had biscuits,” Mark added, indicating the empty plate on the side. “I made sure of that.”
Like the good parent he was.
“I’m just going to go make a phone call,” Hugo said. Before I could ask why, he’d broken free of my grip and walked out of the room.
“Lewis was removed from the premises a few minutes ago,” Mark assured me. “Hugo handled it all really well, but he’s…”
“Rattled,” I filled in. I was rattled too, and I didn’t like any of this. Hugo’s voice hadn’t even sounded like his own.
Mark got up and put his hand on my shoulder. “I want to take him out tonight. Otherwise, he’ll go home and hide, and you’re working.”
“Being at home might be the best place for him,” I tried, but Mark shook his head.
“He’s a grown-up, but he’s a lot like me. Very much like a younger Mabel. He changed today. Something flipped in him, and we need to nurture that, show him how this is the future. A Hugo who can cope with things and be stronger than he thinks he is. You should have heard him in there. He was so good, Ben. Firm. If you thought Finn was terrifying, wait till you see that side of Hugo.”
“He’s not like that,” I said. “Not really. He’ll have nightmares for weeks. He still sleeps badly. Wanders around at night. Takes sleeping pills when it all becomes too much. He’s going home on Friday to see his doctor, but he’s not…completely over Lewis yet.”
“He never will be,” Mark said quietly. “You and I know this. We’ll always carry who we are. That’s just the way things work. He will as well, and you need to learn to live with it. Like you’ve learned to live with yourself.”
