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“Leeds just goes withWankerthon Forest.” He shrugs. “Which I think lacks creativity.”
It’s very late in the day for empathy, but I try anyway. “I’m sorry. That must actually suck for you.”
He’s still not moved. He looks like a statue entitledSam, you totally fucked it. “I’m the boss. It goes with the territory. All that’s changed is that I never used to care.”
I’m not strictly sure that’s true. Because he used to get quite angryabout Claire calling him His Royal Dickishness. Then again, I suppose caring like pissed off isn’t the same as caring like hurt. “They’re just people who work for yez,” I try, very, very sensible of the irony that I’m the one saying this. “It doesn’t matter what they think.”
He scowls into a space a moment. Then finally looks at me, with this careful expressionlessness that’s its own kind of devastating. “It matters what you think.”
I should have been braced for that but I’m not. And it kicks the wind out of me. Makes me feel like a total piece of shit. “What I think is…is what I’ve spent the last month working out, I think. Which is that who you are as a boss and who you are as a person are different things.”
“If that was true, you’d have told me what was going on.” He gives one of those tight blinks you do when you’re trying to stop yourself crying. “If that was true, you’d have trusted me.”
“I should have,” I say, a bit desperate like. “But I was scared and confused and…and I know this is probably the wrong thing to bring up right now, but I really did have a concussion.”
“But you did remember me?”
A passing Londoner makes a frustrated noise as he weaves between us. “Yeah,” I say. “And I didn’t mean to…to…lie to yez. I just got caught up. And I wasn’t trying to get one over on yez either. I just needed time to—I don’t know. Fix things.” I risk taking a few steps closer to Jonathan. He doesn’t exactly pull back but he holds himself very rigid. I never realised a couple of paving slabs could feel so fucking far. “But then I got to know you more and—” God, I’m making a hash of this. “And,” I press on, already knowing it’s probably useless, “I really did—do—like yez. That wasn’t part of…the other stuff. That was—that was real.”
You can’t really have silence in London. But there’s silence between us and it’s big enough to swallow the city. Then Jonathan just says, “I know.”
Which should be a good thing to hear. But he’s not saying it in a good thing way. The bit of me that’s grasping at straws, though, grasps anyway. “Then what’s the problem? I like you, you like me, I don’t work for you anymore. I made a mistake and I’m sorry, but it’s not a mistake I’m ever going to make again.”
“You like me,” Jonathan repeats like a death sentence, “but not enough.” He pushes a hand through his hair, his white streak falling over his fingers the way, a few nights back, it fell over mine. “You’re the person who’s thought best of me…who’s come the closest to understanding me…who made me feel I wasn’t—wasn’t impossible to… Wasn’t impossible. But all that time, deep down, when it mattered, all you saw was your arsehole boss.”
“That’s not who I see,” I tell him. Because it’s not. It hasn’t been for a while.
“Then why are we here, Sam?” He still doesn’t sound angry. In some ways, I wish he did. I wish he’d just shout at me and I could back into another Nexa by MERLYN 8mm Sliding Door Shower enclosure and we could take another run at this. “All you had to do was be honest with me. Instead, you played me for a fool.”
“Aye, but I played myself as well.” I’m beginning to hate those two paving stones. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me for years.”
He gives one of his least pleasant snorts. “My condolences.”
He’s just being a bastard—and he’s got reason to—but it still catches me somewhere tender like. “Don’t say that. I can’t handle it right now.”
“And I’m supposed to handle”—he makes an “everything all at once” gesture—“this.”
“I’m just trying to say sorry and that I care about yez. And I hate the thought I’ve fucked it up over…over nothing.”
“So do I. But you did.”
Well, that feels fucking final. “Please don’t let this”—I’mbegging and who cares—“I don’t know. Just please don’t. I just need—”
“Time?” Jonathan asks. And he just sounds so fucking sad.
“A chance?” I try.
“Sam,” he says. “You’ll be fine. Give it a week and you’ll forget all about me.”
I flinch. “I won’t. I couldn’t.”
But Jonathan just shakes his head. “This would never have worked. I’m too—you’re too—this was too much.”
And that’s when I know it’s proper over. Because you don’t kiss a man like Jonathan Forest lightly. And you don’t hurt him lightly either.
CHAPTER 33
It starts raining as I walk away and I’m halfway to the bus stop before I remember I brought a van and I’m halfway to the van before I realise I’ve been crying and my face isn’t just wet from the weather. Fortunately—well, fortunately relative to how things have gone recently rather than relative to a world where Brian didn’t completely drop me in it—while I’ve managed to leave my jacket behind, everything I’ll need to pack up and go back to the empty something I call my life is in my trouser pockets. And byeverything, I meanmy keys and my phone.
