Jackson didn’t even hesitate raking his gaze over Fletcher’s full-length, scrutinising him. Mostly he did it for a size comparison, but Fletcher’s squirm made him linger too long on certain parts, and he licked his lips whilst doing it. Ripping his gaze away, he fiddled with the contents on the table to make a drink. That was bordering on dangerous, on showing too much. With a thump in his chest, he got back to the question in hand.
“You could…” Could he? Was he really going to suggest this? He couldn’t very well stay in these clothes forever nor could he even attempt to go there himself. So he shrugged off the hesitation and asked, “There’s a bag, holdall, at the Meridian. You could bring me that?”
“Okay…how do I find it?”
“There are lockers.” He fished out his set of keys from his jeans pocket and uncurled the smallest one, handing it over. “Ask the receptionist. They’ll show you where they are. Locker ten.”
“Can’t you get it?”
Jackson snorted. “I don’t think I’ll be too welcome there, do you? Maybe less so after this book is out.”
“Fair enough.” Strapping his bag onto his shoulder, Fletcher headed for the door. “I can come by tomorrow. I want you to think about where you want to start. So as not to waste any time going around in circles. Think about what bits you want in, what you want me to focus on.”
Jackson saluted, tapping his forehead with two fingers. “Sure thing, boss.”
Fletcher gave him a pacifying smile then twisted the door handle to leave. Desperation suddenly kicked in. He was going to be alone. Again. Jackson hated solitude. He hated silence. He hated his own thoughts.
He hated the only sound being the shallow beating of his maleficent heart.
Grabbing Fletcher’s arm, he swallowed down the fear as green eyes fell on him. He couldn’t ask him to stay. He couldn’t be so goddamn vulnerable. Not to a stranger. Not to a man who’d use the knowledge for his gain. He had to ask something else. Anything else.
“If you can,” he said. “At the Meridian, avoid the Italian.”
“Huh?” Fletcher furrowed his brow.
“Diego. At the Meridian. It’s best if he doesn’t know what you’re collecting. And that you don’t tell anyone where I am. I want to keep off the grid as long as possible.”
There was a faint acknowledgement of something, a flicker of recognition, a sweeping over Fletcher’s face that said he knew. Until it was gone and replaced with a courteous nod and a, “Sure.” Before bolting out into the hallway.
The door slammed shut. Jackson was once again abandoned within four walls. No matter that he was now technically free, he still had to fight the urge to rock back and forth, struggling with the feeling of being imprisoned, closed in.
Oppressed.
Alone.
Before Flaymore, before the incident, he’d made assurances to never be like this. To never be by himself. Having had Kris by his side most of the time had helped to a degree. Jackson had always been one half of something. One half of a presenting pair, one half of a bedroom partnership—sometimes a third, fuck even a fourth of one. He’d done anything to prevent being left in his own company. That had led to him becoming one half of the unconventional relationship that he’d had with Tallulah.
Unable to stand it, he stomped to the bathroom and used the shitty gel to work through his hair and splashed water on his face. Then, locating his too-small trainers, he shoved them on. It wouldn’t matter what he looked like. He was only going to stay in the shadows. He just needed one look. One look would tell him all he needed to know.
So he fled out of the hotel, back onto his bike and raced toward Soho. To wait. And to watch.
For her.
* * * *
Fletcher had no chance of getting out his laptop with how rammed the Tube was. He’d planned to use the time between Kings Cross and Covent Garden to rush off a few words to send to Rose for his column before she screamed blue murder. He decided, squashed onto the Piccadilly Line carriage, that he’d have to write some non-descriptive piece about Jackson having gone into hiding—perhaps even use Kris’s soundbite from the earlier interview. He could reasonably stretch that out to a few hundred words, which Rose would no doubt cut down anyway, and that would be his first feature piece.
If Rose accepted it, then he could technically get away with having both jobs—London Lights and Jackson’s book deal. He wouldn’t write anything defamatory about Jackson, he wouldn’t betray the trust he’d built up and keep the big revelations for the book. He then wouldn’t have to tell Heston he’d quit the magazine to work for the most hated man in Britain. That could come out later. Much later. When the pound signs rolled in and he could use the money to pay for their holiday. That would soften the blow.
He also had to hope that Jackson wouldn’t be checking the tabloids. Because that could put a spanner in the works between them regardless of how innocent he planned to make this article.
Jeesus. He’d never felt so conflicted before. It made his head hurt and stomach twist. This was the stuff they hadn’t taught on his degree course.
But, right then, he had to put all that to one side and make it up to his boyfriend for missing opening curtain. Because Heston gave him the roof over his head.
And because he loved him.
Clambering off at Covent Garden, he headed straight into the bustle of the usual tourists, after-work restaurant goers, and street performances that told him that he’d made it. He was here. In the city. The place always tugged a smile at his lips. This wasn’t where his destiny was meant to be, but he was glad he’d found it here anyway. He slalomed through the shoppers down Neal Street, chucking a left, then a right, and down the narrow-cobbled alleyway where a lone internet coffee shop was thankfully still open.
He ordered a plain white coffee, sat at the corner table, opened his laptop, logged onto the WiFi, and set to work. He’d thought it would be easy. Rushing out a non-story on Jackson Young. Maybe it would have been twenty-four hours ago. But now he knew the man—sort of. As much as he could at this stage in their professional affiliation. But he’d made some sort of connection at least. Some progress in getting to know how that cheeky lad from The Den Boys with a bright shining future had become so desperately depressed and consumed by alcohol. And anger.
And now fear.
Tapping his fingers lightly to the keyboard where the cursor blinked, Fletcher was as blank as the screen. That document didn’t want to produce the same piece of newsworthy shite that everyone else was discussing—Was Jackson Young Guilty? It wanted to write who Jackson Young was. And why.
The time on the bottom of the screen caught his eye and he cursed as his coffee was plonked onto the table in front of him by the serving girl. She smiled though, gazing down at him in amusement.
“Sorry, love,” he offered, then knocked back the caffeine.
He had to write something. Anything. Or he’d be off the mag completely now that there was an intern doing his work. So he forced himself to be the writer he needed to be, wrote the blessed article and sent it off to Rose with a sinking gut. It wasn’t his greatest piece. But that’s all he had in him to offer. Then he packed up and scurried out to run the rest of the way to the Apollo Theatre.