Chapter 12

Twelve

BHODI

I’ve made a vow not to waste another second of my life waiting on a call that never comes. Metaphorically, obviously. Tam still doesn’t have my number. And he hasn’t asked for it. So I don’t let myself wait up for him. Or glance away from the TV any time I sense movement outside.

I do what I always do when I’m home for the night—home alone . I eat noodles, take a shower, and crawl into bed to doze in front of the telly. Don’t think about Tam . And I don’t for the most part. I shut my mind off with the iron will I need to learn from the past, and I’m pretty much asleep when a light tap on the annex door rouses me somewhere between Eastenders ending and some hospital documentary taking over.

I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than watch a show about work in my downtime.

I fumble the remote as I drift, bare-chested, to the door, and switch the channel to who knows what .

Then I open the door and forget all about it. About everything except the man hiding behind his hood.

Tam .

Which means he’s hiding from the snow, not me. Skylar used his hood to shut the whole world out. Tam’s different. He tips it back and smiles like I’m the best thing he’s ever seen, and something inside me settles.

“Come in.” I step aside, yawning. “It’s freezing out there.”

Tam hesitates. “Did I wake you up?”

“No.”

“There are pillow lines on your face.”

“I was resting my eyes, and I’m off tomorrow. Come in .”

Tam steps over the threshold and toes off his boots. He unzips his hoodie too and shrugs it off, revealing the old grey T-shirt he wears a lot when he’s working at home.

It bears the name of the same motorcycle club that populates Devon and Cornwall, where I used to work. “You were a Rebel King?”

Tam blinks and glances at the faded insignia on his chest. “A long time ago. Until I ate dirt and never rode again.”

“They kicked you out?”

“Fuck, no.” Tam ventures further inside, taking in my rumpled, unmade bed, and the lack of anywhere else to sit. “They gave me money for the deposit on the house and patched me out when I was ready. I could’ve stayed if I wanted to. It’s a brotherhood—they take care of their own.”

It fits with what little I know about the Rebel Kings MC. But to tell Tam that breaks patient confidentiality, so I move to the kitchen and grab a couple of beers.

Tam hovers by my bed .

I pass him a bottle and flop down, waiting, letting him figure it out himself.

A few loaded beats pass before he claims the other side and reclines against the pillows.

He’s my landlord and he’s in bed with me. But it doesn’t feel weird. I lounge beside him and drink my beer while he frowns at the TV.

“You’re watching Porridge?”

Apparently so. “I have a prison kink.”

Tam chuckles. “You’d like some of my old mates then.”

“From the club?”

“Yeah. I was pretty tame by their standards, but I rode with some characters.”

“I can’t picture you as a gangster.”

Tam snorts. “Good.”

“Does that mean you weren’t one?”

“It means I wasn’t much of one.”

He’s smiling again, so I can’t tell if he’s joking. And I decide it doesn’t matter. I like this version of Tam. Who he was ten years ago is only as important as he wants it to be.

“How’s Sab?”

I turn my head as I ask the question. He mirrors the action and it brings us face to face, intimately close on the compact sofa bed. “I think he’s gay.”

It’s the last thing I expect him to say. And I’ve learned with Tam, to give him a minute to define what he means.

“Sab’s as into men as I am,” Tam elaborates. “But he’s never explored it. Every time I think he’s going to, he ends up in a relationship that blows up in his face.”

“Like this one? ”

Tam purses his lips and takes an inhale through his nose. “I don’t like saying bad things about Esme’s mum.”

“It’s not a crime to not like someone.”

“You can tell I don’t like her?”

I want to reach for Tam so bad my fingers twitch. So I do it, smoothing the divot between his brows without comment.

He smiles a little, and I’m so here for that, even though it’s fleeting before his expression sobers again. “Charmaine’s not good for Sab. I always thought she got pregnant on purpose, so she had something to hold over him. Or a backup plan if whatever she was really gunning for didn’t work out.”

“What do you think now?”

“I think she’s a toxic bitch—a toxic person —who cheated on my brother. And I feel like a cunt for being relieved she did because I want him away from her.”

“You’d be more of a cunt if you didn’t want him away from something that’s bad for him.”

Tam nods, slowly. “That’s how I knew from the start she didn’t care about him. Sab had a coke habit way back when. It’s how he ended up at the church. He’s been clean years, but it’s still not okay to rack up lines on the coffee table around him, you know?”

“She did that?”

“A few months back. Her and her mates piled into the house for a mad one. Didn’t give a fuck that he was right here with the baby.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yup.” Tam sighs and pushes his hair back with his good hand. “Like, I couldn’t do that to a stranger. To you , the split second we met, and Sab…he’s got his faults, but he’s the best br other I could ever have. It makes no fucking sense to me that she can’t love him how he deserves.”

“Would he want that from her if she did?”

“I don’t know. Sab’s not like me. He needs more than a hookup. But he always picks shockers to invest in.”

“What about you? What’s your track record like?”

“Recently?” Tam gives me a shameless once-over. “Impeccable. But I’ve fucked up too, plenty of times. The dude I was riding away from the night of the accident slept with my boss.”

“Ouch.”

Tam shrugs it off. “I got over it pretty quick. I had other things on my mind. What about you? I know this other bloke messed with your head, but what was your life like before that?”

“Probably a lot like Sab’s, minus the blow habit and babies.” The wind whistles outside, gusting snow against the windowpanes, reminding me that I still haven’t figured out the log burner. “Are you cold?”

“I’m in bed with you.”

“On the bed.” Though his version of reality has So. Much. Appeal. “I can light the fire—maybe. I’ve never tried.”

“At all, or just here?”

“At all.”

Tam takes my hand and rises so fast I don’t realise it’s happening until I’m standing on two socked feet. He guides me to the unused log burner and lets go to open it. “Logs are out the back.”

By the door I haven’t got round to opening. I pad over and retrieve a couple. They’re cold and tough to my palms. Damp, even. But Tam says nothing as I pile them beside him, too busy scrunching paper and stacking little sticks like Jenga .

He lights the fire and loads the logs. Instant heat hits my face, but I know that, like Tam, the real warmth lies deeper, and I’m prepared to wait. The question is where. Having him stretched out on my bed is heaven, but I’d be lying if I don’t admit I’ve wasted hours to daydreaming about rolling around on the floor with him too.

I reclaim his hand. “Sit? Unless it hurts your back…”

In answer, Tam folds his tall frame onto the rug.

We’ve left our beers by the bed.

I assume that’s what he gets up for a split-second later. Then shadows cloak the annex and I realise he’s…shut the blinds. “Oh damn. I didn’t know they were there.”

“And here’s me thinking you were just an exhibitionist.”

Tam hands me my beer. His gaze is hot, and I wonder what he’s seen. Then decide I don’t care. If it bothered him, he’d have told me about the blinds a month ago. Which begs the question…

Why’s he closing them now?

Or, more likely, why am I thinking it’s for any reason other than it’s dark?

Tam sits down again. He stares at me, then swipes his thumb between my brows the way I did him a few minutes ago. “What are you thinking so hard about?”

“Me? Nothing.”

He rumbles the low sound that makes my blood pump a little hotter.

Leans closer.

Then he sits back with a quiet sigh. “I’ve missed you.”

I miss him now he’s half a foot further away. And this week?

Wow. After the evening we spent together in his spare bedroom and on his couch, he’s been on my mind constantly. Even at work, where I’ve been trying to put into practice the writing skills from his books. Especially at work. I’ve had some really sick patients to look after this week, and it’s made me think of Tam, and how close I came to losing him before I ever met him. “I missed you too.”

“My cooking or my amazing sense of humour?”

“All of it.” I lie back on the rug, instinct telling me he’ll do the same.

He does, and he reaches for me again, except this time, it’s not to chase away whatever frown is creasing my face, it’s to cup my cheek and brush his thumb over my cheekbone.

This is dangerous.

Tam doesn’t want how he’s making me feel. He likes me. We’re friends. And he wants to fuck—I know that. But that’s it. These butterflies in my stomach? They have to fly the hell away. Or I need to find the will to stop him touching me like this, and I already know I don’t have it.

“You asked about my track record.” My voice is a whisper. “It’s messy, I can’t lie. But maybe it’s time I got better at picking who to fuck.”