Page 49 of All Mine (The All Mine #1)

Etienne

Several hours later, they arrived back in Honeybridge and Etienne watched Isabella head back across the square.

Even now, today of all days, he couldn’t help but admire her bum.

The thought made him grin involuntarily.

Again. In fact, Isabella had been responsible for all of his smiles today.

Not that there had been many of them, but they’d chatted on the way back, and some of the heaviness had disappeared as she told him about other epic car journeys.

Like when she and Gabi had decided to do a camping holiday through France. Neither of them ever having put up a tent or speaking a word of French. And how she made Gabi put her feet out the window as they drove because they smelled so bad.

‘It was a long time ago,’ she’d reassured him. ‘She never smells now.’ It had made him smile. The easy way she chatted about Gabriella, and the obvious love she had for her. It reminded him of how close he and Alex used to be.

The thought of Alex brought back the gnawing in his stomach.

The worry. The money– or lack of it. And he had to admit he didn’t like it one bit that the Dougalls now knew of his existence either.

They were the kind of people it was much better if they never knew you were alive.

And you certainly didn’t want to cross paths with them.

But he couldn’t let Alex face them alone.

He was going to find a way to go too. Although there was something he needed to do first. He watched as Isabella closed the door to her flat behind her and imagined her running up the stairs, hips swaying.

Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Fox was rocking a three-day stubble with his checked shirt and looked like he needed a good night’s sleep. Walker had just come off shift and was looking like he wanted a beer. Etienne was somewhere in the middle, wanting both.

‘Tough day today, mate,’ Walker said, knocking Etienne’s shoulder with his own as he came into Fox’s kitchen.

It wasn’t a question, simply an acknowledgement.

The friends knew it was the anniversary of his parents’ death.

Fox looked questioningly at him from his position at the fridge, which was now covered in hand-drawn paintings of pumpkins.

Etienne nodded. ‘The usual,’ he said, as he accepted the beer Fox held out to him, but then he caught himself.

It hadn’t been the same as other years. He hadn’t sat on his own and disappeared into a well of grief, or not for long at least. And he hadn’t drunk too much of his own wine cellar this year.

He realised he’d done something more positive with his day.

He’d celebrated his parents rather than grieved them.

‘Boys in bed?’ Walker asked.

Fox nodded. ‘Both asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Reggie’s been to River Rats and George tried ballet dancing at the community centre, so they’re both exhausted.’

Etienne grinned. ‘Is my godson going to be the next Billy Elliot?’

Fox laughed. ‘He can’t decide between ballet and Meccano club. They both take place on Wednesdays so he’s trying them both.’

‘Is that why you look so tired?’

Fox rubbed his hands around his bristly face.

‘No, it’s this game extension. It’s killing me. But if I can pull it off, it will be worth it.’

Etienne waited until they all sat with a beer in front of them.

Their faces were as familiar to him as his own.

Or Alex’s. Walker and Fox had become his family and he had sworn time and time again to never let them down or put a woman between them.

To not let history repeat itself. But he rarely asked them for anything in return.

He never gave them the chance to support him.

It was enough for him to feel like he had their backs. Until now.

Isabella had hit home when she said that he didn’t have to do everything on his own.

That he had friends that would support him.

Looking round the table today, he was suddenly sure that he could tell them anything and they would still be there for him.

They wouldn’t judge him for what he’d done, or not done, when Alex needed him.

He needed to confide in somebody, he couldn’t keep everything bottled up any more.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said and had their immediate attention with this serious tone of voice. ‘About my brother. I told you we weren’t close any more. That’s not strictly true.’

He didn’t leave anything unsaid. He told them of how Alex had been a gambler for years, starting small with the local arcade slot machines, working his way up to the bookie’s on the corner.

But it was their parents’ deaths that sent him off the rails, when he started online betting and back-room poker games, placing higher stakes each time, burning through his inheritance and more.

Selling his car, losing his house deposit, until he owed so much he had to run for his life, literally.

Etienne didn’t gloss over the part he’d played.

How he’d lent him money in the past to help him out and Alex had always gambled it away.

So when the call came in that night, he turned his phone over and ignored it so that he could carry on making out with Kira.

How he hadn’t been there when he was most needed and it had haunted him ever since.

Etienne talked about wondering where Alex was for the past four years, blaming himself that his brother was living somewhere in fear.

Even worse, wondering if the Dougalls had caught up with him and he would never come home again.

He told them how the phone call a few weeks earlier had come out of the blue and now he could think of nothing other than having his brother home.

His friends had finished their beers by the time he stopped talking.

He took a long swig from his own bottle in the ensuing silence as Fox got up to replenish them.

‘So, you’re going to give him the money, to pay off the Dougalls?’ Fox said, passing him a new bottle. Etienne nodded and exhaled slowly.

‘I have to.’

Fox and Walker exchanged glances which Etienne couldn’t read.

‘What?’

They looked at each other again, before Fox said, ‘You’re going to give fifty thousand pounds to a gambler?’ Both of them studied his face, waiting for a reply.

‘Yes.’ Etienne shrugged.

‘How do you know he won’t gamble it away rather than pay the debt off?’

Etienne recalled Alex’s voice on the phone, his promises that he didn’t gamble any more and the shake in his voice when he talked about wanting to come back.

‘I’m certain,’ he said. ‘He won’t do that. Not this time.’

Fox and Etienne exchanged glances.

‘Will he pay you back?’ Walker said. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of money. That’s the extension you were talking about at The Bistro to open up the back garden.’

‘He will, over time,’ Etienne said, acknowledging that all these questions came from a good place. Their desire to look out for him, like Isabella had said. ‘I told you, I owe him.’

‘This seems above and beyond to me,’ said Walker, sitting back in his chair.

‘It’s not your debt to pay,’ said Fox.

‘It might not be my debt, but he is my brother and I let him down before. Because of that, I haven’t seen him for over four years.

I can’t let him down again.’ Fox and Walker sipped their beers without passing comment.

‘I just need to find a way of raising the last chunk of money. I applied to the bank but they turned me down. I’ll find another way. ’

‘So where is this money being handed over?’

Etienne told them what he knew, which wasn’t a lot, but added in the bit he was sure of.

‘I’m going to go with him.’

Fox sat forward. ‘They said he had to be alone.’

‘I’ll be nearby, in case Alex needs me. But I’m going to be there, somewhere.’

‘Don’t you want to tell the police?’ Walker asked, his uniformed training springing into action.

‘No. I can’t risk it,’ Etienne said. The thought of police cars or sirens would surely spook the Dougalls. And Alex needed this deal done if he was to come home.

‘But you’re risking yourself instead,’ Fox said.

Etienne swigged his beer and swallowed.

‘I just wanted to tell you what was happening. So that someone knew.’

Silence hung over the table as that sank in. Etienne watched the tiny glance between his two friends. A silent communication.

‘We’ll lend you the money between us,’ said Fox. ‘I’ve still got some of Meg’s life insurance handy.’

‘And I’ve got savings,’ Walker said.

‘No way,’ said Etienne, shaking his head.

‘Yes way,’ said Walker.

‘And if you’re going, I’m coming too,’ said Walker, sitting forward.

‘Me too,’ said Fox. ‘You don’t have to do this on your own. But we keep it between ourselves. These guys sound dangerous. Nobody else needs to be involved.’

‘I can’t let you do that,’ Etienne said.

‘You’re doing it for your brother,’ Fox said. ‘We’re doing it for ours.’

Fox lifted his phone from the table with the Brothers from Another WhatsApp group, and scrolled back, showing the other men page after page of comments, chat and day-to-day arrangements between them. It went back years and suddenly meant much more than any old group chat.

The three men leaned in and clinked their bottles.

Brothers from Another Mother WhatsApp group, later that night

Fox : Et, just wondering, why did you decide to tell us today? About Alex?

Etienne : It was something Isabella said when she took me to the graveyard to see my parents.

Walker : She did what?? That’s nice.

Fox : What did she say?

Etienne : She said I didn’t have to do everything alone. That I had friends I could rely on.

Fox : Smart woman, that Isabella.

Walker : Talking of Isabella, Rosie tells me you’re in some kind of sex pact.

Etienne : That makes it sound weird. We’re having non-sex as she’s on a sex ban for a year until she’s become successful as a single woman.

Walker : And you thought I made it sound weird?

Fox : So, it’s a sexual thing then?

Etienne : Yup.

Walker : Casual?

Etienne : Yup.

Fox : Shame. She’s lovely. So good of her to help you with the boys that time when they were sick.

Walker : Hard agree. After the fire at the Malones’, she offered to help Millie with her Italian without a second thought.

Etienne : Got to go, boys. Commitment warning bells are ringing.

Fox : Some things never change.

Walker :