Page 8

Chapter seven

Lean on Me

“Kenny!”

Sat hunched on a rigid plastic chair outside his mother’s room in the nursing home, Kenny lifted his head from his hands to watch DI Jack Bentley striding through the reception area. Sluggish and weighed down by exhaustion and everything else, Kenny stood to greet him but before he could say a word, Jack reached for him, pulling him into a fierce hug. The grip was firm, grounding, and Jack squeezed the back of Kenny’s neck as if he was trying to hold him together.

Kenny wasn’t sure that was possible.

Not now.

“How you holding up?” Jack asked as he dipped away, searching Kenny’s face.

“As well as you’d expect.” Kenny sank back into the plastic chair, body slumping as though someone had cut his strings. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.” Jack sat beside him and rubbed Kenny’s back as if it was preposterous to think he wouldn’t be there for him in his hour of need.

Kenny felt hollow, thoughts spiralling between grief and despair. And anger. A lot of fucking anger . He needed something to take him out of his mind. But right then, all he had to lean on was Jack. And he sat beside him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking more like a bloke off the street than a Detective Inspector. Rumpled jeans, scuffed trainers, shirt half-tucked and loose at the collar. The only thing sharper than his gaze was the history hanging between them. He’d half expected him to be on duty when he’d called, which would make going through this so much easier if Jack were in professional mode.

“What do you need?” Jack asked. “I can call the relatives for you? Or deal with the funeral home? Name it, I’ll take care of it.”

For a moment, Kenny just stared at him, a dawning realisation breaking through his haze of grief. Jack thought he was here because Kenny needed support. Friendship. The uncomplicated loyalty they used to share before everything fell apart. He thought the desperate phone call had been born from grief. Vulnerability. A call for help. Instead of Kenny using his direct line to the Ryston Police force to get all this moving far quicker than civilian channels.

“I don’t need you to handle the arrangements.”

Jack blinked. “Okay…if you want me to just be with you, then…I can.” He tapped a hand on Kenny’s knee and squeezed. “I’ll call the station now, tell them I’m off duty—”

“I want you to investigate my mother’s death.”

Jack removed his hand from Kenny’s leg. “What?”

“I want you to authorise an examination of my mother’s body. Today.”

“Kenny…”

“I don’t think this was natural. Despite what they’re saying.” He kept his tone neutral so as not to alert the passing nurses and carers, patients, and visitors to what was potentially a clusterfuck of epic proportions on their turf. “I believe someone killed my mother and I need you to open an investigation. Right fucking now.”

Jack crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes. “If this was anyone else but you, I’d be calling for a liaison.”

“But it is me.”

Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. “Okay. Because it is you, I’m going to let you explain why you think a woman in her eighties, who was in a care home, didn’t die of natural causes.”

“Because no one’s ever targeted the elderly before, eh? Come on, Jack!”

Jack glanced at his watch. “I’m giving you five minutes.”

Kenny arched a brow. “One minute for every year I was in your bed?”

Jack shot him a pointed look. “One minute for every promise you broke. You’ve already wasted one with that pathetic attempt to compromise me. Are you aware of my current caseload? I’ve got multiple missing men. Teen stabbings. Children killing children out there. So this better not be wasting my time. Go.”

Kenny stood, motioning toward the room. “In there.”

Jack hesitated but followed as Kenny pushed open the door to his mother’s room. The space was dim, the curtains half-drawn, a faint floral scent mingling with the chemical sterility. The bed, freshly made, eerily pristine, stood in contrast to the rest of it, filled with small, impersonal touches meant to comfort. Knitted blankets, a framed picture of a meadow. But one thing stood out. On the bedside table was a vase of roses. Crimson, lush, and vibrant.

Kenny pointed at them.

“Flowers in a nursing home?” Jack shoved his hands on his hips. “You better have more than that.”

“My mother was in good health before I left for Barcelona five days ago. I visited her. Yes, she had dementia, but I had a full conversation with her doctor before I went abroad to ensure there were no immediate concerns. Her mind was the problem, not her body. Yet I go away and she just…stops breathing.”

“Old people die, Kenny.” Jack softened, and Kenny immediately bristled.

He hated that tone. Calm. Measured. Patronising. As if Kenny was a civilian. He wanted Jack to be as furious, as terrified, as ready to claw the walls for answers as he was. He didn’t want soothing platitudes. If anyone in this room understood the darkness, the malice people were capable of, it was him. Him.

Jack tilted his neck to get in Kenny’s line of sight. “Sometimes people just…give up.”

“She did not die of natural causes, Jack,” Kenny snapped. “I know she didn’t.”

For a moment, Jack’s police demeanour cracked, revealing the friend beneath. “Kenny, listen.” He kept his tone even but laced with caution. Not for the potential catastrophe of yet another murder in his town, but for Kenny’s state of mind. “I know you need this right now. I get it. You’ve spent your entire career chasing the worst of society. Every twisted piece of shit you’ve ever examined has left a mark on you. It’s clouding your judgment.”

“Clouding my judgment?” Kenny scoffed. “Are you seriously—”

“I understand it,” Jack cut him off, firmer this time. “I do. Your mum was the last connection you had to Jessica. The last piece of her. Of you. And it must be devastating to lose her, especially when you weren’t here. But, Kenny, people die and sometimes there’s no explanation for it. If I ran an investigation into every unexplained death in a nursing home, we’d have no budget for anything else. What do we get then? Anarchy.”

Kenny’s chest tightened at the mention of his sister’s name. He felt the words before they hit. The searing pain they dragged up. But he refused to let them take over. So he stalked over to the flowers by the bedside table and snatched the card.

“Then explain this !” He shoved the card into Jack’s hands. “Read it.”

Jack took the card, brow furrowing as he examined it. The paper was cheap, thin between his fingers, the kind found in a bargain shop. But the handwriting was another story. Cursive. Elegant. Almost romantic. As if it belonged in a collection of love letters from a bygone era. Jack looked up from the words. “’Can’t wait to see you again soon, Jessica’. Christ, Kenny …”

“Interflora taking orders from the grave now, are they?”

“Okay, okay.” Jack rubbed his brow. “So who sent them? Who visited her?”

“No one knows who brought the flowers. I’ve checked with the staff. The only person who visited mum while I was away was my aunt. I called her, no answer. To be expected. It’s late. But she never gives flowers. And her name isn’t Jessica! My sister’s is, but she’s lying in the same place she’s been for the past twenty-seven fucking years.” Kenny curled his hands around the back of the soft chair, knuckles blanching. “In the fucking ground.”

“Fuck.” Jack searched the room. “I need a bag. Gloves. Shit . I can analyse this for prints but, fuck Kenny, how many people have handled this? Been in here?”

“Tons! That’s my point. I need this room closed off. No one else coming in. No cleaning it.” He flapped his hand. “Although it’s been cleaned to within an inch of its life before I got here. Mum’s already moved to the private room, ready to be collected by the funeral director.”

“Then we won’t find much.”

“But an autopsy will.” Kenny paced to the far side of the room, where a small dresser stood, and he fingered the framed photo resting on top. It was old, the colours faded, but it showed a much younger Kenny with his arm slung around his sister’s shoulders. They were both smiling, carefree in a way Kenny hadn’t felt in years. He almost couldn’t remember a time when he’d not known about the darkness lurking around every corner.

The sight of it broke him.

His hand trembled as he picked up the frame. The detachment he’d clung to crumbled even more when he turned back to Jack. “Someone killed my mother, Jack. I know it. I feel it. And if I don’t prove it, if I don’t do something , then whoever did this is going to walk away.”

“You want to give me a list of people who have a vendetta against you?”

“It’ll be longer than the list you have in your database.”

“I know. But they’re roses. And they’ve used Jessica. So we know the starting point.”

Kenny stared at him.

“Aaron?”

Frustration flared and Kenny looked away, raking two hands through his hair. “I just dropped him off. He’s been with me all these five days in Barcelona.”

“I’m not bringing him up because I suspect him, for Christ’s sake!” Jack cut him off. “I’m asking because, once again, we’ll be digging into his past. And if you can’t see the connection here, you’re not thinking straight.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re fucking the Howells’ son , Kenny!”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Reduce him to just that.”

Jack inhaled sharply. Held his gaze. And Kenny wanted to shrivel up under it. The air hung heavy with unspoken truths and old wounds, and Jack rubbed his forehead as if trying to erase the knowledge only he could fully understand. Which was that Kenny had fallen in love with Aaron. And when Kenny loved someone, he’d use everything he had to keep them safe. In all the ways he couldn’t for Jessica. Or, now, his mum.

“Jesus, Kenny.”

“Leave Aaron out of this.”

“How can I?”

“Because he knows nothing. He’s been with me. He doesn’t need to be dragged into all this.”

“You can’t keep him shielded forever.”

“ Watch me!”

“He deserves to know.”

“He deserves peace . To get on with his own fucking life. Complete his degree. To become something other than what you all think he is, which is nothing but a Howell.”

“But this could be about him.”

Kenny glared at him, grinding his teeth with unrelenting anger.

“You think no one’s noticed?” Jack said, voice low so as not to travel. “You think no one’s paying attention to all your sneaking around? Someone knows. Someone’s not happy about it.”

“No one knows about me and Aaron.”

“ I know!”

“And who have you told?”

“No one other than my husband, but that’s not the point. You’re not as careful as you think you are. We weren’t back in the day, either. It’s fucking obvious when you walk around with your tongue hanging out.”

“Fuck you.” Kenny turned away.

“All right, I’ll rephrase. When you have hearts in your eyes, covering him in cotton wool, holding onto him so fucking tight because you’re so damn scared you’ll lose him.”

Kenny’s chest constricted painfully. He’d been stupid to think Jack wouldn’t know all that, but he still felt cornered. And so when he spoke again, it was feeble. “Everyone connected to them is locked away.”

“We thought that before.”

The words hung in the air like a loaded gun. Kenny closed his eyes as everything crushed him. “Shit, Jack.” He staggered back, hand to his mouth. “I can’t… I can’t deal with this.”

The room felt smaller, suffocating. Emotions surged, threatening to overwhelm him. His tightly sealed mental boxes, the ones he’d spent years constructing to keep himself functional, were bursting open, spilling everything he’d been trying to contain. Grief. Guilt. Fear. It was too much, and he couldn’t force it back in.

His mind flashed to his mother, lying in another room, zipped into a plastic sheet, waiting to be laid to rest beside her husband and the daughter she’d lost far too soon. He should have been thinking of her. He should have been grieving for her. But all he could think about was Aaron.

It would always be Aaron.

The way his face lit up in Barcelona when they weren’t looking over their shoulders. The warmth of him beside him in bed, anchoring him in ways he couldn’t explain. The vulnerability Aaron trusted him with, even when Kenny didn’t feel worthy of it. And now Aaron, whose parents’ crimes had twisted and haunted his life for twenty-one years, might once again be at the centre of something dark and dangerous.

“Jack…” His voice wavered as he gripped the back of a chair, knuckles white. “Please. Just… please. I need you to look into this. I can’t think straight. Can’t… function. ”

Jack placed a hand on Kenny’s shoulder, steadying him. “I’ll look into it. We’ll get Chong to examine your mother’s body. I’ll get a team on this and in here asap. Go home. Get some rest.”

Kenny nodded weakly, his vision blurring as he clung to the only thing he had left. Hope that Jack could uncover the truth before it was too late.

Jack looked at his watch. “You did that in eight minutes.”

“I take longer in my old age.”

“I’m sure Aaron’s delighted about that.”

Kenny tried for a smile, but it was feeble.

“Go home, Kenny. I’m calling this in now.” Jack fished out his phone, and it was at his ear, calling whoever it was he needed to get the ball rolling on a potential murder investigation.

Kenny forced himself out of the nursing home, legs shaky beneath him, every step a battle against the load threatening to pull him under. His fractured mind scattered in too many directions, and he couldn’t put himself back together. Not yet. Arrangements, family calls, they all felt insurmountable without answers. Answers he couldn’t provide. All he wanted was to find some semblance of quiet in his head. Some fragile peace that would let him sleep .

But going home to an empty bed felt like another punishment.

Sliding into his car, Kenny retrieved his phone from the console. He hovered his thumb over Aaron’s text. The simple three words he’d sent hours ago. Thinking of you. Aaron rarely texted. Rarely called. He wasn’t someone who communicated in obvious ways. He just showed up . Turning up unannounced. Quietly existing in Kenny’s orbit like a tether Kenny hadn’t realised he needed.

Sending that message would have cost Aaron something. He would’ve agonised over every word. Every punctuation mark. Running through the possibilities in his mind like a broken record. Whether to send it. How to phrase it. And then, once it was done, Aaron probably curled up somewhere, trying to pretend he hadn’t. Kenny knew Aaron’s mind better than his own. Knew the fragility of his psyche, the fragmented way he’d constructed himself from years of chaos. Aaron didn’t function in straight lines. He worked in jagged pieces, stitched together by trial and error, constantly questioning whether he’d got it right.

And here Kenny was—two decades Aaron’s senior—and still unsure what to say in reply.

With a sigh, he dropped the phone and started the car. He’d think of something when he got home, where he could compose himself. For a moment, he considered driving straight to Aaron’s room, barging into his student accommodation like he had on rare, desperate occasions. But it was late, and one wrong move, one security guard spotting him, could shatter everything they’d fought to keep hidden. He couldn’t risk it. Not tonight.

When he pulled into his driveway, the memories of Barcelona rushed at him and he grabbed his bag from the back seat, stomach sinking. For a few fleeting days, things had been easy. Beautiful. They’d laughed. They’d lived. Reality had felt distant, almost non-existent. But he had to slam the boot shut on those memories and let himself into the house, dropping his keys into the bowl by the door and leaving his suitcase in the entryway. Climbing the stairs, he stripped off his damp clothes and stopped in the bathroom, splashing cold water over his face. The mirror reflected a man who barely looked like himself. Hollow, exhausted, falling apart. Clutching his phone like a lifeline, he pushed into his bedroom, leaving the lights off.

The room felt strange. The curtains were drawn, though he couldn’t remember doing that before leaving for Barcelona. It didn’t matter. Because something else caught his eye—a figure stirring beneath the duvet.

Kenny froze.

Moonlight spilling through the gap in the curtains traced the lines of a body he knew intimately and reflected in eyes he’d drowned in a thousand times.

“Hey,” Aaron’s voice was timid. So unlike the man himself.

Kenny’s heart stuttered.

“I just wanted to know you were okay.” Aaron rubbed his eyes. “I can still fuck off if—”

Kenny crossed the room in three strides, the bed dipping under his weight, and he pushed aside the duvet. Aaron lay bare beneath it, skin luminescent in the dim light, a landscape of pale perfection. He cupped Aaron’s neck.

“Don’t you dare go.” He brushed his forehead to Aaron’s, fighting back the threatening tears.

Aaron pulled him down, and he went with him, sinking on top of him, limbs entwining, no skin untouched, moisture welling in his eyes. And when Aaron kissed him, those held back tears spilled without warning, streaking across to Aaron’s cheeks. Aaron said nothing. He just took it. Absorbing Kenny’s pain for his own. And Kenny kissed Aaron as if it would prevent his fallout. As if Aaron was the only solid thing left to cling to when everything else had slipped through his fingers. Aaron wrapped his arms around him, gripping his hair in that desperate, grounding way he did.

Kenny pulled away, brushing his forehead to Aaron’s.

“Use me for what you need, lover,” Aaron said against his lips. “I’m yours. Whatever you need to switch that mind off.”

Those words caught in Kenny’s throat, and he choked on a sob. So he kissed Aaron again, then trailed more kisses down Aaron’s neck, his shoulders, lavishing attention on the sensitive peak of his nipple piercing before settling beside him, spooning into his warmth. He held him tight, ghosting his lips along Aaron’s shoulder and as he closed his eyes, the tears fell hot and heavy. Aaron lifted his arm, sliding his fingers into Kenny’s hair, cradling his head to keep him exactly where he was. With him.

After a moment, Kenny reached over him to the bedside table, pulling open the drawer and rummaging through the contents. God, he needed more of Aaron. Needed inside him. To find that sense of completeness only Aaron could give him. Everything would make sense again then. So he snatched the lube, flicked the cap, pulling away from Aaron enough to squeeze the slick liquid into Aaron’s cleft and over his own throbbing length. Tossing the tube aside, he positioned his cockhead between Aaron’s buttocks, prodding his opening. Aaron shifted his hips back, letting Kenny know he was ready. So with a gentle thrust, Kenny eased inside him, revelling in the hot wet heat Aaron’s body wrapped him in.

Aaron groaned, dropping his hand to Kenny’s thigh, digging his fingers in, urging him deeper. And Kenny took his time to sink all the way in. To feel the way Aaron’s body welcomed him, then clamped around him as if never wanting him to leave. Then Kenny moved. Slow and languid. Each thrust a dance of connection. No rush. No fight for control. Just tender. Profound. Making love to Aaron the way he deserved. As if he held Kenny’s fragile heart in the palm of his hands.

He did.

He just didn’t know it.

Tears trailing his cheeks, Kenny kissed Aaron’s ear and Aaron lifted his arm again to swipe his thumb through those fallen tears, then licked them from his pad as Kenny eased in and out of him. God, Aaron was perfect. So damn perfect for him. Drinking Kenny’s pain as if it was his elixir.

“ Baby …” Kenny gasped through a thrust that had him reaching his end far too soon, but he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t control how good this felt. How he wanted to give everything over to Aaron and have him keep it.

“Let go, lover.”

So Kenny did. A few more aching thrusts, where he slapped against Aaron’s skin, and Aaron clung on, moaning and grunting, until Kenny came, trembling, letting everything bleed over into him.

Only when Kenny moved did Aaron make a grab for his erection. But Kenny eased out of him, guiding Aaron onto his back, and traced a reverent path down his body with his lips and tongue. Aaron’s body was a temple to be worshipped, and Kenny devoured every inch, slithering between Aaron’s legs and taking Aaron’s beautifully throbbing cock into his mouth. There, he settled into a rhythmic, languid suck drawing out every sensation that had Aaron raking his fingers through Kenny’s hair, gripping the strands and raising his hips to ease more of his pulsating length into Kenny’s mouth.

Keeping his eyes on Aaron, Kenny watched the emotions dance across his face. The way his lips parted as he took him deeper, and the flush spreading across his cheeks. Aaron met each upward stroke of Kenny’s mouth with a gentle moan, and each downward motion drew out a silent gasp and an arch of his back.

“Kenny…fuck, Kenny , I…fucking l…”

Kenny braced himself. Not for what would inevitably explode in his mouth, but for what Aaron might finally say. Might let slip. Those words Kenny craved like nicotine were on the tip of Aaron’s tongue. And if Aaron said them, Kenny didn’t know how he’d come back from it. Not today. Not now .

But Aaron did what he always did in those moments to prevent his feelings from seeping out. He clutched Kenny’s hair in fierce fingers and thrust himself deeper into Kenny’s mouth, snapping his jaw shut to growl through his torrid release. And Kenny was fine with that. Because he wasn’t sure he could take Aaron’s bravery right then. Wasn’t sure he could hold on to it how he should. And so he kept his mouth where it was, swallowing Aaron down to fill his empty heart, then finally licked off him and travelled up, kissing his stomach, his chest, his neck, then capturing his lips.

The comedown was brutal. The fall treacherous. And Kenny crumpled onto Aaron, forehead to his chest, shaking through the silent tremors. Every ounce of composure, every shred of control he’d built to hold himself together, fractured under the stress of his grief and exhaustion. Aaron wrapped his arms and legs around him, clinging on, planting desperate kisses in his hair. He didn’t speak. Didn’t even attempt to. Whether he didn’t know what to say or simply knew that words weren’t what Kenny needed, it didn’t matter. What Aaron chose to do, whatever he did, and why, was always exactly the right thing.

For Kenny.

The minutes stretched on, the room silent except for Kenny’s ragged breathing and the rain tapping the window. Aaron held him, his steady heartbeat beneath Kenny’s ear a grounding rhythm in the chaos of his mind. Eventually, the tremors subsided and Kenny lifted his head, eyes probably red-rimmed and damp. Somehow, the embarrassment of how he must look just wasn’t there. He was far from the composed professor in perfectly tailored suits who commanded rooms and shielded his vulnerabilities behind intellect and authority. The man who’d captured Aaron’s attention. But the facade didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. Because Aaron had seen it all. The mess he buried inside. The cracks in his armour. And the parts Kenny never let anyone else touch.

He met Aaron’s gaze, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. The words were there, tangled in his throat, but they felt insufficient. How could he explain the depth of what he felt? The relief, the fear, the unrelenting ache that Aaron always seemed to soothe without trying?

“Thank you for coming back,” Kenny said, barely a whisper, his throat tight.

“That’ll happen when you don’t text back.”

“Noted.”

Aaron waited a beat, then his brain probably told him he had to ask. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Because if he did, he’d only lie.

“Then go to sleep.” Aaron wriggled, pushing Kenny off to curl up in front of him, allowing Kenny to spoon behind him and go back to the simple way things could be between them.

God, he fucking loved this man.