Page 28

The shrill sound of Zach’s phone wakes him up from the deepest sleep he’s had in a long time. He scrunches his eyes closed as he searches for it. It takes him a moment before he realises he’s not in his room. Mali’s leg is slotted between his, the smooth expanse of her back exposed. Zach traces the dip of her spine with his eyes. He’s not sure if he can touch her now. Part of him can’t believe it happened at all. He’s waiting for someone to jump out and call him a loser for ever believing she would want him like that. Still, he leans closer and presses his lips lightly against her shoulder.

“I love you,” he whispers. Then he pulls the duvet over her shoulders and begrudgingly leaves the room.

His phone rings for the third time in the time it takes him to grumpily stroll back to his bedroom. Buffy follows him, and he’s going to be fuming when Zach doesn’t feed him because it’s still dark out. The light from his phone burns his retinas, and he scowls when he sees it’s four thirty-five a.m. and it’s his brother calling.

Zach answers because it’s his fifth missed call, and the panic immediately settles into his bones. Something bad must have happened with their mum for Devon to be calling.

“De?” he asks quietly, pushing the door closed.

“Bro, I need you.”

“What? Where are you?”

His brother speaks to someone else for a moment. “I fucked up.”

“De.” Zach closes his eyes. He shouldn’t have answered. He should have stayed in bed with Mali.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry, bruv. Please, come get me.” Devon hasn’t sounded this scared since he got sent to jail the first time. Zach hates it.

Zach sighs, but he knows he’s going to go. “Where are you?” He puts the location into his phone and scowls when he sees it. It’s nowhere he recognises. He has no idea why Devon would be there. Still, he pulls on a tracksuit and tiptoes down the stairs. He wants to leave a note, but his brother is only twenty minutes away, so he should be back before Mali wakes up.

It feels wrong, though. Like he’s sneaking out.

By the time Zach gets to the sketchy-looking industrial estate, he’s a little more awake. More aware of how badly he didn’t want to leave Mali. More annoyed at his brother for continuing to ruin things for him. But Devon did sound scared. Apologetic almost. Perhaps this is the time he’s done with this life. Maybe this is the time he comes home.

“De?” Zach calls out as he walks through the garages. It all feels very nineties low-budget action movie. Especially so when Devon walks out from behind a pillar with Vincent, his agent.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Zach mutters. His agent called a while back, then left him alone. He rarely hears from them, let alone sees them. It’s too close to the start of the season for them to move him, so he’s barely thought about them at all.

“Zachariah,” Vincent says, with a smile. Tosser. “How are you?”

“What do you want?” He’s not here for niceties. It’s the middle of the fucking night, and Zach left the love of his life in bed to come here. “De?”

Devon looks at the ground, then back up to him. He walks over in the way he does when he thinks he’s got a great idea, but really, he’s about to be a dick. Why did he tell him he was in trouble when he’s hanging around with Zach’s annoying, useless agent?

“Bro. Great news—”

Vincent interrupts. “Dougals want you. You start first day of the season.”

Dougals. Premiership Dougals. Scottish rugby team Dougals. Zach blinks, his jaw tensed with the fury in his veins. Panic settles into him so fast he almost blacks out.

“No.”

Devon frowns. “What do you mean no, bruv? Deal’s done. I found it for you!”

Vincent smiles. Sometimes, Zach thinks he wants what is best for him—the big teams. Then, he remembers Zach’s never asked for a thing. He’s told where to go, what to do, when he’s leaving, and he’s always done it because he had nothing to stay for. Now, he’s already left Mali once today, and he doesn’t intend on doing that again.

“De heard from a friend of a friend that Lacky was on the way out. One call, and hey, Dougals want you. Pack your bags.”

Zach shakes his head. “No. I’m not going.” God, his body is simmering with anger. He might be sick. He’s only ever said no once before, and that was when he was nineteen and they wanted him to move away from home for the first time. He was terrified. Went to a lawyer and everything, but the contract is air tight. Unless he has half a mill to buy himself out, they can sue. At the time, he thought that meant jail, so he stayed. If he’d known it meant bankruptcy, he would have done it, but he had no one to talk to. The only person who knew anything about it was Devon, and he convinced him it would be fine. By the time Zach moved back home, his mum was different, and Devon was in jail.

“What if I don’t go?”

Vincent shrugs. “Then we’ll sue.”

Zach thinks about it. He has money. Not enough, but some. It’s for his mum. Devon knows that. Recently, he’s been saving for the children he should have known he was never going to have. He could start over at twenty-seven. He could be an electrician and he’d be fine. He’d have Mali and he’d be fine.

“Sue me for what?” Zach scoffs. “You take all my money anyway.”

“His bird has a pretty decent—” Devon starts, and Zach throws his fist at his face so hard he thinks he might crush his knuckles.

“Do not talk about her.” Mali isn’t tightly wound up with him. Not yet. She wouldn’t get hurt in this beyond maybe a light level of disappointment when he left, because he has to leave. He knows that. He’s worked too hard to make sure his mum is okay to lose it all now. Mali would let him stay with her. She’d let him attempt to rebuild his life in her spare room. But he has nothing left to give.

Mali can’t get caught up in this—these criminals dressed in knock-off designer suits. Zach wonders how many players they have in their pockets. How many other desperate teenagers signed onto their parasitic contract without knowing.

Vincent looks at Devon with the blood running down his face, and he takes a step back. “Dougals. Be in Oban on the first of the month, or we’ll pay your girlfriend a visit.”

“You’re five foot tall,” Zach says. He’s never been scared of them. He doesn’t think there’s a hidden gunman or anything, because this isn’t the ’70s, and he’s not on a movie set. However, he had a lawyer look over the contract, and it’s legit. There’s no way out of it other than buyout, and he’s not going to jail for killing a balding, mildly annoying man. “This isn’t a mafia movie, you bellend. The only reason you’re not floating in the river right now is because I don’t fancy spending the rest of my days with my brother.” Zach walks towards him, and Vincent looks as scared as he should be. This isn’t a movie, but he won’t mess around with Mali. “But you go near her, you so much as think about her, and I will kill you.”

Vincent’s voice shakes as he says, “Dougals. First of the month.” Then he scampers away. Zach sits on the ground, his back against the pillar. The first of the month is barely two weeks away.

“Bro,” De starts.

“I never wanna see you again,” Zach replies. He leans his head back, and he’s so sure Mali is going to press her lips to his throat, but she’s not here. He’s never going to feel that again, because he has to move to the other end of the country, and she’ll have someone swoop her up so fast he’ll get a head rush.

“How could you go to them?” Zach asks. “Move me to the other side of the country without speaking to me first? Where’s Mum gonna go? What’s she going to do when she can’t remember to take her own fucking pills and you’re in a jail cell?”

“I didn’t—”

“No, you didn’t think, Devon. You saw money. Money that’s not even fucking yours.”

“It is,” he says, shuffling on the spot. “I found you. Saw your talent. I get a cut.”

Zach’s heart might split in two. “What?”

Devon looks around like he wasn’t supposed to tell him that. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. It’s barely even bleeding now.

“You get a cut? Have you this whole time?” When he was fourteen and knackered from going to school and the junior league and thought making a couple pounds a month was good. That the fee he had to pay was worth it because he could afford new school trousers. Because he could make sure his mum had bus money. Because he could give Devon money when he needed it, and he’d had it all along.

“Yeah.”

Zach shakes his head. He should have known. “Fuck you, man.”

“Bro, it’ll be good for you.”

“How would you know what’s good for me?” Zach asks. “I’m happy. I am so stupidly fucking happy that I can’t believe I left her at home so I could come and get you when you just—fuck, you let me down every time. I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.”

“Your bird will go with you,” Devon says, like he has any idea what he’s talking about.

Mali doesn’t like long distance, and she won’t leave her parents. She’d be miserable. She said so herself. She can’t go with him—she worked so hard to get this job and her house, and he’s barely been in her life three seconds.

Zach can’t look at Devon anymore. The brother he’s been trying to save is not there. He’s hurt Zach, and he’s hurt Mali in the process. She won’t want to go with him, or she will but she won’t be able to. Zach can’t ask her to make that decision. It’s too early, too much to ask of someone. He’ll tell her he’s not into her like that. He’ll lie, and she might be hurt for a little while, but she won’t shackle herself to him. It’ll be better for her.

“I’m going home,” Zach says, getting off the floor. How is he going to face her? How is he going to tell her he has to leave? He wishes it was three months ago, when he had no idea what any of her expressions meant. He wishes he didn’t know her well enough to know that she’s going to be broken about it, but she’s going to tell him it’s great for him either way. He wishes for a tiny second that he didn’t love her like this, so when he leaves, he won’t die.

All he wants to know is how to get out of this. He wants to get on his knees and pray, but nothing has ever felt more like religion to him than her. Zach should have known this was never going to end like the movies. There’s no world in which he’d deserve a woman like Mali, and now, he’s not going to get the chance.