Page 30 of To Sketch a Scandal (Lucky Lovers of London #4)

“You don’t seem very well,” Warren said. Then asked again, “It was something special, right? The ring?”

This time, Matty couldn’t bring the lie to his lips. He didn’t confirm it either, but he didn’t need to. He was good and caught.

“Who’s it from?” Warren asked. Gentle. Genuinely curious. Impossible to wave off.

“A friend at Scotland Yard,” said Matty.

“Special friend?”

He wanted to say yes. But he found he couldn’t, quite. He didn’t like lying to Warren. In fact might have lost his ability to manage it. Still, the fact was…

“I don’t know anymore,” he said carefully.

“More like a men tor if anything, I suppose. But he…” Fuck it all, he was already in this deep.

Matty had, it seemed, no shell left to protect him in the presence of this almost-friend of his, and he blurted the truth before he could stop himself: “He’s the reason I didn’t go to jail when I should have.

And I don’t know what that makes him, but it does make him something. ”

Warren froze with his face set in obvious interest. Matty glanced around the upstairs hall, and satisfying himself it was as deserted as it seemed, he went on.

“He caught me trying to pick up tricks when I was fifteen and fucking poor and confused and didn’t know what the devil else to do with myself,” Matty explained.

“There were a lot of…complicated things going on at home. But Barrows gave me another option, and he saw me through it right up until I completely blew it to pieces just now. He gave me the ring to congratulate me for a promotion he was sure I’d get. And now I won’t. I won’t get it.

“And I just hate to disappoint him. He is the only person who has ever been kind to me. He was other things too, less noble things for sure, but I don’t know if you can understand what a big thing that was, to be treated kindly.

And now, I’ve let him down. I blew the case, the one he arranged to save my bloody reputation before he retired.

And I guess he probably won’t care as much as I do,” Matty admitted on a wave of bitterness.

“But it was nice to have something from him, some proof that he believed I was good for something other than decking out and sending off to look pretty until the real detectives arrived. And no,” he went on, in this impassioned, unstoppable whisper of a confession he’d slipped into, “I’m not typically sentimental, and honestly, if I don’t get the promotion, I should give the ring back to him anyway.

But I’d at least like to be able to do that much.

To have something to give back to him, something I didn’t manage to lose.

But I did lose it. The promotion, my reputation, and the ring to boot.

And when he’s gone, when he’s retired and living the rest of his years off happily without me, I’m starting to think I’ll have lost everything that made living this particular life worth it to me as well. ”

It was more than Matty had said of his life…

ever. To anyone. While it wasn’t much, wasn’t even close to the whole story or anything like that, it felt like he’d stripped himself fully naked right in the hallway.

He felt sick with himself, like a complete and utter fool who was about two seconds from seeing the back of this kind and beautiful half-friend he’d just ruined everything with for good and all.

Warren uncrossed his arms. When he stepped, it was not to turn away, but to come closer, finally cracking that friendly distance they’d been keeping all day to rub Matty’s back.

The warmth of his touch felt like it was breaking up a hard crust that had formed across Matty’s shoulders, softening and melting a tough heaviness he hadn’t even realized was there.

“That’s shit,” he said, very calm and reasonable. “Even if you end up finding it, the whole situation kind of sounds like shit, doesn’t it?”

“I’m just…” Matty hesitated. When he next spoke, it was very quiet.

“It’s a tough day already, is all. Even before Detective Ashton and the ring…

I enjoyed our time together, Warren. I think you’re really fantastic.

I was wrong, actually. What I said a minute ago.

I’d like to amend it: Barrows was the first person to be kind to me, but not the only one.

Every single interaction I’ve had with you has left me feeling better than I did at the start.

And that last one… I know we agreed to forget it, but I’m struggling a lot more than I thought I would with pretending my admiration for you is within proper bounds.

Because it’s not. And it never has been, not since the moment I turned around in that alley and saw that you’d bothered to bring this stupid scarf back to me when by all accounts, you should have thrown it in the bloody bin. ”

No answer came right away as Warren searched his face for clues as to the truthfulness of all this.

Matty held his hands out, all in now with spilling his guts and simply awaiting the outcome.

The best thing, the very best, about Warren Bakshi was that even if this gush was not welcome, it was easy to trust that he would do Matty no harm.

That was a very rare thing, and Matty would always appreciate it.

Even if Warren turned around and walked away right now.