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to let him down gently. He’s a nice guy. He deserves better.”
     
    “You need him.” Carter stared out over the river as he lit a fresh cigarette.
     
    “I need you,” Louis said. “No one else.” He took up the bottle and glass, stepped back inside, and left his dead lover alone with the approaching dawn.
     
    Back in the bedroom, Jake was in the process of getting dressed. He sat on the end of the bed in his black uniform trousers and blue shirt, pulling on his socks.
     
    “I thought you were staying over?” Louis said from the open doorway.
     
    “You thought wrong. I’ve got work later.”
     
    What kind of lousy excuse was that? The prospect of work in the morning hadn’t bothered him for the past three weeks. He’d spent every night in this bed.
     
    “We should talk, shouldn’t we?” Louis ventured into the room and took a seat next to him on the bed.
     
    Jake stood and stepped to one side. He looked down at Louis. Usually when Louis gazed into Jake’s eyes, he was reminded of the summer warmth beyond the window. Now when he looked, he almost shivered beneath their icy chill. “You and me?”
     
    “Well, yeah. Who else?”
     
    Jake gestured with his chin toward the door. “I thought you preferred to be out on the balcony, charming the seagulls.”
     
    “What?”
     
    “I assume that’s what you were talking to. Either the birds or the fish. You weren’t on your mobile.” He gestured to Louis’s cell phone on the bedside table.
     
    “I…” Louis kept his gaze on his phone. Words stuck in his throat.
     
    “Go ahead. Talk to yourself,” Jake said, stalking around to the other side of the bed. “Fuck yourself too for all I care. I’m out of here.”
     
    Louis opened his mouth to start again as his phone gave an enthusiastic trill, cutting off his jumble of excuses. He grabbed it and hovered his thumb over the call-reject button. He glanced at the screen. The hospital. He needed to take this. More than he needed to dump, or be dumped by, Jake Harvey.
     
    “Don’t go anywhere,” Louis said, heading for the lounge. He needed privacy. “We’re not done quite yet.”
     
    “Yeah, we’re done.” Jake’s gaze swept the floor. “Soon as I can find my shoes.”
     
    * * *
     
     
    When Louis returned from the lounge, Jake stood in the center of the bedroom with a shoe in each hand.
     
    “That was the hospital. My mother’s condition has worsened. They want me there as soon as possible.”
     
    Jake’s scowl smoothed away. “I’ll drive,” he said, already heading for the door, shoes still in hand.
     
    “What do you mean you’ll drive?” Louis called after him. “Since when did you own a car?”
     
    Jake paused halfway across the lounge and spun round. “Since my parents bought me one for my eighteenth, four years ago. The one parked in your allotted space. How’d you think I get between the bar and here so quickly?”
     
    Louis assumed Jake had walked. He wasn’t even aware the place came with an allotted parking space.
     
    “What else are you going to do?” Jake bent to shove his feet into his shoes. “Walk? Call a cab? Or waste even more time thinking it over?” He straightened and gazed at Louis, waiting for an answer.
     
    “Okay. You drive.” Louis turned away and threw open his closet door. As he dressed, he tried to reject the nagging possibility that his mother would die before he arrived at her bedside.

Chapter Six

     

     
     
    The weather stayed fine for the funeral, at least. Louis gazed up at the clear expanse of sky and breathed in the sweet mix of fragrances from the colorful flowers bordering the small garden to either side of the crematorium doors.
     
    Next to him, Jake fidgeted on his feet and gave a loud sigh, his fifth in as many minutes.
     
    “If you don’t want to be here,” Louis said with a trace of irritability, “no one’s forcing you to stay.”
     
    “I said I’d come, didn’t I?” Jake scowled, pulling at the tie