Chapter Eight

Ethan

We had stayed at the opening for another half an hour before bidding farewell to everyone – Harry could barely concentrate on breathing, his mind so muddled from the night’s activities. I was also having a tough time pretending to enjoy myself. I was still reeling from my actions – I’d kissed Harry.

Jennifer’s taunting had sounded like my inner voice every time Harry looked at me for a second longer than normal, or whenever his arm brushed up against mine and slightly lingered. ‘Kiss him! Go on, kiss him now, you idiot!’

I guessed I’d had a moment of weakness – a severe one. I didn’t understand what was happening with us. He’d kissed me back and then freaked out. He could barely look me in the eye. His chocolate brown eyes had looked so utterly lost after it happened and I could tell he regretted it. He’d seemed so disgusted by it.

I knew then that I had to stop pushing the topic of whether or not thought of me in that way. Harry was a unique individual – he didn’t like sharing his toys. And to him, I was one of his most prized possessions. Whenever anyone got too close to me, he would be there to either drag me away or involve himself in the relationship.

I was an introverted person at best – I barely tolerated George and I’d spoken to him more on this mission than any other time. That was primarily due to Harry’s safety being at risk and George having the answer to this. Therefore, it was extremely rare that I let anyone else into my life apart from Harry.

Harry’s behaviour had nothing to do with him liking me the way I liked (loved) him – he would just do everything in his power to ensure we stayed best friends; just me and him, nobody else. Any friend I rarely made in the agency became Harry’s friend too – there was no way Harry was going to give me the chance to become better friends with someone else. And honestly, I didn’t mind. I quite liked it, actually. It showed he cared, in his own strange way.

Hugh was a threat to him, so automatically he disliked him. He was obviously having a tough time distinguishing real life from undercover assignments – he needed to get it through his thick skull that Hugh was an assignment to me.

I understood why he was doing this – his family had all left him, whether they could help it or not. He needed a stable person in his life, and that was me.

Therefore, I couldn’t take advantage of his vulnerability anymore. No matter how much I’d thought and suspected, if Harry truly loved me, I would have known about it years ago – he always got what he wanted.

Sure, things would be awkward for a while once we got past the fact that I was so obviously in love with him. But Harry wasn’t one to hold things against you. We would be back to normal in no time and he would probably mock me about this in a week or two.

Driving back now, his head was bobbing against the headrest of the seat as he snored softly. He’d fallen asleep half an hour into our journey in the middle of our conversation on Grant Jefferson. We wondered if his wife, Audrey, had any clue. What about his kids?

I’d been in the middle of discussing how we were going to approach Grant and Hugh in the future when I’d heard the first snore. Typical – any business talk and he was out for the count.

I stole a glance at him out of the corner of my eye, smiling at how his mouth was slightly opened and his jaw slack. He found a way of making the ugliest sleeping face yet still look mesmerising. Or maybe that was just my interpretation.

I diverted my look between him and the road, feeling like I needed to take advantage of these stolen moments where I could let my guard down. I could look at him all I wanted and not feel anxious that he would catch me.

His closed eyes snapped open at this thought, focusing on mine. All I could think of was the sheer irony until it hit me, and I realised that he’d caught me staring at him. I couldn’t look away, though. His eyes stayed on mine for a few seconds before he quickly turned his head, his eyes widening in horror.

Jesus, his reaction was slightly more extreme than I’d imagined. Surely me looking at him didn’t bring him this much discomfort?

“Ethan – watch out!” he roared, suddenly leaning over and spreading his arms out protectively across me, pinning me to my seat.

I looked back to the road to see us speeding towards a ditch located a few meters to the right of the lane, spilling out into darkness beyond it. Fuck. How had I gone so far off track and not noticed?

My brain immediately switched into action. I wasn’t one to panic in these situations – God knew I’d been in enough of them. It was all happening so fast and it became harder to move with Harry’s arms and half his body across me, ensuring he would take the brunt of the crash.

In a matter of seconds I had taken my foot off of the accelerator and slammed on the breaks, turning the wheel to direct the car away from the ditch and whatever lay beyond. It was like a movie scene. The screeching of tyres against the tarmac turning into slushy noises as we moved onto the small stretch of grass before the bristles and trees.

I tried to move in my seat to put Harry behind me, and not the other way around. But for once, I couldn’t overpower him – he was using all of his power to keep me where I was. I prayed to whoever was listening to protect him – I wanted to scream and roar to let the universe know what it would do to me if he was killed and taken from me. But I didn’t get the chance.

Suddenly, the car stopped moving. There was no crash, though. No scratching of branches and bushes against the steel of the car. I hadn’t realised my eyes were closed until I was opening them again. It had all happened in the space of ten seconds.

I felt Harry’s chest heaving up and down as he gulped back air into his lungs. We stayed still for a few more moments until I pushed him gently off of me to investigate the damage.

We had stopped inches from a row of trees – so close to one in particular, that one extra second of movement would have sent my side of the car straight into the thick trunk of an Oak. At the speed we were going, injury would have been certain – death, a possibility. My mind was doing what it always did in these panic situations – assessing the damage and the possibilities and calculating the most effective response plan.

Harry seemed to be doing the same as he eyed the possibly deadly tree that was mere inches away from my window. His eyes widened and flashed to me in a second.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Moore? You could have been fucking killed!” his cheeks were reddening in anger and I gave him a sheepish look.

“I know – I’m so sorry. I never meant to put you in danger, I just... I took my eyes off of the road for one second, Harry, I swear... I’m so sorry – so, so sorry.” I was grovelling – I would have a lot of grovelling and apologising to do before this was forgotten, I guessed.

I had never made such a serious blunder. Especially such a pointless one – if I was going to die, I wanted it to be for the right reasons doing something worthwhile. Not by crashing an overly-priced Jeep into a tree for staring at my partner.

Harry’s eyes blazed and he averted his gaze to the dashboard, his hands shaking slightly. I wanted to reach out and take them – to reassure him that we would be alright. To promise never to be such a fucking idiot again.

“Harry, I’m truly so sorry – if you had been hurt, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself,” I faltered, dropping my eyes, “I don’t know what else to tell you...”

He stayed silent and it looked like he was contemplating something. We had been in worse situations than this by far – there had been a time when I’d been hanging from the door of a helicopter while Harry tried to fly it after our pilot had been shot down.

Therefore, neither of us was particularly shaken from this incident – just slightly reeling from the possibilities and immediate shock.

“What’s going on between us, Ethan?” Harry eventually murmured, keeping his eyes on the dashboard. I could feel the awkwardness emitting from him and that he’d been building himself up to asking this question.

It would have taken a monumental moment for him to finally address the situation we were in – and this situation was particularly monumental.

“You’ll have to be more specific.” I didn’t want to be a dickhead but I also didn’t want to go spilling my guts if it wasn’t what he wanted.

He sighed in annoyance. “You know what I mean – we nearly fucking crashed because you’d been looking at me while I slept again!”

Again? I hadn’t been aware that he knew of the other times I did. I must seem like a fucking creep to him. Christ...

“Okay... –” his body tensed at this word and I could tell he was bracing himself. He didn’t want to hear this. From that one movement, I knew that he was bracing himself for the worst.

He didn’t know the depth of what I was going to say – he wasn’t ready to hear what I was going to say. The only feeling he had right now was fear and obligation. The obligation to question what was happening since it had nearly killed us.

“I’m gay.” There. I’d said the first elephant in the room. I eyed him to see his reaction. He didn’t look surprised and nodded, bringing his eyes to me.

“I think I’ve known that for a while... Lack of girls and whatnot.” He chuckled awkwardly.

I rolled my eyes. “Not all of us have to be man-whores, Harry. It doesn’t make a man gay because they don’t sleep with every model they come across!”

“Oi! I don’t sleep with every model... I at least make sure that they speak some form of English! I have standards, Ethan.”

“Whatever you say,” I scoffed.

It felt like we were back to old times until the silence enveloped us again.

“So... you’re homosexual,” Harry said.

“Well, yeah. Why’d you have to say ‘homosexual’?”

“Isn’t that what you are?”

“Well, yeah. But why can’t you say ‘gay’?”

“Why does it matter? I happen to prefer homosexual.”

I shook my head in frustration. “Okay, okay. Yes, I’m homosexual.” Harry snickered and I knew he’d just wanted me to say the word – childish as always, “I’ve known since I was five, possibly six. Yes, I had a boyfriend before I came to the agency. No, I haven’t had one since the agency. Yes, I’ve slept with some women to try and see if I was perhaps bisexual – and no, I’m not.”

“What was your boyfriend’s name?” Harry questioned, turning in his seat, apparently enthralled in my story.

“Tom. He was Australian and an exchange student in my high-school. He died.” I felt my heart pang at this and at the memories of so long ago – I’d put them to bed and dealt with them but it still hurt.

“Jeez, I’m sorry, E... why didn’t you ever tell me?” Harry murmured.

“Because it wasn’t worth mentioning. I’d moved on with my life.” When I’d met Harry I was still reeling from Tom’s unexpected death – he had been in a car crash, ironically. That had been why I was so introverted and still am – I hadn’t been dealing with his death.

Harry unknowingly helped me deal with it and by then, being the ‘quiet, mysterious’ one had become second nature.

“Oh.” I could tell he didn’t know what to say – Harry wasn’t great at handling this ‘awkward’ situations.

“I hope you don’t feel weird having me as your best friend now that you know...” I needed to change the subject and this was also a burning question of mine.

It was clear I couldn’t read Harry as well as I’d thought – I had mistaken his childish jealousy over our friendship with him having feelings for me. I didn’t know what way he would process this new information.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve always wanted a GBF!”

“GBF?”

“Gay best friend!” Harry proclaimed, grinning.

I didn’t even respond to this and instead, started up the engine again. I wanted to end this conversation before I ended up hitting him.

The car started up again, thank God, and I steered my way out gently. Once we were back on the road, I could tell we had reached a milestone. The awkwardness was gone and it felt like we were back to our normal selves, almost. Harry seemed overly-delighted with this.

I hadn’t ever thought until this mission that there could have been a possibility of ‘us’. Now that those hopes had been quashed, I needed to deal with that. I didn’t understand Harry. And to be honest, I was tired of trying. I wanted him in my life, regardless of whether it was in the way I’d wanted or not.

I doubted I would ever stop loving him – I would just have to reduce the burning fire to a flickering flame, barely visible unless I was looking for it.

“So, when you were watching me sleep there... you were just eyeing up the merchandise of your handsome partner?” he waggled his eyebrows.

I smiled stiffly. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“It’s okay, Ethan. Look away – I know the effect I have on people.”

We bantered back and forth for the rest of the way home – mainly him making a stupid comment and me reacting. When we got back to the house, we even stayed up talking for another hour. I went to bed first, going straight for the spare room.

I lay down and processed the night. We’d gone from kissing to awkwardness to almost crashing to awkwardness to going back to normal.

I didn’t know what was going on in Harry’s head – I’d spent years trying to uncover what went on in there. What did he hide in his humour? What was he trying to subconsciously tell me whenever his torrid moods came into play?

I was exhausted from even thinking about it. I needed to sleep and I knew that when I woke up, he would probably be in the bed beside me. If I didn’t love him as much as I did, I’d have called on his bullshit long ago. But that wouldn’t be of any benefit to him.

There would come a time when I would insist on professional help for him – but not while we were on a mission. Right now, focusing on the job and protecting Harry were my main priorities.

-       -

Two weeks had passed since Hugh’s opening and our almost car-crash. We had been monitoring Hugh’s and Grant Jefferson’s homes constantly and their whereabouts were always known.

Not much progress had occurred – nothing of their movements made them seem guilty in any way. This made us wonder if they were aware that they were being followed. However, we had come across Grant committing fraud on a number of occasions by embezzling money from his investors in his business.

Therefore, we guessed that if he had known of us monitoring him, he wouldn’t have given us reason to give him years in prison for an entirely separate charge.

I had spent a lot more time with Hugh over the past two weeks and we had become ‘close’. Harry had also made an extra effort with him, but I’d heard him mutter ‘weasel’ under his breath a number of times.

Dawson had informed us last week we were to hold a long-overdue ‘house warming’ garden party that was scheduled for today. This was to bring the two main suspects together again and see what it would result in, if anything.

Also, Jennifer had informed us that it was ‘strange’ for us not to have had a party yet, which encouraged Dawson’s decision when we told him.

Harry was in his element, ordering people around who were hired to set up the bar, catering, music and whatnot. He had been running around like a headless chicken all morning and now that the arrival time was coming closer, he was getting more anxious.

He had slept in my bed every night in the past two weeks and we hadn’t mentioned it. It was wearing me away, bit by bit, if I was being honest. I’d thought I was stronger than this but with Harry, I obviously didn’t have the same resilience as I usually would.

More agents had been called into the operation over the past two weeks, also. Kim, another Level-A agent, was posing as a waitress for the night. George wouldn’t be present as it would seem strange for our gardener to be at this party – he was parked down the street, monitoring all of the cameras set up in various positions.

A few more Level-B agents had been thrown in, making sure that we had eyes and ears everywhere. They obviously had big hopes for this party.

There had been talks among the agents that someone of significance had come back into the country – someone who had Hugh acting more erratic than normal, according to those who were monitoring him.

George had tipped me off about this so I knew it must be big. This party would have Grant and Hugh in the same room for the first time since the club opening – surely they couldn’t ignore each other for the evening if something this big was happening.

“Ethan – there’s been a disaster!” Harry came running into the living room where I was watching a football game. I had decided to stay out of Harry’s firing line and save myself the hassle for the day.

“What?” I asked quickly, slightly alarmed by his tone.

“They’ve brought us turkey instead of chicken!” he seemed utterly devastated.

“Is that it?” I asked incredulously, “Fucking hell, Harry, I thought there was actually something wrong!”

His eyes widened. “This is supposed to be one of the biggest parties this neighbourhood has ever seen – are you telling me that this isn’t even an issue?”

His priorities had becoming slightly clouded by his desire to hold ‘the biggest party in history’. If Dawson saw him now... he’d be shot!

“Ha – Nate, honey, just relax!” I quickly changed my tone as a caterer came into the room. I was confused by who were agents and who weren’t at this stage – it was best just to be overly-careful. “Turkey and chicken taste the exact same, yes?” I brought him into my arms and stroked his back.

He seemed to have seen the woman too, who was rummaging in the drinks cabinet located in our large bookshelf.

“You’re right... you’re right!” Harry pulled back and smiled, patting my cheek. “Thanks sweet-cheeks.”

I grinned and redirected my attention back to the TV when he went rushing off again.

Everyone had arrived an hour later. They had been instructed to bring whoever they wanted, so they had all brought a few friends from those who lived near our neighbourhood – this was in order to ‘broaden our circle’.

We chit-chatted and socialised like true ‘rich pricks’ would for the day – we fit right in. I could see Harry was already getting sloshed on the punch. Hugh and Grant hadn’t come into contact yet but the night was still young.

Hugh’s guests were three women – I recognised one of them from his club opening. She was easy to remember by two assets – both located on her chest.

Audrey, Grant’s wife, had brought a rather shrill woman whose laugh could be heard in Timbuktu. She wasn’t as bad as Kyle and Stephanie’s guests, however, who were all young, wild and free, by the looks of it.

The night dragged on slowly – for me, anyway. Harry was the life of the party. He had already gotten everyone to do shots, apart from Grant and Audrey of course, and most people were wasted.

The sky was darkening and our outside lanterns had been turned on, giving the area a romantic feel to it. Harry and I were sitting on one of the many benches dotted around the place, my arm around him as we all sat around and chatted, all in one big circle.

I noticed after a while Hugh standing up and walking to the bar to refill his drink, his eyes darting around the group. Grant, obviously seeing his opportunity, wasn’t long standing up from his seat, his dark, ominous eyes focused directly on Hugh.

I thought I could see Hugh gulp.

My eyes were glued to them and I nudged Harry. He nodded and I knew then that his eyes were stuck on them, too.

There were microphones and cameras everywhere, so their conversation would be easily picked up on. My curiosity wished I could hear exactly what they were saying now, though.

They stood and talked for ten minutes, their faces stoic. They glanced over at the group every now and again, in which case I dropped my eyes, laughing at something someone said to ensure they thought I wasn’t listening.

When Stephanie was in a rather enthralling story about that one time she played beer pong, Grant’s voice suddenly raised, apparently unable to stem his anger.

“... he doesn’t scare me!”

Everyone looked towards them, eyebrows raised. Grant, seeing his mistake, laughed nervously, patting Hugh’s shoulder and trying to salvage the situation.

“Don’t mind us, we’re arguing over golf! You know how we get,” he laughed, which seemed to encourage some other people to laugh along. It was obvious by his tone that it was more than golf they were discussing – people were just dismissing it and taking his word for it, it seemed.

I guessed that these people were probably customers of whatever Hugh supplied Grant to deal. That was just a hunch, though.

The conversation came back slowly within the group and eventually we were all talking away as if nothing had happened again. Grant and Audrey left a few minutes later citing ‘early morning meetings’.

Hugh remained quiet for the remainder of the night, sitting near Harry and me. I couldn’t understand it, but I felt sorry for him. I knew he was a drugs supplier but there was something about him that I couldn’t grasp.

Another hour passed before people started slithering away, all giggling merrily from the amount of vodka consumed throughout the day. I had to say that I was even feeling slightly light-headed, and was laughing harder at Harry’s jokes than I normally would.

When it was just Hugh, Jennifer and Harvey left, we were in the middle of a conversation about Kyle and Stephanie’s overly-drunk friends when there was a loud shot and a scream.

Harry shot up out of his seat and looked around wildly, standing in front of me. Jesus Christ would he ever stop trying to protect me and watch out for himself?

I stood up too. The others stayed sitting, frowning in confusion.

“I think it came from the Jefferson’s,” Jennifer whispered. She was clinging to Harvey’s hand.

Hugh had gone white.

“Wait here,” Harry ordered, presumably running towards their house that was next door to ours, through our side gate. I followed him, running out of our side-gate to our front and then out of our open front gates.

Harry was already over by the Jefferson’s large front gate and started climbing up it, setting off the security alarm.

“Harry! For fuck’s sake, get down!” I shouted.

Harry looked down at me from the top of the gate he had easily scaled. “Rob, a gun has just gone off inside here. I think setting off their alarm is the least of their worries.”

I realised my mistake at calling him Harry but he was still acting irrationally by running into a gun situation unarmed. Before I could say anything else, he jumped down off of the large gate.

Fuck. I stood there for another five seconds, wondering what to do before swearing and jumping onto the gate after him.

When I hopped down on the other side, Harry was hunched down by the kitchen window, peering in. I caught his eye and indicated I was taking the other side of the house.

I edged around the corner of the house, aiming to view in the sitting room window. I looked in but saw nothing. I went to move on towards the back until I saw Audrey inside the window, running around with her phone to her ear, crying hysterically.

I then guessed that there was nobody else in the house judging by how freely she was running around and the amount of noise she was making. I could see both of her hands and knew she was unarmed, too. Therefore, I knocked softly on the window and her tear-stricken face darted towards me in fright. When she saw it was me she relaxed and ran towards the front door.

I went back around to meet her there, calling Harry over.

She flung the door open and collapsed into Harry’s arms, wailing. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying and so I made the decision to enter the house and suss it out for myself. Harry stayed outside, trying to comfort her.

What the fuck had happened?

I walked into each room carefully, ensuring there was nobody else in there that was possibly armed. When I reached the door to a study room towards the back, I noticed a blood splatter on the inside of the door. I took a deep breath before edging my head around the door.

Grant Jefferson was sat at his desk. He wasn’t sitting upright, however. His head was lying on his desk and blood was spooling from it, making a puddle on the desk next to him.

In his hand that was resting limply on the desk, a gun.

He was dead.

I’m so sorry for the delay in this chapter... There’s been a vomiting bug going around and I unfortunately got it :( I had most of this chapter written before I’d gotten it but I couldn’t finish and edit it until now!

Hope you enjoy and wow... Grant’s dead – I know he wasn’t a huge character per say, but his death will leave a LOT of questions.

Also, regarding Harry and Ethan's relationship... it really can't be rushed and I know that people are getting frustrated but these things need to happen between them before anything else possibly could... They've been friends for years and things have happened in Harry's past that will come to light in the next few chapters, I promise!

Comment and vote if you wish and once again, thank you all so SO much for your support and lovely comments!

-O.