My Clocking In System

Chapter 14: Sorting

He started to sort. Not the bags. The room.

Because if he was keeping this flat as a shell, a cover, he wanted to know what in it was actually his and what was just two decades of making do. He pulled the place apart, drawers scraping, the wardrobe rail rattling, and laid it out on the bed in two piles, and the sorting told him more than he wanted to know.

The keep pile was small. A photo of his mum, young, laughing, from before any of it.

A football medal, under-15s, the one good year.

His dad’s old watch, broken, that he’d kept not out of love, God no, but because he’d been too skint to ever do anything with it.

Now he turned it over in his hand and thought, with a cold little smile, that he’d sell it, and give whatever it fetched to his mum, and let the one thing the man left behind finally do her some good. A few letters. That was the haul of a life.

The other pile was everything else, and everything else was all the same thing in different shapes.

Things kept because he couldn’t afford to replace them. The jumper with the hole he’d meant to mend.

The shoes worn through, kept for worse weather, as if there were weather worse than the weather already inside them.

A drawer of carrier bags folded into tight triangles the way his mum had taught him, because you never knew, because a bag was five pence and five pence was five pence.

He stood there with a fistful of folded bags and felt his throat tighten, because this was what being poor actually was. Not the big dramatic lack. The thousand tiny hoardings.

He binned and bagged the lot, the bags crinkling full, twenty-eight years going out in three bin liners, light as anything, and found he was glad of it.

He was hanging the grey coat on the rail where the worn-thin jumpers used to live when his phone buzzed.

He’d been not-thinking about her text all afternoon, the way you don’t-think about the one thing you’re most thinking about.

The old Danny would have left it on read, told himself he was sparing her the mess of him when really he was sparing himself being seen. But he’d left that man behind somewhere between the penthouse floor this morning and this pile of folded carrier bags now.

coffee yes

A beat, then the second one, because he couldn’t leave it at that.

explanation, you’ll get what i can. fair warning it’s a weird one

The reply came fast. Faster than was cool. And that, Jodie Carter not bothering to play it cool, undid a small thing in him.

weird how

weird like you won’t believe me

try me. thursday? half 4, the place by the station

thursday works

and flynn, a separate bubble, if you no-show i’m not chasing you twice. i mean it this time

He looked at that one a while. Then:

i’ll be there. promise

The three dots came up. He watched them, and before she could answer he sent the other thing, the thing the old Danny could never have typed.

for what it’s worth i never broke a promise to you. i just disappeared. that was cowardice not a broken promise. there’s a difference even if it doesn’t feel like one from your end

The dots came up. Went. Came back. Went.

...that’s weirdly self aware for a man who used to talk in grunts

people change

we’ll see. thursday. don’t be a prat x

He was still smiling at it when he came out the door with the first load of bin bags, not looking, and walked straight into Adaeze Nwosu on the landing.

"Daniel." She had a box of her own under one arm, heading down. She looked at him, then looked again, properly, the coat, the boots, the straightness of him, the bin bags of his old life in his fists.

"I can see that." She set the box down on the windowsill, in no hurry now, because Adaeze had never once in her life been rushed by anything.

"A month you dodged me on these stairs like a schoolboy with no homework. This morning, you clear two months’ rent off your phone like it’s a parking ticket. And now, by teatime, here you are in a coat that costs what I charge you in a month, binning everything you own."

She wasn’t smiling, exactly, but it was in her voice. "A girl could get whiplash, Daniel. What happened to you?"

"Luck happened." He gave her the line, but gently, because it was Adaeze and she’d earned more than a line, even if he couldn’t give her the truth.

"First bit I’ve ever had. I know how it looks. I do. I can’t really explain it without sounding mad, so I’m not going to try. But it’s clean. Nobody’s going to come knocking. I promise you that."

She held his eyes a long moment, weighing it, and he let her, because the old shame of being weighed had finally left him and this was just a woman who’d been kind making sure her kindness hadn’t been wasted on a fool.

"Clean," she repeated.

"Clean."

"Mm." Whatever she saw seemed to settle her, or settle enough.

"I won’t ask again, then. I’ve been asked where things come from my whole life and I never liked the question, so I’ll not be the one putting it to you."

She picked her box back up. "But you’ll forgive me for being glad. You’ve looked like a ghost for two years, and I’ve had a front-row seat. It’s good to see a bit of blood back in you."

"Thanks, Adaeze. For more than that, actually. For the."

He stopped, because the things he wanted to thank her for did not have small words, the carried arrears, the shopping with no note, two years of being stern to his face so he’d keep his pride. "For everything. You were good to me when you didn’t have to be. I won’t forget it."

Something shifted behind her composure... surprise? She covered it the way she covered everything: with brisk efficiency.

"Yes, well. Don’t go soft on me now you’re flush."

But instead of turning away, she set the box down. Deliberate. Then she stepped into him, close enough that he could feel the warmth coming off her skin, and wrapped both arms around his neck.

She pulled him down and into her, and the moment their bodies connected, a moan slipped out of her, muffled against his collarbone.

He felt her. All of her.

The soft weight of her breasts crushed against his chest, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. He felt her nipples hard through the thin fabric, responding to him. Her body was warm and solid and alive against his, and his blood rushed south so fast his vision blurred.

His dick hardened instantly, pressing against his zip. When she sighed, a small, involuntary sound against his skin, he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from groaning back.

She smelled like her perfume, the one she’d worn on the landing for two years, mixed with the heat of her skin underneath.

He wanted to grab her. Dig his fingers into the curve of her ass. Drag her hips against his cock so she’d feel exactly what she was doing to him. Shove her against the wall right here.

He held on. Two seconds. Three. Four. His whole body was vibrating with the effort. Then he forced his hands down and stepped back.

When she pulled back, her eyes were bright. Her breathing was fast, her chest rising and falling. A flush crept up her neck, and her lips were parted slightly. She stared at him for a moment. Then she swallowed and turned away, throwing her brisk mask back on like armor.

"Go on," she said, her voice huskier than usual. "Before we both start crying on a stairwell. Bring the bags. I’m passing the charity shop. No sense both of us making the trip."

She turned toward the stairs. He watched her move; the sway of her hips, the way her body shifted under her clothes, the curve of her ass as she climbed. His dick was still half-hard, aching. She knew he was watching. He could tell by the way she moved, slower than usual, deliberate.

At the top of the stairs, she paused. Without turning around, she added, "We should do dinner sometime. Proper dinner. When you’ve got your head on straight."

"Yeah," he said. "We should."

They walked out of Pembury House into the cold afternoon together. At the corner, she turned left. Watching her walk away, watching the sway of her hips under her coat, Danny knew he’d be seeing a lot more of Adaeze.

The A5 box sat in his bag. The Kensington door.

That was tomorrow.

Today, he carried his old life to the donation bin and let it go. He walked lighter. His mother would wake to a letter she wouldn’t understand, and a debt that was simply, finally, gone.