The Driver Read online

  After I’d sorted the parking on the app on my work phone we went inside. It was in a little back street close to Old Street tube station and had an unassuming entrance like all cafes that were slightly up themselves. As you entered there was a vine growing up one of the walls and several chairs had been carved out of old park benches. Cal’s disdain was almost palpable at this point and he visibly rolled his eyes when he saw the sugar containers were old paint pots.

  One of the waiters approached, wearing cutoff jeans and doc martens. If he’d been smoking a pipe it wouldn’t have surprised me. When I spotted the Vape sticking out of his back pocket I couldn’t help but smile.

  He showed us to a table by the window and we both sat down opposite one another.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” The waiter gave me the eye and I smiled warmly at him; despite his getup he was hot.

  “Thanks I’ll have a latte, Cal?”

  “Just an Americano, please.” He glanced from the waiter to me and back again and then unfolded his menu and started looking through the food. I relaxed a little as his expression perked up at the number of things I knew he liked.

  “I’m surprised these menus aren’t made of living plants,” he said finally as the waiter scurried away to make our drinks. Cal closed his menu and dropped it on the edge of the table as he looked out of the window at the passersby.

  “Well, the food is great if it’s any consolation.”

  He shrugged. I looked at my menu, even though I already knew what I was going to have, and a strangely comfortable silence descended. After a few minutes our coffees arrived and I put half a sugar in mine. I wasn’t a fan of sweet food or puddings, but I always needed a little sugar in coffee. I could feel Cal’s eyes on me as I tried to negotiate adding half a sugar lump into my cup, the café certainly didn’t believe in a granulated option. He looked amused, so I made a bit of a show of it then I went back to reading my menu.

  “Are you going to talk or are you planning for us to just sit here in silence?” He asked eventually.

  “What do you want me to say? I’m terrible at comforting people, especially when death is involved and I wouldn’t have the first clue what to say to my best friend, let alone my boss. But this place does excellent food and I thought you could do with something to line your stomach.”

  He shifted uncomfortably at that and I wondered if he really understood the extent of his drinking.

  “You’re quite blunt when you want to be aren’t you?”

  “Sometimes. If I ask if you’re okay will you bite my head off?”

  He watched me, fiddling with the spoon on the napkin on the right hand side of the table. It took a few seconds but then he glanced out of the window again and clapped his teeth together like he was testing his jaw.

  “Thanks for asking.”

  I nodded and a waitress arrived this time to take our order. The change in Cal was instantaneous.

  Cal looked up at her and gave her a wide smile.

  “I’ll have the American pancakes with maple syrup and a side of extra bacon please.” I said, eyeing Cal with familiar irritation bubbling beneath my skin. He spent so much of his time in the back of my car with so many women, and he found flirting with them as easy as breathing, but it just wasn’t real. I could see it now, this strange mask he pulled on, pretending he was interested. It rarely failed, and it certainly had the waitress’s attention, but I found it annoying for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely.

  “I’ll have what he’s having.” Cal closed his menu and handed it to her. “And your number, if you fancy a drink sometime?” I glared at him, then looked to the waitress who was scarlet with embarrassment. She laughed nervously, fumbled the menus, knocked both spoons off the table and disappeared before I could apologise on his behalf.

  And just like that I had forgotten I was trying to comfort him and let myself lose my temper.

  “You arsehole. Even if you got her number you would never call her.”

  He stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “What the hell is it to you?”

  “Think about how many people proposition her in this place and how many aren’t over forty, overweight and over-friendly. She probably doesn’t get many good-looking guys strolling in for breakfast, and she certainly wouldn’t expect them to ask for her number.” And then my brain kicked in and I shut my mouth, picking up my coffee and downing about half of it, burning my tongue.

  He was silent for a long moment fiddling with the fork on his napkin. “I guess it just didn’t occur to me.” He made a little show of pretending to look guilty and then smiled. “I never once thought you’d think I was good-looking.”

  I shook my head, feeling irrationally exposed and irritated. It probably wouldn’t have taken him all that long to work out that I found him attractive, if we actually spent any time together but I hated how my mouth ran away with itself when I was around him.

  “I’d hate to make your head any bigger.” I mumbled.

  He chuckled that sexy chuckle again and I decided now was a good time to check the salt cap was on properly.

  “So, you’re gay, right?”

  I looked up. I waited for a moment to see if his expression betrayed anything, but it didn’t.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “That’s a yes.” He almost grinned. “Because I’ve had a lot of women in and out of your car. I mean a lot, and you’ve never even glanced at one of them. I was checking. Some of the guys who used to drive me liked to see if they could share. ‘Getting my cast offs’ I think one of them called it.”

  The idea of that was so revolting I couldn’t school my expression quickly enough.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, looking uncharacteristically serious, “none of the one’s who tried made it to another day on the job.” He sighed, drinking some of his coffee and making a kind of groaning hum as he swallowed. I very sternly told my dick to behave itself as it twitched at the noise.

  “I know I’ve been a shit recently but most of the time I’m pretty nice to the girls I pick up. I didn’t really mean to get you to do my dirty work the other night. Are you and Gerry fucking?”

  And I choked on my coffee. I actually spat my coffee onto the table when he asked that and I grabbed a napkin hastily to wipe it up before our food arrived.

  “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Gerry’s gay isn’t he?”

  “Fantastic. I want to bend over the bouncer because he happens to be gay. He’s not my type, since you ask, and even if he was I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you can’t keep your mouth shut.” I was letting my anger get the better of me, but he was seriously pissing me off. I wasn’t even sure why anymore.

  “So, are you with someone then? Someone who isn’t Gerry, apparently.”

  I looked at Cal then, really looked at him.

  He was going through the motions and he was asking me questions in an interested voice but his eyes were cold. He was trying to have a conversation that wasn’t about death and he was trying too hard.

  “Do you want to talk about her? Your Grandmother?” For a heart stopping second I thought he was going to leave he looked so angry, his whole body went rigid, and he tensed sitting upright in his seat. But the food arrived just at that moment and his hunger seemed to win out.

  After an awkward dance with the condiments where he clearly didn’t want to speak to me to ask me to pass him anything, we ate in silence.

  Finally he looked up having just about managed to eat half of one pancake.

  “You do that a lot.”

  I looked up. “What?”

  “Call my bluff when I’m being a dick.”

  “It wasn’t hard to tell you don’t actually want to talk about who I’m dating. It’s my job to keep my mouth shut, but if you did want to talk about any of it, it would just be between us, and I’
ve lost people, it’s good to talk about them.”

  He put down his knife and fork and leaned back in his chair. I could see the waitress behind the bar glancing our way as she spoke to Mr Vape and I hoped he wasn’t her boyfriend because Cal was spoiling for a fight.

  I looked back at him and was surprised to see an almost wistful expression on his face.

  “This is usually the part where I tell you we went on windy walks together and she smelled of lavender and every time I saw her I felt happier and better as a person?”

  “If you like.”

  “She was a bitch.”

  I paused, fork halfway to my mouth, but the bacon was getting cold and I really didn’t want to waste it.

  “She was like my Dad, only she managed to make me feel even worse than he does about my life because she actually expected something from me. He never really cares if I achieve anything because in his head I’m going to be successful, despite everything and anything I do, because I have his money. I’m his first born. I’m set up for the rest of my life. My Gran just used to tell me I needed to make something of myself. I was never good enough for her, even when I did stuff really well she would never praise me. Every detail would be examined until she found a flaw. She didn’t let me get away with anything.” He paused, and his eyes softened a little. “When I was being an obnoxious little shit, she would tell me I was an arsehole and I’d stop. I wanted her to be proud of me.” His voice was small. “But she never was.”

  The large mouthful of pancake I had had on my fork fell onto the plate with a loud slap and I scooped it up again, along with my jaw, and kept eating. Jesus, where had this version of Cal come from? Clearly she had meant a very great deal to him and I could imagine how this spoiled rich kid with indifferent and absentee parents needed that authority figure in his life.

  I finished my breakfast, Cal hadn’t even got through one pancake on his plate yet as I finished the dregs of my coffee, too. I had no idea what to say. I didn’t want to give him false platitudes about a woman I could not presume to know, so I just said the first thing that came into my head.

  “You should eat. Or you’ll waste away and I’ll get sacked.”

  He glanced over at me with a twitch of a smile and picked up his fork again.

  “I fucking hate my father.” He laughed, shaking his head and went back to his food.

  And that was the end of that conversation. I wasn’t about to belittle him by telling him Donald Emerson was a good person, either. I was working for him because it was good money, and I wasn’t too proud to take my payslip from a man who had made millions from slave labour through the retail industry, but I knew, just as Cal knew, that we were both tainted by association.

  After Cal had managed to finish about half of the food he had ordered we finished up. The waitress wrote her number on the receipt and I thought that was the end of that.

  Oh boy was I wrong.

  ~

  It was one thirty in the morning and I was outside a bar watching Cal throw up in a bin. I knew drivers who had to be at their clients’ beck and call at all hours of the day or night and until now I had counted it a privilege that I wasn’t among them.

  Unfortunately, having been up at five, I was exhausted and not in the mood to be kind anymore.

  Cal groaned.

  I swore, pulling him roughly away from the stinking alleyway and a disgusting pile of rubbish and watched him wretch his way to the nearest wall. I waited. I shouldn’t have watched his arse as he bent over to vomit, but I did, because it was a hell of a lot better than watching what was going on at the front...

  Finally, after three minutes of solid retching and a lot of swearing it was over, and I had had enough. I manhandled him, extremely roughly, into the car, which was way too nice to be idling in this part of London with drunks wondering around and bumping into it. I locked the doors, leaning against my side, composing myself and rubbing my temples with forced calm.

  Ten minutes later I was having a stand up row with Cal’s doorman. I had brought him home a few times since working for him, but only ever a drop-off and go. Cal, the colossal idiot, had lost his key fob and the new guy at the desk would absolutely not let him up.

  As I saw it from the security guard’s perspective it was fair enough. A tall man in a black suit and tie shouting at him, with a drunk teenager – Cal looked so young when he was passed out – lolling on his arm, were not going anywhere near the million dollar complex of flats. I shouted at him, I bargained with him, I tried to show him photos of Cal on my phone but he would not budge.

  We leaned outside the door to the lobby for fifteen minutes while I tried to think of an alternative. I could call Lucas who might have a spare key. Lucas would be asleep. I could take Cal back to his father’s house, get him killed and get myself fired. I could go back to the bar and search for his bloody key, or I could take my very tired body back to my flat and break every single rule in my book and take him with me.

  I groaned because I was too tired to think clearly and I already knew what I was going to do.

  I dragged Cal, still barely able to stand up straight, to the passenger door, shoved him inside with a kick for good measure and drove to my flat.

  I loved my place. It was cozy with huge windows that poured light into every corner. It was beautiful, but you paid for the light, and the location, not the space. I dragged Cal in, propped him up against the door, locked it behind us and then watched him slide slowly onto the floor.

  “Christ Cal, would you wake up?” I slapped him across the face, not too hard, but harder than I probably should have.

  “Wher –?” He asked with a grunt, trying to pry one eye open.

  “You, against my better judgement, are inside my fucking flat. I’m giving you seven liters of water and you’re having a shower.”

  After hauling him off the floor and into the living area, trying to ignore the feel of his muscles under his suit, that’s exactly what I did. He sat on one of the bar stools, where several one night stands had sat before him, and he protested while I forced water down his throat and generally sobered him up. He was only sick once more and only into the sink where there was a full bowl of water and three days’ worth of washing up. Fuck my life.

  I eventually got him sober enough to walk to the bathroom and after shoving some towels and a change of clothes at him he staggered into the room and shut the door. I went into the kitchen again and tackled the washing up. I may be a slob about my dirty dishes but I wasn’t leaving them covered in vomit for a night.

  After rinsing and washing everything I was a little worried about my bathroom guest so I gingerly made my way back and listened for the sound of the shower running. That was when I noticed he hadn’t shut the door all the way and he hadn’t yet stepped into the shower.

  I should have shut the door.

  I should have turned away.

  I should have remembered all of the very unattractive vomit still clinging to my shoes, but I didn’t. I watched him get undressed.

  He was staggering around aimlessly for a few minutes, urinating into my shower and then righting himself. He pulled off his jacket and his tie and then slowly unbuttoned his shirt. I put a hand on the door handle to close it. I was being a good boy. I was not supposed to perv on clients. Then he took his shirt off and I forgot to care.

  His body was incredible. I went to the gym and I looked good for my age but he was sculpted. His back was muscled in all the right places and his abs were firm, his arms well defined and his skin was a beautiful golden colour, like toast perfectly cooked and covered in butter. I was fantasizing about licking a line all the way up his spine when I finally came to my senses and silently closed the door.

  God, I had to get laid. I even considered phoning one of my regular guys to get it out of my system, but I knew Cal would probably stay the night. That was the kind of person he was. He wouldn’t care that he was putting me out by just casually assuming he could get drunk, locked out of his flat and t
hen crash at my place – the world moved for the Emerson’s. He just expected this sort of thing.

  I only had one very beautiful, very expensive bed and he would be sleeping on the sofa where he could vomit onto a floor that could be wiped clean.

  I pressed a hand against my erection and willed it to go down. These suit pants did nothing to hide it and I really didn’t want Cal to see me like this. I decided the best use of my time would be to get ready for bed.

  When Cal finally emerged, about half an hour later, I was sitting on the sofa reading a book, having taken my contacts out and now wearing my glasses.

  I saw him do a double take.

  I remembered, too late, that he had only ever seen me in a suit and I was now in a white t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. He wondered out of the bathroom, beautifully rumpled, his hair half dry and half wet, sticking up in what should have been ridiculous angles, but it was oddly endearing. He was wearing some pyjama bottoms of mine, and an old t-shirt and he was making them look annoyingly good. I sat up, putting down my book indicating the blankets on the couch.

  “I used your toothbrush.” He mumbled. Well, at least it was a sentence.

  “Thanks I have spares so I can throw that one away now it’s covered with vomit.” He rubbed his eyes and yawned, shrugging his shoulders as his joints popped.

  “Sorry, Jay. I’ll buy you another one. You should get an electric one, anyway. Manual toothbrushes don’t do the job.”

  “You’re giving me dental advice now?”

  “Sure. Why not?” He walked past me, brushing against me where he swayed on his feet and I felt the same jolt run through me. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Just go to bed.

  I turned and watched him sink into the sofa, wriggling happily into the cushions and suddenly looking a lot more sober.

  “Did you finish throwing up? Do I need to watch you to make sure you don’t choke in your sleep?”

  “I’m done throwing up. I stuck my fingers down my throat for good measure.”

  I eyed him quizzically but he just grinned and then I couldn’t concentrate on anything so I went to the kitchen to get him what must have been his fourth pint of water.