Trust - Page 98

“Instead of me getting paid, I was paying them?”

“Well, they were technically your employees, but you shouldn’t have been paying Lauren’s wages. Those should have come out of the company.”

“I agree.”

“Sorry, Gray,” he said softly. “I’m not much help to you, but you know what?” He put his teacup down, looked at me. “I’m happy that you’re asking for help. It shows what a good and decent person you are. A lesser man would have stuck his head in the sand and let this all consume him. But you’re working through it, one day at a time.”

“Trying to,” I said. I didn’t feel very strong, or good and decent for that matter.

“And you’re looking after my Reuben. That means the world to me. We make a good team, you and me. Keeping him happy.”

“He’s okay,” I tried to sound reassuring. “Takes his meds, sleeps, eats.”

“Has a really nice place to live and someone who loves him. That’s what I was trying to thank you for. For loving him. Because I can tell you do, and he knows that too.”

“Yeah.” We were as bad as each other, Reubs and me, with our one-word sentences, and we still had no idea how to keep this house clean. As I thought it, Reuben burst through the door in his work shoes, leaving muddy marks all over the hallway floor.

“Still raining?” I laughed as he stomped around, swearing under his breath. Kicking off his shoes, he threw a tea towel on the floor and skated it back out into the hallway.

“Not the tea towel!” Stewart barked. “You heathens!”

“You’ll just have to buy us some more!”

“I bought you a bloody teapot!”

“I bought the teapot. You bought us that wanky tablecloth that we keep spilling ketchup on.”

“It’s in the wash.” I laughed. I did do the washing. See? I wasn’t completely useless, even if I still felt so most of the time.

“Hi,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around me. He always seemed so tall when he came home, like I’d somehow forgotten what he looked like, how his arms fit around me, what I was supposed to do with myself when he was with me like this. This big, snuggly blanket of warmth.

“Hi,” I mumbled back, turning so he could plant a kiss on my mouth. It was a little bit weird still, kissing in front of his dad. But whatever. Stewart took a sip of his tea and picked up another letter from the pile.

“This is your tax form,” he said sternly. “We need this for your tax return, although with this kind of income, I think you need a professional.”

He put the letter back in the envelope and handed it to me. I didn’t dare look at it. To be honest, I didn’t know what my income was. I’d just asked the bank if I had enough to buy a house. They said I did, so I bought it.

“We need to set up all of those direct debits too,” Reuben said. “I made a list.”

Blimey. He hadn’t been wrong about being the adult in this relationship. I was happy just skulking around fiddling with our new washing machine and making tea. And not much else if I could get away with it.

But there went my phone again, and I had to morph back into being The Dieter, which was becoming a bit easier now I could differentiate the two. Graham was just some bloke. Dieter was a little more complicated. The fun part? Dieter was allowed to be a bit of a dick. And maybe I needed more therapy and I was doing this all wrong, but I just grunted into the phone as Musa laughed in my ear.

“Dude,” he said. “Okay. Serious stuff. Hearing tomorrow. Closed doors with a judge, in simple terms, just to approve that this is going ahead. You need to be there, all of us do. Josh is picking up Cam and his mum, so all six of us will be in that room. United front. That’s really important. If you flake on us again, I’ll kill you.”

“The Dieter will be there. With bells on. Do I need to wear leather?”

Musa sighed. “Suit. Tie. For once, pretend you actually know what we’re doing there.”

I sighed back. At least everyone knew I didn’t know. Admitting that had been a good thing. Made me feel less weird.

“Wait—you said all six of us. Lee will be there? Seriously?”

“Has to be. He’s as desp for this to be over and done with as the rest of us are. We’ve lost half a million in royalties between us just in the past month, and as long as we drag this out, Blitz bloody Industries are raking it in and we’re just sat here like muppets.”

“Muppets,” I agreed. I glanced over at Stewart, who was pointing to something on the spreadsheet with a worried look on his face.

“Gotta go,” I said, wanting to rein in whatever was going on with Reuben, who was staring at the piece of paper in his hand. Uh-oh. Not good.