Chapter Text
Talk Tonight
8:09:26PM
Garrett Cole BEAR Walker
Castlefield, Manchester, Northern England
New Year’s Eve marked the end of 2022, a night Garrett hated as much as he loved. As usual, he’d decided to spend part of the evening alone in his apartment in Castlefield.
The walls retained the heat from the central heating, while the air was filled with the smell of cigars, wood, and alcohol. Price was celebrating with Laswell, Garrick had gone back to London to celebrate with his family. Johnny was supposedly with his cousin in Scotland.
As for Simon... he was nowhere to be found.
No one really knew where he was, except that he didn't like New Year's Eve parties.
Garrett was there, sunk into his leather sofa, a glass of bourbon in his hand, while his free hand tapped to the rhythm of the music below. His gaze was distracted by the dancing lights of the festivities in the pubs on his street.
Despite the light rain, people were celebrating, laughing, kissing. They were alive.
Just as the track was about to start, it was interrupted by the vibration of the phone sitting on the coffee table. Garrett let out a grunt; he didn’t like it when people interrupted his listening sessions. He closed his eyes, trying once again to focus on the music.
But once again, he was interrupted by a notification on his Samsung XCover 6 Pro.
Garrett liked this phone for its rugged and reliable design.
“Fuckin’ hell.” The man swore as he opened his eyes, his gaze fixed on the phone; Garrett picked it up with his free hand and finally saw that it was Edward.
His best friend had sent him two messages asking how he was. Edward had a bad habit of sending several messages instead of just one.
The bearded man had little desire to reply, not right now anyway. Garrett flung the phone nonchalantly onto the table with a precise, almost automatic flick of his wrist.
He’d never understand why Edward sent messages like a teenager when he was a Duke – and, worse still, a politician.
So Garrett turned his attention back to the music coming from the pub down the street, until the next track came on, which he didn’t like, finding it too ‘modern’.
He stood up with a weary grunt; his joints cracked in a series of sharp pops, punctuating the false silence. He sipped quietly at his drink.
His steps were slow, more focused on drinking than on walking.
As he approached the speaker sitting on the TV stand, he switched it on and the room filled with the bass lines of ‘Balaclava’ by the Arctic Monkeys.
“Let’s fucking go!” he exclaimed, a smile playing on his lips, before taking the last sip and pouring himself another. The song’s lyrics echoed off the walls.
The frenzied beat accompanied Garrett in his living room as he decided to look out of his window at the flat opposite.
He glanced at his watch, a Panerai Submersible, which he’d been wearing for a few years. It was 8.20 pm. It was time.
At the window opposite, a mature woman appeared. A few years older than Garrett, she was stunning, with long, wavy black hair.
Her slender yet curvaceous figure was clad only in a burgundy-coloured sheath dress. Her emerald eyes sparkled at the sight of her neighbour.
It was a dance they’d been perfecting for years. A daring game, played purely for their own pleasure, in which they both revelled in teasing and tempting one another.
Neither knew the other’s name, preferring to maintain the mystery by simply calling each other ‘Neighbour’.
“And there isn't no going back
And it's wrong, wrong, wrong
But we'll do it anyway 'cause we love a bit of trouble”
Garrett knew these words well; he sang them to the rhythm of the music whilst her neighbour signalled for him to unbutton his shirt.
As a gentleman, Garrett obliged with a tantalising slowness. Meanwhile, she slowly pulled up the hem of her dress; with every passing second, more of her white, shapely thigh was revealed.
Garrett’s breathing was heavy and ragged.
His mind, clouded by alcohol and desire, was drifting away like beads of sweat in the stifling heat of his flat.
The Neighbour was the original sin, the forbidden fruit on the other side of the street. Just as Garrett began to remove his shirt to reveal his muscular chest, the neighbour disappeared, drawing the curtains and blocking the bearded man’s view.
Garrett’s frustration rose a notch; he was savouring the sight, the heat spreading through his lower abdomen.
“Fuckin’ hell… She—” his hoarse voice began to say before the curtains flew open with a sharp tug.
There she was again, wearing nothing but a nightie whose fabric revealed her ample bosom behind the window, pelted by Manchester’s light rain.
She was sublime, divine, a naughty end-of-year present that Garrett, as a simple man, could only accept.
The Neighbour picked up the pace of the game, just as the guitar riffs echoed off the walls of the flat opposite. Her hands roamed over her body, which radiated pure sensuality; Garrett responded by unbuttoning his jeans, his fingers opening his fly, brushing against the fabric of his black boxer shorts.
The tension was at its peak, just like the final verse of ‘Balaclava’.
“But you heard that they were the naughtiest
She pleaded with you to take it off
But you resisted and fought
But sorry, sweetheart, I'd much rather
Keep on the balaclava”
His hand slipped away from his bulge. Garrett let out a deep, hoarse laugh as he saw the disappointed look on his dear neighbour’s face.
He shrugged, murmuring with a smile. “I ain’t that easy, darlin’.”
Taking a few steps back, he disappeared into the darkness of his flat, leaving behind a frustrated woman on the other side of the street.
Now, he was in the mood to reply to Eddie.
He made his way through the living room to his bedroom, glass still in hand, picking up his phone as he went – it was flooded with notifications from his best friend.
Garrett was thinking about how he could make the most of the rest of his New Year’s Eve. The fling with his neighbour had turned him on, and he couldn’t bring himself to stay in his flat listening to the music from the bar downstairs.
As he entered his bedroom, his phone rang.
Eddie, again.
Garrett sighed, cracked his shoulder and downed the rest of his bourbon in one go before answering.
“Mmh, Eddie?” His voice dragged out, gruff but betraying his affection.
“Gary! Finally! You took your sweet time, I almost thought you were dead. Or worse.” The mocking voice rang out, full of charm, still all too vivid through the loudspeaker.
The London accent was impeccable; Edward’s nobility shone through in his tone alone.
Garrett couldn’t help but let a half-smile escape him. He was the complete opposite of Eddie, who stood rooted to the spot, half in the shadows, in front of the wardrobe in his bedroom.
He set his glass down on the bedside table to his right and let his body fall backwards onto the bed.
“Was busy…” he grumbled.
Edward’s mischievous laughter seemed to fill the room. “Busy?” His tone changed, becoming more teasing, as if he were playing with the inflection.
Edward knew him inside out – fourteen years of friendship. Including a year and a half when they’d been lovers.
All that before Garrett backed out, for fear of getting attached. Fortunately, they’d kept this unbreakable friendship.
The Texan sighed; of course the Londoner had thought that. He should have thought before he spoke.
“Ain’t that kinda busy,” he grumbled. His eyes rested on the dancing shadows on one of the walls; the patter of rain accompanied their conversation with a serene lightness.
“Oh,” Edward replied, in a gruffer tone. Serious. He sensed that his friend was more grumpy than usual.
“What are you doing tonight, Gary? Are you… alone? Not with your new friends?”
Garrett merely let out a grunt of approval. Edward knew about the Task Force, having met them a month earlier for his friend’s birthday; besides, you couldn’t hide the existence of Task Force 141 from a former MI5 agent.
“Not even with the tall one?” Eddie added, his smile coming through the phone as clear as crystal.
The bearded man tensed; talking about Simon was a sensitive subject. He and Simon were close, too much alike. A hair’s breadth away from becoming the other.
“MIA,” he muttered, almost a sigh he struggled to hold back.
Simon wanted to stay off the radar, and Garrett respected his wishes.
“If you want, I can—” Edward began, before being cut off by a weary growl from Garrett—more like a groan than a clear word.
“No, Edward. You don’t.”
Garrett ran his free hand over his weary face as silence fell over the call. He took a deep breath, then continued in a clearer voice.
“We’ll try and see each other soon. Look after yourself, Eddie.”
He ended the call before Edward could even reply. His hand finished running through his hair, displeased with himself for having been so defensive with his best friend. The Bearded One raised his head, his jaw clenched. He looked at a photo taken a month and a half earlier in Las Almas with the 141, Alejandro and Rudy, which sat on his bedside table next to his empty glass. He leapt out of bed; he wasn’t going to stay cooped up brooding. He wanted to get out; staying alone and, above all, frustrated in his flat was out of the question.
Opening his wardrobe, he grabbed some clean clothes: a simple grey hoodie; a pair of dark blue jeans, which he’d pair with a pea coat in the same colour and a pair of black high-top Vans. Looking more closely, he spotted a beanie that Simon had given him for his last birthday. The Mancunian had noticed that Garrett’s damaged ears suffered in the cold. The numerous fights and training sessions had left them looking slightly like cauliflowers. The right one was even cut by a bottle during a brawl in a London pub.
Garrett looked at the beanie for a long time, his blue eyes crinkling slightly as a faint smile crossed his face, and finally picked it up.