Chapter 12

“Nothing,” Tab repeated.

* * * *

So there’s this guy.

Oh aye? Demi replied, and Tab smiled. Do tell ;) i smell gossip.

Tab laughed. It was half nine in the evening, and he was closeted in his room, away from Aunt JuliKate’s soaps on the telly in the living room, and Uncle Eddie’s really disturbing grunts as he did sit-ups. (And sometimes it devolved into other stuff, and Tab had walked in on them once, and ew.) So he was secluded in here, safe.

‘Here’ was his cousin Jamie’s room. Jamie was Uncle Eddie’s kid from his first (and only) marriage. He was nearly thirty, and Tab could barely remember him. He was in the Army, and when he’d come back from Afghanistan he’d gone off with some woman to Glasgow, and that had been that.

Which meant Tab had inherited a room painted in ugly greens, like a mock-up crappy barracks, but it also had like a million locks on the door and heavy blackout curtains and a huge desk for his art books. So it was kind of cool.

He goes to my gym.