Chapter 142. I Want Some Trouble So I Had To Tell Him, Just So That I Can Ragebait Him

He ended the call and stood in the lane for a moment, looking at the street ahead of him. The evening had gone fully dark, the amber light entirely gone now, the street lit by the particular orange of the sodium lamps that District 4’s residential sections used.

"Yeah, some progress, alright," he started walking. "I can already tell that she’s going to feel that sense of longing towards me."

"Your husband needs to come home fast or maybe at least call you before I take her even more." Mike laughed while walking, and he’s lucky that there’s no one around him.

He had made it about two blocks when he heard footsteps behind him, and then alongside him, and then a familiar voice said, "What the fuck...?"

"The hell are you doing in my street?"

Mike looked to his left. Jay was there, still wearing his athletics kit from training, with a bag slung over one shoulder and an expression that indicated he was contemplating a response before reacting.

He looked at Mike the way a person looks at something they expected to find eventually but not quite this soon. "I didn’t know you were from this area."

"Nah, I’m just walking," Mike said. "The usual shit."

"In Morrison Close," Jay said.

"I was in the area."

Jay’s jaw moved. He looked ahead, then back at Mike, and calculated that his expression always revealed when something didn’t add up; he then arrived at the correct number, and Mike could see the exact moment he reached it.

"Nah, you didn’t," Jay said.

Mike remained silent, which served as a response in itself.

"My mom texted me about you, and she also called you," Jay said. "This situation is so fucking weird... why did my mom even call you?"

Mike was not surprised hearing that, but he thought. ’That bitch really told his son, huh...? Eh, none of that matters anyway because I can show him who’s the boss.’

"Your mother has my number," Mike said. "She used it."

"That’s not what I asked."

"She called me a few minutes ago, yes." Mike kept walking, and Jay fell into step beside him, which was either habit or the absence of a better option. "She woke up and I’d already gone."

"She wanted to say goodnight..."

Jay stared at him. "She wanted to say goodnight...?"

"She’s polite," Mike said. "It’s a quality."

"How long were you there?"

"A couple of hours."

Jay processed this with the expression of someone who has been presented with information they do not fully know how to organize. "What?!"

"A couple of hours," he repeated.

"We talked," Mike said. "She made tea, and I had some."

"In the end... We ended up talking more." He said this with the ease of someone describing an entirely ordinary afternoon, which, from his perspective, it largely had been. "She needed someone to talk to, so I was there."

Jay stopped walking again. Mike stopped with him.

"You went to my house," Jay said, and the register of his voice had dropped into something that was controlled and very specific about what it was controlling. "While I wasn’t there."

"And you sat with my mother for a couple of hours."

"I had information your mother deserved to have," Mike said. "I gave it to her, and she was grateful."

The word "grateful" landed in the space between them with the full weight of its implications, and Jay received it. He was not stupid, which Mike had established in the alley two nights ago, and he was also not somebody who lost his composure easily, which was why the effort it was currently taking him to maintain it was visible.

"This is," Jay started.

"Practical," Mike said. "I know. You’ll get used to me saying that."

"What did she say?"

"She said she needed to think about how to handle it." Mike tilted his head slightly. "She’s going to talk to you."

"I don’t know when, and I told her to wait until she was ready."

"You told her," Jay said, in a tone that was examining the structure of that sentence.

"I suggested it," Mike said. "She agreed."

"When she’s ready, she’ll talk to you. Until then, she’s not going to do anything."

"No calls to the university, no calls to your father."

At the mention of his father, something shifted briefly in Jay’s face, and he quickly managed his expression. "You talked about my dad."

"Briefly. She mentioned he’s been away since January."

"She wasn’t dwelling on it; it was just context." Mike looked at him steadily. "She wasn’t complaining about him either, if that’s what you’re wondering."

"She was explaining the situation the way someone does when they’re being honest about what this year has been like."

Jay looked at him. Something in his face had stopped being the careful management of someone who had been caught and had become something rawer and less organized.

He was still holding the bag strap with one hand, and he had stopped walking, and the street was quiet enough around them that Mike could hear the distant sound of the athletics facility two blocks over.

"You went to my house," Jay said slowly. "While I was at training."

"You sat with my mother for a couple of hours."

"You showed her that video, and you told her what I did." He said each piece separately, like he was setting them out to look at all at once. "And now you’re standing here telling me she was grateful."

"Yes," Mike said.

"You know what...?"

"You’re a fucking snitch," Jay said. The word came out flat and certain, not as an insult but as a classification. "That’s what you are."

"Everything else, the footage, the lapdogs, Tyler, the rooftop, all of it. It’s just a snitch with a system."

"I went to your mother because she deserved to know what her son has been doing," Mike said. "That’s not the same thing."

"It’s exactly the same thing."

"You went around me."

"You went behind my back to the one person in my life who I actually—" He stopped.

His jaw moved. "You walked into my house and you used her."

"I told her the truth," Mike said. "That’s not using someone."

"You told her the version of the truth that made you look like the virtuous one."

"You walked in there with a video and a story about avoidance routes and six weeks later, you sat with her until she trusted you, and you’re calling that the truth." Jay dropped his bag on the pavement.

It was a small movement, but it meant something specific. "What did you actually want from her?"

"Not from the situation, but... from her."

"A conversation," Mike said. "Your mother is a person who hasn’t had enough of those this year."

"Don’t," Jay’s voice had dropped. "Don’t make it about what she needs."

"You don’t know her."

"I know enough," Mike said.

"You’ve known her for a couple of hours."

"Sometimes two hours is enough."

Jay looked at him for a long moment, and what was on his face had moved past argument and arrived somewhere more immediate. "Oh, fuck you... you’re going to fucking pay for that."

"I thought you were cool, but it turns out... you’re a manipulative motherfucker!"

He took a step toward Mike. Not a large step, but a deliberate one.

"Jay," Mike said in the tone of someone giving a clear and reasonable warning. "Don’t."

"We know what will happen, so I’m suggesting you stop and deal with it because I help your future," Mike grinned.

"Bullshit."

"You went to my house," Jay said and took another step. "You sat with my mum."

"You told her things that were mine to tell or not tell. And now you’re standing in my street like you did her a favor." He was close enough now that the distance between them meant something. "I want you to tell me exactly what you wanted from her."

"One more time. And I want it to be honest."

"I was honest," Mike said. "You don’t like the answer."

"THAT’S IT!"