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1.
Alec sighed, kicking his gangly legs off the side of the sofa. The chime from the clock in the kitchen let him know the pubs would be closing in an hour, and it was time to relocate to his bedroom. He’d made the mistake of falling asleep in the living room before, recently enough to still have a bruise on his left shin where he’d collided with the coffee table when his father had yanked him up by his shirt. Alec was just glad to no longer be small enough for his father to carry him by one arm and the belt loop of his trousers and toss him down the hall.
Two hours later, Alec was still awake. He hadn’t heard his father come in, but he hadn’t been listening for him either—too focused on chasing sleep that wouldn’t come. He debated the risks of going back out to the living room to check, knowing too well what the ramifications would be if he was seen awake and sneaking around at midnight, until the guilt over not wanting to care whether his father had made it home safely gnawed at him. His mother might be gone, but he couldn’t rid himself of the sense that he was greatly disappointing her by not at least checking.
Alec slipped his trousers back on, and carefully opened his bedroom door. He paused to listen before exiting his room. The flat was quiet, no sounds of his father moving around, no snoring. Slowly, he began creeping down the hall, purposefully stepping along the unmarked path he’d long since memorized to avoid the known creaky spots in the floorboards, ready to turn and bolt back to his room the second he learned he wasn’t alone. He made it all the way back to the living room. He breathed a sigh of relief, inwardly cringing at the guilt that followed when he saw no sign of his father.
Alec ran his hand through his hair, doing some quick math. The pub was a ten minute walk under normal circumstances, 15-20 maybe if intoxicated, unless his father had gotten cross of the barman again and gone to his other favorite haunt, which in that case it would take his father closer to a half hour to get home. Lock-ins? That was a thing, right? He couldn’t imagine his father was tolerated well enough to hang around and continue drinking after closing hours, especially not at the closer pub. Alec went back to his room, leaving the door open a crack to hear if his father came home while he considered what to do. He still had vague memories from when he was younger, and could picture his five-year old self crying while standing outside both pubs after his mother had dragged him out of bed to go hunt down her husband. By the time he was ten, she’d stopped taking him with her. Their argument upon their return always woke him anyway. She stopped going to look for him once she got sick. Alec often wondered if that responsibility fell to him on the nights where his father was later than usual coming home. After she died, he was certain that it did, and he had been dreading the day that he’d be faced with going out to look. To the best of his recollection, Alec’s father only ever shouted at his mother when she found him, but he imagined that with her gone it would go differently for him. Maybe not while they were still in public, but back in the flat? Behind closed doors? It didn’t matter that he was as tall as his father now. His scrawny frame held little muscle, and even if he entirely got over a childhood of biblical-based teachings to respect his parents, he figured it would be a long time before he ever managed to match, let alone overpower, his father’s physical strength.
When the kitchen clock chimed 1am, Alec finished getting dressed and decided to go look for his father. He held his breath as he turned the corner, half-expecting to run into the man either stumbling along or passed out on the sidewalk. He didn’t have a plan for any of the possible outcomes as to what he should do if he were to find his father in any state. The first pub was dark, as was the second. He passed an apartment building where a young couple were making out in the doorway. ‘Making out’ was an understatement. Alec tucked his head down, feeling a flush of embarrassment that he was seeing something he should be seeing crept up his cheeks. Another possibility began to take hold in Alec’s brain as he walked by, but he shook his head, dismissing the notion that his father may have gone home with some woman he met while drinking. Picturing his father sitting at the edge of a bar, muttering to himself or arguing with the barman was easy. Picturing him chatting up female companionship was unrealistic. Being successful was impossible to imagine, and also the last thought Alec wanted in his head.
Alec walked for another 20 minutes. He’d run out of ideas on places to look, and he was beginning to worry about drawing attention to himself. A 14 year old wandering the fairly deserted late-night city streets would attract attention from the police if they were to drive by, and whilst he considered calling them earlier, not for their help but to inquire as to whether they’d finally picked up his father for public drunkenness, something told him he should leave the authorities out of it. Not for any concrete reason he could point to, it was just a general feeling he had that they shouldn’t be involved if they didn’t have to be. His mother never called, even when she was too ill to search herself.
Anxiety told him to go back to the flat, phone local hospitals to continue his search. Exhaustion told him he needed to get some sleep. School was going to be rough the next morning, and he needed some semblance of wits about him to make it through the day. Being tired made him too easy a target for bullies. It shone a spotlight on his unfinished homework and poor test scores, like sending up the bat signal to his teachers. His grades were comfortably average before his mother passed, but they’d taken a nosedive in the years since.
He heard his father banging on the door, shouting a string of expletives directed toward Alec to get up and unlock it, before he saw him. Alec froze, almost wishing he’d found his father passed out somewhere instead. This was worse. He sounded as if he’d half sobered during whatever time frame had elapsed between when Alec had left and he’d returned. His father must have forgotten his keys, and was expecting a son who wasn’t inside to come open the door. If only they’d never moved from their previous flat, the one on the first floor less than a mile away, where they lived until he was nine. He’d left his window open a crack as he almost always did during the fall months when their elderly downstairs neighbor cranked her thermostat so high it practically heated the whole building, but that window wasn’t of much use on the third floor.
Silently, Alec approached the door, key in hand. He opened the door without a word, bracing himself as he pushed past his father and walked inside first. He tried not to flinch too noticeably when he felt the first slap to the side of his head. His father continued to berate him, no longer for being worthless and too lazy to get out of bed, but now for thinking he could sneak out until all hours of the night without consequence.
“Look at me when I’m talking, lad,” when Alec took another step toward his room, his father slapped him again. Alec kept walking down the hall, the slaps getting harder the more he ignored his father.
“Where have you been,” just outside his room, Alec turned halfway, not facing him as he asked.
“I don’t answer to you,” this time, his father slammed him forward, face-first, into the wall. He grabbed Alec’s wrist, twisting one arm behind him, using the other to pin his shoulders. Alec grunted, his father’s full weight felt like it was pressing across his back.
“Still talking, I see.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Alec sneered, once he caught his breath. His father swore, tightening his grip on Alec’s wrist and grabbing a handful of Alec’s shirt. With frightening speed, he spun Alec around and shoved, forcing him through the closed door of his bedroom.
The moulding gave way, bits of door frame splintering along with it as Alec crashed through. He turned as he fell, curling away as his father stumbled off-balance, nearly toppling over onto him.
“You’ll fix what you broke tomorrow,” his father growled at him. He stalked off to his own bedroom, slamming the door. Alec shuddered, biting back a sob even after his father was gone. He heaved himself off the floor and slid a stack of school books in front of the door to keep it closed for what was left of the night.
2.
“Hardy? That guy?” The first recruit pointed across the auditorium. Theirs was the last lecture of the day, on a pleasant fall Friday evening, and the police academy class had emptied out almost as soon as they were dismissed. Hardy was still sitting in his seat at the far outskirts of the front row, leafing through his notebook. “You wanna invite him?”
The other recruit shrugged. “Why not?”
The first recruit frowned, glancing back over to Hardy. “He seems dull,” he shrugged. “I’m looking to have a good bloke’s night out, and he seems like,” he laughed. “I was gonna say that he looks like a copper. But,” he waved his arms, gesturing broadly.
“Yeah, sort of the whole point of this, innit,” the second recruit rolled his eyes, and began walking over toward where Hardy was sitting.
“Oi,” he called over to him.
Hardy didn’t look up.
“A bunch of us are going out to the pub over on,” he turned to the other recruit to ask for the location, and then repeated exactly what had just been said.
“Good for you,” Hardy mumbled, still looking down at his notes.
“You should join us,”
“Why?” Hardy did finally look up, a blank stare playing across his face. He hadn’t initially thought he was being addressed, the sarcasm falling out of his mouth almost by accident. Now that he was aware that they were inviting him along, he was confused. He’d never spoken to either of them, didn’t even know their names.
“What do you mean why, mate? Pints, girls, why else go out?” he turned and made a face back at the other recruit, as if to say maybe he was right that they shouldn’t invite this guy.
“How long have you been down south? Since the start of the academy?
Hardy gave him a brisk nod, expression still blank.
“You never know, we may all be in this together some day, brotherhood and all that. Anyways, come if you want. Don’t if you don’t. That’s Riddell, I’m Murphy. Around eight-ish, yeah?”
Hardy paused, genuinely considering it. He wasn’t much of a drinker, and found the suggestion that there would be girls at this pub dubious at best. The notion that any of them may talk to him seemed borderline preposterous. He figured he’d have better luck with the brunette in class who usually sat a few seats down from him. At least he knew they’d have something in common to talk about.
“Aye, maybe,” he answered. Both recruits nodded, telling him they’d see him later then. Hardy winced at the nervous squeak in his voice once their backs were turned.
“Blimey, that guy?” A third recruit, Morrison, laughed when Murphy and Riddell pointed out that Hardy had just walked into the pub.
“Mike invited him. For some reason. Does he not own jeans?” Riddell and Morrison laughed. From afar, he appeared as if he’d gone home, traded his uniform shirt for a light gray button-up shirt, tucked it into his uniform trousers, and called it good.
“Over here,” Hardy heard someone shout. He looked around, and spotted a few vaguely familiar faces. For a split second he wasn’t sure, like seeing a school teacher out of the classroom, at first he didn’t recognize the two other recruits out of their academy attire. Rider and. Something. Hardy wasn’t sure what the other one’s name was. He didn’t know the third standing with them either.
Hardy drank his beer slowly, mostly so he’d have something to do with his hands. Holding a glass seemed as good as anything. Whenever someone tried too hard to include him in a conversation, he could take a sip to avoid answering. The alcohol seemed to shorten everyone’s attention spans, and he quickly found that the brief pause was enough that they’d change the subject or start talking to someone other than him.
“No, not for me,” Hardy waved off a shot of some clear liquor. “Working in the morning,” he lied.
“Working? Doing what?” someone, Morrison he thought, although it could have been Walker, asked.
“Ach, courier, packages, and whatnot,” Hardy had quit that job the week before starting at the academy, but these guys didn’t need to know that.
“Watch yourself then, mate,” Morrison or Walker patted him on the shoulder before rejoining the main conversation to offer up his opinions on Arsenal’s current keeper.
Hardy nearly spilled his beer when one of the recruits came up from behind him, slung an arm over his shoulder, and insisted he needed a wingman.
“Asap, them, her over there,” he pointed at a trio of blondes. Hardy was sure he recognized one of them from academy classes, the other two he couldn’t be certain. He bristled, shrugging the man’s arm off of him before declining. “Come on, help a lad out, okay?”
Hardy shook his head. He’d seen enough movies to know this was not a skill he possessed. He couldn’t stand there and make up flattering stories about someone he just met that would convince one of those women to want to sleep with him. Hardy grimaced as he was shoved forward, arguing that this was a bad idea.
It was a bad idea. Hardy was grateful when the three women shut them down quickly, and excused himself to the restroom. He spent an extra couple minutes staring at his own reflection in disappointment, pulling at the shirt that was far too formal for the occasion. He untucked it in an attempt to look more casual, but quickly tucked it back in when that felt even more wrong. Hardy splashed some water onto his face, thinking maybe he should just give in and get drunk like the rest of his cohorts. He wasn’t having fun this way, and he could tell no one would ever accuse him of being fun either. When he returned to the main barroom, he found that they were all gone. As Hardy made his way toward the front door to leave, a guy from another group shouted to him, “that’s rough for your mates to leave you like that”
“Not my mates,” he muttered, not bothering to look at the guy who shouted. He heard laughter coming from that general direction as he left to walk home.
3.
The crackle of the police radio read out an address, followed by a series of numeric codes Hardy recognized. His hand was on his mic, but before he could answer, the other PC was responding that they were on patrol nearby and would handle it. The dispatcher let them know she was sending additional assistance. The caller had described a decently large melee outside the pub at that address.
“Ready to go break up a bar fight?” the other PC asked Hardy with a hint of glee on his face.
“Aye, let’s go,” Hardy nodded. He took long, quick strides to keep up with the shorter, older PC who practically jogged down the end of the block to where the brawl had been reported.
“A whistle? Really?” thought Hardy. It worked to some degree. Four of the men, boys from the look of it, they looked to be around the same age as Hardy, took off immediately shouting about the police. The other four didn’t seem to notice.
“Oi!” Hardy shouted. He mustered the most authority he could and marched over toward them. That scattered two more of the brawlers, leaving a more manageable two to deal with.
“Enough!” Hardy yelled. He and the other PC stepped in to break up the remainder of the fight. Both combatants seemingly calmed down, holding their hands up and assuring the officers there was nothing to see.
Hardy looked down for a split second to fish a notepad out of his pocket when one of them turned, and sucker punched him in the face. Hardy fell back, stunned. He skittered backwards on the sidewalk, putting his back to the pub's outside wall and holding his forearm up as if to protect his face from further impact, still seeing stars. From the sidewalk, he watched the other PC hop up and down, shouting about how serious a crime assaulting a police officer was. Hardy was gathering his bearings as a cruiser pulled up. The other PC shouted to them to go after two men, on foot, in different directions. Hardy pushed himself up to his feet as two PCs, much older than himself and his counterpart, approached.
“Looks busted,” one of them commented, nodding toward Hardy.
Anger gave way to embarrassment. Hardy realized he could taste blood, presumably dripping down from his nose. His face burned, the center from the blow to his nose, the rest from shame. The shame brought the sense of creeping doubt he’d been feeling from time to time, mostly at night while failing to sleep, that he’d never make it as a police officer. Hardy carefully pressed two fingers to either side of his nose, grimacing in pain.
The new arrivals both laughed. “Definitely broken,” he went back to the car, grabbed a napkin, and handed it to Hardy.
“Do not blow your nose,” he told Hardy. “It’ll puff up your whole face and you won’t be able to see. Jenkins here will take you back, walk you through the process, get you patched up,” he turned to his partner. “Won’t you, mate? Since you’ve been in his shoes before?”
PC Jenkins rolled his eyes, but nodded. Hardy followed. He turned and spit, blood still trickling down his throat. Regardless of the PC’s implications that the man driving him to A&E had suffered a broken nose while breaking up a fight himself, Hardy still couldn’t shake the sense that he had screwed up. He sat in the passenger seat, silently holding the napkin underneath his nose. Hardy couldn’t wait to shake the feeling that he was still being treated like a child.
4.
“Alec, you can’t go in your suit, come on,” Tess tossed his blue jumper at him. She turned and began digging through his dresser drawers, looking for anything other than suit trousers. She pulled out an ancient pair of jeans, and waved them at him.
“Oh, god, no,” Hardy looked at her, horrified. “Are you sure those are even mine?” He tossed his jacket on the bed, and stretched the jumper over his head. “I didn’t want to go to this thing in the first place,” he grumbled. He smoothed out the jumper, still not entirely sure how it was preferable to his jacket for going out. He’d already removed his tie the moment he got home, that alone, he felt should have been the signifier that he was no longer formally dressed.
Tess frowned at him, “whose else’s would they be?” She held up the jeans, taking a better look at them. “I’ve seen you wear these before,” she turned them around so he could see the grass stains on the lower legs. “Presumably to mow the grass?”
“Mhm,” Hardy nodded, vaguely remembering. When they first bought the house, he spent a considerable amount of time doing yardwork. Once he was promoted to DS, Tess had taken over most of those chores. Rumor had it that he was in line for a DI position by summertime, once Macmillian finally retired. Rumor also had it that Tess was likely to be his replacement at the lower rank. Hardy briefly wondered whether there was a boy in the neighborhood he could toss a few quid to keep their garden from getting out of control.
Tess put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t pout, have you ever even gone to one of the Christmas parties? You may have a nice time,” she smirked at him. Hardy stared. He’d already made his case for how much he hated pubs, socializing with co-workers, and large parties. Ordinarily, he’d volunteered to work those nights if he hadn’t already been scheduled to do so. Tess had argued that she rarely made him attend functions that fell under those criteria as it was, and now that Daisy was old enough to spend a night at a friend’s house, they were going to take advantage of the opportunity. Hardy had suggested they go out to dinner together, just the two of them, perhaps see a movie instead. His preference was to stay in, but he thought that he could make some concessions to those ends without suffering too greatly. The South Mercia CID Christmas pub shindig was a bridge too far.
“You’re absolutely right, you will hate it. But if it’s even half as bad as you think it is, I’ll never drag you to another one as long as we’re both still employed,” she turned to face him, wrapping her arms around his waist in a hug.
Hardy sighed, returning the hug. He held her close, registering one last plea to cancel and make other plans. “I don’t know why you want to go to this either, you don’t necessarily like the lot of them any more than I do.”
“We’re going,” she told him. “I’ll be ready in five, I just need to do something with this,” she ran her hand through her hair.
“Looks fine to me,” he mumbled, leaning forward. Hardy buried his face into the crook of Tess’s neck. “I like it this way,” he hummed, pressing a kiss behind her ear. He playfully nipped at her earlobe, as if to hammer home the suggestion that there were so many other things they could do that didn’t involve a work event at a pub.
“Nice try,” she told him, breaking away. “Give me five minutes. I’ll drive, that way you can down all the liquid courage you need to get you through the evening.”
Hardy shook his head, walking back out to the living room to wait for her.
—
Hardy lost track of Tess fairly quickly. The pub was packed, and he found it impossible to hear the majority of what anyone was saying on the rare occasions someone entered his space and dared to speak to him. The corner he’d chosen was secluded enough, and afforded him enough room to stand with his back to the wall and observe. Watching a crowd of police in varying stages of intoxication grew dull pretty quickly, and he was thankful when he caught the eye of one of the computer forensics examiners. Murray made his way over to Hardy, greeting him with a nearly identical, awkward headnod and “my wife made me” explanation as to what the other was doing there. He knew Murray’s wife was the dispatch manager, but she was not someone he’d be able to pick out of the throng of people. Hardy was glad to have a kindred spirit in terms of not being present wholly of his own volition. It also meant that there was at least one person there who would be willing to talk about the one thing Hardy knew he had in common with any of them: work.
“You know I’m no good at technology,” Hardy screwed up his face as it said it, trying to be loud enough for Murray to hear him. Murray chuckled. He tried to rephrase, in language Hardy might be able to understand, why being able to utilize open-source disk image analysis software was so valuable when departments ran on tight budgets. “I suppose I sound like some AFO would, telling you about his shiny new gun when you couldn’t care less,” Murray made a weak finger-gun gesture.
Hardy waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll get you another,” he pointed to Murray’s empty glass. “And I’ll act like I understand more than every fifth word you say.”
Before Hardy had a chance to wind his way through the sea of people to order more drinks, Murray’s wife suddenly appeared. She draped her arm over her husband’s shoulder and announced that they’d met their social obligations for the evening, letting him know they could leave.
“Next time,” Murray told Hardy, setting his glass down on a nearby table. “Good luck,” he gave Hardy a small wave before disappearing.
Hardy scanned the crowd once Murray and his wife left, looking for Tess. He knew he wouldn’t be so lucky. Tess wasn’t about to come to save him from his boredom after only an hour. Just as he was making his way back over to his corner, an arm grabbed his elbow. Hardy wheeled around, beer nearly sloshing down the front of his jumper.
“Oi, oh,” he cried out, realizing it was Tess.
“Have you been hiding back here this entire time? I turned around for two seconds and you were gone,” she hissed.
Hardy sputtered, trying to argue that sure, the pub was busy, but it wasn’t so large that she couldn’t find him relatively easily if she’d been looking at all. He rolled his eyes, shaking his sleeve away from her grasp. “You’re treating me like a bloody child,” he growled at her.
“You’re acting like a moody teen,” she shot back.
He followed her over to the group he figured she must have been talking with before dragging him away from the semi-solitude of his corner. Hardy nodded when Tess introduced him to DS-such and such, his wife, DC-whomever, and her husband. He assumed he’d met them before, but out of the context of the station, they could have been complete strangers. He silently drank his beer, half-listening to the parts of the conversation he could hear. They were standing almost directly in the middle of the open standing room space where it was so much louder than where he’d situated himself before. The temperature felt several degrees warmer too.
“Looks like you’re ready for another round, mate,” the husband of DC-whomever said, slapping Hardy on the back. Hardy bristled at his jovial tone.
“I told you, I’ll drive,” Tess barely acknowledged him as she said it.
Hardy shrugged, motioning outside. “I need some air,” he said, almost too quiet to be heard over the persistent din.
“Yeah, I could burn one,” the man said, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and tapping them.
That got Tess’s attention. She glared at Hardy, as if to say, “don’t you dare.” He rolled his eyes at her, and headed outside.
“I’d offer you one, but your wife looks like she’ll have your hide,” the man said, stuffing his lighter back into his pocket.
Hardy didn’t respond. He leaned against the railing separating the outdoor area from the sidewalk. His ears were ringing, and he wanted a reprieve in the cool winter night air alone. The man kept talking as he smoked.
“Your lass is a firecracker, and she’ll probably have my hide too if I keep you out here too long,” the man said, slapping Hardy on the back again. Hardy saw it coming this time, and was careful not to flinch too noticeably.
“Go, tell her I’ll be back shortly,” he gritted his teeth, still leaning against the rail. “Fenced in here, not going to escape,” he added.
“Quite. See you inside!”
Hardy glowered at the ground for another ten minutes before forcing himself back inside. The headache that greeted him upon re-entering the humid, noisy space was instantaneous. He felt a small amount of relief when he realized both couples were saying their goodbyes.
“Us too soon,” Tess glanced at her watch. “I just need to speak with Greg and Liz first,” she pointed across the room.
“No, I think we should be going as well,” he told her. If Greg and Liz were the pair he thought she was pointing at, he wanted no part of that. He knew Greg. He thought Greg was a moron.
“We’ll leave soon,” Tess assured him.
“Now,” Hardy didn’t follow. Tess turned around, giving him the same condescending, stern look she’d given him several times before.
“How much did you drink? You look like you’re going to be sick,” she looked around, as if she was checking to see if anyone else noticed. That didn’t seem fair. His head was pounding, but he’d only had two pints, and wasn’t anywhere close to feeling them.
“I’m not,” he wondered for a moment if he should pretend otherwise. Not here, not amongst this crowd, he decided. Even if the majority of them were too engrossed in their own conversations or otherwise too drunk themselves, his desire to not look weak won out.
“Quite, well, fine. We’ll go,” Tess conceded.
Hardy took a deep breath once they were outside. Tess put an arm around him.
“You don’t need to,” Hardy protested. “I’m fine, just tired,” he pulled away when it began to feel less like a show of affection and more like she thought he needed steering back to where they’d parked.
The ride home was silent. Hardy collapsed into bed. Tess joined him, huffing a backhanded thanks for not being a total embarrassment. Hardy rolled onto his side, facing the wall, and tried to sleep.
5.
Hardy looked around, trying to find another task that needed to be done. Anything to prolong leaving the residence hall after he and Tess had gone to help Daisy move in for her first year at university.
“I thought that you’d have dinner with your mum and me,” he sighed, running his hand through his hair.
Tess stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest. “I think it’s nice,” she said. “We should go,” she emphasized the ’should’ in her comment.
“Sorry, dad, they seem nice, and I am going to need to make friends. Why wouldn’t I start now?”
While Daisy was putting the finishing touches on the majority of setting up her room, one of the other girls from down the hall had knocked at the door and introduced herself. She’d mentioned that a group of them were going to get together and make dinner together in the shared kitchen, as a get to know each other. To Hardy’s disappointment, Daisy had said yes.
He nodded, “right, we’re away, hug first though,” he held out his arms, motioning toward her.
“Me too,” Tess stepped forward, giving Daisy a brief hug before turning back to look at Hardy. He frowned, reiterating his speech from earlier, telling Daisy to phone him if she ever needed anything, advising her to keep a schedule and not leave school work til the last minute. When he began offering to come down there directly to deal with any boys who give her trouble, Tess interrupted.
“We love you, darling, I’ll get your dad out of here now,” she smiled at Daisy, gently pushing Hardy out the door.
Hardy heaved another sigh once they were in the hall, walking beside Tess with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. At least he could give himself a point for remaining stoic. He’d fully expected to cry. Leaving his little girl in London for school was a big step for all of them, and he still couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t break down the moment he got home. Things had started out rough when he and Daisy had moved to Broadchurch a few years ago, but they got past most of those issues. The incident with the picture at school died down, and thankfully due to the town’s low crime rate not enticing him into long hours at work, he’d spent more time at home. He’d missed fewer dinners, been more responsive when she phoned him to say she was going to be late coming home from Chloe’s. He’d even allowed her to invite Miller and family over to celebrate his most recent birthday. They had been able to salvage something of the family he desperately missed during his first stint in Broadchurch. Coming home to an empty house was going to hurt in a way he was realizing he was only partially prepared for.
“What time is your train?” Tess asked once they were outside.
“Half seven,” Hardy grimaced, looking at his watch.
“That’s,” Tess glanced at the clock on her phone before unlocking it and pulling up Google Maps.
Hardy looked around, thinking while he watched the people and cars pass. Maybe there was an earlier train, and he could get his ticket changed. Not likely, he thought. The schedule to and from Broadchurch was quite limited, and he remembered when he’d booked the tickets he’d been lucky not to have to book a hotel room as well and wait until morning to get back. Tess had driven down, but he wasn’t about to ask her for a ride that far out of the way on her way back to Sandbrook.
“There’s a pub just a quarter mile that way,” she held up her mobile, showing him a picture of the burger purported to be on the menu. Hardy pulled a face and shook his head.
“Come on, dinner on me? I know you, Alec. You probably haven’t eaten all day, and I know the last thing you want to do is spend two and a half hours sitting in a train station.”
“Fine,” he grunted, following her lead. He wished she hadn’t been as correct as she was.
Hardy rolled his eyes as Tess ordered them each a pint. He hadn’t wanted a beer, had given up alcohol entirely once his heart became a problem, and hadn’t gone back since the pacemaker was placed. Anxiety over Daisy leaving was still suppressing his appetite, but he scanned the menu for something simple knowing that if he did drink without eating, there was a chance he’d be sick on the way home.
“You’re not handling this well,” Tess sipped her beer, eyeing him carefully.
Hardy ignored her. It felt like bait. He knew he tended to exude a certain sense of melancholy, but he thought that he was doing a perfectly fine job at hiding how fragile he was actually feeling. What he’d said as they left wasn’t any different from what he thought any father would tell his daughter in that situation.
“Are you ready to be on your own?”
Again, he didn’t answer, looking out the window of the pub’s dining area. He took a sip of his beer. Hardy’s stomach instantly issued a warning rumble, a precursor to the rebellion it was letting him know it was ready to stage if he continued without adding some food. Tess continued talking.
“I’ll tell you, it was a shock when Daisy moved in with you, and suddenly she wasn’t there anymore. I wasn’t prepared for it,” Tess said. To Hardy, it sounded like an admission that conveniently omitted from memory the 18 months he spent apart from her and Daisy. He turned and shot her a glare.
“Right,” Tess looked at the table. “You already went through that once so you think you’ll be fine. You don’t do alone as well as you think you do, Alec.”
Bait or not, Hardy finally felt goaded into a response. “Stop telling me what I’m thinking. We haven’t even spoken in years.” He drained half the pint, no longer intending to stay to eat.
Tess offered a meek apology, but continued along the same track. “Remember back, before you had your surgery? You asked about wanting to get back together and still be a family.”
Hardy was growing irritable. “Aye, but you saw how that worked out.”
“You said you still loved me,” she said slowly. “Do you still feel that way?”
Hardy paused before answering. He considered telling her that he didn’t want to think about that right now. He didn’t like thinking about that period of his life at all. He definitely didn’t need to add the trauma Gillespie case to the depressing stew already swirling around his brain. After he’d returned to Sandbrook, she seemed delighted in reminding him that that chapter was long over, and he nearly called her out for the hypocrisy in bringing it up now.
“Not anymore,” he shrugged, the remainder of his beer sloshing as he angrily set down the glass. “Thanks for the beer, Tess,” he muttered, standing. Hardy left the pub, and went to go wait for his train.
+1.
“Miller,” Hardy swayed in his seat, leaning into the R as he said her name. “Godsake, I’m a lightweight these days,” he growled. Miller snorted out an intoxicated giggle of her own, clearly not that far behind him.
“Daisy thinks,” he burped, looking down at the remainder of his beer. “She’s taking psychology classes this semester,” he rolled his eyes.
“Oh, fun, what has she decided you’ve got?” Miller leaned across the table, staring at him. Hardy averted his eyes.
“For some reason she thinks I’m autistic,” he shrugged.
Miller’s smile faded. “She what?”
Hardy just nodded, draining the rest of his pint. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, mostly to cover the look of nausea he wasn’t sure he could hide. He suddenly wished he’d not just drank half of his last beer in one go. He let out a deep breath once the feeling passed.
“I’m done,” he grunted, pushing his empty glass toward her. Miller began laughing again.
“So wait, Daisy thinks you’re autistic? Did she tell you why?” Miller took a few awkward steps of her own once they’d settled the tab and were on their way out the door.
Hardy waved his hand back toward the pub once they were outside. “All this, hate it, loud, drunk arseholes, I’m no good at it,” he stumbled a little, still surprised at how unsteady he was on his feet.
“Just because it took me six bloody years to get you to go to the pub with me doesn’t mean you’re autistic.”
Hardy held up a finger to his mouth to shush her.
“I know, but,” he said quietly. He stopped, not quite nailing the step from the curb to cross the street. His knee hyperextended as he planted, eyes going wide for a split second. He forgot what he was going to say, and didn’t elaborate on the other criteria Daisy claimed he met.
“Are you sure you’re okay to walk home? I’d be a dreadful partner if I dragged you out, got you plastered, and then sent you on your way without at least offering my sofa.”
Hardy shook his head, fighting through the dizzy foginess. He mumbled another half sentence about his lack of tolerance: a partially formed thought about how Daisy could probably drink him under the table now, yet she better not be, forgoing his attempt at claiming he wasn’t that drunk. He certainly felt that drunk.
“Bollocks, you’re coming with me,” she insisted.
“Aye, I’m proper sloshed,” he grumbled. He was sure he’d be able to get home on his own eventually. The cool night air would sober him up, and he had only had three beers. But they could practically see her house from the pub. From a practical standpoint, it just made sense.