Free Heated Beat 01 - My Mate Jack (MM) by Garrett Leigh Page A

late to stop Jack’s album cover filling the screen.
    Will sat back in his chair and scowled at the screen. The media pack he’d produced for Jack was some of his best work—too good to delete—which meant every time he saw it he found himself looking through the futuristic, electrostyle masterpiece and instead seeing the photograph of Jack snogging a bloke. The stupid bloody photograph that haunted Will’s dreams, taunted him from beyond his subconscious like it was something that mattered, rather than the daft teenaged angst Will had come to accept it actually was.
    Most days, at least. It had taken him a while to become so pragmatic.
    Will closed Jack’s file and opened another, where he’d saved the regular e-mails he and Jack had exchanged up until last Christmas. He clicked through them, lingering on Jack’s, checking for any sign he’d missed that Jack had been showing an interest in blokes, but he found nothing, like every other time he’d repeated the exercise, which was more often than he cared to admit. He’d got over his anger with Jack—after all, it wasn’t as though Jack owed him anything after a quick bunk-up two years ago—but communication between them had slowed in recent months, and Will no longer let himself sit up at night, waiting on something that made his bones itch.
    Fuck that shit . Will checked the date. It was July 30 and he hadn’t spoken with Jack in more than a month. Healthy distance, that’s what Suki called it the long nights Will had sat up chewing her ear off, and eventually he’d come to realize she was right. He’d seen nothing but Jack for far too long, and it was time for a change.
    Shame Will missed him so much it hurt.
     
     
    A FEW weeks later, Will shut down his office computer after a tedious Friday evening at the call center, gathered his things, and headed for the door. He caught a bus home to an empty house and took a shower. Ten hours trapped in the airless call center had made him smell like arse.
    He emerged from the bathroom to eight missed calls from a Reading number. Curious, he dropped some money into the payphone in the hallway and called it back. It rang out a few times. Will wasn’t sure what made him try again, but on the third go a woman answered.
    “HMV, Reading. Can I help?”
    “Erm.” Will floundered. HMV? What the fuck? “I got some missed calls from you, at least I think I did. I might have dialed back the wrong number.”
    “Your name’s not Will Barter by any chance, is it?”
    “How did you know?”
    The woman laughed. “Because there’s a note taped to the phone telling me to listen out for your call. Hang on a moment, I’ll go and get him.”
    Him ? The line switched to some awful lift music while Will drummed his fingers on the wall. The woman was gone for so long his money ran out. He was scrabbling about for change when the phone rang again.
    Will grabbed it, breathless. “Hello?”
    “Will? That you?”
    Jack. Fuck. Will hadn’t heard his voice for more than a year. “Er, yeah. It’s me. Jack? It is you, right? What the fuck are you doing in Reading?”
    “Work.” There was a rustling at Jack’s end, then quiet, like he’d shut a door on a room… or a shop, full of people. “A few of us came over to launch an album for XS and play some festivals. I’ve been ringing your phone for weeks. I’ve got a set at Reading tonight, then I was thinking of playing Leeds tomorrow, if you’ll come with me?”
    “You’re in Leeds?” Will swallowed hard. With Jack far away in Ibiza, it had been all too easy to pretend he didn’t exist. That Will wasn’t breaking his heart over something that had never existed in the first place.
    Jack chuckled. “Not yet. I’m in Reading now, but there’s a gig going at Leeds and no one at XS wants it. I said I might plug the gap, but I don’t want to party on your turf without you. What do you say? Up for a mash-up?”
    “Um….” Will was lost for words. He’d pretty much