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'Keeping Secrets' - The White Bridge Crime Series 1 - LGBT, manXman
Adrian knew Jamie was watching him through the window.
He saw a woman on her mobile phone towards the back of the store, and a plan sprang into his mind.
He stood for a moment, considering, pretending to compare prices of loaves of bread, before he acted.
He bumped into the woman as she passed, causing her to drop one of her bags of shopping.
"I'm so sorry," he gushed apologetically.
He bent quickly to retrieve her bag, and slipped a note inside it as he did so.
"Listen to me carefully," he said in a forceful voice as she thanked him. "I've put a note in you bag."
"Are you going to hurt me?" The woman asked fearfully.
"No." Adrian smiled broadly at her, aware of Jamie stood on the dock. "Read the note. Please, call the number on it. Read the note to the person who answers the phone, Dom Marafioti. Please, do it. I'm in trouble."
The woman nodded slowly, glancing into her bag to look at the note.
"Wait until you get to you car. Tell Dom Marafioti that Adrian Sloan gave you a message. He'll listen."
"Okay," said the woman faintly.
Adrian smiled at her, and headed towards the checkout. He quickly paid for his shopping and left the shop.
As he wandered down to the jetty, he saw the woman sat in her car, on her phone.
He allowed himself a little sigh of relief. Pretending to like Jamie over the past few weeks, pretending to enjoy it when they had sex... he'd wanted to scream and throw Jamie off the entire time.
He'd still felt dirty, even after a shower.
Adrian went down to the galley of the boat, smiling at Jamie as he passed him on the jetty. He put away the majority of the food, before he started putting together a small picnic for them to take up to the castle.
He hummed quietly to himself as he worked, keeping an eye on Jamie as he refuelled the boat, and quickly gave the hull a wash-down.
Jamie finally came inside, changed his clothes, and wrapped his arms around Adrian's waist.
"Are you read to go?" He asked, lightly kissing Adrian's ear.
Adrian nodded, and picked up the plastic bag full of food.
Jamie quickly put the roof of the boat up, locked it securely, and they set off towards the castle.
The driveway came out close to the river, so they wandered up the gravel, talking quietly. They reached the end of the drive after ten minutes, stopped to pick up a small map of the grounds from a little information booth, and ambled through to the castle gardens.
They walked through the rose-scented grounds for a few moments, before finding a nice patch of grass in the sunshine and sitting down to eat.