The Formidable

5*

"Jase is here?" Janine asked, seeing the Air Force placed neatly by the front door. Sam raised his brows in question before Janine's words processed and he nodded, wiping the toast crumbs from the corners of his mouth.

"Yeah, he turned up last night," he said, going back to the newspaper spread out in front of him.

"Why?" She flicked the coffee machine on and took down a glass mug. It was the first purchase she'd made when she started getting a cut of the proceeds that came from the girls. Having her own money for the first time had sent her into a shopping frenzy.

"He couldn't sleep," Sam mumbled, only half involved in the conversation. She made her coffee and sat opposite him. The round kitchen table was something else they'd kept, but almost everything else had been changed. It was mostly grey with black appliances in place of the cold chrome. It was the aesthetic for the whole house, except Jase's room, that had kept the cream walls and the old carpet he'd replaced and painted over after the Charlie incident. Sam thought the greys and whites felt clinical but Janine liked how clean it was. She said it was modern.

"He hasn't come round because he couldn't sleep in a while," she mumbled. Sam grunted in response and she gave up trying to talk to him this early in the day, rolling her eyes and drinking her coffee in silence. By twelve, the girls started to arrive for work. They had two bedrooms available as well as a converted shed in the garden that was used mostly for special clients, or those willing to pay more for the setting. The lighting was purple and red and the bed was bigger than the ones inside the house. It had more ambience, as Janine had put it. She had insisted on creating a better environment for both the clients and the staff, which is what she referred to them as now.

"Afternoon guys," Rebecca greeted cheerily as she walked in, dropping her handbag on the dining table where Sam and Janine were looking through holiday magazines, deciding on their next destination. Sam barely nodded at her and Janine switched into Madam mode, purely professional. She always did with Rebecca. Her first week in the house, she tried to lay it on both Sam and Jase and she'd been caught on more than one occasion with Tommy getting a free service which was a strict no go. But, because she wasn't using and she did bring in quite a lot of work, Janine was reluctant to get rid of her, turning a blind eye to the misconducts. Rebecca received a verbal warning from Sam before they'd gone on holiday to ensure she wouldn't take the piss whilst Kieran was in charge. She'd cleaned up her act but was unlikely to stick to it.

Janine was half hoping she would give her a reason to get rid of her after returning from Valencia. Not because Sam had been remotely interested when Rebecca had made a move on him, and Jase had laughed her off. She wanted Rebecca out because, though she wouldn't admit it, Janine felt slightly envious of Rebecca. Of the youth and the confidence and the freedom to actually choose to solicit sex as a profession rather than being forced or manipulated into it. Something about her rubbed Janine the wrong way from day one and the disdain had spread like a musty mould over the past year.

"You have six customers today. The rooms have been restocked, there are fresh linens in the cupboard, make sure you bring the dirty ones down. Leave the money in the lockbox when you're done," Janine said, but Rebecca had stopped taking notice when she, too, spotted the Air Force.

"Oh, is the big boss here?" she asked, grinning like a girl with a teenage crush. Janine found the word 'infatuated' more compatible with how Rebecca responded to Jase's presence. Her chest automatically pressed outwards, her hands ent to her hair and reached for her lipgloss. As if he could sense he was being spoken about, Jase walked into the kitchen, his t-shirt long discarded and curls sticking out haphazardly, a yawn suppressed behind his frown when he entered the kitchen and saw Rebecca.

She attempted to appease him was a flirtatious smile. When he walked straight past her and to the coffee machine, she chalked it up to him still being half asleep. Janine couldn't help feeling smug about how invisible she was to him. It had been a rocky road in hers and Jase's friendship but one thing she always liked was the line he drew out of respect between her and the other girls. Of course, she knew it had everything to do with Sam and nothing to do with her but she got minor kicks from the sinking faces of puppy-eyed girls that lusted after him. It was the small victories.

"Thanks for keeping the room tidy, Jay," he grumbled sleepily. Rebecca practically whimpered. Jase continued to ignore her.

"You haven't stayed here in a while, everything okay?" Janine asked. He turned around and looked at Rebecca, lifting his mug to his lips and taking a short sip, keeping eye contact.

"Have you not got work to be getting on with?" he asked flatly. Sam and Janine may run the house but Jase remained top dog in everyone's eyes. Everyone still reported to him. She scurried off, feeling disheartened at his dismissal and trying her best to conceal the disappointment she felt. Jase sat down.

"Everything's fine. I'm still getting used to the quiet I guess." He looked around the kitchen, to the window Madison had busted. The floor where he'd left a man bleeding, covered in glass just for slapping her. The table they'd played poker at. It had all been forgotten, locked up, the key buried.

He'd shut her out, turned to the worst kind of vices to forget her and everything to do with her. Seeing her had triggered a release button on the memories, propelling Madison to the forefront of every thought he had. Every synapse was linked to something that was linked to something that was linked to something that led back to her, she was inescapable. It was overwhelming.

Even sleeping in the bed last night, he could swear he could smell her, feel the weight beside him where her body would curve into his. The house probably wasn't the best place to come to escape his thoughts but it was the only place he felt he could relax. The only place he felt a vestige of control. But Madison bled into every crevice in the bricks and mortar. She leaked from the Xbox controller she'd played the first person shooter game on,  permeated the air she'd once blown smoke into, her words, her laughter, her gunshot echoed through the house. There was nothing in, or surrounding, Jase that hadn't been infected by memories that brought him an insurmountable volume of pain.

"I get you. Sometimes I still find it a bit weird here when it's Saturday and you guys aren't slinging cocaine to everyone that comes through the door or racking up on the phones and listening to Madison chat-" She stopped herself, realising who's name had slipped out, her eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Jase breathed a short laugh, slouching down in his chair. It was like the universe knew. No one had said her name in front of him for a very long time and now he'd seen her, suddenly she was back in peoples vocabulary.

"Relax, you can say it. I'm not going to shatter into a thousand pieces," he said. He made light of it now, had to make light of it that moment, but the months after she'd left had been rough and he understood the hesitation surrounding anything revolving around Madison from Sam and Janine. They'd helped him a lot and no one wanted to risk setting him on a downward spiral again. For three and a half years everyone had tiptoed delicately around the subject and only spoke about it when it really had to be spoken about. Luckily for Jase, it hadn't needed to be spoken about for a good thirty months

"Well, either way, I get what you mean. Change will never not be difficult," Janine said, standing up and cleaning the toast crumbs Sam had left on the table before putting the plates and empty mugs in the dishwasher.