“You’ve got to stop using my place as a car park, or I’ll start charging you soon. Now, what’s with the meeting with our most elusive brother?” Saint asks as he reaches me.
“It’s top secret; I can’t say.” I grin at him and greet Noah with a hello.
Saint looks at Noah. “Go sit down with Drake. I’ll get you something to drink. What do you want to eat?”
He gives Saint his choices and goes over to sit with Drake.
“What’s going on?” he asks me again. “And don’t fob me off with some privacy shit. Is Memphis in trouble at his friend’s place?”
“I don’t know if he is, but I think his friend may be. Drake’s just doing a bit of digging to see what he can find out about the arsehole.”
“You need to get your boy out of there if he is.”
Isn’t that the truth.
I’ve been staring down at my phone, unsure what to do for an hour now, and if I’m honest, I’m not sure where to start. Royal has been asking a lot of questions about Matt but won’t tell me what he’s doing with the information. The fact that Finn seems to have forgiven the dickhead and has been talking about him coming around to the house again is a bone of contention between us. I want to go home, to not be around when Matt does start visiting again. But I don’t want to leave Finn with the violent bastard.
“What’s that look on your face for?” Finn asks as he puts a coffee on my desk.
I thank him and try to deflect from answering him. He doesn’t go back to his desk though; he’s waiting for an answer. I’m not telling him the truth. I know he won’t approve of having his life nosed into. Instead, I smile. “Royal is talking about going to Bound with his brother this week. I don’t want him around all the gorgeous boys and littles. They won’t want to leave him alone and will try everything they can to tempt him away from me.”
“He’s never going to cheat on you. The man is crazy about you; he doesn’t stop texting and phoning you. He’s probably just bored and looking for something to do while you’re here.”
“Or someone to do,” I grumble. I know it’s not true, there’s no way he’s going to cheat on me, not just because I would find out from all his brothers and his dads. But because he wants to be with me, and I even think he might be in love with me. I don’t say that to Finn—it’s easier to fake moan about it.
“Stop it, you know it’s you he loves.” Finn tries to lighten the conversation.
“No, it’s okay. I’m winding you up; I totally trust him.”
“Good for you. On another note, shall we go out tonight? Just a few drinks, maybe dinner somewhere.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
Work takes over for the rest of the afternoon, and by six o’clock, my back is in knots after sitting still for so long. As I stand up, I stretch my arms up straight and feel my muscles loosening. “Hey, Finn, have you finished?”
“Yep!” he calls out from the next room. We’ve always used his place as an office, his parents bought him a house when he graduated, ‘cos, yeah, that what some parents do! It’s not far from the flat I used to rent; I gave that up when I left. While I don’t agree with his decision, I’m his friend not his keeper, and if my presence here makes Matt stop doing anything stupid to Finn, then I’ll keep staying. Assault is assault, regardless of an excuse, and if he gets away with it this time, there will be a next. I guarantee it.
I lean my head around his doorframe. “I’m going to grab a shower and get changed.”
We’re sitting in the Indian restaurant we’ve been going to for years. While we wait for our drinks, we talk about how our days have gone. We rarely work on the same project but make joint decisions on what jobs we want to take. It’s not been as easy after I moved; we’re so used to stepping in and out of each other’s rooms, it’s been difficult for us to adjust. Not that it’s affected our work, only our way of working.
“You could come home with me. I mean you’ve never said you’re a permanent Lincoln resident.” I mention, then shovel a poppadom dipped in raita in my mouth. Finn is staring out of the window behind me. “What?” I mumble, trying not to spray him with crumbs and yogurt.
“Simon,” he growls, still staring out the window.
When I turn to look, Simon is on the other side of the road, his eyes fixed on us, a sneer on his lips.
When he takes a step forward, it looks like he could be coming over, then he shifts and turns back to march down the street. “Shit! He didn’t look happy.”
“And now he knows you’re back. How the hell has he found that out,” Finn asks, then shakes his head.
“He’s probably just passing and happened to look in the window. He knows I’ll never go back to him. I made that perfectly clear when I left,” I say, any chance of eating any more food gone until I know what’s happened.
Finn scratches the back of neck, looking sheepish. “I didn’t want to tell you, but he wasn’t happy when you not only ended it but skipped town too. He pestered me by calling and turning up at the house. He went a bit off the rails at the club, too, taking his anger out on subs until he was thrown out and his membership cancelled.”
What the fuck? This is terrible. I never thought he wanted me that much. He wasn’t the most demonstrative man, but I wouldn’t have put him down as a stalker. His aggression towards subs is not as much of a surprise, but still not a pleasant thought. He does deserve to have his membership removed. I hope he’s been blacklisted from the others too.
“Do you think he’d do something stupid? Would he hurt me?” Fear rockets down my spine; the look on Simon’s face wasn’t one that I was familiar with. It was fury, his eyes boring into me as I looked at him. I can’t believe he still thinksabout me, since he always told me I was expendable, that there were plenty of other littles that would love to take my place. I remember one particular argument when I told him that was fine, go and get a new one, I’d had enough. He wasn’t too pleased about that. In fact, he was particularly cruel when we went to the club the next night; as I was sat on his knee, he pointed out every sub he would rather fuck than me and all the ones he had fucked before me. My dick was locked up in the smallest cage he had, and it was so painful that it took days for the bruising to disappear enough for me to get hard. Was Matt hitting Finn any worse than what Simon would do, all under the name of dominance? I realise that it’s not, we were both in relationships with abusers.
