Page 52 of Crave

He gave a low laugh, but there was something tight beneath it. “You think you’re different. You think because you’ve read a few case studies on systemic bias and crime and class, you actually get it. You wanted your little tour of the underworld, just not too close to the smell.” He glanced away, lowering his voice. “We weren’t doing anything dangerous. Something new. People do it all the time.”

“Do what all the time?” I gritted my teeth. “Clarification, please, Oliver.”

“Parties. Highs. Connection. It’s incredible. You’d love it if you could unclench long enough to try.”

I stared at him.

“Chemsex,” he said as if I hadn’t cottoned on about half an hour ago.

It hit like a slap. Not because I didn’t know what it was. Of course I did. I’d read the case studies, written essays on the intersection of risk and compulsion, studied the behavioural loops making people trade safety for sensation. I even knew Ollie had dabbled prior to me. But reading about it and hearing it from him were two entirely different things. Ollie. My Ollie. The one who’d lectured me about control and appearance, who couldn’t come unless the lights were off and the sheets were Egyptian cotton, he’d been out there, sweating under neon, high off his face, fucking strangers as if he’d found God.

And I hadn’t even been invited!

Not that I wanted to go.

Not that I’d ever have said yes.

Still, he’d gone looking for something he hadn’t found with me. Something rawer. Freer. Filthier. And that lodged deep in my chest, just behind the bruise Razor had left on me. Maybe that’s what this had all been about. Not betrayal, but exclusion. He’d found the edge, and I was still pretending to live in the middle.

Always in the bloody middle.

That middle child syndrome Father said I suffered from out for all to see.

But the worst part was I understood it. The want to dissolve into something bigger, to stop thinking, stop performing, stop being good. And for the first time, I wondered what it would be like to lose control that completely. Not to think, not to hold back. To feel. Be consumed.

The flash of the alley had me realising I was already halfway there.

I got back to the questions. “So you started scoring in Hackney?”

Ollie shrugged. “Benji knew someone who knew someone. Everyone in his scene does. You know that. Drama students. And we weren’t shifting kilos. We were just buying cheap and clean. East’s the place for that stuff. Not your overpriced Soho dealers. They rip you off for the same shit with a prettier label.”

My jaw tightened. “And you didn’t tell me because…?”

“Because you’d have gone all bleeding-heart lawyer on us. Sat there quoting statutes about intent to supply. You want the thrill, Tristan, but you don’t want the stain. You like to watch the gutter from a safe distance.”

“Benji got jumped because of that distance,” I said, my voice colder than I meant it to be. “Two men cornered us outside that club. He’s in deep, Ollie. Deeper than you think.”

Something flashed in his eyes, a split-second fracture. Guilt, maybe. Or fear, quickly lacquered over with disdain. “That’s not on me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why did you go back anyway? Trying it out for yourself?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Because for a heartbeat, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve said.

But he kept talking, as if filling the silence would make it disappear. “Benji was meant to shift what was left, pay them off, and move on. I don’t control what he does after.”

“You don’t control anything,” I snapped. “You just start fires and pretend you didn’t strike the match. Where is it, Ollie? The stuff. The money.”

“Gone, Tristan. All of it. And honestly?” He smirked. “The stuff we sold wasn’t even that good. Cut to hell. Dodgy. So we didn’t bother keeping it. We flushed what was left and called it a night.”

I stared at him. The words didn’t sound like truth. They sounded rehearsed. A lie practised in front of a mirror so he could look someone dead in the eye while saying it. He’d always been good at that. Lying beautifully. And my gut twisted. With anger, sure. But threaded through it was uglier. Disappointment. That same old ache of wanting to believe him when I knew better.

Ollie had always treated danger like a holiday. Something to dip into, pose with, then walk away from once it got messy. He could afford to. People like us always could. We didn’t get our hands dirty; we paid someone else to do it.

“If they’re coming at him for money,” Ollie straightened his collar, “it’s not as though he hasn’t got the means to pay for it.” He glanced down at me. “Or you can, if you’re worried this will touch your precious little name.” He buttoned his coat. “But I’m done. Over. As are we.” Then he walked off, leaving the smell of his cologne and cowardice hanging in the air.

And fuck, I was raging.

Because I knew it wasn’t over.