Page 89 of Crave

“Sentencing bias, remember?” He arched an eyebrow, a little defensive at me pointing out what he had over me. “That’s what I’m researching. How people from lower socio-economic backgrounds get harsher sentences, harsher lives. I read about it all the time.”

I snorted. “So you think you know me from textbooks?”

“No.” He shook his head, eyes darting away then back. “Not know you. I’d like to know you. Would really like to know you…all of you. But that’s not for research. That’s for me.”

He kissed my shoulder and, Jesus, I wished he’d stop doing that cause I was in danger of dragging him right into the dirt with me and never letting him go.

“But that’s not what I meant.” He kissed my shoulder again, lingering his lips there as if he knew exactly what it did to me. “I’m trying to understand.” Another kiss, a ghost of one, as if he was trying to speak and soothe me in the same breath. “Not because of you. I’ve been trying to understand for years. I know I’m privileged. Believe me, people remind me often enough and how I should be grateful for it. And I am. Which is why I’m trying to do what I’m doing. It might not look like it to you, but I’m rebelling in my own way. Fighting my own cage. So I know, I can’t claim to know it. But I can at least understand it.”

He sounded genuine.

That was the problem.

I sniffed, rubbed my jaw. “Yeah. Alright. You’re right. I’m trapped.” I shook my head, hating it. “And you want the truth? If I could earn what I do stacking shelves or laying bricks like Len, I would. But I can’t. I was brought up in a tower block in shit-hole Hackney to a mum who barely makes it through the day and a dad who fucked off when Keeley came, leaving me to pick up the slack. School weren’t a place I excelled at. Hard to revise and do homework when you’re making sure your kid sister is clean and has eaten.”

“Jesus.” Tristan closed his eyes.

I didn’t want his pity. So I told it like it was. “Then at fifteen, I came home one day to find Keeley bruised. Proper bruised. And the bloke who’d done it was over my mum, forcing himself on her, threatening her to take it or he’d move onto Keeley. So I got a cutthroat razor and I cut him.”

Tristan opened his eyes to hear that.

I snorted at the memory. “Turns out I’d done the local gang a favour with that. So they offered me something in return. They let me in. And I started peddling their gear on my street corners. Suddenly, I was able to buy milk instead of nicking it, and it gave me a chance. To make real money. Something we’d never had. The means to support us.”

I shook my head. “Now I got a mum barely breathing and a sister with her own baby way too young. But I can get buggies. Toys. Warm coats. Feels good. As if I’m finally doing something right. But once you’re in, you’re in. You don’t just tell the lads, ‘cheers, I’m off to be a roofer now.’ You try that, they make sure you fall off it.” I dragged a hand down my face, painkillers taking the edge off everything except the truth. “Cormac’s made that clear.”

Tristan sat up, pressed another kiss to my shoulder. Barely there. Enough to hurt in a different way. “Your friend must understand that.”

“He does.” My voice came out rougher than I meant, as if I was defending my own best mate’s reasons for hating me. “But it’s hard for him. He’s got a family now. Twins on the way. He doesn’t need me turning up and dragging the past through his front room after…”

I stopped myself before I said too much.

“After what?” Tristan kept kissing my shoulder. Soft, rhythmic. It was nothing, really, just lips and breath, but it undid me.

I liked it.

Liked it too much.

It reminded me of all the stolen kisses I’d had before.

“Don’t matter.” I glanced away.

There was a brief moment, a slight recalibration, before Tristan tried again. “Have you ever been in a relationship?”

That one hit harder. I wasn’t used to people asking me personal shit. When they did, it was surface stuff. Girls, fights, money. Things I could lie through easy. But this?

This was too close.

“Depends how you define a relationship.” I tried for casual, but it came out hoarse.

“Someone you sleep with regularly. A recurring partner.” Tristan paused, eyes steady on mine. “Someone you might have been in love with.”

I looked away, locking my jaw tight. My body wanted to move, to shut it down, to walk the fuck out, but the pain held me in place. The wound. Tristan. Beside me. The way he kept sliding his hand over my skin, grounding me when I didn’t want to be grounded. I couldn’t tell which scared me more. The question or the fact that I wanted to answer it. And I don’t know why, maybe because no one’d ever asked and meant it, but I sort of let myself say it.

“There used to be three of us.”

He waited. Patient. Still. As if he knew I was about bleed all over his sheets again.

“Me, Lennon, and Levi.” The name burnt my tongue going out. Levi. As if saying it might summon him. The air wasn’t meant to hold it anymore. And my throat closed before I could stop it, eyes stinging. But I bit down until it hurt just to breathe. “His little brother. Only by a year. More like twins. But they were different him ‘n Len. I was friends with Len growing up but Levi was always there, too. He was… quieter. Shy, maybe. Or maybe …Fuck.”