Page 11 of Crave

The stranger I should’ve been recoiling from. Shuddering about.

Not replaying in my head like a perverse highlight reel.

The ride home was subdued, if you could call Zara’s relentless pity-party muted. She looped her arm around my shoulders in the back of the Uber—luxury, of course; Zara didn’t slum it when she was footing the bill. She kept telling me how she never liked Ollie, anyway. Henry threw in the occasional grunt, punctuated with what sounded suspiciously like relief. And Benji? He couldn’t have cared less. His only grievance was that I’d cut his night short.

“Liked that little dive.” Benji grinned, waving a packet at us, eyes glinting. “Much cheaper candy.”

“Doesn’t cheaper mean shittier?” I muttered.

“Not always, darling Tristan.” He flicked a pill into his mouth with a stupid flourish and melted back into the seat, sighing as if he’d reached Nirvana already. “Care to find out?”

“No thanks.” I rolled my eyes and turned back to the window.

Truth? Course I was tempted. And that scared me more than I cared to admit. Ollie had dabbled before, but he’d kept me well out of that world. Something about keeping things ‘clean’ between us. Whatever that meant. He chased his highs wherever he wanted. I chased mine in quieter ways. Not that I didn’t wonder what it’d feel like to let go completely. To stop thinking. Stop holding myself together so fucking tight.

One day, maybe.

With the right person.

But tonight? I was crashing fast, and when the Uber finally stopped outside our place in Clerkenwell, all I wanted was the dark, the bed, and silence.

Henry led us up the steps to our Victorian end-of-terrace which was all faded grandeur and blackened brick, the bones of respectability crumbling under a century of London rain. Family money had planted us here. Four postgrad students playing at independence in a house that, on paper, was worth millions. To the outside world, it was heritage. Prestige. A property estate agents drooled over. To us, it was another set of student digs. Our attempt at roughing it. A dress-up version of the real world.

Inside, the hall smelt faintly of damp stone and Zara’s endless candles. The floorboards creaked underfoot, groaning with every late stumble in. High ceilings arched above us, plaster rosettes chipped at the edges, and the grand staircase swept up as if it belonged to a family still in residence, not a ragtag bunch of students. Our clutter filled the place. Shoes piled by the door, Zara’s scarves draped over the banister, Benji’s sheet music fanned across the sideboard.

It was home in the messiest sense of the word.

“Want to stay up and watch trash telly?” Zara was halfway to the kitchen. “I’ll get the gin.”

“No.” I kicked off my loafers by the door, leather thudding against the tiles. “I’m off to desecrate Ollie’s clothes, then toss them out the window.”

Henry squeezed my shoulder. “I think it’s for the best.”

“The split, or desecrating Ollie’s stuff?”

“Either.”

I snorted. “Feel a bit of a fool, to be honest. I could be in pupillage now. I could be halfway to where I was meant to be. Like you.”

“You’ve got all the time in the world to become what your father wants of you.” He tipped his head, studying me. “Let’s call this a detour.”

I wasn’t sure if that was comforting, but it was the best I was going to get. So I took the stairs two at a time. Him, no doubt, going off to bury his face in a medical journal. Or between Zara’s legs. Whichever persuaded him more that night.

The house groaned around me, every plank and nail creaking as if it resented being demoted to student digs. My room was at the back, tucked away past the landing. The best of the lot, if you measured in square footage and light. Bigger than Zara’s, brighter than Henry’s. Definitely neater than Benji’s. And technically shared. Ollie had moved in after his first year in halls, slotting himself into my space without ever so much as touching the rent a whole year. Not that I paid it either. That came straight from my father’s account, meaning Oliver had been coasting off Hale-Fitzroy money without even the guilt to show for it.

Just one more reason he was an absolute arsehole.

A patch of damp clung stubbornly to the far corner where the wall met the ceiling, and the old sash window rattled in its frame every time the overhead train growled past. At the back of the room, the fire escape loomed. An afterthought of black iron bolted to brick, cutting a crooked ladder into the night. When we first moved in, I’d barely noticed it. Why would I? I was hardly ever in this room alone. Though, right then, as I was now the sole occupier, the thought wouldn’t leave: someone could just climb up. Bold. Reckless. Uninvited. And I’d never hear them until they were right there. Yet another entry for the ever-growing “Oliver Montgomery Is a Prick” column. Because now I knew, even if someone had come clambering through to rob or ravish me, he wouldn’t have stirred anyway. He’d have rolled over, snored on, and probably joined the thief on the way out.

Christ, he really was a prick.

I shut the door, stripped off my vest, and flung it into a corner where I wouldn’t have to see it again. The silence pressed in thick, suffocating, until all I could do was fall face-first onto the bed. The sheets still smelt faintly of him. His cologne clinging in smug defiance, sharp enough to twist my chest. And beneath it, echoing as clear as if he were in the room, my father’s voice:

“You’re not applying for pupillage? For… a boy? Why, Tristan? Why would you do such a thing?”

“I’m in love with him.”

I shuddered. The lie was a self-inflicted wound. I hadn’t been in love. That line was for survival, a blade meant to slice through Father’s perfect plans and give me a breath of air after I’d been called to the Bar. I just needed an anchor for my rebellion, and Oliver was convenient enough for the role. So I said it was love. Tried to believe it. And pretended so well that, for a time, I nearly convinced myself.