Page 131 of Claim

Physically, I was cleared. The bullet wound had healed into a thin, pale scar along my side. My leg had long since stopped aching. The ribs no longer reminded me of themselves every time I laughed or breathed too deeply. I’d finished physio. Returned to work in a reduced capacity. Sat back in my office. Worn my own suits again.

But recovery wasn’t the same as independence.

Not when my father still had a say in my living arrangements. Not when my mother still knocked before entering rooms that technically weren’t hers. Not when my life was still being handled like something fragile that might fracture again if dropped. And not when the most important part of it was miles away in a bedsit south of the river, with no phone and no way of reaching me except through other people.

Tonight had been necessary.

The dinner.

The conversation.

The unspoken acknowledgement that Richie was no longer something to be hidden, defended, or negotiated.

But it hadn’t been enough.

Because I hadn’t touched him properly. Hadn’t held him without interruption. Hadn’t stood in a space that was mine and let myself feel what it meant that he was free and alive and here.

So yes. I wanted one more thing.

I wanted to claim what had always been ours. Us.

I took my jacket and my keys, muttered something about air and a walk and not needing the car, ordered an Uber before anyone could reorganise my evening, and left the house with my pulse picking up.

Baron’s Court wasn’t far.

Nor far enough.

The driver pulled in, and I was out of the car before he’d even finished his polite farewell. Because there he was. Standing beneath my window. Hands in his pockets. Shoulders tense. Looking up at the building as if he wasn’t quite convinced he was meant to be there.

He turned as I stepped onto the pavement, suspicion in his eyes, as if he half-expected this to be a mistake. Or a test. Or might be taken back if he reached for it too quickly.

“Richie Slade.” I smiled, his name sitting on my tongue, heavy and precious and real.

“Tristan Hale-Fucking-Fitzroy.”

I cocked my head as I reached him. “There’s no fucking in there.”

He grabbed me, splaying his hands on my arse. “Oh, yes, there is.”

And in that moment, with London moving around us and my old life rising behind me, I realised exactly what I needed before anything else could happen.

I needed him in my space.

Not my parents’.

Not his bedsit.

Not a prison cell, a hospital room or a borrowed bed, or a place we were only passing through.

Mine.

So I kissed him.

And he kissed me back.

We’d done it outside before. In the open, in borrowed spaces, in alleys and cupboards that never belonged to either of us. But this time I wanted him all to myself. So I slipped away to tug him with me and get him through the door into the building. He followed without question, his body flush to my back as we climbed the stairs. He settled his hands on my hips, heavy and familiar, swiping his mouth along the back of my neck, planting kisses there between fervent breaths.

By the third floor, I couldn’t take it anymore.