Page 28 of Crave

Or at least was still trying to.

I know, I know. Poor little rich boy cliché. Tragic, really. I’d told myself often enough to swallow it down. But there was something about this place. The quiet, the polish, the legacy. It choked harder than smoke in a piss-stained alley.

I kicked off my shoes out of habit, not respect. The silence pressed in thick and heavy, and I thought about Hackney again. About leather and smoke and the way his voice had scraped the word dirty over my skin. I hadn’t wanted to think about him. But I couldn’t stop. So I climbed the curved stairs to my old room to get something that might help. It was still immaculate. The domestic staff kept it frozen in time. Books lined up by colour, bed made with crisp Egyptian cotton, curtains drawn tight to block out the city. A shrine to the boy I used to be, and I rifled through my wardrobe, found a few old vapes, checked the charge, and took them up to the rooftop to be that very boy.

Gazing out at London, I wandered if there was anything in it for me anymore.

Up here, the city looked quiet. The chimneys lined the skyline, poking up here and there. Beyond them, the high-rises of the East End glimmered through the haze, tiny constellations of sodium light where the air was thicker, dirtier, more alive. I lit the vape, watched the mist curl into the wind. The taste was burnt mint and memory. Down on Charles Street, the only sound was the purr of black cabs and the echo of heels on stone. No one looked up. No one ever did here.

Mayfair was built to be admired, not seen.

I tipped my head back, exhaled into the night, and tried to forget the way his hand had felt on my jaw, his fingers tangling with mine, dragging us both into sin. The way danger had actually felt.

Tried, and failed. Because that was the thing about him.

He’d felt real.

And I’d been surrounded by fake my entire life.

When the vape had lost its taste and the city lights blurred, I went back inside. The house woke with me, motion sensors snapping on soft lamps as I moved through the corridors. It felt less like a home and more like a hotel, lit just enough to stop the darkness swallowing me whole. And I went back to my old bedroom to lay down. Sleep came faster than I expected. Strange, really. I’d thought it would take weeks, months, to learn how to sleep alone after two years beside Ollie. I used to fear that silence. Maybe because I’d known it too well as a child in this house. But now it wasn’t loneliness keeping me awake. It was something else entirely.

If I could trade this bed, this house, this whole bloody postcode, I would.

For one more night with the man in the leather coat.

And so it was he whom I dreamt about.

And when I woke, I was nothing if not sticky.

The room was still grey with dawn, light spilling in through the gap between the curtains. Thin, filtered, as if the house didn’t quite approve of morning. I dragged myself to the en suite, the marble floor cold beneath my feet, the scent of eucalyptus handwash lingering from whoever last cleaned it. Steam rose around me as I showered, washing off sweat and sin. And, yes, of course I got myself off. Quick, clean and done. Blissful content and a memory that was anything but.

I dressed in a soft knit jumper and pressed chinos, then made my way down the sweeping staircase. By the time I reached the ground floor, the clink of china and the smell of freshly brewed coffee and toasted brioche met me. Along with the low murmur of voices as the Hale-Fitzroys performed civility over coffee. Father sat at the head of the breakfast island, The Sunday Times open to cover his face. His robe looked more expensive than most people’s suits. Mother perched opposite him, manicured fingers curled around bone china, and between them, Amelia scrolled through her phone, dressed for the stables, glossy hair tied with a ribbon probably costing more than my tuition fees.

My family. All but the older brother who’d moved out a while back.

“Darling!” Mother rose at once, silk gown whispering against her skin as she came to kiss me twice on the cheek. “We weren’t expecting you home.”

“Flying visit.” I took a seat at the breakfast bar. Before I could reach for anything, a cup of perfectly brewed coffee appeared in front of me, courtesy of Mrs Linton, our housekeeper. She must have noticed my arrival and made sure I was catered for before slipping off to her next task. “Thanks.”

She smiled, tapped my shoulder, then disappeared as quietly as she’d arrived. She’d been with us since I was twelve, living in the back quarter of the house with her husband, who handled the garden and every repair Father never noticed. Between them, they kept the place running, though by design she was invisible until the plates needed clearing.

Father didn’t look up from The Sunday Times, though I could feel the weight of his attention behind the paper, the familiar prelude to disapproval. He let Mother fuss, smoothing the front of my jumper, brushing the fringe of my hair from my temple, looking at me as if I were the most precious thing in the room. Barring Amelia, of course. Her mirror image in miniature.

I could hardly claim to be the same of Charles Hale-Fitzroy.

When Mother finally retook her seat, she tapped Father’s hand, a small, deliberate gesture meant to remind him I was there. She even tilted her head in that way she thought I never noticed, the silent choreography of their marriage, her coaxing civility out of him one glance at a time.

“So.” Father peered over the paper. “How’s the Master’s? Everything you wanted in a gap year.”

Gap year. He was being facetious.

“The Master’s is fine,” I lied, watching the steam curl off my coffee. “I’ve started my criminal justice dissertation already.”

The truth was less academic. I’d taken the Master’s because of Ollie. Because growing up meant losing him. Because it was easier to stay in limbo, to keep playing student while he played at love. And to keep one more year that was all mine before I became the man I currently sat opposite. And the early start on the dissertation wasn’t to impress my father. That had been a personal project I’d started during Bar training.

A soft rustle of newspaper. “Criminal justice,” he repeated, as though it were an inside joke he hadn’t been invited to. “I suppose someone must study it.”

I smiled, thinly. “Someone must defend the people you enjoy prosecuting.”