Page 139 of Claim

“It’s just a barbecue.”

I looked at Lennon over Tristan’s shoulder. “How many gold plated birthday parties did you go to in the countryside, Len?”

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. Roughly… zero.”

I laughed. “We did have that one at the golden arches, though.”

“Ah yeah,” Lennon said, nodding. “There was a fistfight over the road.”

“Happy days.”

Tristan rubbed a hand over his brow, exasperated but fond. “I fully accept you both lived in a different world to me. But this is a simple family thing. Nothing fancy.” He glanced at me. “And it’s at the house you’ve been doing up.”

I nudged his shoulder. “Messing with you, babe.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes at me. “You got the cake, though?”

I tipped my head toward the white box in the corner of the desk. “Monica picked it up.”

He crossed to the desk and lifted the lid on the box, smiling in that quiet, contained way of his. It was a good cake. Proper job. Bright icing, neatly piped. The three-year-old it was for wouldn’t give a fuck, obviously. But Tristan… yeah. He’d gone a bit further than he needed to. Trying, I thought, to be more than just the man who owned walls the kid lived in.

We locked up not long after and headed out to the car park. He drove. Probably because he didn’t trust me with his perfect car. And fair enough. I didn’t argue. I was too tired for it, head still ticking over figures and margins and Lennon’s ridiculous coffee-machine idea. So I sank into the passenger seat, muscles finally giving in, and let London slide past the window as the city thinned and the roads opened out.

Two hours later, we were pulling up outside the cottage in the Chilterns and it still caught me every time. The quiet. The dark sky. The way the place sat back from the road with nothing to prove.

The cottage belonged to Tristan on paper, but in every way that mattered it was Keeley and Maisie’s. No rent. No strings. He’d framed it once, carefully, as practicality. Keeping the place lived in, stopping it falling into disrepair. But we both knew it was more than that. It was security. The kind he’d grown up taking for granted and was choosing to give to my sister without turning it into a debt.

Keeley paid the bills. Took care of the place. Made it a home. I did the work on it at weekends. Walls, wiring, the bits that needed muscle and patience. Everyone brought what they could. No one owed anyone anything.

That was the difference, I’d learnt, between help and control.

Keeley opened the door before we’d even knocked, as if she’d been watching for the headlights. Maisie, permanently sticky, launched herself at my legs in pyjamas printed with some cartoon and already stained with ketchup.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow, Uncle Richie!”

I scooped her up, got a face full of biscuit breath and damp curls. “I know, munchkin. We all know.”

I then carried her inside while Tristan followed with the overnight bag and the cake box.

Friday nights had found their own rhythm here. Fish and chips spread across the low table. Maisie talking a mile a minute until she burnt herself out and Keeley carried her upstairs, warm and heavy against her shoulder. Then the three of us on the sofa with the TV turned down low, picking over the week. What still needed doing on the house. What had gone right. What hadn’t. Plans for the next day. How Keeley was settling so far from everything she’d known.

Not just settling. Thriving.

Maisie went to the little community preschool at the church down the lane now, which gave Keeley a few hours in the mornings to get to college. She was finishing her beautician course and already talking about moving into hair once Maisie hit school age. She’d made friends too. Mum friends. Older than her by years, most of them, but Keeley had never really been the age she was anyway. Life had pushed her forward quicker than most. Same as it had me.

Keeley yawned, stretching her arms. “By the way, Mum ain’t coming tomorrow.”

I glanced over Tristan’s head, my arm around his shoulders as he leaned back on me. “Why the fuck not?”

Keeley shrugged. “Busy.”

Yeah, okay. Not everything was all rosy.

Mum was still…Mum.

Keeley jumped up. “S’alright though. I’m looking forward to what the Hale-Fitzroys bring for her.” She winked at Tristan.

Tristan smiled. “You have made room for the pony, right?”