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Chapter Five
Lexi
It’s a warm day but the clouds slowly drifting over above us are darkening, threatening a heavy downpour. It’s fitting to my mood. I’ve been on edge all day, like I’m waiting for something to happen or something’s going to happen to me. Or I’m going to do something. I can’t shake it. Not even the fresh air is helping to clear my mind.
“You good, Lex?” Evie asks as she sits at the table with me out in the back garden.
Plastering a smile on my face, I nod and lie. “I’m good.”
With Rosie asleep against her chest, my smile becomes genuine. She’s growing fast every day and one thing I’m glad about is that I’m not missing out anymore. The first time I cried, missing the outside, in prison was when she was born. It killed me that I wasn’t around for my niece coming into the world. To make it worse, I missed her birth by seven months. After the long years I’d already served, it was the last few months I missed out on the most. Now, she’ll never know I wasn’t around, she’ll grow up none the wiser.
“Lizzie was telling me that you’ve spent the last couple of nights with a certain brother at the club and when you didn’t make it home this morning to take Thomas to school, Louis went real quiet.”
Biting my bottom lip, I remind myself this isn’t prison gossip. I’ve been away for a long time, but the club remains the same. Family looking out for family.
“He’s called Manik. Not sure why he got the name, we haven’t got that far. It’s just fun.” It was certainly fun last night. “Besides I’m not looking for anything serious so don’t go reading into shit that isn’t there,” I warn her.
“You never know when you meet the one,” she retorts.
“My one is not still in his twenties. There’s a ten-year age gap, Evie.”
“So it’s an age thing?”
“Ten years is a long time as we’re all aware. When I got sent down, he was just finishing school.”
“If it were a guy in his thirties and a woman in her twenties, no one would bat an eye.”
She has a point but still, it doesn’t make me feel any better about it. I can’t deny the attraction I have toward him. He’s very much sexy in a bad boy type of way.
“It’s not because I worry what other people will think.” I stop because this is ridiculous. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just sex.”
And really good sex at that. When he first ordered me the way he did, my first instinct was to tell him to fuck off. It only lasted a split second and deep desire took over and I followed his every command. I needed it. I was like a lamb to slaughter but that slaughter was the best sex I’ve ever had. I succumbed to him, and I can’t lie, I crave it again.
“I know what happened all those years ago hurt you, but it doesn’t mean it will happen again. It’s okay to put trust into people if they make you feel good.”
“I don’t need to trust him for him to make me feel good,” I retort.
“I just want you to be happy, Lex.”
Why does everyone worry about being happy so much? Maybe if they stopped trying to be happy, they actually would be.
“You and everyone else, babe.”
Standing, I pick up my empty glass and say, “I’m going to check if my job applications have been successful.”
Inside, I wash my glass, dry it, and put it away before settling down on the sofa with Evie’s laptop. I log into my account and there’s not one notification waiting for me. It’s nothing I didn’t expect but that nasty little fucker called hope still had its claws dug deep into me. Louis and Tommy arrive home and while Tommy runs up to his room to play his game, Louis is drawn out back to Evie and the baby like a magnet.
I search for places to rent, pages and pages of properties flood the search and I click through a few before shutting it down. All but two properties are out of my budget and the two that were in my price range, are shitholes rats wouldn’t even live in.
I’m thirty-six years old, sleeping in my niece’s nursery and living off cash my brother put away for me because I was in prison. My life, at this moment in time, is pointless.
“You hungry? Evie’s making a start on dinner.”
Louis sinks into the armchair with his daughter in his arms.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to take Tommy to school this morning. I overslept.”
“It’s fine. Just don’t make promises to him if you can’t follow through. I like the kid knowing where he stands at all times.”
