Page 21 of Crave

Tentative, but real.

And after the shitshow with Ollie, the realisation landed hard: he’d never wanted me like that. Not with that level of intensity. Or that kind of focus.

This felt different.

And that difference was already addictive.

With numb fingers, I did up my belt and told my legs to move. My body felt… not borrowed, exactly, but newly issued. As if someone had swapped it for a version that startled easier, wanted things it shouldn’t. But I composed myself enough to pass for normal, and made my way back down the alley, brushing past men locked in twos and threes. One group of four at the end, lost to everything but each other. Most gave me a look, sultry and open, a silent come join. What had been easy a moment ago now felt different. Not sordid as such. But claimed.

Mine. And his.

Whoever he was.

But the money burnt a hole in my pocket, a reminder that it wasn’t ours. That whatever I thought that was, it wasn’t love and wasn’t a connection. It was a transaction I was pretending meant more.

I raked my fingers through my hair and went back into the club.

The Yard at full pulse was a living thing and I scanned the room for Benji. Found him dead centre of the dance floor, eyes glassy, pupils blown wide, a bloke in a shimmering shirt pressing something small and white between his lips.

Jesus.

Benji swallowed and smiled as if it were bliss.

My stomach sank. Not because he was taking something, he always did, but because it meant he wouldn’t want to leave. And right then, I did. I’d chased my rebellion, found it, and it’d gone sprinting off in a leather coat. There was nothing left here for me but the crash after the high. Everything suddenly felt cheap. Nasty.

I thought about telling Benji I was heading out. Let him burn bright without me. But I couldn’t. As out of place as I was here, Benjamin bloody Rothwell, actor, dramatist, Mayfair’s favourite scandal, fitted in even less. He’d call it research, “method experience,” or some other theatrical bullshit, but we both knew he was a tourist here. And that was apparent when he started arguing with someone on the floor. I couldn’t hear the words over the bass or the crowd grinding around them, but I knew that body language. Sharp gestures, chin tilted high. If I had to guess, he’d started quoting Shakespeare and pissed off whoever was trying to wrangle him for payment.

Then, suddenly, he leapt, cutting through the crush of bodies and strobe flashes like a spark breaking loose, and grabbed my arm. “We’re off!”

I didn’t argue. It was what I wanted, anyway.

So we pushed our way out into the night, laughter spilling from him. The street had emptied; the queue was gone. Everyone who mattered was inside or home. The only movement came from passing cars and the glimmer of neon reflecting in puddles. Benji fumbled with his phone, thumbs clumsy, the Uber app glowing like a lifeline in the dark.

“Ten minutes,” he announced, then tipped his head with that same reckless grin. “Come on. Walk a bit. I need air.”

“What’s going on?” I already knew I wouldn’t like the answer.

But Benji kept walking and I had a sinking feeling this wasn’t Benji’s first, or even second, visit to this place. Because he moved through the streets as if knowing exactly where he was going and what to avoid. And if that was true, if he’d been here with Ollie… the thought hit sharp enough to make me stumble.

“Nothing, darling.” His voice wobbled between charm and slur, every syllable wrapped in that tipsy drawl he used when trouble was close. “Bit of a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“What sort of misunderstanding?”

He didn’t get the chance to answer, because two figures peeled out of the dark, grabbed Benji by the arms and dragged him back.

“Oi, posh wanker. Think you could fuck us over, yeah?”

So he had been here before. This wasn’t a random mugging. They’d been waiting for him. ‘Posh wanker’ summed him up nicely.

Wonderful.

The men both wore black hoodies, tracksuits and cheap trainers. The uniform of menace. Not someone Benji normally hung around with or even spoke to, making their familiarity of him that much harder. Then one stepped in front of us both, lifting his jumper.

“You owe us.” The glint in his eye was almost as menacing as the steel tucked into his waistband.

“Jesus Christ!” I stumbled back, heart clawing up my throat.

The other one drifted behind me. I felt him. Because he was close enough that if I moved, I’d brush him. I didn’t want to chance that, not with what I knew he had tucked into his belt. My stomach dropped. Knife crime was something I read about, not breathing this close to me. It was statistics and headlines and my father’s courtroom anecdotes. Boys with shaking hands and bad lawyers. But this wasn’t a headline. This was right here. Hot breath. Icy rain. The flash of steel that didn’t give a damn who I was. And I’d never thrown a punch in my life. My armour was Latin conjugations and a working knowledge of criminal defence. Neither counted for shit here.