Page 94 of Claim

But I didn’t have any of my own stuff as I couldn’t go back to the Wick apartment. That would be like walking straight into a waiting gun. So I turned and padded down the hall to Lennon’s room. He was halfway into his work gear, hi-vis folded neatly on the bed, socks bunched in his hands. I rapped my knuckles on the doorframe. He looked up and took me in, from feet to face, stopping on the ink laid bare. Tattoos that had always been there to remind me of what I was—poison, warning signs etched into skin—now read differently in the quiet light of his room.

Marks of a man I’d been, not the one I was trying, maybe clumsily, to become.

“Could I… borrow some gear?” I asked. “For today.”

He straightened. Didn’t make a joke straight off. He knew my anxiety about where I was heading.

“Sure.” He gestured to the wardrobe. “Help yourself.”

I crossed the room and opened it; the smell of clean laundry and sawdust drifted out. I rummaged through, pulling out a jumper. Then put it back. Got a shirt. Too small. Another. Too tight. Too me. Or who I’d been.

Lennon came up behind me. “It’s a consultation.” He smacked me on the back of my head. “Not a date.”

I flipped him off without turning. But he smiled when he passed me, and there was something softer in it than usual. More like relief. Because he could see it too. I wasn’t trying to get dressed. I was trying to show up as someone new.

We’d talked properly the night before. The two of us. Something we hadn’t done in… I don’t even know how long. Forever. With a can of beer between us and a bag of chips going cold on the table, we’d gone right back to the beginning. To when things between me and Levi changed. When wanting him stopped being simple. When it got tangled and dangerous.

I even told him about that night. When Levi had begged me for coke. Said he wanted to try being with me high. That it would be better, less clumsy. And how I hadn’t been strong enough to say no. I’d given him something that I was sure had been clean, and how that single choice sat heavy in my gut because not long after, he was dead. And I told him the part I’d never said out loud: that the guilt had been eating me alive ever since.

I’d never told Lennon about me and Levi before because it felt as if I’d be overstepping his grief. He’d lost a brother. I wasn’t about to make him share the weight of my part in it. So I swallowed it. Let him grieve cleanly. And somewhere along the way, that silence built a wall between us.

That was how we drifted.

I told him about the men after. The ones that meant nothing. Transactional. Easy. Empty. Then I told him about Tristan.

All of it.

He listened. The way he’d promised he would all those months ago. No judgement. No flinching. A steady, patient attention. And somehow, in saying it out loud, I felt myself loosen. My bravado slip. The act of pretending I wasn’t drowning in feelings I didn’t have the words for suddenly became too much.

Lennon had the words for how I felt.

I chose not to use them. Not yet.

Because however long it took before I stood in a witness box, Tristan would only be in my life professionally. That was the line. The only safe one.

Still.

Didn’t mean I didn’t want to look good when I saw him.

So I thanked fuck Lennon and I were roughly the same build and pulled on a pair of his jeans, a plain white tee, then hesitated before adding one of his thick knitted cardigan things. Totally not my style, but I could hide my hands in it if it all got a bit too much. Then I checked myself in the full-length mirror. Pushed up the sleeves once. Then rolled them down. Then raked my fingers through my hair, roughing it up enough not to look as if I’d tried. Once set, I blew out a jagged breath, fogging the glass. I reckon I could pass for homely in this get-up.

I snorted. Me? Homely? Get a fucking grip, bruv.

The beep from outside cut through the moment. Time was up. So I jogged downstairs and stepped out into the cold where a black cab waited at the kerb, courtesy of Andrew Mercer, authorised route already logged by my ankle tab. I slid into the back seat and gave the address.

London moved past the windows in familiar pieces, but it still felt new. Different. Bridges, traffic, people going about their lives as if mine hadn’t been cracked clean open. The tag itched under my sock, a quiet reminder that even this was conditional. That every turn the cab took had been approved. Logged. Watched. Then when we pulled up outside the Temple precinct, my heart ticked a little faster. I stepped out, walking through the archway into Temple Crown Chambers.

Tristan’s world.

It didn’t look the way I’d imagined it would.

No marble floors. No looming sense of judgement. Just carpet that had seen better years, walls lined with framed cases, and the smell of burnt coffee hanging in the air as if it had given up trying to leave. It felt… functional. Which somehow made it worse. This was a place where decisions got made. Where lives were redirected.

Tristan was waiting in reception.

And fuck, my chest flipped.

He looked good. Really fucking good. Light grey suit cut perfectly to him, white shirt crisp, shiny silver tie catching the light and drawing the eye to his golden hair. Neat. Controlled. Polished in a way that made him look elegant. Untouchable. He belonged to this world in a way I never would. Not even in this cardigan.