Epilogue Richie #2
I’d even been talked into going to fucking college.
Enrolled on a business studies course, of all things.
Nights and weekends. Essays. Deadlines. A student loan I still couldn’t quite believe I qualified for.
The idea of me, sat in a classroom again, would’ve been funny if it wasn’t real.
Tristan pretended not to make a big deal out of it, but I still catch the look in his eyes when I’m studying.
But that meant he was the one bringing in the proper money.
The steady money. While I lived in his flat, made his coffee, packed his lunch on mornings like this, and tried not to feel as though I was always a step behind.
Building myself up from scratch while he was already standing where he belonged.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but that was my Pretty Poison.
And yeah…I was hooked on it.
On him. This. Us.
“I’ll swing by the gym after my last court appearance.” Tristan raked his hands into the back of my hair and pulled me down to kiss him. It got a bit heated. Like it usually did. Cause I fucking loved him in his suit. Loved ripping it off him too. Loved him in my hoodie. Loved him naked.
I just fucking loved him, alright?
Ain’t no crime.
Tristan pulled back first, because he always did when we were both about to forget the time. “Remember to pick up the cake.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
I caught his hand before he stepped away, held on for a second longer. He let me. Fingers lingering until he finally headed for the door and I was left standing in the kitchen with the coffee cooling and the day properly starting.
* * * *
Several hours later I was at the gym, sweat-damp and running on fumes.
Lennon and I had finished with our second school group of the day.
Two coach loads of Hackney teenagers all noise and bravado and sharp little eyes that had already seen too much.
They came in buzzing, thinking they were about to meet real-life gang legends.
Thought we’d have war stories for them. Thought we’d tell them it was glamorous.
They left with bruised knuckles, aching arms, and a very different picture.
We put them through drills first. Pads. Footwork.
Ropes. Showed them how to hold their stance, how to breathe, how to channel all that restless energy into something that didn’t end in sirens.
Then we did the workshops in the back room.
Plastic chairs in a circle, whiteboard behind us.
Real talk. No scare tactics, just the truth.
What it costs. What it takes from you. How small your world gets when you think you’re running it.
And we always spoke about Levi. Because drugs ruin lives in multiple ways.
Teachers hovered near the door, grateful and wary all at once. A couple of the lads hung back after, hands shoved in pockets, trying to look uninterested while asking what time we opened on Saturdays. Said they might come by. That they knew people who trained here.
That was a win.
A proper one.
By the time six rolled round, my shoulders were shot and my voice was rough from shouting over gloves hitting pads. The gym smelt the way it always did by evening. Rubber mats, metal, sweat, the faint citrus of whatever disinfectant Monica used. It was a good smell. Effort soaked into the walls.
Outside, the new tarmac in the car park still looked almost unreal to me.
Fresh black surface, crisp white lines marking out proper spaces.
Not the cracked concrete and puddles we’d started with.
Slick enough for Tristan’s Merc to glide in and settle neatly into place.
As it did then, and I leant back in my office chair, Lennon opposite in his place, watching him make his way into reception.
Then Lennon threw a soft stress ball at me. “Oi. We ain’t done talking!”
I picked up the ball from the floor.
He was right. We weren’t. We’d been mid-debate for days now, the stress ball flying back and forth between us as we argued about expansion.
Lennon had this idea—one of his big ones.
Get a proper coffee machine, the industrial kind you see in railway stations.
Set it up out front or in one of the spare units nearby.
Train those on probation to run it. Give them something real. A start. A job they could put on a CV.
I turned to him. “The streets are lined with coffee shops. This is Hackney. You cross into the Wick and it’s wall-to-wall gentrified cafés. We wouldn’t turn a profit. We’d bleed out before we even got going.”
Lennon chewed his lip. “We ain’t in it for the profit, though, are we, bruv?”
Old habits die hard.
I still thought in margins and overheads and risk.
Still had money ticking away at the back of my head, especially now I lived with a bloke who moved through the world as if it was paved for him.
Didn’t mean I wanted his money. Just meant I was painfully aware of what it cost to keep a place standing.
The stress ball sailed towards me again and never made it. Tristan caught it, closing his fingers around it as if he’d been part of the argument all along. “Working hard, I see.”
“Yes, your honour.” Lennon rolled his eyes.
“I’m your learned friend.” Tristan glanced between us then held up the ball in his hand. “What’s the argument about this time?”
I pointed at my business partner. Not my second in command, so no way could I slap him upside the head for not listening to me first time. Those days were gone.
“Lennon wants a fancy coffee machine. Stick it out front. Train the probies to run it. Serve lattes to school mums.”
Tristan tossed the ball once and caught it again, considering. “Good idea.”
Lennon shot me a look that said told you so.
“You know how much those things cost?” I angled my head at the man who was supposed to be on my side.
“Put in a bid to the board.” Tristan settled on the edge of my desk, twisting slightly so he still faced Lennon. “If you show a proper plan, I’m sure they’ll fund it.”
By the board, he meant Eloise. And I didn’t love the idea of going back to her again, hand out. I wanted the place to make its own money. Wanted to prove I could build something clean. Something that didn’t come from the sort of deals I used to make.
Tristan must’ve read my face, because he reached out and cupped my jaw. “To make money, you need money. That’s business.”
He could hear my thoughts before I’d even put them together.
Lennon chuckled. “Looks like you’ll be writing a proposal this weekend, bruv.” He pushed himself up, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair.
I stood, stepping between Tristan’s knees, and kissed him quick. “Traitor.” I then glanced over him to Lennon. “You still on for tomorrow?”
Lennon zipped his jacket. “We are. Amara is very much looking forward to her first high-society event.”
Tristan slid off the desk and turned his back on me with a faint sigh. “It’s not high society.”
Lennon arched an eyebrow. I snorted and moved in behind Tristan, sliding my hands to his hips, and dipped down to his ear. “Babe, it’s in a country mansion.”
“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!”