Chapter 2
ASHER - PRESENT DAY
Iwas hoping freedom would taste sweeter than this, yet as I step foot out of the prison gates for the first time in two years, I have the urge to turn the fuck around and go back in.
At least in prison, I had a roof over my head and got fed daily.
Sure, I had to watch my back, especially when I wasn’t in my cell, but maybe that’s better than walking out a homeless man.
Fuck.
“Hey, you prick!” a familiar voice yells, and I look to the left to see my two best mates leaning against a car, looking like the smug pricks I’ve come to love. “I thought you’d look more chuffed about getting out?”
I chuckle. “Fuck you, Ronan. This is my chuffed look.” I point to my face, and the identical fuckers laugh and scoff at the same time in that creepy twin way.
“Get the fuck over here, Asher, and give your best mate a squeeze.” Jude laughs, opening his arms as he steps away from their car.
I can’t help it, I fucking smile. Something I haven’t truly done for months. It feels weird on my face, but I keep it there for my mates because I don’t want to drag them down.
As Jude barrels into me, Ronan, who I often call Ronnie, scoffs behind him. “I’m his best mate, you daft prick. Back the fuck off him.” He slaps his twin brother across the side of the head, trying to get him away from me, but Jude’s arms wrap around me and squeeze tight, so Ronnie joins in, too.
“No way.” Jude laughs, “He’s mine!”
Before I know it, the two twits have forgotten about me and start to wrestle each other across the prison parking lot.
“You two haven’t changed a bit since I’ve been gone.” I chuckle, rounding them to make my way to their car.
“You haven’t been gone that long,” Jude puffs, escaping his twin to come to my side.
“It feels like I’ve been in that place for fucking years.” I gesture to the looming walls of the prison over my shoulder.
“Nawwww, did you miss us?” Jude pouts, fluttering his dark lashes, so I shoulder past the funny prick and speak honestly.
“Yeah, I fucking did.”
“Come on, you sap. Let’s get you home.” Ronnie wraps his arm around my shoulder before pulling the car door open for me like I can’t fucking manage it myself.
“Home?” I frown, glancing back over my shoulder at Ronan. “I thought I couldn’t stay on campus with you guys.”
“You can’t.” Jude’s voice draws my attention as he opens the driver’s door and stares over the car roof at me. “We can’t risk getting caught.”
Ronan shoves me then, so I lower into the front passenger seat and close my door as they get into the car as well, Ronnie’s voice coming from behind me in the back seat.
“We also don’t have a bed for you there, and even though I love you and all that, I ain’t sharing a bed with you.”
I chuckle. “What makes you think I want to share a fucking bed with you?”
“I’ve seen the way you check me out.” Ronnie pops his head between the front seats, jutting his chin up, proud as fucking punch.
“Bro, he’s not checking you out. He’s checking me out.” Jude butts in as he starts the car, the V8 engine rumbling to life.
“You two check yourselves out enough for everyone. No need for me to bother.” I smirk and Jude nods.
“Facts.”
This time when I smile, it feels so close to real, my fucking cheeks begin to hurt.
Fuck, I’ve missed these guys.
I had a few phone calls with them while I was locked up, but I asked them not to visit. Their pained expressions were enough to witness during my court dates. I didn’t want to see their pity while I was in that fucking place.
I needed to be strong, and seeing their ugly mugs would just break down my walls, and then… I’d become a target.
They smell weakness inside Wandsworth. Something I couldn’t risk.
“So, where are you taking me then? I can’t go back to my mum’s. She’s still with that fucking twat who has a restraining order against me.” I sigh, not feeling the least bit remorseful about putting him in the hospital with my fists.
He’s not just my mum’s fella, but he’s her dealer and he’s using her for somewhere to live and run his business from, selling the shit she’s addicted to.
He’s the reason I’ve been locked up for the last two years.
He’s also the reason I spent my days in prison lifting weights and honing the fighting skills I had to learn from a young age, because when he least expects it, I’m going to fucking remove him from my mum’s life for good.
“We aren’t taking you back to your mum’s.” Ronan nudges my shoulder from behind. “We’re taking you back to our mum’s.”
Their mum’s?
Lily.
Fuck. My heart races at the thought of Lily Bennett.
Jude and Ronnie’s mum is one of the most kind-hearted people I know. She’s the epitome of what a good mum is, and would do anything for her sons, and anything for their friends, so I shouldn’t be surprised the twins are taking me to the house they grew up in.
The house I practically grew up in.
The house where the woman I dream about every fucking time I fall asleep lives.
“You asked her if I could crash there for a bit?” I ask, surprised.
Lily and her sons have done more for me than anyone else I know, and here they are, still helping me out.
The thought both excites me and makes me feel like a pathetic charity case.
I hate that I’m nothing but an ex-con with no fucking future in sight.
College has never been an option for me.
I’ve never been academic, more artsy than anything, but fuck, I hate that I have nothing to bring to the table. Nothing to show my worth to anyone.
However, being under the same roof as Lily is fucking perfect. In fact, it couldn’t be more perfect.
Me, alone with her, without the twins to get in the way, and no more Mr Bennett, thanks to his infidelities and the swift divorce Lily served him with a couple of years ago.
Would my mates kill me if they knew it was their mum on my mind every time I jerked off?
Probably.
But what they don’t know won’t hurt them, and having the opportunity to get closer to Lily is exactly what I need. I’ll figure out a way to pay her back for her hospitality and prove that I’m not the worthless waste of space my mum says I am.
“Of course we asked our mum. You didn’t think we’d leave you homeless, did you?” Ronan asks, and Jude adds.
“And you aren’t just crashing at ours. You’re moving in.” Jude shoots me a grin as he steers us out onto the main road, heading north. “We went home last night and moved all of Ronnie’s junk into my bedroom, so you can call his room yours now.”
“Hey!” Ronnie snaps, punching his twin in the shoulder from behind, and Jude swerves on the road. “My stuff ain’t junk.”
Jude smirks. “Of course it ain’t.”
“You guys are for real? Your mum doesn’t mind?” I ask, and they shake their heads.
“Nope,” they say in unison, doing that weird twin thing again
“You know what our mum is like.” Ronnie chuckles.
“She’s probably been crying every night since we left for uni, so she’ll love having you there.
She’ll love having someone to do laundry for again.
And cook for.” Ronan shakes my seat from behind like I should be fucking chuffed by the idea, but instead, I frown.
“Your mum isn’t doing my laundry.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Jude grins, and I glare at him.
I know it’s not the first time. I’ve crashed at the Bennett house more times than I’ve stayed at my own since I was ten years old.
Lily never told me to leave. Most of the time she looked worried when I’d say I was going home, and always sent me with a backpack full of snacks, telling me to hide them somewhere safe.
She knew my house wasn’t a safe environment, and she did what she could to help.
I don’t think she knows that I know just how much she did for me behind the scenes.
Lily Bennett may appear to be a sweet, kind woman to anyone who lays eyes on her, but she has another side to her.
A side I saw when I was too young to completely understand, yet made me drawn to her in a way a child shouldn’t be drawn to an adult.
Still, all that aside, I won’t have her fucking doing shit for me. I’ve already put her out enough.
“I’m not going to sponge a roof over my head from your mum and make her do my fucking laundry. I’ll earn my keep,” I snap, and Jude’s eyes go wide.
“Okay, man. Chill.” He frowns at me, and I stiffen, realising the prison version of me slipped out.
I don’t have to be such a hard arse out here.
“Sorry,” I huff, feeling the frustration of my hopelessness.
“Hey.” Ronnie’s hand lands gently on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “We’re here if you need to talk, Ash. It must’ve been hard in prison. Fucking scary.”
If only he knew.
Nodding, I swallow thickly, keeping my eyes trained forward on the road as I watch the suburbs of London pass by.
Taking a moment as Jude turns up the music inside the car, I close my eyes, relaxing back in the seat to pretend I’m going to have a nap. The drive is over an hour, and I can’t bring myself to want to talk about my time in prison with my mates, so I fake needing a fucking sleep like a sap.
I probably should talk about it with them. I’m sure they have questions, but fuck. I don’t want to reveal how bad it got at times.
Mostly, I consider myself fucking lucky, especially after the first initial beating was over with, because for some reason, after that, I was taken under the wing of some untouchable inmates, in turn, giving me protection.
They surrounded me daily, keeping me relatively safe for the duration of my sentence, although I always had to look over my shoulder.
A big guy called Poe managed to get my cell reassigned, so I ended up sharing with him. He looks like a scary motherfucker, but treated me well, and was determined to clean up my fighting skills so I could, and I quote, “stop scrapping like a little bitch and do real men proud.”