Page 73 of Fletch

“I know,” she says, smiling, “and I love all this. The fact you kept it all makes me feel loved . . . Mum.” It’s the second time I’ve heard it today and it feels so foreign. Ruby winces. “Is it too weird?” I shake my head, scared to say anything in case I break down. “Cos I can stick to Gemma if you prefer, but I just thought . . . I can’t call you Gemma forever.”

I nod. “It’s fine,” I whisper. “Just feels strange.”

“Go and speak to him. I’d really like to get to know you both properly, as my parents.”

I step into the garden, where I find Fletch staring up at the sky. He gives a side glance but doesn’t speak as I lower onto the wall beside him. “We’re both upset for very different reasons,” I begin, “and I’m trying to make it right, okay. Yes, I lied, but I can’t change that now.”

“That’s the worst thing about it,” he mutters. “You can’t change it. We can’t go back in time.”

I sigh. “I wish I could, Fletch. I’m sorry, okay, but I was young and scared, and you left me. Not only that, you fucked my best friend.”

He stares down at the ground. “Yeah, I know. I fucked up. You wanna know why I did that?” He glances at me, and I nod. “I thought I wasn’t good enough.” He gives an unamused laugh. “You were sneaking around to see me, and I was sick of it. Every time you cancelled because you couldn’t sneak out, I got more and more pissed. She was there, flirting and telling me how lucky you were to have me but how ashamed you were. I just gave in, but I knew you’d catch us. She knew it too, and I didn’t care. You caught us and ran, and it just confirmed that I wasn’t good enough for you. I’d messed it up because I wasn’t good enough.”

“It was never you,” I whisper. “I told you so many times, I was terrified he’d ruin it. And I know it ruined us anyway, but I just thought if I could reach my twenty-first, I could leave home and run away with you.” I laugh. “I was young and naïve. Then I found out about the baby, and I panicked. My first love had cheated on me, and I was having his baby. Of course, my father wasted no time telling me how you’d be a terrible father, and because you’d let me down so badly already, I believed him.”

“It must’ve been hard on you,” he mutters, placing a hand over mine as it rests on my knee. I stare at it, wishing we’d never met again that night in The Bar. “Watching her grow up without her knowing the truth.”

“I learned to live with it.”

“Now Sarah has left, what will happen with Ruby?”

I shrug. “I asked my father to change the birth certificate. Of course, it’s not that simple. It would implicate him in a crime.”

Fletch stands. “Leave it to me.” I watch in confusion as he leaves through the back gate.

Seventeen

Fletch

“You want to blackmail the Chief of Police?” Grizz repeats, smirking in Axel’s direction.

“What choice do I have?” I ask.

“You could just not do it,” says Axel with a laugh.

“He’s right, brother, have you lost your mind?”

“What if this was Elsie?” I demand. “Wouldn’t you want to be on her birth certificate?”

“It’s different,” he argues. “I could add mine because hers was aboveboard. How the fuck will you get Ruby’s changed without causing a shitstorm?”

“The same way he did it—illegally.”

“He must know someone,” adds Axel thoughtfully. “If he doesn’t, we do.”

“First of all, are you claiming the copper?” asks Grizz.

“She’s not a copper anymore,” I tell him. “She quit today at their request.”

“Fuck,” mutters Axel. “How she take that?”

“Not great, but we have other matters to sort.”

“You should know we took a vote on accepting Gemma into the club,” Axel tells me.

I nod, not telling him that Nyx already filled me in. “And?”

“And if it’s what you want, she’s in.”

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