Page 6 of The Grand Rise

Charlie Aldridge stuck to his word. Everything was taken care of whilst I was away. He even sold my penthouse and purchased Elliot’s home when he bought a new place for his wife and kids. I say purchased, but I haven’t paid a penny for the five-bedroom, gated home.

I also don’t know the details of the wife. I certainly never thought I’d see the day Elliot Montgomery settled down.

The idea of missing that for him—Charlie and Mase, too… It’s not a thought I let linger as I lift the beer bottle to my mouth and take a swig.

Charlie was waiting for me as I stepped out from the prison doors. I didn’t know what to say to him at first. Felt sick the entire walk across the car park at the thought of him saying something that might not be what I wanted to hear. And then, he simply rounded the car and climbed inside. He didn’t speak to me on the drive home, and I didn’t speak to him either, reading the silence and accepting it.

I accepted the consequences of cutting them off years ago. The prison was a two-hour drive away. I couldn’t sit back week after week and have them travel to see me.

And I couldn’t have Scarlet wait for me.

I never expected them to understand that choice.

Plenty of men had few or no visits inside; I wasn’t the only one. And as they came and went, each seeking their freedom, somewhere throughout the years the questions stopped.

I was Lance. A murderer with no family on the outside.

I even convinced myself it was true on the days I questioned my motives for not wanting to see them. The days I’d find myself slipping.

I didn’t cry for the entirety of my time inside, no matter how fucking hard it was, and yet as my once best friend tossed me the keys to the sprawling house, told me it was mine and that Elliot now lives with his wife and kids out near Rosestone, and then left, well it was only then that something seemed to break inside of me. I felt nothing and everything as my shoulders finally sagged after seven long years, and I bawled like a child on the foyer floor.

“You want another?” the barman asks, lifting his chin toward the near-empty bottle in my hand.

My eyes cast over the slightly peeled-back label as I think about the unpacked boxes I left stacked in Elliot’s foyer, that list of people I need to apologise to…

“Sure,” I say instead.

“Come on, fella.” I lift my head as a solid hand claps me on my shoulder. The barman is wiping down the bar top beside me, and I swiftly drag my body up and wipe at my face. “We’re closing up. You have a way home?”

I frown at his words—or that word in particular—then nod, standing from the stool.

“I can give you a lift if you’re close by.”

My body feels like a lead weight, but I’m not pissed enough to need looking after. Or to want to be looked after. “The fresh air will do me good.” I pull my wallet from my back pocket and hand him the cash tucked inside. “Will that cover my tab?”

The guy watches me closely before flicking his eyes to the cash. He sifts through it before handing back half. “Take it steady, lad. The world doesn’t wait for you to be okay before it fucks you.”

“You can say that again.” I pull on my jacket and push my hands into my jeans pockets as I step outside.

It’s a short walk back to Elliot’s house, and I opt to take the longer route through the park. The sky is clear, and as I tip my head back and inhale a deep breath of fresh air, listening to the gentle flow of the river in the distance, looking at the moon and stars that taunt me from above, I only think of Scarlet.

I wonder if maybe she’s looking at them, too.

If maybe she looks at them sometimes and thinks about me.

I make it back to the house a little while later and stand motionless in the foyer, surveying the house I practically lived in once.

We spent our late teens and early twenties in this place. It’s where Elliot and Mason lived during university, and when Mase bought the penthouse, Elliot decided to stay.

It’s a place I know and once, a long time ago, felt somewhat at home in. So, it doesn’t surprise me that the guys thought it was a good fit for me.

Only it isn’t.

It’s too big.

“Too fucking quiet,” I murmur.

It reminds me of the home I grew up in. Fit for a family.

---