Ruined By My Brother's Best Friend novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Code

Nobody went to bed.

At five the sky over Deptford went grey, and the shop was full of a cold grey light that came round the edges of Lev's plywood.

There was still glitter of glass in the cracks of the floor tiles.

I hadn't lit the ovens.

It was the first Saturday in three years I hadn't.

Mum sat at a café table in the shop with her hands round a mug she wasn't drinking.

Lev stood by the counter with his scraped knuckles.

Freddie stood in the kitchen doorway, where he'd been standing all night.

"Say it," I said.

He looked at Mum.

"Not to her," I said. "To me."

He swallowed.

"Last Sunday," he said. "After dinner. I texted his office. The market date. Where the power came from."

"You told me it was the council."

"I know what I told you."

Mum made a small sound.

"On Wednesday his head of security rang me at my desk," Freddie said. "He said they needed the cupboard code. He said they'd get an electrician to look at the wiring, write it up as unsafe, and the council would shut the market down. Nice and legal. Nobody hurt."

"And you gave it to him."

"Yes."

"Dad's birthday."

His face crumpled.

"I didn't know about the window, Hol. I swear on..."

"Don't swear on Dad," I said. "Don't you dare."

He shut his mouth.

"Why?" Mum said. Her voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear it.

Freddie looked at the floor.

"Because I was angry," he said. "Because she was with him and everybody was clapping. Because if the market stopped, maybe she'd stop. Maybe you'd sign. And I'd get the debt paid and everything would go back the way it was."

"There was a ten-year-old girl standing under that window," I said.

"I know."

"Do you? You weren't there. You were at the edge of the crowd with your hands in your pockets."

He didn't answer that.

I walked across the shop until I was right in front of him.

He was taller than me. He always had been.

It didn't matter.

"Get out of my kitchen," I said.

"Hollie."

"I bake in there. Dad baked in there. You don't get to stand in it."

He looked past me at Mum.

Mum didn't say anything.

She just looked at her son for a long time, with her eyes wet.

Then she looked away.

Freddie went upstairs.

Ten minutes later he came down with a sports bag over his shoulder.

"I'll be at a mate's in Lewisham," he said to nobody.

The side door shut behind him, quietly.

Mum put her face in her hands.

I sat down beside her and held on to her, and Lev made us both tea and put sugar in mine without asking.

At ten, Lev went next door to the launderette.

He came back with a key on a loop of string.

"Kirsty's nan has a room upstairs," he said. "She's been storing washing powder in it. She says I can have it for three hundred a month if I fix her dryer."

"You're leaving the sofa."

"Freddie's not under this roof now," he said. "So it's not his rule I'm keeping. It's your mum's house, and she's just had the worst night of her life."

Mum lifted her head.

"Lev Sokolov," she said. "You're the only man in this family with any manners."

On Sunday evening I carried a bag of his things across the yard.

The room above the launderette was bare.

A mattress on the floor under the window. A clothes rail with four black T-shirts on it. A lamp with no shade.

It smelled of warm cotton and washing powder, because the dryers were going underneath us.

The whole floor hummed.

Mum had followed me to the bottom of the launderette stairs.

I turned round, ready to say anything.

She looked at me. Then she looked up the stairs at Lev, waiting in the doorway.

"Back by half three," she said. "Those ovens won't light themselves."

She went home.

I climbed the stairs.

Lev shut the door behind me.

"Your mum," he said, and couldn't finish.

"I know."

"She just..."

"I know, Lev."

I put my hands on his face.

His knuckles were still scraped raw from Friday night.

I kissed each of them.

He made a sound like I'd hurt him.

"I want you," I said. "Here. Tonight. In your own room that nobody's watching."

He looked up at the bare ceiling.

There was nothing on it. No smoke alarm. No green light.

He looked back at me.

"Yes," he said. "God, yes."

I climbed the stairs.

Lev shut the door behind me.

← Chapter 11 · All chapters · Chapter 13 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend