Any word on my case being seen? I text just before the school bell rings. The sound of kids screaming and laughing fills the air and my phone buzzes with a reply.

Nope. Not yet.

I sigh. Kids scatter across the schoolyard, but my eyes are trained on my baby girl as she skips down the school steps, over the yard, and up to the Audi parked at the curb. I watch Lydia hop into the car with Kiera. After they pull off, I crank my bike and speed down the road into the city, finally pulling over in front of the Thai restaurant I love. I pull my helmet off as I make my way to the entrance. A couple comes walking out, hand in hand and staring at each other like love-sick puppies. They are so into each other they nearly bump into me. 

"Sorry," the guy mumbles brushing the girl’s hair out of his face. I nod and walk through the doorway. 

The hostess grins and grabs a menu as she rounds the wooden stand. "I don't know why I give you this thing," she says as she leads me through the restaurant. "You probably have it memorized." 

I smile because it’s the polite thing to do. She shows me to a table by the window and I take a seat, placing my helmet on the floor beside my chair. The waitress comes by and pours my water before taking my order, even though she knows what I have every time. Sometimes I wonder what she thinks of me. Always coming in here alone. I lean back in my chair and pull my phone from my pocket, scrolling through the Facebook. There’s some video of a cat that keeps me distracted until the waitress sets my plate down. I set my phone down and glance out the window just as a redhead in tight jeans and a leather jacket goes strolling past. I do a double take and realise it's Hope. A smile touches her lips as she walks down the pavement...with a guy. Hope didn't come by or text yesterday, or the day before that. Nothing so far today. I kind of feel bad just telling her to leave the way I did. I shouldn't, but I do. You never know how someone will take something and, as much as she does my fucking head in…I narrow my eyes, watching her. Her red hair catches in the wind and I find my gaze straying down to her arse. Stop it.  

The steam rises from my plate, drifting in front of my face as I continue to stare at her. Watching them, trying to figure out what they are. I shouldn't care if she's seeing someone. I don't care...I don't. I watch the two of them disappear down the street before I take my fork and scoop up a pile of noodles.  

Good. Maybe she'll leave me the fuck alone now. Stop just popping in and harassing me and sleeping in my bed...Fucking stray cat. 

* * *

I stare at the date on my cell phone and my chest grows tight. Today is Lydia's birthday. She's 6 which means it's been five years since I left. Five years since I lost my shit. Since I went to jail. Since Kiera asked me to get help. She said I was a basket case and that she couldn’t trust me. That she was afraid of me. Kiera and I had grown up together, she was my first love, the person I trusted more than anyone else, loved more than anyone else, the mother of my child, and she was afraid of me. 

Shaking my head, I shove my phone in my pocket and stare up at the navy-blue door before I knock on it. The door almost immediately opens. Kyan looks like he's half asleep, his blond hair is sticking up in every direction. 

"You okay, mate?" 

"Yeah, I just uh..." He opens the door and steps to the side to let me in. "I just was out and thought I'd come by. See what you're up to." 

"Not much, just drinking, watching the fight." 

"Oh shit, I forgot about that." 

Kyan shakes his head as he shuffles back to his couch and flops down. I glance around his apartment and anxiety creeps around me like a vice. Disorder is every fucking where. His place is worse than Brandon's was before Poppy, if that's even possible. The couch has a hole in it. There's cereal scattered over the carpet. Clothes are strewn everywhere. A condom wrapper—an opened condom wrapper is on the coffee table right next to an open bag of crisps. "How the bloody hell are you gonna forget about this fight? These guys are brutal. Fucking cauliflower ear for days on that one." He points to the TV. There's two sweaty men, bloodied already and circling each other. Kyan leans over, and I notice a dirty plastic cooler next to the sofa. He lifts the lid and digs around in the ice before bringing out two beers and tossing one to me. I catch it and sit down in the chair against the far wall. 

"You keep your beer in a cooler next to the couch?" I ask. 

He shrugs. "Yeah, don't have to get up and walk to the fridge that way." 

"Wow..." 

"Hey, at least I get up to piss. My old man used to just take a piss in an empty bottle of ale." Dear god. People are filthy. "Fucking punch him in the face O'Brien. Fucking nail him!" Kyan shouts, leaning over his knees with the beer half-raised to his mouth as he stares at the screen. "You talked to Hope?" 

"No." 

"Hmm."I want to ask what the fuck that Hmm is about, but I don't. "She likes you." 

"Okay." 

"You hurt her feelings." 

"What the fuck?"  

He shrugs and takes a sip of his beer. "Kicking her out the other day. You should be ashamed of yourself, Finn." Kyan glances over at me and grins. 

"Since when have you become a gentleman courter?" 

"I may be a dog, but I at least have some manners about me." 

I toss my head back against the chair and drag my hands down my face. This is why I don't get involved with girls. Drama. I didn't fucking kick her out. I told her to leave and then she runs off and cries on Kyan's fucking shoulder. Dear fucking god. I can't deal with it. I tilt my beer back and down half of it and then I think about the guy I saw her with yesterday. "She's seeing somebody anyway." 

"What? Who?" 

"I don't know. I just saw her with someone yesterday." 

"And...I was with her the day before. Doesn't mean she's seeing some bloke." 

I stare at the screen watching O'Brein's fist pound into the other guy's cheek again and again. 

"It's okay to like her." 

"We're just friends." 

"Yeah," Kyan laughs. "That's exactly what it looked like the other night at the titty bar. You were watching her more than you were that SJ girl with the massive tits." I don't look away from the TV. Just keep watching and sipping on my beer. O'Brein beats the shit out of the other guy. I pop another beer. "Want to go down to the pub?" Kyan asks. "There's this blonde girl with legs for days I'm trying to cop onto." He grins. "You'd be a great wing man." 

"I'm just going to go home. It's late." 

"Late? What the fuck is wrong with you? It's not even gone 10 yet you old fart." Shaking his head, he stands up and heads down the hall. "I'm taking a piss and then we're going. It'll do you good to get out." 

* * *

Three hours later and Kyan's found the blonde and I'm pretty sure he's fucking her in the toilets. I'm paying our tab when he comes strutting out, zipping his fly. 

I take the receipt from the bartender and shake my head on a laugh. "Did you really just fuck her in the bathroom?" 

"Nah," he swipes his beer from the counter and downs it in one gulp. "She just gave me a blowie. She's too classy to be bending over the toilet." 

"But not too classy to get on her knees in a puddle of piss?" 

Kyan smirks. "You do have a sense of humour after all, don't you?" He winks as he heads toward the door. "Come on, mate." 

I follow him out in a beer haze. Kyan cat calls at a little brunette standing by the corner. She turns around, dragging her eyes over him before she leans through the window of the car stopped next to the curb, engine running. "Nice arse, treacle," he shouts, stumbling into a garbage bin. 

"Fuck's sake, Kyan. That's a hooker." 

"Well," Kyan snorts, "I ain't never seen a hooker with an arse like that." 

"Jesus." I grab onto his arm and yank him to the other side of the walkway. "Come on." 

"I know,” he slurs, “let's go see Hope." 

"No." 

"Yes." 

"Why?" I groan. 

"She's pretty." 

"I'm not going to see fucking Hope." To be honest, I do want to see her, which is all the more reason for me to go the fuck home. 

 "And besides. She lives right up there." He points to a set of red brick flats, squinting an eye. "Ah, look. Hope!" he shouts. "Treacle!" 

"Shut up, would you?" I shove him. 

"Well, she's outside on her balcony. Hope, it's me and..." he laughs, "him—the fuckface." 

"Fuckface?" 

He glances at me with a smile. "Yeah, that's what she calls you." I stare up at a balcony and see a figure move along the patio. "We're coming up, treacle," Kyan yells again. 

"She's not even answering you." 

"Well," he shrugs, "might not be her. Maybe that old lady that lives next door. I don't fucking know." 

He bolts across the street without so much as a glance and I roll my eyes. I should just leave him, but god knows I'd end up bailing him out of jail. I jog across the street myself and follow him up the metal stairwell. He's winded by the time we reach the top and he goes right to the first door and pounds his fist over it. "Ah, treacle," he sings. "We've come to see you." 

"You sound like a fucking perv." 

"Thank you." He smiles. 

The door opens and Hope stands there, her eyebrow raised as she looks at Kyan, sparing me a fleeting glance before deliberately looking away again. "What are you doing here?" she asks.  

"I don't know. Finn wanted to see you."  

"What!" My gaze drifts over to Hope whose leaning against the door with her arms folded. "Kyan," I reach for him, but he manoeuvres away from my grasp. 

"I doubt that,” she snorts. The annoyance in her voice bothers me.  

"He's drunk," I say. "I'm—"  

"And just who the bloody fuck are you?" I hear Kyan say. Hope rolls her eyes and turns around, opening the door the rest of the way. There's a man standing in the middle of her living room, his head only a few inches away from the ceiling. He's in a pair of jeans, his steroid pumped muscles on full display. It's the same guy she was walking with earlier. 

"Who the fuck are you?" He asks, eyeing Kyan with a volatile glare. 

"Jesus, fuck, Silas." She turns around, her hands on her hips as she looks at the guy. "Don't be talking to my friends." She turns back to us, stepping into the hallway and pulling the door nearly closed behind her.  

"You're fucking the hulk?" Kyan asks.  

"No." She clips him across the side of the head. "He's my ex." Her eyes flick to me, her expression tight. Her usual teasing self is completely absent and I don't like it. That's what makes her Hope. She looks...sad. "It's complicated," she mumbles.  

My gaze locks with hers and I can't seem to tear it away. "Come on, Kyan," I say.  

"Ginge, you're breaking my heart," Kyan says, clutching at his chest. "I thought what we had was special."  

I roll my eyes. "Come on," I say more impatiently. Suddenly I need to get away from here, from her. Nothing about this should bother me, but it fucking does. I have absolutely no right.  

Kyan stumbles back down the hallway with me and I have to grab the collar of his shirt and yank him back to stop him from falling down the stairs.

"I'm sorry, man," he says when we get outside.  

Yeah, I think maybe I am too.