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T he macaroni cheese was creamy with a sprinkling of chives over the top and with an option of bacon lardons. It didn’t taste as good as the macaroni inside Hollybrook. That macaroni came in a huge slab and was cut into slices. The sauce had split, the pasta was hard, and the congealed top layer reminded Ollie of jellyfish.

He didn’t love macaroni, but it was Teddy’s favourite.

Ollie glanced at the clock on the restaurant wall. It was dinner time in Hollybrook. He wondered whether Teddy would be shovelling macaroni down like he normally did or whether he’d be picking at his food with a squirming stomach like Ollie currently was.

Leo wolfed down his burger after passing the accompanying pot of coleslaw to their auntie. She didn’t even glance at him, just tipped it onto her plate to go with her pasta salad.

Ollie hadn’t spoken to Rory in over a year, hadn’t written to him even though a few times he’d been tempted, but he’d turned up when Ollie needed him the most.

It was Rory who led the conversation at the table. It was he who asked Leo and Maggie questions to keep the spotlight from Ollie. And it was he who nudged Ollie’s foot beneath the table whenever he should react.

Maggie checked her watch. “It’s getting late.”

Leo licked salt from his fries from his fingers. “But—”

“You’ve got school tomorrow.”

Leo rolled his eyes.

Ollie bit his lip. “Can I visit this weekend?”

Maggie nodded. “Of course. Do you need me to come get you?”

“I’ll take the train.”

“And you’ll stay over?” Leo asked.

Ollie nodded. “If I can.”

“But first, you’ve got to check out courses with Rory.” Leo darted suspicious looks between them.

“Something like that,” Ollie answered.

Leo raised an eyebrow.

“We’d better be going to,” Rory said. “Sebastian will be getting worried.”

“Sebastian?” Leo asked.

“My boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Leo leaned back in his chair. “So you’re not the one that’s been sending the love letters.”

“Love letters?” Ollie asked.

“Your bag. It’s full of paper. I assumed they were love letters.”

“They’re stories mostly.” Ollie reached down to check the bag was still between his legs.

“Stories you’ve written?”

“Stories someone wrote me.”

Rory stood up, patting himself down to check he had his keys and his wallet. He gave Ollie a pointed look, and he got up too and clutched the bag to his chest.

“It was nice seeing you again,” Rory said, shaking Leo’s, then Maggie’s hand.

He backed up a step and waited for Ollie to say his goodbyes.

Leo crushed him in a hug, and Maggie squeezed his shoulder.

Ollie didn’t remember the walk to Rory’s car, nor climbing inside and clipping on his seatbelt. He sank into his seat with a long exhale.

“Good?” Rory asked.

Ollie nodded, then blurted, “I’m sorry.”

Rory started the engine. “What for?”

“Inviting myself to your place.”

“Don’t be sorry. I wasn’t sure you’d want me there today. I tried to be inconspicuous.”

Ollie narrowed his eyes. “You showed up at my appeal in your police uniform?”

Rory snorted; Ollie did too, until he broke down, catching his face in his hands.

Maybe he should’ve been mortified, crying his eyes out in front of Rory, but once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. He’d been holding it in at the restaurant, forcing fake laughs and smiles. He couldn’t even remember what Leo had asked him, just knew he’d agreed to everything, everything except moving into Maggie and Asher’s converted garage.

It was too far from Hollybrook.

Too far from Teddy.

Rory rubbed a comforting hand up and down his back.

It didn’t help.

“Here,” Rory said, reaching over to open the glove compartment. “Tissues.”

Ollie took one. “I didn’t want to get out.”

“I got that vibe from your outburst in the courtroom.”

“I didn’t think I would, not really, and when he said three years, I was so relieved. I thought I was going back.” He wiped his face. “I mean…I still could if I break my conditions.”

“I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Why not?”

“You know how quickly they fill cells in Hollybrook. If you get sent back, there’s no guarantee it’ll be to the same wing. I gave my address to Seinfeld.”

“Why?”

“They need to forward your belongings.” He glanced at the footwell. “I assumed you were still wearing clothes and hadn’t become a naturist, but I wasn’t one hundred per cent when I saw your bag.”

Ollie glanced down at the bag between his knees. “These were more important.”

“Stories?”

“Stories of Teddy’s life before Hollybrook.”

Rory frowned. “I didn’t know Teddy could write.”

“He can’t. He pointed out the words for me to write. He’s not the animal everyone thinks he is.”

Ollie studied the complicated expression on Rory’s face.

“Along with your other belongings,” Rory began, “they’ll send someone round to talk through the conditions of your suspended sentence. It’s usually community service and a curfew, that kind of thing.”

Ollie nodded. He bit his lip. “So…how have you been?”

“How have I been?”

“It’s been over a year.”

Rory sighed. “Things are good now, but when I first got out…” He shook his head. “Do you remember the art class where I attacked Pauly?”

“How could I forget? You hulked out in front of me.”

“Do you remember why?”

Ollie thought back. “The girl in the paper. You knew her.”

“She was my sister.” Rory’s voice tightened. “I didn’t know…that’s how I found out. My superiors kept it from me.”

“Shit, I’m sorry—”

“You have nothing to apologise for. Erica died. I was pretty sure I was going to join her when Sebastian got released. I told him who I was and why I’d been in prison with him. I was so sure he would kill me, but he didn’t.”

“I did wonder how you two ended up together.”

Rory shot him a questioning look.

“Sometimes I’d ask Captain how you were doing, and he’d tell me you were both doing fine.” Ollie shrugged. “I didn’t hate you, Rory… I was just…”

“Upset.”

Ollie nodded.

“That was never my intention.”

“I know,” Ollie whispered. “Thank you for today.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”

Ollie gave him a weak smile.

They fell into a comfortable silence. The bag crinkled between Ollie’s feet, and he reached down to grab a story, any story; it didn’t matter. Ollie had given Teddy a voice in his head. It was deeper than his own, a rumble of words, and he told Ollie about the time he’d stained the outside of the caravan purple for his sister’s birthday. She loved it, but his parents had been less than pleased, especially when it wouldn’t wash off. As punishment, Teddy’s father had made him scrub the caravan from top to bottom with a toothbrush. It didn’t remove the purple, but it did make everyone envious over how shiny it looked.

Ollie could picture Teddy’s smiling face when he’d read the story back, smirking slightly as his eyes glazed over with the memory. He’d had a life. He’d had parents, and friends, and a sister obsessed with the colour purple.

No one knew that about Teddy, only Ollie.

“Here we are,” Rory said, pulling onto what could only be described as a building site. There were half-completed houses everywhere and a huge apartment block covered in scaffolding.

“I hope you don’t mind dust, endless sirens, alarms, and noise starting at seven thirty every morning and finishing at five. Except Sundays, Sebastian lets the workers have Sundays off.”

Rory stopped onto a driveway of one of the few completed houses. It was detached, three stories high, with a double garage.

“Crime really does pay,” Ollie muttered.

Rory lifted an eyebrow. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Ollie gestured to the house in front of them as evidence.

“Come on,” Rory said, opening his door.

He waited for Ollie to join him on the front step before opening the door and going inside. Rory hung up his coat and slipped off his shoes. Ollie did the same, listening to the sounds of the house. Blues music flowed from around one of the doors.

“We’re home!” Rory shouted.

Sebastian didn’t question the ‘we’re’. He opened a door and immediately asked, “How did it go?” before spotting Ollie.

Ollie waved awkwardly. “Hi.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened. He glanced behind himself, shuffling back until he found an apron to cover his chest with. His grey chest hair was a few shades darker than the hair on his head. Sebastian was well defined, and it was clear he still enjoyed a workout like he did in Hollybrook.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he said, rising to full height. His eyes were ice, but Ollie didn’t take it personally. They’d always been cold, clinical, in the way he looked at the world.

But it was instinctual for Ollie to drop a step behind Rory.

“Well, at least your pants are on this time,” Rory said, strolling forward.

He led Ollie into the kitchen and jabbed his finger at a phone on the side until it stopped playing music.

“Ollie’s going to be staying with us for a while.”

He didn’t ask, he told , and Sebastian smiled, offering his hand out for Ollie to shake.

“It’s good to see you again.”

Ollie took his hand. He bit his tongue to stop himself from replying with ‘really?’. He and Sebastian hadn’t been close inside. He’d been Rory’s scary silver-fox cellmate, who also happened to be the top dog on the wing. Ollie couldn’t even remember if they’d ever shared a conversation without Rory present.

“Thank you for letting me stay.”

Sebastian frowned, studying Ollie for a moment. Then he gestured to the stove where something was bubbling away, splattering red sauce up the wall and over the counter. “Hungry?”

Rory sighed and turned down the heat. He stared at the concoction in the pan. “It’s a good job we’re not because you’ve outdone yourself.”

Ollie stiffened, expecting some kind of angry outburst from Sebastian, but he only chuckled. His ice eyes softened for Rory. “I may have burned the onions…and the garlic.”

Rory twitched his nose, then opened the oven door. A cloud of black smoke floated up. “And the bread?”

“And the bread,” Sebastian agreed, switching the oven off. “Still better than last time.”

They smiled at each other.

Ollie looked down at his feet.

It was too comfortable, too intimate.

It was all he wanted with Teddy and could never have.

For the first time, he started to regret not leaving with his brother and his auntie.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Rory said, moving out of Sebastian’s reach, who narrowed his eyes in response.

“Me and Sebastian sleep on the top floor, but we’ve got two guest bedrooms on the first floor, both have en-suites.”

Rory strolled past. Sebastian gave Ollie an encouraging nod, then Ollie followed Rory out of the room and up the stairs.

“I won’t be here long,” Ollie said in a rush. “I don’t want to—”

“Relax.” Rory snorted. “You stay as long as you need.”

“But—”

“No buts.” He pushed open a door on the right, stepping into a bedroom with white walls and a huge made-up bed. Ollie inhaled the clean smell, then reached a tentative hand toward the mattress. He squeezed.

“It’s comfy, I promise,” Rory said.

Ollie sat down on the bed. It would’ve fit him and Teddy comfortably. He hated that his mind had gone there already, to the impossible, the fantasy of him and Teddy dozing in the morning sun together in a clean, warm room. His neck prickled with the ghost of Teddy’s breath. He slapped his hand over his skin, counting to ten while the sensation faded.

“You can borrow some of my clothes,” Rory said. “We’ve got towels, spare toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, that kind of stuff, and if you’re hungry, the fridge and the cupboard are always well stocked. Help yourself. I mean that. I haven’t forgotten how bad prison food is, and you barely ate any of your macaroni cheese.”

“It was too…” Ollie scrunched up his nose. “Too nice, too rich.”

Rory smirked. “It takes a while to readjust to taste.”

Ollie lowered his gaze. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

“Why what?”

“I didn’t go with my brother.”

Rory joined him on the bed.

“It’s too far from Teddy. I didn’t want to appeal; I wanted to stay in there with him, but he didn’t like that. He wanted me to be free. We made a deal. I’d appeal if he promised he’d write to me and let me visit him inside. I didn’t actually believe I’d be released. I still don’t believe it.” He glanced around the room. “It feels like a dream…like a nightmare.”

“You and Teddy?”

“Me and Teddy,” Ollie admitted without adding any more detail.

Rory nodded. “Well…he can’t write unless he knows where he’s writing to…”

Ollie blinked. “Huh?”

“There’s paper and pens over there,” Rory said, glancing at the wooden desk opposite the bed. “You write him a letter now; I’ll be able to post it on my way to work tomorrow.”

Ollie shot off the bed, clattering into the desk. He yanked out the chair and sat down.

“I’ll find you a toothbrush and a few other bits you’ll need until your things arrive,” Rory said before leaving the room.

Ollie found a pen and a sheet of paper in the second drawer.

He wrote out everything that had happened that day, excluding his mini-breakdown in the courtroom and underlined the return address with a red pen he’d also found in another drawer.

I stuck to my end of the deal. Now it’s time to stick to yours.

Him getting out of prison would not be the end of them; Ollie would make sure of it.

He signed the letter ‘Your Butterfly.’