Page 14 of The Man Upstairs

“Shit, sorry. I should’ve known, I just…” She shrugged with a sigh. “I’ll fuck off and leave you to it. Sorry for knocking.”

Christ, I felt like a cunt as I bid her goodnight and closed the door. Felt like a cunt as I wished it had been her daughter standing there in that tight purple dress. Felt like a cunt as I sat back on the sofa and took my cock out again. Felt like a cunt as I imagined Rosie in that dress, kneeling, tongue out, looking up at me through her glasses, just before I scrawled SLUT across her cheek and spurted cum all over her pretty face.

And then I felt like a cunt as I came all over my fist again.

Chapter Five

Rosie

I’d been sendingmessages whenever I could through my shift, and tried to call Mum on my break, but my call went to voicemail and my messages showed as unread.

I raced back home as soon as I could, praying I’d intercept her, but it was too late. Our apartment door was unlocked, and Mum was already inside, devastated. She had tears rolling down her cheeks, breaths hitching as she sat next to Trisha on the sofa, both of them with glasses of wine in their hands.

I dropped my bag and crouched by Mum’s side.

“Hey.”

“Julian doesn’t want me!”

My stomach lurched when I heard the pain in her voice.

I put my hand on her knee. “He hardly knows you yet. And you’re drunk.”

Trisha shook her head, like she was the wise one.

“It doesn’t make any difference,” she said. “He was a twat to her. An absolute prick.”

“How?”

“He practically slammed the door in her face.”

That sounded like rubbish to me. It really didn’t seem his style.

“Did Julian slam the door in your face, Mum?”

Mum sucked in a breath. “No… not exactly… he just. He didn’t want me there. It was so obvious it was embarrassing.”

“Yeah. Practically slammed the door on you,” Trisha repeated.

I hated her being so self-righteous. I’d have put money on the fact she’d been cheering Mum on every step of the way.

“The guy is such an asshole,” she carried on. “No wonder they call him fucked up. Arrogant tosser.”

Really, of all the times in my life that I’d wanted to tell Trisha to piss off, this felt like the worst of them. It washerwho hadn’t given a shit when I was screaming. It wasJulianwho’d come racing to save us.

I focused on Mum.

“I’m sure he thinks you’re great, he’s probably just… I dunno…”

“A wanker,” Trisha finished for me. “He’s a wanker, Rosie. Everyone knows it. They say he’s a perv who likes young girls, anyway. Your mum’s probably way too old for that freak.”

I burnt up, skin prickling. Her words too close for comfort. Luckily, she was too drunk to notice.

“Fucking asshole,” she said. “He’s nothing but shit on a shoe, insulting your mum like that.”

Like hell he was. Insulting my mum was the very opposite of what he’d been doing.

I felt weirdly defensive of Julian, but things would get a whole lot worse if me and Trisha ended up rowing. I forced myself to stay calm. Trisha’s views on Julian meant nothing. Her views onanythingmeant nothing.