Bang Gang (7 page)

“He must have come straight round, then. As soon as he could,” Nanna pointed out. Like it was needed.

Yes. Yes, he must have.

Our altercation came back into my mind. The way Porsche-bitch had looked at me, the way
he’d
looked at me, worried about the girls and without a toss to give for her or her goodbye.

The way he’d opened the shutters and turfed her out.

And I had so many questions. Not least
why
? Besides the obvious, of course. Why gangbangs? Why for money?

And how? How the fuck did this even start? How long has it been going on for?

My brain fizzed.

Who with?
Who else?

Nanna knew me well. She winked and smiled. “Why don’t you pop out for a bit, love? Get some fresh air? I’ll watch
Question King
with the girls… they can keep me company awhile…”

I got my coat.

Darren’s place is right in the middle of the village — a stuffy little two-bedroom flat above the fish and chip shop. It used to be our place, back in the day, before things went tits up and I moved me and the girls in with Nanna.

I always thought he’d leave when the garage started doing well. Get somewhere bigger,
somewhere where everything wouldn’t stink of fish and chip fat… But no.

I walked over slowly, my mind whirring with questions and how I’d phrase them. Maybe he’d tell me to fuck off and mind my own business before I’d even asked.

Maybe it would be easier if he did.

I took a breath before I climbed the stone staircase to his front door. It was littered with cigarette butts, and as usual the bucket ashtray at the top was filled to the brim.

The door was open. I rapped my knuckles on the glass before I stepped inside and into the sound of the TV playing loud in the living room.
Question King
, Nanna’s favourite, but it wasn’t Darren watching it, it was Buck.

And Buck was wearing a tuxedo.

I stared in shock, and he was oblivious at first, a beer in his hand as he called out answers to an empty room. He started when he saw me, his huge frame jolting in the armchair.

“Jesus, Jo! I nearly shit myself!”

Buck looked totally different away from the garage. His beard was tame, his hair slick and styled, and the tux highlighted just how toned he was underneath it. He was ripped, biceps like tree trunks. I’d known Buck a long time, as long as I’d known Darren, and yet I’d never noticed him like this before.

“Where is he?” I asked, and he gestured behind me as a door-handle sounded.

I stepped back into the hallway — and practically stepped into Trent — only to realise

the world had gone crazy — stark-raving mad, in fact — because the guy standing before me wasn’t the one I remembered like the back of my hand, and sure didn’t look like the one I’d shared a bed with for six years straight. This Trent was a different animal altogether.

He was wearing nothing but a towel, and that towel hung precariously low on his hips. Far too low for decency, and precarious enough that my heart thumped at the thought of it falling. That towel highlighted a deep muscular V that was definitely more prominent than it had ever been when we were together. His abs were like a washboard, rippling under his skin, and his chest looked sculpted from steel. He was dripping wet and smoking hot, and I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping as I checked him out. My eyes shamelessly roved him, powerless to look away, checking out the similarities and the differences. Mainly the differences.

His tattoos had grown somewhat since I’d last seen him naked, the work on his arm reaching up to his shoulder and snaking round to the back. There were more, too. More tribal pieces on his side. One on his hip that disappeared under the towel and away from my prying eyes.

He stared at me staring at him, and I was burning, trapped.

“Jo,” he grunted.

“I, um… wanted to talk…”

He tipped his head for me to follow him, and my mouth turned dry as he headed to the end of the corridor and the room that was once ours. I followed in silence, propping myself against the doorframe as he rooted for clothes. He pulled out a tux I’d never seen before. It wasn’t the stiff old one he’d worn to Aunt Beth’s wedding, that was for sure.

“Girls alright?”

I nodded. “With Nanna.”

He laid the tux on the bed. “I’m off out. Got a gig.”

My stomach lurched at his words. “Yeah, sorry. I won’t be long. I was just…”

He met my stare and my nerves caved. I turned away to save his modesty, but he let out a low laugh.

“Christ, Jo. Don’t be a fucking prude. You’ve seen it all before.”

But I hadn’t. Not like this.

I looked back just in time to see him tug the towel from his hips, and I was stuck there, gawping at the thickness of his thighs… of his toned calves… of his… his…

“Fucking hell, Jodie. You’ve gone redder than a baboon’s arse.” He took his cock in his hand, and he was smirking. “Dunno why. You’ve definitely seen
this
before.”

I made myself blink, and cleared my throat as he dried himself down.

“I wanted to say thanks,” I said. “For the washing machine… I really appreciate it…”

He shrugged. “Text would’ve done.” It was his turn to check me out, and I could’ve shrivelled into nothing. Whereas
he’d
turned into some kind of muscular Adonis since we’d last fucked, all those years ago,
I’d
turned into a village mum. My hair was crap, and I knew it. My skin was pasty and plain without even a dab of mascara. My clothes were practical and… well, they were dull… my nails were short and bitten to shit. Let’s not even get started on what was under my clothes, either. “Spit it out,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know really. I just wanted to… talk.”

He pointed to his alarm clock. “I’ve got ten minutes.”

I nodded.

“Go on, then,” he said. “What’s up?”

I took a breath. “This… this gigolo stuff…” I paused. “Why do you do it? Besides the obvious, I mean…”

He tossed the towel aside and sprayed some deodorant under his arms. “Does it fucking matter why?”

I held his stare. “It matters.”

He groaned, and dipped down, reached under the bed. I could feel my heartbeat in my temples. He pulled out a box, a big wooden thing with a clasp and a lock. “Want the fucking truth?”

“Please.”

“Righto.” He dropped the box on the bed and tossed me the key, let out a sigh. “See for your fucking self if it matters so much.”

My fingers were shaking as they turned the key in the lock. I opened it slowly, carefully, and inside was a picture of our girls taped to the lid. It was a couple of years old, and they were at the beach, smiling proudly at a monster of a sandcastle he’d helped them build. The tide was coming in, but the girls were unaware, still believing their castle would last forever.

I hadn’t been there, but I’d heard them tell the sandcastle tale many times.
Many
times.

Trent’s box was stuffed full of cash — tens and twenties, some fifties, too.

“For the kids, like I said,” he grunted.

I was taken aback. “But you support the kids already
… they don’t need…”

He shook his head, and his expression was heavy. “University.”

My heart dropped, and I knew exactly where his head was at. “Darren, you don’t have to…”

He held up a hand. “I want to. For Mia.” A soft smile flashed across his lips. “She’s smart… Clever, like her mother. She should go to university.” He paused. “Like
you
should’ve gone…” The thought smarted, and he saw it. “If we’d done things by the book… if we’d…”

I nodded, but didn’t say the words aloud. I’d been just sixteen when I’d fallen in love with Darren. Seventeen when I gave birth
to his first baby. An accident, but the most beautiful accident in all creation. Mia changed everything for both of us.

He sighed, and pulled on a pair of boxers. “I’m not saying we’re… that we… I wouldn’t change anything. I just want the girls to do what we didn’t.” He paused. “If that’s what they want.”

“A university fund? From gangbang sex?”

He scowled. “Doesn’t fucking matter where it’s from. Point is it’s fucking there.”

“But the garage already does well…” I ran my fingers over the cash and it felt so weird, so dirty.

“Yeah, it does, but you gotta make hay when the sun shines
, Jo. That latest rig cost me forty fucking grand. The truck cost thirty. With Petey and Jimmy O learning the trade… well, it all costs. Bang Gang money’s not tied to anything… and the only overheads are condoms.” He laughed and slipped on a crisp white shirt. I fought the urge to help him with his collar.

“So you take it while it’s there? Put it in a box for Mia’s university fund?” I could barely believe it. My voice felt heavy in my throat.

He shrugged. “And for Rubes. But she’ll probably end up with me, in the yard. Can’t keep her away.” He fastened up his bow tie. “So, now you know, alright?”

I met the gaze of the man I’d known better than anyone. “How, Darren? When?”

He pulled on his trousers and smiled. “Charity calendar three summers back, remember it?”

Of course I remembered it. It was to fund the local hospice, and workmen around the county had signed up for it. Trent’s team had been June — a glossy picture of them half naked, straddling tyres in a field full of hay bales. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Got a call after that. Got several actually. Women with a lot of money, looking for more.” He shrugged. “Word spread.”

“Three years, that’s how long you’ve been doing this?”

He nodded. “Right after I stopped seeing Stacey… When you were hooking up with Brian…”

I cringed at the memory. A couple of years with Brian was enough to make anyone cringe.

He checked the clock. “I gotta go, Jo.”

I stacked the money back in the box and handed it to him. His fingers felt so hot when they touched mine. “You could stop,” I said. “There’s a lot of money there, Darren.”

He didn’t answer, just slid the box back under the bed.

I continued. “I mean, enough to pay for tuition fees, surely… that’s enough, no?”

“I’m not stopping, Jo,” he said. “It’s too good a thing.”

My heart dropped and it wasn’t just the village rumours. I didn’t even know what it was anymore.

“I’ll leave you to it,” I said. I turned away, but he reached me in the doorway, his fingers on my wrist.

He spun me around and his face was in mine, his breath hot. “I fucked up with Mandy Taylor. I fucked up and now it’s round the whole fucking village, but I’ll sort it, alright?”

A knock at the front door and a trample of feet and wolf-calls. I didn’t need to look to know it was Hugh, Jimmy O and Petey come to join the gathering.

“Just sort the rumours, Darren,” I said. “For the girls.”

He nodded.

I adjusted his bow tie, smoothed down his shirt and let out a sigh. “This is so fucked up,” I said.

“Life’s fucked up, Jo.”

I sighed. “Then you’d better just go nail the shit you’ve got to nail, hadn’t you?”

He gave me a nod, and stepped away. And I missed him. I missed his body as hard as I’d missed him in the beginning, when I could barely fucking breathe because it hurt so bad. It was crazy, and ridiculous, and so fucking over, but it hurt like a bastard, right in my gut.

His eyes caught mine. “You alright?”

I smiled. “I’m good.” I let the feeling pass, pushed through it. “Just do what you’ve got to do, Darren.”

“Righto,” he said.