“His partner,” Callum said, and the affection in his tone warmed me inside.
“Nice to meet you.”
Stanley and Callum both shook hands. Then my lawyer returned his attention to me. “Your mother is here and already inside.”
“My mother’s here?” She hadn’t confirmed whether or not she would be here today although she’d left a voice message on my phone last night wishing me all the best in court.
“Yes, she is. We should go in.”
The trial was nothing like I’d expected, although Stanley had prepared me for the worst. Nothing could prepare you for sitting in that chair and being questioned as though you were the one in the wrong. My hands shook, my mouth went dry, and I had to ask for a bottle of water.
Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t fully known what the procedure would be like, or I might’ve chickened out and not gone through with the charges.
The most disconcerting part of the whole thing was having an open trial. In that room were people who had nothing to do with the case but still sat there, taking in everything that had happened to me that night. It left me feeling exposed and vulnerable.
I hated it.
“Ms. Masters, your turn to cross-examine the prosecutor.”
I flinched as Louis’s lawyer approached the area where Stanley had been previously. My lawyer had been gentle but firm, asking direct questions he’d prepared me for. His advice to me was to think before I answered each question but not to take too long. Most of all to be honest. I had nothing to hide. Nothing to fabricate. Justin’s testimony alone should be sufficient to have the jury find Louis guilty.
“Mr. Keyes, how old are you?” the lawyer asked.
“Twenty-one.”
“You turned twenty-one three months ago, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“The night of November 15 last year. You were drunk, correct?”
November 15. The day my father and brother died. I glanced away from him to my lawyer. My eyes landed on Callum instead and the love and warmth he brought to me.
I can do this. Just be honest. I’m not on trial here.
“Mr. Keyes?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Even though it was illegal to drink, that night you were drunk,” Ms. Masters stated, staring directly at me. “It was your drunkenness that night that caused the demise of your brother and your father, correct?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Stanley interjected strongly, getting to his feet. He aimed a scowl in the other lawyer’s direction. “Ms. Masters is presuming my client guilty for a matter that is irrelevant to today’s case.”
“Sustained. Keep your questions relevant to the case, Ms. Masters. We are here to try whether or not your client is guilty of attempted rape.”
“Withdrawn,” Masters said. “Mr. Keyes, can you tell the court where you were two months ago?”
At least Stanley had prepared me for these questions surrounding my alcoholism.
“At a recovery center.”
“In which state?”
“Texas.”
“Before you left, you recently moved into your brother’s house. Up until that moment you were living in your parents’ home. Can you say what brought on the sudden move?”
I glanced at my mother and the way she looked pale. I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat.
“We had an argument.”
“About?”
“Me drinking,” I replied, gripping my hands. “She wanted me to go to the rehab center.”
“Why did you refuse?”
“I was already going to AA, so I didn’t think I needed it since I was already treating my problem.” I could tell my answer tripped her up. A couple of beats passed in which she walked over to her desk and shuffled around some papers.
“If you were already a part of AA, why did you go to Texas?”
“After what happened that night of the party, I needed a different environment to focus on my recovery.”
“So you admit the night of the party that you were drunk?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Do you remember everything that happened at the party.”
“Not everything, no.”
“Is it possible that you could’ve forgotten giving consent to my client to have sex with you?”
My nervousness gave way to annoyance. “I specifically told your client no. On several occasions.”
“But we’re only concerned with what you said or didn’t say that night.”
Since she didn’t ask a question, I didn’t vocalize how much I hated her for trying to dismiss what nearly happened to me.
“You were drunk that night,” Masters reported. “My client was also drunk. Why should he face penalty because two young college boys decided to do something that would impair both their judgments? Why should my client take responsibility for something that may or may not have happened because you were both too drunk to know what you were doing?”
“Because he held me down on the bed and tried to fuck me even though I said no!” My voice rang out in the room as I glared at Louis. “I told you no! Over and over again, I begged you not to, and you wouldn’t listen.”
Hot, scalding tears filled my eyes. I blinked furiously to bat them away, but they only spilled. I hated the tears. I hated that I was stuck here in that seat, trying to prove that I was the wronged party here. I hated that he tried to make me feel guilty for not being sober that night.
No meant no. It didn’t matter what state I was in, and nobody…nobody had a right to take away my right to say no.
Masters mumbled that she had no further questions, then returned to her seat.
“You may step down, Mr. Keyes,” the judge said.
I stumbled to my feet blindly, wiping the tears from my eyes as I returned to my seat. I never planned for this. Never wanted to use tears as a weapon to gain empathy for what had happened to me. My testimony should be good enough, dammit.
I only wanted them to listen to me and believe me. Was that so hard to do?
“You did great, Ashton.” Stanley squeezed my arm. “You handled the cross-examination perfectly, and with Justin about to take the stand, there’s no way this won’t go to trial.”
The bailiff announced Justin to the stand, and I lowered my chin to my chest. He was more of a friend than those who I usually considered close to me. He hadn’t cared about the inconvenience of meeting up with my lawyer over and over to go through his story.
“Can you please state your full name for the record,” Stanley asked Justin.
“Justin Anthony Richards,” he replied.
I kept my head down as I listened, really wanting to reach for Callum, but knowing he was behind me, supporting me, helped me throughout Justin’s testimony.
“How old are you, Justin?”
“Twenty-one.”
“And how do you know Mr. Keyes and Mr. Campbell?”
“I went to the same high school as Ashton, and we met Louis when we started at Battersea College. At least until Ash dropped out.”
“What was the relationship like between Mr. Keyes and Mr. Campbell?”
“They were really close until the latter part of last year.”
“Do you know what happened between them to change that?”
“No, they both didn’t want to say.”
“On more than one occasion, you’ve witnessed Mr. Campbell harassing my client, agreed?”
“Objection, Your Honor.” I jerked at the shrill voice of Louis’s lawyer. “Mr. Wisdom is leading the witness.”
“Withdrawn, your honor.” Stanley walked over to the stand where Justin sat. “Can you tell us what happened the night of the party?”
“Ash said he wasn’t feeling good, and I told him to lie down upstairs. I went to check up on him later, and that’s when I saw.”
“What exactly did you see?”
I wanted to cover my ears. I’d lived through the experience and didn’t need to hear about it again.
“He—Louis—was lying on top of Ashton, holding him down on the bed.”
“Did you hear anything that was said between them?”
Justin answered, but it wasn’t loud enough for me to hear.
“You’ll have to speak up, Mr. Richards.”
“Ashton was begging him to stop. To get off him.”
“And while that happened. What was Mr. Campbell doing?”
“He was trying to put on a condom.”
I placed my head on the desk and wept, my shoulders shaking. I made my lips move, repeating words Jeanine had shared with me.
It’s not my shame.
I never asked for this to happen.
I told him no.
I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Chapter Thirty
Callum
The last time I’d met Ash’s mother, she’d been a contemptuous bitch. There was no putting it nicely. As we sat through the trial, hearing about the bullying Ashton had suffered through alone, we’d come to some unspoken truce. We both cared too much about him to argue about our differences.
I felt sorry for her, not able to fathom what it would mean for a mother to hear about these things happening to her child. But it bothered me. As the man who he’d shared his body and heart with, it bothered me that someone else would try to violate him that way.
But this wasn’t about me. It was about Ashton and what he needed. It didn’t matter how often I stared at the back of Louis’s head and imagined wrapping my hands around his neck.
I silently begged Ashton to hold on, to bear through the hearing.
When he placed his head on the table in front of him, it just about broke something inside me. His shoulders shook, but we didn’t hear a sound from him. The urge to go to him was so strong I almost got to my feet, but his mother’s hand gripped mine.
“Don’t,” she said softly. “He’s strong enough to go through this. And he knows we’re here. It’s enough for now.”
She was right. I couldn’t disrupt the court’s proceedings and then be held in contempt of court. There was little I could do but trust Ashton knew we were here for him. We weren’t the only ones either. His driver, accompanied by another man, had entered the room just before the trial began and sat behind us.
Ashton liked Rue. He’d be pleased that the man had come.
I hated the way the defense lawyer tried to discredit Justin’s testimony, but she failed miserably. Justin didn’t doubt at all that Louis had forced himself onto Ashton, and he had no trouble repeating it no matter the different ways the lawyer tried to trip him up.
Eventually, Ashton’s lawyer objected on the grounds of the other attorney badgering the witness with the same questions. The judge, annoyed, asked Masters if she had any other questions, and when she answered negative, Justin was allowed to step down.
He nodded to Ashton, then walked back to his seat. Someday I wanted to properly meet and shake that young man’s hand and thank him for speaking up for Ash.
It didn’t take long before the case was closed for the day with a continuation set for two days. The defendant had witnesses they wanted to put on the stand as character reference for Louis.
Just outside the courtroom, Ashton walked right into my outstretched arms and had his meltdown. It was okay. I held him, supported his weight, my shirt soaking up his tears. Over his head, his mother nodded to me and patted Ashton’s back.
“He needs you more than he needs me right now. Take care of my son.”
“I really need a minute,” Ashton said, his words muffled in my shirt. “Maybe five. Or ten.”
“It’s okay. I’m here always.”
I brought him to the nearest restroom and held him despite the awkward look we got from the other man who was inside. I ignored him, my focus on Ashton and what he needed in this moment.
“You know, I don’t think I really ever truly processed what nearly happened that night,” he said on a sigh. “But hearing it today from Justin was hard.”
“I’m so sorry it happened to you, baby.”
“Me too.”
I held him a little while longer until he squirmed. I eased the tightness of my hold, and he reached up to kiss my Adam’s apple.
“What did I ever do to deserve you, Callum?”
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to his. He was still a work in progress, but weren’t we all in our different ways?
“The same thing I did to deserve you,” I teased him. “Not one damn thing.”
That prompted a chuckle from him, and he finally stepped back, wiping his face.
“Ugh, I must look a mess.”
“You’re always beautiful to me.”
“You kind of have to say that, so it doesn’t count.”
He splashed water into his face, but it did very little to conceal the fact that he’d been crying. His eyes were red and slightly swollen. His face was also blotchy.
When he was ready, we left the bathroom, me holding Ashton’s hand. His steps were much more confident, and he didn’t seem like he was about to wilt anymore.
“Where do you want to go from here?” I asked him as we descended the steps of the courthouse. At least we’d have another couple of months before he’d have to return.
“I don’t know, the coffee shop?” He stopped and peered around. “I know Mother left, but where’s Rue? I didn’t imagine seeing him, did I?”
“No, he came, but I think he left too.”
“Maybe I should prepare dinner and invite everyone? Justin too. He took off before I could tell him thanks for showing up today.”
We were almost at the car now, and I was relieved the one Louis had arrived in was gone.
“If that’s what you want to do.”
“It’s probably too late to invite them now. I’ll organize it for next week.”
“Sounds good. I’ll help you set up.”
He smiled up at me. “Actually, I want to do this on my own. That’s—”
“Ashton Keyes.”
Even when I’d heard it just once before, I would never forget that voice. I automatically stood in front of Ashton to block him just as the click of a camera went off. I scowled at the journalist, Harry Peart, who’d interrupted us at lunch almost two months ago.
“What the hell do you want?” I growled at him.
“Not much.” He grinned. “Just maybe a statement or two from Mr. Keyes about his impression of the court case.”
“Too bad he doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Last time I checked, you were not his lawyer.”
Resisting the urge to smash my fist into his face, I took hold of Ashton’s arm and marched him over to the passenger side of the vehicle.
“Now don’t be that way. We just want to hear your side of the story,” the journalist said. “It couldn’t have been hard for someone with your connections to get a witness to back up your story, right?”
Ashton’s body jerked to a stop. I prodded his reluctant frame forward and unlocked the car.
“Don’t let him goad you into saying anything. Get inside.”
The guy kept using his phone to take photos while I tried to shield Ashton as best as possible. I closed the car door with a satisfying thud and walked around to the driver’s side.
“How can you be certain Mr. Keyes was attacked and hadn’t solicited Mr. Campbell’s attention?”
I ducked into the car as fast as possible to avoid the trouble I sensed brewing. I was a second away from punching this guy out, but Ashton didn’t need this kind of attention on top of what he already had going.
“Why is he doing this?” Ashton whispered. The asshole journalist was still snapping photos.
“Probably thinks he’ll write the next big story for Battersea Daily.”
“By trivializing what happened to me?”
“Hey.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “You did great today. Let’s focus on that and not this asshole. Can we do that?”
He nodded.
“Can you take me back to my brother’s place, please?”
I was a bit disappointed we weren’t going back to my apartment, but I shove aside the disappointment. It didn’t matter where we were as long as I was with him.
“You don’t have to go back to the coffee shop, right?” he asked when I parked at the front of the house.
“No, Brayden’s there for the entire day.”
“Then you can stay?”
I glanced back at the house, the evidence of the divide between us. But was there really a divide? He was a man, just like me. A man who desired me the way I desired him. Why did I need to make it more than that?
“I’ll stay as long as you want.”
Once inside the house, Ashton started undressing, even before I closed the door.
“I need a distraction,” he said, and the nimble movement of his fingers unbuttoning his shirt revealed the kind of distraction he was up for.
My dick was definitely interested, but I didn’t want him to use sex to bury what he was feeling. He was upset and needed to deal with it.
“Babe, slow down.” I caught his hand before he could start on his pants.
“I want you, Cal.”
“I know, but is this what you really need right now?”
“Yes,” he answered without missing a beat. “Unless you don’t want me like that anymore since you heard what happened in court.”
“What? Of course I do.” I pulled the hand I had toward my crotch and let him feel how much I wanted him. “But hiding from what you’re feeling with sex isn’t going to help either.” I cupped his face and lifted gently. “When I make love to you, it must be about us and not because some asshole journalist was out of line and you don’t know what to do with your emotions.”
He sagged against me. “You’re right. I probably should probably call Jeanine. She told me she would be free all afternoon to take my call after the trial, but I wanted to show her that I could handle it alone. That I was getting better at this and didn’t need her anymore.”
I rubbed his back and kissed his temple. “You are doing better. Don’t let one bad day have you feeling doubtful over your progress. I’ve seen you in action for the past month, Ash. I admire the way you’re handling your recovery.”
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