EX WITH REGRETS
VINCENT
I don’t need to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to know bondage isn’t for me. Nor are hot and sweaty threesomes. I’m not kink-shaming, just saying I know my sexual skill set. I’m Mr. One-And-Done as a rule. Up for a good time, not a long time, and always gone by morning. Yet here I am, bound by strips of leather and wedged between two sleeping bodies, and one of them is extra cuddly.
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Waking up like this is a confusing reminder of being in a classroom full of sharper students. That’s a blast from the past. My chest doesn’t need to burn like I’m still a kid hoping a teacher won’t ask me to read in front of everybody. Those days are long gone now I’m over thirty, but like back then, I got no right answers about this three-way situation. I can’t even see the face of whoever is tucked in tight to my left side.
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All I do know is that the leg slung over mine is heavy enough to make the leather looping my wrists redundant. I’m pinned down by quads of steel, and I’m a big fucker who carries heavy loads all over London’s East End to make my bread and butter. The man currently giving me a cuddle is just as solid.
I won’t get free without a struggle.
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It’s the second time I’ve felt trapped recently, only it isn’t my cousin holding me hostage with a partnership offer this morning. Going all in with him in his house-move business shouldn’t feel as constricting as these leather bindings.
I glance up at the headboard.
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Are they horse reins?
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Reading aloud might have given me hives at school, but the mathematical part of my brain kicks in to add these clues together. Thick thighs plus access to reins equals me sharing a bed with the only Household Cavalry officer in my phone contacts. I’m being snuggled by another member of a group chat I was added to a few years back—one I don’t truly belong in—and I only know him by his nickname.
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Massive Cannon.
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I’m not ready for an eyeful of what earned him that label. I turn to my right instead to face someone whose group-chat nickname could be written all over this threesome in lube and semen, his playing is so legendary.
“Crabs?” My voice could give Phil Mitchell’s a run for his hoarse EastEnders money. “Tell me we didn’t bang.”
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Again, no shame on anyone who does get off on a bit of slap and tickle with more than one bedmate. Been there and done that in my early twenties, which is how I know it only ever leads to more of that front-of-the-class feeling for me. Always felt the odd man out. Today I’ve got the same urge to get gone and fast, the same prickling need to hurry away.
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Frankly, I need to.
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My cousin will be waiting for more than an answer to his partnership offer. He’ll be waiting for me to help him lump furniture from one high-rise in Tower Hamlets to another. Shifting beds and sofas might not call for much in the way of critical thinking, but I still can’t help analysing my situation.
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Did we really fuck last night?
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My dick isn’t telling.
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My arse has firmer opinions.
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It clenches tight to say a firm no, although I’m not sure it can be trusted. I mean, I’m usually a giver, not a taker, but the man to my right has a reputation for being persuasive. And for leaving broken hearts at every boat show where he sells vessels worth a fortune to people with cash I could only dream of.
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My aunt Stacey would have called him a charmer straight out of Downton Abbey. It would take a lot more than charm and an upper-class accent to let someone tie me up and spank me, so I clear my throat and speak up even louder.
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“Oi, Crabs.”
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Sea-green eyes blink open. “How about you start calling me Harry?” he asks, all warm and friendly, like waking up with me has made his morning. He yawns and stretches. “Only seems right, now we’ve slept together. And I can’t keep calling you Carpet Burns.” He smiles at my own group-chat nickname. “Although I would like to hear the story one day about how you got it. I’m Harry Lancaster, and you’re actually Vincent, aren’t you?”
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“Yeah. Vincent Smith.” I bet I sound a tad less happy than him. “But what do you mean by slept together?” That comes out as gritty as the banks of the Thames my ancestors picked through to earn their living and, until recently, my aunt picked through for her treasure-hunting hobby.
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Harry is way posher than any of us mudlarks. “What do you remember about last night, darling?”
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No one from my corner of London would call me by that D-word, or by the nickname Harry checked off a list at my very first in-person meet-up with the group-chat members. Today, he does something else no one from my neighbourhood would believe if they saw it happen. Harry pushes aside a few overlong strands of my hair to maintain our eye contact.
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I dunno why that makes me even grittier. “What do I remember? I don’t remember nothing.”
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That last word cracks out gunshot loud—nuffin—and the soldier to my other side launches out of bed, instantly combat ready. He takes his heavy artillery to my bathroom, and I nod to the doorway he left through. “What’s he doing here?”
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“Blake?”
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“Yeah. Blake,” I say, as if I already knew his real name. “Did the whole group meet last night?” That makes no sense. “I thought the next meet-up was scheduled for this evening.”
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“It still is.” Harry squints at me. “Were you planning on coming?”
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No, I wasn’t. I swerve telling him so. This is more important. “How the fuck did I end up in bed with you two, and why am I sticky?” The leather around my wrists pulls tight before I can scratch my hot chest. “And itchy.”
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Harry shifts a little and frees me. “The stickiness will be the red wine. By the time we found you, you’d drunk so much you kept missing your mouth. Then you made us stop off on the way back here for an emotional support kebab. Most of that missed your mouth too. The reins were to stop you from slipping out for more booze.”
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At least that explains part of my situation. And my hoarseness. I’m dehydrated, which is surprising. I’m not much of a drinker, a lightweight despite my bull-in-a-china-shop build. There’s no denying I’m hungover. “What about the itching?” I scratch my chest, then itch a little lower. “Don’t tell me your nickname is true.”
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“Crabs? No.” Harry laughs, the gust blowing away some post-booze fog. “I mean yes, I did catch them once, but that was a long, long time ago. Your itching is nothing to do with me.” He sobers. “Besides, why ruin a really good thing by having sex with an ex?”
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He doesn’t mean we used to be together—Harry and me were never boyfriends. I’m Mr. One-And-Done, remember, and I barely know him beyond the fact that Harry is the reason our group chat morphed to real life. Like every other man who attends those monthly meet-ups, our only connection is someone else Harry mentions. “But I am almost tempted to ring Charles Heppel. Or Charles Heppel-Eavis, I should say, now he’s married.”
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That’s who added hired muscle like me to a group made up of city bankers, lawyers, and other high-flying professionals. None of the other members would sound as thick-headed as I do. “Why would you ring Charles?”
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Harry smiles so hard his laugh lines become trenches. “Because if he hadn’t added all his ex-hookups to one big group to let us know he was off the market, you wouldn’t have been able to reach out to us last night, would you? If Charles hadn’t set up that chat, none of us would have got your SOS message.”
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I blink. “I sent a message to the whole group?” I’d never, ever do that.
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Harry doesn’t agree. “I’m glad you finally reached out. Because you don’t do that easily, do you, darling? Like you don’t join in much at meet-ups. Or come to very many of them. But you couldn’t have asked for help from any better men. Charles always was a good judge of character. Every single man he added to our group would want to help you. I’m just sorry I wasn’t in London when you got on the struggle bus in the first place.”
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“Struggle bus?” Nothing loops my wrists now. Regardless, my fingers suddenly feel thick and clumsy. “What the fuck did I type?”
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“Just that you desperately needed some TLC.”
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Tender loving care?
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Mushy softness isn’t an East End survival tactic. It makes me growl just like my cousin, whose number one rule is to never show any weakness. “There’s no way I wrote that in the chat.”
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“Well, no,” Harry accepts. “You didn’t type out those exact words, but we all heard it in your voice note.” He reaches under the pillow for his phone. “Listen.”
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For a moment, all I hear is my shower running in the bathroom and a soldier singing. Then I tune into my own voice explaining why I guzzled more booze last night than I have since my aunt’s wake.
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“Kev?” I hear myself rasp. “Flynn’s had the whole house cleared.”
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Shit.
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I must have meant to send this voice note to my cousin. Instead, a whole lot of Charles Heppel’s exes heard what I discovered last night after work. Just like that, I’m at the front of a classroom, cringing myself inside out at hearing myself say, “He got another firm in to take every stick of furniture, Kev. Every single piece I bid on for him at auction is gone.”
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That’s what I’ve spent the last four months doing part-time instead of sitting beside my cousin full time in a van painted with Stacey & Son Removals. Kev wants to change that paintwork to Kev & Cousin, but after the last four months of finding and restoring antique items, I can’t face it. Turns out those teachers who thought I was a dull knife instead of a sharp blade just didn’t give me the right material to work with. The right tools. This winter of intense focus has fired up an interest in learning I’m not ready to give up.
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Now I’m gonna have to, and Harry is right, I do sound like I need some tender loving care of my own as my voice note continues.
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“All they left was a bed and some pots and pans. They even…”
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A pause extends, and I replay the moment I walked into this Kensington townhouse to find strangers had packed up a life that someone smarter might have guessed was only ever temporary.
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I sound broken.
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“And they even took the desk. The very best piece I found for Flynn. So fucking pretty.”
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Jesus.
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I’m suddenly glad I got this gobby in the wrong chat—Kev would lose his rag at me confessing this weakness in public, but I did love that little desk. Stripped layer after layer of paint and varnish to find the dark-red fire of mahogany and the liquid gold of satinwood inlays. Gorgeous. I’m gutted to have lost it.
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Harry must hear how much. He winces from his half of my pillow as drunk-me keeps confessing.
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“You were right about Flynn, Kev. I should never have moved in here to look after this place for him. And maybe I shouldn’t have cut my hours with you to almost nothing to make this place look swanky as fuck to impress his investors.”
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Harry winces again.
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My phone spills more. “It’s just that he promised he’d make it worth my while.” My voice repeats the once-in-a-lifetime chance Flynn had dangled like a carrot. “He said I could stay here rent free until the lease was up. Look after the place for him and pick up his post until he got back from the project those investors backed. Then we’d auction everything I restored for him and split the profit. I was gonna use it to get the certification I’d need to set up my own restoration business.” We both have to hear me choke this. “How am I gonna do that now he’s had everything taken? He won’t even answer his phone.”
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I close my eyes, which gifts me an action replay of finding this place all but empty. Opening my eyes again only confirms that I didn’t dream what actually happened. A bare bulb now hangs from a ceiling rose above us, and I hear all about it.
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“They even took the light fittings, Kev. The chandeliers I found and bid for.” I must have drunk some more booze. I hear gulping and a soul-deep sigh. I also hear myself admit, “I don’t know why he did it. Or where I am, Kev.” I sound so smashed. “Come and get me?”
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Harry takes a turn at sighing. “You dropped a location pin in the group chat. Blake and I were closest.” His focus is on those horse reins he unravelled from my wrists. Now he rolls up that black leather, slow and careful. So is what else he asks me. “You said you were looking after this place for Flynn. You two… you weren’t together?”
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“Together? No.”
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“You were only working for him?”
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“I wasn’t on Flynn’s payroll. He said we were business partners.” I feel stupid as soon as that slips out.
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Harry lets the horse reins unravel like the timeline he verbalises. “Since last October?”
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“Yeah. Flynn turned up at a meet-up.” One that I’d hesitated to enter, hovering at the window like a moth drawn to much brighter beings. “He asked if you’d be coming. I told him you were—”
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“Away at a boat show.” Harry nods. “Then what happened?”
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“He asked what I did. We ended up talking furniture, and I showed him some pics that matched the vibe he was looking to furnish his new place with. He said I had a good eye for quality pieces, and did I want to skip the meet-up.”
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“Did you?”
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“Yeah. He brought me back to this place. It was empty. I filled it for him.”
Harry squints. “Then he left London?”
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“For his project? Yeah.”
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“We must have just missed each other. It’s February now. You’ve been expecting him to come back for you this whole time?”
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“Not for me. To sell up and split the profit on everything I restored to make him look…”
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I don’t say like you, but that is what Flynn had wanted—to pass for Harry’s kind of old money that comes with land and titles.
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“He…” I don’t know how to describe someone who made me feel the smartest person on the planet each time I found hidden treasure for him. “It was good timing, that’s all. I couldn’t stay where I was living, and he needed someone to…” Again, I don’t have the vocab to describe someone who now feels as solid as smoke between my fingers. “He made me…”
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Harry presses his lips together, then breaks his silence to describe Flynn in perfect detail. “He made you feel like you could take on the world together, and nothing and no one could stop you. That anything and everything would be possible if you just listened to him. He talked you into putting your life on hold based on a future promise. Did you get any of that in writing?”
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“No.” I can never let my cousin find out that I might as well have rolled over and showed Flynn my bare belly. “We shook hands on it. Like I would with any friend.”
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“Oh, darling. I’m not sure Flynn knows how to be one of those.”
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“I thought you said Charles was a good judge of character.” I scrub at my face. Scrub at my chest too, which helps my itchy skin but doesn’t do much for an ache under my ribs that shows no sign of easing. “He must have liked Flynn to tell him about our meet-ups, yeah?” That has happened a few times over the years, long-lost Heppel Exes added to our ranks by our common hookup denominator.
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Harry was the first man Charles Heppel added to that group. Now he runs a hand through sun-bleached hair, tugging on it as if he’s tangled. “About that—”
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Blake interrupts with the bark of a drill sergeant. “Carpet Burns, where are you hiding the coffee?” We leave the bedroom behind to find Blake freshly showered in the kitchen. All three of us are in our boxers, and he notices that I can’t stop scratching. “What’s brought on those hives?”
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“Red wine. It hates me.” I scratch some more. “Some antihistamine will sort it.” I have to settle for ice. “Call me Vincent, yeah?” I rub a cube over raised welts while Harry hunts for mugs, which is pointless. They’re long gone. So is any coffee, but Harry turns his back to root through another cupboard, and I let out a sound that reminds me of my cousin—Kev huffed like someone had punched him hard in the gut the day he visited me in hospital when I was a nipper. My reason for wheezing this morning are the scars swarming across Harry’s back. They sting me into silence.
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Those scars do the opposite to Blake. He swings into action again, this time by getting chatty, which I wouldn’t have guessed from the few meet-ups I have attended. “What’s that?” He doesn’t point at those godawful scars, thank fuck. He gestures at the only proof left in this building that Flynn ever lived here.
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For once, I can summon an instant answer. “A vision board.” Images of a rocky island surround the kind of whiteboard most people use for shopping list reminders. Harry touches a bullet point written at the top of this one. His finger drags down past more checked-off boxes, and he huffs. “Well, at least he was up-front with you about his plans.”
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Blake confirms he heard my drunken voice note. “You mean that dick Flynn?” He tilts his head to one side. “Looks like a drunk spider wrote a to-do list.” He looks my way. “Can you read his handwriting?”
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I shake my head.
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Harry has no problem with it. He lists what was always in plain sight. “Stage the flat. Set up a photoshoot. Secure the funding for the wreck dive.”
Blake frowns. “Wreck dive? Isn’t that what you used to do before you started selling speedboats?”
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“Yes.” Harry pauses for so long I think he’s done reading.
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He isn’t.
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He reads out the sole unchecked box, Flynn’s ultimate goal, much more quietly.
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“Get back what I lost.”
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*** *** ***
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That’s what I think about for the rest of the day while lumping other people’s belongings up and down staircases with my cousin—getting back what I lost, and what I loved from the first moment I found it. It’s still on my mind when I get back to Flynn’s place and that pretty little mahogany desk is still gone.
I get another reminder of loving and losing later that evening outside a restaurant where a whole lot of Heppel Exes will all know I got blindsided. None of them would have let Flynn walk into their lives and then walk off with what they valued.
I can’t face them.
Harry must spy me thinking that through the restaurant window. He comes outside to join me. “Having second thoughts?”
If he was taller, we’d be shoulder to shoulder. For once, I feel like the smaller of us. The window reflects my quick nod. “About coming inside? Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Don’t. Because every single Ex here tonight has already asked how you’re doing. You haven’t answered any of their messages in the group chat. Did you read them?”
This time, the window reflects my headshake.
Harry pulls out his phone to do it for me, and with each nickname he voices, my gaze finds the man inside who wrote me a message.
“Small Print says, if Flynn broke a legal agreement, he’ll help you fight it.” He pauses. “So did Loves Puzzles. They usually face off against each other in contract negotiations. Both of them are ferocious. They’d set aside their rivalry to help you.” He finds a message from another Heppel Ex. “See Ritz Bed Wrecker over there? He says he’ll find a bed for you until you have someplace else to stay.” He points at yet another Ex. “And if you need help with the up-front costs of renting and furnishing somewhere, Cash Money says he’s got you. We all do, Vincent.” He snorts softly. “That’s pretty much what is engraved on my pen.”
He slides his phone away and pulls out the fountain pen he usually tings against a wine glass at the start of every meet-up. The streetlights find the lapis of its casing inlaid with gold script. “You see what it says?”
I can’t read it, and Harry notices. “Sorry. I’m so used to seeing it, I forget it’s written in Latin. Right after my name, it says ‘family first and always.’ And that’s what every Ex here would be for you, if you let them.” He nods towards a crowded table. “A whole family of brothers for you.”
That gets me right in the chest.
It also gets me inside the restaurant, where those Exes do me a solid by carrying on like usual, flirting with each other and shit-talking over plates of pasta.
Instead of letting me sit on the outskirts like usual, Harry pulls up a chair beside his at the head of the table. I’ll never be into bondage, but his arm around my shoulder keeps me close enough to listen. “My flight times have moved up. I’ll need to leave soon for my next stop on the boat-show circuit, but could you do me a favour while I’m away?”
Right now, if he asked, I’m pretty sure I’d have his babies.
Harry asks for something even harder to accomplish.
“Take my place. Run the group for me and keep them together. Be the leader they need, because if you let their dicks make all the decisions, no one will get a happy ending.”
“You’re leaving me in charge?” I get another schooldays flashback of trying and failing with an audience watching. “Nah, mate. Ask Blake. He’s used to taking a command role.”
“No.” Harry’s surprisingly firm. “I can’t ask him. Not when he’s having a tough enough time adjusting to his retirement.”
“He retired? But he’s only—”
“In his early forties?” Harry taps the case of my phone. “You would have known about his retirement if you took part in the chat. Just take my word for it when I say I can’t leave him to herd all these highly sexed cats. Especially when he just lost his one other support system.” He lowers his voice. “I think he and Adey split up.” He tilts his head towards someone Charles Heppel labelled as So Many Maps in his phone contacts.
I ask, “Him and Blake were banging?”
Harry shrugs. “Don’t know for certain. They were definitely spending every spare minute together. Now they can’t even look at each other. It’s another reason why I’m not a fan of Exes hooking up. When it goes wrong, we all end up losing friendships.”
I can’t help thinking of Flynn. Of that restoration course he found for me that I now can’t afford to pay for. It’s another loved-and-lost reminder. I’m so sick of those that when Harry leaves for his flight, I do use the pen he’s left me to hold on to for him. I ting it against a wineglass.
“Listen up.”
A long table full of Exes does just that, and my chest prickles with heat. I push through that hot flush.
“I’m standing in for Crabs. For Harry. Just until he gets back.”
I don’t expect a round of applause, but that’s what I get. And I get some piss-taking, but that’s even better. They’re letting me know they’re okay with me sitting at the head of their table despite falling for Flynn’s bullshit. After a few days of feeling stupid, it’s a lot. So is the responsibility to keep them on the straight and narrow until Harry gets back.
I’m also aware of movement to one side, a latecomer arriving just in time to hear me get even gruffer than my cousin. “I’m making a new rule until Harry gets back. You all listening?”
Plenty of Heppel Exes nod, but they’re not my focus. Blake and Adey are. They don’t only sit far apart from each other. They’re at risk of doing what Harry mentioned—fucking up what really matters. Their friendship, and all the other friendships around this table, suddenly weigh as heavily as Blake’s quads of steel did across my legs this morning. I’m pinned by the pressure to get this right.
“This is the new rule: No more banging between any of you while Harry’s gone. No one-night stands. No friends-with-benefits arrangements. No just-this-onces or just-the-tips. Keep your dicks out of each other.” I take a deep gulp of red wine, needing liquid courage to admit this weakness. “I won’t deal with the fallout half as well as Harry.”
Blake stares down at his own glass.
I need his agreement, so I swallow down another dose of hive-inducing house red and keep going.
“Some of you have been living in each other’s pockets. Spending all your time together. If any of you have been secretly shagging whenever you’re together, press pause until Harry gets back, okay?” I find Adey at the far end of the table. He pushes pasta around his plate instead of looking at me. “Give me a break, yeah?”
I raise a glass of wine I know I’ll regret knocking back when I’m itching later.
“If Charles Heppel is the reason you’re here, sex is off the table. And off any beds or hallway carpets. All boning is off-limits, agreed?”
I can’t regret making that request when Blake slowly raises his glass. Every Ex here must all take pity on me—they all join him. At least, I think everyone agrees until that late arrival speaks up.
Someone with a soft Scottish accent asks, “Does that rule include visitors? I mean, Charles did send me.”
He comes into my eye line.
All I see is mahogany.
Candlelight finds bright embers in dark auburn hair, and I notice something else in addition—he’s nervous. The hand he shoves through his hair shakes.
I make myself focus on his face.
That’s a mistake.
It’s everything I like. Pretty. And delicate in a way I can’t help staring at while he stammers through an apology for interrupting. It’s full of cannaes, didnaes, and wouldnaes before I tell him, “You ain’t interrupting.”
He smiles then, relieved, and starts over.
“I’m Alasdair. Alasdair Sinclair,” he says quietly while a tableful of Exes leans in, and forget highly sexed cats. They’re a wolf pack closing in on fresh meat. Don’t ask me why I touch Harry’s pen, but it works some kind of leadership magic. They lean back, giving Alasdair space, and he continues. “Charles told me to ask for…” He pulls out a phone, scrolling for so long that, if he was on the street, muggers would have time to snatch it. Even his accent is too soft for survival in this city. “Sorry, sorry. I know it’s here somewhere.”
I’ve been tied up once today already. Now a Scottish burr wraps me. “Ah, here it is.” He wets his lips, gaze flicking around the watching Exes, and boy, I know that front-of-the-class feeling. It gets me talking in a hurry.
“Go ahead, mate. Who are you here for?”
His smile flickers, uncertain. “For someone called Carpet Burns?”
I’ve never sounded rougher. “That’s me.”
His shaky smile firms, and like that pretty little desk I revealed layer by layer, he shows me something hidden—his eyes laugh. That feels like a secret he’s decided to share only with me. “Then it’s a shame about that new rule.”
Every Heppel Ex here leans in again, the nosy fuckers.
I barely notice.
“Because?”
“Because Charles swore you’d be perfect for me.”
*** *** ***
Thank you for your continued patience with my recovery. It isn't how I anticipated starting the year, but I am delighted that 2026 will be my year of happy endings ( for Heppel Exes!)
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