by Nikki Ashton
“I’ve no fucking idea,” he cried, looking agitated. “Last time I saw her she was talking to that tall girl with the tattoos, Bernadette or something, the one who looks like Pink…no, who told you that?” Sam scratched his head and looked around the room. When his eyes landed on his jeans he moved over to them and snatched them up from the floor and put them on, his mobile wedged between his shoulder and his ear, still listening.
“Okay, calm down,” he said as his zipped up his jeans. “Give me half an hour and I’ll be there…no, just stay at the fucking apartment and keep calling her mobile…I have to get a fucking taxi Elijah, so shut the fuck up…I’ll be there.”
He stabbed a finger at his phone, ending the call and threw it onto the bed.
“I’m so sorry, Maisie,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Elijah got home and Amy isn’t there. He said some of her stuff is gone and a couple of people at the party said they’d seen her run out in floods of tears but he has no idea why or what the problem was.”
“Oh my God,” I cried, scrambling out from under the duvet. “Do you think she’s okay?”
Sam shrugged as he picked up his t-shirt and turned it outside-in, before pulling it on. I picked up my underwear and clothes and while Sam put on his socks and shoes, got myself dressed.
Finally we were both ready and when Sam turned off the stereo, we turned out the light and left his room with the lingering smell of sex in the air.
Samuel
the present
I ran a hand down my face and waited for Elijah and Amy to say something. I’d finally told them about Frankie and I wasn’t sure it had gone down too well.
“You’ve known you had a son for eight years and never once told any of us,” Elijah ground out from between gritted teeth.
“Pretty much.”
“Don’t you dare be so fucking flippant about it,” he snapped. “This is a child we’re talking about. How the hell could you leave her on her own with a kid? I thought you were a better man than that?”
Eli’s eyes were blazing with anger and were so concentrated on me, he didn’t even register that Amy had taken his hand in hers. I’d only ever seen him this mad during his years without Amy, particularly when she first left, but never expected this level of anger to be aimed at me.
For some ridiculous reason, I’d decided to tell them both about Frankie and Maisie and the fact that Frankie was in my swimming group. I’d thought he’d be supportive and understand why I’d not been in my son’s life, but he clearly wasn’t. I got it, I really did, especially as he and Amy had suffered the loss of a child years ago, when Amy had a miscarriage. Children were a sensitive subject for him for a long time, but now that they had Bella, I thought he might be a little less judgemental; obviously not.
“It was Maisie who wanted to do it on her own,” I protested.
“Really, like I believe that,” he scoffed. “And if she did, why the fuck?”
I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees and weighed up what I was going to say. It was true, it had been Maisie’s wish that she did it alone and I had nothing to do with the baby, but I hadn’t exactly argued or given her an alternative. I’d been a prick.
“Okay, truth?”
Elijah’s eyes went wide. “It’d be a fucking start.”
“We’d had sex a couple of times and then it ended. She knew it wasn’t what I wanted.”
“But you really liked her,” Amy added. “You told me you did.”
My gaze went to my sister-in-law who was now slowly rubbing Elijah’s back, trying to calm him down.
“I did, but I didn’t want a baby and she did. Maisie said she’d rather do it alone than have me giving a half-arsed, uncommitted attempt at being a dad.”
“So you just said okay and let her go and have your child without a care from you?” Elijah asked, throwing his arms out in front of him. “You didn’t give a shit about him for almost nine years. You’re a fucking twat, Sam, and I can’t believe you’re my brother.”
“I couldn’t do it,” I hissed. “I couldn’t fucking do it, not ag-.”
I stopped myself from saying any more. I had never told him about Alison Carmichael and the baby that was never mine. I’d never told anyone. Was that because I still cared about her or felt loyalty to her? Was it? Fuck! I hated her and what she’d done to me. There were two reasons I hadn’t told a soul about how she’d ripped my heart out and broken me – her husband and her daughter. They didn’t deserve to have their lives turned upside down, and if I was being truthful, I felt fucking ashamed of what had happened, what I’d allowed to happen.
I knew that these days what she did may well have been seen as grooming, but I wanted it just as much as she did when it started, for fuck’s sake. I’d wanted her as soon as I realised that my dick wasn’t just for peeing out of and if truth be told, I’d done everything I could to make her notice me as more than a protégé. Maybe it was a teenage crush and if she’d not made a move on me I’d have grown out of it, but she did and I let my teenage dick rule my sensibility. Did I think she’d do it to some other teenage boy with raging hormones? Who the fuck knew, but even the thought that she might do it again wasn’t enough for me to let the world know that I’d been a stupid idiot and let myself be manipulated. Over the years while the pain and embarrassment hadn’t gone away, it had lessened and I’d learned to deal. It didn’t mean it hadn’t taught me a lesson, it fucking had, hence why I’d been quite clear to Maisie that a baby was of no interest to me.
Once bitten, twice shy.
A burned man dreads the fire.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Whichever phrase you chose to use, it applied to me. I’d vowed I’d never fall in love again, or let another woman make an idiot of me, and the situation with Maisie had felt a little too familiar.
“Oh well,” Elijah said with a heavy hint of sarcasm. “If you couldn’t do it, I totally understand why you’d let her bring up your son alone. It explains it all.”
“Eli,” Amy whispered softly. “Calm down, you’ll wake Bella.”
“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Because that’s what you do when you’ve got kids, you take care to make sure they’re happy, safe, and sleeping soundly, unless of course you’re Samuel fucking Cooper, who just ‘can’t do it’.”
He pushed up from his seat and stormed out of the room. As Amy and I sat in silence, I heard him stomp up the stairs, probably going to check on Bella if I knew him.
“He’ll calm down,” Amy sighed. “I don’t think it’s just about you not helping to raise Frankie, I think he’s hurt too.”
“Hurt? What the fuck about?”
“You didn’t tell him, Sam. He’s your brother and you didn’t tell him. All this time you had a son and you didn’t tell the one person you’re closest to.”
I went cold at the thought of him finding out about Alison. His reaction emphasised the fact that it was too late, he could never know after all this time, otherwise he might never speak to me again.
I shrugged. “Maybe I was ashamed.”
They were words I’d never voiced before, but there was a ring of truth in them. I was a little ashamed about it all – that I couldn’t be a father to Frankie, didn’t want to be a father. The circumstances of why I felt like that didn’t matter. I was a fucking twat, just like Elijah said.
“Are you going to tell your mum and dad?” Amy asked.
“Fuck no,” I groaned. “No way. They’d insist on meeting him and Maisie’s made it very clear Frankie is not to know I’m his dad.”
“So why tell us?”
“Because…” I sighed and considered what my answer was, because I had to be honest, it suddenly felt like a stupid damn idea. “It’s unsettled me. Seeing him, talking to Maisie, knowing that he likes Northern Soul and that he could be an amazing swimmer, has made me feel strange. Complete even.”
Amy’s eyes were soft as she watched me from her chair by the open fire. It had ta
ken me a while to trust her again after she and Elijah had gotten back together, but once I got my head from up my arse and realised she wasn’t to blame for what happened, and I finally heard the truth from Lauren Proctor after Eli and Amy were back together, we got our old friendship back – me taking the piss out of her and her thinking she could boss me around.
“There’s parts of him that are so obviously me, Ames, and I’m kind of proud of that and I think I just wanted to share it. I needed to tell someone, ‘you see that kid, the one that’s a great swimmer and likes cool music, well he’s mine’.”
“You know to deserve those parts, you need to do the shit parts too.”
I nodded, knowing I was being totally selfish.
“Do you want a relationship with him?” Amy asked.
I flinched back, my eyes widening at her words. “No. Not at all. Yeah, it’s weird and kind of cool that a part of me is running around, you must get that, every time you look at Bella, but I’m not ready to be his dad. I won’t ever be.”
Amy nodded. “I do understand why you feel pride, but I also want everyone to know she’s mine and Elijah’s. I love being her mummy and can’t imagine watching her from the side lines. It would kill me and I know Elijah would feel the same.”
I knew what she said to be true, because Eli had pretty much said the same thing to me when Bella had only been a few month’s old. He’d said he’d die before he’d let anyone else bring her up. The difference was, Elijah was born to be a father and had the love of his life alongside him. Yes they’d suffered along the way, but I think everyone knew deep down they’d always end up back together – it took them some convincing, but they got there in the end.
“How was it talking to Maisie?” Amy asked, smirking.
“Well we didn’t swap numbers or holiday snaps if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You really liked her all those years ago.”
“Yeah, but we had sex twice in one night and like I said, it fizzled out.”
“How come?” Her brow furrowed.
“Well that would be because I was trying to hold my brother together after his wife left him.”
As soon as I saw the hurt mask Amy’s face, I knew it had been a shitty thing to say.
“I’m sorry,” I said on a sigh. “But you’d gone and he was falling apart and so I didn’t have much time for Maisie.”
Amy nodded and shifted in her seat, pulling her feet underneath her. She was makeup free and her deep auburn hair was in some sort of plait, hanging over one shoulder and I couldn’t image anyone more perfect for my brother. She was beautiful and sweet and she was just who he deserved. Like I always said, he was the good brother.
“So what now?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. I spend an hour with him once a week for the next six weeks and treat him like the rest of the kids in the group. I go on as normal, as a single man without kids, with a business to run.”
“And you think you can do that, carry on as normal?”
Trust Amy to ask the sixty-four-million dollar question. She never did let me have an easy ride.
“Yep, of course I can. Nothing has changed. I already knew he existed, I just never met him before.”
Amy looked at me sceptically and nodded. “Well, if you say so, Sam.”
I did say so and I had to do so too. Nothing had changed really. And if I kept telling myself that, I may actually believe it.
Maisie
the present
I watched Frankie closely as he ate his dinner and sighed. He looked a lot like me. He even had the same pattern of freckles across his nose but with Sam’s dark hair and brown eyes, and the way he held himself and his cocky little attitude, he was all his father and it worried me. How long before people started to realise and talk, and maybe let it slip to Frankie?
It had been easy to keep it all a big secret when Frankie was small, but now that he was growing, he was becoming more and more like bloody Samuel Cooper every day. No one had ever suspected before, because we’d only had one night together, after Alex Drake’s party, and even though he’d promise he’d call me, he never did. I got one apologetic text telling me he was sorry but he was too caught up in helping his brother get through his wife leaving him to be able to have a relationship. The next time I’d seen him had been when I’d told him about Frankie, to say he looked horrified was an understatement. I knew straight away that a child was not what Sam wanted, so I gave him the easy way out and told him I’d do it on my own. He did say he’d support me at appointments and with money, but I knew for my own sanity that unless I wanted my own heart smashed to smithereens, he’d have to be all in and no way was that going to happen, something that became blatantly obvious on the day Frankie was born. That was the day I told him to go and never come near us again.
For the first four years of Frankie’s life, I regularly received money from him, but after about a year of being with Josh he said we didn’t want or need Sam’s money, so my solicitor wrote to Sam and told him. Personally, I’d have taken it and put it in an account for Frankie, but Josh was adamant and proud. That ended up being the next time I saw him, when he asked to meet me and discuss the money. Can’t say it wasn’t weird being next to him again, looking at the larger version of my son, but we meant nothing to each other, so while he argued about the money, that was all it had been – a quick twenty minute meeting in his car arguing about money.
I couldn’t believe I’d been lucky enough to avoid Sam in over eight years. Apart from that onetime, I’d seen him at a distance from time to time, but never as close as we’d been earlier at the leisure centre. Our town was fairly big and I rarely went out at night to pubs or clubs, and if I went shopping it wasn’t locally. I knew it had been a subconscious avoidance tactic, but to be honest, it hadn’t been that difficult. The first few months of Frankie’s life I dreaded bumping into Sam or any of his family, but once life got busy and I moved out of mum and dad’s house into my own place, I kind of forgot about him. Yes, I’d liked him and we’d had two rounds of great sex, but he hadn’t been the love of my life, but he had given me Frankie and I’d be eternally grateful to Sam for that.
When I heard Josh’s car on the drive, my stomach clenched. He wasn’t a local, so he didn’t know Sam personally, but had a hatred for him that was almost to the point of being poisonous. Sam wasn’t the only person Josh hated and it had to be said it would be easier to say who he didn’t hate, and there were some days I wasn’t sure whether I was even on that list.
“Hey,” I said as Josh breezed in through the kitchen door.
“Hi. How come he’s only just eating his dinner?” he asked, nodding at Frankie.
“Swimming lessons,” I replied around a swallow and glanced warily at Frankie. Thankfully, he was listening to music and too interested in his spaghetti hoops to feel the need to comment on his new swimming teacher. If Josh found out Sam was running the lessons, he’d be sure to put a stop to them. I’d told him a couple of years ago Sam had been a talented swimmer, so when Frankie started to show an interest and appeared to have the same ability, Josh hated it, always stating it was a waste of money. Frankie loved it though, so I put my foot down and insisted that he continue going. If Frankie mentioned the name Sam, it wouldn’t take Josh much to put two and two together and I was sure my hiding it from him even for a few hours would create another row and I just didn’t have the energy – I also didn’t want my son to have to give up the thing he loved.
Josh let out a sigh. “Huh, you know what I think of that.” He then reached across the table to rip Frankie’s earphones out. “What have I told you about listening to music at the table?”
Frankie looked up at him from beneath his long dark lashes and blinked a couple of times.
“Not to do it during dinner as it’s family time, but I’m the only one eating so I thought it would be okay.”
“Frankie,” I warned in a low tone.
“But that’s what Josh said.�
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“Don’t split hairs,” Josh snapped. “It’s probably crap anyway.”
Frankie picked up his iPod and turned it off and without looking up at Josh said. “Out on the Floor is one of the best Northern Soul songs ever.”
I was sure I heard Josh mutter ‘weird bloody kid’, but before I could say anything, he disappeared out of the kitchen into the hall. I had no idea what was wrong with him these days, when we first met, he had so much more time for Frankie. He’d spend long periods playing with him, even building a wooden garage for Frankie’s toy cars, but after about a year he started to be too busy and had better things to do, and then in the last year or so Josh had made no secret of the fact that he found Frankie irritating.
“Frankie,” I sighed. “Why can’t you just think about what you say to him?”
He looked up at me and while there was some defiance behind his eyes, I could still see he was simply a little boy who didn’t understand why he couldn’t say what he thought. It had been just the two of us for just over four years and I’d believed in letting him speak his mind and talk things through with him if what he’d said wasn’t appropriate – my own parents had brought me and my sister up that way, and I thought we’d turned out okay. To be fair, Frankie had always been a good boy, well behaved and polite but with a strong personality, and it made me feel awful that Josh was starting to chip away at my son’s confidence, trying to turn him into some meek and mild child who never spoke. I’d tried to make Josh see what a lovely nature Frankie had, but when I said anything he wouldn’t listen, insisting that I let Frankie get away with too much. It caused lots of rows and I was pretty sure that was why Frankie listened to his music so much, so he couldn’t hear us arguing. I knew in my heart that it was only going to get worse, because the older Frankie got the more he looked like Sam and from what I remembered of him from all those years ago, his son had the same damn cocky attitude at times too.