by Louise Hall
His mum insisted that she was coping but he knew that she hadn’t slept since his dad had passed away. He’d heard her roaming the halls late at night when she thought everybody else was asleep.
As he shook hands and accepted condolences, he didn’t feel anything. The gaffer and his team-mates came out of the church and the flashes and shouts from the photographers intensified.
“I’m sorry, man,” Yoakey gave him a half-hug and Kian gulped back the first flicker of emotion.
After Yoakey had gone, another hand pressed against his. When he looked up, he saw that it was Joe Hunter. He hadn’t seen him since Christmas Eve when he’d retired from Rovers. “Your dad was a good man, Kian.”
Kian nodded, grateful that the numbness had blissfully returned. He continued shaking hands with the other funeralgoers, hoping that the residue of Hunter’s handshake would dissipate with each new hand pressed against his own.
They had the wake at his dad’s favourite pub and his aunts put on a buffet of sandwiches and pasties. The sadness was tangible but he still felt numb. He ate a couple of egg mayonnaise sandwiches even though the club nutritionist would have been horrified because it stopped his mum from looking so concerned. He wished that Ben was there but he’d been on honeymoon in Thailand when it happened and couldn’t get a flight back in time.
After all of the guests had gone, it was just Kian, his mum, Sinead, Jake, Irene, Liv and Cate stood outside the front door of the pub. “I’ll get the car,” Irene patted his mum’s arm. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”
“I can drive you home, Mum,” Kian offered. He’d spent every night at the house since they’d got back from the hospital.
“You need to go home, Kian,” his mum said kindly but he could see the unshed tears in her eyes. “I’ve got a long life ahead of me. I need to start learning how to live it on my own.”
He tried to protest but she hugged him. She whispered in his ear so that only he could hear, “you’ve been so strong for me and Sinead but you need to take some time for yourself. You need to grieve too.”
He watched reluctantly as his mum left with Irene and Liv.
“I need to check on Monty but did you want me to come over afterwards?” Cate asked Sinead.
“No, it’s OK. Jake’s here.”
Kian tried really hard not to frown because he doubted Jake Moloney was going to stick around long enough to help his sister grieve.
He watched Cate walk across the car park to her car. “Are you sure you’re going to be OK?” Kian asked Sinead.
“Nope,” Sinead shook her head, “not going to be OK for a long time, maybe ever but at least I’ve got Jake.”
He hugged her. “Call me if you need anything, OK? I love you.”
“Love you too.”
He stayed away as long as he could but after everything that had happened, he needed Cate.
“Will you stay with me?” he asked later that night, hating that he sounded so vulnerable.
They sat on the daybed in the back porch and silently drank beer, looking out at the blackness behind his house. Just having her there calmed him down enough that he felt like he might actually be able to sleep tonight.
He downed the last of his beer and stood up. “I’m tired.”
Cate looked as if she was about to leave but he wasn’t ready for her to go. He reached for her hand and held it inside his own. He waited while she deposited the empty bottles in the recycling bin and then led her upstairs to his bedroom. The last time they’d been there, the night of his dad’s accident, they’d been about to make love for the first time.
He kicked off his shoes, lay down on the bed and closed his eyes for a moment. He felt the bed dip as Cate did the same. He was comforted by the scent of her blackberry shampoo. He couldn’t believe that Hunter had turned up at his dad’s funeral. He shook his head, trying not to think about anything apart from the beauty curled up beside him.
He tugged her towards him and kissed her, anesthetizing himself with her sweetness. His brain might be numb but his body wasn’t and as he felt her soft curves brush against him, his masculine reaction throbbed against the front of his trousers.
His libido took over and he wasn’t capable of rational thought. His world had shrunk down to the warmth of the body intimately cradling him and the rhythmic thumping of the headboard against the wall. It was only after he’d climaxed that the fog began to clear, he looked down and saw Cate lying beneath him. There were fresh tears on her cheeks and her bottom lip was bruised from being bitten. He dropped his eyes to where their bodies were intimately fused together. Her skirt was bunched up around her waist; her panties were tugged down around her knees. He felt the bottom fall out of his world. He pulled out of her, trying really hard not to hurt her any more than he already had. He dropped to his back on the mattress and covered his eyes as if this was another fucking nightmare he could wake up from.
Monday February 18th
Cate winced at the taste of the last bitter dregs of her black coffee.
After he’d left the hotel that morning, she’d tried following Kian for a few minutes but then she’d got snarled up with a group of South Korean tourists who were just getting off their sightseeing bus and by the time she’d disentangled herself from them, she’d lost him. The tracker app had told her that he was near the Pacific Place shopping mall but there were so many buildings near there, he could have been in any one of them. So she’d wandered aimlessly around the city for the rest of the day, trying to convince herself that despite what she’d seen outside the hotel that morning that her husband hadn’t really spent the previous night with that red-haired slut-bag.
Eventually, her feet had started hurting – she hadn’t expected to have to chase her husband all over the city and so she’d worn cute but really impractical heels. So she’d traipsed back to the hotel and decided to wait for him to come back in the coffee shop across the street.
It was getting late now and she needed to decide whether she was going to stay in the city and continue looking for her husband, in which case she needed to find a hotel room and some more comfortable shoes or admit defeat and go home. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to try to explain to Lola why, even though she’d promised he would, Kian wouldn’t be calling to say goodnight yet again.
She checked her phone again. The tracker app showed that Kian was only on the next block. The decision had been made for her. She sighed and forced her tired, achy feet back into her shoes. Even though she’d drunk so much coffee her bloodstream was largely made up of caffeine, she was exhausted. She didn’t exactly relish the idea of leaving the lovely, warm coffee shop and heading out into the dark, wet streets – the area was sketchy – to search for her maybe cheating bastard of a husband.
She couldn’t believe how quickly everything had changed; it was only a couple of weeks ago that he’d bought her that beautiful red, silk dress and taken her dancing at Saltare.
Ugh, she got up from the comfy velveteen chair and smoothed out the creases in her dark-purple skirt. It didn’t matter how she felt. She was a mum and she needed to make sure that Kian called his children to say goodnight to them.
For once, she wasn’t going to play the victim, she was going to channel her inner Remy, track him down and force him to do the right thing. Remy was her older sister.
She pulled up Google maps again and tried to work out where he was.
There was a dingy-looking bar on the corner and although it looked scary, she thought that’s where he might be based on the co-ordinates of his phone. When she stepped inside, she could have sworn that she could smell his lingering aftershave but when she looked around, he definitely wasn’t there.
“You looking for someone?” a big, muscly guy was leaning on the bar with a bag of frozen peas pressed to the back of his head.
“No,” Cate shook her head. “I’m OK.”
“You sure about that, sweet thing?”
His cornflower-blue eyes were kind and
she realised that he was genuinely asking her a question and not trying to pick her up. “Actually I’m looking for my husband,” Cate admitted. She showed him the photo she’d taken of Kian and the children all dressed up in their onesies on Christmas Day.
“That crazy piece of shit is your husband,” the guy looked incredulous.
“Where is he?” Cate’s eyes darted around.
“The last time I saw him, he was out the back,” he gestured towards the far exit.
Cate pulled open the heavy door. It was so dark in the alleyway that she didn’t see him at first.
She heard a faint groaning and when she looked down there was a huge lump in the middle of the alleyway.
She approached him tentatively. “Kian?”
The lump tried to move away from her but whoever it was, they were clearly hurt.
When she looked more closely, she realised that it was Kian. He stank of booze and there was blood all over his chin.
“Oh my goodness, what happened?” Cate knelt down by his side. She pulled out her phone and quickly dialled 911.
While she waited for them to arrive, she cradled Kian’s head in her lap. “Stay with me, Kian.” She stroked her fingers through his black hair. “You’re going to be OK.”
She didn’t realise that she was crying until she licked her lips and tasted salt.
Cate rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital. She held his hand tightly between hers. At that moment, she was so scared, she couldn’t be angry with him. He was barely conscious but she talked to him anyway, telling him how much she loved him.
The paramedic who was in the back with them, monitoring his progress, looked pityingly at Cate.
“What’s your problem?” Cate snapped.
“Nothing,” he quickly looked away.
“You don’t get to judge me or my husband.”
The doctor at the hospital said that Kian had been really lucky – apart from three broken ribs, the rest of his injuries were superficial; cuts and bruises. Because he’d lost consciousness, they wanted to keep him in overnight to make sure he didn’t have a concussion.
After he’d been admitted, Cate stepped out into the corridor and called Nate to let him know that she would be staying in the city overnight.
“Is Lola there?”
“Mum?” When her daughter came on the phone, Cate could tell that she was panicking again. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Cate closed her eyes. “It’s not what you think,” she said quickly. “Your dad got in an accident coming back from the airport. He’s OK but he’s got to stay in the hospital tonight.”
“Like Grandpa?” Lola whimpered.
Cate desperately wished that she could be there in person so she could give her daughter a big hug and reassure her that it was going to be OK. “No, honey, not like Grandpa.” Kian’s dad, Eamon had died in a car accident before Lola was born. “Dad’s going to be fine. He was really lucky. He’s just got some bumps and bruises, that’s all.”
“Can I talk to him?”
Cate shook her head, “I’m sorry, sweetie. He’s sleeping right now. But we’ll both be home tomorrow, I promise.”
After she’d hung up with Lola, her second call was to Bram, Kian’s lawyer friend.
“You’re kidding, right?” Bram laughed after she’d told him what had happened.
“It’s not a joke, Bram,” Cate leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. “Can you help?”
“Of course,” Bram suddenly sounded a lot more serious. “I’ll get right on it.”
Cate quickly looked around to make sure that nobody was listening. “I need people to think that it was a car accident, OK? It’s just that’s what I’ve told Lola…”
“I understand.”
When she went back into the room, the nurse was just finishing up. “Would you like me to bring you a blanket?” she asked Cate kindly.
Cate looked at her husband’s face which was crusted with dried blood. “Do you have a washcloth I could use?” She bit her lip. “I don’t like seeing him like that.”
“Of course,” the nurse said. She fetched Cate a bowl of warm water and a cloth and then left the two of them alone.
“I love you so much, Kian,” Cate whispered as she washed his handsome face. She touched the silver locket around her neck. He’d given it to her for her 18th birthday. “You’re my first half. You always have been and you always will be.” She brushed her lips over his.
The way that he’d been acting recently might have been completely out of character but she took the smallest modicum of comfort from the fact that his lips still felt like her husband’s.
“I don’t know what’s wrong but I’m not going to let you push me away again. I’m going to fight for you, Kian.” She cleaned his hands and kissed the wedding band on his finger. “I’m going to fight for us.”
Tuesday February 19th
Kian blinked open his eyes and immediately panicked, he didn’t recognise where he was.
He took a deep breath and immediately regretted it because his chest felt like it was on fire but then, unless somebody was playing tricks on him, he could smell his favourite scent in the whole fucking world, blackberries.
He looked down and saw that Cate was curled up around him, her palm resting above his heart.
A nurse was stood by the bedside adjusting the IV. “Is she OK?” Kian croaked.
The nurse smiled, “it’s you that’s in the hospital, sweetheart.”
“What happened?” Bits and pieces of the night before were slowly coming back to him.
The nurse quickly looked down at her chart. “I’ve only just come on shift but it says here that you were in a car accident.”
Kian gulped. He might not remember everything about the previous night but he knew that he’d been drinking. Had he really seriously tried to drive? “Was anybody…” He gritted his teeth, “else hurt?”
“I’ll have to double-check but I don’t think so, no.”
Cate looked up. She looked so fucking beautiful when she’d just woken up; there was a crease running down her cheek and her inky-black hair was all tangled up. “You’re awake?”
“Yeah,” Kian croaked. Whether he wanted to be was another matter.
“I’m going to leave you two alone,” the nurse backed out of the room.
She buried her face in his chest and he felt the stain from her hot, salty tears spread out across the front of his hospital gown; her shoulders moved up and down beneath his hands. “Why are you crying, angel? I’m OK.”
“But you might not have been,” Cate sobbed. “If I hadn’t found you…”
“Found me?” Kian didn’t understand. How could she have found him if he’d been in a car accident? Fuck, had she been in the car with him when they’d crashed? The last thing he remembered from the previous night was getting into an argument with the meathead bouncer at the bar he’d been drinking in. Cate definitely hadn’t been with him then. Fuck, he was so frustrated that he couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.
“I’m sorry,” Cate jumped down off the bed and began pacing back and forth.
His eyes quickly scanned her delicate frame. The nurse said that nobody else had been hurt in the accident but he needed to see for himself that she was really OK. Apart from the dark circles under her beautiful, black eyes, she didn’t look injured.
“Cate, what happened?” Kian steeled himself for bad news for the 2nd time that day. “The nurse said that nobody else was hurt in the accident. Is that not true?”
She folded her arms across her chest, “you weren’t in a car accident, Kian.”
“What?”
“You hadn’t come home since Friday. I tried calling you all weekend but you didn’t answer. I told the children that you’d gone on a business trip to L.A. and didn’t have cell-phone service. I went to the office on Monday morning but you weren’t there; Ben said you’d texted him on Sunday night that you needed to stay home because
I wasn’t feeling good. I used that app you put on my phone and tracked you to a bar but when I went inside, you weren’t there either. The guy behind the bar must have taken pity on me. I showed him your photo on my phone and he said that the last time he’d seen you was in the alleyway out back. When I found you…”
Tears poured down her cheeks. “You were unconscious and you had blood all over your face.”
“Come here,” Kian growled. He’d never been able to see his wife crying and not at least try to comfort her, even if he was the source of her hurt.
When she wouldn’t move, he tried to sit up.
“What are you doing?” Cate gasped. She looked so terrified, he immediately stopped. “You’ve got three broken ribs.”
“I want my wife,” Kian reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Come here.”
Cate shook her head, “I promised I wouldn’t do this here.”
“Do what?”
She gulped. “I saw you come out of a hotel yesterday morning with another woman, a redhead. Did you…?” She closed her eyes. “Did you cheat on me, Kian?”
She gestured to the hospital room, “is that what all this is about?”
“No,” Kian roared. Ignoring her protests, he dragged her down on the bed with him. “I didn’t cheat on you. Apart from that one mistake after the World Cup in Portugal, I swear on our children’s lives that I have never, ever cheated on you. I couldn’t,” he shuddered. “I love you so fucking much, angel.”
Cate looked up at him. There was so much hurt in her big, black eyes. “Why didn’t you come home to me then?”
Kian swiped at her tears. “I…” The words stuck in his throat like chewing gum. He shook his head. If it was any other truth, he would have gladly given it to her. He would have done anything he could to banish her concerns but this truth was so toxic, he couldn’t, wouldn’t allow it to pollute his wife, his family. It would destroy him but he would walk away from them before he allowed that to happen.
Kian brushed his lips against hers, hoping her sweetness would overpower the sour taste which lingered in his mouth from everything left unspoken.