‘Tell me with words that you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I think so…’ I answered.
‘Then kiss me like you understand,’ he demanded.
I turned my head to look at him properly. My eyes found his and I was lost. I placed my lips to his and tried hard to convey how much he meant to me and how much I wanted to be with him. His hand came up to cup the side of my face as he always did when we kissed and his thumb brushed along my jawbone in tender affection. Finally, our lips broke apart and I leant my forehead to his as I circled my arms around his shoulders, holding him to me.
‘Why does being young have to be so difficult?’ I smiled at him as we took long, deep breaths to recover.
He laughed and somehow that sound made me feel warmer inside. ‘Yep, I agree it’s difficult… But it’s a couple more weeks until your sixteen, that’s all… Anyway, cheer up, I’ve got something for you.’
I lifted my forehead from his and looked at him. My face, which had been sad before, broke into a wide smile.
‘Why?’ I questioned.
‘Because one day I’m gonna give you the world. But this will have to do for now. Hold on while I get it.’ He stretched behind me and down to the side of his door to reach my gift. ‘Now, it’s nothing expensive, I don’t want you to get your hopes up.’
‘That’s fine, I don’t need expensive,’ I answered, trying to reassure him.
‘Okay, then close your eyes.’ He shifted again so he was once again comfortable underneath me. I felt his hands touch my skin as he placed a chain around my neck and then I heard the clasp flick shut. ‘You can open them now.’
I did as he instructed, then my hand shot up to my neck and I picked up the chain I found there. Lifting it up in front of my eyes, I could see it was a silver coloured fine chain that held half a heart. I twisted the pendant around so I could read the one word written on there.
‘Always...’ I whispered.
‘Yep, and mine says…’ He pushed his hand into the already stretched neck of his old T-shirt and pulled out a more masculine looking chain, with the other part of the heart swinging on it. ‘And mine says, forever. It’s only a whole heart when they’re placed together, like you and me.’
‘Always and forever. I love it, thank you, Raff.’
‘It’s how I feel about you, Loz. We’re always going to be forever.’ Then he pushed the pieces together, showing me how perfectly they fitted against each other.
I pulled him closer to me and we held on to each other tightly as we watched the sunset to the west of us, lost in the emotion of our love for each other and the fragility of our years.
Little did I know then, that this was one of the last sunsets we would see together, before life got in the way and broke our hearts into two, like the pieces of the necklace we were wearing.
Four months later he would be gone.
Forever and always holding half of my heart captive.
I heard myself cry out with grief and sat bolt upright as I tried to work out exactly where I was.
I clutched the duvet to me and searched around the room, lit by the white, snow-filled landscape outside. I was at home. I saw the dull red, luminous figures beside me, it was three in the morning.
It was a dream. Seeing him today had stirred up my memories.
I clutched the back of my neck and began to massage it as I rolled my neck around, trying to relieve myself of the tension that had built up in the five hours I’d slept.
I flung myself back down on my bed and tried to once again empty my mind.
I looked up at the stars through the skylights above me. This was getting crazy. I hadn’t slept at all last night because of him and tonight I’d managed five hours before a dream of him had woken me up.
‘No more!’ I yelled out to myself.
I flung myself over onto my side and snuggled back down into my comfortable bed and thought of my cousin Amy instead. I hoped her night with the tall stranger called Daniel was still going well. I felt a smile push up my cheeks as once again I visualised him carrying her over his shoulder up the wrought iron staircase to my spare room. I was happy for her. Just with the fleeting glimpse Winter and I’d had of him, I could see he was a seriously good-looking guy and she deserved to have a tall, handsome man paying her a huge amount of hopefully very obscene attention.
After working bloody hard at The Manor all day, Winter and I had finally managed to escape, and it had been a relief to leave the place behind. As the three of us had finally sat down together in the closed tearooms, Amy had been teased and cajoled by the both of us into telling us about the handsome stranger who had rescued her and nearly ended up fucking her in the kitchen of The Fairy Garden. I had never seen her so irradiated. She told us about meeting him and how he made her feel, but to be honest all her words meant nothing, her body language and the bright light of hope in her eyes said everything we needed to know. Her second thoughts about meeting him had been fleeting, as Winter and I urged her into spending some time with him, and the last we’d seen of her was him carrying her off up the stairs.
My mind left them behind and went back to my own day. Raff and Cade had continued to “help” us and after our last conversation, I hadn’t been able to look him in the eye. He had done whatever he could to make sure he was as close to me as possible for every excruciating minute. Every opportunity that had presented itself to him, he had made sure he could brush past me or touch my fingers with his. I knew exactly what he was trying to achieve. He was trying to remind me without words, how he could make me feel and it had worked every fucking time.
I couldn’t lie here going over and over our fraught conversation. Then it came to me, I knew what I had to do.
I flung back my thick duvet and jumped out of my antique framed bed, hearing the familiar squeak as my weight left the springs. Then I moved around my bedroom, using only the light from outside. At the bottom of my bed was my grandfather’s chest, which I used predominantly as a blanket box.
I crouched down onto the fluffy, dark red rug that was beside it and lifted the lid. Luckily, I knew the old chest and all the important things it contained so well that searching through it was something I could easily do with my eyes closed. My fingers rummaged in the far right corner until finally they rested on the tissue paper I was searching for. I snatched up the small offending package, walked quickly out of my bedroom and into my living area, then made my way over to the corner where my kitchen was located.
I stamped my foot hard on the pedal of the bin and the lid lifted with such force it clanged on the kitchen cupboard behind it. The sound echoed around the space, like a bell chiming in a clock tower. Extending my arm, I offered up the tissue paper covered package to its dark oblivion, but couldn’t release my fingers to let go.
‘Just do it, Lauren. Let it go. Let him go.’ I talked out loud trying to offer myself the reinforcement and encouragement I obviously needed.
It was no good, my fingers were holding on tightly no matter how hard I tried to talk myself into doing it. Disgusted with myself, I pulled my arm sharply back into my body. Resigned, I slunk down the opposite kitchen cabinet and sat down onto the cold floor. Closing my eyes, my head fell backwards to the support of the wooden cabinets behind me. I clutched the tissue paper to my chest with both hands, hearing the small chink of the pendant touching the chain inside the paper. The small almost insignificant sound made my stomach knot against itself with panic at the many thoughts that were going around my head.
I was never going to be free of him, of us. The pendant had one word on it that I didn’t have to look at as I had seen it so many times before. I knew every flourish and swirl of the font that had been used to engrave it onto the metal.
It seemed that “Always” meant exactly that, he was branded onto my very soul.
I pulled down on the bar until I felt the cold of the metal touch across the bare flesh of my shoulders and exhaled through gritted teeth. ‘Shhhhhhhh.’ I held it there momentarily and then
permitted the contracted muscles in my back to release and my arms to once again raise high above me. I concentrated on holding the tension in the bar before I drew the bar down again, completing my repetitions.
I let the bar go, and the plates came together as they fell on top of one another in quick succession with a resounding clank. I leant down beside the bench, grabbing at my towel. I wiped the sweat away from my face and had a quick swig of water, before I pulled the pin out and added another two plates.
I was just starting the repetitive exercise again, when I became conscious that it didn’t matter what weight I was pulling, I couldn’t feel the exercise at all. My mind wasn’t on what I was doing. I immediately let go of the bar and the plates crashed together so violently the pin flew back out of the hole.
‘FUCKING HELL!’ I picked up the metal pin and feeling the anger inside me being released down every vein, I threw it at my reflection staring back at me from the mirror. The glass cracked, spread and then the offending mirror shattered, falling into a million pieces all over the new sprung rubber flooring.
‘For fucks sake,’ I muttered under my breath.
‘Mr. Davenport, are you alright, sir?’ I heard Paul the gym manager asking me as he rushed over.
I stood up from my position sitting astride the bench and ran my hands through my hair as I blew out the rest of my anger before I gave the poor bastard a mouthful that he didn’t deserve. After running the towel over my face, I turned to face him.
‘Yeah, I’m good, sorry about the mess.’ I lifted my arm, with the towel wrapped around my hand like a boxing glove, towards the shattered mirror. ‘What’s the chance you can get the designers back in here to replace the mirror before we open?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he answered, still not removing his eyes from the silvery shards.
‘Well, do what you can, I’ll pay whatever they ask,’ I replied, moving away to one of the running machines. I felt his eyes following me. The poor bastard was probably trying to work out which one of his new machines I was going to break next.
I could almost hear him thinking in his head how he could ask me to leave while still keeping his job. I didn’t want to antagonise him, but my need to annihilate what was going around my head was greater than his need to protect the brand new gym. Add that to the fact I was one of the owners and he didn’t stand a fucking chance.
I dumped my towel, pressed the start button and jumped onto the treadmill. I started ramping up the incline almost immediately.
My mind was stuck on her and the way she had reacted to me yesterday. I hadn’t meant to corner her behind the stage we’d had set up, but I’d known the second she’d left the kitchen that I needed to follow her and try to let how know how much I desperately fucking regretted what had happened between us. When I saw her sitting in the alcove with her eyes closed, I’d stopped dead in my tracks and taken the chance to take a good fucking look at her. In nearly seventeen years, I had only seen her one other time. About five years ago, she’d attended the wedding of a mutual friend and Winter had sent me over some pictures. I could see what a beautiful woman she had grown into, but it didn’t do her any justice at all. Seeing her yesterday, she’d literally taken my breath away. It’s strange how many years can go by without you being in the presence of someone, but the very moment you meet again, you’re back surrounded by memories that consume you. The way she used to twiddle her hair when she was thinking, the amber in her eyes that caught alight when she was angry. The sweet noises she would make when I was deep inside her. Everything flooded back in those few minutes.
She was absolutely fucking beautiful, just as I had always known she would be.
I’d run my eyes over and over her, trying to take in everything about her. Her chestnut brown hair was longer and now had lighter shades running through it, and although I couldn’t see them I knew it matched her amber coloured eyes. The young body of a sporty girl had blossomed into full womanhood. She was curvaceous and completely different to the fucking stick thin, Barbie-doll women that had been keeping my bed lukewarm over the years. The moment she turned to me and opened her eyes I was back. I wanted her with a passion I hadn’t felt in a long fucking time.
I’d had a sleepless night going over all the memories I had of us. All the times I’d loved her, all the times I’d made her laugh and the moment I’d personally ripped her heart out of her by walking away. I’d loved her all those years ago, in a way that I was damn sure only the young ever get to experience. I’d always thought it was a rose-tinted love, it had to be, because I remembered it as being too damn good. In the years that had followed, during days spent in drunken stupors, when I’d often drunk myself fucking sober, I could still remember how that love felt. On my lowest days, when getting so far off my fucking head to blank out the conniving, money-hungry bitch I’d married, it was memories of her that pulled me through. Winter had nearly got me to admit yesterday that I was still in love with her, which I had thought couldn’t be true. I mean, how can you spend so many years away from that person and still say you were in love with them?
But now I knew, after seeing her, that I’d never stopped loving her. I looked up from my feet pounding the rubber matting and pressed the stop button. Holding on to the bars either side of me, I leant forward onto my forearms and inhaled deeply. I inhaled in through my nose and exhaled out through my mouth, as I tried to slow down my breathing in order to concentrate. For a few minutes I observed my reflection, sweat was running down my face and my hair was plastered to my head, but I looked past my façade, stared into my eyes and looked deep into my own soul.
It was true, I still loved her.
I didn’t need to spend time trying to work it out. The brutal truth was, I loved someone who would probably never give me another chance and why the fuck should she? I knew I didn’t deserve her. I had to face facts, I was in love with a woman who’d sworn she was with someone else and had moved on.
I watched my own eyebrow lift in defiance.
I wasn’t willing to accept it, because I didn’t believe her, not for one solitary, fucking minute. After all these years, her body still spoke to mine. She couldn’t hide the way she reacted to me, I’d seen her inhale suddenly and could almost hear her heartbeat accelerate when she’d tried so incredibly hard to remain detached. I didn’t give a fuck who he was, she was mine. She had always been mine and I was back to claim her.
For the first time in many years, I was being honest with myself and it felt fucking good. Now all I had to do was to get her to do the same thing. I was back in the place of my birth to mend some bridges, but with Loz, I was going to have to build the thing from the fucking ground up.
‘Rafferty,’ I heard
I tore my eyes away from the truths I could see reflected in the mirror and turned to see my son staring at me. I couldn’t imagine how Lauren had reacted when she’d first seen him. He was every bit me and thank fucking God nothing of Ashley. His build, his colouring and most of all his attitude, God help him, were all me. Even the way he crossed his arms over his chest, twisted his head to the side and looked through the dark fringe of his long hair. He took people in, like I did. I could see him wordlessly asking me so many fucking questions that I didn’t have the answers to, and the assumptions he came up with.
The truth captured in his eyes was a sucker punch straight to the gut, exposing exactly what he thought of me. It showed me wanting as a dad, and I wasn’t fucking proud to see it there.
‘Hey,’ I replied as I started to move over towards him, offering him a smile that wasn’t reciprocated.
As I drew closer he began to shake his head at me, unconsciously letting me know he didn’t want my company. ‘I came to tell you that Grandma and Pops are here.’
‘Thanks, Flint… Hey, wait up, I’ll walk back with you.’ He shrugged his shoulders at me, like he couldn’t give a shit one way or the other and turned towards the doorway.
I moved quickly to keep up with my son.
I
was thirty-five years old and had made mistakes in my past that I didn’t want to think about.
But it all seemed so clear to me now.
Flint and Lauren.
They were my future and I’d do whatever it took to make it up to them and to get them back into my life on a permanent basis.
The whoosh of the kitchen door closing sounded again, as the staff left with yet more delicious samples of what The Manor was going to be offering to its paying guests. It snapped me out of the thoughts on constant bloody play in my head. The closing of the heavy metal door signified to me, the difference between my life and Raff’s.
I audibly sighed and then looked down to concentrate as I washed my hands. I shook off the excess water, ripped the blue paper from its holder and turned around quickly as I began to pat them dry them. Everywhere was clean, shiny and in order. I glanced over at the last few trays of food left on racks in the large, aluminium space. Everything was going to Winter’s very detailed plan and I couldn’t be happier for her.
I looked over at the closed door and shook my head to dislodge my thoughts, as I prepared to busy myself checking and redoing what had already been done. Anything to keep myself occupied. I dropped the scrunched blue paper into the bin and reached over to turn the radio up a little so I could hear Duffy singing Please stay. It seemed that almost everything they played on the radio today was aimed at me, but I was probably being over sensitive and dramatic. It seemed that Raff still had that effect on me and I wasn’t at all comfortable with the realisation.
I had peeped outside the kitchen a few times since the doors had been opened to the invited reviewers and national papers. The multitude of people in and around the building appeared to be very happy, comfortable and well fed. Winter had done a first-class job. The Manor was already breathtaking, but she had surpassed herself with the finer details of the day’s events. She had chosen decorations and centrepieces that picked up on the opulence of the Victorian era, which was when The Manor had been built for an Earl and his growing family. I knew my friend was brilliant, but after floundering for a few years she seemed to have finally found her calling. She and Amy deserved every success and so much more. All this “leaving school and knowing exactly what you wanted to do with your life” rubbish, had never happened to any of us. I would honestly say that we were only just about mature enough now to know what we wanted to do with our lives. Perhaps the three of us were late starters? Maybe until we hit our thirties we hadn’t felt the deep passion you needed to be certain about what you wanted from life. Or maybe we had all had that deep passion for something when we were younger and it had moved out of our reach? I knew both things had happened to me. I heard myself sigh again and shaking my head I tried to pull myself out of my melancholy thoughts.
Rafferty (Default Distraction Book 2) Page 7