by Jewel, Bella
“The party?” He made no attempt to hide the incredulity in his tone. “Luke introduced you at his party, right?”
I nodded my head. Without taking his eyes from me, Liam added, “I asked her to go out with me on following Saturday night, we’ve been seeing each other since. I fell in love with your sister, and I’m not sorry. I’m not even sorry that I’m not sorry”
“You’ve got a fucking wife.”
“I’m divorcing her.”
“So why did she turn up at my place tonight and tell me that you’re trying to make a go of things. That you got back together before you left Australia and were trying to work things out?”
“She’s lying.”
“Lying?” Will and Luke both questioned at the same time.
For the first time since I stepped into the room, Liam took his eyes from me and pierced Will with them.
“And tell me again what the fuck any of this has to do with you?” Liam asked as Will silently stared at him. Sash caught my eye, and we both shrugged.
I felt so incredibly tired. I lived a relatively drama-free life. The last month was the most excitement I’d ever really had, but tonight? Tonight had been horrible, and I wanted it done and over with.
“We’ve been seeing each other a month,” I answered my brother’s original question. “Now we’re done. How many times do I need to spell it out to you, Luke? I’m twenty-two years old, I’ll date, go out with, and fuck whomever I like. I’m not a child. What I am, at this moment, is very tired. So I’m gonna go to bed now. I don’t want any of you following me up there.”
I turned and left the room to the sound of Liam calling my name, and Luke asking, “She’ll fuck who she likes? You fucked her? You’ve been fucking my sister?”
I slammed my bedroom door shut, crunched across the floor, and got back into bed. I could hear shouting coming from downstairs but not the sound of anything breaking. Once I was sure everyone was behaving, I retrieved my iPod from under my pillow and popped in my earphones and clicked play.
The first song up was Rihanna’s “Unfaithful”.
Of course it was.
Feeling hollow, empty, and totally broken-hearted, I switched the song to repeat and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 16
I watched Sarah leave in silence, but when Will rose to follow her, I found my voice.
“Where are you going?”
“To see if she’s okay.”
“No. You stay right the fuck where you are. I know what you’re doing, and if you think for one minute I’m just gonna sit here and let it happen, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Are you sleeping with my sister?” Luke asked through gritted teeth.
“None of your fucking business.” I stood up, intending to go try talking to Sarah again, but then thought better of it and sat back down. “Actions spoke louder than words,” she’d said, well, I’d give her both, I’d give her everything. I’d show her, and I’d tell her what she meant to me. I’d be up front, honest, and totally transparent with everyone involved.
“I love your sister, Luke. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is. She’s not what I was expecting to find when I got here, and she certainly isn’t what I thought I wanted, but there ya go. We’ve spent a month sneaking around until we were sure of our feelings. We didn’t do that to piss you off, we did it because if it wasn’t going anywhere, then Sarah didn’t wanna be causing any friction between you and me.”
My head ached, and I felt almost overwhelmed with frustration at the night’s turn of events.
“We came to your house to tell you what was going on tonight, and instead, we found Olivia there.”
This is the part where I was worried things would all kick off again, and I was as shocked as shit when Luke actually remained fairly calm as I explained what happened with Olivia before I left for England, the claim that she’d made in his kitchen and the ultimatum she’d made before she left.
The room was silent for a beat before Luke responded.
“She’s pregnant? Jesus, Del.”
“Unless she’s lying about it, yeah, but it’s not mine. I used a condom, there is no way that baby’s mine.”
“So why’s she here? I don’t get it, surely she doesn’t expect you to just believe her and skip off back to Australia with her?”
“D’ya know what? I actually think she did.” I went on to explain the threats that Olivia had made and that I intended to ignore them. Luke was aware of what was at stake with my divorce, and he understood the reasons for me blanking Sarah in front of her.
“I had no clue I was gonna come here, and things would happen the way they have with Sarah, but even without her in the equation, I shouldn’t have gone there with Liv.”
“So Sarah knew you were married? Before tonight, she knew?” Sasha asked.
“I told her Saturday that I was married but separated. I wasn’t totally honest though, and that’s why she’s so pissed off.”
“You didn’t tell her about fucking your wife before you left Australia?” Will asked.
I swear if that fucker said one more word, I was gonna knock him out. I took a deep breath in through my nose.
“No, Will. Like I said, I wasn’t completely honest with her, but you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
We both stood.
“What the fuck is going on with you two tonight?” Sasha asked.
I didn’t wanna call Will out in front of Luke, but he was pissing me off with his judgemental holier-than-thou attitude and comments.
“Oh my fucking God.” Luke stepped away from the windowsill he’d been leaning against.
“It’s her. It’s Sarah. The ‘it’s complicated’ girl. It’s my sister, isn’t it?”
Will’s shoulders sagged, and his cheeks turned pink, instantly making me think of Sarah. For just a split second, I’d almost felt sorry for Will. Then her image popped into my head, with her one dimple and flushed chest, neck and cheeks, and it was back to game on. He was my competition and had feelings for the girl I was in love with, so any thoughts of sympathy were gone, buried, forgotten.
“I don’t fucking believe this. Both of you? My business partner and my best friend, you both have a thing for my sister. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. What about you?”
He turned to Sasha. “You got anything to tell me? You got a secret crush on my sister too?”
Sasha gave a one-shouldered shrug, a small smile and said, “no, it’s just about the sex, there are no feelings involved.”
We all stared at her for a few seconds, and I’ll be honest right now and admit, I went there. Despite the tension and the gravity of the situation, just for a split second, an image of Sarah and Sash getting it on flashed through my brain. Pretty sure it was the same for the other two blokes in the room too.
“I don’t have feelings for your sister. I’m in love with her,” I clarified.
“It goes deeper than that,” Will said at the same time.
The whole room fell into silence again for a few seconds. Sasha’s joke doing little to relieve the tension.
Will eventually turned and headed into the kitchen. The layout was open plan, so he didn’t have far to go. I listened to the sound of him filling the kettle and flicking it on. Typical POM, when everything goes to shit, make a cup of tea.
“Does Sarah know how Will feels about her?” Sasha asked. Apart from her attempt at humour, I’d never known her to be so quiet. She’d hardly said a word since threatening to take out our kneecaps. She sat with her legs curled underneath her in the corner of the sofa, and a blanket pulled over her legs. Luke moved from the window and sat down beside her. I raised both my shoulders in a shrug.
“I’m not sure. I told her that I thought he liked her, but I’m not sure if she took it on board. I think she thought I was joking.”
“How did you see it and I didn’t?” Luke asked.
“I didn’t see it before now either, but a few of the comments he’s
made in the past suddenly make more sense,” Sasha added.
“You two probably weren’t looking for it. The night of your party, even before we were introduced, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Because I was watching her, I noticed that Will was doing the same.”
“Seriously, Del, she’s my little sister. I really don’t wanna hear this.”
“You asked,” I protested.
“Yeah, well, pretend I didn’t. If I ask again, ever, ignore me.”
“So, does she know everything now? Have you told her that your wife’s pregnant?” Sasha asked.
“She ain’t my fucking wife. She’s my ex-wife, and yes, well no, not really.”
“You didn’t tell her?” They both asked.
“Is there a fucking echo in here? No, I didn’t actually get as far as saying the words. Someone smacked me in the face and put me on my arse before I could tell her everything.”
“You’re lucky that was all I did. I’m not done with you, so don’t for a minute think that you’ve got away with your bollocks remaining intact just yet.” I rolled my eyes at Luke as I sat down in the armchair that Will vacated.
“How’s your nose?” I asked.
“Broke, you fucker.”
“Good.”
My eye was throbbing, and I couldn’t see a thing out of it. The split in my lip stung every time I spoke, but at least my nose had stopped bleeding and didn’t feel broken. My jaw hurt, though.
We stared at each other for a few long moments. Luke spoke first.
“What a fucking mess.”
“Understatement of the century,” Sasha said, her eyes straying to the kitchen area where Will was standing with his back to us.
“I better check on Will, make sure he hasn’t necked himself out there. Who wants a drink?” Luke asked.
“Now I know that I won’t be sucking it through a straw made from my own dick, I’ll have a beer, thanks.”
Luke rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin and jaw and looked like he was thinking.
“No, your beer’ll be served with Will’s dick as a straw, because he’ll be using yours to stir his tea with before I shove it so far up his arse it’ll look like he has three eyes in his head, except the middle one will be a bit squinty.”
“I can hear ya, you pair of fuckers,” Will called from the kitchen.
We all laughed.
“Ouch,” Luke and I groaned, both of us pressing fingertips to our split lips.
Luke headed to the laundry room where the spare fridge containing beer was kept.
“What are you gonna do?” Sasha’s voice pulled my attention to her.
I shrugged.
“I love her, Sash. I’m not giving up.”
“You’re gonna have a battle on your hands. She hates being lied to.”
“I understand that, but I’m ready for the fight.”
“Bring it on,” Will called from where he sat at the kitchen bench.
“I wasn’t talking to you, fuck face, and they’re my Hob Nobs you’re eating there by the way. Sarah buys them especially for me. How’s that make ya feel?”
I watched as he slammed his hand down, crushing the entire packet of biscuits.
Luke reappeared, threw me a bag of frozen peas, and passed me a beer. I pressed the peas to my eye and the bottle to my lip.
I desperately wanted to go upstairs and check on Sarah, but I knew she needed time. I was assuming that she’d worked out that I was telling her that Olivia was pregnant, but I still needed to talk to her.
“Can I stay here tonight?” I asked. “I didn’t get to fully explain the situation with Olivia, and I’d really like to be able to talk to Sarah in the morning before anyone else does.”
“You’re not staying here,” Luke stated. “You both stay the fuck away from her, you let her come to you.”
“She doesn’t even know that I like her, fuck that. I’m not staying away. I’ve sat back and waited long enough. Unlike some, I put our friendship before my feelings for your sister, I’m not waiting anymore.”
I opened the beer and took a swig so I could distract myself from the urge to get up and arse fuck Will with the bottle as he sipped his tea.
“You want your face to look like his?” Luke asked him
“Try it, motherfucker. Just fucking try it.”
“Children! Seriously. Enough with all the testosterone. No one is staying here tonight. In fact, you can all fuck off right now. I’m knackered and want my bed. You can fight about this all night, but you won’t be doing it here. I’d like you all to leave. Please.”
“Fine with me. Tell Sunshine I’ll speak to her tomorrow.” Will pulled out his keys and swung them around his index finger. “You wanna lift?” He tilted his chin in Luke’s direction, ignoring me.
Luke stood. “Yeah, I’ll grab a lift. Del?” He looked over at me.
“Nah, no room for him,” Will told him, heading for the door without looking my way.
“No worries, I’ll get a cab, or maybe stay.”
They both stopped in their tracks.
“You’ve got thirty minutes, Delaney. If you’re not at my place by then, I’ll be back here to drag you home by the balls if I have to.”
I didn’t bother replying. The front door closed behind them, and Sasha and I sat and stared at each other in silence.
“Well, I think he took it rather well,” she eventually said with a completely straight face. I pressed the beer bottle to my lip, trying and failing to stop it from reopening as I laughed.
“Her room’s a fucking mess,” I said quietly. “I hope she doesn’t get up in the night, she’ll cut her feet to ribbons.”
She smiled at me, her big brown eyes shining. She looked as exhausted as I felt.
“You really care about her don’t you?”
“Have you not been listening? I love the girl.”
“But you’ve only known her a month.”
“I know, it’s fucking mad. It’s been the most intense experience of my life.” I swallowed down the sudden ball of emotion that had made its way from my chest to lodge in my throat. “She quite literally knocked me off my feet the very first time I laid eyes on her. She’s had my head spinning ever since then.”
Sasha nodded as she listened to me talk.
“She’s easy to love.”
“She is,” I agreed.
“She’s as tough as nails and as fragile as a butterfly’s wing, all at the same time.”
Sasha’s analogy made my belly do somersaults.
“What do I do, Sash? How do I get her to forgive me?”
“Don’t do what you did tonight.” Her dark eyes met mine. “I don’t wanna take sides in all this, but I know how much she likes you, and I don’t think she’ll ever feel that way about Will. He’s been too much like a brother to her for too many years now. She’ll never see him any differently, so just ignore his comments. She’s not one for grand gestures or the type of pissing contest that was going on here earlier.”
“I didn’t want any of that to go down the way it did.”
“You should also know that she loves Will and she won’t wanna hurt his feelings. She loves Luke and his approval matters to her, no matter what she said earlier.
“I don’t think there was a chance she was gonna ever whore around town, but having Luke looking over her shoulder while she was growing up has probably stopped her from experiencing all the things your average twenty-two-year-old should have.”
“I’m fine with that,” I told her. I liked the fact that she was so inexperienced. I couldn’t wait to teach her new things. Especially since I’d had a taste of how she behaved once she really let go.
“I bet,” Sash said with a smirk. “I think Sarah’s just fundamentally a good person. A good girl.”
“I dunno about that . . .” Thinking about the way she’d come around my fingers in the shower and over my tongue in our bed.
Our bed. It was my turn to smirk.
“Yeah, I’ll take y
our word for that.”
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it from my pocket.
Luke: 10 minutes, fucker, then I’ll be tying your dick to the exhaust of my car and dragging that suntanned Aussie arse thru the streets back to my house. LEAVE MY SISTER ALONE.
Followed by
Luke: NOW!!!
I waited to see if another threat would roll in, and when it didn’t, I shot off a quick text back.
Me: Waiting for a cab, arsehole.
“Can I just pop up and check on her?”
“Nope.” Sasha exaggerated the p sound with a pop, as if to emphasise the fact that I wasn’t getting anywhere near Sarah tonight.
I could’ve gone across the road and stayed at the flat, but I knew by doing so, I would just piss Luke off even more, plus, I had no clothes there for the morning. I reluctantly called a cab and went home to Luke’s. My weekend ending so differently from how it’d started.
Chapter 17
I called in sick the next morning. My head was banging, my eyes were puffy, and my throat was sore. I both looked and sounded terrible. I had told my boss it was the flu as I figured he wouldn’t pay me sick leave if I’d have told him I was suffering from a severe case of heartbreak.
There was a note from Sasha sitting on the kitchen worktop when I finally forced myself to get up and make coffee. All it said was for me to call her when I woke up. I took off my flip-flop and picked a piece of red glass out of it while I waited for the kettle to boil. “Sorry, Betty,” I apologised.
My poor lamp. My poor bedroom. My poor heart. All stomped on, smashed, and broken.
My phone vibrated in the pocket of my favourite Carnage hoodie I’d pulled on over the top of my pink pyjamas.
Will’s number was displayed on the screen. I didn’t need his sympathy or puppy-dog eyes this morning, so I set my phone down and proceeded to make my coffee.
A text message shortly followed.
Will: Hey. Hope ur doin' ok after last nite? Can we meet up 2day, I really need 2 talk 2 u?
W x
“No, Will, I’m not okay, and no I don’t wanna talk,” I said aloud.
I didn’t respond to his message because then he’d know that I’d ignored his call, instead I sat at the breakfast bar in my kitchen and stared into my coffee cup, feeling . . . what? What was I feeling exactly? Heartbroken? Was that what I was? I hadn’t ever experienced heartbreak before, so I wasn’t sure.