When We Are Old (If We Were... Book 2)

by Anna Bloom

  Of course, I knew where she would be. Angela didn’t live that far away, and it made sense for Ronnie to go to someone she knew. I mean, maybe in dreamland she’d go to my mam’s if she wasn’t sure or we’d had a row—but I guess in my head that worked but it wasn’t a reality.

  The Carlings were too much, I knew that, but I also knew I’d tried to leave them before, and I still lived with the regret of that.

  Hugo woofed in the back of the car and I turned to tell him to shush. The boys watched me wide-eyed. I had one more call to make before I went and knocked on the door of the tatty old tenement. “You boys sure you understand?”

  Jack nodded again but Ewan pursed his lips. Then he sat up straighter and met my eyes. “Yeah, Dad. You love Ronnie now.”

  “Yeah, Ewan, I really do. And I’m sorry this is all so fast for you guys, but I was very honest with your mother a long time ago.”

  Ewan inclined his head. “I know. I used to hear you rowing.”

  Crush my soul and serve it as a starter. “I’m sorry for that, mate, I really am. But I want you to know what happiness is, and I think I can show it to you now. I need your help though. Just like we discussed.”

  He grinned.

  I pressed dial on my phone and waited for it to pick up. “Julie, it’s me.” I stared through the window looking for any signs of Ronnie in the downstairs flat. I just hoped she hadn’t got on a train again.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  I looked back at the kids again and Jack gave me a double thumbs up. This hurt. I never wanted to use them as pawns of a divorce. That was all on Julie.

  “Julie, we aren’t coming. Okay. I’m sorry if you think we can still go for family holidays, but we can’t.”

  “Matty,” she twisted my name. “Come on, this is silly. Daddy is lending us his villa. You know how much the kids love it there.”

  “Julie. We're divorced. I’m not happy going to your dad's place, and nor should I be going anywhere with you.”

  “Oh, but you need me, Matty, you know that. What else are you going to do with those boys for the whole holiday?”

  The way she said those boys made fire burn bright in my veins. I turned, gripping the phone tight and looked at them both, and the stupid dog.

  “Actually, my girlfriend is here for the holiday. You would have known that if you’d contacted me at the beginning of the week when you were supposed to come and get the boys. Now I'll keep them until the schools return.”

  My blood pulsed hot and fast.

  “You can’t do that. They are mine. You can’t have them with a new girlfriend. That’s not been agreed.”

  “No, Julie. What’s not been agreed is you palming them off on various relatives and friends when you need to get your hair done, or your nails done. Now they're with me. We're going to have some fun.”

  “Oh please. And tell me, does your new girlfriend know you’re a greengrocer of a shop that isn’t even open?”

  I laughed and, shit, it felt good. “Julie, she’s the one who came up with the idea. I’ll speak to you in a week.”

  I hung up and then turned back to the kids. “Sorry, lads, she’s your mother, and you should love her with all your hearts and respect her; but I need to make a claim. You' re mine; just as much as hers, if not more so.”

  “How so, Dad?” Ewan asked. Jack yawned and dropped his head onto his brother's shoulder. No! This wouldn’t do. I needed them awake for my master plan.

  “Who do you think changed all your nappies?”

  ‘Youuuuu.” Jack’s eyes dropped.

  “Who wipes your bonny arses now?” I grinned.

  “Youuuuu.”

  “Okay. You know the plan. She’s in there. We need her outside.”

  Ewan unlocked his seatbelt. “So are we acting like orphans in Oliver Twist?”

  “What do you know about Oliver Twist?”

  “Lots. We talked about him at school.”

  I nodded. “Good. Get her in the car, otherwise its gruel for the rest of the holiday… and no sweets.”

  That got them moving up the path. I’m not such a shit dad I didn’t have eyes on them the whole time.

  Ewan pressed the buzzer and then while they waited for the answer to the door, they both got down on their knees. In their pyjama’s it couldn’t look more perfect.

  Ange came to the door and dropped her gaze to the boys, her lips quirking under the illumination for the security light. She glanced up at the car and slowly shook her head at me. ‘Pathetic,’ she mouthed, but then grinned. “Oh, Veronica, it’s for you.”

  I held my breath as Ronnie’s shadows distorted in the hallway of the tenement. She gasped, her eyes flicking between the car and them. “What are you boys doing? You shouldn't be kneeling on the pavement in your pyjamas.”

  “We need you,” Ewan started the speech we’d practised on the drive on the way over. “We know it’s crazy, and loud, and the house doesn’t have enough bathrooms,” he lurched off the script. “but… Hannah shouts, and her face is mean, but we like her watching telly with us and making dens.”

  He hesitated and Jack jumped in. “We like it when Daddy smiles, it makes my heart turn pink and gooey like a girl. He’s fun when he laughs and makes his face all squished up with wrinkles.”

  My throat tightened, strangling me.

  “You think I make Daddy smile?” Ronnie got down onto her knees, peering close to Jack.

  “You do. Even Nanny said it. And Uncle Liam said he was a miserable bastard until you turned up.”

  Ange laughed loudly. Ronnie swiped at her cheeks. “You know, we can’t stay forever, not yet. Hannah has school to get back to and I have my job.” Ronnie’s gaze lifted and rested on me in the car.

  Ewan nodded. “We know. That’s why we're going on holiday.”

  Ronnie’s face dropped. Did she really think I would go away with Julie? How had I not made that clear. “I’ll miss you then.”

  “No.” Jack tugged on her arm. “We're going away with you. A family. Blended, Daddy called it, like a milkshake.”

  Ronnie’s shoulders sagged and her focus trained on where I sat. Shaking her head, she turned to Ange who shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’ve given you my advice,” another shrug, “It’s up to you what you do with it.

  Just then Hannah came out, phone still glued to her hand. “What’s going on? Jack, Ewan? What are you doing? Those are your best pyjamas, Jack.”

  She was right, they were. I loved the fact that she knew this about Jack after only a few days. My heart pulsed and expanded, making room for her to fit in, even with her moods and eye rolling.

  I pushed open the car door and stretched out. “Are we going on holiday or what?”

  Ronnie’s cheeks coloured. “I should have knocked and come in.”

  “Aye, should have, but I understand. I know you.” And I did. I knew her with more detail and care than I had ever known anything. So I also knew I had to not mess this up. She’d run, scared by her fears at the first sign of difficulty she'd found.

  Which made it my first job in life to make being with me the easiest thing she’d ever done. How I’d do that, I didn’t know.

  All I did know was that there was the perfect cottage waiting for us, ready for me to make a start.

  Perfect

  Ronnie

  “Is there any way Liam will let us stay here forever?” I curled into Matthew’s side, pushing all the best bits of me into the best bits of him.

  He’d set the alarm extra early, just so he could wake me up the very best way. God, had it been the best way.

  “So you’re not angry about the early morning wake up anymore?” He smiled a kiss into my hair.

  “God, no.” I stretched my toes, my legs weighed heavy. I’d been undone in the very best way. Thank goodness for robust Scottish furniture making and soundproof flagstone flooring. “Having a teenager walking around is not helpful for the love life.” I chuckled and pressed a kiss against his chest. T
he man was a legend. My heart was pounding so damn fast I could barely hear the roll of the sea that had been our backdrop the last couple of days.

  Everything about this was perfect.

  Him, me. The kids, all behaving and trying hard.

  In the seaside town we were a complete family, far away from our real lives.

  I pushed another kiss and then another, travelling down his glorious body. And glorious it was. Heavenly. I got why now. Matthew ran like the bloody clappers. He’d been out along the stretch of shoreline for a good hour long run every day since we’d arrived, normally back and showered before I rolled out of bed.

  Not today though. Today I was the exercise.

  And let’s praise the lord for that.

  Another kiss and I swiped my tongue along his stomach, revelling in the grooves of my favourite landscape.

  “Ronnie,” he whispered, catching my hair as I moved further south. I ignored him though and carried on my journey until I nestled under the duvet between his legs. He smelled of morning sex and cotton sheets and as I skimmed my lips along his hard-on I relished in the warmth and familiarity we now had.

  All of this was unlike anything I’d ever known. Beyond any dream I’d ever have dared to spin.

  I tasted us together as I glided my mouth around him and hollowed my cheeks.

  Together we tasted divine.

  The thought lanced me out of nowhere, blindingly clear, and once it settled in my head I couldn’t shake it out.

  My period.

  Usually Godzilla and I were synced in some unfortunate twist of events, but hers had gone… but days later… oh God.

  “Ronnie?” I’d hesitated my movements, suspended as possibility twisted around me in the seaside bedroom.

  No. I couldn’t have been.

  I pulled away, ready to pull back the blanket and tell Matthew, when he froze beneath me, his big hand mashing my face close to his groin.

  “Hey, buddy?”

  Oh shit.

  “Where’s Ronnie?” Jack sounded sleepy and I could imagine him in his dinosaur pyjamas, rubbing his eyes, looking all cute and sleep ruffled.

  “She’s getting breakfast.” Matthew’s chest rumbled beneath me and I tried to lay as small as I could in a ball.

  “Oh.” Jack pondered this for longer than I found comfortable, stuck as I was with my nose against Matthew’s balls. “I need a poo.”

  I clamped my lips together hard.

  “Okay, buddy. You go along and I’ll come to wipe, but remember what Ronnie’s been teaching you about wiping, you just have to keep trying until the paper is clean.”

  Oh God. My lungs couldn’t take anymore.

  Matthew uncovered his legs and I launched out from under the duvet gasping for breath. “I’m dying.” I clutched at my stomach. “I’ve just seen more of your hairy scrotum then I need to in this life or the next.”

  He clutched me close, his laughter brushing against my neck. “That was a tad uncomfortable, aye.” He pressed a kiss to my temple and scrambled from the bed while I fell back on the mattress, grinning at the ceiling.

  Could life be more perfect than this?

  Him and I, all levels of crazy, early morning wake-up sex and arse-wiping.

  My laughter died as quick as it rose, because I knew that no matter how much my heart needed this, revelled in, sank into every perfect moment we could capture and create I knew it wouldn’t last.

  This was a holiday and I didn’t know what our norm could be.

  “How did you know I’d be at Ange’s?” I clutched his hand as we walked the harbour wall. Over on the sand, the boys showed Hannah how to look for crabs under rocks. Every so often her scream split the air and she ran with her arms above her head. Every time she did it, Matthew’s eyes danced in the sunlight.

  “You’re asking me after we’ve been here for three days?”

  I sighed. Three days of perfection. Reading my sigh, he pulled me around and caught my face softly in his hands, cradling me like I was a rare gem he was scared to lose. The sun slanted across his face, his dark hair lifting in the breeze, the strands of black lit with unexpected fiery hues of red. His lips lowered to mine, dark lashes fluttering against his cheekbones, and I held my breath, filled with an expectation that could make me explode. A deep and never-ending wanting that ate at my bones until I was weary with the needy ache.

  “Marry me.” His question slipped into the air, rushing out to sea and mixing with the salt and brine in the air.

  My chest heaved, caving with delight. I gasped a lungful of air, wide eyes meeting his.

  With all my heart a yes pounded within me, it rushed in my veins, desperate to hit the surface and make itself known.

  Another kiss, firmer, pushing for entry. I opened my mouth, his hot tongue slipping against mine, one of my favourite things. He cradled my head, tilting me with a mastery that made me a puppet in his hands.

  I shivered, my body igniting against the fresh air.

  Peppering dots of love onto every edge of my mouth, he smiled against me. “Marry me,” he whispered into his little kisses.

  “Matthew.”

  I could see it so clearly, me and him forever. Him with his boys, in the kitchen, Hannah looking at him with that vague level of respect she never turned in my direction. And maybe I could imagine on the kitchen counter a baby monitor, its lights flashing red, and Matthew’s smile as he turned and said, “I’ll go.”

  It would be so easy.

  If four hundred miles didn’t separate those dreams from our reality.

  I glanced over at the girl running on the sand. Ewan set chase waving a spade dangling vibrant green strands of seaweed.

  “I used to be scared of your silences, but now I know what to read in them.” He turned my face, using a gentle finger to make me meet his gaze.

  “Matthew, it’s not that easy.” I wanted to tell him about my blow job revelation, that we should probably go to the chemist on the main street and find out what we’d done, but I held back, muted by the intensity of his gaze.

  “You gave me this, to be your best friend.” He pulled back the light wool of his jumper, pushing it up the muscles of his forearm. I watched in horror as he slid his finger under the faded strands of cotton I’d once plaited together one distant rainy afternoon. We'd been laying on our tummies on his bed, the future stretching before us in an unknown.

  “Don’t break it,” I cried, but too late. He snapped it so easily, I could only wonder how it had stayed on there so long.

  “So you gave it me to be your best friend.” He unravelled a strand and then lifted my left hand wrapping it around my ring finger. “I give it back in the hope of being so much more.”

  Breathless, I looked up into his eyes and within the depths of heaven and slate I saw every single thing I’d ever wanted.

  I nodded. My words lost, maybe never to be found again.

  “I love you.” He pulled me in tight, kissing the top of my head.

  “And I love you.” And we might be having a baby, or it could be early menopause. I didn’t know. I thought either of them could be equally bad, and how would we do this, be us, be all of this and live in two different places?

  I didn’t say any of it. I snuggled into his chest and breathed him in.

  “Come on. I think Hannah needs dunking in the sea.”

  “Ohh.” I chuckled. “She’ll never forgive you.”

  His smile stole my breath. “Course she will.”

  I chased after him onto the sand, all my cares lost in the wind.

  “Liam’s chasing about McDougall.” Matthew wiggled his eyebrows at me across the kitchen table.

  “I don’t want to talk to Fred while I’m on holiday.”

  Or maybe at all.

  My cheeks heating, I dropped my gaze to my empty plate. I’d eaten everything and had seconds. I knew I was reading too much into it, but nonetheless, I still hadn’t had the conversation. Didn’t want to. Call me an ostrich, but I liked my head i
n the sand while Matthew laughed and looked so carefree in this little cottage.

  “But you love Fred.” Matthew arched an eyebrow. “If I remember correctly, you got very territorial about him and said,” he folded his arms over his chest, “‘he’s very talented you know, I had to fight for him’.” I laughed at the poor mockery he made of my voice.

  “That’s rubbish.”

  “Aye, but you get my drift.”

  “I said I’d give him more responsibility. If I call and check-up while I’m away, it looks like I’m not doing that.”

  “True.” Matthew’s gaze lingered on my face. “But you’re the ‘Boss Lady’.” His fingers quoted the name Fred had given me.

  My cheeks turned inferno hot. “Do not call me that.”

  Matthew laughed and grabbed his wine glass, tilting it in the light and watching the ruby red liquid cling to the glass. I took a miniscule sip of my own—stupid I know.

  He looked glorious in the kitchen, a thin navy sweater pushed up to the elbows. His dark hair was swept back, his eyes bright, smile easy and disarming. His wrist was now strangely bare without the cotton I’d placed there. I glanced at my finger, my heart tangling with my newfound hand furniture.

  “He told you, didn’t he?” he asked.

  I glanced up from my hand and met his gaze.

  “Told me what?” Why did my voice have to choke like that?

  “That he liked you. Maybe more.”

  “No. Don’t be disgusting.”

  Matthew laughed and stood from his chair, leaning over to kiss my mouth with a gentle press of his own. “It’s cute. I know; it’s written all over his face.”

  “I thought you,” I also finger pointed for good measure, not wanting to be left out, “were a jealous guy?”

  He laughed loudly and sipped his wine. “I have nothing to be jealous about. He’s not your type.”

  “Oh really? What’s my type?”

  “Me.” His eyes danced, and I fell under their wordless spell, nodding slightly without even wanting to. “Paul wasn’t your type either. I might have only seen him a few times, but I knew.”