Walking to the box she’d pointed out, I checked the sender’s address and smiled. Danny had come through for me, like he always did, but I couldn’t believe he’d paid for overnight freight on it. Then again, knowing Danny it would probably come off my next pay cheque.
The sight of the parcel made me think about the team. The time off, reconnecting with Alyssa—even if we were still a little up in the air—it all felt fantastic, but I was also ready to go home. I was ready to return. In fact, with the newfound knowledge of Alyssa’s upcoming move, I was actually anxious to return to Sydney.
We could begin again there—together. I wanted to celebrate the progress we’d made. I wanted to shout from the rooftops that Alyssa and I were going to be together. The sentiment was fucking miles ahead of where we actually were, but I was certain we would get there. Our date had been proof of that. Despite the disasters, we’d managed. We would manage. We would face the world together.
The love that still existed between Alyssa and me despite the hurt was evident in everything we did. It would overcome our issues, I was sure it would.
Then there was the chemistry. That was going to kill me before long, but the exquisite torture was worth it. I wondered how much longer I could be in her presence without dragging her to the bedroom, caveman style.
In fact, just thinking about her filled my mind with visions of our time together—and what visions. It was hard to believe that we’d only been together twice. I’d slept with a couple of casual flings more than that. But Alyssa was no casual fling, and she was worth waiting for.
Every second of our time together was etched permanently into my memory, whereas all the other girls melded into a blur of remorse. If I could take back every one of them I would, but I couldn’t. All I could do was prove to Alyssa she was all I ever wanted. All I would ever want. And I had a few ideas of how to do it.
Pulling open the box that Danny had sent, I grinned at the contents. A note rested on the top of the pile with Danny’s handwriting.
All organised for Saturday as requested.
At the sight, I desperately wanted it to be Saturday already. The thought brought me back to the present, to the secrets Mum and Alyssa were hiding. I took the parcel down to my room and dropped it on the bed before heading back out to Mum. “I’m going for a shower. I need to go to Alyssa’s later to get my shirt.”
“Okay.”
“And Saturday’s definitely okay?”
“Definitely.”
I walked straight into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Something was happening and it was starting to get on my nerves. Why were they trying to hide whatever the fuck it was? I showered and dried off as fast as I could.
Wrapping the towel around my waist, I walked back into my room to find some clothes, formulating a plan as I went. Mum had said “he” wouldn’t be here. I knew she wasn’t referring to me because Alyssa knew my plans. There was only one other he I could think of, and I needed to know why it mattered whether Dad was here. I dressed in a pair of slacks and a short-sleeved shirt; I needed to be presentable for a visit to the city.
When I walked back into the kitchen, the glass was gone from the counter. It was an additional indicator that something was wrong—Mum always cleaned when she was nervous.
“I was thinking about talking to Dad about some possible investments. Is he free on the weekend?”
“No, he’s going away for business tomorrow night. He won’t be back until Tuesday,” Mum said, with a degree of caution. I think she was waiting for the “inevitable” explosion and demands that she tell me what was going on.
I wasn’t going to give her that though. It was clear I’d get more information through subterfuge than outright honesty. “Oh, that’s too bad. I guess I’ll have to go into his office to talk to him. I really wanted to get this sorted.”
“Sure thing, dear,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to fit you in. Just give the office a call first and make an appointment. He’ll be glad to know you’re willing to start doing something with your money.”
I resisted the eye-roll. There was a fucking team of brokers that worked for Sinclair Racing and handled that shit for me. I was sure they were ten times better than any two-bit banker could be—even if that two-bit banker was my father.
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to call first,” I said, knowing full well I wouldn’t.
“By the way, Alyssa said she’s free whenever you are ready, if that means anything to you.”
I nodded. Although I was glad she’d called early to ask me over—it meant she was as anxious to see me as I was to see her—I couldn’t see her just yet. She’d asked me not to push her about the situation with Mum, and I wanted to respect that request, but I knew if I went over there right away, I would push her. Whatever was happening, I had a goddamned right to know. It was easier to wait for a few hours until I had it sorted before going to Alyssa’s.
And I would fucking get it sorted.
“If she calls back, can you tell her I’ll be over later? I just have some errands to run first.”
Mum’s gaze shot to me. “Errands?”
“Oh, you know, I still need a couple more outfits if I’m going to be here until I’m due back for testing.”
“When’s that?”
“January.”
“You’re staying until January?” Mum asked. Her shock was clear in her voice. It occurred to me that we’d never discussed exactly how long I’d be in town for, and I hadn’t really asked for permission to stay.
I dropped my head, suddenly worried that maybe she wouldn’t want me around for that long. “Yeah. Well . . . I mean . . . if it’s all right with you, I’d like to.”
She walked over to me, placing one hand on either cheek and pulling my face down to look at her. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want. I just didn’t realise you’d be here through Christmas.”
Christmas? Holy fuck. I hadn’t thought about Christmas. I felt the colour drain from my face.
My first Christmas as a father.
My first Christmas with a family.
How the hell was I going to do that? Would Alyssa expect me to dress up as Santa and all that shit? Would we have to spend time at her family’s house? The thought of it terrified me. Alone with Josh and “killer” Curtis. Worse—Ruby. I knew I would have to face them all sooner or later, but frankly later suited me just fine.
Before I could go into panic mode, I cut off the thoughts. Christmas was still a month and a half away, I could worry about it then. For the moment, I needed to focus on the here and now, otherwise I risked screwing things up with Alyssa again. In the here and now, I needed to find out what the fuck was going on between Alyssa, Mum, and Dad.
“Well, if that’s settled,” I said, stepping out of Mum’s grasp, “I’m just going to go . . . run those errands.”
She furrowed her brow at my evasiveness, but just said, “Sure.”
I climbed into the hire car to head into the city. The smell of the vomit was worse than it had been the night before. Winding down all the windows, I hoped to get some fresh air through the car.
As I turned onto the motorway, the wind swept through my hair. I drove for all of ten minutes before I came to a grinding halt in the last dredges of peak-hour traffic. The sun beat through my windscreen and I cursed myself for the clothing choices I had made. Not that I’d had much choice in the matter, with my limited supply.
I glanced over at the car next to me to see someone staring slack-jawed through their window. Once I’d glanced in their direction, they waved frantically and the passenger rolled down their window.
“You’re Declan Reede, aren’t you?” they shouted across the divide between our cars.
Fuck me. During my time in Sydney, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be anonymous. My time in London and in Browns Plains had almost brought it back to me. Especially the last few days with Alyssa. I’d felt normal again—just a boy trying to woo his girl. It was nice. I had
n’t realised how nice until that moment, sitting in a car that was the equivalent of a fishbowl. A small, Barina-shaped fishbowl at that. All around me, people’s gazes seemed to light up with recognition. I sank deeper into my seat, trying to hide away from them.
The worst part was that I hadn’t thought to remove the child seat, so it was sitting in the back of the car as evidence of my new life. I could almost hear the thoughts of everyone around me as they pondered the development. The gossip mill was already starting to grind around me. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I wanted to avoid that part of my life coming anywhere near Alyssa or Phoebe. I had two choices: I could either leave the windows down and endure the stares, or wind them up and allow the lingering smell of vomit to cycle through the air-conditioning. Either way, I was going to be stuck in traffic for a while yet and both choices had their drawbacks.
In the end, the sun made my decision for me. By the time the traffic had crawled halfway into the city, it was too fucking hot to have the windows down any longer. Sighing, I raised the windows up and set the climate control, adjusting it to as low a temp as I could. Ducking my head, I let the cool breeze from the vents run through my sweat drenched hair. When I caught sight of myself in the rear-view mirror, at the mess my hair had become, I tugged my hand through it a few times to try to tame the unruly strands, but nothing seemed to work.
After a while, I gave up and simply rested my head in my hand and leaned my elbow against the driver’s window, contemplating just what the fuck I was doing. Yeah, I was heading into the city, but to do what exactly? Walk up to my father’s work and ask him the questions I was dying for an answer to? Could I do that? Should I?
I flicked the radio on to distract me. If I allowed myself to overthink it, I might never find out what was going on. I’d never know why Mum didn’t usually have Phoebe on the weekends. Why Alyssa had called to check that it was okay, and why Mum had needed to reassure her.
The car inched forward along the highway and I felt my courage dissipating a little more with every passing minute. The radio did nothing to quell the doubts creeping into my mind or the sick sensation in my stomach.
My phone rang loudly in my pocket and vibrated against my leg, causing me to startle a little. I gathered my bearings, pulled my mobile from my pocket, and pushed Answer before flicking it on to speaker.
“Hello?”
“Declan. It’s Dr. Henrikson. I’m calling for our appointment.”
“Oh fuck, Doc, I forgot.”
He chuckled a little. “Is now a convenient time? Or would you like me to call back?”
“No, now’s fine. Or at least, it’s as good a time as any other.”
“Perfect. So what would you like to talk about today?”
I rolled my eyes. Where do I begin? “You’re the shrink. You tell me what we should talk about.”
“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about Alyssa?”
She was a topic he’d been itching to discuss in Sydney, and I’d always shut him down. His constant prompting to talk about her was the reason I’d stopped seeing him. No matter how many times I’d told him she was off limits, he wanted to know more. Now, he’d get his wish. “Like what?”
“How did you meet?”
“At school.” Even though I’d decided to be an open book, it was hard to put into words everything that Alyssa and I had once shared.
“Just ‘at school?’ Won’t you elaborate?”
There was no point in evasion. If I was serious about trying to get better for Alyssa—for Phoebe—I needed to talk as honestly as I could. With those thoughts burning though me, I told him about the first time I met Alyssa, when we were six—how she was a walking contradiction and I’d been immediately enamoured.
“And then what happened?”
“Then we became friends. For about eight years that’s what we were. Friends. Best friends. We shared everything. Barely a day passed when I didn’t see or speak to her.” It was confronting, recalling exactly what Alyssa and I had once shared. I didn’t think I could articulate exactly what we meant to each other—even back then, long before we discovered our mutual attraction, long before girls stopped having germs—Alyssa was always there for me. According to all the other boys back then, I’d been risking cooties every time I spoke to her, but I never cared.
Just thinking about it all made me want to smile, and made me want to cry.
The beep of a horn behind me reminded me that I was driving. Lost in the past, I’d tuned out and the traffic had moved on. In fact, it was gaining speed. I pressed down on the accelerator as I continued to talk to Dr. Henrikson.
“She was there for me through everything. No one else knows this, but there were quite a few nights when we would sneak out after everyone was asleep and meet at our park bench. It was never planned, but somehow we both seemed to arrive within minutes of each other. I don’t know how to explain it, Doc, in fact it probably makes me sound like a fucking looney, but it was like we were linked. Like we could communicate without words.”
“That doesn’t sound unreasonable. Many people would say they have a similar connection with their partners.”
“Maybe, fuck, I don’t know. All I fucking know was that whenever I needed her she was there for me. Always. And I was always there for her . . .” I stopped. I couldn’t continue on that train of thought, because it wasn’t true. I hadn’t always been there for her. The opposite was true—I’d deserted her during the one time she needed my support most.
“What are you not telling me, Declan?” I should’ve known better than to assume the doc wouldn’t hear my pause.
“I abandoned her,” I choked out. My eyes stung and I was finding it hard to concentrate on the road ahead of me. I watched the taillights of the car in front as carefully as I could and followed their line.
“When?” Dr. Henrikson asked in a strangely calm, almost hypnotising voice. “How?”
“When I moved to Sydney . . .” I couldn’t say any more. There were no words to explain the shame I felt. A sob ripped from my chest instead.
“Declan?” Confusion laced his tone, and it was easy to understand why. He’d heard me rage, and scream, and swear, and argue. He’d never once heard me cry.
“I fucked up, Doc.” Another sob ripped out of my chest but the tears were merely swelling. None had fallen yet. Thank fuck. “I fucked up real bad. So bad that I don’t even know how to begin fixing things. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t left her . . . God, things might be different now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry, Doc. I . . . I can’t . . .”
“Would you like to stop for today?”
Did I? I felt like it was cheating Alyssa if I didn’t complete the session, but I couldn’t keep going either. At least, not while I was driving. I was already finding it difficult to even see the car in front through the tears that hazed my vision. Eventually I found my voice enough to manage a small, “Please.”
“Declan, you know I would like nothing more than for you to clear the air on every issue. But you must do it at your own pace, or it could be counterproductive. If you feel something is too difficult to discuss, we can approach it another day.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“Would you like to pick this up tomorrow, same time?”
I didn’t think I really did, but I knew I would have to talk it over with him eventually or else I might as well kiss any hope of rekindling with Alyssa goodbye.
“Please.”
“Okay, we’ll pick this up at the same time.”
I knew he would still charge me for the full hour—and for the cost of the phone call—but I didn’t care. I needed to get off the phone.
Throwing my phone onto the passenger seat, I bit my lip to fight off the tears that were still threatening. Once again, I felt dangerously close to a panic attack. Doing everything I could to turn my mind off the ways I’d let Alyssa down and get back in control of myself, I weaved through the traffic as quickly as I coul
d before taking the Elizabeth Street off-ramp. Parking in the city was always expensive, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about public transport when I was finished my meeting with Dad.
I glanced down at the clock on the dash, it was just before eleven. As I drove along Elizabeth Street, my heart thudded in my chest. I’d completely forgotten that the Suncrest Hotel was right above the car park I’d been aiming for.
The fucking Suncrest Hotel.
The last time I’d been there was when disaster struck.
When I left Alyssa.
The night of our school formal.
I hadn’t stayed at any Suncrest hotels since then, but this one in particular I couldn’t handle. Focusing on the car park entry, and only the car park entry, I was determined to get in before I broke down. It was all too fucking much.
I ripped the ticket from the machine, glad they had the unmanned booths now. The boom gate opened and I drove underneath. Without even looking at what parks were available, I headed straight for the bottom level, twisting around the ramps and corridors without letting myself concentrate on details. I only stopped when I saw a group of unoccupied parks clumped together in one spot. After I’d pulled up, I slammed my fists against the steering wheel in frustration. Why the fuck had I come here? Ugly reminders of the formal were everywhere I looked. Every level of the fucking car park was the same—each one looking exactly like it had been when I’d had to drag my sorry arse from the hotel room after Alyssa had left.
Every agonising second of that dreadful walk rushed back into my mind. What should have been a short walk to the car with Alyssa at my side on the best morning of my life had instead felt like a funeral march after the death of our relationship. I couldn’t even feel satisfied over the fact that we’d made love for the first time the night before. In fact, I felt sickened at the fact that it happened right before our break-up.
I recalled with perfect clarity how, somewhere between the lobby and level P3, I’d resolved that regardless of anything else that might happen, I would win Alyssa back. That I wouldn’t run away and leave it as we’d left it. I’d hoped that with a little space, we’d come back together to discuss uni and my contract with Sinclair Racing again, and come to some sort of compromise. Of course, when I’d reached that resolution, I hadn’t counted on Josh waiting by my door to beat the shit out of me.
Deceive (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #2) Page 9