The Same Time (Time Series book 2)

by Brona Mills

  ‘I still don’t like this.’

  David stands up. ‘Well, I do. I’m not going to risk a past where you need my help and I can’t be there for you.’

  ‘You said there was more than one. How many did you build?’

  ‘Three. Liam and Caitlyn have one each.’

  ‘Because they were at the dinner Liam saw in the future?’

  ‘Yes. Liam thinks Caitlyn needs as much guidance and experience she can get with this so she doesn’t get lost.’

  ‘There’s a possibility you might get lost there?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s why Liam wanted one last trip around the equator, so Caitlyn can orient herself with the centre of the earth. If she can feel it and gravitate herself to certain locations, she has a chance of controlling where she ends up if things go wrong.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Including their unscheduled stop over in Blackpool.’

  ‘What are they doing there?’

  ‘Liam wanted to show Caitlyn the pub he saw. In case she ends up there. She’ll have a better feeling for her environment.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you have gone too?’

  ‘That isn’t my concern. Liam’s nervous. He’s covering all bases, just in case.’

  ‘Including running off to get married after a whirlwind romance? They’re scared this might be the end for them,’ I tell him.

  ‘They’re in love.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean they’re not scared, though, right?’ I walk out of his room and down the stairs towards the kitchen. ‘Why don’t Audrey and Mike get a cool watch too?’

  ‘Mike never travelled before, so he needs to stay in this timeline, like he always does. And Audrey always got on fine without interference from us on that level.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. If she doesn’t get home in one piece and Mike finds out about this.’ I tap the glass on the face of the watch. ‘He might just kill you,’ I whisper. ‘We should speak to Audrey.’

  He looks at me, then turns to the freezer and pulls out ground coffee.

  ‘I tried to yesterday. We were shopping in Cici’s and I saw that cardigan she wore. The blue one, with the white trim. Cici just had a delivery. I held it in my hand, staring, knowing this whole situation might unravel without any of our influences and Audrey saw me holding it. She’d already picked out the black Capri pants and she snatched it out of my hand so enthusiastically. When she was in the dressing room, I got the ballet pumps from the shelf I already knew she’d buy, and the black vest to match and my heart sank. I knew I was going to have to give her some sort of warning. That she might hate me, that she might not believe us. But I have to tell her. She needs to leave here tomorrow with some sort of understanding of what’s happening to her.’

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll do it now.’ He grabs his keys. ‘Tell Max we’ll re-arrange golf next week, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I whisper.

  He catches my chin between his thumb and finger and pulls me in for a kiss before heading out the door.

  My fingers linger over my lips as I keep the taste of David with me as long as I can. Since having him back these past few months, I don’t take the little things for granted. I turn off the social media apps on my phone and take a book from the living room back to my house. I need a rest from work these next couple of days, and Abigail is on call to cover any emergencies that might occur for Mike or David, in the career context anyway.

  I twist my watch around on my wrist and throw the last of the baking crockery into the dishwasher. It’s nearly midnight and I haven’t heard from David all day. Things either went really well or really bad. Who the hell is going to believe you when you tell them you might start time travelling tomorrow and to mentally prepare yourself. I wonder how much information about him and Mike he managed to pass on. And me and Max. I tap on the favourites icon on my phone and the call buttons for Max or David appear for me to choose from. I hit David and wait with the phone on speaker.

  ‘Shit, Stella. The phone just scared the crap out of me.’ David’s voice is hoarse.

  ‘Did I wake you? Why the hell didn’t you call me before you went home?’

  ‘I’m not home. I’m sleeping on Mike’s couch. I thought that was him calling.’

  ‘Why are you sleeping there? Did Audrey take it that badly?’

  ‘Fuck. Oh, Stella, I was sure you had seen it on the news. I was going to call you, but the girls have been stuck to me all day. They were pretty shaken up, so I was trying not to make a big deal out of it. I’ve been on movie and popcorn duty all day.’

  ‘What was on the news?’ I march into the TV room and toss cushions on the floor, searching for the remote.

  ‘Andrew was in an accident in the pool.’ David’s voice wavers. ‘It was bad. Mike pulled him out, but, Stella, his little body was so limp. We revived him, and the paramedics took him to the hospital. Audrey and Mike went with him. They’re waiting on him to regain consciousness. I think this is the reason she goes,’ he croaks softly through the phone.

  ‘When Nathan came back and Audrey helped us, she said something to me. And there was something in her voice, even then I could hear it, like a mother’s prayer. She knew. She knew she was there for something to do with protecting her son.’

  ‘She never told us about this.’

  I pick up my coat and keys and close my front door behind me.

  ‘Why wouldn’t she try to warn us?’

  ‘Maybe she forgot. She must be in shock right now, and the trauma of time travelling along with a car crash she’s about to be in must be pretty intense.’

  ‘We have to make sure that when she travels this time, she remembers exactly what happened to Andrew, so she can warn you guys better.’

  ‘I know,’ he tells me.

  ‘I’m on my way over. I’m going to call Max to sit with the girls. Time is running out.’

  My heels echo on Mike’s foyer while I pace back and forth waiting for Max. I keep glancing at the top of the stairs, hoping I don’t wake the girls.

  ‘We have no idea when we’ll be able to speak to Audrey alone.’ David looks at his new fangled atomic watch. ‘It’s already two a.m.’

  Shit, I need to give him my watch. What if I don’t get the chance later?

  He stretches on the foyer couch. ‘Liam and Caitlyn’s honeymoon was supposed to be over yesterday.’

  ‘They were delayed getting out of Manchester. They should be landing in another couple of hours.’

  ‘What if they miss it?’

  ‘They won’t. They don’t. It’s always been this way. I’m going to leave Liam a voicemail.’ He swipes his phone and brings it to his ear.

  I hear a car pull up and I open the door to greet Max on the driveway. The passenger door opens and Abigail gets out.

  ‘Mom.’ Max wraps his impossibly big arms around me and kisses my cheek. ‘I picked up Abigail on the way in case you need us to run any errands. That way we’ll have someone here with the girls overnight.’

  I smile at Abigail in her sweats. ‘This is going above the call of PA duties.’ I pull her into a quick hug. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  It takes David less than a minute to finish his voicemail.

  ‘All set?’ David asks.

  ‘Sure.’

  Max gives him a hug. ‘Tell Mike and Audrey we’re thinking of them, okay?’

  I look between my two men and hope I can live in a reality that I get to have both of them in my life.

  ‘I’m going to take my own car as well,’ I tell David. ‘Meet you in the parking lot?’

  ‘Okay.’

  When we park at the hospital, I open my door and the fresh air is sobering in the dead of the night. I run my hands over my arms, and we jog into the hospital. David pushes the call button for the elevator. When the doors ping open, he places his hand on my lower back and allows me to enter first. My heart starts beating again at the bottom of the valley. One bruise is healed, our relationship, but I feel like
we’re starting at the bottom again with the threat of what might await him on his travels. When he lets his fingers linger until he is fully inside the elevator with me, my heart is trying its damn hardest to stand up and claw its way back up the cliff.

  ‘I have something for you.’ I pull out his belated birthday present. ‘I know now doesn’t seem like the right time to give it to you, and now you have your own one, but you need it.’

  I slip the watch out and gently slide it over his left hand. He glances out of the corner of his eye when I push the watch over his hand and adjust it around his wrist.

  ‘You bought me a Rolex President?’ He stares at the thing like it might change into something else if he takes his eyes off it.

  I shrug and step back. ‘It’s for your birthday. It just took me a while before I felt like I had the right to give it to you. Just so you know, I always felt like your wife.’ I lower my voice. ‘I mean, I know I’m not.’ A laugh escapes me. ‘I just need to start adding up all the girls you were fucking since we separated to know that we weren’t together. But sometimes, I forgot. And that’s what hurt the most. I would have got you something for your fortieth, but we weren’t together then, and it made me sad that I couldn’t get you something special. I see something in a shop, or a commercial, and the idea barrels into my brain and I think, “Oh, I’ll get that for David, he’ll love that.” The sentence is formed in my head and my hand is reaching for my purse to pay for it, and I have to remind myself that you weren’t mine to buy things for.’

  ‘I didn’t fuck nearly as many of them as I let you think.’

  My laughter starts in my belly and pushes out of my mouth despite me trying my hardest to keep it in. ‘That’s the most romantic thing you’ve said to me in years.’ We exit the elevator into the canteen and head towards the back of the room.

  ‘I’m assuming you have a plan? It didn’t go too well when I tried to speak to Audrey this morning,’ David says.

  ‘We need to wait here as long as we can.’ I sit in a seat at the corner of the room with a view of the door, but far enough in the back so we won’t be seen. ‘Mike will get them coffee eventually, and that’s when we speak to Audrey on her own.’

  ‘He’ll try to stop her.’

  ‘I know. That’s why you drove here. When Mike tries to chase after her, you need to make sure you drive with him. You can slow down the pursuit, give Audrey enough time to get onto the freeway. It happened there, right?’

  ‘Probably. Based on the information Audrey managed to remember over the years. And the force of impact, it’s the best location we’ve been able to come up with.’ He taps on the other watch Liam has made for them.

  ‘And she said she was arguing with Mike before the crash? Which means she knew what was happening, and she chose to get in the car.’

  ‘She must believe us when we tell her it could save Andrew.’ David looks at the ground. ‘Didn’t work this time, did it? We never managed to stop it.’

  ‘Maybe we can this time.’

  I take David’s hand and glance at his new watch. ‘It’s two-thirty. The crash is around eight a.m., right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We need to keep an eye on the door and when Mike comes in here, we sneak out and speak to Audrey alone.’

  David leans back in his seat, the small action manoeuvring the loose grip I have on his wrist out of my hand.

  ‘Hey, want to pass some time?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yeah?’ He rests his feet on the blue plastic chair on the opposite side of the table.

  ‘Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?’

  He smiles. ‘You. I’ve missed too many meals with you. I always did miss you, I was just . . .’

  ‘Broken? You told me that a few times.’ My voice cracks.

  ‘Grieving,’ he corrects and wraps his arm around my shoulders. ‘You know in theory, this should only take forty-five minutes. But knowing us, it will take up most of the night.’ He kisses my head and passes me a pile of napkins. ‘Just in case you need a tissue. Now tell me, who would your dinner guest be?’

  When Mike enters the cafeteria at seven-thirty in the morning, I nudge David from his snooze in the plastic chair. We slowly gather our phones and belongings and quickly exit the side door. David points to the elevators and pushes the button for the fifth floor once we’re inside.

  ‘Do you know what room Andrew is in?’

  ‘Yup.’ He checks the brown plastic signs stuck to the wall for directions, and I follow the patterns of balloons and stars painted on the wall of the children’s ward. I pause outside the room and glance at Audrey through the checker glass. David doesn’t notice my hesitation and knocks once while opening the door.

  ‘We have a conversation that needs to be finished,’ he says harshly while checking his watch.

  I wonder if he would be more sympathetic if time were on our side. Or if Audrey wouldn’t have looked as panicked if she realised everyone’s lives were just bouncing off of each other. I don’t know where the intertwining changes started, or if any of us could ever survive without each other.

  Monday, February 29, 2016

  David takes a pen from the end table and pushes back Audrey’s sleeve. He writes the word Andrew on her forearm after he has given her a bombardment of information on what’s about to happen to her.

  ‘You have to make sure you don’t forget this time. There’s so much about to happen, that your mind will have a hard time adjusting to everything. I think you were suffering from some PTSD. Your son nearly died. You have just found out that you hold the key to the theory of developing time travel and you’re about to experience it. You might not make it back home safe, and you’re going to be alone out there. We’ll be there, but we’re younger, and we don’t know you. You need to be cautious with what you tell us, but we need to know enough, and when you leave on Michael’s thirtieth birthday it’s the last time. We need to know to look out for Andrew. We can stop this from happening. It has to be the reason any of this ever happened to you. There has to be a reason.’

  I look up from Andrew wired up to machines on the bed, everyone still waiting for him to wake. ‘You have to do whatever it takes to protect your son,’ I repeat the words she spoke to me many years ago. I dangle my keys in the air, knowing I’m dangling an opportunity for her to save her son. It wouldn’t be an option she would risk giving up. She’s going to try, just like she always did.

  She snatches the keys out of the air as she passes by me. ‘Look after him while I’m gone,’ she whispers.

  ‘Always,’ I tell her.

  ‘What if Andrew being in this accident needs to always happen? You said that the big things always happen for a reason. So, did we just send her into the past, knowing that she’ll still forget what happened to him?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s a possibility Audrey and Mike need to believe.’ David paces between the foot of the bed and the window with his hands on his hips. ‘We need to get Mike back here.’

  ‘Isn’t it too soon? He’ll go after her, try to stop her.’

  ‘That’s exactly what needs to happen. We need to be behind her. Once our travels are over, we should return to the car where we left. We expected that Audrey was only ever gone from this timeline for a leap second, we can help her after the crash. No one else will expect it. There will be panic.’

  ‘She’s going to get hurt.’ I say. ‘Was it bad?’

  ‘From what we seen over the years, her head injury was pretty bad. When she appeared to us the last time . . .’ He gulps

  ‘That’s what Liam’s supposed to do, be there to help you guys.’ I take a step towards him and dip my hand into his jeans pocket, pulling out his phone. I find Mike’s contact info and hit the call button, handing it over to David. I pull a chair over to the side of the bed, staring at Andrew sleeping. My heart tightens and I force a breath out. Please, just make sure everyone comes back from this, I pray.

  ‘It’s do
ne. Stella and I have told Audrey everything she needs to know.’ I hear David choke into the phone.

  He glances at me and Andrew, still on the call to Mike. ‘There has to be a reason for all of this, Mike. We have to play our part.’ He sits on the chair at the opposite side of the bed, and takes Andrew’s hand in his, stroking the top with his thumb. He drops his phone from the side of his ear and lays it on the bed.

  It takes a few minutes before the door is flung open. Mike’s been running. Of course he ran. He knew exactly what was about to happen to the woman he loves, and he would do everything to stop it. Unlike me, I’m sending the man I love off to the unknown so he can save me and my son. It’s selfish. It breaks my heart. But I need him to save Max.

  ‘Audrey’s gone,’ I tell Mike. ‘She took my car.’

  He punches the door frame and I’m glad it wasn’t my face. I would’ve deserved it. I know exactly how it feels to watch the person you love disappear every year. ‘You drive a fuckin’ mini.’ He spins to David, screaming, ‘If you want to give her a chance of surviving this, you could have given her your bloody jeep.’

  ‘We can’t change anything. Remember when I told you not to set anything up with the charity? I was trying to see if I could change the timeline. I already knew you were her husband and thought if I could delay the charity setup until after you met Audrey, we would have a chance at changing other things in the time line. You wanted to change it too. But because you didn’t have all the information, you ended up doing the exact same thing you always did. Liam’s been trying to change things ever since he got here, and he can’t do it. Even the fake info you gave Audrey about moving to New York, or that fake first movie you shot in college, it was always misinformation. We can’t change anything, ’ David tells him. ‘You are one of the important people, Mike. We can’t change your life or the effects on everyone else would be too great.’

  ‘Audrey wanted to try and save him,’ I point to Andrew in the bed. ‘She had to do whatever it takes to protect her son.’ We both do.

  ‘Stay with Andrew,’ Mike spits at me.