“Well, what then?” I questioned, glaring into his chocolate-colored eyes.
“It’s just that I’m home early, Estelle. How can you be so grumpy at the start of a new day? I thought you’d be thrilled that I was back so soon.”
My eyes shot bullets, cracking the dark windows to his soul in annoyance. “Well, you thought wrong. I’m never thrilled!” I snapped. “And you should have taken your time!”
“Why?” He smiled, unaware of the gremlin who was waiting for him inside. Clearly, David’s morning had started off far better than mine.
“You have a visitor, and the guy is a prick! A prick, I tell you!”
David exhaled slowly, a devilish understanding appearing in his eyes. “Ah. That explains it.”
“Explains what?” I rolled my eyes, tapping my foot into the pebbles.
“I was meant to be meeting my father in the city after a call very early this morning, but he never showed. Sounds like he changed his plans, and you’ve already had the pleasure of meeting him.”
Now it was my turn to look baffled. Surely he wasn’t related to that gremlin? “He’s your father?”
David nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Well, apparently he wants to see you about an Alexander or something?”
David nodded. “Yeah, that’s my brother.”
“Well, enjoy the catch up.” I sarcastically hissed. “I asked him to come back when you were here, but he refused to, so I’ve been putting up with his antics for the last hour.”
David chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Aren’t you going to stay for breakfast? I could cook us something…”
I gave him a look of disbelief, wondering if he had forgotten to take his reality medication. “Nope, I’ve had enough of your father to last me a lifetime! No offense, but the guy is a sod.”
“A sod, you reckon?” David laughed, his beautiful smile almost obliterating the dark clouds above us. Damn, he was so handsome—even without my alcoholic goggles.
I couldn’t help but smile back as I looked up at him and nodded.
David adjusted my coat belt and clutched my hands between his gloved fingers, warming them. “So you don’t want pancakes, then?”
I shook my head, breaking his clasp as I fished into my handbag and passed him some money.
He looked at me curiously. “What’s this?”
I smirked, my simmer disintegrating just slightly. “The money you gave me from last night. The pleasure went both ways, so let’s just call it even, okay? You don’t owe me a dime.”
He laughed. “I’d forgotten all about that part.”
I reached for my phone, scrolling through it, so I could add him to my contacts. “So… what’s your number?” I smiled, looking into his dark, beautiful eyes.
He looked at me blankly. “What?”
I frowned. He was supposed to be smart. “Your cell phone number, what is it? I’ll give you a call sometime…”
“I don’t have one.”
There was his chance with me, done and dusted. Next.
I rolled my eyes, exhaling in utter frustration as my smile turned into one angry scowl. “Fuck, David. If you don’t wanna call me, then you don’t have to, okay? You don’t have to come up with such a lame ass excuse. It’s fine—really. Forget I even fucking asked.”
David stepped back from me, laughing joyfully as his warm breath turned to steam, trickling out of his mouth like he was some sort of happy dragon. “Whoa, there! Watch your language, Miss Price! And, for your information, I’m not lying.”
I pouted, dropping my phone back into my handbag. “Of course you are. Do I look that stupid to you?”
David laughed, placing his hands on either side of my shoulders. “You don’t look stupid at all! I’m telling you, woman, I don’t have a mobile phone.”
“Don’t be absurd. Everyone has one.”
He shrugged. “Well, I’m not everyone.”
My eyes narrowed. “Oh really? Then how, in God’s name, do people connect with you?”
He smiled broadly, showing all his perfect, white teeth. “They don’t—and that’s how I prefer it.”
I tilted my head as I suddenly remembered something that totally blew his story out of the water. “Wait a second, you are damn well lying because you said you got a phone call in the note that you wrote me, so it looks like you should watch your nose, David, because it’s gonna start growing off the edge of your face, you sod!”
“Now I’m a sod?” He grinned.
I laughed, slapping his arm. “Yes.”
“Okay, I admit, I do have a landline number for the house, you know, in case of emergency.”
I rolled my eyes. “So, how am I meant to contact to you, then? Via your landline or smoke signal?”
He shrugged, looking away. “I’ll see you at the station, I presume.”
He was so high and fucking mighty. “Why would you presume anything about me?”
“Because I know where you work, and I know that I’ve seen you many times over these past months, and unless you stop going to work, I presume I’ll see you again.”
“You’re a smartass.”
He shrugged again, looking back at me. “I know. I’m trying to work on it…”
“No you’re not! I think you love being this way. I think you think it makes you appear interesting.” I crossed my arms once again, in protest of him.
He sighed, “You’re probably right.”
I smiled, satisfied for a brief moment. “See? And by the way, you’re not interesting.”
David gripped his heart. “Ouch.”
“Whatever,” I snarled, looking down the driveway at the curled iron gates beckoning me to escape.
“So, when can I see you again?” David called after me as I walked away.
I shrugged. “I don’t know… I don’t know what this is…”
“Meaning?” he called after me.
I stopped and turned to see him staring at me, exactly as he had over the many months at the train station. Fuck those dark, sexy eyes of his. “Don’t look at me like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to fuck me until the end of time.”
He laughed. “But what if I do?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” I snorted. “I don’t know what this is.”
“You’re gonna have to give me more than that,” he chuckled, watching me as he casually placed his hands in his pockets.
“Well, I don’t know whether it’s just sex to you, or something to do with Sophia, or some sick fantasy.”
David smiled, like everything I had just said was some big joke. “Why are you trying to complicate everything? You’re over-thinking.”
I shrugged, pursing my lips. “No, I’m not!”
“Why can’t it just be that maybe I like you, and maybe I’d like to see you again and then again?”
That had me stumped. Life wasn’t that simple.
“Well?” He smiled.
“I’m not used to guys who are like that, so I tend not to think like that.”
David walked towards me very slowly as if he was concerned he would startle the wild animal in his driveway. “I’m not every guy though, Estelle,” he whispered.
I bit my lip, trying to avoid all his sexual eye contact. “I mentioned I was damaged, right?”
He nodded slowly.
“Just be gentle with me; hey, I’m a little bit cray-cray. I’ve got a tendency to just fly off the handle at anything.”
David laughed, taking my hand as he lifted it slowly to his lips and kissed it. “Yeah, I noticed. You’re like the smallest bull I’ve ever met stuck in a playpen, and it’s pretty clear you’re not happy!”
“And you, David, and your gremlin of a father are fucking rude!” I snapped, pulling my hand out of his as I quickly walked through the rusted gates and down the long, overgrown boulevard on the way back to Knightsbridge Station.
“Estelle.”
I ignored hi
m.
“Stell?” David called out louder.
“Not in the mood,” I yelled over my shoulder. Not in the fucking mood. “And… it’s rude to fucking stare! So don’t!” I yelled, breaking the silence as I kept walking without turning once to see his burning dark eyes.
With just one look, he practically incinerated my clothes into a pile of ash under the thick boulevard of trees. But there was no way I was ever going to give him the pleasure of knowing that. As far as he deserved to know, he had no effect on me whatsoever. None.
2
David
I won’t pretend that I skipped up the steps to be reunited with my father. Instead, it was like a painful, slow, one-legged drag as I tried to coax my suddenly resistant body up the front steps, ominous clouds simultaneously building above me.
As the tips of my brown leather shoes reached the bottom of the oak doors, I realized, even with the slowness of my climb up the stairs, now I had arrived at my destination—the firing squad. All lined up to attack me as soon as I entered the house. What a fucking let-down.
Deciding not to delay the battle any longer, I pushed through the heavy door and slipped inside the darkness of the house.
Nothing greeted me but silence. No red faced anger, no yelling, no grenades. Maybe I had the wrong house? Maybe he got tired of waiting and slipped out the back door in hope of a quick hump of Estelle’s leg as she stomped down the road and away from sod-awful me? Or maybe he had died of a heart attack?
“David?” A firm voice called my name, echoing with eeriness as it bounced around the shadowy walls of the house.
No such luck, Dave. Unless that’s his doppelgänger, he appears to still be with us.
I took a deep breath, knowing I would need every particle of oxygen before he tried to suck the living daylight out of me. “Yeah,” I grunted.
“So you’ve upgraded, I see.” My father’s thick, familiar accent wafted down the long, carpeted hallway. I shuddered, hearing his voice again for the first time in ages. Ah, the memories. The dark, exhausting memories.
“What are you going on about?” I called out, taking longer than usual to remove my coat and gloves as I dragged myself down the hallway and into the kitchen where he was sitting, waiting for me at the table.
“Estelle. I thought she must have been Sophia; your mother always told me how beautiful she was. I just naturally presumed that was her.”
“You shouldn’t have presumed. And she’s not a fucking car, dad. Have some respect.”
“She sure has an amazing body, perfect for driving.”
I shook my head. He was still a pig—some things never change. “Why didn’t you meet me in the city like you wanted me to? You’ve got no right coming into my home like this.”
He pushed his chair back with a somewhat satisfied grin on his face. “David, don’t be so septic. I have every right. This used to be my home, boy, remember that.”
I sniffed as I leaned against the entrance of the doorway. “Well, it’s not anymore, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t just turn up unannounced.”
He changed the subject. Typical. “So how’s the piano going? I see the lid is up; have you been playing, my boy?”
“No.”
“Why is the lid up then? You know that’s not good for it, what with the dust and all. You must take care of your instrument.”
I cracked a smile in amusement. Here I was in my thirties, and he was still trying to tell me what to do. Fucking typical. “Why do you care?”
“I care, David, because a lot of sacrifices were made for you to become the pianist that you are today. And you not playing is a slap in the face to everyone.”
I exhaled, wishing I had left with Estelle when I had the chance. Even her hot and cold persona would have been like a holiday in the Bahamas in comparison to spending time with him. “Everyone being who exactly? Have you got names and addresses for all these people?”
He glared at me, shaking his old, ragged face. “Your mother and me, not to mention everyone else at home in Jozi, and the millions who used to come to see you perform.”
I shrugged without saying a word. What do you say to a person without any ears? He had always loved turning the focus on me, whether it was on stage or behind the curtain of my opulent upbringing. They had always interrogated and grilled me about what I was doing with my life. That was rudimentary.
His face began changing color to its familiar angry, dissatisfied, reddish hue. Then the folds in his neck started to wobble as he cranked up the disappointment machine. “You can’t just stop playing because you don’t feel like it, son.”
I smirked. My father was funny. The start of another one of his fits reminded me of the good ol’ fucked up days. “Well, I have, Dad, so it looks like you’re wrong.”
He shook his fist at me; talk about an over-reaction. “You’re a pianist, David; that’s what you should be doing. Playing the goddamn piano! What an utter waste to society.”
I sighed, hoping my hands would magically drop off my wrists and fall to the ground, withering in front of my father’s expectations. “Why exactly are you here anyway? Other than to tell me what a huge disappointment I have been to the family and the entire world.”
“You know why I’m here.”
“You mentioned it was about Alex?” I took a few steps towards the “gremlin,” sitting down across from him as my eyes fixated on his reddish hue.
“David,” he sighed, looking down to his teacup, “mentioning Alexander was the only way you were ever going to agree to see me—we know what you’re like.”
“What are you saying?”
He looked up at me with pure satisfaction, grinning like a child who has avoided bath time for a week.
“So, you being here has nothing to do with Alex?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry I had to lie; we’ve run out of ways to get any sort of a reaction out of you. Alexander was our last resort.”
I smirked, clapping my hands together three times. “Well played, Dad; I’ll remember that for the future.”
He raised his brow at my reaction. “Now, there’s no need to be like that.”
I crossed my arms. There was every reason in the world to be like that. “So, why are you here then?”
“I believe you do know why I’m here.”
The corner of my lip twitched. Yes, I sure did.
“Why haven’t you replied to our letters?”
I exhaled slowly. In front of the firing line was an exhausting place to be. “Do you realize you didn’t even say ‘hello’ when I walked in? What about a ‘How are you, David’?”
I’d lost him. He didn’t even catch the sarcasm. Shame.
“Well? Why haven’t you replied?”
“Because I don’t care, Dad; that’s why. I’ve got enough going on in my life to be worried about your concerns.”
He dropped his head to one side, eyes doused with annoyance. “What stuff? What are you doing now that you’re not playing the piano that could possibly take up all your time? How could you not even have the common decency to write back or pick up the phone?”
I slammed my hands down on the table hard enough to make his cup and saucer rattle. “I’m not three anymore! You can’t keep telling me what to do; I’m not a child.”
“But you’re acting like a child, David; have some sense for Christ’s sake!”
“Where’s Mum? Did you make her wait back at the hotel?”
He glared across the table at me. I guess the truth hurts. He had always been very dictatorial when it came to what she could and couldn’t do.
“She was too upset to come; she’s very distraught over this whole thing, you know.”
I rolled my eyes. That little action of mine had always irritated him, but I couldn’t help myself; I quite liked winding him up if the opportunity presented itself. “You can’t live your lives through me. If you wanted to be a concert pianist then you should have been one, studied, and gone and done it.”
He leaned forward, the chair’s wooden legs scraping over the tiles. “I wasn’t as good as you though, son—you were miles better than me, and then some. In fact, you should thank me for being big enough to say that; a lot of parents wouldn’t.”
Why the fuck did I bother?
Departed (Unbearably Gifted Book 1) Page 9