by T L Swan
He sits on the bed. “I’ve got all night.”
“I’m not doing it with you listening, Brock.” I get out of bed in a rush and storm into the bathroom. “I can’t believe that you even think that I would.”
He storms into the bathroom behind me. “Oh, you better believe it. We can drive around to his house if you’d prefer.” He nods as if processing that thought. “Yeah. Let’s do that. Let’s go and see him together. I want to meet this fucker, anyway.”
I turn the shower. “Have you gone fucking crazy?”
“All week I’ve been going fucking going crazy, Tully, thinking you were with him.”
I scowl and get under the hot water. “You’re an idiot. Why would I be with him when I was calling you every minute of the day? He lives in Melbourne and he’s going to London. I haven’t been with him for eight months.”
He crosses his arms and glares at me.
“What?” I snap. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t do the jealousy thing, Brock.”
“I do.” He growls. “Get fucking used to it.” He storms out of the bathroom and I hear him go downstairs.
I close my eyes as my heart beats hard in my chest. Simon was never jealous.
Not once. God, Brock’s like another species of man entirely, one I’m not used to.
I take my time to shower, and then I put his robe on and head downstairs. I find him lying on the sofa pretending to watch television. I know that Simon is in the air flying to London, so I’m going to let him think that he won.
“Fine, I’ll call him now,” I say.
Brock snaps as his eyes stay glued to the television.
I bite my bottom lip to hide my smile and I dial the number. I hate to admit it but having a guy getting jealous over me feels kind of hot. The phone rings.
Oh shit, what if he actually answers?
You have reached Simon Austin.
Your call is important to me.
Leave a message after the beep.
Have a nice day.
I smile as I hear the message. His voice is such a contrast to the aggressive message on Brock’s machine. I wait for the beep.
“Hi, Simon, it’s Tully. I really need to talk to you. I’ll call you back tomorrow night.” I glance over at Brock, and he raises his chin in satisfaction, thinking he’s won that argument.
Little does he know I’ll be calling Simon tomorrow when he’s not around.
There is no way I’m having this conversation in front of Brock.
I hang up. “Are you happy now?” I ask.
He pats his lap, and I smile and crawl over to him, curling up in a ball when he kisses my forehead. “Don’t fuck me around with him, Tully. I won’t stand for it.”
I snuggle into his chest and I can feel him begin to relax. “I’m not going to, Brock. There is no need to be jealous. I’m a one-man kind of girl and I’m with you now.” I kiss his chest.
He puts his pointer finger under my chin and lifts my face to meet his. “I don’t do things in halves,” he whispers. “If I’m in, I’m all in.”
“I know.” I smile softly, and I have to wonder if this is the reason he has never gone down the girlfriend path before. Maybe all in has always been too much for him to take. “How about you put that big dick all in?” I whisper as I widen my eyes to lighten the mood.
He smirks and then pulls me over his lap to straddle him. he looks up at me as I brush his dark hair back from his face. We fall silent and just stare at each other.
“I really like you.” I smile softly.
“You’d better.”
I wake to the feeling of a large erection in my back. Brock is nestled against me.
“Good morning, Tully Pocket.” His lips drop to my neck.
I reach back and cup his face. “Good morning.” I smile. “Is that thing always hard?”
“Only when it’s around you.”
“Hmm.” I smile sleepily. “Smart dick.”
He kisses my shoulder. “Genius, actually.”
I giggle as I roll onto my back. “And what does your genius dick have to tell me this morning, Mr. Marx?”
He looks down at me with his big brown eyes, his face alight with mischief. He looks so playful. I run my fingers through his thick hair, and then down over the dark stubble on his face. “He just wanted to check on your girls.”
“My girls?” I frown.
“Yeah. You know? Your party girls.”
He cups my breast and then runs his hand from my knee up to my thigh where his fingers find that spot between my legs. He circles at just the right pressure. He pats my sex, as if I am supposed to know what that means.
My brows rise and I giggle. “My vagina is my party girl?”
He nods slowly with a naughty grin. “One of them.”
“What’s her name?” I smirk.
He narrows his eyes. “Princess Pussy Porridge.”
“What the hell?” I burst out laughing. “Porridge? What the hell is porridge.”
He chuckles as he bends and takes my nipple into his mouth before moving on to trail kisses down my stomach. “The breakfast of champions, that’s what it is.”
I smile goofily as he pulls my legs back to the mattress and sucks hard.
My breath catches instantly and I’m rendered speechless.
“Feed me, wench.” He growls as he bites me, and I laugh, resting my hands on the back of his head.
God, this man is simply delicious.
I tap my pen on my desk and stare straight ahead. I’ve gone over the conversation I’m about to have at least a hundred times in my head this morning.
Simon, my beautiful Simon. The man I swore to love for all of eternity, only to develop feelings for another man just eight months later.
Am I doing the right thing? I am, I know I am, but how do I know that being with Brock is what’s right? Is he just Mr. Right now? How do I know that my feelings for Brock are real and not just an infatuation with the way he makes me feel?
When I’m with him, I feel desired and excited, young and wild. What I know I should have been feeling all along.
Maybe I’ve just been hypnotised by Brock’s magical dick, because I’m pretty sure it has supernatural powers. Huge, sweaty, spine tingling powers that make me forget my name or that any other man ever existed.
Callie’s words from the other day come back to me.
You don’t want to be with Simon, but you’re too gutless to break it off with him. Unfortunately, I know she’s right. I haven’t travelled as much as I thought I was going to. I haven’t done much of anything since Simon and I broke up. Not like I thought I was going to, anyway.
I’m supposed to be going to Hawaii next week, but the friend I was going with can’t go anymore meaning I had to plan to go alone. But when all this shit went down with Brock and Simon, and my confusion over my feelings, it all just seemed too hard. The thought of going to another country on my own when I was in turmoil about Brock was too overwhelming, so I cancelled it. Another decision made on impulse. Is this an impulse decision too?
Rourke interrupts my thoughts. “Have you seen the sample from Lab A?” he asks.
I frown. “What was it?”
“I had a few strands of hair that was found in the hand of the body from the docklands this week. It wasn’t hers. I checked it yesterday, but when I went back to run for DNA just now, it’s not there anymore.” He scratches his head as he looks around.
“No.” I stand. “Where was it?”
“I left it in the file. It was there yesterday before we left, I know it was.” His voice is rising as his panic begins to set in.
“It was bagged up?” I ask.
“Yeah, of course it was.” He looks through the file. “Can you see if somebody has checked it out?”
I log onto the computer and type in the evidence file number.
Item 2778 Forensics Pending outcome
“Shit, no, it says it’s still here.”
Rourke begins to get agitated and flicks thr
ough the file case envelopes at double speed. “Where the hell is it?” he whispers angrily. “If I’ve lost it, I’m going to get fucking fired.”
“It’s okay, well find it.” I begin to help him look. “Where were you yesterday when you were looking at it?”
“I was in Lab A. I checked her DNA against the hair and it wasn’t a match.”
“Okay.” I shrug. “So, where did you go then?”
He frowns as he retraces his steps. “It was home time so I bagged it back up and put it into the filing system so I could work on it today.”
“Under its case number?”
“Yes, of course under the fucking case number. Where else would I have put it?” he snaps.
“Okay. Don’t get angry with me, it’s not my fault,” I say quietly. I begin to go through the filing system drawers while he turns the lab upside down.
Two and a half very stressful hours later there’s no evidence to be found
Rourke picks up the phone and dials down to forensic reception, putting the call on speaker.
“Michelle, did anyone sign out any evidence yesterday?” he asks in a rush.
“Hang on, I’ll check.” I can hear her typing before she comes back to the call. “No, there were five lots signed in, but nothing signed out.”
“Fucking great.”
“What’s up?” she asks.
“Item 2778 is missing.”
“Hmm. Call down to the officers handling the case. Maybe they forgot to sign it out.”
“Yeah, okay.” Rourke sighs. He flicks through the notes to find out who the officer is. “Thanks.” He dials down to the station. “Hi, Charlie, can you put Andrew on, please?”
“Andrew is on leave until Friday next week.”
“Can I have his cell number? I have to speak to him urgently.”
“Sure, but I know he left to go to Bali on a surfing trip this morning. I’m not sure you’ll be able to reach him. Anything I can help you with?”
Rourke screws up his face, and I slap my forehead. What are the chances?
“Do you know if he signed out an item yesterday and forgot to log it?”
“I don’t know, man. I doubt it, but it could happen. I’ll check if anyone else signed it out. What’s the item number?” Charlie asks.
“2778.”
“Okay, I’ll track it down.”
“I’ll take the number anyway,” Rourke says. He listens and then scribbles the number down.
“I’ll find it, leave it with me.”
“Okay, thanks.” Rourke hangs up and nods as he tries to calm himself down. “He’s probably got it.”
“Let’s hope so.” I sigh.
My phone begins to vibrate across the table, the name Simon lighting up the screen. My heart sinks.
“I’m going to take this call outside,” I tell Rourke.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Hi, Simon.” I smile as I walk towards the elevator.
“Hello, Tully.” His calm voices soothes me. “Everything okay?”
I get in and push the button to the ground floor. “I just really needed to talk to you. How was your flight?”
“Yeah, it was long. Horrible, actually. Thank God for the minibar.” He sighs.
I fake a smile as I walk through reception, out into the garden.
“Simon, we need to talk.”
“Okay?” He pauses for a second. “You sound serious.”
I sit on the park bench. “I am.” I close my eyes as I try to remember how the conversation went in my head.
“What?”
“Si… you know when you met that girl and you started doing different things?”
“Yeah.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. I really don’t want to hurt him. “I met someone, too. Remember? I was telling you about him.”
“Okay.”
God, I hate this. “And the thing is, Si, I’m a bit confused about how I feel about us now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I know we love each other. We will always love each other, right?”
He stays silent.
“I just don’t know if we are in love with each other anymore.”
“Is it serious? Between you and this other guy?”
I close my eyes. “Not yet.” I hesitate. “But I feel like I want it to be,” I whisper.
He stays silent.
“I tried to stop seeing him this week and…” My voice trails off.
“You promised me this wouldn’t happen, Tully.”
“Si.”
“You fucking promised me.”
My eyes fill with tears as I hear the hurt in his voice. “I know, baby.” I shake my head as I try to articulate my thoughts. “That girl you met, did you feel… close to her?”
“No. I feel close to you.”
I close my eyes.
“I’m getting on a plane and coming home.”
“No!” I snap, knowing I just have to say it out loud. “I don’t want us to be back together, Simon. I don’t want you to move in with me when you get back.”
“What?” he cries.
“I don’t think we’re meant to be a couple anymore.” I stand and begin to pace. “I saw you with that girl, Simon, and I saw how happy you were. Maybe you don’t even realise it yet, but you will.”
“You’re just confused, Tully.”
I shake my head as my tears fall. “No.” I swipe my tears away angrily. “I’ve been confused for twelve months. I think I finally know what I want,” I whisper.
“Him?” he snaps. “You want him? After everything we’ve been through, you think you want a complete stranger over me?”
“Just think about it. We don’t miss each other. We’re seeing other people. You’re happy in bed with someone else and so am I. This is not normal behaviour for people who are supposed to be in love, Si.”
He stays silent once more.
“If you were only meant to be with me, you’d be heartbroken that I was seeing someone else.”
“Tully…” He sighs sadly, and I know I’ve hit a nerve with him. He knows that, deep down, I’m right.
“Simon, I know that we had our whole future planned out, but I think that you need to let yourself imagine a different future without me.” I smile a sad smile for no one but myself. “A future where we can be friends and you can be madly in love with someone else. I can be happy knowing that you’re happy.”
“I love you, Tully.”
“I love you, Si.” I close my eyes, the lump in my throat no longer letting me speak.
“Do you love him?”
I frown. “No.” But somewhere deep in my subconscious screams that I’m a liar.
He remains silent again.
“This isn’t about him, this is about us.” The tears roll down my face. “And the realisation that we don’t make each other feel the same way we used to make each other feel,” I say softly.
“And he does?”
Silence hangs between us.
I cringe, waiting for him to speak, but nothing comes.
“Say something,” I whisper.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me that you understand,” I plead.
“What? Understand that you fell in love with someone else?”
I promised him this wouldn’t happen. I promised myself that this wouldn’t happen, so why the hell did it? How did I let it get to this?
The pain feels just like the day I left him and moved out.
Raw and deep.
“I’ll never understand that, Tully,” he whispers. “I love you.”
All at once, the line cuts off and I know he’s gone. I drop my head and sit for a few moments as I try to process what I’ve done. My heart is beating hard in my chest. This hurts so much. I get an image of Simon and what he could be doing now, and I feel sick. I really do care deeply for him and I can’t stand the thought of hurting him. I stare out over the park in front of me, my tongue darting out to li
ck my lips and taste my salty tears as they roll down my face.