Songbird Caged

by Lisa Edward

  He grabbed my wrist so I couldn’t hit him. “But let me tell you something. You’re an idiot if you think he can make you happy.”

  “No you’re the idiot Cole.” I wrenched my wrist from his grasp. “You’re an idiot if you think I would have done any of the things I’ve done with you if I didn’t have feeling for you.” I swiped my cheeks with my hand. “You’re an idiot, because if you had of stayed five minutes longer, you would have heard me tell Riley I didn’t want to move to Sydney, and I’m not ready to get married or have a baby.” I lowered my voice and got into his face. “And do you know why?”

  He shook his head. The realisation of what I was saying was slowly sinking in.

  “Because I thought I was in love with you.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were tearing up.

  “But I was wrong. I don’t love you.” The tears were starting again. “I HATE YOU!”

  I stormed over to my suitcase. I needed to get dressed, and get out of there as quickly as possible.

  I looked around the room. They had obviously been on the couch, and I knew they were against the wall. The bed still looked the same as when I had left it.

  He started to walk over to me. “Don’t come near me. You stink of sex,” I told him through gritted teeth. “How could you bring them here? You told me you never bring girls home, so why this time, Cole? You could have gone to their place. Why here?”

  He ran his hands down the length of his face. “I wanted to hurt you. I knew it was the one thing that would hurt you,” he confessed, his admission weighing heavily on him as he spoke.

  I was pulling off my robe and lingerie frantically until I was standing by the wall, completely naked. But it didn’t register to me. I just wanted to put my clothes on and leave.

  I heard him gasp, and I looked up at him. His bottom lip was trembling, and he sucked it in between his teeth to stop it.

  “What?” I snapped at him.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. His eyes were sweeping over my body, taking in every detail like it might be the one and only chance he would get. He was right.

  I wrapped my arms around me, trying to cover up. “How dare you? Turn around.”

  He spun around quickly, hesitated, then went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  The shower turned on as I finished pulling my clothes on. I had left out shoes with buckles, but I couldn’t do them up without help. I yanked the suitcase open again and dug out slip-on shoes that I could manage by myself.

  My suitcase was heavy and cumbersome. Cole had carried it up the two flights of stairs when we had arrived, and I had assumed he would be carrying it back down, but that wasn’t to be. I wheeled it over to the door and out into the passage, then looked at my watch. It was now 4:50am, and I had no idea where the airport was from here.

  Leaving my suitcase in the hall, I stepped back into the room, swinging the door closed behind me. I had seen a fridge magnet with a taxi phone number on it. The smart thing to do was book a cab, and wait to be picked up.

  The shower had been turned off. I could hear Cole in the bathroom, moving around. He called out to me.

  I ignored him.

  He called a bit louder, and I heard the bathroom door open. But I still didn’t bother answering.

  There was a loud thud, and the sound of smashing glass. Then another thud, and another.

  What the hell?

  I exhaled loudly, cursed under my breath, and then went into the bathroom.

  The mirror on the wall above the basin was smashed, and tiny shards of glass were all over the sink and floor. Cole was sitting on the floor in the corner where I had been curled up earlier, blood dripping from his knuckles, down his fingers, and onto the tiles. His other hand was over his face while he wept.

  I stood in the doorway, leaning up against the doorframe as he had done only fifteen minutes earlier.

  He looked up at me. “I thought you’d gone,” he said hoarsely.

  “I came back in to call a cab.”

  I looked at his hand. The blood was still dripping, and I could see pieces of glass sticking out. I walked over to him, pushing the shards of glass on the floor to one side with my foot.

  “You need to go to the hospital. You’ll need stitches.”

  He just shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I pulled him to his feet. He rose without any argument. “I’ll call a cab, and take you to the hospital. Can you get dressed?”

  “Why are you helping me? You hate me, remember?”

  “You helped me. Once I do this, the slate is clean.” I looked him square in the eye. “Right now, you need help. I can hate you tomorrow.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands again. The blood was still dripping, leaving droplets on the floor and the towel that was wrapped around his hips.

  I went and grabbed a spare towel to wrap around his hand, then pulled some clothes out for him, trying to encourage him to get ready. I dumped the clothes on the bed beside him. He just left them there.

  “Come on. You need to get dressed.”

  He shook his head, then instead of getting up to dress himself, he laid back on the bed with his forearm over his face.

  I was torn. I didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, I was so hurt by his actions that my heart was shattered into a million pieces. To the day I died, I would never forget how he had so maliciously set out to hurt me.

  On the other hand, seeing him laying there, crying, tore at my heart in another way. I wanted to reach out and comfort him. I wanted to rewind the clock back to before Riley had called, when we were happy, and no one else in the world mattered.

  Kneeling down on the floor in front of him, I picked up his boxer shorts from the pile of clothes, and slipped them on over his feet like he was a child. As soon as he felt me touch him he sat up, wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and pressed his cheek to my head.

  “I’m so sorry, babe, I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating. He raised his head and held my cheek in his hand. “Can you ever forgive me? Please, forgive me.”

  I sat back on my heels. I wanted so much to be able to say yes, but I just couldn’t. “Is this what life with you would be like? Every time we have a fight, you go out and have sex with some random girls to get back at me?” I shook my head. “I can’t do it, Cole. I don’t want to do it. I expected you to come home rolling drunk and pissed off, but not this. I never expected this.”

  Tears were streaming down his face. “It didn’t mean anything to me. You’re all I want, you’re all I’ve wanted since the day I met you.”

  “But it means something to me, Cole. You don’t understand. I have had the best time in Paris. It was filled with wonderful memories. But now the only thing I will remember when I think of Paris is this.”

  “I didn’t come.” He looked at me from under his eyelashes. “I couldn’t come. I couldn’t even stay hard. I could hear you crying in the bathroom, and I just wanted it to be over.”

  I held up my hands to him. “I don’t want to know the details. I don’t need to know what you did or didn’t do.”

  I helped him up so he could finish getting dressed. Somehow he had become the victim in all this, and I had to be the strong one. I held out his shirt for him to put his arms through, and then, with shaking hands, started trying to get the buttons through the buttonholes.

  I would miss this chest. Snuggling into it whenever he wrapped his big, comforting arms around me. The warmth and security. The beat of his heart against my cheek.

  He was watching me intently as I struggled to see what I was doing through the tears that had started to spill again. He ran his hand up my arm to my shoulder, and cupped my jaw tenderly in his hand.

  “I swear, Tara, I’ll never do anything to hurt you again.” His thumb brushed my cheek lightly.

  “I know you won’t, because I won’t let you.” I leaned into his hand. Reg
ardless of how heartbroken I felt, I needed his touch, but I had to be strong. “Things went too far, Cole. Riley doesn’t deserve what I’ve done. I don’t deserve what you’ve done. We both fucked up, but we can fix it.”

  He was studying my face.

  “We need to go back to the way things were when we first met, when we were just friends. Nothing more.”

  LUCKILY COLE didn’t need stitches. They managed to tweeze the glass out, and close the wounds with surgical glue and tape. His hand had been bandaged, and he was told to leave the bandage on for at least three days. As soon as we walked out of the hospital, he pulled the bandage off and threw it in the bin.

  There was no way I was staying in Paris for one second more than I had to. We ran to the gate, dodging and weaving between people meandering along, and just managed to board the plane.

  The same slutty stewardess greeted us. Well, at least she greeted Cole, once we were seated. She fawned over him when she saw he had hurt his hand, taking it in between hers and stroking it. He smiled at her, but pulled his hand away uncomfortably.

  Once again she offered her services for anything he would like, before giving him a wink and moving on to the next passengers.

  Cole looked around at me nervously. “I didn’t encourage that,” he blurted out, like I was about to chastise him for flirting.

  “I know. But you’re free to sleep with whomever you want, it’s none of my business.” I turned back around to watch the ground crew loading the last of the bags into the hull.

  “But I want it to be your business,” he said softly.

  I closed my eyes, and swallowed hard. I wanted it to be my business too, but it wasn’t. I had Riley to concentrate on. He was going out in the field today, which I assumed meant going deep into enemy territory. It was dangerous, and although I wasn’t a religious person, I sent up a silent prayer that he would be safe and come home soon.

  We’d been in the air for around twelve hours, and I had rebuffed Cole’s efforts to talk. Instead, I chose to replay the events of the previous evening over in my mind. Not the horrible nightmare part, but the wonderful opera, meeting his dad, who was kind of cool, and the kiss, and fooling around that had followed.

  I turned to him, forgetting that I was still angry with him. “Your dad calls you Cole, doesn’t he?”

  His face immediately lit up. “Yes, he knows I prefer it. Mum, on the other hand, she refuses to even acknowledge it.”

  “Hmm,” I pondered out loud. “I like your dad. Could he be an ally?”

  He frowned. “In what?”

  “In getting you out of marrying Prue. We have to do something. You can’t marry her.”

  He smiled, his eyes softening and turning my insides to goo. “Yes we do need to do something. Any ideas?”

  I shook my head. Despite how I was feeling about Cole right now, I knew he couldn’t go through with this sham of a marriage. I didn’t know how to get him out of it just yet, but I would certainly be giving it a lot of thought.

  We finally landed. The stewardess sauntered past us one last time, and slipped a piece of paper into Cole’s hand. It was the name and address of the hotel she was staying in overnight.

  I’d had it. I grabbed the piece of paper that he was just about to screw up. Even though Cole and I weren’t together, she didn’t know that. She thought she was propositioning my boyfriend.

  I got up, and strode over to her. “Excuse me?” I said, tapping her on the shoulder to gain her attention.

  “Oui?” she replied.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked, knowing full well that she would have to if she was working for the airline.

  She held her fingers pinched together. “A little bit.”

  “Oh, okay then,” I replied in English. Then holding out the paper to her. “Vous semblez avoir abandonné cette près de mon petit ami.”

  I had decided to play dumb, pretending that she had accidently dropped the hotel information.

  She looked at me with a smirk on her face. “It was no mistake,” she replied in French. “He asked me for it.”

  “No he didn’t,” I replied in French. “You propositioned him the whole way to Paris, and the whole way home. You are here to serve drinks, not give blow jobs. If I ever see you even look sideways at him again, I will be speaking to the airline.” My French was pretty good, but I wasn’t sure I had the correct word for blow jobs. Apart from that, I think I made my point clear.

  I looked over at Cole. He was biting his lip trying to control his laughter. He couldn’t prevent the humour from reaching his eyes, though.

  “She said you asked for the hotel information,” I told him as we walked down the gangway.

  He smirked at me. “I heard. I also heard you speaking fluent French. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I shrugged. “You never asked.”

  On the way home, we discussed what our living arrangements would be. Cole wanted me to stay at his apartment still. We hadn’t heard from the police, so we assumed that Patrick was still out there, lurking. But I didn’t feel comfortable staying with him. We had gotten so close, sharing a bed, among other things, but that had to stop.

  Cole sighed. “You can stay at my place,” he started. I went to argue, but he held up his hand. “I’ll stay at your place. With any luck, Patrick will break in again, and I can beat the crap out of him.”

  The next day I tried to get my body clock back in sync with Australian time. I called into Songbirds to let Marcus know we were back. Jason had been there when Cole had decided to take me to Paris, so I knew by now everyone else would know about it, too.

  I went upstairs to check on the progress of Reds. Since the attack, not much work had taken place, but that was fine. It would give me something to focus on to take my mind off Cole and Riley.

  By nine pm I was totally wiped, so decided to have an early night. I hesitated as I walked down the hallway to the bedrooms. Should I sleep in one of the guest rooms, or in Cole’s room? I had been sleeping in his bed after the attack, but our relationship had changed since then.

  I entered the guest room, the one that I was supposed to have used before but never actually slept in. It felt cold and impersonal.

  Turning, I headed up to the end of the hallway to Cole’s room.

  I couldn’t sleep. I missed having his warm body, and unique scent to snuggle up to. I jumped up and rummaged through his wardrobe until I found a T-shirt I had seen him wear many times. I went back to the bed, and feeling like a total stalker, dressed his pillow in the shirt. There, that was better. I cuddled my arm around the pillow and inhaled Cole’s scent, drifting off to sleep with a content smile on my face.

  “Hey. I like how you’ve dressed my pillow.” I heard Cole’s deep gravelly voice say, rousing me from my sleep.

  I peeked one eye open. He was sitting on the edge of the bed beside me with a cheeky grin on his face.

  I quickly stuffed the pillow down under the quilt, holding it between my knees.

  “Wow! That’s one lucky pillow,” Cole teased.

  “Shut up,” I said, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. “I couldn’t sleep last night. You’ve ruined me. I can’t sleep alone.”

  He gave me that half smile of his, and my stomach did a back flip. “Don’t be embarrassed. You should see how I dressed your pillow last night.” He rested his chin in his hand. “The suspenders and stockings were a little tricky to get on, but I worked around it.”

  I pulled his pillow out from under the covers, and took a swipe at him with it.

  “What are you doing back here, anyway?”

  “It’s Sunday, and we were going to go see Pops. I was just wondering if you still wanted to come.”

  I hesitated. Part of backing off was not spending every day with him.

  “Before you say no, I should tell you that it’s his birthday today.”

  I sighed, even more conflicted than before.

  “And, I’ve kinda already mentioned that you’re coming.” He twitched
his mouth. “So, can you come, please?” He paused. “Oh, and by the way, my dad’s going too. He thinks you’re great. I spoke to him earlier, and he called me Dick-hardo again. He thinks you’re hilarious.”

  “Argh, all right. Just let me have a quick shower. If we can get your dad on side with this Prue fiasco, he might be able to talk some sense into your mum.”

  I dashed into the bathroom with Cole following behind. He helped cover my plaster cast with a plastic bag before making himself comfortable, leaning up against the wash basin. He wanted to talk while I showered, and seeing as the shower was completely tiled and he couldn’t see me, I said it was fine. You would have thought we hadn’t seen each other for a week, instead of one day. He talked incessantly about everything other than what was really on our minds—Paris.

  Turning off the water, I reached for my towel on the hook around the corner. It wasn’t there. I stuck my head around to look for it, and found Cole holding it hostage, just out of my reach.

  “Gimme,” I told him.

  “Just let me say something first.”

  It was freezing, and I was starting to shiver. “Make it quick, then,” I told him, trying to shield myself behind the tiled shower wall.

  He puffed out his cheeks. “Okay, here’s the thing.”

  I internally rolled my eyes. This wasn’t going to be quick, was it?

  “I know I fucked up big time in Paris. I went completely off the rails, and set out to deliberately hurt you.”

  I dropped my eyes, but said nothing; I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “But that was only one small part of the trip, and I think the rest of it was brilliant. It was the best time I’ve ever had.” He paused, waiting for my response.

  I raised my eyes back up to meet his, and nodded in agreement.

  “So, seeing as you upset me with what you said to Hotshot, and I upset you, and technically we weren’t really together, so it wasn’t cheating …” He took a deep breath. “… can we get things back on track? Back to how they were before I screwed up?”

  He was looking at me with those emerald-green puppy-dog eyes, which just wasn’t fair. How could I stay mad with him? Besides, he was right in one way. We weren’t technically together, so he could sleep with any girl he wanted to. I was the one who had sort of cheated on Riley. Who was I to throw stones?