by D. Breeze
So I twisted the truth again.
Because I’m a dick.
And a coward.
“Yeah, maybe. It’s not a bad idea. I’ll look into it. It probably wouldn’t take too long to find them with social media and everything.” I said.
Because it was technically true. I would look into it, by going home and seeing Mase for myself.
“Them?” She questioned and I cursed my own stupidity.
She hadn’t ever known about Jackson.
“Err, yeah. I have an older brother too but my dad made him leave when he was a teenager, I was about seven at the time.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t know that. Your dad really does sound like a twat.”
She didn’t know the half of it, so I just nodded. The web of deceit was spreading by the day and I was finding it hard to keep up. I knew I was stupid to let it go on any further, but with Jase breathing down my neck too, the pressure was almost too much.
I stretched and sat up, gathering my clothes.
“I’ve got to head to work, babe. I’m there tonight and tomorrow, but I’ll come see you on Monday night, yeah?”
She smiled lazily and nodded, already half asleep. I threw my clothes on, kissed her forehead and my way out. I couldn’t decide if it was more of a relief or an annoyance that she never questioned why I didn’t stay very often.
*~*~*
The next night at work progressed excruciatingly slowly. I’d done all the accounts and orders so I just sat staring at nothing. Give me a computer or technology any day and I could fix anything.
This?
Not at all.
No matter how I tried to word it, the explanations sounded all wrong in my head, let alone Lydia’s. So I was panicking, and I’d have been stupid not to. Jase was right and I had to tell her as soon as possible.
First, because it was wrong that she didn’t know my family. More than wrong even. And secondly, because I couldn’t marry her without having my family there, and I wanted to marry her soon.
I rubbed circles around my temples to ease the headache that had been brewing for days and I sighed. The irrational part of me wanted to stomp my feet and blame everyone else for my mistakes, but I knew I couldn’t do it. I decided that I really was just going to ‘rip the band-aid off’ so to speak. Literally just tell Lydia everything I’d been hiding, let her scream at me and probably throw shit. Then I’d try and talk her down.
It was wishful thinking.
I knew that, but there was no other way.
Plus, it was just too damn hard to keep living two lives. I knew my family more than suspected something was going on and I knew that Lydia avoided asking me any questions, ever, for fear of what my answer might be.
So enough was enough.
I would tell her.
Just not that night...maybe the day after instead.
My attention caught on Jase and Harper in the crowd of people who had just walked through the main doors of the club and I smiled. They were there most nights that the club was open, not always drinking, but always dancing. I knew it was Harper that dragged Jase there. He was a guy who loved to be out, of course, but I doubt it would be four nights a week unless Miss Drama Queen dragged him.
Mase snagged her around the waist within seconds of them entering the main room and it wasn’t clear enough to see for sure, but I was almost certain that Jase rolled his eyes. It was like the two of them had a sensor for each other.
I should have been watching all of the cameras, it was my job after all, but I couldn’t help staring at the three of them. It was natural, the way they were with each other, the way we all we were with each other. Yet I wasn’t allowing Lydia to have that and the pain of that knowledge just kept growing.
Then my attention caught on the woman who occupied every one of my waking thoughts.
And my world stopped.
The people kept moving, the clock kept ticking and inside the bar, the drinks kept flowing.
But my heart had turned to stone.
She’d never been to the club, so why she was there right then, I had no idea. I flexed my frozen fingers because they had started to cramp from gripping the chair’s arm rests so much, but it didn’t help. My bones ached, my skin was burning and my muscles were screaming at me.
But my heart was ice cold.
Nothing about this was going to go down well.
Still frozen in my seat, I watched Jase do a double take when Lydia walked into the main room, looking like Bambi after he lost his mother.
I didn’t think she’d ever even been to a club before so it didn’t surprise me that she was nervous. It surprised me that she was there full stop.
Jase pushed through the crowd towards her and I crossed my fingers that he’d find some way to make her leave. I know it was wrong to think like that but nothing I said in that situation would make it ok, she’d feel out of her depth in my territory.
But he didn’t make her leave.
Instead, he grabbed her hand and led her over to the bar, not even slightly avoiding the curious looks from Harper and Mase. Thankfully, Lydia hadn’t noticed them though because there was no way she wouldn’t know who Mase was. He looked just like me.
They fought their way to the front of the bar and Jase grabbed them two drinks before leading her back out of the main room. She looked so confused and my already breaking heart, cracked a little more. I swivelled on my chair to follow them on the monitors and cringed when Jase opened the door to one of the meeting rooms on the first floor.
This was it.
This was when everything was going to fall to shit.
Realising that I was wasting time watching, when I could have been down there and getting my side of the story across first, I left everything littered across the desk and jogged from the room.
*~*~*
Lydia
I have no idea what came over me, but work and being at home had seemed a thousand times worse that day, so I thought it would be an amazing idea to go and surprise Ruben at work.
I knew where he worked, but I’d never been there. I’d actually never been to a nightclub in my life. Sad, I know, but it just seemed like a waste of money to me when I didn’t drink much and I couldn’t dance to save my life. Plus, the way Ruben always described them, they didn’t seem like the sort of places I wanted to spend time in anyway.
But I wanted to see him.
The engagement ring he’d given me, although small, had felt like a heavy weight around my finger all day. Not in a bad way, of course, but like a constant reminder. A reminder that I needed to stop being such a coward and fight for the right to know everything about him.
Because I should.
I wanted to marry him, wanted to be his wife and have a family with him - more than anything in the world. But I couldn’t do it without having all of him.
Something I’d never had.
Something I was determined to get.
Which brought me to the place he worked - or ‘phase 1’ in my new mission. As nervous as I was, I actually didn’t feel that bad as I waited in the queue outside. It didn’t look like a rowdy place and I didn’t feel unsafe.
But I did feel on edge.
I knew I was taking a risk, in a place that big, I could easily get swallowed up by the crowd or maybe not even find Ruben at all. But I had to try because he’d always kept me away from the place and I wanted to know why. Until that point, I couldn’t see any reason.
The doorman didn’t even ID me on the door, which was slightly insulting considering I was only twenty, but I shook it off and went inside.
And doubted Ruben even more.
The place was beautiful. It was clean and classy, and I didn’t see anyone throwing up or stumbling around like they needed to lie down. It was definitely nothing like I had been imagining.
I followed the crowd of people heading through the next set of doors. Feeling majorly underdressed, in my jeans and red wrap-around top, I was at least glad that I’d
used my common sense and threw some old heels on before I’d left my home. I scanned the room and was about to start my search when Jase appeared in front of me and I felt my face light up.
“Hey!” I called over the base of the music. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He didn’t exactly look happy to see me, and Jase was always happy, so it set my confidence back and I started feeling nauseous.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Ruben. He works here!”
Instead of giving me any response, he grabbed my hand and dragged me through the crowd, pushing his way to the front of the bar. Some of the people around us complained and I cowered a little, but Jase didn’t seem to care.
“What are you drinking?” He asked.
“Um…” I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I’d only ever had wine - did people even drink wine in nightclubs?
He rolled his eyes and yelled something over to the bartender. Without paying, which I thought was weird, he turned back around with two glasses and handed me one. I looked at it like it was going to bite me.
He laughed.
“It’s a Jagerbomb. Just cover the top and hold on to it for a minute. Follow me…”
He didn’t give me a choice in the matter because, yet again, he dragged me along behind him. Along a corridor, through another set of doors and into a pitch-black room.
“Um…!” I started.
“Give me a second.”
He flicked on the lights and I my eye-brows drew together.
“Um…should we be in here?”
Jase flapped his hand in the air, “I know the owner.”
“Whoa. Really?”
He nodded.
Without warning, he told me the owner’s name.
No preparation. No easing me into it.
He just told me. “Jackson Brent, owns this club.”
Now, I’ll be honest, ‘Brent’ isn’t a particularly rare name. But I knew, just from the look on his face, that he was telling me something huge. That nauseous feeling in my stomach grew.
“Jackson...Brent. As in, Ruben, my Ruben...his um, brother?”
Audibly swallowing, he nodded his head slowly.
“And you know this because...you know my Ruben.” I stated as a fact, but he nodded again to confirm it. Still slowly, cautiously. He looked almost guilty. Whether it was for hiding it from me or for telling me, I guess I’d never know.
My breathing increased and I physically felt my blood pressure start to rise.
“How long…?” I whispered, battling through the pain in my heart.
“How long have I known them?”
I didn’t confirm nor deny his question, I just stared at him. Silently begging him to tell me this was all just some sick joke.
“Since about two and a half years ago, when Jackson started dating one of my best friends.”
His best friends. Taylor and Harper. I’d heard a lot about them over the weeks at work, I felt like I knew them. Then something else struck me.
“You said, the first day we met, that there were three guys in your little group of friends. Who’s the third Jase?” He didn’t answer immediately, so I shouted, “Jase! Who’s the third guy?”
He flinched, but without breaking eye contact he answered, “Mason.”
I actually rocked back on my feet with the force of his words. The pain in my heart spread and I keeled over, holding a hand against my stomach to ease the ache.
“Oh God.”
My perfect, incredible boyfriend...fiancé...had a family, and friends and a whole freaking life that I knew nothing about. From the look on Jase’s face, I was guessing he was the only one who knew about me too.
Seconds later, the door burst open and slammed back against the wall. I slumped down into a chair and lifted my eyes.
*~*~*
Ruben
“Ruben...” She breathed.
Fuck!
I froze. I was fucked. I knew that already but my mind was racing with thousands of ways to talk myself out of the situation.
“Babe, I...” I had nothing. Not a single word I could say, or explanation I could give, would make this better in her eyes. I looked to the ceiling and closed my eyes; putting my hand to the back of my neck to ease the ache forming there, I muttered a pathetic, “I’m sorry.”
Silence.
Deafening silence.
The kind of silence that made my balls want to crawl back inside my body and my stomach plummet to my toes. Every muscle was tensed, ready for whatever it was that she decided to hurl at me, or hit me with.
“I don’t understand.” Her confused whisper made my heart beat falter.
I looked to Jase, standing at the side with his arms crossed over his chest and a face full of disappointment. He raised an eyebrow – silently giving me the floor.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say, babe. I don’t know what you already know, what you think you know...” I didn’t get to finish, not that I really knew what I was going to say.
“That’s just the point though isn’t it Ruben.” My name sounded bitter on her lips and I flinched. “I don’t know a thing. Jack fucking shit. Everything I thought I knew is a fucking lie. In fact, I can’t...I can’t even look at you right now.”
She got up from the sofa, walked over to Jase, pecked him on the cheek and left without a single glance in my direction.
My heart was screaming at me to stop her, to make her see that everything I had done, I had done for her. To protect her. To keep her safe.
But my brain wouldn’t let me, like I automatically knew that she needed this time away from me to process. I still needed to find out how much she knew.
I turned to Jase, still simmering with anger that he thought it was his right to do this to her.
“How could you? How fucking could you? Is this what you wanted? Huh? Your other friends are going off, falling in love and making lives for themselves, but you’re still stuck in the same place you were years ago. Guess that makes sense, at least now you have a new toy to play with, someone else who you can leech off. I’m surprised you haven’t followed her already, running after her whining about how you’ll make it all feel better. I really, genuinely want to know what your fucking problem is.”
I knew I was displacing the blame, and I knew I shouldn’t have said those words as soon as they came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t take them back.
He puffed out his chest and stood taller. I winced, knowing he was going to give me a mouthful and I deserved it.
“You know, if I really thought you meant any of the things you just spewed at me, we would have real problems my friend. But I’m just going to leave, regardless of what you might be thinking, Lydia is right. She shouldn’t have to look at you right now because I Just told her who owns this place and she worked out the rest for herself.”
“She deserved to know and you cannot stand there like a spoiled fucking child and throw your dummy out the pram about this because I gave you chance after chance to tell her. We stood here not three weeks ago and you agreed with every word I said. Then yet again, you didn’t do a god damned thing about it. You’re a coward. Lydia might not be perfect, she might be stubborn as hell and she definitely should have paid a little more attention to what was going on around her but she would have done anything for you. Any, single, thing. All you had to do was open your mouth and say jump and she’d have dropped whatever she was doing and asked ‘how high’?”
I felt a muscle in my jaw tick and my face was cramping from clenching my teeth so hard. The smirk on Jase’s face said he’d noticed that too.
“I’d be wasting my time to say anymore because you clearly only ever do things your own way. But I’ll leave you with this. In all the time you’ve known her, have you ever, ever, left her on her own when she was upset? Devastated even? I know the answer to that as well as you do. Yet because it’s you that has caused it, you just let her walk out of this club with no way to get home, no
coat, and a broken heart. Right now, she thinks the only man she ever loved is nothing but a liar – why would you also go and make that worse, by also being a let-down and a coward?” He shook his head and looked down. “I really thought you were smarter than that.”
He slammed the door as he left, drowning me in the silence.
“Shit.” I whispered. Then louder, “shit!”
I stormed back out the door, back to security room to grab a coat for Lydia, then ran out the front doors ready to chase my girl.
I had some serious ass kissing to do.
Chapter Seventeen
Lydia
I didn’t cry.
Not when I was fighting my way out of the club, not when I stumbled on the steps, not when I was searching the streets and not when I realised I was a girl on her own, in the dark, in London.
But the second I heard the footsteps behind me and I knew he’d followed me, the first tears started to fall. Instead of doing what I should have done and jumped in the closest taxi to get as far away from him as possible. I stopped, and wrapped my arms around myself. Almost forming an invisible protection, I suppose.
He stopped inches behind me and we both stood in silence. My whole body was tense, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was nothing he could say that would make it feel better, make it ok.
But I was at least willing to hear him out.
“Come on, I’ll take you home and I can explain everything. I swear to you I can.”
I whirled on him.
“No. Just no. I don’t want you in my home. I want you to stand here, in the middle of the street and tell me exactly how you think you think you can explain,” I held up a hand and started counting. “One, the fact that you’re a liar. Two, that I have no idea who the hell you are. Three, you have this whole family that as far as I was concerned, you hadn’t seen since you were a kid. And four, the fact that we’ve struggled, every day for the last two years. Every single day. You didn’t have to do that, clearly,” I pointed back towards the club that could still be seen in the distance. “What was it? Like a challenge for you? See how long you could last living like the poor people?”