Decline (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #1)

by Michelle Irwin

  “I said get the fuck off me.”

  She slid from my lap and the instant I was free, I raced to the door. Bursting out onto the street, I looked side to side, but it was empty both ways.

  Fucking hell!

  “Alyssa!”

  I ran to each corner and looked up every street in the vicinity, but she was gone.

  God, you’ve fucked it up royally this time, Reede!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: MURPHY’S LAW

  JUST AS I’D planned before my night out, I didn’t go to sleep that night, but for entirely different reasons than I’d hoped.

  Instead, I crawled into my last bottle of whiskey and took up residence there. I sat on the couch and drank swig after swig until the bottle was dry. Like I always did when I took comfort in a bottle, I tried to make my head as empty as the bottle. Only, it didn’t work. I just kept seeing image after image of Alyssa’s pain: her hands over her face as she fled from the bar; her terror as I shouted at her to get out of the apartment; her tears when I’d told her goodbye before I left Brisbane. There was no point going to bed while these images danced in my head. I’d learned that lesson the hard way years earlier. It was always useless. Even if I could silence my mind long enough to fall to sleep, I would just be haunted by the twisted arsehole that was my psyche.

  There were only three ways I could possibly get a restful sleep: tablets, a sufficient quantity of alcohol to make me black out, or a combination of the two. The fucking alcohol hadn’t worked, and I didn’t have any sleeping tablets. Hadn’t for so long.

  It was a relief when I finally heard the alarm going off upstairs. It meant it was time to do something. Action meant that for a brief moment, I could push all of the thoughts out of my mind and focus on what I needed to do. Dragging myself to my feet, I staggered up the stairs to turn the alarm off. Then I jumped into a quick cold shower to shake off the sleepless lethargy that had settled over me. I hoped it would also sober me up a little, but I worried that it failed on both counts. I gathered all the used towels and sheets, throwing them in the hamper for Danny’s year-round maid service to deal with. At least it meant washing and cleaning was one less thing I had to worry about before I left.

  For the trip home, I dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of sweats—nothing fancy. It wasn’t like I had anyone to impress, and I didn’t really care to try. Once I was dressed, I threw some essentials, including my sunnies and hat, into my carry-on bag and roughly shoved everything else back into my already packed suitcase.

  By the time the taxi arrived, I was ready and waiting out the front of the apartment. The driver joked that people usually looked like shit when they got off the plane, not on the way to the airport. In a trial of patience worthy of Mother Theresa, I bit back the “fuck you very much,” that rose in my throat. Once we’d arrived at the airport, I slumped my carry-on over my shoulder and rolled my suitcase toward the check-in counter.

  “Window or aisle?” I was asked. Outside of that, the clerk didn’t seem interested in conversation—which I was incredibly fucking thankful for.

  The only thing that ran through my mind when the question came up was that Alyssa had been in the window seat on our last journey. The thought sent my mind wandering. Did she prefer a window seat or was she just placed there by sheer luck? What would our return trip have been like if we’d been able to take it together? If I hadn’t reacted the way I had to the photo, would I know the full story now?

  “Sir?”

  I glanced up at the clerk. “Aisle,” I coughed out. My voice was hoarse and sounded like I’d spent the whole week puffing down on cigarettes.

  The clerk nodded and finished checking me in before handing me my boarding pass. “Have a nice flight.”

  Fucking doubt it. “Thanks.”

  Just like I had in Sydney and Hong Kong, I had some time to kill between check-in and needing to get through security so I found a cafe and crawled inside a coffee. I fucking needed it like oxygen. My brain was already starting to tick with the beginnings of a hangover, or possibly a fatigue headache. Either way, caffeine would help it, at least temporarily.

  Sipping my latte, I heard an unfamiliar female voice at the counter ordering a caramel macchiato. Even though I knew it wasn’t Alyssa, my gaze travelled in that direction as wishful thinking overtook me. A red-haired woman, whose clothes were practically painted on, was the offending orderer. I fought the urge to scowl at her for not being the person I wanted her to be. Instead, I picked roughly at the chocolate doughnut that had seemed like such a good idea when I’d been at the counter, but was currently making me nauseous.

  While I sat finishing my coffee, I tried not to think about anything. Especially not Alyssa, and double especially not Phoebe. Most of all, I was trying desperately to avoid thinking about the last flight I’d had—the one shared with Alyssa—and the evening that followed it. Even as I tried not to think about it, I felt myself harden at the memories and the image that my own mind had conjured up that had been haunting me since. The one of Alyssa using her vibrator to fuck herself silly with my name on her lips.

  Fuck, I was so hard. I wondered if I had time to knock off a quick one in the airport toilets. Even though I was completely disgusted, as I adjusted myself I realised I had little choice. My cock had a hair trigger and the sweats weren’t designed for the concealment of large objects.

  I moved to stand, but the redhead who’d ordered the caramel macchiato slid into the booth beside me. Her hands were empty and her drink was nowhere to be seen. The tiny silver top she wore captured the light, and practically hung from her nipples. Almost nothing was left to the imagination, and I figured if I looked under the table it would all be on show. She tilted her body toward me, grazing my arm with her tits. Once, that might have excited me, but I was too filled to the brim with thoughts of Alyssa.

  “I think you and I have some unfinished business,” the red-haired stranger purred at me from across the table.

  “How’s that?” I asked, frowning in confusion.

  She smiled wickedly and giggled a little. “It’s Tillie. From the club. Remember?”

  I looked at her blankly. Was I supposed to know who the fuck Tillie-from-the-club was?

  “You made me famous. I mean, how often do people like me get on the Gossip Weekly cover?”

  Oh fuck me.

  She giggled. Straight-up schoolgirl giggled. Once, I would have found that shit sexy but it just made me realise how much I didn’t want to deal with games and random hook-ups.

  “We could finish it now if you like?” She raised her eyebrow at me in what I guessed was supposed to be a seductive way but just ended up looking a little pathetic.

  Oh God!

  Her hand dropped under the table and she pushed it up the length of my thigh and into my already hardened crotch. I pressed myself back into the seat a little. I needed to think before my head became too clouded with . . .

  Oh Christ, what is she doing?

  She slid from the seat, her whole body lowering under the table. Glancing up at me, she licked her lips in promise before her head disappeared out of sight. Not that long ago, I would have jumped at the chance. At that point, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted less.

  Holy fuck.

  Her hands brushed across the top of my dick through my pants. She gripped it firmly before her fingers played with the waistband, trying to get inside. I quickly pulled myself onto the seat and climbed over the table, grabbing onto my sweats as I went to make sure I didn’t lose them.

  “I’m sorry, Tillie, I just can’t.” I reached under the table and grabbed my carry-on from beside her disappointed face. Once I had it, I turned and fled out of the cafe as quickly as I could. My erection rubbed painfully against my sweats as I walked as quickly as possible without drawing attention to myself. I was probably pitching a tent out front if any wandering eyes cared to look down there, but there was fuck all I could do about it. Making a beeline for the men’s toilets, I jumped in a cubicle and ground one ou
t to get rid of the bulge in my pants.

  Wanking in a toilet—what have I been fucking reduced to?

  I felt no relief when I was finished, just nausea. Just fucking hungover and sick. Ignoring my reflection in the mirror, I washed up and moved on to security.

  As I was putting my things on the conveyer, I saw a woman ahead with hair the exact same dark shade of brown as Alyssa’s. At first, I thought I was seeing things, but the more I watched the girl, the more convinced I became that it had to be Alyssa. I just wanted to make the fucker doing security hurry the hell up, but he pulled me to the side, saying something about random fucking bag searches or some shit. Wasn’t that what the fucking X-ray machines were for? I kept my eyes on the back of the girl’s head for as long as I could, but realised my mistake fairly quickly when she walked into the first class lounge. Even if by some miracle Alyssa was on the flight, she’d be in premium economy class like me. I laughed at myself for being such a fucking idiot to think we could possibly be on the same flight together twice. It was purely wishful thinking on my part.

  I boarded the plane on the first boarding call. Then I waited restlessly in my seat. I wasn’t sure why, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe I wasn’t being a total fucking idiot to think that Alyssa could be on this flight. She was only staying a week after all, and I had stayed a week. It wasn’t like there were hundreds of flights to Australia every day.

  Perhaps the feeling was nothing more than a desire to see her again. To speak to her. Fuck knows what I wanted to say to her though. I didn’t have a single fucking clue what I wanted to say or what she wanted to hear. I just had a burning desire to be close to her again and to talk to her. It felt like anticipation hummed around the plane; as if my body just fucking knew she was nearby. I glanced anxiously toward the door every time a new passenger climbed on board. Not one of them was the one I wanted.

  After the cabin crew started giving me strange looks—obviously trying to decide whether I was up to no good or just a nervous flyer—I decided to try to calm myself down. I closed my eyes, leaned my head back against the headrest and pinched the bridge of my nose—relieved that the action was finally pain-free again. I wondered vaguely just how big a hobo I looked at that point. I felt faint, dizzy, and nauseated. My sleepless night—or maybe the alcohol—was catching up with me.

  I figured that perhaps it would be better for me to forget my fantasy of Alyssa being on the plane. She wasn’t, and even if she was, seeing me like this would probably be a major turnoff for her. I was in sweats for Christ’s sake. Just as I’d given up all hope, I felt a shift in the air beside me as someone reached up and put a bag in the overhead compartment. Opening my eyes, I saw brown hair and my heart skipped a beat.

  If I’d been paying any kind of attention, I would have instantly noticed the little things that made it clear it wasn’t Alyssa. The shade of her hair was the wrong colour, and her skin was a little more tanned. I wasn’t paying attention though, and as her hair danced in front of me for one second as she climbed over me to her seat hope bubbled up in my chest. For that one split second, I believed it was Alyssa and my heart grew in size so rapidly that it stopped my breath. I was convinced that we would be able to talk again, and start on the path of being friends—just like the last flight. That hope was pricked and burst like a balloon when the girl took her seat beside me.

  The reality of the last week crashed on top of me and I fucking broke down. Tears and sobbing and all that shit men weren’t supposed to do. It was going to be a long fucking flight.

  The woman who’d just sat next to me seemed to regard me for a few minutes, no doubt wondering whether to fear or pity me. At some point in her assessment, she obviously settled on pity because she twisted in her seat, patted my arm and asked what was wrong. Before I could control my tongue enough to stop, the verbal diarrhoea hit and I was telling her everything about the fact that I was going crazy—that I had been so certain Alyssa was on the plane. After I finished, I asked, “So do you think I’m fucking crazy or what?”

  She just patted my back and comforted me silently.

  I sat with my head pressed against this stranger’s shoulder for far longer than circumstance and decorum would probably dictate. Strangely though, the non-Alyssa offered me some small semblance of comfort that I’d only ever been able to get from Alyssa, Ruth, or my own mother before. She calmed me and eventually I was able to pull myself together and sit up away from her shoulder. After so long in her embrace, it was a little awkward to know how to move the conversation. In the end, I held my hand out to her and said the only thing I could think of.

  “Hi, I’m Declan.”

  She laughed in reply. When she spoke her voice was traced with a thick Irish accent. It reminded me of my grandmother, and I couldn’t help but reminisce. “Well, that was certainly the most interesting introduction I’ve ever had. I’m Siobhan.” She shook my hand in hello.

  Trying to put the awkwardness behind us, I asked her about her trip. As she explained that she was backpacking around the countryside for a few months, talking with a familiarity that shouldn’t have existed between two people who were still strangers, it made me think that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad flight after all.

  WHEN I woke from a dream about Alyssa—filled with memories of our time together—my first reaction was to adjust my newfound erection. I grabbed my cock through my sweats to shift it a little to the left. Someone nearby cleared their throat and I looked toward the sound to see Siobhan staring out the window with the start of a smile at the corner of her lips.

  I released the hold I had on my dick. “Oh, shit, sorry. Just . . . oh, fuck. Sorry.”

  Raising her hand, no doubt to silence me before I disintegrated into a blubbering mess again, she looked back toward me. “So why did you let this fantastic girl go anyway?”

  I didn’t understand where the question had come from.

  “You were talking in your sleep. You said something about having a fantastic girl at home. I assume you were talking about . . . Alyssa, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, from your tears and your dreams, I’m guessing she’s still important to you. So why did you let her go?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Siobhan smiled at me. “It’s a long flight.”

  WHEN WE climbed off the plane I gave her my number and told her to call me if she was ever passing through town. Somehow over the course of the twenty-four hour flight we had come pretty close to friendship. I’d certainly felt better for having been in her company. She made me think that maybe, just maybe, I could fix this. That I did deserve to have Alyssa in my life, as a friend at the very least.

  The problem was that the feeling of hope she inspired, the thoughts that maybe I wasn’t a complete and utter nut job, only carried me as far as the baggage collection area. Then the truth smashed back into me with no remorse. I really was too screwed up to function. For a long time, I’d been fucked-up, but functional. In the last few months, I couldn’t even do my day job properly. Worse, I was starting to see reminders of Alyssa everywhere I went. I could have sworn the chick who grabbed her luggage from the carousel just before I got there was Alyssa, but when I double-checked, there was a blonde in her place.

  It was clear to me that I needed to go home, have a shower and get settled back into whatever sort of life I could carve for myself. If nothing else, I needed to try to push this trip out of my head. I needed to forget about the little girl whose image was seared into my mind, but who was far better off without me in her life.

  Most of all, I needed to forget about any chance of having any kind of relationship with Alyssa. I’d fucked up too much, and hurt her too many times. It was no fucking wonder she didn’t even want to talk to me. Just when she’d maybe considered it, I’d fucked it all up again.

  It was almost seven at night by the time I got a taxi home. Before I even reached my door, I found something out of place. Resting on my doorstep was a letter
, which should have been impossible. I never gave my address to anyone. The team had a post box for fan mail and all of my bills and shit went to a post box that my accountant had a key for. It was easier that way; I didn’t have to do mail. Usually anyone who wanted to contact me direct did so through email or text. There was no stamp on the envelope either, which was another oddity. It meant someone had hand delivered it. I spun on the spot, just in case whoever had left the letter was still hanging around—even though realistically it could have been left at any stage over the last week.

  After I flicked on the light in the entryway, I ripped open the top of the envelope and yanked out the paper inside. There was nothing extra written on it, but I realised it was a photocopy of a birth certificate. Phoebe’s birth certificate.

  My jaw snapped shut and my teeth ground together when I saw the name printed under “name of father,” but then something else caught my eye and my blood froze in my veins.

  I raced inside, hunted down my mobile phone, and grabbed my car keys. It was a twelve-hour drive to Brisbane, but it would still be quicker than ringing the airline and trying to get a flight. Especially considering by the time I made it back to the airport the last flight for the day would have already left. Without stopping to get any new clothes, I threw my suitcase into the backseat of my Monaro.

  My heart was pounding in my chest and tears pricked at my eyes as I turned the ignition.

  I took two deep breaths to try to steady myself and then I put my foot to the floor.

  When I hit the highway, I brushed away the tears that had started to form and floored it past the speed limit. My mind rebelled against what I’d read, refusing to acknowledge it, but it still fucking hurt.

  All the while my mother’s voice rang in my mind. “As if that poor girl hasn’t had it hard enough. I don’t know if you’ll ever really comprehend just how much you hurt her.”

  Message received loud and fucking clear.