Carnage #2: The Story of Me (Story of Us #2)

by Lesley Jones

  “Thanks for that. That’s real good to hear.” We both look to the bedroom door where Roman’s standing, his arms spread as he braces each side of the doorframe. He’s wearing boardies and a T-shirt that has risen up and his belly is on show; he looks like a God, but I’m pissed off. I feel like an idiot and I hate myself for still finding him sexy.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re Jodie’s ex? She’s my cousin; you could have said something.”

  He drops his arms to his sides. “It was years ago, and I didn’t think it mattered.”

  I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. “Well, it matters to me. Someone should have told me. Let me decide if it matters.”

  He studies my face for a few seconds. “What happened when I left you here Sunday morning?” He gestures with his chin towards me.

  “For crying out loud, I’m not repeating all of that again. I fucked up. I fucked up big time, okay? Now either tell me about you and Jodie and why she was living at Narnia, or fuck off.”

  “How the fuck did you get in anyway?” Brooke asks as she climbs out of bed, obviously not wanting to be around for this conversation. Roman holds out a key.

  “I’ve still got this. Jax gave it to me the other night.” She takes it from his hand.

  “Well, I’ll take that back now, thank you.” She keeps walking out of the room as Roman walks in and takes her place next to me on the bed.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?”

  “You gonna tell me about Jodie?”

  “You’re being childish, Georgia.”

  “No, Roman, I’m pissed off; pissed off is what I’m being. All this trust bullshit you’ve been spouting and you’ve just proved me right; you’ve just proved what I knew all the time. I can’t trust anyone except Cam, Jimmie, Ash and my brothers; they’re the only people I trust. I should’ve just gone with my gut and not shared anything with you.” We’re both quiet for a few seconds, lost in our thoughts. “Do I need to warn my family before what happened Saturday night appears in some tabloid?”

  “Who’s Cam?” He asks, at the exact same time I ask, “What?”

  “No, Georgia; for fuck’s sake, no. Why are you being like this?” He sounds hurt, but I don’t care; well, I do care, but I’m hurt, too.

  “Because I don’t trust anyone, Rome, and you promised I could trust you and I did. I trusted you and now I find out you were once in a relationship with my cousin. You should’ve been honest; you should’ve just told me and let me decide if it made a difference.” I turn and look at him; he has his knees raised up, his elbows resting on them, and he’s staring down at his feet. He slowly turns his head to meet my gaze.

  “It was over ten years ago, Georgia, and I honestly didn’t think it mattered.” His ice-blue eyes don’t leave mine as he speaks.

  “Well, it matters to me, Rome. It matters a lot.” We’re both quiet again. “Why was she living at Narnia?”

  He lets out a sigh. “She went off the rails for a bit. After Jackson’s accident, he went a little crazy and then when he got sent to prison, Jodie just lost herself for a while. We became close, but she was hanging around with Skye.” Oh, God, kill me now. Can this get any worse? Talk about keeping it in the family. My cheeks burn. “Oh, please don’t tell me she fucked Skye, as well?”

  He tries not to smile and fails miserably. “They had a bit of a thing going on for a while. Jodie was a mess. Her mum and dad weren’t happy with the way she was behaving, and Skye was her mate and invited her to stay with her. It was all a bit fucked-up, to be honest with ya.” He pauses, and I notice he still has a hint of a smile on his face. “She was with me, but sleeping in the same bed as Skye, and sometimes it would end up…” He tries even harder not to smile, but again he fails. “It would end up in a bit of a tangle, the three of us in the bed together.”

  “I can’t believe you let her do those things to me, knowing this.” I feel violated. Everything I previously felt for Roman I’m now calling into question, and I feel let down, by him and myself. “How can you not see the wrong in all of this? It was wrong when it was just you and me, but to add Skye to the equation, that’s just fucked, Rome.”

  “It was just a bit of fun, George. Chill the fuck out, will ya; your secret’s safe with me.”

  What is it with men and threesomes? I remember the conversation we had between Sean, Lennon, Ash, Jim, Marley and myself a few years ago, how Marls had said he loved watching, how I felt Sean get hard as I sat on his lap. That was the morning after I fucked Cam in his office. Cam. God, that man is in my brain constantly at the moment, and I’ve still no idea why. It’s gotta be Brooke and Jackson stirring things up and making me talk about shit.

  “Who’s Cam? You still haven’t told me who Cam is.” How the fuck does Roman know about Cam?

  “Why’d you keep asking me about Cam?”

  “Because you spoke about him Saturday night, and you just mentioned him again. I just wondered who he was.” I am never, ever touching drugs again, ever! I close my eyes and wonder what on Earth I could have said about Cam. I try to recall everything, but from the time we left the beach until we got back into Roman’s truck, everything is a fuzzy blur of colours.

  “What did I say?”

  “You don’t remember?” I shake my head.

  “You gonna tell me?”

  “You gonna tell me what happened after you got back here?” I nod my head. I can make up any old bullshit; he won’t know.

  “Tell me what I said about Cam first.” He bites down on the corner of his lip.

  “You told me that Cam saved you. That he put you back together and that you didn’t realise it at the time, but you know now that you loved him.” My chest and my throat instantly tighten and tears sting my eyes. I try, unsuccessfully, to blink them away. “You asked me if it was possible to love two people at once. You asked me if it were possible to be totally in love with one person, but still fuck another behind their back.” My eyes instantly fly up and meet his.

  “Nooo,” I say on a sob. “Nooo, why did I say that? Why would I say that?” My dad’s old joke about de Nile pops into my head, and Princess Georgia is back; she’s stamping her feet and doesn’t want to talk anymore. It’s what I do. If things don’t go my way, I stamp my feet, fold my arms across my chest and refuse to talk about it.

  “Did you fuck Cam while you were married to Sean, Georgia? Did you cheat on your husband?” I fly at him. My anger is really with myself but it’s Roman who I launch at.

  “Fuck you. Fuck you! You shagged my cousin and never told me, so don’t you dare talk about my husband. I loved him. I still love him. How dare you question that?” He holds onto my arms and pins me down on the bed, his tall body covering mine. I shout and I scream and kick until I have nothing left in me, and then I cry and sob and try to unload some of the fucking awful guilt I’ve carried around with me, quite possibly since the night I fell back into Sean’s arms. I thought the guilt I’m feeling was a recent thing, something that had only been weighing me down since I did what I did with Cam in his office. It’s only just now dawning on me that, in fact, I’ve felt a certain level of guilt for the past twelve years. It’s my feelings for Cam and how I left things that’s caused it. All the while, I contemplate and process all of this, Roman remains silent and just holds me while I cry.

  * * *

  I must fall asleep because the next thing I know, I’m at a river. There’s a grassy bank and the river is rushing by; the bank that leads down to it is steep. Sean and Cam are both in the river and calling my name, but I have four children with me. Two dark-haired boys are holding on around my legs and watching what’s happening in the water. Their faces are tear-stained but they’re not crying. I also have two dark-haired little girls, one on each hip, and I know if I put them down, they will crawl to the bank and be swept away. Sean and Cam are both shouting at me to get away, to save the children and get away from the river, but I desperately want to help them. I feel so torn; the pain I
feel at being helpless is physical, and I wake myself up shouting and calling out that I’m sorry.

  Roman is holding me, stroking my hair and my back, trying to calm me down. I’m shaking so badly that I can’t control my jaw. Brooke must be in the room because I can hear her whispering to Roman that she’s going to make me some tea. I open my eyes and look up at him.

  “You okay? That sounded bad.” I take in gulps of air before I answer him.

  “It was horrible. I dreamt of Sean, my dreams of Sean are usually beautiful. I normally look forward to them, but this one was horrible.” My face stings with the salt from all my tears, and I wipe them away on my vest.

  “You wanna tell me about it?” I shake my head.

  “No, no, I don’t. Why are you being nice to me? I was a complete bitch earlier.” I feel his breath on my hair as he breathes out.

  “You were. You behaved like a total bitch.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I am sorry. The guilt I’ve carried with me for so long is what made me lash out: guilt at leaving Cam for Sean; guilt for the way I treated Cam; guilt for always knowing, deep down, that I loved Cam; and guilt for fucking Cam. Guilt. Everything I do, every way I turn, everything I’ve ever done with my life, something’s always made me feel guilty. I’m so sick of it. I even feel guilty that I’m alive and Sean, Beau and Baby M aren’t. “Years of guilt eating away at you, well, it eventually turns you into a bitch. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you.” He’s quiet for a while, and I think he’s debating whether to ask me to tell him what I feel guilty about. In the end, though, he doesn’t ask and I don’t offer.

  “You gonna tell me what happened when I dropped you off Sunday morning?” I tilt my head and stare up at the ceiling.

  “I took a couple of Valium to try and stop my heart from racing. I made a few phone calls to my family and drank a couple of glasses of wine while I was doing it.”

  “Georgia, what the fuck were you thinking?” he interrupts.

  “Well, obviously, I wasn’t thinking, was I? Somebody fed me drugs and then left me here on my own, still off my face and alone.”

  I shouldn’t pass the blame onto Roman. I’m a grown woman, for fuck’s sake, and responsible for my own choices.

  “No wonder Jackson wanted to punch my lights out.”

  I huff. Why is admitting you’re wrong, so fucking hard?

  “Rome, look, I went with you willingly Saturday night, and nothing that happened was your fault. I chose to do everything I did. I drank the drink. I took the drugs and I let Skye do whatever. Me, no one else, just me. They were my choices and as much as I’d like to blame everything on everyone else, the buck stops with me.

  “I shouldn’t have left you. I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

  “You’re forgiven; it was my fault not yours. But you should’ve told me about Jodie; that, I am still pissed off about.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for that, as well then.” We both sit silently until Brooke comes in with three mugs of tea and a packet of biscuits. We sit on my bed, chat shit, until eventually Roman leaves.

  I shower before I phone and arrange for a courier to come in the morning and collect all of my stuff to send back to England, including my crate of Sean memorabilia. I keep some clothes to get me through the next few days, a nice dress and shoes for Saturday night and two of my favourite Juicy Couture tracksuits to travel home in. Home. I’m going home. I have maybe five days and around twelve-thousand miles to get my head in a place where I am ready to deal with everything that will be waiting for me in England. I think I’m ready to face it all. I just wish this guilt and thoughts of Cameron fucking King would leave my brain for a little while.

  Chapter Twelve

  I spend the rest of the day getting my stuff packed, and I get a text from Lennon telling me he has booked me a car to the airport for six am Sunday; I just need to let them know where I want to be picked up from. We usually stay at Jodie’s place, but rather than disturb everyone with my early departure, I book us all rooms at the Marriott in Sydney. Since we are flying down on Friday, Thursday will be my last night in Byron, so I book a table at the local Chinese restaurant for Wednesday for my aunt, uncle, Brooke, Jax and myself. I know they own a bar, but they won’t switch off and relax if they eat there; plus, they love the Chinese place, and we’ve eaten there a few times. Emily is away for the week, so it will just be family. I actually thought about asking Roman but then I remembered he was playing at Worldies Wednesday and Thursday, so I just left it at family.

  I’d told him Monday that I was leaving Friday and as expected, he was fine with it; finally, a relationship I didn’t feel any guilt about. We had come to a mutual understanding over the Jodie thing; he didn’t see it as a big deal, I did, and nothing was going to change either of our opinions, so we left it at that.

  I go down to the bar quite late on Thursday. I spent the whole day at the beach. I surfed with Jackson early, worked on my tan all day and then had another surf this evening. By the time I shower and get downstairs, it’s almost nine and the place is packed. Roman’s belting out Matchbox Twenty’s “If You’re Gone” as I walk in. I stand and listen and his eyes almost immediately meet mine. He doesn’t smile, just nods slightly and carries on singing.

  Brooke must have already spotted me as she comes over with a large glass of wine and a beer for herself. She’s working tonight but takes a few minutes to chat and drink her beer. Roman ends his song, takes a few swigs from his own drink and then leans into his mic.

  “This is a bit of an oldie but it’s special to me. It reminds me of someone I think I may just be a little in love with.” My stomach flips; so much for not feeling any guilt over this one. I know as soon as Rome starts playing the harmonica that he’s pulled from his back pocket what the song is, and it’s actually one of my favourites; well, it was. He starts playing his guitar, then sings the first verse of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like A Woman” and he doesn’t take his eyes from mine the whole time.

  As the song ends, he announces his break, walks straight to me and wraps his arms around my shoulders. I haven’t seen him since Monday; we spoke on the phone but I needed to keep my distance. I like Roman. I like him a lot and I am eternally grateful for what he has done for me. The spark of physical attraction will probably always be there between us, but our relationship would never have amounted to anything more than good friends who’d enjoyed some great sex together.

  “Thank you for being a little in love with me. Thank you for everything. I’m gonna miss you, Rome.”

  He kisses the top of my head. “I’m gonna miss you, too.” We stand and talk about my plans for when I’m back in England and his plans for a trip to Bali after Christmas.

  It’s all a bit strange for me; I’ve never ended a relationship on such amicable terms. Roman gives me a kiss and a cuddle and returns to the stage, and I head upstairs for an early night, feeling oddly grown-up and looking forward to getting home and seeing my family.

  * * *

  We land in Sydney around lunchtime; after a short hour-and-forty-minute flight from Byron. We take a cab to the hotel, drop our bags and go for a short walk to Circular Quay for lunch.

  Jodie has arranged to meet us at the club at four and is going to give us a guided tour while it is closed, but when we arrive the place is still a hive of activity. I have honestly never seen anything like it; it’s like a shopping center, but just filled with clubs, bars, restaurants and live music venues. The VIP bar and club on the top floor have a roof terrace and pool, with the most amazing views out across Sydney; this is where we will be tomorrow night. I spoke to Jodie yesterday and explained I had booked everyone into the Marriott as a thank you for my stay. She brought all her clothes with her so she didn’t have to travel back to her apartment for the next couple of days. She was very quiet on the phone and was none too chatty as she showed us around now, and I have a feeling it’s to do with Roman. We’re meeting for drinks later, so I’ll try and talk to her about it then. W
e leave Jodie to her last-minute organisations at work and Brooke, Jackson and I head back to the hotel. They go straight to the bar, but I go back to my room to freshen up.

  I’ve tried to call Marley every day this week without success, so I try again, but it’s Ashley’s voice I hear on the end of the line. “Slag bag, how are you?”

  “Slutster, where the fuck have you been? I’ve been ringing you and my brother for a week, but have had no answer, so I was getting worried.”

  “We took the kids away for a week. The weather’s been shit, and Marley’s been really down so we just got away.” Well, that explains it.

  “Lennon never said; where’d ya go?”

  “We just went to Fuerteventura. The weather was great. It was nice and quiet, and nobody noticed Marls, so he was able to chill.” I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach; Ash has just had a holiday but she sounds flat.

  “Ash?” She knows what I’m going to say, so I don’t have to say anymore.

  “He’s really struggling, George. I wanted us to stay away for another week but he wanted to be here for this weekend, ya know.” I feel so bad; I should be there. I should be with my brother; he lost his best friend, his brother-in-law and his nephew. I know how much he must be hurting.

  “He’s missing you, too, George; we all are.” I bite down on my bottom lip; I don’t want her to hear me cry.

  “I miss all of you, too, Ash. That’s why I’m coming home.”

  “You’re coming home, when?”

  “I land sometime Monday. I’m not sure when. Len’s taken care of all the flight details.”

  “Len has? Why the fuck didn’t he tell me? I only spoke to him last night!”

  “I was gonna surprise everyone but if Marley’s down, I might as well let him know.”