by Lesley Jones
I shrug. “They’re all wonky. My thoughts are fuzzy, mixed-up and wonky,” I tell him sincerely.
“That’s because you’re so fucking pissed, Kitten.”
“I am not pissed and don’t swear, Tiger; it’s not gentlemany. It’s not geltemenly… It’s not fucking nice.” He throws his head back, gives that big Cam laugh, and I burst into tears.
“Fuck, Kitten. Fuck, please don’t cry; I hate it when you cry.” He undoes his seatbelt, pulls me into his lap, and it’s instant. I feel safe and cherished. He feels like home and all of this just makes all the guilt feel so much fucking worse. I’m here, with him, being held, by him, on the first anniversary of my husband’s death, and it’s so many kinds of wrong that there’s probably not a number big enough to count them all.
We arrive at my hotel after a completely silent journey. I get myself together enough to stop crying, and Cam helps me out of the car. He holds my hand as we walk through the lobby and head for the elevators. Despite being the only ones inside, we ride in silence, but as soon as we walk through the doors of my room, Cam speaks.
“I don’t want any bullshit from you, Kitten. What’s going on? What happened last weekend, and what were all the tears about in the car?” I turn around and meet his gaze the best I can. He’s only just inside the room and he leans back against the door, folds his arms across his chest and crosses his long legs. I can see his jaw move as he either grinds his teeth or chews on the inside of his cheek; I’m not sure which. “Talk to me, Kitten. I need to know you’re doing okay.”
I shake my head. “It’s one year,” I say quietly. He narrows his eyes.
“I don’t understand; what’s one year?”
I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to say the words out loud. I don’t want to make it real. I want it all to just go away. I want it to fuck off and not be my life. It can be anyone’s, I don’t care whose, just not mine. But then who would I choose? Is there anyone in this world I would wish this pain on? I don’t think there is. I think I would rather just kill them, kill them so they didn’t have to feel like this. I was doing okay, tucked away in Byron, away from any reminders of my past life. I was getting my shit together, but now, with a few drinks in my belly and this man standing in front of me, the man who for some reason, I can’t get out of my head—or my heart, if I’m being really honest—now, I’m back to being a mess. I don’t know what I want. Nights like tonight make me think that I do want to live. I do want to move on. But I don’t want this pain, this ache in my chest, and it’s not just caused by the loss of Sean and Beau. It’s guilt, as well; guilt for my past indiscretions and guilt because I’m even thinking about moving on. Guilt, because on the one-year anniversary of my husband’s death, I’m in a hotel room with another man. And not just any other man. This man, Cameron fucking King, is the only other man outside of Sean and my family who I’ve ever loved, and that realisation is crushing me right now, suffocating me. Not tonight, I shouldn’t be thinking this, feeling any of this. Any other night, on any other date, I might be able to wrap my head around it all, but to finally accept this as absolute fact on December the first just goes to show what a bad person I am.
“What’s one year, Kitten?” I raise my eyes to his and study his face for a few seconds. He’s not perfect, not beautiful like Sean. His nose is probably too big, his eyes a little too small, he has flecks of grey in the stubble on his chin; so, why the draw, why the pull? Whenever we’re together, it’s like there’s a charge, a current that runs between us; it feels right but I know it’s wrong. It feels bad, but it feels so fucking good at the same time. He shrugs, letting me know he’s waiting on a reply.
“Sean died one year ago today. My baby died one year ago today, and here I am, one year on, alive and being the adulterous whore of a wife that I am. I’m here, in a hotel room with you, of all people. I’m with you.”
He steps towards me. “Oh, Georgia, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Baby, I’m so sorry, so, so sorry.” He picks me up with no effort whatsoever and walks us over to the bedroom. He goes to the bed and sits me down on it, takes off his jacket, loosens his tie and toes off his shoes then removes mine. He sits on the bed with his back against the headboard and the pillows, then pulls me into his lap. I rest my head against his chest and just enjoy his presence. I don’t cry, I just sit quietly with my thoughts and my guilt, trying to sober up my drunk-again brain.
“Why are you here?” I ask after a while. “Why are you here in Australia?” His thumb is brushing up and down over the ridges of my spine, and I’m acutely aware of it. His other hand is splayed over my belly, and as usual when I’m with him, I feel protected. Funny how nothing’s changed. It would be around twelve years now since I first met him, and he has always made me feel safe, despite what I know about him and his ‘business’ dealings.
“I’m an investor in the club. I’m the biggest shareholder, as it happens.”
I’d only found out tonight that the club was called KLUB, and I now wonder if the K had anything to do with him.
“Is that why it starts with a K? Is that why they spelt it KLUB?”
“Yep, it’s made up of an initial from each investor, the K coming from King.”
I look up at him and smile. Doing my best Humphrey Boggart impersonation say, “In all the bars, in all the world.” He smiles and his eyes shine.
“You walk into mine… again.” I give a small laugh.
“That’s mad, you know? What are the chances of us both being in Australia at the same time?” He rubs his nose in my hair.
“We weren’t. I flew home from here last weekend; I was just getting into a car at Heathrow when I got your text. I was frantic. I was jet-lagged and thinking all sorts. Your brother was behaving like a complete prick and giving me nothing, and I didn’t know what to do.” I curl into him, getting closer, remembering my stupidity of last weekend. “I wasn’t supposed to be here tonight. I said I’d seen enough, wished everyone good luck and said I would be back after Christmas. Then when I found out you were here, I got off the phone, rearranged a few things and booked a flight back. I came to the opening tonight, and I was coming to Byron Bay tomorrow to find you.”
Oh, he was coming to find me.
“Why, why were you coming to find me?” He lifts my chin with his index finger so my eyes meet his.
“I needed to know you were okay. I needed to know if all the things you said on the phone last weekend were true. I know you were bolloxed and fucked-up, but you don’t just say that kinda shit. No one says that kinda thing without there being some truth in it.” He tilts his head forward so his forehead rests against mine. “You told me on the phone that you had told someone you loved me, that you’d always loved me. Then Sunday, when you were straight and sober, you told me you cared, that you’d always cared, that you still care. I just… I wanted to see you. I wanted to hear you say those things to my face.” He says no more, and I know he’s waiting for me to speak. He leans his head back into the pillows.
“I never gave us a chance, did I, Tiger? I was so obsessed with Sean that I couldn’t see what was happening right in front of me.” He deserves my honesty, even though I’m not sure if it’ll do any good now. I’m feeling drunk and brave, so I decide to tell him anyway. “I was attracted to you from the very beginning, Cam. Right from the start, you were the first bloke who made me want: made me want to be kissed, want to be touched, want to be fucked, the first one since I’d split up with Sean. But then when you found out who my dad was and got on the turn, I thought it was because you’d realised I was ‘that’ Georgia, the one they wrote about in the paper, the underage whore who broke the poor boy from Carnage’s heart. That’s why I threw the drink over you.”
He gives a small laugh. “Fuck, I’d forgotten about that.” He leans over and picks the hotel menu up from where I’d left it on the bedside table the night before. “You hungry?” I nod. “I’m starving, what’s good?” he asks.
“The burger with the lot,” I r
eply. “I had one last night.” He tilts his head and looks at me.
“You were here, in your room last night, ordering room service?” I nod, mainly because I’m struggling to form sentences. “I was a few streets away in my hotel room, doing the same.” I make do, do, do, do noises, attempting to sound like the theme to the Twilight Zone.
“Spooky,” I whisper to him, and he slaps me over the head with the menu.
“Don’t take the piss, Kitten; it’s not nice.”
I sigh a big sigh and shake my head at him. “Cameron King, when are you gonna realise I’m not nice?”
He looks at me almost reverently as he tucks my hair behind my ear. “You’re nice; you’re just too hard on yourself, and you worry too much about what other people are gonna think or say.”
I ignore him. “Anyway, listen, you have to listen to my story. I need to tell you all of this.” No matter how hard I try, I slur nearly every word, and I can see Cam’s trying his best not to smile. “So, yeah, anyway, because I thought you thought I was a little whore, I decided to act like one. All those blokes, the different ones I used to bring into Kings every week or so, I was just trying to piss you off. I was just like… ‘yeah, well, you think I’m a whore, then I’m gonna act like a whore; just watch me. Just watch me, King, you fucker.’ And for six months, six whole months I did. And all the while, I wanted you to stop me; I wanted you to say something, to tell me to stop, ask me to stop, but you didn’t. You didn’t say or do anything, so I just kept bringing them in, week after week after week.”
He picks up the hotel phone and presses a button. “Keep talking. I’m listening.”
I give him a wink. “Good-looking and a multitapletasker, a multiple, a multitasker, wow.”
He wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “Baby, you’ve felt nothing till you’ve felt my fingers,” he wiggles his middle finger at me, “my tongue,” he sticks out his tongue and moves it suggestively, “and my cock,” he gyrates his hips, “all in action at the same time… Shit, sorry, no not you, love.” He bites his bottom lip as he tries not to laugh at the person who’s just answered the phone. “Shit,” he mouths to me. “Yeah, can I get two burgers with the lot, one with no pineapple.” My heart stutters; all these years and he’s remembered I don’t like pineapple. He winks at me as he talks. What is this? What am I feeling here and where am I going with this? My head is swimming, drowning in the questions I’m asking myself right now. “Yeah, a side of wedges, some aioli, some sweet chilli sauce, a large jug of iced water and a bottle of Wild Turkey, Rare Breed if you’ve got it… That’s right, cheers.” He puts the phone down.
He folds his arms behind his head and leans against the headboard, his long legs stretched out in front as I sit cross-legged beside him on the bed.
“So, all you wanted was for me to rescue you. Is that what you’re saying?”
I nod. “I think I was but I wouldn’t… couldn’t admit that to myself at the time.”
“Why?”
I think about this for a while; my long conversations with Jackson have helped me come to a conclusion, and I concentrate hard on explaining myself clearly to Cam. I don’t want him to think this is just drunk talk. I want him to know this is me being honest.
“I was so in love with the idea of being in love with Sean that I couldn’t see past it. I wouldn’t let myself accept that I was attracted to you, but at the same time, I so desperately wanted you to force me, to make me see it.” God, this feels so good. Sitting here with him, with Cam and after all these years, finally explaining myself to him. It just makes everything so much clearer. “When you spoke to me that night in the wine bar, when that bloke shoved me at the bar and we ended up in your office—” His eyes are closed as he interrupts me.
“Fuck, you were wearing stockings and suspenders.”
“I was.” I blush as I think about that night; my behaviour all round was pretty shameful. The way I treated the bloke I was with, and the things I did with Cam in his office. Cam, me and offices, what a lethal, explosive combination.
“What is it when you and me end up in an office together, Kitten, ehh? Things happen.”
My stomach churns as I think about the ‘things’ that have happened; the sex we had against his office door, the one and only time in my life I was unfaithful to Sean.
“Bad things happen when we’re in an office together,” I say quietly.
He shrugs and shakes his head slightly, the way he so often does around me. “There was nothing bad about the things we did as far as I’m concerned, Kitten. I only remember them as good, and… Fuck, change the subject. I’m getting a hard-on.” I don’t mean to, but fuck, my eyes go straight to his crotch and sure enough, he has a tepee in his trousers,
“Cam, seriously?” My eyes roam up his body and meet his, and we both laugh and shake our heads. I’m still wearing the dress I went out in and I have a pillow over my lap so Cam can’t see up it. I throw the pillow down onto his lap as I jump off the bed. “I’m gonna have a quick shower before our food gets here. You can try and calm yourself down while I’m gone.”
“You’ve just told me you’re going for a shower and you expect me to calm down? Are you fucking mad, woman? Pass me out some tissues, and I’ll have a wank while you’re gone. I just saw your knickers by the way, Kitten.” His lips are pursed together, eyebrows raised as he waits for my response.
“You need help, Tiger?”
He pulls open his fly. “Is that an offer, Kitten?”
I need to leave. I need to lock myself in the bathroom and take a cold shower. I’ve no idea where things are going with Cam, and the last thing we need to do is complicate matters with sex; not that I would do that, with him, tonight of all nights.
I grab what I need and take it into the bathroom. There’s no way I’m stepping back out here with just a towel wrapped around me. I shower and remove all the makeup I’m wearing, then dress in one of my Juicy tracksuits.
I step from the bathroom into the bedroom, and Cam’s no longer on the bed. I walk out into the living area of the suite and he’s standing with his back to me, sipping on a bourbon, our food laid out on the table. I must make a noise or he just senses my presence as he turns and looks at me, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other nursing his drink. His sleeves are rolled up and he’s taken off his tie. He is just so… male: big, tall and so fucking sexy.
We both stand completely still; the air crackles between us but we don’t say a word. My heart is pounding, and I desperately want to touch him. I desperately want him to hold me in his arms, but I say nothing. The telly is on and has been switched to a music channel. Lifehouse are on, singing “Hanging By A Moment”, and if this had been pre-planned, set up, staged or whatever, there’s not a better song out there to fit this moment.
“That’s better; now you look like my Kitten. You didn’t need all that shit on your face. You’re more beautiful without it.” I don’t reply, because if I say something, it will be too much and I don’t want to spoil things. “Come and eat something; you really need to fatten up.” I’ve actually put on weight since I’ve been in Australia; God knows what he would have thought if he’d seen me before I arrived.
We sit down at the table together and Cam pours me some water from the jug that’s been delivered to the room, into a tall glass.
“Drink this. You’re gonna have a headache if you don’t, and you’ve got a long flight tomorrow.” I drink the whole glass down without saying a word. My head is already pounding, but I’m not about to admit that to him. I take a bite of my burger, and just like last night, it’s delicious.
Cam tucks into his food and pours himself another drink.
“When d’ya leave?” I ask.
He eyes me as he finishes what he’s chewing. “I leave tomorrow, too, but not till lunch time.”
“Shame I didn’t know sooner; we could’ve flown together. I hate this flight.” I watch him as he dips a potato wedge into the aioli and eats it.
“What’re
your plans? Once you’re home, I mean?” My stomach rolls just at the thought of being back in England. I suddenly look around the room for a clock; I wonder what the time is. This time last year… if only I had done things differently. If I’d had made my doctor’s appointment for a different day, if the baby shop hadn’t called to say the baby buggy was ready, if I hadn’t wanted to stop off and show it to Sean, if we’d just gone straight home, if I hadn’t gotten pregnant…
“Georgia, you okay?” I put the half of the burger I had in my hand down.
“What’s the time?” I ask him, and he looks at the chunky, chrome-looking watch he has on his wrist.
“Twelve forty-five,” he replies. “Is something wrong?” I shake my head, but I’m lying. Of course there’s something wrong, everything’s wrong. “Kitten, please fucking talk to me. It’s like you’re on another planet since you came out of the shower.”
“What are we doing, Cam? Me and you, what is this?” He rakes his hand through his hair.
“This right now is us talking. This is me and you, sorting through some issues that should’ve been sorted a while ago but they weren’t, so we’re sorting them now.” He finishes his burger and knocks back his drink, all without taking his eyes off me. “We’re talking, Kitten, just talking. There’s no need to look so scared, and there’s no need to look so guilty.” I lower my eyes; how does he know I feel guilty? “The guilt’s written all over your face, George. You loved your husband, I fucking know that. I’m all too painfully aware of how much you love your husband, and yeah, tonight’s not the best night for us to have met up, but it wasn’t planned. We didn’t mean to be in the same place at the same time. I had no idea you were gonna be at the opening of my club tonight, but now that I know what the significance of today’s date is, I’ll be fucked if I leave you here alone for the rest of the night. I won’t leave you on your own, no matter how much guilt you’re feeling.”
