Commitment

by Golland, K. M.

  “I take it you were both close?”

  “Yeah. Our mother’s are twins.”

  I smiled at the fondness radiating from his sad eyes.

  “Anyway, Lila — my cousin — was forever complaining about wanting to be with her best friend, Justin. She was always sad because, apparently, they were perfect together.”

  “So why weren’t they together?”

  “Because Justin had a girlfriend, and he was happy.”

  “Oh.” I nodded my understanding. Ohhhhhhh!

  Dale took hold of my hand and raised it to his mouth, resting it there, his expression urgent and intense. “She died without letting Justin know how she really felt. And knowing her like I know I did, it would’ve been her biggest regret.” His lips pressed my skin, gently; warm, soft and delicate. “I don’t ever want to experience that regret. Life is short. We need to step up, be brave, and put ourselves out there more.”

  He rotated my hand and trailed his lips to my wrist. My skin tingled at the contact, the sweet sensation surging up my arm and through my body like a wave rolling into shore, the crash of water against sand that of my heart thudding against my chest. Every fibre in my being told me to create some distance and stop what was happening from going any further, but at the same time, his words were plausible.

  “We need to go after what we want in life. And what I want is a chance with you.” Oh God.

  “Dale I ... I can’t.” I freed my hand from his and sat it on my lap. “I can’t do this to Dean … to my boys.”

  “Tell me something … are you happy?” His tone was sharp but unaggressive.

  It was an easy question that required an even easier answer, but it caught me off guard, and I couldn’t open my mouth and give it to him. Am I happy? I mean, really happy? Of course I was. I was as happy as most married mothers in their thirties, or at least I thought I was. Okay, so my marriage wasn’t perfect, but whose was? And was there even such a thing as a perfect marriage? I didn’t think there was.

  A perfect marriage was an obese Barbie on a unicorn.

  Wringing my hands nervously, I met his stare and uttered, “Yeah, I’m happy.”

  “You don’t sound so convinced.” He stretched back once again and placed his hands behind his head. That’s because I’m not convinced. I have no idea if I’m happy or if could be happier. I mean, shit, who does?

  “Can you blame me?” I stood up, annoyed, and paced next to the pod. I didn’t like his blasé disposition let alone him forcing me to question my life. “I’m just a little shocked and confused right now. You’ve come out of nowhere with these feelings for me and I don’t know what to do with them.”

  “Do you reciprocate them?”

  “What?” I paused and placed my hand on my forehead.

  He remained calm, stoic. “Do. You. Have. Feelings. For. Me?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t; I was terrified of what I might say.

  “It’s a simple question, Tash.”

  He lifted from his laid back position to rest upon his elbows, his piercing stare into my very depths, unwavering. Heat bloomed in my head and on my face, his coercion to answer, and answer honestly, weighing heavily on my chest. The pressure was intangible yet just as suffocating as a ton of concrete.

  “I can’t do this. I have to go,” I said quickly, spinning on my heel and practically running for the elevator.

  The warm summer night air, tinged with the smell of chlorine, breezed past my face, And the bright blue glare of the pool’s lighting shone through the water’s surface, distorting my vision as I rushed along the wet concrete under foot.

  “Tash wait!”

  Dale’s fingers clamped around my arm, threw me off balance, causing my feet to slip beneath me. I screamed and grabbed hold of his shoulders, twisting and subsequently plunging us both into the pool. Liquid warmth swept my body as I scrambled to find the surface, my lungs grateful when they drew in a much-needed breath — a breath that was seconds away from expelling my fury.

  “What the fuck, Dale?” I yelled, coughing and treading water.

  He swam toward me so I propelled myself in the opposite direction, my target the stairs. I kicked and stroked but was admittedly the world’s worst swimmer, which didn’t help my cause, because not long after propelling toward the stairs, his hands secured my feet and dragged me to him.

  “No! Stop it,” I gurgled. “Let me go!”

  “After you answer my question.”

  His hands moved to my hips, their strength rotating me to face him. I pushed against his chest, but he wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug.

  I wasn’t going anywhere. I was trapped. Fuck!

  Our chests rose and fell, our eyes blinking droplets of water onto our cheeks as we scanned each other’s faces.

  “Well?” he asked, his voice breathy and low.

  I gritted my teeth and stared at his lips. Soft, pink and wet. And without even thinking, I lunged myself at them, kissing him hard, hungry and with purpose.

  I gave him my answer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dean

  There has never been a time during the seventeen years of being together that I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Tash, and believe it or not, that included a certain ‘awesome’ time of every month. Yeah, even then — when she was shitty, hungry, feeling fat and ugly and hating on me because she was feeling fat and ugly — I still wanted to see her … just in smaller doses … because she was my wife, and because she couldn’t help how her body made her feel and act sometimes. I understood that, and even though I hated the Godzilla she became, I knew it was never for long. I also knew she never maliciously did or said anything to piss me off, because Tash wasn’t like that. She may have liked to win every argument we were embroiled in, but she never deliberately tried to incite them.

  Standing on the boundary line of the Greenvale Footy Club oval, watching William play with his Under 11s team, for the first time ever I was not looking forward to seeing my wife. I was still angry as hell that she’d cut her hair short when she knew how much I loved it. I mean, fuck, we met because of her long hair. Her not cutting it was how our life together started. And as stupid as that might sound, I’d always felt as if I were her superhero for saving her from chopping it off all those years ago, not to mention all the years since. But now? Now it was gone … in the blink of a fucking eye.

  “MUM!” Thomas shouted, excitedly.

  I could see him from out of the corner of my eye take off in Tash’s direction, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn and look at her. I wasn’t ready, which I knew it was childish. I just didn’t bloody care.

  “Whoa! Mum, what happened to your hair?”

  “I wanted to change it. Do you like it?”

  “You look … different.”

  “Different good or different bad?”

  “Different good. You look like Elastigirl.”

  Tash laughed. “Who?”

  “You know … the stretchy mum in The Incredibles.”

  “Ohhhhh, yes, I do know her. Cool, I’ll take that.”

  There were some kissing and squeezy hug noises before the two of them moved closer to where I was standing. And fuck me for being a weak excuse for a man, because I still couldn’t bring myself to look at her — she’d killed something important as if it had meant nothing.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice a little timid.

  “Hey.”

  “How’s Will doing?”

  “One goal, one behind, 18 possessions,” I replied, short, flat, and with ridiculous immaturity.

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  An awkward silence ensued until Thomas broke it with pistol-shooting sound effects made with his mouth. “Pow pow. You’re under arrest, you dirty creep,” he yelled.

  Both Tash and I turned toward him. “Thomas!”

  He paused, his pistol-fingers pointing at the sky. “What?”

  “Language!” Tash scowled.

&nbs
p; “But that’s how Security Cadets speak to bad guys,” he whined.

  “No, it’s not.” Tash turned back to face the field, her eyes meeting mine for the briefest of seconds.

  I caught a glimpse of her hair. Or lack thereof it. Fuck, it was short, as in practically man-short.

  The pit of my stomach figuratively dropped, flattening my balls, and I quickly darted my eyes back toward the field. Granted, I didn’t get a thorough look of the massacre performed on her head, but I knew I hadn’t liked what I’d seen, not even a little, and I was almost certain there was no way I’d be able to pretend that I did. Lying about her hair was different than lying about her clothing choices or lipstick colours. Those were easy. I could deal with them because they only ever lasted the day. Her short man-cut, however, was going to last a hell of a lot longer. Goddamn it, Tash.

  Desperate to focus on anything but her and her hair, I resumed taking note of the team stats in the hope it would distract me. Stats were numbers, and I was a numbers man.

  “Shit! Who made that last centre clearance?” I mumbled under my breath.

  “Huh?”

  I shook my head, dismissively. “Don’t worry. I was talking to myself.”

  “Oh.” There was another awkward silence until she spoke again, this time louder and more noticeably pissed. “I’m going to the canteen to buy a coffee. You want anything?”

  I shook my head again, knowing I probably resembled a dog after its bath.

  She scoffed. “Suit yourself.”

  The sound of footsteps crunching gravel grew quieter as she walked away, and when I could no longer hear them, I knew it was safe to look up. So I did, estimating I had roughly ten minutes of free neck movement before she returned. This is stupid. I’m gonna have to look at her at some point.

  I groaned and tilted my head from side to side, stretching the muscles in my shoulders before straightening and shouting, “Man-up” to the players. Their defence was loose, which was allowing the other team to easily run the ball through the centre corridor. “Come on boys! Pressure!”

  The ball was kicked long into the defensive fifty and marked roughly forty metres from the other team’s goal. I swallowed the f-bomb on the tip of my tongue, the one I’d wanted to shout because, although a passionate footy-dad, I’d never take it that seriously and shout obscenities at my son’s game. F-bombs were for the AFL, not the junior league. Instead, I called out encouragement to the kid at fullback. “Scotty, stay with him, mate. Don’t let him get the jump on you.”

  The tall defender nodded but looked defeated, except there was no time for defeat because his player played-on and ran around him toward goal. “Play-on,” I hollered. “Play-on!”

  From out of nowhere, William sprinted along the wing and tackled the player with the ball before he had a chance to kick it. The ball spilled loose. I shouted “ball” as it bounced over the boundary line, popping up over the railing and into my hands. The umpire blew his whistle and awarded William the free kick. Thatta boy.

  “Good chase, Will. Nice tackle,” I shouted, smiling as I threw the ball to my son — who was panting hard. His work rate was impressive.

  The little shithead barely acknowledged my words, but I knew he’d heard them. When he played, he took everything in but remained completely focused. Footy — in his eleven-year-old eyes — was his life. He was devoted to the game and to improving his skills.

  If only he felt that way about school.

  Will kicked the ball, and Tash yelled, “Go, Willy!” from behind me.

  I closed my eyes, embarrassed for him. He hated when we called him that, which neither of us normally didn’t give two hoots about because, as parents, it was our right to shit-stir our spawn — a life lesson in tolerance, if you must. The thing was, I taught this particular lesson at home. Tash didn’t. She was more than happy to teach it wherever she bloody well wanted to.

  Turning to face his mother, Will fired Tash a heated glare before running after the ball.

  She laughed in response and sounded a shit-stirring, “Ooooo”.

  “Do you have to taunt him like that?” I murmured between gritted teeth, still not looking at her.

  “Oh come on, that was harmless.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  She tutted. “So it’s okay for you to call him that but not me?”

  “I don’t do it when he’s playing footy with his mates.”

  “Oh, okay, I see,” she responded sarcastically.

  The awkward silence from before fell upon us once more until it was broken by the sound of Tash sipping her coffee … really loudly. It was a sound I fucking hated. A sound that made my eye and neck twitch, and it was probably my biggest pet hate, which Tash was aware of, which was also why I knew she was purposely trying to grate me.

  Sip.

  My eye twitched, again.

  Sip. Sip.

  Focus on the smell of her coffee, Dean. It’s good. Mmm…

  Sip. Siiiiiiip.

  Focus. FOCUS!

  Siiiiiiiip

  “Dean?”

  I clicked my jaw from side to side. “What?”

  “Why aren’t you looking at me?”

  I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, drawing in the delicious aroma of a drink I could definitely do with right about now. And if Hillary were here she’d no doubt get me one, and a muffin.

  Thoughts of Hill’s boyfriend hit me like a truck, and I could feel the tension clench my fists. When I’d taken her out to lunch on Friday, she’d let slip just how horrible he made her feel. The guy was a Grade A arsehole, so I told her she could do so much better. That she deserved so much better. Luckily, she’d agreed. And hopefully, that meant she was going to dump the good for nothing loser.

  Siiiiiiiiiiip.

  “DEAN?”

  Shut up, Tash.

  “Answer me. Why won’t you look at me?”

  “Because I don’t want to see you without your hair!” I barked, a little too harshly.

  At the exact moment someone shouted ‘ball’ as the footy careened past Tash, making her flinch and spill the two coffees she was holding down the front of her top — the second cup was presumably for me.

  “Ahhhh, shit!” She leaned forward in an attempt to detach her wet top from her chest. “It’s ff … flapping hot.”

  “Here, let me take tha—”

  “No! Don’t bloody worry about it,” she snapped, flinging my coffee — or what was left of it — onto the ground. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. “I’ll see you at home. Then again, you might not want to see me because, apparently, I have no hair.”

  I went to apologise but she turned and walked away, leaving me to feel like the biggest bucket of shit in existence. And what was even worse was that I’d finally looked at her, and despite being covered in coffee, she looked adorable.

  Her new haircut was really cute.

  * * *

  “Why have you bought Mum flowers again?” Will asked as we walked through the garage toward the house.

  “Because he spilled coffee on her.”

  I huffed and glanced over my shoulder toward the little know-it-all walking behind me. “Thanks for that piece of information, Thomas, but I didn’t spill coffee on her.”

  “Yes, you did. You yelled at her at it made the coffee jump out of the cups and onto her top.”

  Will laughed. “Thomas, coffee doesn’t just jump out of cups.”

  “Mum’s coffee did!”

  “It did not.”

  “Did!”

  “BOYS!” I yelled, stopping to face them both. “Look, how ‘bout you both go across the road and see if Ethan and Kristy want to play?”

  “Cool! We can play Security Cadets.” Thomas reached inside his backpack and pulled out his Security Cadet kit. “I only have one set of handcuffs. You and Ethan and Kristy will have to get your own,” he explained to William, as they both walked down the driveway.

  “It’s a stupid game anyway,” Wi
lliam retorted.

  “Is not. Security Cadets are AWESOME! Dale is AWESOME! He carries a gun.”

  “Big deal, so do cops.”

  I smiled. Thatta boy, Willy. Big fucking deal. All I’d heard since the day Tash took Thomas into work with her was “Security Cadet this” and “Security Cadet that”, “Dale this” and “Dale that”. It was beginning to piss me off. What was so good about this Dale dude who’d somehow managed to brainwash my son? And where the hell had he come from? Up until several weeks ago, I’d never even heard of him, yet as far as I knew, he’d worked at City Towers for longer than Tash had, and thanks to Thomas he was all I was bloody hearing about.

  I was over it.

  Standing by the garage rollerdoor while watching the boys cross the road, I waited until they knocked on our neighbour’s door to see if Ethan and Kristy were home to play. My fingers were crossed that they were home, because I really needed some alone time with Tash to apologise. I’d acted like a fool and had really upset her to the point of crying before she’d fled the footy game.

  Tash rarely cries and never in public.

  Since we’d been together, she’d broken down maybe four or five times — not including when she chopped up onions. She always cried when she did that, but so did I and everyone else. I’d seen her cry during the birth of our children, when Sizzler shut down, and when Princess Diana died. And then there was that time a couple of weeks ago when we’d fought. Oh, and whenever she watched the movie Beaches. It was her favourite film, but she also hated it because it made her cry. Women! I’ll never understand them.

  Noticing the door to Ethan and Kristy’s house open, I waved to William and Thomas as they stepped inside then I pressed the remote button to close the garage door behind me, flowers in hand as I made my way into the house.

  If I was going to be completely honest with myself, I had no idea what I was about to walk into. Tash had been a little unpredictable of late — more than what was normal for her — which was emphasised when the smell of roast pork hit me like a truck. It was the last thing I’d expected. Roast pork was my favourite — Tash’s crackling by far the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. And the fact she would cook it after the way I’d treated her earlier, didn’t make sense to me. Maybe she’s not as upset as I thought? Or maybe she’s poisoned it? I inwardly laughed. Naaa, that’s not her style.