Commitment

by Golland, K. M.

  “Oh yeah, the cake,” Tash said, interrupting me. “Just so you know, you have Dale to thank for saving your arse tonight with respect to the cake.”

  “Dale?” Jesus that name annoyed the fuck out of me, more now than ever. “Why? What did he do?”

  “He arranged the most beautiful purple cake to be delivered when we found out you weren’t gonna make an appearance.”

  I sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll thank him tomorrow.”

  “Good call. But please, go on,” she said, waving her hand to gesture I continue. Again, another sarcastic retort I let slide.

  “I was just about to pick up your cake when Hillary called. She was in tears. Hysterical. I could barely make out what she was saying until I heard the words ‘drunk’ and ‘hit me’. Tash, she sounded terrified, and that made me terrified for her. All I could think was ‘go help her. She needs you’.”

  Tash nodded. “Right.”

  “So I high-tailed it to her house. Took me twenty minutes in peak hour.”

  “I don’t care how long it took, Dean. Get to the fucking point.”

  “There’s no need to be a bitch, Tash.”

  The scathing look she fired me was so razor sharp it near sliced my chest and cut me open, so I closed my eyes for the smallest of seconds, regretting that I’d come to the suite. I should have just gone home and explained when she wasn’t so ridiculously pissed off.

  “Anyway,” I said through gritted teeth. “I got to her house and she’d barricaded herself inside. When she realised it was me, she unbolted the door and let me in.”

  Memories of how Hill had looked when that door swung open flicked across my mind, and I swallowed dryly. “She had a fat lip and it was bleeding, and her eye was already bruising up.”

  “Shit!” Tash whispered, and it was the first sign of sympathy she’d shown since I walked through the door. Okay, maybe this won’t be so bad.

  “Yeah. I wanted to murder the bastard. He was lucky he was no longer there.”

  “Why didn’t she call the police? Why’d she call you?”

  “She was scared, I guess. He threatened her. He said that if she called the police he’d deny it and punish her worse next time. He’s a real piece of work.”

  “So did you call the police instead?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she didn’t want me to. She was so terrified. She couldn’t stop shaking. It took me nearly an hour just to get her to stop shaking and crying.”

  Tash hugged her knees tighter. “So what happened next? Did you take her to the hospital?”

  “No. She didn’t want to leave the house so I encouraged her to put ice on her face instead.”

  “You should’ve encouraged her to go to the hospital.”

  “Don’t you think I tried?” I exclaimed, dropping my head to my hands.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what you tried.”

  I scrubbed my face with frustration and sat upright. “Well, I did. I tried to persuade her to see a doctor at the very least, but she kept falling asleep.”

  “Yeah, because she was more than likely concussed,” Tash snapped. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I’ve never been in a situation like that, have I? All I knew was that having me there seemed to calm her down and make her feel safe, so I stayed and let her sleep.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded. More sarcasm. “Then what happened when she woke up?”

  “She kissed me.”

  Tash shook her head and blinked, as if I hadn’t just said what I’d said. But I had. And I couldn’t take it back.

  She released her hold around her legs and they dropped to the mattress with a thud. “She kissed you … on the lips?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted, again hanging my head.

  There was silence for a few seconds, and I didn’t know what the fuck to say. My mind was a whirlwind of crazy shit that I was still trying to understand.

  “Did you kiss her back?” she asked, quietly, her tone nowhere near as angry as I’d expected it to be.

  My eyes snapped to hers. “Of course not, love. I’d never do that.”

  “Oh my God!” she wailed, bursting into tears.

  It tore me apart.

  “I’m so sorry.” I shuffled along the bed until I was close enough to wrap my arms around her. “I never meant for any of this to happen. When I went to her aid, I never thought I would miss your entire party, and I never EVER thought Hill would kiss me.”

  Her sobs grew louder, her shoulders racking violently, and for the second time in a matter of hours, I was in unfamiliar territory. Tash never cried this bad.

  “Stop crying. You’re ugly when you cry, remember?”

  She cried harder, and I thanked the gods I didn’t father daughters. I wouldn’t cope. I wasn’t used to so many tears.

  “Hey,” I said, rubbing her shoulders. “I swear I never kissed her back. It was just a quick peck that caught me off guard, and when I pulled away and asked what she was doing—”

  “I kissed Dale.”

  Her mumbled words into my shoulder severed the ones leaving my mouth, and my body stilled, a chill shooting up the length of my spine. “What did you just say?” Her grip around me tightened, but I loosened it and held her at an arm’s length. “Tash?”

  She nodded, tears flooding her eyes and streaming down her face. “I didn’t mean it. It just kinda happened. We were in the pool and—”

  “You were where?” I shot up from the bed and ran my hand through my hair, gripping it tightly. “WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU BOTH DOING IN THE POOL?”

  “We fell in.”

  “YOU FELL IN, JUST LIKE THAT?”

  “Yes. Well, no. I was leaving the pool deck and he ran after me and grabbed my arm and we both slipped and fell into the pool and—”

  “WHEN? TONIGHT?” I growled.

  “Stop yelling at me. It was a couple of months ago; the night of the Australian Open Gala.”

  “And you’re only just telling me this now? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, TASH!” My mind rewound to the night of the Gala, the same night we fought about her hair. The same night she was on camera with that fucking arsehole.

  “Yes. I wanted to tell you right after it happened, but you and I were in a bad place. So I thought I’d wait until we were in a better place. But then things have been so great, and I didn’t want to ruin that, so I … I decided it didn’t matter.” She stretched up on her knees and crawled to the edge of the bed. “Because it doesn’t matter. The kiss meant nothing. It was stupid and wrong, and just stupid—”

  “You’re fucking stupid if you expect me to think that kissing another man doesn’t matter. Of course it fucking matters. It matters a lot.”

  “STOP SWEARING AT ME!”

  “Who kissed who?” I seethed, lowering my voice. “And was it just a kiss?”

  “Yes.” She nodded frantically. “Just a kiss. Nothing else happened. I ended it.”

  “But you also started it, right? You said you kissed him.”

  Her nodding stopped and she slumped, and it was all the confirmation I could stomach.

  “Yeah. Real fucking good that is. FUCK!” I shouted, turning around and heading for the door. “I shouldn’t have come back here. I need to go.”

  “OH GO ON THEN?” she yelled. “Run away. Typical fucking Dean Jones. You ruin my birthday, kiss Hillary, and now you need to go? Okay, yeah, that’s right … run off and sweep it all under the rug like you always do.”

  “Don’t fucking bait me, Natasha. I won’t be sweeping anything under a rug. I’ve nothing to sweep. Unlike you, my floor is fucking clean. Yours is filthy.”

  She gasped and burst into tears again.

  “I didn’t kiss Hillary. But you, you kissed Dale, so you have plenty to sweep. YOU. Not the other way around.” I turned to face her and watched her eyes widen with uncertainty as I closed th
e space between us, my lips barely touching her head as I reached into my pocket and retrieved the small gift I’d hidden in my car for weeks.

  Placing it in her hand, I said, “Happy birthday.”

  And then I went home.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tash

  My hands shook as I cradled the small purple jewellery box. I was too scared and ashamed to open it, too afraid that if I did, the guilt of my actions would tarnish what was hidden inside. I didn’t want to do that so placed it on the bedside table, as if it were glass and would shatter like my world at any second.

  Hearing that Hillary had pressed her lips to Dean’s had knifed my heart, but it was his admission of never kissing her back that had been the slow drag of the serrated blade free from the wound.

  He was right. He hadn’t failed me. It was the other way around.

  That said, I had every right to be hurt and angry that he’d missed my birthday and let me down, but knowing Dean and how pure and selfless his heart truly was, I understood his need to comfort and protect Hillary. Fuck, if I were in his shoes, I would’ve done the same thing, except I would’ve called the fucking police and still showed up to his birthday.

  Wiping a tear from my face, I shifted my focus from the jewellery box to my phone and sent Lexi a message.

  Tash: Are you awake?

  She answered almost instantly.

  Alexis: Are you okay?

  Tash: No.

  Alexis: I’m on my way.

  Not even fifteen minutes later and there was a knock at my door. I stood up and peeked through the peephole, finding Alexis still in her Minion outfit, holding two takeaway cups of coffee. It was such a strange sight, considering the circumstances.

  I opened the door and she pouted when she took one look at me. Without hesitating, she walked past me to the bed and placed the cups on each bedside table, performing a doubletake at the jewellery box before climbing across the bed and under the covers.

  “What happened?”

  “His secretary kissed him, so I came clean about kissing Dale.”

  Her eyebrows elevated and she bit her lip. “Okay.” She patted the bed beside her and reached for her cup. “Let’s start from the beginning.”

  I nodded, climbed in beside her, grabbed my cup, and rolled to my side, mimicking her head-propped-on-hand position. “Dean came back to the suite and apologised, then he explained that he’d been on his way to pick up my cake and head to the party when he received a phone call from Hillary. Apparently, she was hysterical, so he headed straight to her house and found her bruised, battered, and scared.” I took a quick sip of my coffee, shocked to find it wasn’t coffee at all, instead hot white chocolate — Alexis’s favourite.

  She must’ve noticed my what-the-fuck-is-this face.

  “It’s a miracle drink. Trust me.”

  I didn’t argue with her, and rimmed the plastic cover with my index finger. “You know what Dean is like, Lex, he’s a big softie. Has a heart of gold. All he wanted to do was help his secretary and make her feel safe. I get that. I’m not selfish enough to punish him for choosing that over my birthday.”

  She touched my arm lightly and sipped her drink.

  “Anyway, he stayed with her and calmed her down, helped treat her wounds and … she kissed him.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Apparently. He said he never kissed her back. She’s like a little sister to him.”

  “You sure ‘bout that?”

  I frowned at her. “Yes, I am. Why do you ask?”

  “Because as you well know, you can have nothing but the right intentions in any given situation; then, enter a moment of weakness and the outcome completely changes.”

  “If you’re asking could he have instigated the kiss? Sure. But he said he didn’t, so I believe him.”

  “That’s good, hon.” Alexis was quiet for a moment before continuing. “So … Hillary obviously doesn’t see him as a big brother.”

  “No. Obviously.”

  “Okay then. She is problem number one. We’ll get back to her. So what happened after he told you that she kissed him?”

  “Well, I felt so guilty that he hadn’t kissed her back that I just blurted out my mistake of kissing Dale.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was so angry … and disappointed. He said I was stupid and called me … filthy.” Tears burned my eyes — their trail down my face, an acidic sting.

  “Oh, hon, he didn’t mean that.” She rubbed my arm soothingly and took my cup from my hands. “Wound them and they'll show their true colours, but never forget that they love you enough for you to hurt them in the first place."

  “I hate that I’ve wounded him.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I think he hates me.”

  “He could never hate you. He’s just shocked and needs time.”

  “I can’t lose him, Lex. He’s my everything. Him and the boys.”

  She handed me a tissue, so I blew my nose.

  “Fucking up and kissing Dale has reminded me of just how much I love and appreciate all I have with Dean. All the big things like our home, our children … our eighteen-year love story built with tears, struggles, compromise, and happiness. But it’s also showed me just how much I adore the little things like how easily he makes me laugh, how much I miss him when he’s not around, how willing he is to give me what I want when he knows I want it, and how attentive he is with the boys. All these things, big and little, are us — Dean and Tash, Tash and Dean. They’re our life, our marriage. And I took them for granted when I welcomed Dale’s advances and feelings.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly say you took them for granted, hon. You were confused. There was something lacking in your life and you didn’t know what it was.”

  “But should I have been confused? I mean, really? Did Dean ever give me reason to believe I wasn’t his everything? And that if he wasn’t my everything, he’d do what he could to be just that?”

  Alexis rolled onto her back and turned her head to face me, stretching her wrist above her. “I don’t know … did he?”

  “No. I can’t say that he did.” I followed suit and relieved the hand supporting my head of the pins and needles attacking it. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.”

  Alexis bit her lip and tried not to smile. “Bad?”

  “Yes. What the fuck?”

  Lying there, both of us flapping our hand back and forth like idiots, a memory of Dean rocking his head from side to side — a goofy but pained expression on his face — hit me like a truck. Tears, yet again poured from my eyes, and I started doing the same thing, sweeping my head along my pillow repeatedly.

  Alexis sat up, a look of concern on her face. “What’s wrong? What are you doing?”

  “It.” Sob. “Stops.” Sob. “Pins and Needles in your hand.” Sob.

  Tentatively, she started copying me, rocking her head from left to right, right to left, increasing her pace with each rock, until a smile formed on her face. “Holy crap! It does stop it. How’d you know that?”

  “Dean,” I admitted, pausing my head rocking. “My stupid, goofy, amazing, Dean.”

  More sobs wracked my body, and my vision blurred. Alexis lay back down and wrapped her arms around me tightly. “That’s it, get it all out. And when it’s out, you’re gonna get some sleep. And after that, I’m gonna order us a huge-arse breakfast. And then, we’re gonna start planning how to sort shit out with your husband.” She kissed my temple. “You, my dear, are gonna get your alpha female on.”

  * * *

  The subtle hum of a distant motor grew louder and louder by the second, and a bright light slammed against my closed eyelids. It was intrusive. Unwelcome. But even more so when I was all of sudden yanked from a happy place and greeted by the not so wondrous thing known as Alexis in the morning.

  “Rise and shine.”

  I reluctantly pried open an eye and growled like a bear in labour.

  “Oooh … maybe not the shine par
t, ay?”

  “What time is it …” I moaned, “fuck the world O’clock?”

  “Something like that.” She pulled the covers back, and that was when I noticed she was no longer Minion-like, instead dressed in jeans and a blouse and her hair less canary yellow. “Come on, get up. Go have a shower. You look like Barney’s pubes.”

  I laughed. “What?”

  “Trust me. When I woke up and rolled over this morning, I thought I was in some weird dinoporn film.”

  “Dinoporn?”

  “Uh huh. If you think some of the books I’ve recommended to you are crazy, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  “Really? The one I’m reading now is pretty fucked up, Lex. The dude kidnapped her and she’s falling for him. He’s seriously cunty.”

  “Your purple head is seriously cunty. Go and shower. Breakfast will be here by the time you get out.”

  Rolling out of bed, I stretched and yawned. “Alexis Summers soon to be Clark, I love you, and you’re not cunty, even in the mornings.”

  “Go!”

  After standing in the shower until the water at my feet no longer resembled Ribena juice, I got out, got dried, and got dressed, still loving that I no longer had to pick clumps of hair from out of my arse crack. That was definitely a perk of having it cut.

  “Mmm … smells good. What did you order?”

  “A bit of everything. And bacon.”

  “Isn’t bacon part of the ‘everything’?”

  “No! Good god, no. Bacon is in a league of its own.”

  “Okaaaay!” I drawled, giving her crazy eyes as I sat down at the small dining table.

  “Don’t boggle-eye me. It’s true! Give me a food other than bacon that is meaty, fatty, salty, chewy, crispy, and still has the ability to make your ladies bits quiver when smothered in maple syrup?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Too right, you can’t. That’s because bacon is its own food group, known as YesYesYesYesYESSSSS.”