by A. S. Kelly
I get everything onto two trays and make my way to the sofa. “I thought you might be hungry,” I say, and her eyes flash wide in surprise. “I didn’t know what you wanted.”
She stays silent, her eyes glued to the table.
“I also didn’t know if you’d prefer a regular coffee or one of these fancy drinks, so I got one of each,” I go on, clumsily.
Riley rests her back on the sofa and I don’t know why, but she seems smaller than usual to me now. As if she were trying to become one with the fabric.
“Is everything alright?” I ask, worried.
She nods.
“Riley…don’t lie.”
“It’s okay.”
“‘Okay’ my arse. Did I do something wrong? Did I say…?”
She looks up slowly and my breath hitches.
“Why are you here, Ian? What do you want?”
“I don’t know.” I answer honestly. “I wanted to…I had to see you.”
She bites her lip.
My. God.
“It’s not a good idea. It’s never a good idea when it comes to you.”
I take the blow and remain standing.
“Don’t do it again.”
“What?”
“Come into my life and then disappear.”
Her words open a gash in my heart capable of sucking everything around us into it. Every table, chair, sofa; every person and every damn sigh that escapes her mouth.
I’d like to take all of it and make it more luminous and more perfect for her, because Riley is simply perfect and everything else is tarnished by comparison.
I am nothing in comparison.
“Riley…” I breathe hard and let out the strangling thought that has always been within me – and it’s time to tell her. “I’m the one who wants you to come back into my life,” I say, without considering the consequences of what I’m saying, the effect they could have on her.
The moment my words make contact with the air, her eyes find mine, penetrating so deeply that I’m afraid she may have hit my soul and may now understand how worked up I am for her.
“I’m not what you want, Ian O’Connor. We both know that.”
I swallow, trying once again to send away this feeling that’s trying to make its way up to my lips, transform into words and fly to her. Trying to diminish all of her insecurities, and to show her that she’s perfect, that she hasn’t done anything wrong, that I was the one who screwed up.
“You don’t know what you are, Riley.”
I’m panting. My heart is going crazy. It’s like you’re falling off a cliff, and no one hears you screaming, no one reaches out to help you. I’m going to shout as loud as I can for her to hear me.
“Give me a chance.”
“You had your chance.”
“I was an idiot.”
“You still are, Ian.”
“You’re right, I know.”
“I’m not going to let my heart be broken by someone like you.”
“But what if I wanted to put it all back together?”
“That’d be rich, seeing as you’re the one who crushed it in the first place.”
“Just one chance. That’s all I’m asking for.”
She looks at me doubtfully.
“You’re a bastard, O’Connor.”
“I know what I am and I know that I’m not going to change but I want to be your bastard.”
She shakes her head but can’t hide a little grin.
“One chance,” she says, stirring her coffee. “But you’ll have to earn it,” she says, serious. There’s a wrestling match going on in my stomach.
“Damn right, I will.”
She smiles slightly and I feel something building in me: hope. Salvation.
She doesn’t know me, doesn’t know what lengths I’ll go to, to get what I want. And right now, there is only one thing I want, and she’s sitting right in front of me.
“You’re very confident,” she smirks.
“You have no idea,” I tell her, letting my eyes run over her body, and her face goes aflame.
Okay, I fucked this up a year ago. Actually, my messing it up has lasted a lot longer than that: it started when I met her, when she set down her roots, the kind you can’t get rid of even if you dig up the earth. And I thought I could just pull them out with my bare hands.
I thought I could ignore the signs, the acid in my stomach, the heart beating too fast and the sighs. I thought I could spare myself. But that doesn’t work for anyone, not even the biggest arseholes.
Because the people that destiny sets in front of you are there to be loved. You have to take everything good about them and safeguard it, like a precious treasure you’ve been searching for your whole life. You have to love them for all their flaws, their fears and insecurities because that’s what makes them real, vulnerable, unique. You can’t renounce all that, throw it away or hold it against them just because you’re a hard-headed idiot.
You just need to love people and try to make them happy, do your best. And give yourself to them completely, let them see you as you really are and let them decide if they want to stay or not. You can’t lock them out just because you’re afraid that they’ll wake up one day and realise they’ve made a mistake.
“I know I’m going to regret this,” she says shaking her head and taking a blueberry muffin. “I love these,” she says, starting to relax.
“I love them too,” I smile at her.
She’s set down her battle axe. Her walls are starting to crack. I can already see the first brick falling to the ground and turning into dust at my feet. I just need a tiny something to work with, something I can grab onto that allows me to slip back into her life and convince her that she was made only for me.
I made the biggest mistake a person could make, but now I’m here to make it right.
19
Ian
One year earlier
We’re lying side by side on my bed. Our skin is touching, our breathing mixes together, my heart is going nuts and my body is trembling.
I’m not going to make it. I can’t hold out much longer. I can’t go on ignoring what I feel, what has taken residence in my mind and my body for years now.
My obsession. My downfall.
Two years of imagined kisses, caresses and unfulfilled fantasies. Two years of repressed desire and insanity. Two years where I sat witness to my own destruction – and to hers too.
Every glance, every word, every damn breath has been agony. Every night I’ve spent away from her has been enormously and uncontrollably painful to me.
And I don’t plan on doing it again.
I want to touch her. Right now. I want to feel her with my fingers, with my lips, with my eyes and my entire body. I want to feel everything.
I want to feel her.
I know I won’t be able to go back once we cross this line and that our lives will self destruct with no chance of survival, but the desire to have her clouds over all of my logic and disables any efforts I’ve made to keep my distance from her.
I let my hand slide down along her skin.
She shivers. She wants me.
I let myself enjoy that madness.
I taste her, slowly, scared and almost breathless, on the brink of giving in.
I stop.
I’m almost suffocating under my own breath.
I brush one of her nipples gently with my thumb and it goes hard immediately, a rush of excitement flowing through my veins.
She leans in, her mouth on mine. And then, I feel the bitter taste of tears on her lips and I understand that we’re taking too big a step here, that under our feet is a never-ending abyss. Eternal.
“I can’t do this,” I tell her, with my heart in pieces and my soul in desperation.
But I do it all the same.
I tell her that I’m a man who is unable of giving. That I only know how to take. That I want her body but that I don’t want her.
I tell her that this thing betwee
n us is a problem, a big, dangerous one and that I don’t like having problems, especially when it involves a woman.
I tell her that she needs everything and that I’m a bastard who wants to get between her legs, for a night or two, but who will never be able to give her more than that.
I tell her she’ll have none of me.
Even if the truth were to be told, she’s already got everything there was to take, she keeps it tight in her hands, imprisoned, and I know that it’ll never be returned to its rightful owner.
I hurt her. I rejected her.
I push her away from me, from what we can never share, because I know that she needs someone and that I’m not that person.
She doesn’t really want me and soon she’s going to realise that for herself. I don’t want to be left here with nothing.
I can’t let her leave me.
I get up from the bed, get dressed and grab my keys. I leave the house letting the door slam behind me, confident that when I come back, I won’t find her waiting for me.
20
Ian
Present
I open the door and the sound of Mum’s laughter lifts my mood immediately. A night at home with the family is just what I need. I close the door behind me and peek into the kitchen where Mum is crying with laughter over something Ryan has said.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” I ask, grabbing a carrot from the salad on the counter.
“Oh nothing, your brother was just telling me about the last time he got pantsed on the field.”
“What a show,” I tease and he punches my shoulder.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s setting the table in the dining room. Today’s a good day,” she smiles and my heart fills with hope.
Maybe all isn’t lost.
“I’ll go and see if he needs a hand, seeing as Ryan doesn’t look like he’ll be off his arse anytime soon.”
I grab some glasses from the counter and take them through to the next room. My father is setting down the napkins and cutlery, in seemingly good spirits.
“Oh, Ian!” He looks up at me. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I just got here.” I put the glasses down and notice immediately that my father has set the table for five. Maybe it’s not the awesome day Mum expected after all.
“Er, Dad?”
“Yeah, son?”
“You’ve set too many places.”
He looks at me for a second before looking back at the table. “There are five place settings,” he says looking at me again. “There are five of us.”
“No, Dad, there are only four of us here tonight.” I try to be delicate, not knowing how this conversation is going to end.
He shakes his head and goes back to what he was doing and I decide to let it go: there’s no point upsetting him over this.
“I’m going to the kitchen to get drinks. What would you like?”
“Half a glass of wine’d be great.”
I go back into the kitchen just as the front door opens in front of me.
“What the fuck?”
“That’s how you welcome me back?” Nick says, throwing his bag to the ground.
“Nick…”
“Oh, I see you still remember my name.”
“You ugly son of a—”
“Nick!” my mother appears behind me. “Oh my God, you’re here!” she brings her hands to her mouth.
He opens his arms and she runs to him and dives in. Nick squeezes her tightly and lifts her off the floor, making her squeal in delight.
“I told you there were five of us,” my father says calmly behind my back as he goes over to my brother and my mum.
“Dad,” Nick’s voice comes out distorted.
“I knew you’d come back.”
My father joins the hug and all three of them remain that way for a few seconds, still in the doorway.
“You did it,” Ryan whispers in my ear. “You reunited the family.”
I nod emotionally.
“And now you’ve got to deal with this shit,” he adds before emptying his glass and going back in the other room.
We all sit at the table in the living room, much to Mum’s delight. Nick tells us about his most recent photo shoots, given that his days of talking about the actual sport have dwindled significantly.
He’s too cool and too much of an arsehole to be satisfied with just being a player, he prefers to be the public face of ten different brands of underwear, sports lines, watches and who knows what else. He’s forgotten that he’s first and foremost a rugby player and then – maybe –something good to look at.
Ryan sits in silence, keeping his eyes on his plate and his glass in his hand. He didn’t even say hello to Nick, which has not escaped my mother’s attention.
For the moment, everything is calm: no fighting, no knives to anyone’s throat.
Maybe we’ve grown up, able to have a civil conversation and potentially go back to being a normal family, before someone’s terrible decision threw us all up to our necks in a pile of shit.
“So, little Ryan got booted off the team, huh?”
I spoke too soon.
I kick Nick under the table, but he dodges it.
“Fuck you, Nick.”
“Please, boys.” Mum tries to come between them.
“What did I say?” Nick’s stupid face could be a punching bag. “Did I get it wrong?” he challenges, looking at Ryan in invitation.
“I took a break.”
“A break…huh. I guess you’re not that important to them.”
“As if you were. You’re a model now, right?”
“Just for the fun and the money. At least I still have a place on the team.”
“Right. When they’re desperate for someone to send onto the field. What’s the matter, you’re not afraid of ruining your pretty face, are you?” Ryan slams down another glass and I can feel my head already exploding.
“Kids,” my father stands up and I choke on my water, afraid he’s having one of his moments. “Take your arguments elsewhere, not in front of your mother. I want you all in the garden, right now!”
Nick and Ryan get up huffing, and I look worriedly at my mother.
“You too, Ian.”
I stand up and follow them outside. My father closes the door and signals us to take a few steps away from the house so Mum can’t hear.
“I’m going to tell you this just once. I don’t want to repeat myself because I don’t know if I’ll be able to.”
“Dad,” I try to interrupt him, but he cuts me off, raising his hand.
“I’m happy you’re all here. Thank you, Ian, for bringing them home.”
“I had nothing to do with this,” I try to justify.
“I’m sick, not stupid,” he shuts me up. “It’s okay. You’re here now, and Karen is much happier than she’s been in a very long time. She’s been so worried about me, I can’t let you give her any more stress. If you want to stay here, you’ll have to get along as civilised human beings, like brothers. You need to bury the hatchet, at least as long as you’re in this house. You can do what you please once you leave, but not in front of your mother, is that clear?”
My brothers nod.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes, Dad,” they reply in unison.
“Do it for her, she deserves it with everything she’s going through.”
“Dad,” Ryan says, putting his arms around my father’s neck. “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, I promise.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’m sorry,” Nick says, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I’ll try my best.”
Dad nods.
“Let’s go back inside and try to act like a family.”
Nick and Ryan go back into the house with their heads hung low, but carrying on their idiotic routine, pushing each other to race through the door first.
I shake my head and follow them, but my father takes me by the arm.
“I
’m sorry about the other day,” he says in a whisper. “You’re my son, Ian, as much as they are.”
“No, Dad, you don’t have to—”
“I want you to know that I loved you from the first day you came through this door. When you showed up on this doorstep with all of your rage, needing to be loved. I loved you instantly. For me, you became an O’Connor in that moment, and always will be.”
I can barely hold in a sob.
“Now come here and give your dad a hug. Don’t squeeze me too much though, go slow.”
I laugh as the first tear falls down my face. “You’re the pillar of this family, Ian. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You’re strong and giving and we were very lucky. Thanks for letting us in to your heart.”
“It was you guys who gave me this home.”
“And you’re the one holding it together. You’re the one who continues to be there even if not everyone deserves it. You’re the one who stopped your brothers from killing each other. You’re the one who brought them all home. You, Ian, are this family. And I’ll never thank you enough for that.”
21
Ian
“Well, closing yourself up in a bar doesn’t seem like the best way to get some air.”
Ryan asked me to take him out of the house for a while. He’s been here a few days and already seems exhausted. He finds Dublin suffocating and I don’t know if it’s because of the situation with my parents, if it’s because he can’t deal with what he left behind or if he and Nick have already come to blows, and I almost hope it’s the latter – at least I’d be able to get rid of one of them for a while.
I nod to the barman to bring us two beers.
