Journey: A Cariad Romance Three Book Bundle (Cariad Collections)

by Grace, K D

  Oh God, why is he looking at me with a face like a deflated balloon? Isn’t he meant to be massive and impervious to all attacks? I was certain he was. At the very least, I was certain that nothing I could ever say would make the slightest bit of difference to him. He’s like a glorious golden god, and I’m like …

  Well.

  I’m a flesh avalanche. I’m a nothing. I’ve long since accepted that the kid he used to pay attention to grew up into the kind of person he looks right through, now, and that he grew up into the kind of person that no one can look right through, ever. A mole would mysteriously find its eyeballs drawn to his presence.

  He’s magnetic.

  So why does he seem so horrified, now? Was the thing I said really so bad? I mean, true. I implied that he has gonorrhoea, and that no sane person would want to chase after him. But everyone in the world knows that this cannot be true. Just look at that mouth of his – I’ve seen Angelina Jolie look less pouty than that. And of course it’s even more pronounced, now, because he’s so deeply saddened by my terrible words.

  Plus, he keeps slicking the thing with some kind of sunblock stuff. I could slip and slide across the surface of his lower lip no problems at all, and worse … I think I’d like it. Anyone would like it. His mouth suggests so many sinful, sensuous possibilities – as do those sleepy blue eyes of his.

  The ones that rival the ocean, on any normal day.

  But now best it, in this slightly wounded state. It’s like someone has pulled a skein of smoke over them, and for a second I’m actually hypnotised. I’m completely drawn in, to the point where I almost apologise. In fact, the words are on the tip of my tongue, when he finally breaks the silence.

  With a laugh.

  A big, booming, careless laugh, as though none of this matters at all. It was just me imagining that he had things like feelings, when really he wouldn’t know one if it punched him in the face. I don’t why I let myself feel guilty, if this is all he’s got to say about it.

  ‘Well, you’re probably right,’ he tells me, and that’s the end of that.

  Only it’s not the end of that. I see the look he gives me, and I know what it means. I’ve seen the same look in the eyes of all kinds of arseholes, as they plot their slow and silent revenge. Then, just as I think I’m safe, they pounce.

  But I’m not going to let that happen. There will be no pouncing, between Steven and me. I’m going to avoid him with all the ruthless efficiency of a piece of cotton, avoiding the eye of a needle – or at least, that’s what I bank on, before I realise two very important things:

  a)I am not very good at being a piece of cotton.

  and

  b)It’s almost impossible to avoid anyone on a yacht the size of a shoebox.

  I’d never previously realised how small my brother’s boat is, until I’m trying to escape someone on it. But its tiny size cannot be denied, once Steven Stark sets his mind on having a conversation with me.

  Because that’s definitely, definitely what he’s trying to do. I can tell. I can feel it. It’s in the air whenever he’s close to me – that sense of things left unsaid. He wasn’t casual and full of laughter, like he claimed. He was bitter and angry about that gonorrhoea crack, and now he’s just dying to tell me off for it.

  Or possibly worse.

  Oh God, what if it’s worse? It certainly seems worse, as he follows me around a small Spanish town like some rather more laidback version of The Terminator. We parked the boat at some port whose name eludes me, and now I can practically sense his eyes pressing into my back as I make my way through the cobbled streets. And then again, just as I almost buy a scarf that’s way out of my price range.

  It’s like he’s stalking me, despite my total lack of stalkability.

  So I have to do a little test. I have to see if he’s really on my case, or whether it’s just my imagination – because on the boat, it’s sort of hard to tell. On the boat he could be hovering near me, wanting to talk. Or he could simply be expanding, to fill every available nook and crevasse. One morning I’ll wake up to find his bulging bicep wedged against my face, even though he’s sleeping in a completely different room.

  But out here, it’s easier to figure out what he’s up to. I just have to go somewhere really, really boring, then see if he follows me there too – because if there’s one thing Steven hates, it’s dullness. In fact, that’s probably part of the reason why he no longer likes me: I’m not Club 18-30. I’m not cool, or hip, or flashy enough to catch his attention.

  Like the ruins I stroll my way down to. The ruins that don’t have any food to be purchased, or weird cocktails to be consumed, or girls to be partied with – unless you count the elderly hippy backpacker with the odd, tubular boobs.

  Which I really don’t. For a start, her hair’s at least 30 per cent weirder than mine. Mine at least attempts to remain in the plaits I’ve made of it, on either side of my head – but I can feel it kind of trying to escape, as the day goes on. The humidity simply gets a hold of it, and suddenly my whole hairdo is bulging. It’s thick enough on its own, but now I can feel it puffing out against the restraints.

  Whereas hers is much more wispy and flyaway. And it’s this really strange shade of grey too – kind of like a dull spoon, or a tarnished teapot – though even as I’m considering where she lies on the colour chart, I’m aware of why I’m really doing this.

  I’m nervous, I think. I’m nervous, because Steven has definitely followed me. There’s simply no denying it, now. I turn a corner around the ruins of an old post office, or something similarly boring, and he’s right there about ten yards away from me. I have to stick with the old lady just to afford myself some protection, despite the insanity of such a move.

  She’s not going to help me, if Steven decides that right now is the time to shout at me for being a dick. She might encourage him to keep his voice down, but I believe that is the extent of her powers. And in all honesty, I’m not sure if she’s capable of that much. I look around and she’s suddenly disappeared, leaving me alone in this maze of crumbling sandstone.

  With the Minotaur.

  Oh God, I wish I hadn’t thought of him as a Minotaur. Now I’m just imagining him sweating and stripped to the waist, stalking me around this place on his big, heavy, ominous-sounding feet. Seriously – it’s like Paranormal Activity over here. All I can hear is “dum dum dum” as he clods his way through the maze, only without the blissful comfort of cool darkness to keep me unawares until the final hammer falls.

  Instead, I have to do this in bright white daylight, while sweating uncontrollably. By the time he’s got me cornered behind the right-angled edge of a house that no longer exists, my upper lip has a film on it. Hell, it has an ocean on it. Every item of clothing I have on – and there are far too many of them, I know – is clinging stickily to my body, no matter how much I try to waft air onto it.

  And as I’m doing so, I realise something even more appalling. I realise it the way the heroine realises that the call is coming from inside the house, halfway into the movie:

  My overall moistness has turned the material of my blouse see-through. Oh good God, my top is transparent. It’s almost completely transparent, and he’s going to see me about 30 seconds from now. He’s going to see my boobs encased in this too tight-bra, like twin overflowing flesh mountains.

  Unless I do something about it. And by “do something about it”, I mean I put both hands over my boobs like Barbara Windsor in a Carry On movie.

  Before I remember there’s an actual gesture human beings can do to disguise their bare boobs, without seeming like they’re trying to disguise their bare boobs. You might have heard of it. It’s called crossing your arms over your chest.

  I hear it’s quite popular. And appropriate too, given the circumstances. He’s turned into some kind of crazed Minotaur-like stalker, so I’m well within my rights to step out from behind this wall like a schoolmarm. And I’m also totally OK to say the following:

  ‘What the
hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Even though I kind of regret it, once I have. I let myself forget the whole gonorrhoea thing, in my rush to be righteously indignant about the stalking.

  Now I’ve made a mess. I know I’ve made a mess. He’s going to kill me, for daring to be the outraged one in this situation. I mean, he was probably going to kill me anyway. I did insult him, after all – in a way he’s probably never been insulted in his entire life. But once he’s heard me actually raising my voice …

  It’s going to be death by squeezing, I can tell. He’s going to make me stand against one of these crumbling walls, and then just puff himself out until one of his giant biceps crushes my head – though I’m not really sure what’s worse about this idea. That ten tons of sweaty, heaving flesh is going to murder me, or that it’s the closest I’ll have come to sexual contact in 5,000 years.

  I’m actually kind of looking forward to it.

  I bet he’ll taste like rare beef, in that moment before his muscles suffocate me.

  ‘Uh, well …,’ he says, which isn’t what I’m expecting. I’m ashamed to say I’m almost cringing, waiting for the worst. If he said those things about a girl he actually had sex with, what on earth is he going to say about me?

  And how pathetic am I, that I’m willing him not to say it? I’m even thinking of ways I can backtrack, carefully. As though he’s a tiger, and I just jammed a stick in its eye. If I move away slowly, will he be more preoccupied with his missing eyeball than he is with me? Hopefully. Hopefully.

  ‘Look,’ I start, because look is such a pleasant, neutral word. It’s the kind of thing you say to a kid when you see something cool. “Look, Steven, a butterfly that isn’t me being a jerk to your enormous, probably aggressive self!”

  I don’t get to voice the rest of that sentiment, however. Alarmingly, he kind of cuts me off at the pass. He makes this expression I’ve never seen before and completely don’t recognise on his amazing face, and kind of leans down towards me as he delivers it.

  ‘What did it seem like I was doing?’ he asks, which I don’t understand at all. And then I remember the outraged question I asked 30 seconds earlier, and everything completely doesn’t slot into place whatsoever.

  Why is he asking me that?

  And more worryingly … I’m kind of starting to fathom out his expression. I’ve seen it before, on the faces of lesser human beings who don’t think half as much of themselves as he probably does. In fact, I’ve seen it on my own face, before today. Usually it happens when I style my hair a different way and then look in the mirror.

  At which point, it always blooms across my features:

  Uncertainty. Maybe even a kind of – anxiousness. “Just how bad do you think I am?” that expression seems to say, but he has to know I can’t answer that for him. I’m not even sure if he’s really asking it. It seems so out of character for the Steven I’ve turned him into in my head, and besides …

  The real response to his actual question sounds absurd.

  Following me, I think, but even thinking it makes my face go all red. Why would someone like him follow someone like me? It’s absurd. He’ll laugh, when I say it.

  So I go with something safer, instead.

  ‘I don’t know. I just know that you were doing it.’

  Safer and stupider.

  ‘And you’re – angry at me for doing the thing you don’t know about?’

  Ugh. Look at him, being all cute while trying to tease me. It’s like I’m 12 again and just fell off my bike. Only instead of skinning my knee, I mooned him right in the face.

  ‘Don’t play clever mind games,’ I say, even though I know his mind games aren’t clever at all. It’s just that I’m an idiot. I’m a total idiot. Apologise for saying he has gonorrhoea, my mind screams, but I can’t seem to do it. Speaking the word will just draw attention to what I did, and then he’ll think it’s open season on insults. Or what if … What if he really does have gonorrhoea?

  Oh God, then I’ve just made fun of someone’s terrible, debilitating disease. I’ll be brought up before The Hague for infringing on his human rights. I’ll be tried as a war criminal. I’ll be hung in front of a jury of my peers.

  And yes, I realise this flight of terrible fantasy has taken a turn for the ridiculous. In all honesty, it was probably ridiculous right around “debilitating disease”. I’m pretty sure you can get a cream for it, now – though this doesn’t help me.

  I can’t offer him a cream.

  Not when he’s about to kill me. I’m sure he’s about to kill me. I even brace myself for the blow, features arranging themselves into a wince before wincing is even necessary. And then he delivers it, and for a long moment I imagine I’m dead.

  I must be, because I think he just said sorry.

  That’s right. Steven Stark, creator of the game Fire Monkey, wearer of “boob inspector” T-shirts, constant puncher of my shoulder, just said sorry. Though even after he’s spoken the word aloud, I’m not sure that’s what it is. I could have easily misheard. Maybe he’s a fan of large road vehicles, and just saw one go by – despite how insane “I am lorry” sounds, once I’ve thought about it.

  God, I wish I didn’t have to think about it.

  Or ask him about it.

  ‘What did you just say?’ I try, and am proud of myself for managing to keep the incredulity down to around 40 per cent. I needn’t be, however. He catches it, all the same.

  ‘You don’t have to sound so surprised.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Then why is your face all scrunched up like that?’

  ‘This is just my face. I can’t help it if it’s crinkled.’

  ‘Your face isn’t crinkled.’

  He laughs as he says those words, just to give them an extra layer of insanity. Usually I’d hate him for making me feel weird, but in this instance I kind of like it. My face is smooth, apparently. So smooth he snorts, when I suggest otherwise.

  ‘OK, so maybe I’m a little bit surprised.’

  Another expression crosses his features. This one is even less recognisable than the last, but he doesn’t give me any time to decipher it. It’s gone as swiftly as it arrived, and is replaced by his usual laidback half-smile.

  ‘Because I’m not exactly known for being contrite?’ he suggests, though the moment he has I know that’s not the case. It’s true that he isn’t, and there have been many occasions when I’ve wished that was one of his many qualities … But it’s not the reason why I’m surprised.

  It’s more like this:

  ‘Because I’m not sure what you think you should be contrite for.’

  And it’s true too. I’m really not. I didn’t think he’d understand he’d hurt my feelings, or if he did understand I didn’t think he’d care, particularly. At the most, I expected something along the lines of “stop being so sensitive”, because really it’s what I’ve been thinking ever since it happened.

  I let things get to me too much. He probably wasn’t even referring to me.

  ‘For probably insulting you second-hand.’

  Or maybe he was referring to me, and he’s a gigantic arse.

  ‘You didn’t insult me.’

  It’s a lie, but what else can I say? Somehow, him tending to my wounded feelings is even worse than sudden biceps death. I can feel my face getting hot, despite it already being at critical mass. I bet astronauts could see this thing from space, which doesn’t bode well for me. If the Russians are up there wondering what that red beacon is all about, then Steven is definitely going to have noticed this.

  My only hope is his inability to understand emotion.

  ‘Really? Because you were kind of shaking with rage on the boat … And now you’re sort of – turning purple with indignation.’

  Dammit. Where has he learnt how to be sensitive?

  ‘OK, so you kind of insulted me. But it’s not a big deal.’

  It is a big deal. My insides are still aching.

  �
��It seems like a big deal.’

  How is he doing this? Is he reading my mind? Surely the only explanation is that he’s suddenly developed telepathic powers. He’s never been this insightful before, I’m certain of it, and even if he has he’s definitely never directed it at me. The last time I saw him someone joked about us dating, and he laughed as though the idea was the most hilarious thing to ever grace his hearing.

  He’s never shown any awareness of how much stuff like that hurts me.

  Hell, I try to never show awareness of how much stuff like that hurts me. I pretend he was never my friend, or maybe that he’s a stranger, or a mortal enemy, or an alien from the planet What-the-Fuck. Anything but what he is: a man I once loved. A man I once loved with all the painful gawkiness of a girl who still believes in romance.

  But of course, I don’t believe any more.

  So why am I still blushing? Why am I still stunned by a crumb of kindness from him?

  ‘I shouldn’t have told the story like that,’ he says, and my stupid, stupid heart goes pitty-pat. ‘I didn’t realise how it sounded until after I’d made you want to kill me.’

  ‘I don’t want to kill you, Steven.’

  I want you to stop making me go all weird inside.

  ‘You kind of want to kill me.’

  ‘OK, I kind of want to kill you. But it was just a passing fad. Now I’m much more into shaking your hand and forgetting all about it,’ I say, and even manage to hold out said hand for him to do just that. It’s kind of sweaty and shaking, and I’m hoping he won’t touch it for long, but it’s there, isn’t it?

  I did it.

  I just wish I’d thought about what would happen after I did it. Because of course I have to drop my arms to make the handshake happen. And I don’t even think about it, either – I’m so focused on making this all go away that I barely know what I’ve done, until his eyes automatically drop.

  Then I understand.

  I understand that I’ve just shown him my barely covered boobs beneath my see-through top. Now not only have we had this huge, ugly misunderstanding, he’s seen my nearly naked breasts. And even worse, he can’t seem to stop looking at them. Of course I cover them back up immediately, but covering them back up immediately makes no difference. He just stares at the place they once were, as though the whole thing was an optical illusion that needs some deciphering.