by Max Henry
Maybe I’m going to enjoy this flight after all.
“Well, it’s a bit of a long story, but….”
Four simple rules when you’re a woman in denial:
1. Don’t stalk your father’s best friend online.
2. Don’t talk to him via Messenger.
3. Definitely don’t go to his house.
4. And whatever you do, don’t tell him you’re still in love.
I’ve never been one for doing what I’m told.
PROLOGUE
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{heart +dove}
ONE
Belle
Hesitation clouds Chris’s eyes as he stands before me, hands on hips. “Are you sure you have everything?”
I pat the overstuffed duffle nestled against my side and smile. “Positive.”
He nods once, fingers flexing at his sides. “Good. No way in hell am I paying that overpriced postage to get your shit down under if you leave it behind.”
I chuckle at his false bravado; he hates this as much as I do. But it’s time. My work visa is due to expire, and I’ve learnt all I can in my time here. As sad as I am to go, I can’t deny the excitement that simmers beneath the surface.
I’m going home. I get to hug Dad again, catch up on everything I’ve missed.
Everyone.
“Thank you again, for everything.”
He took a young girl under his wing when he didn’t have to, and not only did he teach me more than I’d ever hoped to know about his craft, and how he made the business into what he owns today, but he showed me a lot about life.
About how suck arse it can be, and how against the odds, you can come back chin high and show the world who the fuck you are.
“Belle, baby. You don’t have to thank me for anything. In three years you’ve shown more determination to learn than these lazy fuckers have in ten.” Chris thumbs over his shoulder at the shop floor.
“Hey,” Jimmy, one of the artists, calls. “I can hear you, you know.”
Chris waves a dismissive hand at the big guy and then gives Jimmy his back as he leans on a chair, throwing me a cheeky wink.
I asked Chris once why he did it, why he would take such a huge gamble. He said that it was Dad’s message that won him over. Chris’s father isn’t supportive of his career choice, and apparently did all he could in the early days to sabotage him. So when he got Dad’s DM, talking about his talented daughter and explaining that he felt I’d never truly be happy if I didn’t pursue my dream career, it touched him. There, in black and white, was the proof that good guys do exist. And as he put it, he didn’t exactly have anything to lose by asking to see my work. If it was shit, he would have simply turned Dad down politely and moved on.
But it wasn’t shit, and in his experience, he’s never seen such clean lines from somebody so young before.
Turns out Cerise walking out did actually do something good: it pushed me into a pastime that became a passion, one that is now my career.
“It’s not too late to change your tickets,” Jimmy calls as he shades his client’s wrist. “That marriage proposal is still on the table, baby.”
The girl he inks flashes a smile as Jimmy pauses to look toward where Chris and I stand.
“You know I love you,” I tease. “But like any good thing, too much and you’ll ruin me. Imagine what a mess I’d be if I got to wake up to your sweet face every day.”
He tips his head back, pride in his eyes. He’s a bear of a man with a beard to make ZZ Top envious. “I’d treat you like a queen, baby girl. Feed you and make you nice and fat; give me something to hold on to.”
“You’ve already made me fat,” I counter. “I’ve put on almost ten kilos thanks to the sugary shit you ply me with.”
“Pfft,” he huffs, returning to his work. “You’d think you’d talk in pounds by now. You’ll never be a true American.” He waves me off with a black-gloved hand. “Go on. Get back to where you came from.”
“We’ll see you at Henderson’s later anyway,” Chris reminds me. “One last night out before you go.”
End of week drinks are a tradition he holds with his staff—a wind-down before days off and one of the many ways Chris shows his artists how much he appreciates what they not only do for his brand, but the clients too.
“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “Although I’m not letting you order for me this time; I have a plane to catch tomorrow.”
“Not making any promises.” He raises his leather-cuffed wrists as he backs away, palms in the air. “It is a special occasion.” His gaze shifts over my left shoulder after the bell above the door chimes. The corners of his mouth drop, his arms slowly lowering to his chest where he crosses them.
Damien. The two of them have never got along, not once in the three years we’ve been in Colorado. I think Damien managed to cement his place on Chris’s shitlist when he went on his first getaway without me… three months into our impromptu relationship.
“Hey, you.” Damien leans his tanned arms on the front counter, looking every part as out of place as he is here. “Ready to go?”
His surf shorts and slip-on shoes dress down the otherwise plain T-shirt that stretches across his broad yet lean shoulders. His overgrown hair hangs in his face as he leans forward to see what our receptionist, Aria, is up to.
“Yeah,” I answer before turning back to Chris. “Seven?”
“See you there.” He gives Damien one last dubious stare, and then retreats to the back of the shop.
“All sorted?” Damien throws Aria a wink while he asks me the question, oblivious to the frown she wears as she turns away.
I nod as I fall into step behind him. He pushes the door to the shop open, and then walks out into the street to wait while I negotiate getting my huge bag through the narrow door by myself.
The fact none of my workmates like him should bother me, but the odd thing is, I get it. He doesn’t treat me special, do anything to make me feel good; there’s very little romance, if any. But at the same time, I can’t fault him because he doesn’t treat me badly either. He does exactly what I need him to: he keeps me company. We get along. We don’t fight.
It’s easy.
“How the hell are you going to get all that on the plane?” Damien nods toward the jam-packed bag as I shift the strap on my shoulder.
“I bought extra allowance remember?” I rearrange the duffle so it doesn’t dig into my hip so hard, ruing the fact we don’t have a car. “Besides, I figured if we have to reshuffle at the airport you’d have space in your suitcase since you always travel light.”
He stares at the pavement as we start our trek back to our small apartment, and frowns. “About that.”
“What?” I narrow my gaze on him, holding one hand up to shield my eyes from the setting sun.
His blond hair falls across his temples to cover his eyes, his shoulders forward as he dives his hands into his pockets. “I changed my itinerary.”
“Okay?” It’s no big deal, Belle. Maybe he simply decided to go straight home to get a head start on shifting his stuff out of storage instead of hanging with me for the week we’d agreed on?
“I’m not going back to New Zealand.”
I stop, and then wait for him to catch on that I’m no longer following. He turns, arms folded, and sighs. “I told you I wanted to do that Alaskan tour, Belle.”
“You’ve had three years to do it.” And instead he’s spent most of that travelling around music festivals.
Without me.
“Why even buy the fucking tickets, Damien, if you never intended to come with me?” I shift the goddamn bag on my hip.
“Keep walking,” he complains. “We’ll talk about it when we get home.”
“No,” I snap as I march past him. “We’ll talk about it now.”
He falls into step, hands in
his damn pockets again. “It takes twelve days,” he says robotically. “From leaving here, to when I’d get back. I’ll come join you after that.”
“I can’t believe you’d ditch me at the eleventh hour.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” he pathetically reasons. “I’ve thought about it for ages, and when a sale came up I couldn’t turn the chance down.”
“Why not do it later?” I glare at him, my boots heavy on the sidewalk. “You can always come back to do it another time.”
His brow hardens. “You know as well as I do that the flights alone would make it unaffordable to do from NZ.”
Fuck him—he’s right. The flights to get back over here are probably more than what he’s spent on this damn thing all up.
I want to ask why he didn’t bother to invite me, why he doesn’t want me with him, but I already know the answer to that: I would have said no. Our time in the US has almost expired. Unlike him, I had my return home planned four months ago. I’ve got goals I want to achieve when I get back, things I’m looking forward to getting a start on.
I can’t even say I’m angry that he’s not coming back with me, it’s more that he didn’t think to run the change past me first. No matter how independent we are in this relationship, something major like that, I would have talked to him before going ahead with it.
“I wish you’d have told me sooner.”
“Would you have reacted any different?” he bites.
I frown at the arsehole, lip curled up on one side. “And how did I react?”
“Selfish.” He huffs, choosing to look ahead rather than at me. “You want me to give up this once in a lifetime trip, all so you can have a seat buddy on the way home.”
“Fuck you.” I find another gear and power on ahead of him, pushing my legs hard.
He’s acting the arsehole, and somehow he manages to turn it all around and make me feel like shit.
“Belle.” Damien jogs to catch up, wrapping a firm hand around my upper arm. “Slow down.”
“When do you leave?”
“In two days.” I glance up at Damien as he answers my question. “I’ll be around to see you off tomorrow, if that’s what you were concerned about.”
“Is that selfish too?”
He drops my arm, sighing heavily as he returns his hands to his pockets. He has nothing, no words for me. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. We’ve spent as much time apart over the past three years as together, so it’s only natural I’d be expected to do this alone too.
“Do you want this?” I scowl at the concrete underfoot as we approach the corner to our street.
“Want what?” His tone is tired and resigned.
“Us? When we get home? Do you want to continue what we have?”
My chest tightens as I prepare for the inevitable blow off. Yet he takes me by surprise, reaching down to thread his fingers through mine. “I think we’ve invested too much to give up just because it’s hard, don’t you?”
Not quite the answer I expected, but okay. “Do you love me?”
I know how I feel about Damien, but love isn’t something we talk about. The occasional “I miss you,” or whispered praise during sex isn’t unusual, but I can’t recall ever hearing those three words from him. I guess I never paid much mind to it because I wasn’t looking for it.
“You mean a lot to me, Belle.” But I don’t love you.
“Who else is going?”
“On the trek?” His brow pinches as we reach our front path.
“Yeah.” I stand aside as he reaches into his pocket for the keys. “Micah and Sara will be out of town until next week, and I can’t imagine any of your festival buddies wanting to freeze their arses off looking at ice and snow, so….”
“What do you want me to say?” He frowns as he unlocks the door. “I’m not going with another girl if that’s what you’re digging for.”
I push past with my bag and set it down on the sofa. My shoulders groan in relief as I roll them in circles. “So who are you travelling with?”
If I’ve learnt one thing about Damien in our time together, it’s that he doesn’t like doing lengthy trips alone. He’s travelled with women before, with guys too, but always in a group. I managed to overlook the fact he could so easily leave me behind by reasoning that there were enough people around that he wouldn’t dare be unfaithful. But fuck it all, even if he had been I guess I didn’t really care as long as he came back to me.
This time, he doesn’t have anywhere or anyone to come back to. I’ll be thousands of miles away. Well and truly out of sight and out of mind.
“Nobody.” He leans his shoulders against the wall, arms folded. “I’m doing this one on my own.”
“Why?”
“Why do you have to be such a nag?” he snaps. “Fuck, Belle. Should I ring you daily to see who’s keeping your bed warm?”
I whip my head back as though he’d physically hit me, the sheer thought that he wouldn’t trust me such a surprise. I never considered that he might wonder what I get up to when he’s away, too.
“See?” he whispers. “Hurts when you’re accused of things like that, huh?”
“I just….” My arse hits the sofa cushion. “I guess I always assumed you weren’t committed to me, is all.”
“Because I travelled without you?”
Because I’m not committed to you.
“Because you never seemed to regret leaving me,” I say as he kneels before me. “You love exploring, love to wander, and I tie you down.”
“You anchor me,” he murmurs, sliding his hands up the outside of my thighs. “You give me solid ground to fall back on.”
“But you can’t say you love me.”
“Can you say you love me?” he counters. “Belle, love isn’t something you feel straight away.” He has no idea. “Love is something you have to work on.” None at all. “There’s no such thing as love at first sight, babe. That shit is just a story made up by people who want to give us something to feel good about.”
He hasn’t got the slightest clue what love is.
None at all.
If he did, he’d know that there’s no way in hell I could ever love him, no matter how much time he puts in, no matter how much effort he expends.
Not when I’m still in love with someone else.
TWO
Zeus
The house rests in darkness, barely a hint of the fading sunset on the floorboards as I walk across to the kitchen and tug the fridge open. Brilliant white light spills out to highlight the grease stains on my shirt and jeans.
Maybe another week and I’ll have her running. A bargain for what she is: a 1971 Plymouth Barracuda. Damn thing would have been worth a quarter of my house if she’d had an engine, but the guy had brought the shell in from the States with great intentions, yet none of the passion to see it through.
Passion: something I have in spades.
Cool water trickles from the corner of my mouth as I down half a bottle and kick the fridge door shut with my boot. Days in the garage seem to be my modus operandi of late. Days where I lose all track of time, only stopping to come indoors for a feed, or because it gets too dark and the biters come out.
Distraction: my sedative of choice.
“Z. You home?” John’s voice carries from the internal garage door.
“In the kitchen, brother.”
He strolls up the hallway and flicks the light on as he passes the switch. “Saw the garage door open and figured you must be here. Bike isn’t out front, though, so I wasn’t sure.”
“It’s around the back.” I set the bottle on the counter and lean both hands either side of it. “Needed a wash.”
He hesitates in the middle of my living room, hands in his pockets as he rocks on the heels of his work boots.
“What are you here for?” I’m lucky if I see the guy once a month these days.
He clears his throat and frowns as he stares at the floor between us. “She comes home tomorrow.”
He cocks his head to the side, gaze narrowed. “Is that all?”
“What the fuck do you want me to say, mate?” He’s made it clear where I stand with his family.
“I don’t know.” John shrugs. “I guess I figured you’d be more excited or some shit.”
“You guessed wrong.” Rip an old wound open to let it bleed anew, and then ask the man if the pain excites him? John’s fucking lost the plot.
“I thought you should know anyway, in case you see her around. It’s inevitable that you two will bump into each other, and you know….”
“You wouldn’t want me to do something stupid?” I taunt.
“Zeus.”
“Nah, I get it mate. Stay the fuck away from your daughter, and if I see her, pretend she’s invisible. Understood.”
He huffs through his nose, eyes hard as his jaw works side to side. “Put yourself in my shoes, Z. What would you have done?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, but I kind of hoped that fucking plane ticket would have shown you what our friendship meant to me.” He’d wanted proof that I had good intentions when it came to him and his family—he got it.
If I’d known that sending Belle overseas to chase her dreams wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing back here, then rest assured I wouldn’t have paid for a fucking cent of it.
Three years I’ve mourned that goddamn decision. Three years I’ve used technology like some form of self-flagellation, inflicting pain on myself each time I pulled up the pictures I took of her, of us. I can’t let go. I can’t forget what it felt like to have the one thing that meant the world to me slip from my grasp.
“I can’t stop her if she decides to come here,” I point out as I turn the water bottle between my dirty hands.
“No.” John tips his head slightly. “But I don’t think she would, anyway. Not when she’s with Damien.”
The plastic crinkles in my fist. That fucker’s name is my goddamn trigger point. “Thanks for stopping by, John.”
