After the Rain (The Twisted Fate Series Book 1)

by Unknown

  17

  Had the whole entire universe gone mad?

  “I am not going to be that guy who fucks you against a car on the side of the road.”

  Stormy jumped as the car door suddenly flung open and a flustered looking Marcus stuck his head in.

  “What?” she blinked at him, caught off guard by his sudden agitation and presence. He’d been walking up and down the road for almost ten minutes now, while Stormy had been left to stew in the hot car all alone.

  “You deserve more than being some fuck on the side of the road. I’m not doing that to you.”

  “What if I want you to?” she challenged him.

  “Well, then I’ll be totally pissed off with you. Because you shouldn’t sell yourself so short. You’re worth a lot more than that.” He was deliberately avoiding eye contact and his body language suggested he was on the defensive for some reason.

  “Here,” he handed the phone over to her. “Lilly is going to phone you back in five minutes, she wants to speak to you.”

  Stormy was confused. “What’s Lilly got to do with this?”

  Marcus ran his hands through his hair, still avoiding her prying eyes. “I called Damien. I needed to chat.”

  “What did he say?”

  Marcus looked as sheepish as hell. “He crapped on me. Called me an asshole and said that if I hurt his future sister-in-law, he’ll kill me.”

  “Seriously?” Stormy perked up, feeling touched by this. “He said that about me? That’s so sweet!”

  “Sweet?” Marcus repeated loudly. “The guy’s threatening to kill me, and he’s not someone you want to mess with. He may look thin and wiry, but trust me, in a fight he could take me down.”

  “He’s just joking.” Stormy smiled slightly as she imagined Marcus and Damien in a wrestling match.

  “Sure, he’s not going to kill me, kill me,” Marcus conceded. “But the point is, he’s pissed.” The phone rang and Stormy looked down at the screen as if it was a giant hairy spider.

  “Slide that thing across,” Marcus pointed.

  “What thing?”

  “That icon at the bottom of the screen, slide it with your finger.”

  “Why do these things not have buttons!” Stormy wailed in frustration, and started poking the screen with her finger. Marcus snatched the phone back and answered it; he handed it over to Stormy and then turned away to give her some privacy.

  “Oohhhh Storm, what’s going on?” Lilly breathed down the phone as soon as Stormy answered. She sounded excited, for some bizarre reason.

  “I don’t know, Marcus and I –”

  Lilly cut her off. “Are so perfect for each other! I am sooooo giddy with excitement. You guys make so much sense. Exciting!”

  “What? You’re not serious, Lil!” Stormy shook her head in exasperation. How could Lilly think that she and Marcus made sense? No two people made less sense as a couple, as far as Stormy was concerned! They were like oil and water, pigeons and starving cats, garlic snails and strawberry yoghurt.

  “I’m totally serious,” Lilly insisted. “You guys would be so awesome together. Ying to Yang.”

  “Lil, have you taken drugs?”

  “No?” Lilly sounded taken aback.

  “Your brother’s little white pills again?”

  Lilly sighed. “That was two years ago. When will this family stop teasing me about it?”

  Stormy managed a little laugh, because the answer was never – it was too damn good a story. It’d happened when she and Damien had first met.

  “Lil, you thought your bunny rabbit slippers were talking to you.”

  “Let’s not change the subject here. You and Marcus. I love it.”

  “We’re too different,” Stormy argued.

  “But that’s why it’s so perfect. Look at me and Damien – we’re total opposites. I mean, I want our first dance to be Celine Dion and he wants Depeche bloody Mode. The song sounds like something that should be played at a funeral, not a wedding. Depro.”

  “You’re skipping the gun here, Lilly. Besides, Marcus is not into it. He’s just made that very clear.”

  Lilly made a conspiratorial “Mmmm,” and then started whispering down the phone. “You’re wrong. I think he phoned Damien because he is so into it and it’s totally thrown him.”

  Stormy thought for a while. Could he be into it? This strange thing between them? Stormy put the phone down a little while later feeling mightily confused. Lilly was really counting chickens before they crossed the road here. She and Marcus were not ever going to be a couple, that wasn’t even on the cards…

  The cards, she suddenly remembered. A consultation with them would clear up the whole mess and confusion in her brain. Plucking the deck off the dashboard, where she’d abandoned them earlier, she closed her eyes and pulled one out of the pack.

  The Sun! Material happiness, fortunate marriage…What? That was completely wrong. Maybe the cards were having a bad day. She decided to choose another one.

  The Two of Cups…Noooo, that couldn’t be right either. Love, passion, union… She pulled yet another one.

  Ten of cups: Contentment, perfection of human love and marriage… Had the whole entire universe gone mad?

  The door opened and Marcus climbed in into the driver’s seat again. “I didn’t have the heart to tell them that we might miss their rehearsal dinner. We’ll tell them when we’re absolutely sure we won’t make it.”

  He was changing the subject. But Stormy didn’t want to. “Can we talk about what just happened, Marcus?”

  “I’d rather not, to be honest. Damien is right, I’m being a complete asshole, you know, sleeping with you and stuff. He said I was using you.”

  “Are you?” Stormy asked, not really liking the sound of that, or its implications.

  Marcus looked up at her with eyes that seemed to be full of a million feelings and thoughts. “Are you?”

  Stormy thought about it for a moment. Was she just using him for sex? Was he just using her? Were they using each other, or was there more to this thing? Stormy shrugged, unsure of how to answer him. “That makes it sounds so icky. Like we’re horrible horny nymphos.”

  Marcus looked away, gazing out the front windscreen thoughtfully. Stormy thought she detected a hint of disappointment or hurt in his expression. Silence fell between then once again.

  When Damien had accused Marcus of using Stormy for sex, he’d wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. Because in that moment, he realized he wasn’t. He didn’t want to tell Stormy what he and Damien had really discussed – he’d left out the whole other half of their conversation. Because after that – despite himself and his usually sound judgment and proclivity towards logic and reason and the cleverly constructed arguments he was used to delivering in court – he’d admitted to liking her.

  He liked her.

  He couldn’t quite believe he was saying the words out loud. He’d barely admitted it to himself yet, let alone someone else. But there it was; for some bizarre reason, he liked her. He actually liked her. But he hadn’t particularly liked the part of the conversation when Damien had told him Stormy only dated guys for six weeks and then broke it off. Marcus was a settle-down kind of guy; Stormy was not. Damien had said that whatever was going on between them would only end in heartbreak for someone. Lilly had told Stormy the same thing, obviously. And they were right. Nothing more could happen with him and Stormy – they were just too different, and wanted completely different things from life.

  He had to put and end to this, once and for all.

  18

  Third time is the lucky number three

  Inky black-y blackness.

  Dark, black-black-y blackness.

  Stormy had never liked black.

  The color didn’t suit her. Even when Lilly and her friends had gone throug
h their very short-lived tortured-teen-gothic phase, with generous dollops of black eyeliner and black Nirvana nails, she had not.

  She loved color. She needed color, like she needed sunshine and sunflowers and the pretty happy things in life. Butterflies and believing in unicorns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

  Damien had once explained to her what a black hole was. She thought it was the most terrible thing she’d ever heard. Something that ‘eats’ light. A place that light goes to die.

  The inside of the car felt like a black, dark, doomy-gloomy black hole, despite the fact that the sun was still shining outside. They’d been sitting in the motionless car watching the steam billow out of the engine for over an hour now, listening to the repetitive hiss and gurgle of the engine as Sammy went about healing her poor overheated self.

  She wondered what exactly Damien had said to Marcus, because since that conversation, he’d been ignoring her. He’d gone from savaging her sexually to not looking at her once. But what Lilly had said to her, that Marcus might actually like her, that they might be perfect for each other, had made Stormy want to look at him. A lot.

  But it was clear that Lilly had been very, very wrong. Because it now seemed like Marcus liked her less than he had when they first met. Stormy usually didn’t care what people thought of her –– but for some reason, she cared now.

  She was desperate to know what Marcus was thinking. They needed to talk. Now.

  “Okay, let’s get out of the car!” she said, opening her door and climbing out. Marcus didn’t move, though, and just gave her a quick sideways glance that communicated a very loud ‘NO’.

  “Marcus. Get out the car. We need to talk,” she spat the words out, trying to sound as firm and forceful as possible.

  “I am not getting out of the car, Stormy!”

  “We live in a democracy, and I say get out of the car.” She folded her arms in angry defiance.

  “That’s an autocracy. Not a democracy.”

  “Well, I don’t even know what that means, so it can’t be.”

  “Stormy,” he sounded angry. “That is the worst logic I have ever heard! That’s what’s wrong with you, nothing about you makes any sense…”

  Stormy gasped loudly as his words stung her. “What? You think there’s something wrong with me?”

  “Sorry, that’s not what I meant, I meant to say –” He paused, and Stormy could almost hear his brain ticking away like a loud alarm clock. “There’s nothing wrong with you. But there’s something wrong with me when I’m around you.”

  “See, that’s why we need to talk. So get out or I will force you out with the power of my mind.”

  Marcus’s neck almost snapped off as he swung his head around to look at her. “You can do that?”

  Stormy tutted. “No, don’t be ridiculous! I’m not a poltergeist!”

  Marcus sighed. “Fine. I need some shade anyway.” Marcus climbed out, striding across the road like he was in charge and in control – when clearly he wasn’t. They sat under a large Baobab tree. The trunk was enormous – it would have taken at least ten people holding hands to wrap around it – and the massive branches fanned out like a giant umbrella, providing deliciously cool shade.

  Stormy wasted no time getting back to the topic. “What did you mean, there’s something wrong with you when you’re around me?”

  This was the question that Marcus had been dreading. He’d regretted saying it, but he had.“I feel…” He stared slowly, choosing his words very carefully like the lawyer in him would. “…you have this effect on me, and when I’m near you, I feel… I want to be nearer. A lot nearer.”

  He didn’t know how else to describe it. And this seemed like the safest way, without revealing too much of the feeling that was rising up inside him. He’d meant what he’d said to Damien: he liked her. It was like she’d cast some kind of spell over him, and it wasn’t just sexual – it was something else too, something deeper.

  “I feel the same way,” Stormy said softly.

  Marcus doubted that very much. Because Stormy didn’t really know how Marcus felt. “I know we’ve said this before, and it never seems to stick… but we really should not be doing this. And I’m getting as bored with saying that as hearing the word ‘chakra’.” Despite the mood, he smiled to himself slightly, because now he was saying that bloody word too. “We need to stop doing this.”

  “Why?”

  Because I like you and I don’t want to risk liking you a lot and being discarded after six weeks – that’s what his brain said, but his mouth opened and said something else entirely. “Because this is not me. I don’t go around having sex with random women. It’s not my thing...”

  He wished he knew what Stormy was thinking; she’d picked up a stick and was drawing something in the sand. He watched until the lines stared forming a recognizable image. A sun with a smiling face.

  The picture brought the smallest smile to his face. She was so… so… he didn’t have the words… so Stormy.

  Innocent (though not in bed or on bathroom floors).

  Smart (but not in a conventional way).

  A literal burst of color, a ray of sunshine.

  Fuck! This was not good.

  “Please,” he tried to hide the desperation in his voice, but it wasn’t working that well. “Can we promise not to do this any more?”

  “You kissed me,” Stormy reminded him, putting the finishing touches on the puffy clouds and what he assumed were birds, but looked more like plus signs.

  “You reciprocated.” He needed to point that out. Because she had.

  Stormy simply nodded and Marcus continued to watch, oddly intrigued, as she started drawing two stick figures in the sand. One had long hair – at least he thought it was hair – and the other had big shoes.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s us… and look,” she added arms to the stick figures. “We’re shaking hands in agreement. That way, we don’t have to touch again.” Marcus smiled to himself – a problem solved in true Stormy fashion.

  “We shook on it before. Twice,” he offered. “Remember? It didn’t really stick.”

  “You know what they say. Third time is the lucky number three.”

  “Lucky number seven,” Marcus corrected with a smile. “Third time lucky.”

  “What’s seven go to do with this?” She looked up at him and their eyes met. She shouldn’t have done that. His heart tapped-danced in his chest. A feeling rising…

  “So we agree?” she asked, pointing the stick back at her picture, which now seemed to be boasting a rainbow and a giraffe.

  “We agree.” Marcus said. They had to stop, because this thing with Stormy felt out of control; he felt out of control. He needed to do something that put him back in his comfort zone, and if there was one thing he was good at, it was getting things done.

  “Come. We need to make a plan to get out of here.”

  “How?”

  “I once spent the summer with a friend whose father fixed cars. I’m going to go and take a look under Sammy’s bonnet.” (He couldn’t quite believe he’d just called that sad ensemble of metal parts a name!)

  19

  Roses are sometimes red and sometimes not

  Stormy sat on the side of the road, intrigued as she watched Marcus open the bonnet and peer inside as if he knew what he was doing. She wasn’t going to say anything just yet, but she would be willing to bet (if she believed in betting or had any money to do so) that he knew nothing about cars! This was clearly just a male mucho thing. But he did look rather good doing it –even if she couldn’t touch, she could still watch, right? She felt a little saddened by the conversation they’d just had, but a small part of her had been slightly relieved. This thing with him was starting to wig her out, and putting an end to it was probably the right thing to do.

  “Do
you really know what you’re doing?” she finally asked, after he climbed under the car and emerged covered in grease and sand.

  Marcus nodded confidently and rubbed his hands together. “I’m pretty sure I can get her up and running again.” He said it was so much confidence that she wanted to believe it, but when he went back to the engine and continued doing the same thing he’d been doing to it for the past ten minutes, with a slight look of confusion on his face that he couldn’t hide, she wasn’t so sure.

  But after about an hour of watching Marcus fiddling with the car, she was bored. And she also had to rehearse Lilly and Damien’s wedding gift, so she got her guitar out of the backseat and sat back down in the sand on the side of the road. She’d written them a wedding song as a gift, which she intended to play it at the reception. She started strumming.

  Marcus immediately looked up from what he was doing when he heard it. It was ridiculous. Her playing wasn’t bad at all, but the guitar sounded old and off-key. Some of the strings had snapped, which gave it a tinny sound. And the lyrics!

  Roses are sometimes red and sometimes not,

  And violets are definitely purple or a darker shade of blue,

  And Lilly and Damien, I just want to say that I love you.

  Both. Not just one, but two-oooh-oooh.

  But still not as much as you love each other, ooooohhhh…

  Was that the verse? She started strumming even more enthusiastically as she began belting out the chorus, which stunned him. It was beautiful and completely haunting, unlike the verse with its terrible rhyming and clumsy phrasing. He leaned against the car and watched, and when she was finished, he couldn’t help a little clap.

  “That was great.” And he meant it. The next few verses had been just as silly, but he couldn’t quite imagine her writing anything else. “What’s it for?”

  “It’s Damien and Lilly’s wedding present,” Stormy smiled up at him. “Do you really like it?”

  Marcus nodded. “They’ll love it.” Because he knew they would. He’d bought them an expensive weekend away at a luxury resort, and she’d written them a song. This was a perfect example of just how different they were.