by Eden Butler
“He wants me to go to dinner with his family,” I told them. I ignored Sayo’s scrunched nose of disapproval but then agreed. Despite Declan’s coldness to me at the book sale and his assumed-girlfriend’s sad little threat, I still want to know what Tucker is hiding. Our friendship has been distant, which I’d never complain about. But when Tucker reminded me that the Dash was only a week away and that he’d already chosen our “outfits” for the auction, a renewed sense of purpose overcame me. I’d doubled our training, enforced the asparagus and fish menu and reasserted my vow to trawl out whatever it was Tucker holds over Declan’s head. That Declan has been distant as well has become secondary. I know he’s trying to keep clear of me and so I agree to this dinner with Tucker’s family.
I didn’t think he’d stand me up.
Declan sits just behind me as I wait at McKinney’s. He and Donovan share a booth. Their conversation is low, but as he listens to whatever Donovan tells him, he watches me, eyes sharp. He’s been staring for over half an hour, but hasn’t approached me or given me any indication he’s doing anything other than nursing his beer. I look at the clock, just over the McKinney’s Pub sign, for the third time. Part of me wants to leave, to forget this entire misguided “not a date” scenario. In the mirror over the bar, I see Declan’s eyes, narrowed, angry and a flash of his words come back to me. “I’m just…I’m not for you.” The bastard wasn’t even original enough to come up with his own excuse. He had to use mine.
I nod when Sam asks if I want another drink. White wine, low carb. If Tucker is going to stand me up, then I may as well get drunk. But then I remember the last time I was drunk. With Declan, which led to him in my bed, to confusion and refusal and more confusion. I can still feel his body lying against mine, can still smell his breath hot on my skin, Fubar’s, the library basement, my apartment, the basement again; all places that Declan and I—I close my lids and take another drink, slam back the whole thing to drive out those images.
The bell over the door chimes and Tucker hurries toward me. He looks good, great, in fact. The low grunt of complaint behind me is ignored when I welcome Tucker’s greeting kiss on my cheek.
“I’m so sorry I’m late. I had a meeting with Mullens that ran over and I—” Tucker spots Declan at the booth, but the Irishman’s attention is diverted. He makes small talk with Donovan, avoiding us altogether.
“You were saying?” I ask, bringing Tucker back to face me.
He smiles and the spark of annoyance that flashed on his face when he noticed Declan disappears. He moves around me and I don’t stiffen, don’t react really as his body closes in. “Just. Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” He nods to Sam. “You want a drink before we go?” he asks me.
“Yeah, sure. Just let me run to the bathroom.”
“Okay.”
Tucker touches my lower back as I get up and I hear him speaking to Sam on my way to the bathroom.
I try to calm myself, but instead I slam into the bathroom and rest against the counter. I can’t stand the shuddering palpitations in my chest. All these weeks, I’ve managed to avoid a panic attack. There was a moment, when Joe first turned up, that I thought one was surfacing, but then my anger overpowered my worry. Tonight is the first time since then that I feel the rapid hum of anxiety bubble, ride over my limbs, splinter my composure. I force it all down—the worry, the pressure, the reality of Declan’s anger, his rejection, then I inhale and look at my reflection to remind myself of the truth. “Declan doesn’t want you,” I say to my reflection. “He has Heather.” But then I remember the way his eyes narrow when Tucker is near me. I recall the ugly pull of his lips when Tucker whistled at me on the pitch. How he held me in the basement, how he responded to my touch on his body. Eager, desperate, all those ridiculous mixed signals.
I run the tap and splash water on my nape not really paying attention as the door swings open. When I return to the mirror, Declan stands behind me.
“I really don’t have time for this.”
“No, you don’t. Uppity bollocks is waiting for you.” The heat from his chest warms me, settles into a hum that shoots straight to my stomach. He watches my reflection, eyes down cast, cool. I don’t like that expression or how his indifference seems to be forced. “What happened to not reliving the past, McShane?”
I wad up the paper towel and toss it in the trash, glaring when Declan traps me against the wall. “Please leave me alone.”
He doesn’t speak. When I move to the right, he follows, arm stretching out to stop me. His fingers trace the high arch of my cheekbone, down my chin to rest at my bottom lip.
“You can’t go with him.”
“Why the hell not?”
Declan’s forehead rests against mine. He’s so close that I can see his throat working, the pulse speeding on his neck. When he doesn’t answer, I push him away, intend to leave, but his hand slams the door closed. The lock clicking sounds against the cold tile floor.
The wall against my back is cold, uncomfortable, and I grope for the lock, eager to escape the imposing way Declan watches me, absorbs my features. When I touch the door, he reaches out, one arm on each side of my head. “He’s not the one, love. You know that. Deep in your gut, you know it isn’t Tucker.”
“Then who is it?” I can’t help saying. “It’s not you. You’ve told me that a thousand times. This…thing, this whatever we had, is over.” He starts to argue, but I stop him with a quick shake of my head. “No, Declan. It was your choice.” I want to know, God how I want a plausible excuse for his rejection. Was everything I felt between us a lie? Was I misguided in thinking every touch, every kiss was forced, not at all real? His collar is stiff with starch when I curl it in my hands. I inch my fingers up to rub against his bottom lip and notice his chin shake, the quick blink of his eyelids. There is a moist gleam in his green irises that I know comes from more than just the beer he drank. “I wanted you so badly. I still—” when my eyes slam shut, Declan inches forward, his fingers fanning down my neck. I stretch, pull back from his touch, but he’s so close, his breath a warm hint over my collar. “You rejected me. I’m not going to play games with you anymore.”
“I can’t…if you knew—”
There it is again. The long withheld mystery that he can’t talk about. His “not a wife, not a family, not dying” secret that isn’t his to tell. I won’t let him keep doing this to me.
“Help me understand then.”
An inhale against my shoulder as he rests there and the tremors in his hands, his shoulders move me back into the wall. “You don’t know how hard this is for me.” His hair brushes my cheek when he raises back up. “I want you. God, do I want you.”
“Declan. Please. You have a girlfriend. You shouldn’t say things like that when you have Heather.”
“How do you know about her?” he asks, refusing to budge when I push on his chest.
“Was I not supposed to find out? She threatened me to stay away from you.”
Declan rubs his shoulder and I instantly miss the heat from his chest. The break is momentary. He adjusts his stance, returns his hand to the side of my face. “We’re not together. I don’t want her, Autumn.”
I try to leave again, but his grip is unyielding and my efforts to walk away are weak at best. I could leave. I could easily slip from him and he’d likely let me go. But his eyes have me locked, frozen to my spot. His gaze goes everywhere; on my mouth, staring, as if he wants whatever mad things he’s thinking to break free from his mind. But I’m not a mind reader and I can’t do this. Not anymore.
“Tucker’s waiting for me.”
“No.” He slaps his palm against the wall next to my head and leaves his hand there. “Don’t leave.”
I stare at the sharp point of his nose, the small frown that parts his mouth, anywhere but in those brilliant green eyes. When he doesn’t budge, the anger bubbles again. I am frustrated and eager for him to understand how much he has hurt me. Tucker hasn’t tried touching me, not since th
at first date weeks ago, but Declan doesn’t know that. To his eyes, we are together. That unsettles him. I won’t tell him the truth; it’s a commodity that we both use in this push and pull game. I’m not stupid. I know whatever Tucker is holding over Declan is the reason he walked away from me. Still, I want Declan to hurt, to suffer like I have, to understand what it feels like when I think of him with Heather. It’s a small lie, but cruel enough to make Declan’s heart quake, an echo of the pain he’s caused me.
“I’m going with him, Declan. I’m going out with Tucker. I’m going to have dinner with him. I’m going to dance with him. I’m going to let him hold me.” His eyes flash and he pulls his hand away from me. “And when the night is over, I’m going to let him kiss me, let him touch me if he wants. I’m going to do all of that because he wants me and he isn’t afraid to show me how much he wants me. Because he isn’t a coward.”
Declan slams his fist against the wall and I don’t even flinch. I knew it was coming. I take a step away from him and he reacts instantly. His hand on my arm, pulling, my shoulders back against the wall, his voice angry, deep.
“Does he touch you like I do?” He presses against me hard and I close my eyes, inhaling to settle my pounding heart, to ignore the way my body aches, how everything in me tells me to hold tight to him. “Does he kiss you like I do?” Declan doesn’t wait for an answer. He takes my face again and kisses me. His tongue slips into my mouth, and I let myself enjoy the feel of him against me, the sound of his moans vibrating in his throat.
He won’t give me space, even as I angle my face away from him. His body is firm over mine and in that moment, I hate him. I hate the way his arms cage me to the wall. I hate how my heart races, how my body throbs with his scent, with the taste of him. When I close my eyes again, another attempt to block out all the sensations he raises in me, Declan grabs my chin. “Look at me,” he says, his voice firm, even lower than moments ago. “Fecking look at me, Autumn,” he whispers.
My lids flutter, fight against my control before I stare at him, see his red eyes, his desperate, needy expression. “You want me. You want my skin on yours, don’t you? You want to feel my hands on your body.” I gasp, the sound like a weak plea when Declan’s thumb brushes over my nipple, eliciting a traitorous peak. My body shakes, my breath shudders out a pant and the ache that squeezes my chest, warms in my core, expands. “I can feel it. Your body aching for me just like mine aches for you.”
“I…I don’t want…want you.”
He pulls my wrist away from the wall and flattens my hand against his erection. He is firm, pulsing and my breath hitches. I can’t make my hand leave his body, can’t stop myself from rubbing him until his eyes move so that only the whites are visible.
Declan’s voice deepens, his low groans vibrate in my ear. “I want you too, love. So much. I want you wet and willing and desperate for me, just like I am for you. All the time. Every second of the bleeding day I think of that night in your bed when all I wanted was to be buried inside you. It hasn’t stopped, no matter what I say, it won’t stop, this ache for you, only you, McShane.” But he rejected me, cast me aside, said I wasn’t for him and the memory of that stifles the heat of this moment, has me pulling my hand away from him to press it against the cold wall. Declan doesn’t like that. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. Let me have you, be with you.”
His voice that day on the pitch is still loud and present in my mind, snubbing me, making light of the connection I thought we had. “No, Declan. You only want me now because I’m seeing Tucker. I’m tired of you fucking with my head.”
“You’re not with Tucker, not now. I just want…I need…” then Declan’s nails run up my leg, pull my skirt above my knee, past my hips and his fingers dig into my flesh, cup my core fully. I don’t stop him. His touch on my skin, over my thong electrifies me, has me moaning, frantic. “Feck, McShane.” He brushes aside the thin triangle of fabric and touches me, feels just how ready I am for him. “You don’t want me, is it?” One finger enters me and we both wheeze rough, labored breaths of shock. Him inside me, rips through my carefully erected walls of composure, forces eddies and spots to dot across my vision. Our stare is endless as heat collects in the small bathroom, as the smell and taste of our bodies linger in the air. “You want me, God, how you do and I need you, love. I need to feel you wrapped around me, clutching against me. Only me. That arsehole couldn’t do this to you. You wouldn’t want him to. Not like this.” Declan emphasizes his point by pushing in deeper. A low moan traps in my throat, but Declan won’t stand for my silence. When I bite my lip, try holding back the throaty noise I need to release, he descends on my neck, pushing against me, his heavy weight intensifying all the places our bodies connect. My moan is loud, amplified against the stark tile and counters. “I know you don’t want him like you want me.”
When he tries to kiss me again, I turn my head. “No, I don’t.” A brief smile pulls his lips, but I don’t let him hold that expression. It takes me a moment to breathe again, to ignore the blissful touch of Declan’s hands on me, but I manage. My palms flatten against his wide shoulders and I push, make him step back. “Not yet. But I will. I swear to God I will.”
He shrinks, his shoulders slouch as I adjust my skirt. I unlock the door, eager to breathe air not permeated by his smell.
“You don’t love him.”
“I don’t love anyone, Declan.”
And a part, a very small part of me, believes my lie.
NINETEEN
When I said “something small” Joe and Sayo clearly thought I meant “something obnoxious.” I can barely hear myself think in this loud pub. The slow thump of music drifts around us, is muffled behind multiple, yammering conversations and laughter. Sam, it seems, has gathered his troops from the Math department and erected a large streamer with my name, each letter made up with fractions and symbols my little English nerd brain only loosely recognizes. There is food strewn around several tables, glasses of liquor and bottles of beer everywhere on their surfaces, on the bar, some littering the floor. The crowd is thick, mulling around like rats scurrying from a house fire, but the air is light, the humor vibrant and, seemingly, this is all for my benefit.
I want to run away.
I recognize the people around me in only vague and inconsistent flashes. My fellow grad students, the whole of the rugby squad sans Declan, secretaries from our department, wives and sweethearts of those in attendance; they all cluster around me, surround me until I find myself seeking out friendly, familiar faces. I see Layla draped around a guy with a shaved head who stands too straight, whose eyes do not relax as he scans the crowd. There is Mollie sitting across from me laughing at something Sayo says and, finally, Ava, arms and feet crossed as she relaxes against the bar. The compulsion to run eases when I focus on my friends, on their genuine laughter and easy manner. When Joe demands the crowd to split as the cake is brought in, I forget my discomfort and simply enjoy his smile; something that’s been lost to me for years. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed it.
“Here ya go, sweetie!” Sayo is drunk. She clears a path for Sam as he carries my cake and the entire place fills with an intolerable, tone deaf rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
There are far too many candles on this delicious looking chocolate cake but I smile when it descends closer to me. Joe’s arms wrap my shoulders when I smile and I gasp, quite giddy at the very detailed replica of the Serenity, flagship of the Firefly series sitting atop the cake—a gift from my geeky father to his equally geeky daughter.
“She’s beautiful,” I say and my smile widens when I feel Joe kiss the top of my head.
Tucker came without an invitation, something that annoyed Sayo at first and likely led to the copious amounts of Cosmos she was drinking. Now, I doubt she even notices him. He sits next to me, squeezes my knee as I take in this gorgeous cake. Despite my ex’s drunken, “I forgot you don’t want me” attentions, this has been a loud, but happy night. The drinks are flowing. Ava, my frie
nds and Joe are laughing and enjoying the night, Mollie breaks out her turntables, my friends and colleagues surround me. So why do I feel a slight twinge of depression?
Ava catches my eye and I see her fingers toy with the charm around her neck. It’s her sorority crest. She lost the one she got in college several years ago on a cruise and last year, my mom surprised her by replacing it on her birthday. I know what Ava’s thinking and a part of me lets the sensation of loss infiltrate my mind. We stare at each other, both thinking of my mom, missing her, but then Ava winks at me and the moment is gone, replaced by Sayo’s loud voice and the flickering flames that have me squinting as the cake is pushed in front of me.
“Make a wish, sweetheart,” Joe says, rubbing my back.
“Yes, Autumn, what are you going to wish for?” Tucker asks, his hand skimming up my thigh. Joe must notice this, because before I can close my eyes to make my wish, he slaps Tucker on the back of the head.
“Watch your hands, mate,” Joe says, not smiling. His frown lowers further when Tucker laughs.
I ignore them both and close my eyes. There’s only one thing I want. Quiet. Serenity. Happiness. Well, that’s three things, but it’s my wish, no one will know. I take a breath and in one exhalation the candles go out. There is a raucous cheer from the faces around me and then the cake is being sliced, Joe is hugging me, Tucker is kissing my cheek and Sayo’s tongue is in Sam’s mouth.
Happy freakin’ birthday to me.
Presents are ridiculous. I’ve never received more gift cards, bottles of whiskey and wine and, from Tucker, a highly inappropriate set of diamond studs. Joe isn’t impressed by the gift or the man but Tucker doesn’t seem to care. He keeps his hand on the back of my neck and if I walk two feet from him, he’s right behind me. It’s quite ridiculous. He’s tried kissing me three times and in each instance, I’ve managed to deflect his advances. Joe’s presence helps, of course. I’ve never seen anyone snarl quite the way my father does. It’s impressive, and if Tucker were remotely sober, he’d probably be threatened.
