by Chloe Liese
“Don’t change the subject, Lucas.”
I shook my head slowly side to side. “Nothing worth getting into.”
“Jesus,” Zed groaned. “You’re worse than Nairne.”
I could try to deny it, but he wasn’t wrong. My behavior the past few months made his wife, the indomitably repressed Scotswoman, look emotionally verbose.
Zed rolled his eyes, took a long drink of his beer. “It’s like pulling teeth with you two.”
I lowered my gaze once again to Jamie. Such a happy mix of his parents, yet uniquely himself, with a spray of Zed’s dark, uncontrolled hair and Nairne’s vivid green eyes. The medley of their features made him this precious, one-of-a-kind person whom I adored, yet looking at him hurt. I’d never do this—make a child with the woman I loved. Because what was the point? It was better this way, to spare her and any children we would have the misery I’d bring them.
Zed set a foot on his knee and settled deep into his chair, looking frightfully litigious. “You slipped, Lucas.”
I glanced up at Zed. “What?”
“You said you saw Jo. She’s a doctor, isn’t she? When I met her last year, she said she and your brother went to med school together.”
Shite.
Bloody Zed and his barrister brain. Who remembers that kind of random information?
I stared down at Jamie, avoiding Zed’s eyes. “You’ve an alarmingly retentive memory,” I said.
I could have made up a lie that I’d met Jo for coffee, but he’d see through me. The man smelled bullshit from miles away.
“What’s. Going. On,” he growled.
Nairne periodically referred to Zed’s unusual coal-rimmed, pale irises as tiger eyes. At the moment, I could see what she meant. I had four inches on the bloke and a bit of weight too, but his gaze held something primal in it that I refused to meet.
The door unlocked and both our eyes went to it. “Give me a little more time,” I said quietly. “I’ll tell you soon. I just need a bit more time.”
Zed deflated. He looked about to tell me just how unacceptable that was, but Nairne’s smoky voice prevented him.
“I’m home!” she called softly, as if on maternal instinct alone she knew her baby was sleeping.
Zed popped up from his chair and jogged into the foyer. I suffered through hearing the noises of him greeting her, kisses and hugs, mumbled sweet nothings. Christ, they needed to leave.
“Just go, why don’t you?” I said. “If you stay any longer, you’re not going to make it out the door.”
Nairne laughed and whispered something to Zed, who grumbled a response. Then Nairne came into the living room smiling widely, Zed hot on her heels.
“Lucas!” she said, offering me a friendly embrace, but her eyes were fixed on Jamie.
Perhaps I watched Nairne differently this time than I had before. How confidently and happily she related to her child. Nairne was paralyzed after a freak injury during a football match. The end of her prodigious career, it was an incomplete spinal injury, significant enough to inhibit walking freely. Sometimes she used a wheelchair, other times crutches or a walker, since making headway in her rehabilitative physiotherapy.
I’d only ever known her this way, seen her empowered and habituated to the challenges of disability while doggedly working to surpass them, too. I’d witnessed her slip into motherhood naturally and happily. But perhaps there had been grief behind closed doors.
Talk to her.
Out of the question.
“You’re staring at me, Lucas,” Nairne said, still smiling at Jamie. “You’re awfully handsome, but you know how Zed gets. I like you with your limbs intact.”
Zed narrowed his eyes at her and gave her a smile that veered more toward a snarl. “It’s unwise to bait a starved animal, fragolina.”
Christ, the Italian pet names. Zed was American, but thanks to his parents, half Italian, half Irish, and thus whole hothead, yet he always called Nairne the sweetest things. Fragolina—little strawberry—for her fiery mane of hair; innamorata—my lover. Those two were a duality of passion and power struggles that often left me with a headache after I’d seen them.
Nairne snorted. “You’re all bark and no bite, Zed,” she said as she bent over and kissed Jamie’s forehead. When she sat up, she smiled to herself. “Well, maybe a little bite. The good kind.”
I waved my hands, begging to be spared where this was going. “Stop, please. No verbal foreplay. My staring was inadvertent. I was lost in thought.”
We all knew I only saw Nairne as a friend, but I knew that I found proximity to her was how I best coped with missing Elodie in between her visits. Nairne would mention her offhandedly, tell ridiculously funny stories from their wild days playing footie together in Paris, dropping little updates that I gobbled up hungrily. Like a man slowly wasting away, those breadcrumbs barely sustained me.
Elodie was the one woman I wanted, and she was the one woman I was most unwilling to hurt. Meaning Elodie Bertrand and I had been—and always would be—strictly friends.
That was the plan. No wife. No family. Misery contained to me and myself alone.
So, this was how I coped. Parked in my friends’ parlor, voluntarily shooing them out the house for a date while I held their little squish and regaled him with the greatest highlights of the long and glorious career of yours truly. Jamie might have been lulled to sleep by my first pass earlier, but I’d only covered basic chronology. Once his parents left, we’d double back and retrace my journey from the perspective of how I’d transitioned from defender to keeper.
Jamie began fussing.
“Shhh now,” Nairne crooned, placing her hand on his belly. He settled at that. “What do you have to say for yourself, Lucas?” Her sharp green eyes scanned me in concern. “You look sad.”
I tried for a wide smile. “I’m fine! Really, you two have too much time on your hands. You should get going so Jamie and I can resume our very edifying conversation about my professional history and his aspirations to be a keeper.”
“Fat fucking chance,” Zed said as he stood from his chair. “Both of his parents are strikers—no way in hell will he be standing in the box for his career.”
“I’m no striker anymore, silly,” Nairne said lightly. But I heard the weight of loss in her voice.
“Once a striker, always a striker, innamorata.” Zed stepped up to Nairne and massaged her neck softly, fixing her hair and thumbing her cheek. Something small yet profound passed between them, and I averted my eyes, feeling like I’d seen an intimacy I shouldn’t have.
Zed walked to the bar and poured Nairne a bare nip of whiskey, while Nairne watched Jamie closely, her eyes roaming his little body with ferocious love. Jamie fussed again and started making small sucking noises. Zed strolled back into the room, shaking his head.
“I swear to God, he can smell her,” he said as he handed Nairne her whiskey. She took a quick taste of it, then placed it on the coffee table. “As soon as she’s within a foot of him, he wakes up and demands the boob.”
Nairne laughed as Jamie started hollering and arching his back in frustration. “Hush, now, dinna greet,” she muttered to him. Deftly plucking him from my lap, she set him in her own. She moved quickly, unlocking something at her shoulder and tugging the bottom half of her shirt at her waist. Before I knew it, she’d spun Jamie into her arms, where he was immediately silent, the sounds of his gulping the only noise filling the room.
Nairne sighed. “Christ, that feels good.”
I laughed as I stood to give her space. “Sarah always said the same thing.”
Nairne leaned back, eyes shut, as Jamie gulped away. Zed drank his beer, watching me out of the corner of his eye.
I walked toward the mantel, peering at their pictures. One from the pub back in Boston, another from their wedding. Pictures of Zed’s brother and father, Nairne’s father, an old one of her mother, and one that stopped my heart for one painful moment—a candid of Elodie and Nairne, arms around each other�
��s shoulders. Nairne stood tall next to her best friend and surrogate sister, both in their club kits. It was odd to see Nairne this way, her hair in a high, short ponytail, her legs muscular and powerful. And next to her, Elodie. Striking blue eyes, chestnut curls tugged into a puff of errant corkscrews, flushed cheeks pinking her glowing skin.
I stood, staring at her picture, missing the hugs she gave, a touch I’d give anything to have for the rest of my life. And that body. My eyes trailed her form. Christ Jesus. Strong and toned, that woman was also abundantly curved everywhere a woman should be.
Yet there was so much more to Elodie than her decadent body or her prowess on the pitch. Elodie was this maddening paradox of soft and hard, bite and tenderness. And I had no prospect of ever knowing her better, but for the social gatherings in this home, with our mutual friends. Which I was to blame for. I was medically unlucky and too cynical to allow anyone into that reality, let alone the woman I was mad about.
Nairne’s eyes drifted open and found me. “You’ve a sister and a brother, correct?”
Smiling at her, I nodded. “I do.”
Nairne stared at me, those uncanny green eyes locked with mine. “And do they, along with your mother and father, know?”
“Know what?”
“Whatever’s breaking your heart that you won’t tell us.”
I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. Zed stood, empty beer bottle in hand. He paused to lean against the doorjamb, looking seriously at me.
“Nairne…” I sighed.
“Do they?” she pressed.
Jamie squirmed and rhythmically pounded her chest with his tiny fist, drawing her attention mercifully away from me.
I stared at the bloody clock ticking on the mantle. I’d a mind to bash every clock I encountered with a cricket bat. “My brother and Jo do. They’re the only ones.”
If Zed’s eyes could melt me, they would. “I knew it,” he said, lethally low.
“Whatever it is,” Nairne said, shooting him a look, “we’re not going anywhere, okay?” When she stared up at me again, her eyes brimmed with tears. “You’re our family. Trust how much you mean to us, Lucas. And when you’re ready for us to know, we want to.”
“You’re wrecking me, woman,” I groaned. I couldn’t bear when women descended to tears. Glancing over to Zed, who still looked livid, I tried for my usual levity. “Did you put her up to this, Zeddy? You know I can’t take it when women cry.”
“I did not.”
Jamie’s mouth made a soft popping noise. Nairne adjusted her top and began to lift him to her shoulder.
“Let me,” I said. “You two be on your way.” Taking Jamie carefully from her, I propped him on my shoulder. With steady pats on his back, I began my normal circuit, an infinity loop, around the room with him.
Nairne spun herself quickly toward the foyer, then faced me. “You look well with a bairn in your arms, Lucas.”
“Expert uncle, nothing more. Off you go now.”
Zed started in on his usual list of security measures and safety precautions. “And remember, if anything happens, call emergency services, then call me and—”
“Zed,” Nairne crooned, her arm sliding along his back. “Relax. He knows what to do.”
Zed sighed heavily. “I just get stressed leaving him.”
“You know I’m the same way,” Nairne said, “but we’re just going down the street for a bite at the pub. He’s in good hands.”
I saw them out, then watched from the doorway as they made their way together. Zed must have said something saucy, because Nairne laughed, then smacked him on the arse just before they turned the corner and drifted out of sight. I glanced down at Jamie, who squirmed and nuzzled into my shoulder. I patted his bum and bounced him gently, just as he liked. Then, turning, I backed inside and kicked the door shut behind me.
“Right then, mate, where were we? Ah yes, the merits of becoming a keeper…”
Two
Elodie
They say dreams are our subconscious processing. That our mind makes sense of its experiences as it runs permutations of the past. I dreamed the same nightmare often, and it always ended in the heartbeat of my guilt. Guilt, the fulcrum of my life.
In my dream, dust on the road kicked up, but my child-self’s scream was silent against the screech of a car rounding the bend. It grew louder, then deafening.
I gasped awake as its noise blended seamlessly with my mobile’s ringtone. Jerking upright, I pulled long tugs of air. My phone lit up on my bedside as it rang again.
Maman.
I groaned and hit the button to accept her call.
“Good morning, Mother.” Adrenaline, thanks to my dream, flooded my system, making me alert enough to say it in clear English. That would set Maman off, but I practiced English whenever I could. The language of international commerce, English was my ticket to a wider world beyond the one my parents had made for me. Even if I wasn’t brave enough to leave it yet.
Maman sighed impatiently on the other end of the phone. “Why must I indulge you in speaking that horrible language? Are you even awake? You sound terrible.”
I stifled a yawn, threw back the sheets, and padded down the hall to my kitchen. “Because if I’m going to take the European business world by storm, I must have absolute command of English. And yes, I’m awake. Sort of.” I spun around, looking for the kettle. “I need coffee.”
“Don’t add much milk. You’re getting too wide in the hips since you quit football. Not that I’m complaining about your retirement from that ridiculous waste of your time, but it was good for keeping your generous figure in check.”
I banged my head against the cabinet over the sink as the kettle filled. “Can we talk about whatever it is you needed to discuss at”—I craned my neck back to catch the time on the clock overhead—“seven in the morning?”
Flicking the water off, I turned toward the stove.
“You want to take the business world by storm, you’ll have to get used to working hours, Elodie Josephine Marie. Not this leisurely schedule of late to bed and late to rise. No wonder you’re nearly thirty and have nothing to show for it. You’ve always been unmotivated.”
I bit my tongue while I watched the water coming to a rapid boil. There was nothing I could say that would satisfy her, no defense that would make Maman see me in a better light. I’d stopped trying to make her like me long ago. So I waited, staring blankly out the window above the sink as my stomach began to growl.
Quietly, I set my phone down and put it on speaker, then rummaged around the refrigerator for milk and jam. I straightened up, kicking the door closed with my heel, and set my arms’ contents on the counter. As I gingerly laid out my breakfast fixings, the kettle began to whistle and I flicked off the heat.
“I’m sorry, Maman,” I finally muttered.
Her voice returned, stiff and cold. “Thank you. Whether or not I woke you, Elodie, that kind of attitude is unacceptable. Wake up and deal with the day. I don’t need to have my head bitten off, I’ve had enough of that in my life…”
This was going to be a long one. She droned on, while I dropped two heaping scoops of coffee into the French press and added boiling water. That heady aroma wafted up as the water hit the grounds, and I breathed in and smiled. Glorious, beautiful coffee.
I poured milk into a saucepan to warm and tidied the kitchen while she went on with the usual litany of my conflicting offenses. I was both unambitious and entitled, lazy and overactive, vain yet negligent of my appearance. I nodded, knowing we were winding down as she circled back to the grievances of her childhood, while I spread butter and black currant jam on my baguette.
“You have no sympathy for me,” she continued. “You never have. And you’ve hardly made life easy.”
Shame soured my stomach as I poured both milk and coffee into the large cup from which I drank my café au lait each morning. I swallowed the bitter taste of my guilt, that the state of our family was my fault. Yet sometimes I wonder
ed whether all that Maman blamed me for was actually my responsibility.
These thankfully rare and one-sided conversations with her never failed to remind me that no matter my guilt, life was best with Maman out of it. I tuned out her voice long enough to take a drink of my coffee and have a fighting chance of enjoying it. Then I reached for my bread and took a large bite. The soft butter and tart jam coated my tongue and made me sigh happily.
“Elodie?”
I glanced at the phone as I swallowed. “Yes, Mother?” I took another delicious bite of baguette.
Her gasp was so loud my phone rattled. “You have me on that speakerphone, don’t you?”
I paused mid-chew, dropped my bread, and lunged for the phone. Bringing it to my ear I tucked it against my shoulder. “No, why would you say that?”
Quietly, I swallowed, then snuck in another bite.
“It sounded odd. I don’t appreciate being put on the speaker. I hate the idea of being some bodiless voice floating around your kitchen while you make your café and roll your eyes at me.”
“I would never, Maman.” This time I stole a sip of coffee. “I was simply listening.”
“Hmph. Well, you could certainly afford to do more of that. Now, as I was saying, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay.” I took another bite of my bread.
“In person, Elodie.”
The bread lodged in my throat as I choked in panic. Because when Maman wanted to talk in person, Maman wanted something. And that was never good.
An hour later, I strode briskly to one of my preferred cafés in a pair of four-inch heels with a compact suitcase rolling behind me. I wore wide-leg linen trousers and a sheer blouse only undone two buttons so I didn’t have to hear it from Papa. I already knew Maman would approve of what I was wearing, since she periodically sent overpriced ensembles to my flat ("No daughter of mine should be seen walking the streets of Paris in last season’s styles”). A message from her after we hung up had dictated I wear this specific outfit from the latest batch.
