by Louise Hall
Zeke, Cate suddenly remembered.
“He’s not…”
“Yes,” Kian said. He put his other hand on her hip and pulled her back towards him.
Cate could hardly breathe. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she gasped.
“Don’t lie to me,” Kian said sternly, “I saw the two of you together this afternoon.”
“No,” Cate said. She turned around so that she could look at his face. His eyes were hard and serious. “He was never my boyfriend. We were just pretending.” As soon as she’d said it, she cringed, realised how young it made her sound.
“Pretending?” Kian raised an eyebrow.
“I wanted to make you jealous,” Cate said. She covered her face with her hands; she knew she’d ruined the moment. It sounded so childish.
“Look at me,” he commanded. She felt his hand on the back of her head and he tilted her head back, forcing her to submit to him.
When she looked up at him, she expected to see ridicule and disappointment on his face but instead she saw lust. She’d never seen anyone look like that before, certainly not at her. The heat in his eyes burned her to the very core.
“It worked,” he said simply.
He kept his hand on the back of her head and his other arm snaked around her waist holding her so close to him that she could feel the taut muscles of his chest pushing against her. He kissed her and she could feel the jealousy in his kisses. He wanted to assert his dominance over her body; his hand in her hair became a fist and his tongue pushed apart her lips forcefully.
He pushed her back against the wall and her hip knocked into the dresser but she didn’t care. She’d never been more turned on.
Cate broke off from kissing. “Is something burning?”
“Shit,” Kian jumped back and ran downstairs to the kitchen.
Cate followed him into the kitchen. She could hardly see him because of the smoke. “Kian?”
The smoke alarm went off above their heads. “Cate, can you open the back door?”
Kian followed her outside; carrying what remained of their dinner. Cate couldn’t tell from the tray what it was supposed to have been, it was now just black and charred. He put the whole tray in the dustbin at the side of the house. “You weren’t really hungry, were you?” Kian asked.
Cate couldn’t help but smile. “Come here,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “It’s the thought that counts.”
They went back inside and the smoke had started to clear. The smoke alarm had stopped. Kian looked ruefully at his oven, “I don’t know what happened. I’m usually a good cook.”
“I’m sure you are,” Cate teased.
Kian pulled her back towards him, “You distracted me.”
They kissed again but this time the kisses felt different. They weren’t just kisses, they were leading to something. Cate could sense it and she wasn’t afraid. “Do you want to go upstairs?” Kian said breathlessly.
Cate nodded; she wanted that more than anything.
He took her by the hand and led her upstairs to his bedroom. As she stepped across the threshold, Cate felt like she was taking a huge step towards adulthood.
Kian sat down on the bed and tugged her towards him. She stood between his knees and her hair fell forward, covering them like a curtain. He pulled off her cardigan and dropped it on the floor. Her arms were covered in tiny goose bumps.
He put his hands on her waist and lifted her up so she was straddling him. She looked deep into his eyes; she’d never felt like this before. She felt certainty – certain of what they were about to do and certain that it was right. He kissed her softly.
Kian laid her down in the centre of the bed and knelt above her. With his eyes fixed on her, he lifted up her dress and his hands found the waistband of her tights. She lifted her hips up off the bed and he pulled her tights all the way down and threw them over his shoulder on to the floor. With her skirt up above her waist, he lifted up her leg and kissed the tips of her toes.
“What’s this?” he said, looking at the small tattoo on the side of her ankle.
“It’s henna,” Cate explained. “It means courage.”
He kissed just above the tattoo and the touch of his lips on her skin felt electric. She gripped on to the duvet cover with both fists. He moved up her calf, holding it in his hands and planting tiny kisses higher and higher. Then he kissed behind her knee and Cate felt a flood of pleasure in her belly. He moved even higher, pushing her legs further apart and touched her inner thighs with his lips.
As he got to the lace edging of her panties, his phone started ringing. “Do you need to answer that?” Cate asked.
“Ignore it,” Kian growled.
Cate’s phone, which was in her handbag on the floor, started ringing as well. The moment was broken. Cate quickly sat up and pulled her skirt down. “Here,” Kian said, handing Cate her phone.
“Hey,” Kian answered his phone first.
Cate got up and walked into the hallway. “Hey Liv, what’s up?”
“Where are you?” Liv sounded really upset. Cate immediately started panicking.
“I’m at Ben’s house, why?” Cate said quickly. “Liv, what’s happened?”
Before Liv could answer, Cate heard a sound from the bedroom. “What was that?” Liv asked; she’d obviously been able to hear it from the other end of the phone.
“It’s just Monty,” Cate said, walking back towards the bedroom.
“You need to get to the hospital,” Liv explained. “It’s Eamon, there’s been an accident.”
Cate got to the doorway of the bedroom and looked at Kian. He’d obviously just had the same call. He was sat on the bed with his phone in his hand.
“I’ll be right there,” Cate said to Liv and then switched off her phone.
She quickly pulled on her cardigan and shoved her feet into her shoes. “Come on,” she said gently to Kian. “We’ve got to go.”
He looked at her as if she was speaking Chinese. She helped him put on his t-shirt and shoes and then rummaged in his wardrobe for his jacket. He just sat there the whole time, not saying anything.
“Come on,” she said, touching his arm. “Let’s go.”
He wasn’t in a fit state to drive so Cate drove them to the hospital. He seemed to get it together on the drive over. Cate dropped him at the main entrance and then circled the car park a couple of times looking for a space. By the time she’d found one, it had started raining again. She pulled her cardigan up over her head and ran across the car park. Liv was outside waiting for her. “What happened?” Cate asked as soon as she got near. “Is he okay?”
“Car accident,” Liv said. Her face was ghostly white. “I don’t know.”
Jean, Irene and Sinead were in a small waiting room off the main corridor. Kian was stood behind Jean’s chair. He looked up when Cate and Liv walked through the door but then quickly looked away again. He looked so alone. Cate ached with how much she wanted to go to him but she knew she couldn’t. Sinead was sat by herself under the window. Cate sat down beside her. “I can’t find Jake,” Sinead whispered. “He’s not answering his phone. I don’t know where he is.”
Cate did the only thing she could; she opened her arms and Sinead fell into them, burying her face in Cate’s shoulder. As she cried, Cate softly stroked Sinead’s hair, trying to comfort her but all the time she kept sneaking glances at Kian.
A little while later, the doctor walked into the waiting room with a grim look on his face. Everybody’s heads shot up. He went over to Jean who was sat with Irene, their hands tightly clamped together.
“I’m so sorry,” he started to speak. “We did everything we could.”
Jean tried to get up, to go and see her husband. “No, I don’t believe you.”
“Mum,” Kian put a hand on her shoulder.
“There’s been a mistake. Not Eamon, no, not my Eamon.”
“No,” Sinead cried desperately, “Dad!” In the stunned silence of the waiting area, that one word seemed
to echo, getting sadder and sadder. Sinead slid off the chair and slumped down on to the linoleum, her hands covering her face, rocking back and forth.
Cate knelt down next to Sinead and rubbed her back. She didn’t know what to do. Liv looked just as helpless. Then Jake appeared from somewhere and took over from Cate. “I’m here baby, I’m here,” he said softly, kissing the top of Sinead’s head.
Cate looked up at Kian. He was standing so still. It was like the rest of the world fell away, it was just white noise. All she could see was him. His hands, his strong hands, were gripping the back of Jean’s chair so tightly, his knuckles had turned white. She could see the pain etched deeply across his face. The haunted look, which was starting to take over his dark eyes as he realised what had happened, cut Cate to ribbons. It was at that exact moment, kneeling on the linoleum with Eastenders on the TV in the background that Cate realised she’d fallen in love with him. She could feel Kian’s pain as acutely as if his broken heart was beating inside her chest.
CHAPTER 17
Ben and Erin couldn’t get a flight home until after the funeral so Cate stayed at their house to look after Monty.
The night of the funeral, Cate was just about to go upstairs to bed when she heard a knock at the front door. When she opened it, Kian was stood there. He was still wearing his shirt and suit from the funeral but had loosened his tie.
“Will you stay with me?” He asked and at that moment Cate would have done anything for him. He looked so utterly broken.
Cate grabbed her keys and followed him across the courtyard to his house. Kian got them both bottles of beer and they sat in the porch at the back of the house, staring out at the uninterrupted blackness.
She didn’t like beer but she took small sips to keep him company. The foul taste burned the back of her throat.
Cate didn’t know what to say to him. The funeral had been tough; it had felt like the whole congregation was made up of zombies with hollow souls and dead eyes. She’d always thought of funerals as being filled with sadness but this one wasn’t, it was filled with nothing. The vicar spoke but nobody listened. All they could see was that rectangular, wooden box mounted on the plinth at the front of the church. A large framed photograph of Eamon full of life was on an easel to one side. It was hard to reconcile that the man in the photograph was now in the wooden box.
Kian reached for her hand and held it in his own and if he squeezed it a little bit too hard and hurt, Cate didn’t tell him.
“I’m tired,” he said, finishing the last of his beer.
Cate took the bottles and went to put them in the recycling bin.
Kian waited for her by the door and took hold of her hand again, leading them upstairs. Cate couldn’t help but think of the last time she’d gone up those stairs. It felt like eons had passed since then, not just a week.
In his bedroom, Kian took off his shoes and lay back on the bed. Cate wasn’t sure what he wanted so she did the same.
She thought back to the funeral again. “Danny Boy” had been played at the end as the curtain was pulled across, separating them all from Eamon one last time. He’d loved that song and now Cate couldn’t get it out of her head.
As they’d walked out of the church into the betrayal of sunshine, Jean was surrounded by Eamon’s sisters who’d come over from Ireland. Sinead followed behind, leaning heavily on Jake. Then Kian followed after them, all alone. Ben was still stuck trying to get an earlier flight back from Bangkok. Kian’s Rovers teammates and manager showed up and offered their condolences but it wasn’t the same. Nobody was there just for him. Cate couldn’t look at him because it nearly broke her heart to see him like that. She wanted to take him in her arms and let him cry. He hadn’t cried at all since it happened; Jean said she was worried about him.
Kian pulled her towards him on the bed and kissed her. It felt like she could taste his sadness.
Cate let Kian manoeuvre her on to her back. He needs me, she thought. She would do anything to make him feel better. When his hands went up her skirt, she didn’t slap them away. He inched her tights down her thighs. He needs this, she repeated, he needs me. She told herself that she was ready. He pulled down her panties and pushed apart her legs and she closed her eyes and waited for him.
When he entered her, it hurt a lot more than she thought it would. She bit her lip so hard she could taste blood. He didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t kiss her; there was no tenderness, or any of the other things he’d promised for her first time. She stole a glance at him and he wasn’t even looking at her. She bit down harder on her lip, determined not to cry. He was just staring straight ahead at the headboard, which knocked rhythmically against the wall.
It was only then that she realised that it wasn’t her body that he needed tonight, it was anybody. She could have been anyone. He groaned and fell on top of her. She felt the full weight of his body on top of hers. I’m not a virgin anymore.
Suddenly, as if she’d said those words out loud, Kian opened his eyes and looked down at her. Cate felt herself shrink. Nobody had ever looked at her like that before. His eyes were full of horrible, hateful things like regret, shame and disgust. He was still inside her, pinning her to the bed and “Danny Boy” was still playing in her head. She couldn’t breathe.
Kian rolled over on to his back and covered his face with his hands, as if he couldn’t bear to even look at her. She tried to breathe again but although he was no longer on top of her, it still felt like there was a huge weight pressing down on her chest.
Cate quickly pulled up her panties and tights and pulled down her dress. She couldn’t get away from there fast enough. She didn’t stop to put on her shoes even though it was raining heavily outside. She ran down the stairs, out the front door and across the courtyard to Ben and Erin’s house. By the time she got there, she had gravel embedded in her feet and she was dripping wet.
“I’ll hurt you,” Kian’s words rang in her ears. She hadn’t believed him.
She sat on the floor in the hallway and Monty came and nuzzled up against her, as if he sensed that she needed a friend. Cate shooed him away at first. She was disgusting and shameful; she didn’t deserve Monty’s kindness. But he wouldn’t go. Even when she shooed him away, he kept coming back to her side and as the tears ran freely down her cheeks; he licked at them as if by doing that he could stop them from falling. Only his kindness made her cry even more. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his soft, silky fur. Cate cried until there were no more tears left.
As the front door slammed closed, Kian got up and flung the duvet to the floor. His eyes were drawn to a stain on the sheet. He looked down and saw that it was blood. Fuck. That was her first time. He’d taken her virginity like it was nothing.
He ran downstairs and across the courtyard in his bare feet. He pressed the palms of his hands and his forehead on the cold metal of the front door. He could hear her crying on the other side.
“I’m so sorry,” he mouthed silently.
As Cate stood up to get a glass of water for her hoarse throat, she felt his… stuff trickling down her thigh. Ugh, she forgot about the water and went straight upstairs to the bathroom. She needed a shower right now. As she waited impatiently for the water to heat up, she could still feel his stuff slippery and wet on her thigh. She grabbed a piece of tissue paper and wiped away what she could. But she couldn’t get rid of the film of disgust Kian had covered her with. She took off all of her clothes and underwear, put them in a plastic bag, tied it up tightly and shoved it in her suitcase. The following morning, she would go to the local refuse plant and throw them in the tip. She never, ever wanted to see them again.
Cate climbed into the shower and the water was so hot it felt like her skin was being set on fire. She closed her eyes and tried to enjoy the pain, imagining her old, disgusting skin being burnt off her body and the new fresh, clean skin underneath. But with her eyes closed, all she could see was that look in his eyes. She would never forget it. It didn’t matt
er how many layers of skin she took off, she would never be able to forget the way he’d looked at her. Like he was sorry she’d ever been born.
That night, with her skin an angry red colour and stinging from the hot water, Cate let Monty sleep on the bed with her. He wasn’t allowed on any of the beds but Cate couldn’t bear to be alone. How could she still feel his disgust on her body, even after she’d showered?
The following morning, Cate was woken up by the sound of the front door being unlocked. For a moment, she thought it was Kian but she soon heard Erin’s voice. “Cate?”
At the sound of his mistress’s voice, Monty quickly jumped down off the bed and ran to find her.
Cate quickly wiped under her eyes, in case they were still wet. “In here,” she called back.
Erin knocked on the door and then popped her head around. “Are you okay? It’s taken forever to get back.”
Cate started to get up, “me? I’m fine.”
“Ben went straight across to see Kian. How is he?”
“I don’t know,” Cate shrugged. She grabbed some clothes from her suitcase. “I’d better go.”
“You don’t have to rush off,” Erin said.
“No, it’s fine. I should really check on Sinead.”
“Okay,” Erin looked doubtful. “I’ll let you get changed then. Monty, come on.”
Cate got dressed as quickly as possible and packed up her belongings. She wanted to get out of there.
When she went downstairs, Erin was on the lounge floor, going through her suitcase. “I’m going to go,” Cate said.
“Wait,” Erin said, “damn it, we got you something, to say thank you for looking after Monty and the house but I can’t find it.”
Cate kept looking at the front door, she was desperate to leave. “That’s so kind but don’t worry about it now, you can always give it to me later.”
“Okay,” Erin sounded disappointed. “Are you sure you don’t want some breakfast before you go.”
“Honestly,” Cate gave her a hug, “I’m fine, you’ve had a long flight.”
But Cate didn’t go home. Instead she drove to the college library. Walking through the doors, she felt a huge sense of relief. Surrounded by all those shelves of books, she felt comfortable. This was something she knew how to do.
