by Esme Devlin
“How many times woman, the neck. Aim for the fucking neck!”
She just giggles and gets out of the car.
My gran is the first one to notice Lacey’s hand.
Figues, she’s always been the smartest one out the lot of us. A faint smile grows on her face as she links arms with Lacey and leads her away from me.
I seek out my old man, thinking it’s probably best if I warn him first.
He’s not made his way out to the bar yet, and I find him in his office, Colin — Calvin’s dad — sitting across from him.
“I’ve something to tell you, Da.”
He looks up at me. “What, and you can’t wait twenty minutes til I’m up the stairs?”
“Thought you’d want to know before everyone else does…” I pause, hesitating for the best words to use. Fuck it. “I made Lacey one of us last night. Stevie, too. They both know.”
I look between my dad and Colin, trying to gauge their reactions.
Colin eyes are fixed on the hardwood table in front of him. “Stevie, that the wee lass Calvin’s been fuckin’?”
I clear my throat. Awkward as fuck. “Aye.”
He nods once.
My dad glances at him and then fixes his stare on me. “You trust these lassies?”
Stevie’s on Calvin, that’s not up to me to answer for him. Do I trust Lacey?
I can’t pause for too long, else he’ll assume that I don’t and I was just letting my cock do the thinking for me. Do I trust her?
She trusted me.
“Aye. I do.”
He nods and then shrugs. “I like the girl.”
“Good.”
I turn on my heels and head back up the stairs to the bar.
Calvin and Stevie still haven’t arrived, and Lace is sitting at a table with my ma’ and my gran.
They stop their chit-chat as soon as I approach them.
“What you all drinking?”
“Brandy for me, son,” my gran says. “Get your mither a vodka and coke… diet?”
My mum nods.
“Lace?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
I nod and make my way over to the bar, not bothering to wait to be served. I’m busy trying to find the brandy my gran likes when I hear, “Anyone serving in this dump?”
Calvin, the prick.
“Enjoy your jog?”
His face breaks into a smile and then he shakes his head. “Never met anyone as stubborn as her.”
“Sorted though?”
“Aye,” he says. “Now get me a vodka and make it a double.”
The meeting goes by just like the others do, and the older I get the more convinced I am that these are just excuses for a piss-up.
Half an hour of business followed by eighties music til midnight.
We bailed just before ‘Come on Eileen’ made it to the second chorus.
It was fine, though. My dad accepted Lacey, and because he did no one else batted an eyelid, not about her or about Stevie. There was a few raised protests about Stevie’s family… they’ve lived in this town for years but her Da likes to keep himself to himself.
Calvin said he’d talk to him when the time was right.
It’s a given that he’ll have to marry her, but since they’ve only just started talking again I didn’t mention it, and neither did my dad.
He’ll likely let Colin deal with that.
“Where are you going?” Calvin asks, his head poking through the space between the two front passenger seats.
He must have noticed this is not the way to any of our houses.
“I fucking love this road,” I tell him. “Lace, you got your seatbelt on?”
“I always wear it!”
“Calvin there’s a bottle under Lacey’s seat,” I shout back. “Got it for Stevie, I know how much she likes a tipple.”
“Fuck you,” she says through a laugh.
“It’s a Friday night, I’m not judging.” I let go of the steering wheel and hold my hands up to convey my feelings on the subject.
“Aye alright. So where are we going on this fine Friday night?” She’s already unscrewing the lid on the bottle, the little shit.
“Honestly never thought that far ahead,” I tell her. “I just fucking love this road.”
“You’re a wee weirdo, you know that, eh?” Calvin says, taking the bottle from Stevie and swigging a mouthful.
It’s a nice road, enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes, but not too many that you can’t pick up speed. It also has those drops that makes your stomach dip if you take them fast enough.
“Where does the road lead?” Lacey asks.
Stevie passes her the bottle through the gap and I watch her eying it up in my peripheral. It’s pitch dark outside, she won’t be able to make out the colour never mind work out if it was a good fucking year.
Does vodka even have good years?
Fuck knows.
“The beach,” I tell her. “Well, if you kept going far enough you’d hit England, eventually.”
“Let’s go to the beach!” Stevie announces.
“Aye,” Calvin agrees. “It’s a warm night.”
“Are you two fucking mental?” Lace grabs my arm with her free hand and pulls herself over to my side of the car. “It says it’s 10 degrees outside.”
“Exactly!” Stevie giggles. “It’s a warm night.”
“Drink woman, it’ll warm your cockles,” Calvin says.
Lacey shrugs and takes a swig, passing the bottle back to Calvin. I turn the music up and let them laugh and joke while I mostly concentrate on the road in front of me.
It takes about twenty minutes to get to the good bit of the beach. There’s a wee car park, then a bridge that crosses a burn and once you pass over a couple of dunes, it’s all flat sand.
“Here hold this a minute, Calvin.” Stevie passes him the bottle while she puts her purse over her shoulder, slamming the car door shut behind her.
“Is that door shut right, Stevie?” I ask dryly.
She just laughs while she stumbles a wee bit.
“Remember we’re supposed to be shopping tomorrow,” Lacey warns her.
“Aye, you can drive!” she replies with a giggle, pissed as a fiddler already.
I roll my eyes at her and take Lacey’s hand.
We walk to the beach and it’s not long before the lights of the car park fade away to nothing. Calvin and Stevie run off, the pair of them laughing like idiots and heading straight for the water.
Lacey shivers beside me and I take my hoody off, putting it over her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“It’s not even that cold,” I tell her with a chuckle.
“Clearly you’ve never been to Asia.”
I shrug. “Never been outside Scotland.”
“Really? Not even for like, a vacation?”
“A vacation? You mean, a holiday?” I still can’t get my head around the mental words she uses.
She giggles. “Yes.”
“Nah. Got everything I want and need right here.”
“I like vacations,” she says. “I mean, holidays. Well, I only really had a couple of them growing up, but it’s nice to get away, a change of scenery. Do you even have a passport?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
She sounds disappointed.
I give her a push with my shoulder. “I’ll get one if it stops you whinging.”
She laughs. “It does.”
“Where will we go?”
She pauses for a wee second. I can hardly see her face, the moon’s quite full but it’s hidden behind thick clouds.
“There’s so many places to go. We’ll start with Spain though, it’s got lovely weather, nice beaches, good food. Plus you’re fluent, so we can go to all the good restaurants and order from the good menus.”
“Hmm, so basically sounds exactly like here, then.”
She starts laughing. “It’s nothing like here!”
“They won’t have my gran’s stew in Spain. We’ll need to bring her with us.”
She pushes me this time. “Oh, I’m sure she’d love that,” she says dryly.
“What was my gran saying to you tonight?”
She stops walking and I swear I can almost see the smirk on her face. “She said I’ll learn to control you soon enough.”
She can’t see my grin but she can hear my laugh. “That’ll be the same day pigs fly, darlin’.”
Lacey giggles, pushing me again playfully. “I’ll get a passport for ya’ darlin’, right away darlin’, anything else darlin’?”
“Hahaha. You’re gonna die tonight, bitch.”
She screams and starts running. “You need to catch me first.”
Just then I feel a drip on my head, and the first low growl of thunder in the distance.
And another one.
She stops a few paces away, I can’t see her but I can hear her breathing.
I creep towards the dark outline of her body, and catch her in my arms just as the heavens open and rain starts pouring down, heavy as fuck.
“You don’t get this in Spain,” she says.
“Wee bit rain never hurt anyone,” I tell her, pulling the hood up so her hair stays dry.
“What part of this is a wee bit?”
She’s right, it’s hooring it down now.
“Come on, leave they wee fuckers to it,” I say, laughing and taking her hand. The pair of us run back to the car, soaked to the bone by the time we get there.
“Aye… so… how long do passports take?”
I watch her in the light of the dash, soaking wet, water running down her nose and shivering from the chill, and when her face breaks into a smile, I think maybe tonight is the night pigs fly.
This girl fucking owns me, and I no longer give a shit.
Chapter 23
LACEY
We set an alarm early for Saturday. The shops open at nine, but it’s about an hours’ drive away so we’re up and out of the house for 7.45am, intending to stop on the way for coffee as soon as we reach some place big enough for a Starbucks.
“I feel better today,” she says. We’re parked up in a service station off the motorway, a cup of steaming hot latte in each of our hands.
We took the bandages off this morning to reveal two scabbed over cuts. It’s not as raw today as it was yesterday.
Knowing that she’s not talking about hangovers, I reply, “Yeah, me too,” I tell her.
“Okay, no more boy chat! I kinda want clothes but at the same time kinda want bath-bombs. I have £100. What would you do?”
“You have like… a wardrobe bursting with clothes,” I argue. “I’d get one item of clothing and blow the rest.”
“Good shout,” she says.
I’m about to pull the car out of the service station when my phone vibrates from its place on top of the ashtray.
“Eh, I thought we just agree’d no boy chat?” She says, looking at me with her eyebrow raised.
“What if it’s important?” I shrug, retrieving my phone. It lights up but to my surprise it’s not Shaun. “It’s my dad,” I tell her.
“What does he want?”
I don’t know. The only time I’ve spoken to him since the whole Liam debacle was when he called me to say he’d been arrested.
I slide the phone unlocked and read the message to Stevie out loud.
I got bail. I’m home. I need to see you. I’m so sorry for everything honey.
I lock the phone again and throw it back down on the ashtray like it’s burning me, deciding instead to stare out the window at the re-fuelling lorries.
“Lacey?”
Her voice is soft. She’s not trying to push me, she’s just concerned, I get it.
“I was fine,” I tell her. “Really. He’s never been that big a part of my life, anyway.” I look over to her and try not to let any emotion show on my face.
“Do you want him to be a part of your life?”
“No. I don’t think so. I didn’t want him getting caught up in this and going to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, but at the same time, I can’t forgive him for what he did.”
She nods. “I don’t think I could forgive my dad, either.”
“Your dad would never do that to you,” I tell her. I look away. It wasn’t supposed to sound bitter, and I really hope it didn’t come across that way.
“Hey, you’ve got me? And my mum and dad really care about you… even Darren, the little shit. The annoying brother you love to hate. You’ve got Alice, as batshit as she is. You’ve got Heather, batshit too but aren’t all sister-in-laws? Calvin, Doeboy, Scoot, Tony. Fuckers, but they care about you in their own warped way. And you’ve got Shaun. You don’t need him anymore.”
I turn around and smile at her. She’s right. I don’t need him.
But I do need a job.
I can’t tell him to go and fuck himself while I’m driving around in his car and spending on his credit card.
“Would you mind if we leave the shopping until next weekend? It’s just… There’s something I have to do.”
She smiles back at me. “Sure.”
I park the car on the driveway of my old house.
His house.
His car.
I ring the doorbell formally because I want to take every chance I can to show him that I don’t live here anymore.
He doesn’t own me anymore.
He comes to the door and I have to do a double take. The man standing in front of me doesn’t look like my dad. It looks like he’s not shaved all week. His hair, usually combed back and flattened with product is sticking up in tufts all over his head, and his eyes are sunken, like he hasn’t slept in days.
“You look terrible,” I tell him.
“I’m so glad to see you,” he says, spreading his arms out for a hug.
I flinch at the thought of it.
“I’m not staying. I came to give you these back.” I hold out my hand, the one that isn’t cut, and he eyes the keys to the Audi, clearly sitting above the black American Express card.
He takes them off me, his face expressionless, and then turns my hand over. “What is this?”
My ring.
“I’m married.”
“To who?”
“His name is Shaun.”
“Shaun who?”
I swallow. “Shaun Keagan.”
“When?”
I pause for a minute. This is bullshit.
“I don’t have to answer to you anymore. I came to say goodbye.”
“Lacey, don’t do this. The deal is off. The company is going to fold. It’s over,” he shouts after me as I walk down the drive.
“Was it worth it?”
I give him a second to answer and when he doesn’t, I don’t look back again. I keep walking.
I could text Shaun or Stevie to come and pick me up, but it’s a mild day. The sky is vivid blue and cloudless, and the lazy sunshine is just enough to warm the skin without being uncomfortable.
I walk back to Stevie’s house, trying to clear my head.
I feel free.
For the first time in years I feel like my own person. Even with Shaun’s ring around my finger, and the cut from his knife scored into my hand.
I don’t fear him anymore.
You’ll learn to control him now.
That’s what Alice said. I don’t doubt her. Shaun is fearless, harsh, dominant. But under all of that he has a heart that beats twice as fiercely as most peoples do.
And his heart beats for me.
Only me.
For the first time in years, it feels like things might just click into place.
I come to the end of the long windy street, where the road changes from pedestrianised to a 60mph B road. The pavement fades to nothing and there are only the grass banks on each side of the road, still wet from last nights heavy rainfall and glistening in the sun.
It’s only about a mile I think, so I start walking.<
br />
A while later I hear a vehicle in the distance and glance back to see a white van approaching. I slow my pace, getting as high up on the verge and away from the road as possible until it passes.
But it takes longer than I expected it to.
It’s a 60mph road?
The van slows behind me and I turn around. Maybe they think I’m lost, or I need help, or a ride into town?
It comes to a stop beside me and the window rolls down.
“You alright there Miss?” A man shouts from the drivers side.
“Fine thank you, just out for a walk.”
I start walking again and the van creeps along beside me. A sudden feeling of unease washes over me. I look up at the man again, sitting high in his seat.
“Do you want something?”
“Just worried about you, that’s all.” His accent is thick Scots. I’d say he’s in his 50s, slim to the point of being skinny and malnourished looking. His face is covered in scars or pox marks, I can’t be sure which, but it has a lumpy appearance.
I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
I tell myself I already learned that lesson the day I walked into this town and was blinded by the face of a golden blonde haired angel.
But I can’t help myself judging.
This man looks shady and I don’t like him one bit.
He stops the van and yanks the handbrake up. I turn back, sensing something behind me, and all of a sudden two arms are around me and dragging me towards the back of the van.
I thrash.
I kick.
I scream for my fucking life.
Pain explodes like a firework in the back of my head and the green of the grass fades to gray. The sky turns dark.
The world disappears.
I wake up confused as fuck but remembering everything. I was giving my dad his things back, I’d been walking for maybe half an hour. Then the van came.
I try to sit up but the moment I move my head pain erupts inside it.
I’m in a bed.
A huge, comfortable bed.
White sheets surround my body, the silk soft on my skin.
I’m naked.
I’m naked?
I sit up, this time I don’t try, I achieve. Fuck the pain.
A fire crackles in the middle of the back wall, the mantle carved in stone. This is an old room.
