Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  But I’m not.

  It’s just one of life’s peculiarities that leads me to this one hilariously ironic moment.

  The moment I face my end is the precise moment I least want to slip away.

  But I can’t stop.

  Even though Melissa screams my name and begs me to stay with her. Even though her hand crushes mine and the kiss from her pretty mouth reminds me of the myriad reasons I want to stay alive with her, I can’t stop my eyes from closing.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  MELISSA

  ALEXANDER HENLEY, the man who is my everything, leaves me once in his hallway, just before the paramedics arrive, and again on the operating table before they stem the bleeding.

  I sit and wait in the corridor while they fight to save his life, and my hands are still bloody but I don’t want to wash them.

  I don’t want to wash him away from me.

  My tears are quiet but they don’t stop, not once in all the hours I wait for fate to show its hand.

  Dean only stays a little while before he takes Joseph back home to the bed we were leaving behind. He holds me tight and tells me it’s gonna be alright.

  He’ll hold on, he says. He’s not the kind of guy to back down from a fight. No fucking way, Lissa.

  I hope he’s right about that.

  Dean tells me he’ll pick up Brutus on the way home. He tells me he’ll keep him safe until Alexander is back.

  Brutus saved his life.

  I need Alexander to wake up just so I can tell him so.

  I want him to know that the dog whose life he saved from death row just saved him right back, and if that’s not fate, I don’t know what is.

  I just pray to God it’s fate that brings Alexander back to me.

  I recognise Claire Henley from their wedding photos as she rushes into the ward at just before midnight. Her eyes are wide and scared and her lips are pale even though she’s wearing lip gloss.

  “How is he?” she asks me, and I shrug. I don’t know. Not yet.

  I tell her so.

  She takes a seat at my side.

  “The stubborn sonofabitch will pull through,” she tells me, and I stare at her face as a tear falls. “I should’ve known his filthy fucking father would be the end of him.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I don’t.

  “Are you his…” she begins, and I nod.

  “We were, um… moving away.”

  She sighs. “About bloody time he found something he really wanted.” She brushes a tear away. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell the boys, if he…”

  “He won’t,” I say. “He’s a stubborn sonofabitch, remember?”

  She smiles at me. “I heard that ugly mutt saved his life.”

  I smile back. “He’s not so ugly,” I say. “He’s great when you get to know him.”

  “I never really gave the thing a chance. He smells bad.”

  “There’s time.”

  “I hope so,” she tells me. “And I hope there’s time for you to meet my boys, too. They’d love to see their dad… happy.”

  So would I.

  I’d love to see him happy, far away from all this with his feet on the sand somewhere.

  We’re sitting in silence as a doctor heads out to us, he tugs the mask from his face and calls for “Mrs Henley,” but Claire gestures at me.

  “I think this is for you,” she says, and I get shakily to my feet.

  I can hardly breathe as I step forward. My knees are knocking as I wait for the verdict.

  But it’s good. It’s really good.

  He shows me a diagram of the bullet they took from the bottom of his lung. He lost a lot of blood, the doctor tells me, but I already know that. My hands don’t let me forget it.

  My head is dizzy with relief when he tells me he’s going to be just fine. That they stemmed the bleeding and fixed him back up, and he’ll be weak for a while, but he’ll live.

  He’ll live.

  They’re the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard, even more beautiful than I love you from Alexander’s perfect mouth. Even more beautiful than the first time he used my real name.

  I thank the doctor.

  I thank him over and over through my tears.

  And Claire is happy for me. She puts her arm around my shoulder at the happy news and squeezes tight.

  “I told you,” she said. “He’s a stubborn sonofabitch. You’ll find that out for yourself, don’t you worry.”

  I’m not worried.

  I can hardly wait.

  EPILOGUE

  ALEXANDER

  MAYBE I’M SLOWLY BECOMING a man who believes in mumbo jumbo.

  The dog I rescued from certain doom is the one who saved me from mine.

  The girl whose eyes I stared into as I thought she’d died in my arms, is the very girl who stares into mine as I really do die in hers less than twenty-four hours later.

  And what a twenty-four hours they turned out to be.

  But maybe the biggest irony of all is that it’s the same gormless photographer I told to fuck off a few hours earlier that captures the pictures needed to identify my shooter.

  It’s the story Ronald pissing Robertson runs in his shitty tabloid that sees the authorities locate my cunt of a hitman and take him in for questioning.

  Apparently his arm needed over thirty stitches. He’ll probably never regain the use of his fingers, which is just as well considering he needs them to pull the fucking trigger.

  I don’t think he’ll be pulling another one anytime soon.

  I assumed he’d get away with it, of course. After all, my father’s a better puppet master than I’ll ever be.

  But not this time. This time the puppet master chose the wrong puppet. This time he rushed the job and paid on the cheap. A fool’s error most certainly, and one that makes me smile every time I ponder it.

  I waited a long time for that filthy old bastard to ever make a mistake.

  The piece of shit he got to take a shot at me on my doorstep was an amateur at best.

  He was more than happy to blab the details of my father and all his cunting associates in exchange for a shorter sentence, and I was more than happy to fill in the blanks.

  That’s how I came to stand on the other side of the witness box for once in my life, watching my father tried for attempted murder.

  That’s how Melissa, Dean, Joe and I got taken into witness protection and shipped away to a nice little town on the Welsh coast a million miles from bloody anywhere.

  And that’s how Melissa and I ended up as Mr Ted and Mrs Amy Brown. Just regular folk going about their regular business, with a regular kid and a dog, and my friendly nephew Danny hanging around.

  Melissa really did end up as a Mrs, too.

  I married her in hospital the very next day after my operation, just in case my father came back for round two.

  She bought me orchids for my room, and a cupcake too.

  And a crystal.

  The crystal.

  She fished out her lucky quartz from behind the shelving at mine and handed it right back as we said our vows.

  I’ll never throw it away again.

  I’ll never throw her away again, either.

  My boys are coming to visit next weekend.

  It’s been three months since my father was convicted, and I think the coast is as clear as it’ll ever be.

  I grind the beans for the coffee machine as Dean heads back from the beach with Joe. I watch them up the path as Brutus pads along behind, and I can’t stop smiling, knowing that my beautiful wife is due home any minute.

  From college.

  My beautiful wife Amy is studying law at college.

  She wants to be a lawyer one day, who’d have thought it? It seems not everything was for my benefit. Far from it.

  She wants to be a legal aid lawyer at that. Good deeds for those who can’t afford decent representation.

  I’m proud of her.

  And me?

 
Well, I think I’m going to take it easy awhile.

  I’ve got a whole collection of gemstones to start over, and a wife who actually wants me at night.

  I’ve got a family in Joseph and Dean.

  I’ve got my boys heading over for football practice this weekend – I’ve even set them up a pitch in the garden.

  And I’ve got my vicious, unlovable, untrainable dog, who’s not nearly so vicious these days.

  That’s more than enough strings to keep me occupied.

  And when it’s not, I choke my wife’s throat until she taps out, and she does tap out these days.

  When the nights draw in, and Joe’s tucked up quiet in bed, I fuck Dean’s tight little ass until he bleeds for me.

  And sometimes, occasionally, when I’m feeling particularly like my old cunt of a self, I’ll pretend I want to watch them fuck each other, just to check I can still make them squirm.

  They didn’t call me the puppet master for nothing.

  THE END

  BONUS EPILOGUE

  MELISSA

  “Go, Mattie! Shoot! Shoot!” My arms are in the air as I cheer Matthew up the pitch we’ve marked out in the garden. I’m grinning as he avoids Dean’s last-minute effort to take the ball, and whooping loud when he takes the shot and hits right on target. “Goal! YES!”

  Brutus barks at my side, his tail thumping along as I celebrate. His hide chew is still clutched tight between his paws, his tongue lolling in the summer sun.

  I scratch behind his ear as I tally up the score. Alexander and Matthew have four goals to Thomas and Dean’s two. My heart swells with pride as I watch Joe’s efforts to chase after the action. He jumps up and down as though he scored the goal himself, and it’s so cute I could burst. He’s too young to know whose team he’s on, but that’s okay. Alexander gives my little brother a high-five too.

  “Good job, Joe!” he says. “Teamwork.”

  I think Joe is onto a good thing. He’s cheered in victory at every goal this morning, always on the winning team. I guess that’s the benefit of being the youngest – and he’s so clearly the youngest.

  Alexander’s boys are getting tall. I can’t help but notice again that they’re getting really good at football, too. I might not know much about the game, sure, but any fool can see how much they’ve come on over the past twelve months or so. I work out the months in my head. It really is definitely or so. We’ve been in Wales over eighteen months already.

  Wow. Soon it’ll be two years.

  But that’s obvious enough as I watch little Joe bounding up the pitch. He was barely more than a baby when we got here. I don’t imagine he remembers much of London, or our life back there.

  Or our parents, but I try not to dwell on that. Now isn’t the time for sadness. The sun is shining and the summer holiday from college is stretching ahead. Life is good.

  It’s really good.

  Being with Alexander Henley isn’t anything like I dreamed. Not at all.

  It’s better.

  He’s beaming as brightly as I am as he high-fives his youngest son and ruffles his hair. It makes my belly somersault with that pang of something crazy I keep getting lately. He meets my eyes and gives me a wink, and there it is again.

  Somersaults and butterflies.

  Even now, after so much time together, I still have butterflies.

  He looks so different than he used to, Alexander. His suits have long been resigned to the back of the wardrobe, unless I convince him to dress up for old time’s sake. He’s looking super casual this morning in black jeans with well worn-knees and a short-sleeved polo shirt.

  He still looks amazing. He always looks amazing.

  As well as looking more casual these days, he smiles more and laughs louder. His dark hair has the finest smattering of grey at the temples and he’s not so cleanly shaven as he used to be.

  But that doesn’t matter when you spend your time writing articles for law journals from your home office in the middle of nowhere. That, and helping your girlfriend with her college work.

  I flash him the smile I save for him. He sees it and nods and those butterflies notch up another gear.

  Yeah, I sure do love all the things that have changed, but I especially love the things that haven’t.

  The way he looks at me as though he could eat me alive hasn’t changed one bit. And I hope it never does.

  His eyes are still locked on mine as the game resumes. I feel the burn on my cheeks even as he takes position by Matthew to defend their half of the garden.

  Thomas kicks off this time and passes a decent shot to Dean. I’m laughing as Dean makes a serious dash for it, and laughing louder as Alexander comes in for a much rougher tackle than necessary.

  They both go sprawling, and Thomas is up in arms.

  “Foul! Dad, that was a FOUL!” He looks across the garden at me. “Lissa, you’re referee! Give him a yellow card!”

  “Was not!” Matthew protests. “Dad tackled him fair!”

  Alexander brushes the grass from his knees once he’s back on his feet, but Dean’s really milking it, rolling around on his back and feigning injury. He shoots me big puppy dog eyes.

  “Yeah, ref! Foul!” he shouts.

  Alexander shoots Dean his best sneer. “Enough of the dramatics. I’ve given you a lot worse.”

  I snort laugh and try to stifle it.

  Everyone’s looking at me, and it’s funny enough that I really would give Alex a yellow card, just so he’d punish-fuck me later, but I can’t.

  It comes over me so quickly.

  My hand is over my mouth before I can utter a single word.

  Shit.

  It’s this crazy sickness bug I’ve had for weeks. I’m still trying to laugh even as I hold my stomach and double over. I grip the arm of the bench as the world spins, trying to protest even as Alexander reaches my side.

  “Again?” he asks and his hand is on my back, rubbing circles that should be soothing but only make me retch harder.

  “It’ll pass in a second,” I manage to say, but this time I’m not so sure.

  “Half-time,” Alexander tells the others, and I guess Dean’s recovered just fine from his agonising football injury when he ushers the boys in for mid-game drinks and chocolate.

  Brutus takes his chew and goes padding off after them. I love how he loves the boys. You’d never know he used to be such a grump if you met him now.

  Alex waits until they’re all out of earshot, and I know what’s coming before he says it.

  “This isn’t a sickness bug, Melissa.”

  My eyes are watering from retching but I’m still clinging onto the desire to play this down as nothing. “It’s just a bug. That dodgy takeout.”

  Alex sighs. “That dodgy takeout was weeks ago. You’re either seriously fucking ill, or you’re-“

  He doesn’t say it.

  I don’t say it, either.

  “It’s nothing,” I tell him as the queasiness passes a little. “Probably just the tail end of food poisoning.”

  “And what about the exhaustion? The two a.m quest into town for an onion bagel the other night?”

  That makes me smile afresh. “Sometimes a girl just fancies an onion bagel.”

  He laughs. “Not that much.”

  I know he’s right.

  It’s been keeping me awake at night, thinking. Wondering.

  Wondering if there is a third Alexander Henley jnr. growing in my belly. But I can’t… go there…

  I’m in my second year of a law degree. I have studying to do… so much studying…

  Plus, we have a great set up here. Alex’s boys are settled here with us at the weekends, and they get on really well with Joe and Dean. We’ve got a whole family thing going on, and it fits. It really fits.

  I don’t know what kinds of crazy a baby would add to the mix.

  We were careful. I was careful. I take my pill every day, and did even on the days I was definitely ill with food poisoning, and those scary things girl
s always say about the pill not working if you’re sick, I figured those were just silly overblown facts. That the statistics must be super low, not even worth worrying about.

  Yet here I am, sick in the garden. Again. Craving onion bagels and falling asleep wherever I’m sitting come mid-afternoon.

  I know it just as well as Alex seems to – I’m either pregnant or seriously ill.

  I just don’t know if I want to face it yet.

  But he does.

  “It’s time,” he says. “No more stalling, Lissa. It’s time.”

  His tone is one that tells me he won’t stand me messing around. I breathe a sigh in resignation as I stand up straight.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “No,” he says. “Now. The boys will be enjoying half time with Dean. The test will take a few minutes tops. You have to pee on a stick, sweetheart, it’s not a marathon.”

  “But the morning is better,” I protest.

  “I read the instructions. It’s suitable for any time of the day. Plus, I bought a pack of two. You can do another in the morning if you need to.”

  I take a breath, meeting the eyes of the man I adore more than life itself.

  “What if it’s positive?”

  He smirks. “Then we ditch the rest of the storage boxes into the garage and I get painting the nursery.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m being serious, Alex.”

  “So am I.”

  I take a seat on the bench and he drops down alongside me. His hand feels so warm when he takes mine, so firm and safe.

  “You said you wanted children of your own,” he says.

  “I do. It’s just timing. You’re relaxing, finally, after the court case crap with your dad, and Thomas and Mattie are settled, and so are Joe and Dean. Even Brutus likes the routine.”

  “And we’ll all adjust just fine.”

  “Nappies? Midnight changes? Crying through the night?”

  He smirks again. “I’ve been there before. So have you.”

  “I took care of my brother, I’m not his mum,” I say, even though he’s right, I have been there before. Under considerably more stressful circumstances too, even if I am at college now. “What about my course?”

  He looks thoughtful, but not concerned. “I’m only writing part time. Dean’s photography course is part time. We’ll cope between us. Hell, Lissa, we’ve got enough to hire a whole fleet of nannies if we couldn’t cope.” He tips his head. “But we will cope. We’ll be just fine. More than fine.”