Devotion: The Beauty in Between (Beautiful Series book 4.5)

by Lilliana Anderson

  Suddenly, Theo pulls his shirt off and hands it to me, his voice rising to a booming yell as his mother’s rises to a shrill pitch. I set the guitar to the side and drop his soft white shirt over my head. It comes down to my thighs so at least I’m slightly decent.

  Oh god, why won’t she just leave?

  Their yelling escalates and Theo steps away from me. The absence of his reassuring warmth against me, leaving me bereft. Wrapping my arms around myself protectively, I watch them yell. I can see his mother, poking him in the chest and yelling in his face as she gestures dramatically. Theo is doing his best to stay calm, but he is just as emotional as she is.

  Her head shakes and her aging neck wobbles. Each time she glances at me she says the word ‘puttana’ which seems to make Theo even angrier.

  I can’t take it anymore. Their voices seem to rise and fill every bit of space in the garage studio until it feels as though my head is vibrating.

  “Enough!” I scream, causing them both to stop mid rant and turn their attention to me. “Enough,” I repeat, my voice soft but stern this time. I look between them, shake my head and quickly leave the room before I bust into tears in front of them.

  “Nomes!” Theo calls, as I race through the door that joins the studio to the house.

  I don’t stop until I’m in the bathroom and have locked the door and turned the shower on to drown out the sound of the world.

  Dropping my clothing and shoes on the floor, I step under the steady stream of water and let it blast over my head like some sort of shield against what just happened. Holy shit, I could just curl up and die.

  Chapter Four

  “Nomes,” Theo calls over the sound of the shower as he knocks on the bathroom door. “Come out, babe. She’s gone.”

  Holding my hands in front of me, I look at my wrinkled fingertips and let out a deep sigh before I shut off the water. I’ve been in here for at least twenty minutes and the water is on the verge of turning cold.

  “Open the door, Naomi. Let me in,” Theo says softly through the door.

  Reaching for a towel, I wrap it around myself for warmth and flick the lock on the back of the door, stepping back as Theo opens it and meets my eyes with his sympathetic gaze.

  “Come here,” he murmurs, reaching out and gathering me into his arms. I curl into him, resting my head against his chest as I wish that we could go back in time at least one hour, so I could make sure the bloody front door was locked before I went and seduced my fiancé.

  “How bad is it?” I ask, knowing his mother’s penchant for dramatic flair.

  “She’ll get over it. She always does,” he assures me.

  “I won’t get over it. I’m so embarrassed, Theo. I just want to crawl under a rock and stay there. How am I ever going to sit across a dinner table from her again?”

  His chest starts bouncing as a chuckle erupts from within.

  “It’s not funny, Theo!”

  “Babe. My mother just saw me come in your face. It’s pretty fucking funny.”

  I cover my face with my hands. “Oh god! Don’t remind me!” I moan.

  His arms tighten around me. “Hey, it serves her right for walking into our house uninvited.”

  “Note to self – always lock the front door…So, I guess she knows I’m living here now?”

  “Yep,” he confirms gravely.

  “Bloody hell,” I moan, running my hand over the top of my head in agitation. “What the hell was she doing here? She never drops in unannounced.”

  “I have no idea. We were too busy yelling at each other to find out why she really was here. But don’t worry. It’ll all blow over.”

  “Yeah, but when? Remember what happened when Marcus and Lisa eloped? She lost her shit and wore black for months! All that muttering and crossing herself around them – what is she going to do after witnessing that?”

  This reaction may seem a little ridiculous. After all, Theo and I are adults. We’re engaged, and we’ve been touring the country, and the world, with our band for a few years now. And, we’ve been living together for most of those years. It’s just that Theo’s mother doesn’t know that part. Up until today, she still thought we were living separately.

  Here’s the thing. Theo comes from a very religious Italian family. His mother, especially, is very big on tradition and would have an absolute fit if she had realised we were living together before we were married. As far as she is concerned, her boys are ‘good catholic boys’ and they should marry ‘good catholic girls’.

  The catholic girl part was the one thing I had right. Although I’m not practising, I am at least christened and went through all of my communion and what not when I was young. But, the ‘good’ part… well, that was already debatable - but now, I’ve completely lost any sort of respect I had in Mrs Bailey’s eyes.

  Mrs Bailey. That’s right, I still call her ‘Mrs Bailey’ as if I’m a child coming over to her house to play after school. But what can I say? The woman makes me nervous as hell. When she’s upset, she mutters things in Italian that sound like curses and when her sons disappoint her… words can’t even describe what it’s like when that happens. Drama – she just radiates so much drama!

  From what I’ve been told, when Theo went through his Goth phase, she saw him once and lost her shit, claiming that he was breaking her heart because he was courting the devil. She made his life so difficult, that from then on he hid it from her so as not to upset her, but still be the person he wanted to be.

  It’s hard to know what will set her off though. When Theo’s younger brother, Marcus, made himself an Internet sensation by ruining our band’s Melbourne gig a few years ago, she barely bat an eyelid. Then, while he took off and toured the world for a couple of years without making any contact with a single one of us, once again, she was fine. “He just so busy,” she’d say in her thick accent. It used to infuriate me because I just knew that if Theo had done that, both Mr and Mrs Bailey would be shaking their heads in disappointment and claiming that he didn’t care about them anymore.

  But I guess that’s the difference with the Bailey brothers – Theo was always the dependable one and Marcus was always the one with stars in his eyes. They expected more from Theo than they ever did from Marcus.

  The only time she ever reacted badly towards Marcus was when he married a girl they had never met. Mrs Bailey wore black for months, and kept crossing herself all the time like there was some sort of demon in the room. It was ridiculous. But I still don’t think she blamed Marcus. Her negativity seemed to be aimed more toward his wife, Lisa. I don’t think Marcus can ever do wrong in her eyes.

  So, you see, her walking in on Theo and I being…sexual… and finding out that we’re living together before we’ve married, is probably going to give her a heart attack or something. And, it will be primarily blamed on me.

  I guess because she still sees Marcus as the baby in the family, she overlooks a lot of his faults. But with Theo, she seems to have very high expectations. Perhaps because he’s the oldest and therefore is expected to be more mature and level headed. As a result, Theo feels as though he’s a bit of a disappointment. But at the grass root of it all, it’s always the women in their life who lead her boys astray. My sister-in-law, Lisa, has gone through a multitude of drama at the hands of this woman. And from what I can gather, she isn’t going to be happy until one of us gives her our first-born child as some sort of sacrifice to the gods of overbearing mother-in-laws everywhere.

  For a while, she was ok with Marcus and Lisa’s marriage (once she had gone through her mourning period after they eloped, that is.) But then, Marcus and Lisa made it very clear that they weren’t ready to start a family, and that has got her nose severely out of joint again. She just can’t understand the point of marriage unless there are children.

  Which brings us back to the fact that Theo and I still aren’t married. Not only are our friends on our backs about when it’s going to happen, but Mrs Bailey is permanently on our case about it – p
erhaps that’s another reason we haven’t done it yet. Perhaps in some silly way, we are rebelling against her like we’re still teenagers…

  I pull away from Theo’s embrace with a dramatic sigh and move to our bedroom to get dressed. He follows behind me, trying to assure me that it isn’t as bad as I think it is until his phone rings.

  “It’s Marcus,” he says, pressing the key to accept his brother’s call before holding the phone to his ear. “Hey man, what’s up?” he asks in greeting.

  Pulling on some underwear and a pair of jeans and a fitted black singlet top, I twist my towel around my head in a turban as I keep an eye on Theo’s reaction to his brother’s call. I just know that she’s gone straight to Marcus and Lisa to tell them what we ‘did’ to her.

  “Yeah, she’s here,” Theo says, pressing his lips together before lowering his phone and hitting the ‘speaker’ option. Marcus’s voice filters out through the speaker and into the room.

  “Guys, what the hell happened? We just had Mum over here ranting about you two. Now, my Italian is a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure she was calling Naomi a whore and saying that you‘re both going to hell.”

  “I’m going to kill her,” Theo growls, shaking his head. “She can’t talk about Naomi that way.”

  “Calm down, mate. You don’t want to start World War Three here,” Marcus says.

  “Is that what ‘puttana’ means? Whore?” I say at the same time to Theo, who doesn’t nod to confirm it, but by the look on his face, I know I’m right. “Bloody hell,” I sigh, shaking my head as it begins to throb.

  Lisa’s voice joins in on the conversation. “Listen, I have no idea what she said. But she never comes here to complain about you guys. If she comes here, it’s to clean our already tidy home, and let me know what a disappointment I am for not being pregnant yet.”

  I hear Perry bark over the receiver. “I know, Perry. You’re the baby of this house, aren’t you?” she says to him.

  “What did you two do?” Marcus asks again.

  Theo lets out a sigh. “Fucking hell. We were in the studio and didn’t hear her at the door so she walked in and caught us… well… you know.”

  Marcus’s laugh rumbles out of the speaker, and I can feel the heat of embarrassment creep over my face yet again.

  “Oh wow. No wonder she wouldn’t stop crossing herself. She’s going to be in mourning for a decade over this one.”

  “Make that two decades - she found out that Naomi lives here too,” Theo adds.

  Marcus laughs again.

  “I’m glad this is funny for you, Marcus,” I say. “I’m that one who she’s going to be spitting at.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny, Nomes,” adds Lisa. “I’ve been the brunt of her evil eye. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “Come on. It’s not that bad. It’s not like she has magical powers and can curse you,” Marcus says.

  “Marcus, your mother is a scary-arse woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if she does have powers,” Lisa replies.

  “Mum’s just going to have to deal with it,” Theo says. “I’m an adult for fuck’s sake. If I want to live with my fiancée, I can. If I want to do other things with my fiancée, I can. It’s not my fault she’s still living in the fucking dark ages.”

  “You know what you have to do, right?” Marcus asks.

  “What do I have to do, Marcus? Enlighten me.”

  “Get married,” both Marcus and Lisa say in unison.

  “Get married?” I repeat. “What is it with everyone telling us to get married lately? Besides, how the hell are we supposed to organise a wedding right now? Matiari is about to tour the UK and Europe. We’ll be gone for the best part of a year. We can’t organise a wedding before then. It’ll have to wait until we come back. That was our plan anyway.”

  “Sure you can have it early,” Lisa assures us. “Marcus organised ours in a day. With his connections, you can have the wedding whenever you want.”

  Theo and I look at each other, mouthing words and gesturing to each other that we can’t manage a wedding right now. We both know that most of our finances are tied up in the tour. We’re not mega stars like Marcus and Lisa are. Our income is very modest considering our output for band expenses.

  Theo clears his throat. “Guys, it’s just not going to happen. Our money’s tied up in the tour, and I’m not going to get a loan to go in debt for a quickie wedding, just because our mother is being a drama queen. Besides, in a month’s time, we’ll be gone for a year, and she’ll probably be over it by the time we get back.”

  “Theo, don’t kid yourself,” Marcus adds. “She will torture the rest of us the entire time you are gone.”

  “Marcus, you totally deserve to suffer through a torture caused by me for a change. God knows, I’ve suffered plenty because of you.”

  “Then if not for me, think of Lisa. She doesn’t deserve more than she’s already put up with. Besides, she will call you while you’re on the road, crying about how much you’ve hurt her. You know what she’s like. This doesn’t end until something happens that will change it.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll elope like you two did,” he says.

  “Seriously man, don’t do that. We don’t regret our wedding at all, but we should have thought about what effect it would have on everyone else, especially you two. We didn’t think, and we kind of swooped in and got married before you two got the chance to have yours,” Marcus explains.

  “We’re really sorry guys,” Lisa adds. “We should have waited until after you’d had yours.”

  “Don’t mention it. It’s fine,” Theo says, even though I know the fact that Marcus is acknowledging that he did yet another shitty thing means a lot to Theo.

  “Well, we are mentioning it because we feel really bad. Listen, we were going to wait until Christmas to do this, but since this has all happened, we thought we’d suggest it now,” Marcus starts.

  “Suggest what?” I ask.

  “We’d like to pay for your wedding,” Lisa says.

  Both Theo and I shake our heads while we repeatedly say ‘no’ over the top of each other.

  “It’s the least we can do after fucking things up for you guys. Consider it our gift to you. We wouldn’t know what the fuck to buy you two since you already live together, anyway. And we owe you guys. You’ve been amazing to us. Let us do this,” Marcus insists. “I’ll make a few phone calls and get back to you both tonight. Don’t plan anything for the next month before you go. We won’t have time to set up a big catholic wedding. But we can definitely do a wedding fit for one of Australia’s most recognisable music couples.”

  “Marcus, no!” I yell into the receiver. But my protests are only heard by Theo’s ears. Marcus and Lisa have disconnected.

  I glance at Theo, my eyebrows raised and my eyes wide. “What the hell just happened?”

  Theo presses his lips together and gives me a lopsided grin before he pulls me into another embrace. “Well, look on the bright side - we had planned to talk about the wedding tonight anyway.”

  “Yeah. Talk about it. Not plan it. How did we go from not knowing, to getting married in a month?”

  “Welcome to the family, babe,” he deadpans. “Prepare to have your life taken over.”

  Chapter Five

  A couple of hours later, there’s a knock at our door. “Who the hell is it this time?” Theo grumbles as he goes to answer it.

  “Please tell me you’re wearing clothes!” I hear Marcus call out as soon as it opens.

  “Fuck you, man,” Theo half gripes, half laughs.

  “Is it too soon to joke about it?” Marcus says, stepping in through the door with Lisa in tow.

  She meets my eyes and holds up a bottle. “We brought wine,” she says hopefully.

  “And rum, and we’ll order Indian or something. We’ve got a lot to get through,” Marcus adds, holding up another bottle then making his way to the kitchen.

  He’s always comfortable when he comes over here. I guess
it’s because he spent so much time here when he was with Matiari, so it is like a second home to him.

  “Would you like to stay for dinner?” Theo asks, but it’s more of a statement than a question and I’m really the only one who hears. I walk over to him and take a hold of his large hand then lift it to my lips and kiss his palm.

  “We can still say no,” I point out.

  He shakes his head. “It’s ok. I want the wedding to happen. I just wasn’t expecting my mother seeing my fiancée going down on me to be the catalyst.”

  I nudge him with my elbow. “Hey, it could make a good song.”

  He grins. “Oh yeah? What would it be called?”

  “Stay The Fuck Out Of My House Or You’ll See Me Blow My Load,” I reply instantly, causing him to release that beautiful rumble that escapes his chest whenever he laughs.

  “We’d make millions,” he chuckles, releasing my hand so he can hug me to him.

  “See? She did us a favour,” I joke, as we head into the kitchen where Marcus is pouring drinks and Lisa is pulling out her iPad and a bunch of bridal magazines.

  She looks up and meets my eyes. “I grabbed everything the newsagent had on the way over here,” she explains. “We can work out what you want, and then we can set a bunch of people to work to make it all happen.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I reply genuinely, taking the glass that Marcus offers me with a smile before I take a seat and start flipping through some magazines.

  After our conversation with Marcus and Lisa earlier, Theo and I had a long discussion about whether we really were happy planning and having the wedding before we go on tour.

  At first, we felt a little weird about Marcus and Lisa insisting that they pay as a wedding gift. But when you consider it as an apology from Marcus for all the shit he put us through when he left the band, then I don’t feel so indebted toward him for helping us - because he kind of did put us through hell.