by Max Henry
Except if it were true, if they did cross that line once, doesn’t he think I deserve to know? All my previous fears about him out drinking alone, with just his workmates, return in an avalanche of insecurity.
Who is he with now? Who has he been with in the past? What else don’t I know?
Maybe the years between us aren’t so much of a problem when it comes to love between two adults. But one thing I can’t deny, one thing I never considered until now, is a lot happens in seventeen years. A lot happens in however much longer it’s been that Zeus has been friends with my parents.
He might know everything about me, having been there since the start, but it’s never been more obvious than now that I’m not aware of even half of what there is to know about Zeus.
How much worse will this get before I admit the truth? Age can be a problem.
TWENTY-SIX
Zeus
“Hey, babe.” I tread lightly into the living room, aware Belle has probably been out of bed for hours.
I literally fell in the door sometime around two, and then crashed soon after. I don’t remember getting into bed, let alone undressed, which makes me wonder how much she had to do for me.
“Morning.” Her back is turned as she folds washing; the fresh cup of coffee she has on the side table smells like heaven.
“I wasn’t too much of a jackass, was I?” I bypass her, opting to play it safe until I’m sure I’m not in the dog box, and head for the kitchen instead.
“You need to say thanks to Mike when you talk to him next.”
“Yeah?” I pull a mug from the cupboard.
“Mm. Without his help you’d still be asleep on the floor out here.”
Fuck. No wonder my head hurts. “Sorry, dove.”
“Pfft.” Her footsteps tell me she’s taking the washing through to our room, her voice distant as she calls out, “Not as though you’ll make a habit of it, is it?”
She’s too nice. Women are never this nice when you come home mega-late and damn near comatose. I make my coffee and then wait for her return, arse against the counter as I sip the brew. Fuck, that’s better.
“What?” She frowns as she catches sight of me eyeballing her.
“Why are you so nice about it all?”
Belle shrugs, eyes dead. “Not as though I have anything to be worried about, right?”
This isn’t good.
“Not as though you shared a bed with anyone else.” She looks away to retrieve the empty wash basket.
I set my coffee down and cross the room to where she stands with a frown. “Put that down.”
The basket hits the couch with a bounce, sliding to the floor. Her face is a storm as she stares me down.
“Tell me right this fucking second what that comment meant.”
She turns away and takes a step before I catch her arm. Belle’s harsh gaze connects with mine. “Let me go, and I’ll show you.”
I let her go with a growl, still mad as hell when she returns a minute later with her phone. Her fingertip makes angry smacks on the screen before she shoves it at me.
What the ever loving fuck? “Who sent that to you?”
“Who do you think?”
“Jesus, dove.”
She snatches the phone from me, sending it to black before wringing her hands around it.
“So?”
“You think I fucking slept with the bitch?”
She pulls her head back, eyes wide. “You’re both in a bed, sleeping, so….”
“Come here.” I catch her shoulder before she can leave again, jerking her against me.
She resists, hands pressed against my bare chest. I don’t like it one fucking bit.
“That bed was Jodie’s.” Belle’s jaw sets hard, her eyes turned away. “That night, we had a party to celebrate her twenty-first. What you can’t see are the three people asleep in the spare room, or the five or more that were out in the lounge. What you can’t see is that Jodie took that photo after getting out of bed from between us.” I slide my hands to her face, using my thumbs to force Belle to look at me. “We shared a bed to sleep, that is all. I did the same thing with John on more than one occasion. It’s what friends do when they’re as close as we all were.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
She lets out a defeated sigh. “God, I’m sorry. I let her get to me, didn’t I?”
I can’t believe the bitch still has the picture, let alone would think to use it like that. “How long has she messaged you?”
“Only yesterday. Dad said she phoned after she saw us at the supermarket. She must have been stewing about the run in ever since.”
“Yeah. I might have said a few extra things to her when I got the milk.” My jaw hardens as I stare off over Belle’s head.
“What are you thinking?”
“That I need to pay your mother a fucking visit.”
“Zeus.” She pushes her hands into me. “No. Don’t go causing more trouble.”
“How can I? She’s doing that well enough on her own.” I’ve had enough of the woman making it her life’s mission to ruin Belle’s.
Belle pushes up on her toes to meet my kiss, her hands sliding to my shoulders. I savour the taste of her lips, the feel of her breath as it washes over my face when she pulls away.
“I told you I’d take care of you, and I fucking mean it.” I press my forehead to hers. “Don’t ever think shit like that again, you understand?”
“I understand.” Her hands blaze a path down my body, that plump bottom lip of hers pinched between her teeth as she hooks her thumbs in the waistband of my sweatpants.
“Don’t go thinking you can fuck the angry out of me,” I grumble. “I’m still going around there to give her hell.”
“Might be fun to try though, don’t you think?”
I let her know I’m not totally sure that’s such a good idea with a grumble as she jerks my sweatpants off my hips. “You know I don’t like being too rough with you.”
“But I do.” She lifts an eyebrow in challenge as she drops to her haunches to help me step out of the pants.
I’m naked as the day I was born, and frustrated as hell that she isn’t when she rises before me once more. “Clothes off. Now.”
She tugs her shirt over her head, leaning forward to meet my kiss as she shimmies out of the sexy little shorts she has on. I work her bra, my tongue still tangled with hers, as she bends forward to kick the denim away.
“Tell me how angry it makes you,” she taunts, “when my mother upsets me like that.”
Fucking hell. “You don’t want to wind me up right now, dove.”
“But I do.” She straightens to shake the bra straps from her arms. “I want to know what it does to you when she makes me sick with worry.”
This girl…. “Makes me want to wring her fucking neck.” My body feels charged, as though I’ll tear apart if I don’t find an outlet for the unexpended energy.
Belle smiles, damn well knowing she has me where she wants me as she backs toward the bedroom.
Fuck that. It might only be twenty metres away, but it’s twenty metres too far. I grab a hold of her with a growl, lifting her clean off the floor as I turn us toward the kitchen.
She gasps as her bare butt hits the cool counter, bracing herself on flat palms. “Fuck, babe.”
“Told you that you don’t want to get me angry.”
“But it’s so fucking hot when you are.”
I smirk as I jerk her arse forward to the front of the counter. “That so?”
“So possessive….” She loops her arms around my shoulders and then leans back, exposing her throat to me. “So alpha.”
She’s about to find out just how alpha I can be.
I duck out of her arms, dropping to my haunches as I push her legs wide. She watches me with hungry eyes, a small smile pulling at her lips as I run my thumbs up either side of her pussy.
“You get why I’m like that, don’t you?”
She fails to answer when I drag my tongue the length of her in one hard swipe.
“It’s because I lost you once.”
Her hands press my head to her harder as I lick again.
“Because I’m never losing you again.”
She mewls when I add a finger to the mix.
“You’re my girl, dove. Mine to love.”
“Fuck, Zeus.”
“Mine to care for.”
She throws her head back as I spear her with two fingers, pulling them free only to taste her.
“Mine to protect.”
Belle’s back hits the counter, her climax near. I push to full height and enter her before she loses the feeling, burying myself deep as I pull her tight against my hips. She cries out, hands grappling to reach me as I make her understand how fucking serious I am.
“Mine forever.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Belle
Zeus does exactly as he promised and phones Dad to tell him what Cerise has been up to. The coffee cradled in my hands provides something to focus on other than the ache in my chest. The heat hurts my hands a little, but not as much as the knowledge my fucking mother, the woman who birthed me, is responsible for all of our pain.
Zeus scrubs a hand over his face, brow pinched hard. “Why has she done it, J? Fucking throw me a bone here. What the hell reason could she have for wanting to hurt us so bad?”
Dad leans against the side of the sofa. He came straight over, preferring to hash it out face-to-face rather than over the phone.
“I don’t know,” he says with a sigh. “I thought all this shit revolved around her post-partum, her resenting Belle after we lost Rose. But this is taking it a step too far.”
“You don’t fucking say,” I murmur.
“It’s my fault,” Dad says with a frown. “She wouldn’t be such a problem if I hadn’t phoned her the other week.”
“There has to be more to it than that.” Zeus leans both elbows on the kitchen counter, holding my phone with one hand while he scrubs the other over his head. “I keep thinking back, trying to come up with anything I’ve done to make her hate me so much, and I draw a blank. She said something once about always stealing your time, about hating that I was ‘always there.’ But even that….”
“It doesn’t add up, does it?”
“What else is there? I mean, why the fuck did she come back after ten fucking years, you know?”
Don’t we all wish we knew that?
Dad huffs a sigh. “We’ll go talk to her like you said. She’s got to put a stop to this.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I set my empty mug on the coffee table.
“Then I look into what legal action we can take against her,” he states. “We’ve ignored her for too long, thinking if we paid her no mind she’d go away. But that hasn’t worked, has it?”
Zeus shakes his head, fire in his eyes as he stares at the counter.
“I’m laying this to rest, whatever the fuck it is,” Dad reiterates. “She needs to confess why it is she’s doing this. I mean, backing me up was one thing, but harassing Belle….” He shakes his head, hands on hips.
“I want to go.”
The pair of them look at me wide-eyed.
“I’m not sure that’d be wise,” Dad says.
“I am. She has beef with me, so I’ll go with you, Dad.” I meet both of their stares. “Why should I hide away while she gets to play bully? Fuck her. I’m not eight anymore, wondering why my mother doesn’t love me. I’m twenty-one, and I want to know why the fuck she can’t let me go if she never wanted me.”
I get Zeus wants to defend me on this, but the issue is with Cerise and me. She’s simply using him as a pawn to get to me.
Dad flattens his lips, the points of his jaw bulging as he sighs. “You won’t take no for an answer, will you?”
I smile, earning one from Zeus in response. “Nope.”
“Fine. But if I ask you to step out, you do.”
“Fine.” As if.
***
Turns out Cerise lives less than ten minutes from where Zeus and I do. Makes my skin crawl to think she’s been that close all along. Dad brings his work truck to a stop in the driveway, killing the engine as he stares at her unassuming townhouse.
“Last chance to stay out of the crossfire.”
“Just hurry up, would you?” I get out of the vehicle and head for the front door.
He hurriedly locks the truck behind me, and then jogs to catch up. I lace my fingers together as he knocks on the door, worried that if I leave them loose at my sides I might be tempted to smack the bitch.
“Well fancy seeing you two here.” Cerise leans on the door, apparently not in a hurry to let us in.
“We need to talk.” Dad pushes past her, forcing her arm out of the way.
I take his lead and let myself in to her house. It’s cold in its lack of decoration. A plain two-seater sits in the living room, a basic side table with only the television remote sitting on top at the end. There are no pictures, plants, or even extra cushions.
It’s bare necessities only.
“What is it you’ve got to say, then?” Cerise enters the room and beelines for her smokes. She cracks a window and lights one, eyes on us the whole time.
Dad frowns at her choice to smoke indoors, her addiction one of his bugbears about the woman. “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” She smirks.
“You fucking know what.” Dad steps toward her.
Cerise looks around him to where I hesitate against the wall. “Why should they be happy when nobody else is?”
“What do you mean?” Dad snaps. “I’m happy. Who else isn’t?”
“Jodie.”
He laughs at her. “Jodie is a happy new mother, engaged to be married.”
“Oh whatever. Zeus broke her heart. She was forced to choose between him and being a mother. That wasn’t fair.”
“It was a mutual split,” I explain.
She scowls. “Is that what he told you?”
“No.” I lift an eyebrow. “That’s what Jodie told me.”
Cerise seems suitably put out that I know more about her former best friend than she does.
“What does it matter, anyway?” Dad takes a seat on the arm of the sofa. “Why can’t you move on with your own life? Why harass your daughter like this?”
“Because why should she get away with it?” Cerise thrusts a hand at me. “She just swans on in, shaking her pert little arse around, and he salivates over her like a hungry dog. It’s sick.”
“So what if he does?” My voice rises with my protest. “You left when I was a kid, Cerise. You gave up your right to have a say in what I do when you failed to come back.”
“I agree.” Dad nods at me. “I raised Belle, Cerise. Alone. Even before you left you’d pass her off to whoever would take her. You never wanted kids. Fuck—the twins were an accident.”
“Exactly,” she cries. “I was a teen mother, John. I never planned to start a family so soon.”
“Maybe not,” I say. “But how was that my fault? Why did I have to suffer because of your mistake?”
“Because if I made sure I failed you, then I didn’t worry about trying not to.”
I frown at her. “That’s some fucked up logic.”
“Is it?” She looks between the two of us. “If I didn’t care, then it didn’t hurt to think about how wrong everything was.”
“What was wrong about it?” Dad asks. “We had a beautiful baby daughter, a new house… a sound marriage.”
“Really?” Cerise frowns. “Was it sound?”
“Are you telling me otherwise?” The pain in Dad’s eyes lances straight into my heart.
“You were good to me, John,” Cerise says with the most honesty I’ve ever seen from her. “You were everything a good husband should be, but that didn’t change the fact I never wanted to marry you.”
“What?” He bolts upright. “What the hell?”
“You
proposed because I was knocked up,” she hollers. “I had to say yes. I was young and pregnant. I was scared.”
Dad stares at her, seemingly lost for words. Hell, I am too. I melt against the wall, watching the truth finally pour out. And it strikes me as I watch my mother hug herself—this is the first time in my life I’ve seen her look sorry for something. She watches Dad try to make sense of it all, a worried furrow to her brow.
“We had fun, John,” she says softly, hands massaging her arms. “We were young, silly, and in love, I suppose. But you and I were never suited for each other. You wanted stability and security, and I… I guess I wanted to stay a wild child a little longer.”
“You’re telling me,” he chokes out, “that if you hadn’t got pregnant, we would have lasted, what? Another few months?”
“If that.” She shrugs.
“I just….” He runs a hand through his ash-blond hair. “I mean it makes sense now that I look back on it, why you had such a hard time after Belle was born. Losing Rose is one thing, but to have that happen when you didn’t want either of them to begin with…. No wonder you couldn’t connect to Belle.”
I feel seperated from the scene, as though I’m watching some melancholic home video. Neither of them acknowledge me as they work through years of lies, as they uncover the things that have been buried beneath anger and malice all this time.
“I didn’t want you to blame yourself,” she says. “That’s why I made you hate me, and then after a while that just became who I am.” Cerise throws the spent cigarette out the window. “It’s still who I am. I hate that Belle’s happy. I hate that she’s got what I never had.”
Dad frowns. “What has her happiness and your lack of got to do with Zeus though? Why drag him into it?”
My stomach knots as I step forward. “Because Zeus is what she wanted, Dad.” Cerise locks gazes with me, her mouth turned down at the corners. “She wanted to be a wild child with the bad boy. She never wanted to marry you, because she wanted to be with him. Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah,” she scoffs. “Well done, honey. Twenty-one years old and you figured out what your dad still can’t see at thirty-nine.”
“And if you can’t have him now, then you’ll make sure nobody can. Right?”
