by Mia Madison
“Shh,” he says, softly. “It can wait. You’re tired and I think you need sleep now more than anything.”
I feel so cared for in his arms, and that’s the last thing I'm aware of until the early morning sun is filtering through the curtains.
I turn and the bed is empty beside me, but I smell coffee and toast. Just what I need. I grab one of his shirts and put it on before going through to the kitchen.
“That smells good.”
“I was going to bring it to you. Morning.”
“Morning.”
I look at him and blush at the thought of the things we did last night. He says he'll give me a lift home and then to work. He has the day off. We're very polite. I gulp down the coffee, almost scalding my throat. The toast feels dry in my mouth.
“Touch of the emojis, again,” he says, as I start fussing with washing plates and cups without meeting his eyes.
He takes the dirty plates out of my hands and puts them on the counter and pulls me to him.
“Don't overthink anything,” he says. “You enjoyed last night, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“Then that was good.”
Oh god. He's dismissing me with a 'we both enjoyed that but we know that's all it was.' My heart sinks and I pull out of his grasp.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“Getting my stuff. It seems like I outstayed my welcome.”
“Not at all. I wanted you last night. I want you this morning. It was all I could do to let you sleep and not wake you in the night. And It's all I can do not to take you now over the counter with the toast crumbs. I'm exercising some control, here. Sorry how it came across. I don't want you to go, Amy. It's a pity you have to go to work.” He runs his thumb over my lips and I look up at him again. I think he means it.
CHAPTER 19
Ronan
This is a whole new ball game for me. Wanting a woman to stay the night, being the one to suggest it. I'm normally the one to call the cab to send her home or to get home from her place. I have the cab company on speed dial.
What happened to my “never get into the position where you care about some flaky woman leaving” rule? I thought they were all flaky. But I don't think Amy is. She seems more sensitive than the usual women I meet in bars and clubs. And fuck! Her first time! I love that I was her first. Is it strange that I want to be her last and only too, already? It has to be too soon for that.
I take Amy home to pick up her things and then drop her off at the hospital. As she gets out of the car, she says, “Your mother is likely to get out sometime today. Maybe I'll see you if you're picking her up later.”
“I was going to call and find out about that. So yes, if she's getting out I'll see you there.”
Amy smiles at me, like she's hugging a secret. Maybe I just made her happy. I like that thought. I want her to be happy. I watched her sleep like a baby in my bed making little snuffling noises when she turned over.
“I'll probably see you later then,” she says.
“If you're there, you won't be able to keep me away. Maybe I'll have to check in one of these days.”
“Don't you dare,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Firstly, I can't fraternize with the patients. I'll lose my job. And secondly…”
“What?”
“I don't want you to even joke about ending up in the hospital. Not with what you do.”
“No fire got me yet.”
“But you're in the thick of it all the time.”
“I am. And then I get out of the thick of it.”
“Don't you worry about something happening to you?”
“I never think of that when I'm at work. I couldn't do my job if it did. Everything we do is designed to reduce the risk of bad things happening. So don't worry.”
“I'll try not to,” she says.
“If I miss you here, I'll call. And, Amy, when I say I'll call…”
“You mean it.”
She smiles at me and waves as she goes through the big double entrance doors.
CHAPTER 20
Amy
I frown as I go into work. I know Ronan says everything is designed to reduce accidents among the crew, but then there was that newspaper article where Ronan went right in despite being told it was too risky. I have to put it out of my mind and get on with my job.
Apart from that niggle at the back of my mind, I'm on a high and not tired at all. I slept so well in Ronan's arms. He's made me feel good about myself. Not dirty. At least, not dirty in a bad way. Just sexy and adorable. How can that be bad?
It's strange to see his mother, knowing what he thinks of her. She's not the lady I thought she was. At first, I say good morning and run through the checks I need to do to fill in her chart. I have to pretend she's just another patient as I rush to get through the busy morning routine. Mid-morning, I visit her with the doctor who is checking to see if she's ready to go home. And then a while later, I help her get her things together.
“My son, Ronan, is coming to get me today,” she says. Of course, I don't tell her I slept with him last night. How could I?
“I don't think he'll ever forgive me. He just doesn't know what it was like.”
She seems to want to talk and I can't help wanting to listen. I want to know what possessed her to walk out on her family. I can't imagine anyone doing that without something truly serious going on. Some kind of mental health condition. Something. No one just walks out.
“Ronan worshipped his dad. They did everything together. It was my son this, my son that. His dad took him everywhere. He was a good dad. I can't say he wasn't. But he was a terrible husband. We got married because I was pregnant with Ronan. He said he stood by me, but he kept on about how I trapped him into marrying me.”
She wipes away a tear and I pass her a tissue. “It's okay, Mrs. Kendall. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.” It's uncomfortable seeing that anguish, and I feel a fresh wave of guilt about not revealing I know her son. But she wants to go on, and it's difficult to confess I know him now, when she's told me part of the story already.
“I wasn't ready to sleep with Ronan's father but he pushed me and I gave in. And then he blamed me. I think he loved the baby because he saw someone he could mold into his image. He thought a lot of himself. But he became more and more abusive to me.”
“Did he hit you?”
“Never openly. Not in front of Ronan. Not in public. Not anywhere it showed. He frightened me, made me feel worthless. But I loved my son. He was everything to me and he loved me too. I know he did. He was a lovely little boy and even as a young teen, he was a good kid. He was all I had and when we were alone it was perfect, but if his dad was there, it was the two of them together. I thought it was good for a boy to have a father who loved him so much, even if the father was cruel to me.”
It still feels like she's telling me this under false pretenses, but I've heard her son tell his version of events, and I want to hear hers, too. Maybe she's had no one to tell.
“Once, when my son was ten, I tried to tell him how things really were but even as I started to say your father is not everything you think he is, the look of disappointment on Ronan's face was enough to stop me from telling the whole story. I battled on for years. That man made me feel so useless that I didn't think I had a chance of making it on my own.
“Then a friend offered me a job in her gift store. He went wild. I was getting some independence. I thought he was going to kill me so I fled. He always hid his contempt for me, his hatred. He'd talk to me at night in bed when he knew Ronan was asleep. He'd force himself on me. He'd hurt me any way he could. But in the end, he hurt me in the worst way possible—by making my son hate me. And then he died and it's too late.”
“Can't you explain to your son now how things really were?”
“I've tried to talk to Ronan about it a few times, but he shuts me down. He doesn't want to hear a word against his father. Especially now he's pas
sed. He thinks I'm just making excuses when his father is not here to defend himself. I don't think Ronan has a clue what was going on with us. My husband was very careful. We weren't warm to each other but then a lot of families are probably like that. We didn't show affection to each other but we showed a lot to him.”
I'm reeling from her revelation.
When Ronan comes to pick up his mother, I want to tell him to give her a hug and to listen to her side, to give her a chance, but I don't dare interfere. He's solicitous but cold to her. And I know he's anything but cold.
She gives me a hug and says, “Thank you for listening.”
Ronan shoots me a look that smacks of exasperation and I just shrug because right then is not the time to deal with this.
He calls me after my shift and asks me if I'm free at the weekend. He wants to take me to the beach.
I can't wait to see him again. Our shift patterns are all over the place before that, so it's the first chance I'll have to see him.
CHAPTER 21
Ronan
Amy talking to my mother makes me uneasy. I bet my mother tried to make herself look good, to give her sob story whatever it is, about my father not understanding her or something to excuse what she did. She's tried with me over the years but there's no excuse worth listening to.
I don't want to spoil the weekend, though, and there's no reason for Amy to get involved in all that, so I let it drop. I'm taking her to Sandgate for a break away from the city.
Saturday turns out to be a glorious day and I put the hood down on the car so we can feel the wind in our hair. Amy has her hair in a messy ponytail today where tendrils keep escaping. I love how relaxed she is about all that, but then the natural look suits her.
As soon as we get to the house I've rented on the beach, we fall into each other's arms and clothes fly everywhere. She's already wet for me and makes it clear she wants me right then. I enter her hard and fast, the sound of the sea as a backdrop, light and prying eyes filtered out by the soft gauze drapes of the living room that looks out onto a deserted beach.
And then we slow down and take our time to explore each other, to tease and explore, with our hands, our mouths, our bodies. It's pure bliss here far away from the city.
Later, we barbecue sausages and, one appetite satisfied, Amy looks at me with that sparkle in her eyes again, and I raise my eyebrows at her. She laughs and I chase her along the beach and bend her over a rocky outcrop jutting from the dunes, rip off her tiny panties and take her there in the soft night air.
We are like kids, free of any kind of obligation as we walk back along the beach hand in hand. Amy hums a little tune to herself. She's happy and I love being part of what is putting a smile on her face.
Later in bed, she acts all sassy. I think it's deliberate and I pull her over my knee. “You want me to pull down your panties and spank you?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “I do.” And she giggles.
“I'm going to spank you until your cheeks are pink and glowing and you beg me to fuck you,” I tell her. I'll stop if she asks me to, but I hope she won't. And she doesn't.
She snuggles into me that night sleeping on her stomach—well-spanked, well-fucked. We both sleep right through the night, and make love again before breakfast, a lazy coming together of bodies that now know each other so well, but I'll never tire of looking at Amy. I'll never tire of touching her or tasting her or pleasing her.
Fuck! I've got it bad.
We know we'll have to go back to reality soon and go walking on the beach. We grin at each other when we pass the rocky outcrop from the day before. We run in and out of the icy waves breaking on the shore, our shoes in our hands, jeans rolled up, getting wet around the cuffs. Neither of us cares about wet jeans or sand. Life is perfect.
“It's beautiful here.” Amy smiles at me. The sun brings out all the shades in her hair as the wind ruffles it and I smooth it down behind her ears and kiss her. She smells like summer and peaches.
“Have you never been to this area?”
“No. We used to go down to Brightrock when I was a kid, when we went to the seaside, not this way. Is this where you always used to go?”
“Dad brought me to Helm Bay just up the coast all the time—fishing and flying a kite, clambering about rock pools and eating fish and chips. Wonderful happy days.”
“Did your mother never go with you?”
“She never wanted to. It was always boys together.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“What do you mean?” I hope Amy is not going to go on about my mother and ruin the day.
“Maybe she did want to go. Maybe she felt shut out.”
“What has she been saying to you? Did she say that?”
“Nothing about the beach. No.”
“Other things then?”
“Yes. Maybe you should give her a chance to say her side of the story.”
Amy's not smiling anymore. My fucking mother. Not this again. She's even trying to ruin my life now, when I thought I was done with all that. “How can you say that? You know what she did. I told you that. How can you take her side?”
“Maybe you don't know everything that went on.”
“I know. I lived with them. They weren't all over each other or anything. But they got on well enough. Then she left. Who knows why? Because neither one of us was enough for her to stick around. Maybe she had to go and find herself or something. But she didn't have to go like that.”
“All I'm saying is that it doesn't sound like you have the full story. From the things your mother said, she was unhappy with your dad.”
“Yes, he could do nothing right for her. She always wanted more. More money. A bigger house. He said she was always on at him. That he was never good enough for her. And because she left, I sure as hell wasn't enough for her either.”
“That's not what she says.”
“Well, that's great then. You either believe my mother or you believe me. Which is it to be?”
“Can't you both be right? You only saw what you saw. You didn't have her experience of living with your dad.”
“What the fuck has she been saying? That Dad was bad to her? Because if he was, I'd know that. He was the kindest guy I ever knew. You know fuck all about it.”
“Okay, then I give up.” Amy turns her back on me and I want to plead with her to drop the whole subject, to let us get back to where we were. But I get the cold silent treatment again.
I take her home. This is what happens when you start to care. They turn against you. They walk away.
CHAPTER 22
Amy
I should have just left things alone. We were happy and then I ruined it. But he's so stubborn. Why can't he just try to see things from his mother's point of view? I still can't trust him. One minute he's making me feel good, the next he's cold and heartless. It feels like a fire has been put out as I sit there miserably in the passenger seat.
When he drops me at home, I get out of the car and don't look back. I don't want him to see the tears of disappointment in my eyes. I feel sorry for him not having a relationship with his mother, but it's his own pig-headed fault. Maybe she's telling me fairy tales, but I don't think so, and he could at least listen to her. If he won't hear her out, why would he be any different if we ever had a fight?
But I was so happy yesterday and this morning with him. I wanted that to go on forever. I have to hide my tears from Grace and Dad and I make excuses and go upstairs to bed. It was supposed to be a lovely couple of days at the seaside, but I wish we hadn't gone to the stupid beach. Then I wouldn't have known how happy I could be, only to have that crushed.
*
I'm so upset, I don't even want to call Sandra, but I can't hide from her for long. I meet her after work a couple of days later. It's the XT Music Awards soon. She's super excited and I get pulled along with the buzz of it all, but I still hurt inside.
“See,” she says. “You went out with Ronan. I knew you could do it. How
was your seaside date, by the way? You wouldn't tell me on the phone.”
I give her a quick summary and burst into tears. She gives me a hug. “You're right. He's too stubborn for his own good.”
“He thinks I'm on his mother's side. I am, but I'm on his side too.”
“Has he tried to talk to you since?”
“No.”
And I burst into tears again. I wrecked everything by interfering.
CHAPTER 23
Ronan
I'm out with Tom but I don't feel like joining in the usual banter with him. I thought Amy was different. But it's like she took my mother's side. It hurts, but I have to move on from this. There are women in the bar I'd normally start talking to. Tom points them out, but I haven't got the slightest interest in them.
“What's up with you tonight?” Tom says. “Your record will be slipping.”
Tom's always on about the amount of time it takes me to get a girl talking, like there's some secret to it other than harmless flirting to let a woman know I like her, and actually asking her out rather than chickening out.
“I just want to have a beer in peace tonight.”
“It's that nurse, isn't it? You've really got it bad, mate.”
I give him the finger. And he laughs. “Thought so.”
“She wants me to talk to my mother.”
“And that would be a reason for giving up on women in general? I thought you and your mother were back in touch.”
“We are, just not close.”
“Fair enough.”
I gave Tom the truncated version of my past once. “The bitch up and left when I was thirteen. I never saw her for years after that.” He never asked me about it. Guys just don't talk about that stuff, thank fuck for that. They're not forever nagging about it and trying make everything in the world sweet when nothing can change what happened in the past.
