Chapter Four Satoshi #3
‘But we’re the flower girls?’ Rosie asked anxiously.
‘Yes, you’re the flower girls,’ Jonah reassured her. ‘Lex, how would you feel about being the ringbearer?’
Lex thought about it. ‘Okay,’ they said, and Jonah reached across the table so they could bump knuckles.
‘I think we’ll need another bottle of wine,’ Chess said to me, ‘so we can toast. Run me through your recommendations?’
‘Excuse me for a second,’ Fiona said quietly, getting up from the table. ‘I’ll be right back.’
Everything in me was screaming to sprint after her.
I curled my toes inside my dress shoes, trying to keep myself rooted to the ground.
‘There are a few ways you could go. The next dish is roast chicken, so I’d suggest a medium-bodied white that’ll stand up to it without overpowering it.
There’s a lovely 2021 Rh?ne Valley marsanne that would work well; or a 2022 Yarra Valley skin-contact pinot gris if you’re feeling a bit more adventurous; or you could even try—’ I tried to swallow the dryness in my throat down ‘—an arneis.’
Of course Chess picked the arneis.
Fiona still hadn’t returned to the table as I wheeled my guéridon away.
The twins were chaotically excited about the prospect of being flower girls, and the happy couple weren’t helping matters much by enthusiastically discussing it with them, so I reordered the mental drinks map I’d created for the kids in my mind.
I’d been planning a series of different coloured lemonades, but maybe I’d switch to a flavoured mineral water for the next course.
The family had come out to the vineyard in June for Sadie’s birthday, and I’d seen what the twins were like on a sugar high.
Abode’s wine cellar was around a corner at the end of a long corridor, past the doors to the bathrooms. I was halfway along it, trying to decide whether a citrus mineral water was the best bet or whether I should go for something with more tropical fruit flavours, when the door to the women’s bathroom swung open and I almost ran over Fiona’s toes.
‘I’m so sorry!’ she exclaimed. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’
‘Hey, hey, it’s fine.’ The ice buckets had wobbled, but the only damage was a few drops of water. ‘You’re fine. Everything’s fine – have you been crying?’
‘No.’ She sniffed.
‘Fiona.’
‘Not much.’ She sniffled again. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Your eyes are a bit pink. The lighting out there is dimmer, though, no one will be able to tell. What’s wrong?’
She shook her head.
‘Is it—’ I hesitated. ‘Is it me?’
‘No!’ Her face flooded with colour – the way she could go from pale to red in the blink of an eye was astonishing – but her voice was firm. ‘I promise, it’s not you. I’m… god, I’m so embarrassed, but I’m not crying about you.’
‘Why are you embarrassed?’
She gave me a look that wasn’t quite a glare but was definitely on its way.
‘Let’s try an easier question. Why are you crying?’
‘That answer might be even more embarrassing.’
‘Try me.’
Fiona let out a long breath. ‘Jonah and Sadie,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy for them, and I love them so much – but god, I’m so fucking jealous.’
She tipped her head back, sniffing again. ‘I thought I had that. For so long, I was such a smug married lady – but what I actually was, was stupid. And it’s so obvious. When I see the way Jonah and Sadie look at each other – Matt never looked at me like that, not once, and…’
‘Fiona, come here.’
I held out my hand to her. She hesitated for a moment, before letting me tug her into my embrace.
Something unknotted in me as I put my arms around her, hers snaking around my waist. Her forehead came to rest in the crook of my neck, and I turned my head so I could rest my cheek against her hair.
I didn’t dare let my hands travel the way I wanted to, but I rubbed slow circles on her back, just above her shoulder blades.
‘You’re not stupid,’ I murmured. ‘Matt’s stupid. He’s the stupidest motherfucker on the planet. But not you. Never you.’
She made a strangled sound, one that might be her choking back a laugh or trying not to cry. ‘Thank you for saying that.’
‘I’m not just saying it.’ I drew back, putting my hands on her shoulders so I could look her in the eye.
‘It’s the truth. There’s nothing stupid about believing someone when they tell you they love you.
There is, however, something very stupid about having a wonderful wife and cheating on her repeatedly. ’
This sound was strangled too, but it was recognisably a laugh this time. ‘You always make me feel better, Satoshi.’ She offered me a smile – shy, but genuine, a proper Fiona smile, not a pale facsimile. ‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘Of course, you don’t need to go to the lengths you went to yesterday – that was asking way too much of you! – but I appreciate it so much. You always do so much for me, and you never complain, and—’
‘Hold on.’
She stopped.
‘Back up,’ I told her. ‘Say that again.’
Her cheeks were starting to colour again. ‘Which part?’
‘The part about how you asked too much of me.’
Pink blossomed into red as she looked at the floor. ‘You know what I’m talking about. I make one sexually frustrated comment too many, and then you have your hand up my skirt like – like a – like a mechanic, trying to sort me out.’
‘Mechanic?!’
‘You know what I mean.’ She made a frustrated gesture. ‘You – you’re always so kind, Satoshi, so generous, even when there’s nothing in it for you, and – oh.’
Her body collided with the wall as I backed her swiftly against it. I twined the fingers of my left hand through her right and drew it up, up, up, until it was pressed above her head.
‘You think I got nothing out of it?’ I asked.
‘I thought… I thought you might just feel sorry for me.’
I wrapped my other hand around her waist and pulled her into me, letting her feel my hardening cock against her belly.
Her intake of breath was sharp and swift, and when I tightened my hand again, it turned into one of those hungry, needy whimpers that had set my heart pounding when I’d had her on my desk yesterday.
‘Does this feel like I feel sorry for you, Fiona?’
Her head fell back against the wall as I grazed my teeth against the spot behind her ear, the one that had made her leap about twelve feet into the air when I’d discovered it. ‘Oh,’ she sighed, fingers clenching tight around mine. ‘Oh, Satoshi, oh my god, oh – oh my god stop stop stop.’
I released her immediately. Sadie was standing at the other end of the corridor, expression somewhere between agape and a grin. ‘I was coming to see if you were all right,’ she said to Fiona. ‘You – well, you seem to be just fine.’
I turned swiftly so Sadie wouldn’t see my extremely unprofessional erection. ‘We’ll talk later, all right?’
Fiona nodded, the movement so short and sharp it looked like her teeth were chattering.
I couldn’t resist reaching out and squeezing her fingers in mine, just once. ‘You’re not asking anything of me,’ I told her quietly, ‘that I don’t want to give you.’
I had to stand in the cellar for a long time until I was composed enough to go back onto the restaurant floor.
When I finally emerged with the arneis, I didn’t allow myself even a single glance at Fiona.
I was teetering on the edge of something, and she’d only have to use one finger to push me over.
A while later, though, when I came out with their red wine, an Etna rosso, our eyes met.
I’d lit a candle on my guéridon so I could decant the wine over it and see when the sediment began to flow.
You were never supposed to look away from the bottle while you were decanting, but Fiona was directly in my line of sight, just beyond the flickering light of the flame, and I only had so much strength.
She smiled at me. Just a little, just the gentlest curve of the corners of her mouth, but she smiled, and relief washed over me.
And for the first time in many years, despite having decanted more bottles of wine than most people would ever lay eyes on, I spilled a few drops.