Chapter 12 #2
‘Hell, we can just hop from one beach resort to the next. Get matching tans and tattoos and when we get older, some his and hers matching plastic surgery to keep us looking as young as we’re going to feel with all that money at our disposal.’
The more suggestions I rattle off the quicker Holly’s smile fades. By the time I run out of fanciful ideas, she’s actually frowning. She doesn’t say anything for a beat or two, but there is a lot of blinking going on.
‘Okay,’ she says eventually as she pushes away from me, sliding to the side of the mattress, her feet landing on the floor. Rising from the bed, she drags the sheet with her, wrapping it around her body as she looks over her shoulder at me. ‘I think you need to take a breath, Danny.’
Her voice is quiet but serious and I realise as she tucks the sheet to secure it at her cleavage that I’ve gone too far. ‘Okay… sorry.’ I give a deprecating laugh as I haul myself into a sitting position, my back to the wall behind. ‘I’m getting ahead of myself.’
‘You think?’
Her laugh holds an edge of hysteria as she takes several paces away from the bed, the sheet trailing behind like a bridal train, sweeping through a carpet of Alexander Hamiltons.
‘I’ve freaked you out, haven’t I?’
Damn it, I really should have kept my wits about me. Holly has always been on the skittish side without me going off half-cocked high on a life-changing inheritance and the delirium of scant sleep thanks to a killer drive followed by a night of serious dick.
‘You could say that.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to say… very ineptly that… I love you and I want us to be together and I’m excited for our future.’
If I thought that might help, it didn’t. Holly pales as she says, ‘Oh God…’
Suddenly she looks like she’s going to have one of those old-fashioned fainting spells as she clutches the sheet tighter.
Christ, I’m fucking this up, big time. Leaping from the bed, I scrabble around for my underwear.
I locate my jeans and snatch them up, more tens fluttering to the floor as I strip my underwear from inside them and step into them.
‘You love me?’
Yeah… she’s freaked out. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t. It might not be the way I intended on telling her but I’m not about to deny it either.
I shove my hands on my hips. ‘Yes.’
‘Danny…’ She shakes her head at me. ‘This is… grief and a huge life-changing thing that’s happened to you. It’s… discombobulating.’
‘No.’ I shake my head at her. ‘It is those things, yes. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t also love.’
I know I just dropped it this on her – but the longer it’s out there the more I’m certain of it, and she might not believe it – which is fair – but I need her to know that I believe it. That I’m not screwing around with how I feel.
Still, she frowns like it’s the most preposterous thing she’d heard. ‘Okay, so… what happens when this… grand love doesn’t last?’
Her dismissive emphasis tells me all I need to know about her feelings on that topic, but grand love is the perfect descriptor.
‘When down the track we’re done and your lawyers screw me out of every last cent you’ve so magnificently bestowed on me, and I’ve given up my career and have nothing to fall back on?’
My brain instantly and vigorously rejects this scenario. ‘I would never do that.’
Holly glares at me and I realise, in my rush to assure her I would never be so malevolent, that I’ve missed the point.
‘What makes you think I would give up my dream of being a doctor because my…’
I hold my breath, pretty sure she’s about to say boyfriend. But she doesn’t. She pauses as if she’s trying to find another adjective to describe who I am to her. ‘The guy I’m fucking,’ she corrects, ‘is suddenly rich?’
Okay, she’s truly pissed now. Holly doesn’t use the F word that often. Sure, she’s using it deliberately to cheapen what’s going on between us, but I’d be stupid not to acknowledge the anger behind her words.
And that’s on me for how I’ve handled this.
‘No.’ I shake my head, tackling the first part of her statement instead. ‘You don’t have to give up being—’
Her snort cuts me off. ‘Gee, thanks.’
‘No… I don’t mean… Of course you don’t have to stop being a doctor, I just know how…’
I falter and she folds her arms. ‘How what?’ she demands.
‘How stretched you always feel. You don’t ever seem like you… enjoy it. It seems… hard.’
‘Just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy.’
‘Of course it’s worthy.’ Is there anything more worthy? ‘But… do you enjoy it?’
I love being a drummer, sitting on my stool, picking up my sticks, striking the tom. Feeling the thud against my chest and the reverb that vibrates through every cell in my body.
It’s exhilarating. Holly never seems exhilarated.
‘I love being a doctor. Yes, it’s hard and yes, it’s exhausting and yes, I feel stretched pretty thin a lot of the time.
And no, I don’t enjoy it a lot of the time.
But that’s just the kind of job it is when you’re dealing with people who are sick and scared and worried.
It’s not always going to be roses and candy canes.
But you know why I want to do this, Danny. Why I need to. I told you why.’
I nod slowly. Her grandmother; I remember.
‘And I don’t want a tattoo, Danny. I don’t care if people do and yours look amazing, but it’s not for me.’
‘Jesus, Holly.’ I shove a hand through my hair. ‘I don’t care about that.’
‘I know,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘But it’s not just about that. I don’t need diamonds or the best concert tickets or a mansion to live in. Neither apparently did Bob. I want to be a rural ER specialist with all the triumphs and yes, the stress that comes with it.’
‘But you can do so much more than that with our money,’ I say. ‘We’ll have enough to buy every rural hospital in the country the best people and equipment available.’
Sure, I’ve just reeled that off the top of my head but… why not? It’s as good a cause as any, right?
She seems momentarily lost for words before she says, ‘Okay, sure. That’s an option.
But… I want to work, Danny. I want to be at the coalface.
I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who’d love to swan around the world, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
In fact, I think you should go and find one of them because I don’t think I’m the right person for you. ’
I blink at the statement. Like she’s interchangeable, this woman I love.
‘I don’t want anybody else,’ I snap, stung that she thinks I’m that shallow.
That what I feel for her is that frivolous.
How has this derailed so quickly? ‘Maybe I don’t know what I’m going to do with this money and how it’s going to impact my life.
Maybe I don’t have all the answers yet, but I do know I want you in my life. ’
She sighs a little. ‘Look, Danny… all of this has thrown you for a bit of a loop. That’s fair enough – becoming an overnight billionaire is big.
So maybe what you need more than anything else is to figure out what it’s going to mean for you and your life before you start involving others.
With that much money you need to be considered and certain, not reckless. ’
I huff out an aggrieved breath. I hate how she sounds so reasonable and I want to reject the advice, but it’s good – sensible. The type of advice that comes from a woman who has a life plan, who doesn’t live from day to day, gig to gig.
Who I love.
And maybe the best way to show that is to offer her a future with a guy who has a plan that’s solid, not half-baked. A plan for me – not her. But one that allows her to slot in if and where she feels comfortable.
‘Is this the polite doctor way to tell me I need to sort my shit out?’
She laughs. ‘I guess, yes.’
Her laugh eases the tension in my chest. She’s not looking at me like some kind of monster any more that let a bunch of money go to his head and suddenly morphed into some ridiculous parody of a sugar daddy.
‘You told Denise and Lucy that you wanted to do something with meaning. This money surely gives you the opportunity to something really meaningful. For you. And Bob. Not for me.’
That’s right – I had said that. I guess with everything that happened straight after that, it went by the wayside. ‘That could take a while.’ Especially considering I don’t even know where to start.
She shrugs. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
The confirmation floods me with relief. I didn’t totally blow it then. There’s still hope. Once I’ve sorted my shit out. She’s giving me a chance to retreat and rethink. ‘But what will you do without my wonder schlong in your life?’
One of my bad habits is to try and lighten tense situations with humour. A lot of the time it doesn’t work. Thankfully, Holly laughs. ‘I’m sure I’ll survive.’
Survive. I frown at the desolation of that term. ‘That sounds bleak.’ I say it with a faux dramatic shudder to soften the words. But the thought of Holly surviving, just going through the motions of her life like before she met me, makes me want to peel my skin off.
‘I’ll…’ She shrugs. ‘Finally get that vibrator.’
Part of me is insulted that she thinks a silicone dick is a worthy substitute, but the fact she still doesn’t own one is depressing. ‘Yes, but will you, is the question?’
Because I know her, now. She’ll fall back into her old ways of neglecting her sexuality and although I don’t plan to stay away for too long, she should still be loving herself on the regular.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
She bugs her eyes this time. ‘Yes.’
She smiles then and I smile back, and I love her so much it hurts. The heat has gone out of our argument but the end result is still the same – she’s going to walk away. As if reading my mind, she gives a little shrug. ‘I’d better get going.’
I want to ask her to stay a bit longer, but she has to study and I have some serious research to do, too. So, I just nod and say, ‘I’ll call tomorrow.’
‘Okay.’ She sweeps out of my room then like a runaway bride, the sheet trailing behind as she heads for where her clothes were discarded last night. There’s a catch in my chest. A pain. Sharp and stabby. More painful than I even imagined watching her leave.
Way to fuck things up, dufus.