Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
LIAM
Every time I open my chat with Kat, I can’t help but smile. Her little icon, and her name, being there are salves to my senses.
A distraction from my everyday. Not that I do much.
It’s been a few weeks since my last fight, and my money is dwindling.
Having her back in my life has given me something to live for.
And while I’ve yet to lose a fight, when you’re fighting to the death, it only takes one slip for it to all be over.
Tell me something about twenty-two-year-old Kat. I want to know more about who you are now.
I’m at a dive bar across the street from her alley. A sticky-floored, smoke-stained hellhole even I wouldn’t normally be seen in. Still, I can have a pint and keep an eye on her without my mask on. It’ll do.
Answer for answer.
The idea of letting her see any more of me makes me queasy. At the moment, I’m riding on being this project from her past that she pities. If she finds out who I am after four years of choice? She might not like what she sees.
What’s your favourite food?
Italian. Arancini and carbonara, done properly, none of that double cream nonsense. Do you live alone?
Of course I do. No one has ever wanted to live with me. Not unless I’m useful to them.
Yes. What do you do for fun?
Go dancing with my roommate until our feet are too sore to move. Did you find a family?
Eventually. Do you ever wish you could go back to that summer?
I glance up at the alley entrance, monitoring for any sign of the wanker who’s stalking my girl.
Every day.
I look at those two words for a long time while I wait for her question. Even knowing what I’d have to endure, I’d go back to that summer in a heartbeat. Eventually, her question comes through.
Did I make your life worse?
The question makes my chest ache.
Never. You made it survivable. Did I make yours worse?
I think about the years that passed without her.
She’d been a glimmer of hope I’d held onto through so many terrible moments.
Pulling up her face to block out the faces that hovered over me in the real world.
The faces that screamed, or the hands that choked.
Even the faces that looked at me with distaste and disgust.
No. You’ve made it more interesting. Although my window needs a good clean. When can I see you?
Ah, it’s back to that. Seeing beyond the mask. A lifetime of torture written on my skin.
I don’t know. I’m not a good man, Kat. My skin bears the marks of that. I don’t want you to see the monster I became in place of the boy you remember.
She takes a while to respond, so I take a long drink of my pint, hoping the alcohol will go some way to soothe me. I’ll only allow myself two. Anything more may affect my ability to protect her.
Perfection is sorely overrated. Has no one ever told you that women like scars?
No, they haven’t, largely because I usually stay far away from them. Interesting.
No, but noted. Will you fuck that guy again?
Were you watching us?
Shit.
Interrupting more like.
Was the alarm you?
Guilty. Though it was better than cutting out his tongue. I think.
Too much?
Are you always so possessive?
I’ve never had anything to be possessive about before. Never felt that hot irrationality of watching someone else touch someone I wanted.
Only with you. The thought of him touching you makes me see red.
Her dots bounce for a little while, and I fidget on my rickety wooden chair.
I don’t know what this is. So I don’t know if I’ll have sex with him again. Is sex something you want with me?
Staring at my phone, I swallow hard because I haven’t really allowed myself to believe we could be any more than this.
I want everything. To worship you. To keep you safe. To be back where I belong.
Sending it feels like dumping my innards on the table and hoping she accepts them.
We can’t exactly go to dinner in your heart-eyed balaclava.
Stifling a laugh, I down the last of my pint.
I just need a little time.
My roommate is out tonight. You could come by… We could get to know each other a bit more. I’d like to hear more of the voice you found. And be kissed the way you kissed me the other day.
There is nothing I want more.
Deal.
You know where to find me.
Oh, do I ever. An unfamiliar sensation squirms through me, unlike anything I’ve felt before. Like maybe the years between were worth it.
If they brought me back to her.
She opens the door before I knock.
Was my darling waiting for me? That hits me right in the chest. Not to mention that she’s opened the door in nothing but my t-shirt. I’m assuming nothing at least. There could be panties. The way her chest peaks in the cold night air tells me there’s no bra.
Damn, if my blood pressure increases anymore, something’s going to implode.
It’ll be my first time coming through the door invited. And it leaves me strangely nervous.
I hold up the paper bag that the delivery driver just dropped off at the pub. Half a delaying tactic so she doesn’t think I’ve been sitting outside all evening, and half something to make her smile. She looks at it, then at me.
‘Italian,’ I say.
The way her eyes widen a fraction is enough that I dedicate myself to forever bringing her treats, even if I have to pulverise a thousand men to fund it for the rest of my life.
‘You didn’t have to…’
‘Arancini. And carbonara. Authentic style. I phoned to check.’
She takes the bag, and I step inside. For a moment, I tower over her, my pulse thumping as she looks up at me.
Her teeth graze her lower lip, and I need to clench my fists to avoid pinning her to the wall right there and then.
But I’m also aware of how out of place I am in my black clothes and mask, where her home is a sea of softness and femininity.
I haven’t visited Ellie here, but I can see the signs of her among Kat’s things.
Their two personalities are colliding in the tight space.
She opens the bag, and the smell hits us both. Salty and savoury. Garlic and rich, smoky meat. She groans so lasciviously that I’m almost mad at the food for causing her to make the noise.
‘Sit down,’ she says, heading for the kitchen area. ‘I’ll get plates.’
‘I don’t need one.’
She lifts one plate out of the cupboard and raises an eyebrow at me. ‘You’re not eating?’
I point at the mask.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Could always take it off.’
A flush climbs my face, and I’m grateful that she can’t see my expression. I wonder if she knows anyway, because her lips curve and she turns away giggling to dish up her food.
‘Let’s go to my room,’ she says. ‘In case Ellie comes back and I have to explain the masked man in the kitchen.’
‘You don’t need to convince me.’
She takes a moment to light the candles in her room before sitting at the desk with her plate, crossing her legs on the seat.
Note to self: she is indeed wearing panties.
I stand awkwardly at the door until she motions to the bed, inviting me to sit.
I sit on the edge of the bed, not quite knowing how I fit amongst the sea of cushions and pillows.
She eats heartily, occasionally pointing at the food with her fork and giving an expression of pure bliss.
‘Tell me about after that summer,’ she says between bites. ‘What happened first?’
I think about how to compress so many years of bullshit without bumming her out.
The homes largely blend into one another; sometimes the issues differ, but mostly they are the same.
Hunger. Cold. Feeling unwanted. Fighting among the kids.
Black eyes. Dirty old men. A system designed to get kids to eighteen, mostly in one piece, but rarely set to take on the world on their own.
‘I was bounced around from home to home. I didn’t speak for a while. As long as I was quiet and didn’t cause problems, I was ignored, which suited me fine.’
She’s listening intently, her plate balanced on her knee.
‘Was there anyone kind?’ The softness in her expression kills me.
‘One older couple. She used to sit with me in the evenings and talk as we did puzzles. She never really expected an answer. She helped me find my voice with her lack of expectation, I think. I’d barely spoken in years.
’ I look at my leather-clad hands, my breath, hitching as I let myself remember her.
Sweet Rita, I’d never spoken about her to anyone.
‘She had a stroke after a year with them. I spent years blaming myself, though I know now it’s not my fault. So back I went into the system.’
Kat puts her fork down and sets the plate on the desk behind her.
‘Did the abuse stop?’
‘On and off. Never as bad as in the cottage. Until the last one who tried.’ I swallow. ‘He spent some time in hospital. I spent some time in juvie. And then I was sixteen, and my last family took me in, and that was the end of it.’
Kat’s quiet for a moment, something weighing heavily. She fidgets with the hem of the t-shirt and avoids my eyes. ‘I went back into the woods. After.’
I look at her.
‘Often.’
Her throat bobs.
‘To make sure it wasn’t a dream. That I hadn’t imagined it all. I watched him rot as the months went by. The stench, the maggots, and eventually nothing but bones. I was always so terrified the police would come. But they never did.’
‘They didn’t know who I was. I couldn’t talk. Wouldn’t. Looking back, my dad had broken into the cottage and occupied it. I don’t even know if I was ever registered at birth.’
‘You don’t hate me for it?’
‘For watching my father rot? No. You were just a kid.’
She moves over to the bed, sitting next to me, and leans her head against my shoulder. ‘Thank you.’
I shift to lie back, pulling her with me. God, the sea of pillows is fucking comfy. Maybe I need to get more than the one thin pillow on my bed. Kat moves easily with me, letting me guide her onto the bed. Trusting me.
Then she twists to get comfortable, her back against my chest and her ass pressed hard into my crotch.
Fucking hell.