Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
L evi
There’s a knock on the door as I descend the stairs, brought down by the smell of Marina’s cooking. She already refused my help... twice, so I did the sensible thing and stayed out of her way, and she’s been busy in the kitchen all afternoon, humming to herself in a way I’ve not heard before. She almost seems happy,... no, she does seem happy.
“Can you get that please, Levi,” she calls out, obviously hearing my tread on the stairs—it’s an old cottage, everything creaks. No sneaking around in this house. “We’re expecting a guest for dinner.”
That would explain the afternoon in the kitchen, the quiet joyful humming and the delicious smells. In the few seconds it takes me to cross the hallway, I wonder if Marina has found someone. She deserves it. As far as I know she’s been alone for a long time. Whoever he is—or rather she or they are, I shouldn’t make assumptions—they’d better be good enough for her. I pull open the door, ready to give them the once over.
I’m not prepared for the sight of Mac on the doorstep. I’m certainly not prepared for him looking... smart. He’s wearing dark blue jeans and brown boots, a shirt the colour of pine trees, and a brown jacket. Colours that suit his brown hair and liquid chocolate eyes, and also make him fit perfectly into the late autumn landscape of the hills I can see through the door behind him. He looks like he’s going on a date, and he’s so handsome it hurts. How he can be so perfect annoys me, grates on me in a way I don’t feel with anyone else, and I want to ruin the perfect mirage in front of me, run my hand through the water and twist the reflection. So I do what I do best—I bite.
“What are you doing here? Marina’s expecting a guest.”
“Dinner, hopefully,” he says in response, and the kitchen door opens behind me.
“Mackinley!” Marina greets him warmly and he passes me with a smirk which doesn’t improve my mood.
“Hi Mum. These are for you,” he says, holding out some flowers I wasn’t even aware he had because I was so busy drinking him in.
“Thanks love, they’re beautiful.” Marina takes them and I can do nothing but watch as they walk through to the kitchen. What the fuck just happened? I thought they hadn’t spoken for years. I know they haven’t; Marina told me. She never mentioned anything about a reconciliation, but I guess she doesn’t have to tell me anything. I’m not family and it’s her business, but still it’s a surprise... and now I have to sit through dinner with Mac. Fucking great.
It’s good that the food is amazing—Marina’s lasagna is almost as good as her macncheese—because the rest was pretty awkward. At first the conversation was stilted, which I can understand as Mac and Marina are feeling their way after not talking for so long, but then they fell into talking about people and events I’d never heard off. I didn’t feel excluded exactly, but there was nothing I could contribute. I suggested to Marina before we sat that perhaps they’d be better off being alone to talk, but she was adamant for me to be there, so all I could do was eat my food and try not to think about the proximity of Mac. He mostly ignored me, for which I was equal parts grateful and pissed off. He barely looked at me through the whole meal—just the one time, when Marina asked if he was seeing anyone. He gave me a quick glance, with an expression I couldn’t decipher, and answered that he wasn’t and hadn’t for some time. I wonder if Marina knows he’s gay, or bi, or whatever. I know, because that first time, when I met him in the alley, he kissed me first, and I definitely felt how hard he was when he was pressing me up against the wall. It’s a feeling I’ve recalled many times since, and one that forms part of the dozen fantasies I have about him and what he could do to me.
Eventually, after an amazing apple crumble for dessert, the meal is over and I offer to wash the dishes. Marina doesn’t have a dishwasher, claiming there was never any point for just herself, and I want to contribute somehow. Also, it’ll mean she’ll go through to the lounge and Mac will follow, and then I can be alone for a while as spending time sitting next to him for the last hour has my senses reeling.
She accepts my offer gratefully and they disappear. I breathe a sigh of relief, but I’ve only just finished stacking the dishes ready to wash when Mac comes back into the kitchen and flips the kettle on. Fuck.
“I’m making Mum a cup of tea. Want one?” Mac says casually.
“No,” I grind out and he shrugs. I fill the sink with hot soapy water, hoping that once he’s made the tea he’ll go back to the lounge. He does, and then comes straight back.
“I’ll help,” he offers. Double fuck.
I can’t take it anymore. I need to ask.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” He picks up a tea towel and starts drying the clean dishes I’ve put to drain.
“You and your mum don’t speak for years, and then you waltz back in and it’s all friendly and like you’ve never been apart.”
“I came over a couple of days ago. We talked and we discussed how we’d both made mistakes, and we managed to forgive each other.” A sadness crosses his face. “I can never get those years back, but we can move forward.”
He starts piling the dry plates on the table ready to be put away.
“What exactly happened?” I ask and his face darkens. It might be none of my business, but I’ve spent the last couple of months being angry at him for what he did to her. I can’t forget that easily. Then his expression softens as if he’s come to a decision.
He stops drying the dishes and leans against the counter top, still holding the tea towel in his hand.
“When I was little I learned my father was a soldier, that he’d been deployed to Northern Ireland shortly after he and my mum were married. It was supposed to be a short tour, but he was killed in a bombing a week before he was due home, and he never knew about me. I grew up thinking my father was a hero. Rifleman West. He died in service to his country. I was so proud of him. I didn’t have a father like other kids, but I had this mythical man who was brave and had died with honour.”
“When I was eighteen, I’d just finished my A-levels and been accepted into Hertford College Oxford to study human sciences. I had a notion, during that summer, to visit where my father had died, so I looked up his records to find out more about him. They usually release a roll of honour of those who’ve died in service, but I couldn’t find any record of him, so I searched every place I could. I couldn’t find a mention of his time anywhere. I remember driving home, upset for my mum, thinking he’d been written out of history somehow.”
He falters, raising his hand to his face and pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers as if somehow it’ll wipe the memory away. I realise I’ve stopped, my hands still plunged into the hot suds. I take them out and pluck the towel from Mac’s hands to dry my own, and the action brings him back to the present.
He gives a little laugh, though his face remains grim.
“I rushed in here, pouring it all out to my mum. I wanted to tell her how badly he’d been treated. I remember her going ashen and sinking into a chair, before telling me it was all a lie. Everything. There was no Mr West. There was no soldier, no hero, nothing to be proud of. I had nothing but a fabrication that I’d believed for eighteen years. I demanded she tell me who my real father was but she refused. I didn’t hear any more. That day I left, angry and upset, and I never came back.”
His shoulders deflate and his voice is quieter, draped in a layer of sadness.
“Over time, I found it easier to stay away, to not be reminded of it. I never learned her side of the story until now.”
His expression is one I never seen on him before; it’s as if he’s shed his tough cop shell. It’s softer, vulnerable, more natural, and it’s heartachingly beautiful. I like the hard and ruthless detective persona, it heats my blood and makes me feel alive, something to spar against. But this side of him... it’s something else entirely, and a tendril of warmth wraps itself around my heart. I move past him and switch the kettle on to make some tea—Marina’s cure-all. Plus, it gives my hands something to do, because otherwise I don’t think I could stop myself from touching him. He has no interest in me, he’s made that perfectly clear, but that’s too bad because I want him, and I’m going to make him realise he wants me too.