Chapter 6
Carli
Fuck. Here she was, sick as a puppy, in her sausage dog pyjamas, hair plastered to her head, and there was Niall Butler, gazing right up at her.
Carli barely had the brainpower to register exactly what she was faced with here, but this was not how she would have played this at all.
‘Hey, Cass.’ A deep voice rumbled through the space towards her.
Yep, it was him alright. Her childhood sweetheart. Her first love. Scottish, confident and, despite being flanked by mainly darkness, assuredly masculine.
Well, this was unfair. This was the reunion she was getting? No time to prepare.
Turn away, go to bed. You’ll wake up later and find it was all a dream.
But one step towards her room and Carli reeled. Then, in a show of complete betrayal, her legs deflated like an empty windsock, and she dropped to the carpet.
She wasn’t out cold. A cloudy awareness surrounded her. And emerging from those clouds was Niall, by her side so quickly, he could almost have caught her before she hit the floor. He must have taken the stairs three at a time.
‘Cass? You okay?’ Niall’s deep and urgent tones filled the space between them.
She muttered something that contained the words fine and bed, but whatever protestations she was trying to make, they weren’t convincing enough for him.
In many other circumstances, Niall sliding his arms under her knees and lifting her up would have been sweet, but in this moment, it was the worst thing Carli could have imagined.
She should be wearing a floaty summery dress, have hair that smelled of cherry blossom and not be weighed down by the wrongs of the person who was lifting her up, for a start.
‘It’s okay.’ His voice vibrated lowly against her neck as he carried her towards the bedroom. ‘I’ve got you.’
‘You didn’t need to…’ she mumbled. My God, his body was rock solid, the arms holding her whole body weight so strong. Effortlessly, he carried her, like she was a shell he was bringing back from the beach. She was a shell right now. ‘I could have…’
‘Shhh.’ Niall kicked open the bedroom door with his foot and carried her to the bed. Gently, he laid her on the mattress, lifted her legs under the duvet, then pulled it up over her shoulders.
Exhaustion and embarrassment hovered over Carli.
She wished they would drop and push her through the mattress into the floorboards.
Should she close her eyes and hope Niall went away so she could regain some of her lost dignity or open them and look at him, take in how he’d changed in the intervening years?
At this moment, she was being granted a five-star view of his broad, denimed thighs and crotch as he stood over her bed.
Tilting her head back on the pillow, she watched him towering over her.
Hunkering back on his knees, Niall crouched down to meet her, bringing their faces level.
Except there was no level because now, in the lamplight, it was obvious that present-day Niall Butler held the power to captivate her as much as the original version did.
More so. The soft, boyish face had been edged out by the masculine angles and strong stubbled jawline of a man, the nose was stronger now and, oh, the eyes – oceanic blue with flecks of emerald.
They hadn’t changed one bit apart from to fit even more perfectly into the surrounding features, and that was their power.
Niall Butler had grown into himself in the most striking way.
And she was falling apart.
Ugh.
She shouldn’t even have the energy to be humiliated. But she was mortified.
‘Hey.’ Niall smiled tenderly, the softness in his eyes betraying the sweetheart she’d once known. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
Liar. She could not be good for anyone’s sight right now. Could she turn around, face the wall and hope that this wasn’t happening? At least not until tomorrow when she’d showered and washed her hair.
‘Hey, Niall,’ she groaned back. ‘I’m sick.’
‘I know.’ His rich Scottish accent filtered through her like gravelly, healing honey. ‘Do you need anything?’
To understand why you’re here. For you to go away until I’m ready for this.
‘No… ’s fine.’ Why wasn’t there some kind of adrenaline fuelling her here?
Helping bolster her in the presence of her teenage love – the man she’d lost her virginity to, for goodness’ sake, who after four months of long-distance letter writing and texts where he appeared to miss her as much as she missed him, and even talked about getting married, had told her that he wasn’t sure he loved her anymore, or if he ever had.
Surely, at the very least, she deserved to be the one calling the shots today.
Thanks, universe, for rendering me a shivering, sweating mess. Thanks a bloody lot.
‘Okay, if you want anything, you just… um…’ Niall glanced around the room as if for some kind of bell or alarm.
‘I’ll be okay.’
‘I’ll come back and check on you.’ The weight of his gaze on her was heavy, flickers of concern, like there was genuine worry contained there.
His upper arm flexed for a moment, like it wanted to move to her face.
But he stopped it. He couldn’t stop the looking though, it seemed. The searching. The questioning.
What was he questioning?
Years seemed to pass as their gazes locked. Like they were spinning back through the years, trying to find a way to grasp onto each other again. Trying to travel back to when they were Niall and Carli, singular. A couple of desperately in love teenagers.
But it hadn’t been that way in a long, long time.
And it certainly wasn’t that way here and now.
‘You definitely okay?’ he asked.
Carli replied with an affirmative ‘mm-hmm’ and accepting this, Niall hoisted himself up from his haunches.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in a wee bit.’
‘Yeah, see you in a wee bit,’ Carli mumbled, watching him go with almost enough cognisance to register how perfect his bum looked in his jeans.
Once the door closed, six of his words echoed in her mind.
See you in a wee bit.
Nearly two decades they’d spent apart and now the next time she’d lay eyes on him would be in a wee bit. Surely, she would wake up and realise she’d eaten a dodgy meal on the plane and had fainted in the chemical toilet.
This couldn’t actually be happening.
Could it?
It was happening. Niall came back. Two hours later, when it was painfully clear she was not collapsed in a plane toilet. Niall Butler was there, sitting on a chair by her bed, legs splayed, elbows on his thighs, leaning towards her.
Something orange taunted Carli’s peripheral vision from the bedside table. She turned to see a can of Irn-Bru.
‘That’s for you.’ Niall spoke with the gravitas of a doctor bringing a patient some strong drugs. He’d always sworn by the stuff for sickness. ‘Settle your stomach.’
Carli’s guts let out a dissatisfied growl.
‘Guess I want food,’ she said, trying to lean into the crude display of all her bodily weaknesses. Would the embarrassment give it up for a bit?
‘I can get you something,’ he offered.
‘What time is it?’
‘Nearly three.’
‘Why are you still awake?’
Niall shrugged. ‘Chatting to Jamie. Jet lag. Wanted to make sure you’re okay.’
Bloody hell. He was staying up to make sure she was okay. What on earth was happening in her life? And why hadn’t it happened when he’d ended their relationship with those words that she’d tried for so long to dissect.
I don’t know what our love is anymore. If it’s even love.
‘I’ve been popping in to check on you,’ he added, ‘but you’ve been out of it until now.’
‘Oh, right. Was I snoring?’ She may as well ask. What other dignity could be lost on top of wearing dog pyjamas, not having showered and having unbrushed teeth?
Niall’s face lit up with a mischievous smile that was no less cheeky than when he’d smiled as a sixteen-year-old. ‘Maybe.’
‘Are you serious?’ She eyeballed him with all the intensity she could muster.
He shook his head. ‘Maybe.’
‘Niall!’
‘No, you weren’t snoring. You looked very cute.’
‘I doubt that.’ Jesus, how were they flirting already?
She was sick, in dire need of hot water and soap, and meant to be mad at him for intimating that she was the only one to whom their relationship meant anything.
For allowing her to think that everything they’d been through together – her grief, his insecurities – and the mutual bonds between them, were a figment of her imagination.
‘We’ve been worried about you,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’
‘I’m fine. I get like this sometimes.’
‘You do?’
‘Kind of.’
Niall narrowed his gaze like he suspected there might be more to Carli’s sickness than the flight, but he didn’t probe further. ‘Well, I’m the doctor on duty tonight,’ he said, ‘and I say drink your Irn-Bru.’
‘I’m not drinking that filth.’
His mouth lifted into a soft smile. ‘It’s good filth. You know it.’
She did. Because of Niall’s obsession she’d drunk her fair share of Irn-Bru during their relationship, sometimes with whisky in it.
The truth was, it was completely drinkable, but she didn’t need a bellyful of bright orange sugar, caffeine and chemicals.
Her body wasn’t able to withstand abuse in the same way it had when she was young.
‘I’d maybe better stick to some dry toast,’ she said.
‘Righto.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll get you some. Anything else? Painkillers or…’
‘The toast is fine. And some water. I should drink some water.’
Carli lay in bed and listened to the low creaking of the house and light kitchen noises as Niall made her order. It was sweet of him.
The least he can do.
Five minutes later, he returned with the dry toast and a glass of water. She sat up in bed and ventured a nibble at the edges. It went down okay and seemed like it might stay down.
‘Alright?’ Niall resumed his position on the chair facing her. Jeans and long-sleeved navy tee clinging to the muscles underneath. The sight of him certainly wouldn’t make her feel any worse.
She nodded. ‘Good, thanks.’