Chapter 11
Chris
“You’re sure you can take Evan to school?” I ask Martin for the thousandth time.
“I want to help out, repay you for letting me stay here.”
“Maybe that means I’ll actually get there on time today,” Evan interjects, chewing on another piece of bacon.
Martin’s been here for a few days now and, as if by magic, the house is tidy, the fridge is full, and breakfast is even ready and waiting on the kitchen table.
This isn’t the healthiest arrangement – for any of us – and I know I should tell him to go back to his apartment, but it’s so nice and reassuring to have a man in the house that I’ve decided to milk the pleasant family atmosphere for as long as I can.
I give him a kiss on the cheek, and grab my bag and my keys, ready for a new week of clocking in miraculously early. I take one last glance at the only men in my life, joking around in the kitchen as if nothing had ever changed, and I close the door behind me with a heavy heart.
I start the engine and head towards the town centre, relieved for once to have someone around to help, but also sad that it won’t always be like this.
I’m there in fifteen minutes, pulling into the practically empty car park.
I walk the few metres that take me to the café, unlock the door and turn off the alarm.
I put on some music, to create a more relaxing atmosphere for the customers, then switch on everything I’ll need to make breakfast. I take off my jacket and chuck it in the back, along with my bag, tie up my apron and pull my hair back.
I take a deep breath and plaster a big, reassuring smile across my face – the same smile that everyone recognises, the one that greets the customers every morning and makes them choose my café over all the others.
I start to get everything ready for breakfast, waiting for my colleagues to arrive, and make my first – well, second – coffee of the day. While I’m slowly stirring, I glance over at the table I was sitting at yesterday. The same table I shared with Ryan while we ate our lunch.
I still don’t know how it all happened. He was there, standing in the middle of the street, looking disorientated, and I just couldn’t muster up any hate for him, despite our previous meetings. He needed someone to share his silence with and, well, let’s just say that I’m the same.
He was so different from all the other times, so small, so tired.
His arrogant spitefulness was clouded by the sadness in his eyes, which weren’t icy like they usually are, but lost, lonely.
His beautiful blue eyes – did I say beautiful?
Shit. They were so empty that I wanted to throw myself inside them, give them a new, warmer colour, one that wrapped him up.
I tried not to pay too much attention to his shoulders, which filled out his tight shirt, almost making me want to rip it off him.
I tried to ignore his lips, soft, inviting, biteable.
When he raised his eyes occasionally from the table, his gaze was powerful, probing.
His hair was smooth and light, the colour of the sun, tumbling sexily over his forehead.
I tried to ignore the quiet thrill between my legs the moment his mouth brushed against the rim of his coffee cup.
Jesus, it would be so amazing…
I shake my head, trying not to think about it. I shouldn’t get all worked up like this here, when I have nothing to distract me from it at home.
Besides, nothing really happened. We had a quick lunch, painless, where no one opened their mouth – otherwise, we’d have ended up at each other’s throat, as always.
I push the thought away into the corner of my mind, and say hi to my colleagues, who are gobsmacked by my punctuality, seeing as it’s Monday.
“To what do we owe the honour?” Vic winds me up, grabbing the coffee out of my hands.
“Martin’s staying at mine.”
Vic literally spits her coffee out over my apron.
“Explain,” she says, drying her mouth on the back of her hand.
“He needed someone.”
“So obviously, you offered him a bed.”
“Vic…”
“Chris, you know I love you, and in some ways I love Martin too, but do you really think this is a good idea?”
“It’s only for a few days.”
“What happened to his boyfriend?”
“He left him.”
“So he thought it would be best to come running back to you?”
“You know that’s not what it’s like. There isn’t and never will be anything between us. As you know, Martin has a soft spot for…”
“Dicks.”
“If you want to put it like that.”
“Just be careful, Chris. I know Martin can be pretty shitty when he wants to be.”
“That’s not true,” I defend him, just as I always do. “Martin’s a good guy, and a good dad.”
“Sure…”
“Oh, come on! I don’t have to justify myself to you,” I snap at her, raising my voice and going to hide out in the back.
Sometimes I hate how well Vic knows me, how much access she has to my most intimate secrets – ones I wouldn’t even tell my own reflection in the mirror.
But she’s my best friend, along with my sister, and they’re the only two people that have stood by me through everything that’s happened.
Well, I guess my family have been there too, even though it took them a while to accept everything.
Besides, it’s not every day that your sixteen-year-old daughter comes home and tells you she’s pregnant.
That’s more or less how it went.
Martin and I have known each other since we were at school.
He was in the year above me, but we saw each other a lot for PE classes and school assemblies.
It was easy for me to let him in. I was a cheerful girl, always ready to make friends – so, one day, when he sat himself down next to me, I didn’t bat an eyelid before launching into a conversation.
We dated for a few months. We were basically a couple. Martin was, and still is, a really good-looking guy, charming and smooth-talking. The kind of guy that women – and men – go crazy for. He was also an athlete, with a defined physique and an amazing arse. Who would’ve resisted him?
The day he passed his driver’s test he invited me out for a drive in his car.
I never thought anything more of it, but that’s how it happened.
We had sex in the back seat of his brand-new car; it was the first time for both of us.
At the time, it didn’t seem strange to me that he was still a virgin, so I didn’t ask questions.
He didn’t really know what he was doing – to be honest, neither of us did – and it was an absolute disaster. I still remember it really well.
About six weeks after our one and only encounter, I found out I was pregnant.
I was shocked, terrified of telling my parents, but I knew that he and I could get through it together.
I thought he’d stay with me, that we’d get married and live happily ever after, with maybe a few bumps in the road towards the beginning, but nothing we couldn’t smooth over.
We met up behind the playground after school. I sat down on the step and, without looking at him said, plainly: “I’m pregnant.”
His response, after a series of swear words that I don’t want to repeat, was unexpected, to say the least.
“I’m gay.”
It looked like Martin was going through a phase of being confused by his sexuality. He told me he liked me, that I was cute, funny, and he liked being with me, but that I helped him understand that he just wasn’t attracted to women in that way.
“So why the hell did we have sex?”
“Because I thought I wanted to.”
I wasn’t really angry at him. I was angrier with myself, for being stupid enough to get myself into this situation alone.
“I won’t abandon you,” he told me. “Just because I don’t like women doesn’t mean that we can’t raise this baby together.”
And I believed him. I really thought we could do it, that we could’ve been a family anyway and that maybe, being close to us, he could love us both one day.
I still hope that’ll happen, even though I don’t admit it to anyone.
Martin will always be the first man I gave myself to, the first man I ever loved, and most importantly, he’ll always be my son’s father.
I still love him, but it’s a different kind of love. And until I stop letting him breeze in and out of our lives as he pleases, until I stop comparing every man I meet to him, I don’t think I’ll ever have much hope in finding someone to wake up next to, someone to hold me close for a whole night.