Chapter 61
Ryan
Once we’re home, Evan heads straight to bed, leaving us alone in the living room.
“Do you want a drink?” Christine asks, opening the fridge and bending down to grab something from the bottom shelf.
I go over to her and slide my hands over the small of her back.
“What I want isn’t in the fridge.”
Christine straightens up and closes the fridge door. She turns to me and trails her finger along my chest.
“Oh no?”
“Fuck, no.”
I kiss her neck, her shoulder, then slide my hand down to her breasts.
“You don’t like wasting time, do you?”
“Not where you’re concerned.”
I push her against the counter behind her and sit her on top of it, slipping myself between her legs.
“Evan’s home, you know,” she points out.
I smile at her. “We can fix that.”
I take her in my arms and wrap her legs around my waist, carrying her upstairs and into her room. I close the door behind us, taking a few steps towards the bed and laying her out, before throwing myself onto her like a hungry wolf.
Christine stops me, taking my face in her hands. “Not like this, Ryan. Not this time.”
I look at her, confused.
“I want to make love to you. I want to feel your hands everywhere, your mouth… I want to feel you. Really.”
I pull away from her and roll away.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
She smiles at me, tenderly.
“What did they do to you?” she asks, innocently.
I shake my head.
“Ryan…”
“I don’t know if I can change. I like being with you, but this…”
“I like it, too.”
“I’m scared that if we do anything more, I’ll be crushed again.”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s stopping you.”
“Why do you want to? Why do you want to help me?”
“Because I can see how much you’re suffering. I can see what they did to you – I can see the pain in your eyes when we’re together, and I don’t want to see it anymore.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe it is, though.”
“What do you mean?”
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
“She didn’t come.”
“She?”
“She never showed up.”
“I don’t get it…”
“She left me. At the altar.”
Christine’s mouth falls open.
“We were together for ten years. A school romance. She lived nearby, and I’d known her since we were kids. Then, one day, we fell in love.”
Christine strokes my face.
“I had only ever loved her. I stood by her through everything and she…she was always there. I owed all my success to her. Matches, prizes… it was all for her. I was so stupid…”
“No. No, you weren’t. You were in love.”
“I really was. I was a different person. I was romantic, I was…present. I was everything she wanted.”
“I’m sure you were a wonderful guy, just like you still are, Ryan. Nothing has changed.”
“I bought us a house. Just like she wanted. I proposed, and she said yes. Then she never showed up. She gave me no explanation, no warning… she let me wait in that church for an hour.”
Christine leans on my chest and wraps her arms around me.
“She didn’t want to talk to me, so Nick…” I continue through my teeth, “…he decided to take the situation into his own hands. He went to see her to talk about it, and then the next morning I saw them together. They were hugging on her driveway.”
Christine lifts her head suddenly, watching for my reaction. I’m cold, impersonal, lacking any emotion. She doesn’t deserve anything from me anymore.
“They got drunk and ended up in bed together – or so they say. The truth is that neither of them remember what happened. But they woke up in the same bed, Christine.”
“And then, what…?”
“I tried to kill my brother.”
“What?”
I cover my eyes with my hands.
“Ian stopped me. And so I left, Christine. I tore up the contract I’d just signed with Leinster, my big break – the one I’d been waiting for my whole life.
I accepted an offer in England. I turned my back on everyone…
I destroyed my family. I just wanted to shut myself off, never look back.
To forget. But I haven’t forgotten any of it.
What she did to me will always be in here,” I say, pointing to my chest. “From then on, I was a bastard. I was pissed off, I hated everyone. I was an arsehole to everyone: family, friends, women… and I was an arsehole to you, too.”
“It’s understandable, Ryan…”
“I came back for my dad, to be close to them. He’s not well, Christine, and we don’t know how much longer…” I can barely contain myself now.
“I know, Ryan. I know,” she says, stroking me.
“Ian convinced me to come home, and a few weeks ago I was brave enough to confront Nick.”
“How did it go?”
“I didn’t forgive him, if that’s what you mean.
But I tried to look past it. I don’t think Nick did it on purpose, it’s just that Nick is…
Nick. He went to see her to try and set things straight and then…
well, alcohol took care of the rest. My brother went to bed with my fiancée.
With the woman I was supposed to marry. It was a mistake, neither of them wanted it to happen; but it did.
And now I can’t stand the idea of someone laying their eyes on something that belongs to me.
” I turn to look at her. “She spoke to him, not to me. She told him that she didn’t love me anymore, hadn’t loved me for a while.
That we were just two kids when we got together and that she’d grown up, while I’d stayed the same.
She didn’t want to take that step, to commit herself to me.
But she said yes. Do you see what I mean? ”
Christine sits in front of me and takes my hands.
“She married someone else,” I say, resigned.
“It was only a few months later. She chose someone else. They have a baby, Christine, a family. She has a family with someone else. She got everything she ever wanted, but it wasn’t with me.
She didn’t want me. Maybe she realised that I’m nothing special. ”
“She didn’t realise anything,” she says, kindly. “She has no idea what she’s missing.”
“She kissed me, touched me, told me that she loved me. She said yes. When she really wanted to leave me. It was all a lie,” I say, lifting myself up to sit against the pillows.
“All a lie. The last memory I have of us is a lie. All the caresses, the kisses… the intimacy. All bullshit. And now, any type of intimacy reminds me of…”
“Look at me, Ryan. I’m not a liar,” she says, bring her hands to my face. “I’m real. What we have is real.”
“I’m a failure, Christine. And one day you’ll wake up and realise it, too.”
“That’s not true. You’re not a failure. They hurt you, shrunk you; but now you’re here, with your family.
You have your team, and you have…me. Let yourself go.
Let me show you that my caresses,” she slides her hands down my face, “are real. My smiles. My kisses.” She presses her lips against mine.
“Let yourself go to me and you’ll see that everything will be okay.
Let yourself believe that this is real, that these emotions are real, and that I really want you. ”
She slides on top of me, and I immediately wrap my hands around her waist.
“I’m real. What I feel exists. And this –” she kisses me again, lightly, “– this is real.”
I run my thumb along her lips.
“Make love to me, and I promise that you’ll feel everything.”
I take her face in my hands.
“And it’ll all be true?”
She smiles at me. “Everything.”
I lean in to her mouth and try to repress my desire to bite them off. I brush lightly against them, taking her bottom lip between my own and licking it delicately.
“That’s it,” she says, enjoying my kisses and pulling me in closer.
Her soft mouth makes love to mine. It tastes me, filled with desire, but without needing to jump all over me.
She slides her hands slowly over my chest, before starting to unbutton my shirt.
Her fingers move decisively, patiently, and when the fabric slips off my shoulders, I can feel a growing excitement, a desire to be inside her.
Christine looks at me sweetly, smiling with her eyes and her lips, showing me that she wants to take things a little slower this time. To make the most of every moment, of every breath.
And I want to, too. I want to experience every heartbeat, make them my own, hoping to heal the open wound which still scars my heart.