Chapter 18
Oliver
Isuppose this was what balloons felt like when they popped. All the air seeping out of me in an uncontrolled rush as I stepped backwards making my hands let go of him so I could cover my face.
Oh fuck. Now I’d done it. Now I’d properly done it. Because this was not what I had planned to do this morning. I hadn’t even had leaving my flat on the radar, thinking I would just stay in and vegetate in my current state of confused anger.
The world was not a solid place, and I was currently spinning out of control.
Then somehow the world had hit a full stop, and I’d had this awful idea of trying to look up Peter’s address.
As if someone like him would have it listed right there on the world wide web.
Things didn’t work like that. But neither did I.
This was my bread and butter, and yes, the tax office business registry was most accommodating in my quest for detail.
Mary Priscilla Fenton had sat on the board of several companies. All registered to some PO box in Mayfair. Sensible and normal. Peter Christopher Fenton, though?
He owned his own company, and the address of his practice was everywhere. He didn’t live there, though. But…
Yeah. The internet was forever, and at some point, Mary had been a stakeholder. Mary. Registered at 42 Thorn Crescent in Newton Hill. Central. Nice area. Residential.
Yes. I wasn’t proud, nor was I ashamed of myself because this was all public knowledge.
That particular property hadn’t changed hands in the last decade, and now, when I knew where to look?
I looked, and I looked everywhere. It was a nice house.
Value had risen sharply as expected, an extension planned for and added a few years back. It was all there for anyone to see.
Which is why I’d got dressed and thrown myself in a taxi and turned up on his doorstep banging on that door with a ferocity that had kind of surprised me.
I had planned on being calm and collected. Not feral and rabid, and then now like this.
Exhausted.
“So…” he said slowly, just standing there looking at me. “So, we kiss now?”
“Apparently,” I snarked back.
He smiled. He bloody smiled.
“Don’t be an arsehole,” I shot straight back at him. “You don’t need to be a dick about it. You know this. You knew all of this.”
“Oliver.” He sighed. Just the way he said my name made me relax. My heartbeat slowing down. Because he was him and he was just looking at me and there it was.
Shit. It was all there. Live and unscripted. The way he looked at me. If he didn’t stop doing it, I would lunge at him again and press him into the wall. I wanted just to have his body against mine and his arms around me again, and what the hell was I doing?
“I think we should…sit down.” He was trying so hard to stay in control.
“Not sitting down,” I spat out. Still angry. Still…
Hurt. I was bloody hurt. Fuming. Betrayed. All the feelings muddling up in a maelstrom inside of me.
Breathe. Breathe, Oliver.
I allowed myself to look at him. Really look at him. The way he was standing there, with his fingers nervously holding on to the worktop behind him. Small tapping noises, skin on wood.
His pyjama top was buttoned up wrong. And there…
He had such lovely arms. Strong. Athletic almost. Some chest hair peeking up from underneath. I’d seen him, of course I had. We’d shared a bed for weeks. Changed clothes in front of one another. I’d even once snuck a peek at his arse.
Peter Fenton was a handsome man. Still?
Granddad. Not my type.
His hair was a mess, and he looked exhausted. Like he’d been here this whole time with nobody to look after him. Care for him. Make him a nice cup of tea.
The thought of that was absurd. He was a grown man, and he could…
Shit.
“I’m going to make us a cup of tea,” I declared, making him flinch. Like I’d lunged at him or something. I supposed… Fuck. “And we’re going to sit down here and talk.”
“Yeah.” He sounded resigned. Sad. Oh, Peter.
Shame? I had none of it, not here, not now. If you fell? You took control. You managed the situation. I was trying to talk myself into action here, in my head, whilst my arms were opening cupboards and grabbing mugs and finding teabags as the kettle made weird noises.
It was empty. Of course it was, and I rolled my eyes as he sighed loudly. Grabbed a random cup from the cupboard. Chucked a teabag in. Filled the kettle up. Pressed boil. Another cup. Another teabag.
“That was Mary’s cup,” he said, far too fast, before stopping himself and hanging his head in shame.
“Sorry, Mary,” I said. Perhaps I sounded snarky. Perhaps I was irrationally irritated at that comment. Yet I wasn’t. I put the cup back and chose another one. They were all the same to me, colourful patterns on a pale background.
“ ’S okay,” he said quietly, as I turned around and stared at him again.
I seemed to do that now. Just stare. Like I had to convince myself that this was real.
That I had actually done this. Gone to find him like some knight on a side quest, and now I had won that part?
I had no idea what I was doing. “That’s her,” he said, motioning randomly at the old-fashioned sideboard in the kitchen.
“What?” I blurted out, not following him.
“Mary. Green box. She’s still here because I never got around to letting her go.”
Oh. Okay.
“Hi, Mary,” I said softly.
“Don’t.” He sounded irritated. Embarrassed.
“No,” I said sternly. “No, you don’t. You don’t get to dictate this. You don’t have the right…”
I was angry again. Fuck. I needed to control this. Own it. Make it…
“Peter.” I took control. All of the control. I walked up to him and grabbed his arms. His nice big arms. I liked how they felt under my hands and yet.
He smelled of sweat. Sweat and fear. Scents so familiar that I couldn’t even recoil at them. My arms were still there, though, my hands stroking up and down his sleeves.
Him. Fuck him.
“Go shower. Now. Get yourself dressed, and I will make the tea. Do you have food? I bet you do, because there’s no fucking catering truck here, and we’re sorting this now. I mean, what the hell, Peter? You’re supposed to be able to look after yourself!”
I didn’t know what made me do it, but I was not actually doing anything right here. Yet I was. Enough.
“Tell him, Mary.” I turned to the goddamn cardboard box on the shelf. “He’s better than this. Much better than this!”
“She’s dead,” he said flatly.
“And you’re not. You’re right here. With me.”
Good one, Oliver. Poetic. Gorgeous prose, mate.
“Yes…” He was smiling. Good. Unsure and terrified but… “And now we kiss?”
It wasn’t a statement. Nor a question. He was just pulling my leg, and I knew it, letting a small laugh slip out of my mouth.
“Sorry about that,” I whispered, still there, inhaling his stench. I didn’t think I cared.
“ ’S okay,” he said softly, his hand now stroking up my arm. Like we stood here in some kind of awful half-embrace. Too much. Far too little.
“I know,” he continued. “I’ll go get myself sorted. Feel at home. There’s toast in the freezer, I think. If you’re…hungry.”
“Go,” I said sternly, taking a deep breath as he did.
Too much. Too soon. I hadn’t thought this through, had I? Barging into his life like this?
“Sorry, Mary,” I whispered, then laughed out loud. Because seriously? I was doing this? “He’s a bloody mess and needs sorting out.”
I was probably talking about myself here, more than anything.
He returned, freshly showered, dressed in a ribbed top that almost indecently showed off his nipples through the fabric. Oh Peter, indeed.
But now, I had actually got myself more restrained, and the tea was on the table, alongside toast and marmalade, like I’d suddenly morphed into a domesticated granny…to match him to a T. No more bloody outbursts.
For fuck’s sake.
“You said I lied.” He opened the conversation, whilst still not being fully sat down. “I didn’t lie about anything.”
Okay? So we were going straight in there?
“You lied. You lied about being ready for everything they were about to throw at you. You lied about being there for the right reasons. And then you lied about me.”
“What?” He had raised his cup and put it right back down on the table. “Oliver, what are you on about?”
Me? I wanted to shout in his face. I didn’t. Because I was calm and unflappable. I was dealing with the problem at hand.
“You… Have you watched the show?”
Weak, Oliver, but hey…
“No!” His voice was awful. Irritated. “You were right there, you know all this! The scripts, the cutting, the way they will angle everything to follow their own narrative. Do you really think that anything that happened in there was real?”
Fucking hell.
“Arsehole,” I hissed out.
“I think if anyone is an arse right now, it’s you.”
Oh, so he did have it in him. Good. Anger was good. It made me sharp.
“You should have… You… You said you were…”
“Straight?” he filled in, taking a sip of tea, before putting the cup back on the table. “I think a long marriage and two children give me some right to use that label. Don’t you?”
“Fuck you,” I hissed.
“No. Get a grip, Oliver.”
He wasn’t kind. But neither was I.
“I had a phone call from the production company,” I stated, like it had any relevance here.
“They tried to threaten me if I didn’t come back.
Pushed all kinds of juvenile, pretend lawsuits in my face.
None of them would ever hold in a court of law.
I wasn’t born yesterday, but I think some of those kids were.
The guy, George? Can’t have been a day over twenty. He sounded like he was about to cry.”
“George,” he said flatly. “No idea who that was.”
“Production… I think he was the floor manager? Something like that.” I fiddled with my sleeve, suddenly deflated again.
“I missed you,” he suddenly said. “You’re right about that. We got on, and we had… It was nice, wasn’t it?”
He was trying to placate me, I could tell. Make it all soft and gentle again. Soothe the constant ache in my chest.
He wasn’t soothing anything. At least I wasn’t shaking or sweating. I felt strangely…okay.
“I’m staying,” I declared, another spurt of insanity shooting out of my mouth. His face was a picture. I secretly loved it.
“Okay?” He smiled.
“Yes,” I thundered on. “Because you obviously can’t look after yourself, and I still have time off and I just sit at home and mope, so at least…”
Shit.
“I don’t have a guest room,” he replied flatly.
“So what? I’m sleeping in your bed. Like I have for the past…what…month or something.”
“Two weeks and six days.”
“So you kept track.”
“Not hard to.”
I liked that he stood up to me. That we sparred like this. I liked that he fought back. It made me feel…
Strong. Because I was. And when I wanted something?
“You can’t just turn this into something it’s not, Oliver. We’re friends and yes, we got close and it was great, and I couldn’t have done this without you and…”
“AND!” I filled in, my voice too loud.
“I treated you…unfairly.” Oh, so now he was admitting to something. Good.
“You treated me like shit. In the end? You were an arse.”
“Maybe,” he said softly. “So you’re staying?”
The bastard. Changing the subject like that.
“I’m staying. Because if I go home, I will just go mad trying to figure this out. So I’m staying. And maybe I’m the arsehole here, pushing myself on you like this, but… It makes sense! It makes a lot of sense, and at the end of the day?” I had to stop. Breathe. Let out steam.
He calmly took a sip of his tea.
“Thank you for the tea. Tea always tastes better when someone else makes it for you. Don’t you think?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. I wanted to scream.
I did neither. I just sat there. Reached out and lifted the cup in front of me. Took a sip. Placed it back down. Calm and collected.
“No more shouting,” I said sternly. “It makes me nervous, so stop fighting this so hard.”
“I’m not fighting anything,” he said. “And you were the one shouting.”
His hands were shaking. Mine were not. It made me… I don’t know. Brave? Like I had finally turned a corner here.
But he was…my Peter. My old, stupid, grey Peter. He hadn’t shaved, and the softening stubble on his skin gave him a silvery sheen. A small smile was once again brewing on his face. Oh yes. He just couldn’t help himself. And neither could I.
“Stop it,” I said softly. “Because I know what you’re doing, and your stupid games won’t work on me. I’m going to look after you, and make you tea and get you out of this…this whatever state you’re in. Mary agrees with me.”
Stupid. Insensitive to the max, but here I went. Hell or high water. Because if I didn’t?
I was Oliver Jacobs. I got the job done. I wrote out the contract and got the client to sign. And I hadn’t gone into this with a view to come out empty-handed.
“We’re not on the show anymore,” he tried…weakly. He knew it as well.
“No, we’re not,” I agreed.
“Then what are we?”
A valid question.
“I don’t know.” At least someone was being honest here. Surprisingly, it was me.