Chapter 29 #2
Chad was babbling now about them being a great couple, ‘possibly the greatest since Jen and Brad.’ She fought to stem her laughter, but struggled.
‘Come on, Alicia. Don’t laugh at me. All I’m saying is people liked us together and would want us to reunite, so we should give the people what they want. A bit of Chalicia!’
‘Chalicia? Ugh. I’m not in the habit of basing my relationships around what other people want, Chad, and certainly not people I’ve never even met. We should concentrate on our separate careers.’
‘Why can’t we please people, concentrate on our careers and be together?’ Chad protested. ‘We were a great team, we had lots of fun.’
‘Oh, sure, having a video of me off my face leaked onto the internet, you drunk driving, us arguing about you drunk driving. I laughed until I cried.’
‘Thanks for bringing that up.’ Chad adopted his best wounded face. ‘I’ve peeled back layers of hurt to let that go.’
‘Well, sometimes you gotta keep on peeling that old trauma onion.’ Alicia lifted her mouth into a sarcastic smile.
‘That’s harsh.’
Although she was pleased with her come back, Alicia wouldn’t prick Chad’s ego too much because who knew what effluent might burst out. But what she would do was give him a reminder of what brought them to this point.
‘Look, Chad, I will bring stuff up because I didn’t do drugs with you.
I didn’t do anything of my own volition that would lead me to nearly fall in the pool, I didn’t use the C-word in a cheese shop or encourage you to punch someone, yet all these untruths still prevail, and I haven’t seen you do anything to convince anyone otherwise, yet you expect we will get back together because you’re ready now.
I mean, well done for getting through rehab and all, but you and me, we are over for good. That much is unequivocal.’
‘Really, AJ?’ Chad’s wounded face plummeted to new depths. ‘Think of your career. If we stuck together, you could get it back on track. I hear Marty Scorsese is casting a female Scandi assassin in his new movie—’
‘Great. I’ll ring him. Why would it take us being together for my career to resurrect itself? I was your puppet before but I operate without strings. I am a walking, talking creative human being. I don’t need you to get me back up on the pedestal I should never have fallen from in the first place.’
‘So, that’s no to the perks of being a power couple?’ Chad’s features creased with impatience that his charm offensive wasn’t paying off as quickly as he might have hoped.
‘The perks? Acting runs in my family’s blood, Chad. I was in diaper commercials when you were in diapers. And to be honest, I don’t want an acting career anymore. I’m going to focus on painting and not having my every move dissected all the time.’
‘Painting.’ Chad looked around the room at some of Alicia’s artwork. ‘You’re a talented artist, but colouring in doesn’t pay the bills.’
She inhaled a steadying breath. Chad’s attitude wasn’t any different than before, but now her senses were heightened and boy did it stink, like festering blue cheese.
‘Depends what bills you’re talking about,’ she said.
‘I’ve plenty money and I don’t need a stylist and a driver and a masseuse and a PT and all those things that you might consider vital. A simple life is fine for me.’
Chad gawped at Alicia as if she were speaking a foreign language. ‘I’ve no idea why you wouldn’t want an easier life, but okay. I can’t guarantee to still be single when you change your mind, though.’
‘I’ll take that chance.’ Alicia stifled amusement and wondered how he was unable to see how utterly egotistical he was. Probably because of his giant ego. He was living in a bubble.
Chad arose from the sofa and approached her on the other side of the coffee table.
‘You are still utterly enchanting, though, and you can’t blame for me trying to get you back.
Any sane man would.’ What was coming was obvious, and her stomach churned, Then, as Chad moved close enough for Alicia to smell his limey, herby scent a visceral nausea swept over her.
‘So beautiful,’ he mumbled, taking her cheeks into his clammy palms and moving his mouth towards hers. ‘I miss our magic so, so much.’
‘Chad, get your hands off me. You don’t get to do that anymore.’
‘Come on, sweetness,’ he drawled.
‘I said, no.’ Alicia tried to pull Chad’s hands down from her face. ‘Leave, please.’
‘You heard her. Leave. Or I’ll make you leave.’
Alicia swung round to the sight of her brother Connor filling the doorway, a bottle of whisky swinging by his side but the furious expression on his face suggesting he was stone-cold sober.
‘Sorry to barge in, Leesh, but I saw the A-hole licence plate in the drive and when you didn’t answer the door, I used the spare key.
Chad, how fucking lovely to see you here.
I’ve been meaning to have a chat with you.
Now could be the perfect time, so why don’t you get your hands off my sister’s face and sit down.
’ Connor strode with purpose towards Chad, much the way his character in Clan Bràthairs approached any enemy: with quiet yet pinpointed decisiveness, his face steel, eyes burning amber.
Chad, dropping his hold from Alicia’s cheeks, adopted the only defence he had which was to pretend that he and Connor were buddies. ‘Hey, Connor, good to see you, man. Loving Clan. Yeah, let’s chat. I had an idea for a project that you might be interested in…’
‘We’ll talk about that later. Or never? Yeah, never.
’ Connor loomed over Chad now, his gaze boring down on him.
Alicia knew her brother was furious on her behalf, but she didn’t want drama.
She’d spent time in Scotland distancing herself from so much of this situation.
Connor’s approach was putting the bulldozer into reverse.
And as noble as his intentions were, his confrontation with Chad only made her more conscious of her shame.
‘Connor, it’s fine. Chad, just go, please.’
‘It’s not fine, Alicia. Not by me.’
‘Connor.’ She wouldn’t raise her voice or say ‘this isn’t about you’ and give Chad any mileage, but it was the truth. It was her problem and she was dealing with it in her way. ‘I don’t want this.’
‘You heard the woman. Unhand me now.’ Chad quipped in a pseudo-English accent, clearly trying to lighten the atmosphere.’ Or what is it Murdo Galbraith says?’ He tried a Scottish brogue. ‘Get yer muckit paws aff us.’
Connor lifted one side of his mouth in a sardonic half smile, dropped it, indulged in a long, slow inhale and exhale. It was ambiguous as to whether he was trying to maintain composure in the face of Chad’s diversion tactics or if he was gearing up the energy for a fight.
‘You know what you are, Chad?’
Chad cocked his head to the side and pretended to think for a moment. ‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’
‘You’re scum. A pointless human being. I could throw you over that couch there or knock you out on the floor, but I respect what my sister wants, which is not a trace of you in her life anymore.
It’s a shame you don’t have that same respect.
So, you’re going to walk out of this house, and if I ever find that you’ve come anywhere near her again, then we will go ahead with the show we could have had here this afternoon.
And by the time I’ve finished with you, the only accent you’ll be able to do is a very muffled one crying for your mommy. Got it?’
Chad sized up Connor. He was stalling so as not to lose face but, unless he was stupid, he wouldn’t fight Connor, who was far taller and stronger, not to mention fuelled by injustice. Not that Chad would admit that.
‘Fine. I hear you, angry boy. You’ve put on a bit of pork around your belly, by the way. Might want to get a new PT.’
Connor just chuckled dismissively, wise enough to deflect the obvious wind up. He was in peak physical shape and Chad was searching for anything to gain points with.
‘Thanks for the hot tip,’ Connor retorted. ‘And you might want to go easy on the fillers. Your face is starting to resemble a bounce house.’
Alicia tried her best to stifle her laughter.
Chad would not take well to being riled like this.
As he made his way out of the room, he caught her expression and she could see he was piqued at her amusement, but he was limited in comebacks because he didn’t want to fight with Connor.
So instead he swiped with force across a painting of a picnic, making it fall to the ground and the glass of the frame smash into several sharp fragments.
Connor let out a guttural growl and stomped after Chad, but Alicia pulled at his t shirt.
‘Honestly, Con, I hate that painting. He’s done me a favour.’
‘Fine, but I’m going to make sure he leaves without causing any more damage. I promise I won’t say a word to him, unless I have to.’
‘You won’t have to,’ Alicia assured. ‘He’ll be too busy calling the salon to complain that the fillers they gave him made his face look like a bounce house. You’ve really hit him where it hurts.’
‘Good. About time he had a taste of his own medicine.’
Alicia couldn’t help but agree.
Ten minutes later, with Chad firmly departed and a return unlikely, Alicia sat with Connor in the kitchen. She hadn’t realised at the time quite how much adrenaline his visit had generated but in the stillness of the room her booming heart rate was now audible.
‘Butler’s Eas Inchafallon. The finest Scottish malt.’ Connor placed the bottle on the counter. ‘You ready for a dram?’
Alicia was, but drinking Butler’s whisky was like opening a dam and letting in a torrent of emotions. Every sip would be a journey back to Scotland. To Jamie.
‘Sure,’ she said to Connor. If anything, she needed to calm her nerves and soothe the awkwardness that came with facing with her brothers, with having to look them in the eye.
What had they seen? Ugh. She’d rather usher him away and never know.
But Connor – her big brother – had protected her, so Alicia would try to get through the awkwardness, employing the tactic of sketching while they drank.
As they sipped Jamie’s malt, Connor talked about all things Clan Bràthairs and Scotland and Alicia let her pencil sway across the page.
‘But I want to hear about your trip,’ he said as he poured them each a second dram. ‘Give me all the goods. Let me live vicariously through you.’
‘You’ll be going to Scotland to film again soon, won’t you?’
‘Yeah, but I need my fill now. Tell me where you went, who did you meet? Did you go to Glencoe?’
‘That’s a no to Glencoe. But yes to the Kintyre Peninsula and also to a beautiful hotel in the Highlands.
’ A misty calm washed over Alicia thinking about the view from her lodge window of Ben Corrin and the surrounding mountains.
And then there was Jamie. He belonged in that landscape – rugged, commanding and utterly captivating. God, she missed him.
‘And there was a man, right?’ Connor asked, astutely.
‘Pardon?’
‘Well, who’s that you’ve been sketching for the past twenty minutes?’ Connor motioned to the pad on Alicia’s knee. ‘I assumed you were drawing me but, handsome as I am’—he affected a Scottish accent—‘that’s no ma coupon.’
Alicia stared at the pad where Jamie’s striking face gazed back at her. She had absent-mindedly been creating his likeness on the page.
‘Oh, that’s just…no one.’
Connor laughed. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay, not exactly no one.’ Alicia affected nonchalance with a casual shrug. ‘That’s Jamie. Jamie Butler.’
‘Jamie Butler of the clan Butler.’ Connor spoke in a dramatic movie trailer voice. ‘Maker of whisky and lover of women.’
‘Yes, funny, that’s exactly how he didn’t introduce himself.’
‘What?!’ Connor’s jaw dropped open. ‘I was kidding. You met the owner of Butler’s whisky?’
‘Yes. Well, his father owns it, but Jamie will inherit it all.’
‘Woah! I have to meet the guy, tell him his whisky is out of this world.’
‘Okay, well, you’ll have to track him down yourself. Too many complications for this girl.’
‘Looks pretty simple to me.’ Connor indicated the sketch pad. Then he thumped his heart. ‘Follow this, Breagha.’
‘Sorry, what?’ Connor was always quoting from his show, finding a line to match every occasion. Some had a lyrical beauty to them.
‘I mean follow your heart. And Breagha means beautiful. Because you are, Leesh, and you deserve to be happy, more than any of us. You clearly have this guy embedded somewhere in your soul. Maybe it’s time to do a bit of rearranging of the emotional furniture.’
Alicia had always known Connor to be the most sensitive of her brothers, but this was a new aspect. Rearranging emotional furniture. Wow! as Jamie would say.
‘Are you mellowing at last, little bro?’ she asked.
‘Ha! Not a chance. Just been working on some stuff and it’s taught me some stuff. Think about what I said, though.’
‘I will,’ Alicia conceded. If Connor could work on himself from the inside, there was no excuse for anyone else. She would try her best to make the most out of therapy and see what it meant for her emotional furniture.