Chapter 35
35
CARRIE
I genuinely can’t believe I wasted any more tears over that… that… ape . That man child . That total, complete ass of an excuse for a human being.
‘Honey, come sit with us,’ Ella says, and though she doesn’t say it like one of the Mean Girls asking me to sit with the Plastics for lunch, the way every woman around the table – Ella, Alisha, Jenny, Monique and now Lola – is watching, it feels a little like I’m the new girl in the high-school diner.
Beaming outwardly, sighing inwardly, I realize this is precisely why I don’t want to, didn’t, or shouldn’t have, gotten sucked in by Luke’s charm again.
Throwing one last scowl in the direction of my ex, I find him slumped huffily on a sofa next to Joe – my billionaire client, my last gig before partnership, best friend of my nemesis who, despite every smart cell in my warped brain, I’m unable to stay away from. Apparently, distance and time are a cure for absolutely nothing.
Because even while we were arguing by the coffee machine, I was watching his lips move, seeing the signs of last night’s passion in the plump skin. I felt the skin of my neck tingle where he kissed it just hours ago, remembering how the day-old growth around his chin deliciously grazed my cheeks, my stomach, my inner thighs.
I sit at the table and find the silent curiosity has turned brazen… ‘So you and Luke slept together, huh?’ Alisha says.
Either my imagination is playing tricks on me or there is a genuine twinkle of mischievousness about her irises.
Horrified, I try to buy myself time to think of a response to Alisha’s outrageously invasive— Oh screw it. It’s written all over my face, evident from that blow-up Luke and I just had.
‘I’m not surprised,’ Lola says. ‘That man was looking at you all day yesterday like he was going to devour you.’
He was? I hate myself for the way the idea turns me on. Maybe I was too busy looking at him like I wanted to devour him to notice whether it was reciprocal.
But I’m not stupid. There’s insane chemistry between Luke and me. A lack of sexual chemistry was never the problem.
Still, I’m not used to this level of direct questioning from anyone other than Callum and, honestly, there’s rarely anything I have to tell on the romance front. So I fumble a response. ‘I— Ah—’ Blowing a raspberry like someone far younger than even a high-school girl, I shrug. ‘Yes. But look, I’m here for work, and I swear it doesn’t change anyth?—’
‘You’re not speaking to my husband now,’ Ella says, wafting a hand. ‘What’s said in girl talk stays in girl talk. But I will tell you, Luke is a good man, and we all approve, not that you need our approval or blessing or anything like it. I’ll also say this: Joe, whose business this really oughtn’t to be, won’t be angry or sad or whatever you’re worried he’ll be thinking, Carrie. In fact, I didn’t want to be the one tell you this but here goes?—’
Ella doesn’t have a chance to finish her sentence because Luke has leapt up off the sofa, Joe has followed, and they’re facing each other down like boxers before fight night.
Luke is yelling. ‘You did what? Why in the hell would you do that?’
‘Oh boy,’ Ella says, pulling my attention back to her from the show of testosterone. ‘He finally told him.’
‘What am I missing?’ I ask, my head spinning back and forth like a boomerang between Ella and Luke and Joe.
‘I’d just like to flag,’ Alisha says, ‘I didn’t know about this until I was already on island and embroiled against my will.’
‘Know about what?’ I ask, getting the distinct feeling there’s something I really should know that I definitely don’t.
But no one replies before Luke runs like an NFL player into Joe’s waist, propelling him over the back of the sofa, both men landing on the wood floor with a thud and the kind of groans that generally come from aging, aching bones.
Ella and I move closer to the action, where we can see both men rolling onto all fours to come up to stand. ‘I think, if you just take a pause, you’ll see this as a good thing,’ Joe is saying.
‘A good thing?’ Luke near screams, unsexily high-pitched, before diving across Joe’s back. Joe crawls around, thrashing like an animal under attack to throw Luke off him.
‘I feel worse this morning than I ever did!’ Luke shouts.
‘So it was a make-or-break situation,’ Joe defends. ‘Either way, you can move forward.’
Though I have no idea what they’re arguing about, his words strike a chord in my brain that I might be able to consider if I weren’t watching this display of adolescence, a little horrified on both their behalves, honestly, but also grateful that the attention is no longer on my sex life.
Dave and Thom glance to Ella and me. ‘Should we step in here?’ Dave asks in a Peaky Blinders accent.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve gone at it,’ Thom adds in his Michael Caine-esque accent. ‘It’s your call, Ella; you’re the matriarch.’
Ella holds up a hand in instruction. ‘Give them a minute.’
Joe manages to roll over and pin Luke to the floor, Joe’s back to Luke’s stomach.
‘You had no right to interfere,’ Luke is saying, struggling beneath Joe until somehow Luke is on top of him and they seem to be running through a playbook of sex positions. So much so, I’m biting my lip to stop myself laughing.
‘I did it to make you happy, Luke. You’re my friend and I’m tired of seeing you miserable.’
Joe’s words seem to tame Luke for a moment. He stills, still straddling Joe’s waist and pinning his arms to the ground. ‘I’m not miserable.’
‘You can be, honey,’ Ella shouts, receiving a glare from Luke in return. ‘Sorry, not my business.’
‘You knew about this?’ Luke asks, his eyes flicking to mine briefly then back to Ella.
‘I… You know what he’s like, Luke. When Joey sets his mind on something…’
Luke moves to… slap??? Joe. Joe slaps back and they’re having some kind of purses-at-dawn-type slapping wrestle.
‘You know I’m a black belt,’ Joe says.
‘Black belt or not, Hettich, we’re in the middle of a goddamned hurricane! What were you thinking ?’ Luke shouts, with, I think, genuine fury in his expression.
Joe holds up his palms. ‘Now that I do feel bad about.’
Luke swipes at Joe’s palms and they’re rolling around the floor again.
Noah and Toby have left their games to come and watch whatever the heck is happening on the floor between their father and godfather. ‘Mom, is Dad okay?’ Noah asks.
‘Oh, yeah, honey. They’re just, ah, play fighting, that’s all.’
‘Play fiiiiiiiiiight!!!’ Noah yells.
Then Toby is yelling too and they’re charging toward the wrestlers, leaping into the fight. Then the four boys – two probably more mature mentally despite being younger in age than the others – are all piled up and shouting and laughing and I swear, I still have no clue what this whole hullaballoo is about.
Somehow, between the madness of it all, Luke is looking at me and I’m looking back at him and I think, maybe, he’s apologizing.
His apology could be for one thing or a thousand. I have no idea.
All I’m left feeling is… sad.
Why is life never straight forward?
As if Planet Earth herself wants to let me in on something, there’s a roar outside that cuts through all the noise inside. There’s a crash and a bang of the magnitude I’ve never heard so close. Through the thin slatted windows that sit high in the wall on one side of the basement, the sky has grown darker. Thick grey clouds interspersed with darts of color and debris. The sound of corrugated iron screeching, scraping, coming loose is the worst symphony I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear.
The men and boys all pause in their brawling positions on the floor, until Toby clings to his dad and says, ‘I don’t like it.’
‘It’s okay, buddy, nothing can hurt us down here. It’s just wind,’ Joe reassures him. I wish his words could reassure me too.
I follow Luke and Henry to a side table up against the one wall with windows and tentatively climb on top of it alongside them, hoping it’s made well enough to withstand the weight of three adult – meh, two and a half – humans. As I peer through the thin, wide window, I can’t believe what I’m seeing is real. The sea’s waves are menacingly huge – significantly higher than when we were making our way back to Charithonia in the boat yesterday. They’re washing onto the shore so far that most of the beach is underwater.
Palm trees are swaying from left to right at such angles, they defy gravity, their branches thrashing against one another. There’s so much debris in the air – leaves, tree branches, metal, plastic, God knows what else – that the sky looks as busy as a trash heap.
Is that a flying door?
The island is going to be destroyed.
I look back at the faces in the room, at the kids cuddling their parents. Suddenly, the fight between Joe and Luke, whatever it was about, the animosity between Luke and me, it fades into the background of what really matters and that is keeping the people in this space safe.
‘Should we close the shutters?’ I ask.
‘I think that’s sensible,’ Henry says. ‘She’s only going to get worse until the eye of the storm is around us.’
‘Isabel is a bizarrely pretty name for something so grumpy,’ Jenny says behind us. I have to agree and I’m about to say as much when the lights in the basement flicker, then, together with the television, they go out. Right at the same time, the shutters close over all the windows.
‘It’s a default setting when the electricity goes out,’ someone, maybe Kevin, says.
I can’t tell because the space is in complete darkness and my eyes are struggling to adjust. Feeling unsteady on my feet, I reach a hand out to the wall and I’m about to crouch down to get off the tabletop when two big hands are on my sides.
I do recognize the next voice I hear. Even if I hadn’t, I would have known it was Luke who is steadying me, simply from the way he holds me. I lean into him and he lifts me down from the table to the floor but doesn’t let me go. Our torsos are touching, my hands are on his biceps, his scent is all around me and I don’t need light to know he’s looking at me, that he’s also been thrust back into a memory of last night.
The fire between us, the familiarity of every stroke, each nip and nibble, the tenderness of his teeth against my skin, the softness of his lips against mine. Despite the cries of children in the room, I feel as if I can hear the beating of his heart, the fast, rhythmic beating that’s in tune with mine.
When there’s a loud click and the lights come back on, for the briefest of moments, we’re still alone in the room, the bad stuff forgotten for the second it takes me to proverbially step back onto the brighter side of sanity.
Luke asks me, ‘Are you okay?’
I nod because that’s all I feel capable of. The room becomes louder as I fully tune in to the distress of the kids, the soothing and shushing of their families in response, the booms, the crashes, and the thunderous roar of the wind outside.
‘What can I do to help?’ I ask Ella, who’s holding Toby against her chest and stroking his hair.
‘The lights are back now, sweetie, you’re fine,’ she’s saying on repeat. ‘Distractions,’ she says to me.
I look around the space. ‘Distractions, got it!’ My eyes land on a large toy chest, so I make a beeline for it. Inside, there’s a wealth of boxed games. Some I recognize, others I don’t. I do remember the one with four hippos and a stash of marbles, so I take that one out. ‘Who would like to play this with me?’
The response isn’t immediate but eventually, Noah and Toby head my way and I set up the game on the coffee table.
‘Ah, I used to love this one,’ Luke says, also coming to sit on the floor with us. ‘Can I be the blue hippo?’
‘No,’ Toby says emphatically. ‘You can be yellow, Uncle Luke. Aunty Carrie, you can be green.’
I don’t hear which of the boys takes the other two hippos because I’m too distracted by becoming Aunty Carrie. I should tell them it’s not the case. I’m just their father’s tax advisor, temporarily at that, but the way everyone in this room has accepted me into this safe haven and made me feel welcome – Luke aside – makes me accept the comment and the green hippo instead.
We play two rounds of the hippopotamus game, I think – it’s hard to know where one game ends and another begins. There’s squabbling and shouting, lots of flying marbles and slamming of animals. I’m not entirely sure which of the boys won. But I judge the success on the fact that neither boy is worried about the storm, even though the generator trips in and out multiple times as we play.
It’s going well, until the roaring outside gets louder and the walls of this apparently fail-safe basement begin to tremble as if we’re in an earthquake. I know the air pressure has increased because my ears have popped as if I’m on an airplane and with all of this going on, I can’t stop myself from looking around the space, seeing the worry on the faces of everyone else too, and wondering if this is really as safe as Joe has made out.
‘Hey,’ Luke whispers. He reaches his hand toward mine on the coffee table then stops himself. ‘We’re good down here. It’s going to be fine.’
‘It’s not going to be fine, Luke,’ I say quietly. ‘We might be but the islands are going to be ruined by this.’
I wait for him to argue, to tell me I’m wrong, and when he simply nods, my spirits drop further still, as if this day hadn’t started at rock bottom in any event.
‘Mom, my ears hurt,’ Noah says, and Ella and Joe replace Luke and me at the coffee table so their family of six is sitting around the hippo game. Ella mouths thank you to me as I uncross my legs and stand, rubbing my own ears where the pressure is starting to be painful.
‘How about it?’ Luke asks. He’s standing by the toy chest with a wooden chess board in his hands.
‘With you?’ I ask, knowing the answer. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Don’t you play, Carrie?’ Joe asks.
‘She plays,’ Luke tells him, his eyes still fixed on me. ‘She’s never beaten me, though.’
We’ve played multiple times, in fact. Always by the light of his wall fire in his New York apartment. We’d play, we’d drink wine, eat food, talk into the early hours of the morning, and wake up in each other’s arms. But he’s right. It was a game he always won, just like in life. Except… ‘I’ve only never beaten you because you don’t play fair. You’re dishonest.’ I scowl at him, knowing he understands the double meaning of my words. ‘The one time I had you in check, you flipped the board.’
‘Ha. That sounds like Luke. Sore loser,’ Joe says, receiving a murderous look from Luke in response.
It’s true, Luke flipped the board. He couldn’t stand not getting his own way. So he turned the board and then crawled across the floor of his lounge and turned me on until I surrendered.
‘He certainly never played fair,’ I say. He didn’t play fair that night and he definitely didn’t play fair when he led me on, made me fall in love with him, showed me the kind of highs I’d never, have never, known with anyone else, then left me.
‘I promise I will, if you give me a chance,’ Luke says, already manipulating the situation. Already making me wonder if he’s also making me an offer of something that’s nothing to do with the game.
‘No.’ I won’t fall for it.
‘Are you that afraid?’ he asks.
You’re damn right I am. Terrified, in fact. Because last night, I was right back there. I was falling.
‘You don’t scare me, Luke. To be afraid, I’d have to care, and I don’t. It’s all just a game.’
We seem to have moved closer to each other. Me to him, or him to me, I’m not sure how but we’re facing each other, staring each other down, just a fraction of air between us.
‘If it’s just a game, you might as well play and have some fun. Unless you can’t because it isn’t just a game.’
I feel my eyes narrow, my brow crease, and I sense the others in the basement wondering what the hell is going on. I’m curious myself. ‘Fine.’
‘Fine.’
‘Oh great,’ Joe says. ‘Everyone’s fine again.’
From the corner of my eye, I see Ella flick him with the back of her hand, though I won’t be first to blink or take my focus from Luke. When his eyelids eventually close for a nanosecond, I feel myself grin like the Wicked Queen after Snow White takes a bite of her poisonous apple.