49
Sailor
Accidental Spying
I WOKE WITH A START, FEELING as though something was terribly wrong.
Sitting upright where I lay on the floor, the blanket that I’d kept after X covered me in the garden slid off my shoulders and pooled around my waist.
He did it again…
Cool air licked around my nakedness.
For a second, I couldn’t remember why I was bare in the middle of my equally bare living room.
But then, I remembered.
X.
Sex.
Best day of my life.
Spinning around, I looked behind me to where my stalker turned lover had been sleeping.
And froze.
Empty.
I brushed my fingers over the cushions and recoiled.
Cold.
He’s been gone a while.
Scrambling to my feet, I glanced at the clothes scattered on the floor. His t-shirt tangled with mine, but his trousers and boots were gone.
My heart turned into a lump of ice.
No…
Wrapping the blanket around my shoulders, I stumbled into the kitchen. The cupboards were still closed, the fridge tucked tight instead of flung open by a ghost. Scanning the countertops, I searched for a note or a sign that X hadn’t vanished. That he hadn’t upped and left without a goodbye.
My phone.
Darting back into the living room, I grabbed my jean-shorts and fished my phone from the pocket. Swiping it on, I scanned the social notifications and noticed a few messages from Lily but nothing from X.
Not a single word or apology or explanation.
A slithering, stinging agony crept through me, coiling around my organs and climbing up the step ladder of my ribs.
He couldn’t just leave…not after what we’d done.
Not after what we’d felt.
Hot, blistering tears threatened to fall, but I sniffed them back.
No.
I wouldn’t cry.
Not over this.
Not because of him.
He might be coming back.
I clung to my mind’s excuse.
That’s right.
He might have left to grab some dinner. He was coming back and—
He didn’t take his t-shirt.
Where could he go at this time of night shirtless?
He might be upstairs…
I gasped and tore toward the corridor. Taking the steps two at a time, my blanket flaring like a cape, I careened into my old bedroom, the office, and finally my new room at the front.
Each empty.
Each dark and dangerous with shadows.
Goblin-Milton stalked my thoughts, ready to throw nasty slurs into my ears. The house cracked and settled, making me prickle with the urge to check behind the doors and hide in the bathroom.
But…I was better now.
I wouldn’t let him win.
Balling my hands, I stood in the dark and dared the phantom of my past to mock me.
And nothing.
The only thing I heard was the pounding of my heart and silence. Painful, heavy silence that I hadn’t heard since I’d gotten Peng. Just having his little soul in the house had eradicated that emptiness. That cavernous loneliness that seemed to have its own frequency.
Fresh horror filled me. “Peng?” Racing back down the stairs, I turned on all the lights. My eyes scanned every nook and cranny, searching for the ginger fluffball.
“Penguin?”
Not in the kitchen.
Not in the living room or snug or laundry.
“Peng?!”
Bolting outside, I stood on the deck and blinked into the overgrown garden. “Peng!”
No meow.
No hiss.
My knees threatened to buckle. Tears broke my control and rolled.
“Here, kitty, kitty. Where are you?”
I stood trembling, waiting, begging him to answer me.
I-I have to find him.
Flying off the deck, I ran barefoot over the grass. The blanket flared out; my fingers lost their grip. The heavy protection plummeted to the ground, leaving me completely nude beneath the stars.
Shit!
I couldn’t go running through the neighbourhood naked, no matter how closeknit we all were.
“Peng!”
Still no reply.
Had he run away? Got hit by a car? Stolen?
“Penguin, please!”
Fear choked me as I galloped back inside. Gritting my teeth so I didn’t give into my sobs, I wrenched on the same clothes I’d been wearing before X stripped me, then shot back into the night.
Slamming through the back gate, I skidded down the garden path and tripped onto the road. “Peng? Come here, little man. Where are you?”
Turning on the spot, I looked up and down Ember Drive.
No flash of a tail.
No gleam of green eyes.
Doing another circle, I spied a car parked next to Zander’s on his drive. I’d seen it before. It belonged to Colin, his colleague.
Perhaps they’ve seen him?
Jogging up Zander’s front veranda, I rang the doorbell.
I tapped my foot and kept scanning the street.
Come on. Hurry up.
No one came.
“ Argh !” Charging down the steps, I paused on his driveway. I could door knock all my neighbours, but Peng knew Zander. If he was going to visit anyone, it would be him, right?
Feeling a little guilty for trespassing, I ran down the side of his house, heading toward his back garden. I wouldn’t be interrupting too badly. He couldn’t be asleep if he had company. So why hadn’t he answered the door?
Weaving my way around the intricate box hedging some landscape designer had done for him, I looked up just in time for Colin to force a large glass of water into Zander’s hands.
Zander sat slouched in a rattan chair in the conservatory. The all-glass walls gave me a perfect view of the potted ferns and redheaded doctor who looked as if he’d been run over.
Sympathy clenched my aching heart.
He worked too much.
He cared about others too much.
Did something happen in surgery?
Had he lost a patient?
He must have because he looked as if he’d lost something desperately important. His eyes pinched, and jaw clenched, and when he tossed his head back, he spilled most of the water on his leg then almost dropped the glass. “That was her. I know it was.”
Colin slid into the matching chair and reached over the small table to keep him upright. Extracting the glass from his friend’s fingers, he placed it safely on the table and shook his head. “I wish there was a miracle pill to cure drunken idiots like you.”
I froze in the garden, hidden behind a trimmed bush.
I didn’t want to intrude if Zander was having a bad night. I’d heard doctors hid their mental health to be the best they could be for their patients. But if Zander was this bad, it meant work had gone very bad and I had no right to—
“I should’ve opened the door,” Zander groaned. “I need to start making her want me like this so I don’t lose her.”
The open door of the conservatory delivered their voices directly to me.
I shouldn’t eavesdrop, yet…I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Yeah, no one is gonna like you like this, believe me. You definitely shouldn’t let her see you in this condition,” Colin muttered. “You’re a mess. The moment she saw you, she’d figure everything out.”
“Nope.” Zander tried to shake his head but slouched deeper in the chair. “She wouldn’t. Like you said, Superman worked. She has no idea. None.” He zipped his lips with a drunken grimace. “That’s why when he dies, she will never know.”
“And you’re back to talking gibberish.” Colin stretched, kicking out his legs with a groan. “How about you tell me what’s eating you, and then I’m going to stuff half that pizza in your face, and you’re going to bed.”
Zander threw him a scowl. “I brought her car back.”
Colin groaned. “Dude, we just talked about this. Stop talking in cryptic code. It’s frustrating as hell.”
“I’m not.” Zander struggled to sit taller. “I’m trying to tell you what happened if you stop interrupting.”
Colin smirked. “Sure, by all means. Go right ahead.”
Zander nodded sagely. “I have a spare set of keys for her car. Her granddad gave them to Gran decades ago, saying she could use his car whenever she needed to. Which was a mistake ’cause I’d banned her from driving the day I caught her pressing the accelerator instead of the brake pedal. She almost flattened the garage and herself.”
“Interesting. Does this little story have a point?”
“The point—” Zander swayed and closed his eyes. “—the point is, I had the keys, so I went back to the movies and drove her car back. It was my fault it was stranded there after bringing her home on my bike. Do you know I kissed her that night? Did I tell you?”
“You didn’t. How did that go?” Colin crossed his arms.
“About as well as you’d expect.” Zander sighed. “It couldn’t even be called a kiss. I should’ve asked permission, right? I tried kissing her, and she freaked out, and fuck, I should’ve asked before I did it.”
My worry over Peng overrode my desire to listen to my neighbour have a drunken moment. He hadn’t told me he’d been the one to return my car. It was yet another favour he’d done, all while expecting nothing in return.
Tomorrow, I would pop round and deliver the vanilla sponge I’d made him. I’d look him in the eye and thank him profusely for all he’d done for me, but then I’d tell him we could only be friends because I’d fallen in love with a masked flight-risk of a man, and it wouldn’t be fair to lead him on. As incredible as he was—as sweet and kind and thoughtful as he’d proven to be, now that I’d tasted the level of freedom with X…I didn’t think I could be with a man who asked permission for every kiss.
Backing into the shadows, I held my breath in case they spotted me.
God, that would be next-level embarrassment after what I’d heard.
Taking another step backward, I swallowed my yelp as something squeaked.
Twisting around, I narrowed my eyes in the dark…then dropped to my knees in absolute relief. “ Penguin !” Snatching my wayward kitten into my arms, I made sure to keep my exclamation to a whisper. “Where have you been, you naughty cat?” Burrowing my face into his scruff, I rocked and squished him. “Good God, I was so worried.”
He purred and wriggled, his little body as fizzy as I felt inside.
Pulling him away from me, I held him upright—his little legs dangling and green eyes blinking innocently. “Don’t you ever do that again; do you hear me?”
He meowed quietly.
Gathering him against my chest, I struggled to my feet and went to head toward the fence palings to go home. Damn kitten probably ran away because he was hungry. I’d neglected him all thanks to X’s distraction. Therefore, I would feed him until he was too fat to waddle anywhere. “You’re grounded, Mr Fluff—”
“—and it was the best sex of my life.”
I froze, my gaze whipping back to the conservatory where Zander sat slouched with his elbows on his knees. His voice echoed in the garden, licking around my feet. “I’ve never felt that way…with anyone.”
Stinging jealousy hit me.
Which made no sense as I’d just made up my mind to establish boundaries between us, yet…hearing that he actually had a life outside of this suburb?
It hurt.
Like…really hurt.
W-Who did he sleep with?
Not that I had any right to be possessive after what I’d just done.
“Okay, so you’re in love with her. I could’ve told you that years ago. In fact, pretty sure I did. Multiple times.” Colin sniffed, looking at Zander with very little sympathy. “I told you to ask her out, and what did you do? You decided that falsifying your identity was a better idea.”
Wait, what?
My arms stiffened around Peng as Zander raked his hands through his hair. “I’ve messed everything up so bad.”
“Meh, don’t beat yourself up. These things happen. Just come clean and—”
“I can’t come clean.” Zander’s red-rimmed eyes shot up. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and a pang of familiarity kicked me in the gut.
An image of X spliced over Zander. Replace the red hair with black and—
“I hurt her tonight, Col. I-I bruised her like he did, and—”
“Hold up.” Colin adopted a patient-doctor pose, eyeballing his friend. “You said that on the phone. I know I’ve been supporting you with this crazy idea, but only because you did it for the right reasons. You were supposed to help her, Zan, so…how did it go from helping her to hurting her?”
My heart rate picked up.
Something itched inside, growing more and more intense the longer I stood there. Even Peng didn’t struggle, lolling in my arms and watching the two men.
“I-I let go.” Zander groaned. “She told me to stop thinking of others and put myself first for a change.”
“Sounds like wise advice. Go on.”
“I went over there angry as hell. And…I did something.”
“You fucked her, you mean.”
Zander didn’t respond.
The itch grew worse and worse, intuition flaring brighter and brighter. The rasp of Zander’s drunken voice sounded so similar to the gravel whispered into my ear when X took me from behind. The way Zander suddenly launched out of his chair and paced the conservatory as if needing to run, unable to stay…
No… My arms wrapped tighter around Peng. It can’t be .
“I snapped, alright?” Zander spun around, agony etching his face. “Fuck, what have I done, Col? Why did I think I could do this? Why did I go this far? Why did I go over there when I knew I was at my limit? She absolutely petrified me by climbing up that ladder. I should’ve walked away the moment she was safely on the ground. I should’ve torn off my mask and told her. I mean…I’d already gone too far, but at least I hadn’t slept with her. Fuck !”
Wiping his mouth, he continued to pace with jerky, horrified steps. “I told her to pick a safe word for Christ’s sake. I fucked her without telling her who I was. I don’t care that it was the best experience of my life. I had no right to do that. None. And now I’ve fucked everything up because there’s no way in hell I can tell her, and I have to move. I’m going to leave because I can’t look her in the eye, and when X doesn’t come back, she’ll swear off men anyway. I took my chance, and I blew it. And I deserve to have blown it. What sort of bastard does what I did? What sort of asshole bruises her that badly when she’s only just healed from another asshole’s marks?”
Storming into Colin, he snarled, “I’ll tell you what sort of asshole. Me. I’m the asshole. And if she finds out, she’ll call the police and, fuck…I’m still being selfish. I should call the police. I should turn myself in on her behalf because what I did was wrong, and that isn’t me, and fuck me, I can’t do this.”
Throwing himself into the chair, he buried his face into his hands.
Colin sat there unfazed, watching his friend have a breakdown.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
I’d heard every word, yet I couldn’t compute.
He knew things he shouldn’t if he wasn’t X. His voice was the same. His mannerisms the same. Yet my mind and heart still saw him as two completely different people.
I literally couldn’t combine them.
I couldn’t see my slightly standoffish doctor who barely slept and did house calls asking me to kneel and suck him.
It…just… they’re not the same .
Peng squirmed closer, no doubt feeling my thundering heart. I kissed the top of his head, my mind spinning. Every moment of X interacting with Peng collided. Of Peng clinging to X. Of Peng acting as if he knew him.
“ Oh my God ! You knew all along,” I gasped, glaring at the kitten. “You little traitor!”
He yawned as if this was old news, and I was just an ignorant human.
He’d probably followed him when Zander left earlier tonight, sneaking to his house as if he belonged.
The movies.
The messages.
I gasped as every clue slipped into place.
I’d messaged X at the cinema, but Zander was the one who turned up.
I’d been afraid of being alone, and Zander gifted me a cat.
I’d been at the market with X messaging me, but Zander had been there too…
I’d screamed in my sleep, and X turned up…in bare feet.
He knew all the right things to say to me.
Knew my routines. My habits. My likes and dislikes and…
H-He bought me a dildo.
I froze as more memories crashed into one another.
He knew where my spare key was.
He knew where my bedroom was to sneak beneath my covers and hold me.
He knew how much Milton broke me because he was there. In the ER. As a doctor. He’d seen with his own eyes the mess I’d been and…
Oh my God.
He gave me an orgasm after I begged him.
He tried to refuse me because of his lies.
He led me on and fibbed to my face, and…every night he said he watched me, he hadn’t done it by camera but through a damn window.
How was I so blind?
My eyes shot to the side of his house beneath the gutters. His home security blinked a red dot in the dark. Just like the camera at the front of his house pointed at my place, the back one did too—the angle perfectly in line with my garden.
Okay, not just via a window.
He used his home network to record me. He didn’t stand on the street or peer through my bushes; he literally had me on a video feed no matter where he was.
Anger bubbled, hotter and hotter.
How dare he.
How damn well dare he stalk into my life and spin a web of lies.
The house of flimsy cards he’d built around me came tumbling down in a puff of wind.
The plate in my letterbox.
The forced scratchy voice to hide his true baritone.
The way he knew the layout of my house.
The uncanny timing whenever I wasn’t coping.
I…I felt violated, all while protected. Betrayed and confused and—
“Now that you’ve got that off your chest, let’s get rational instead of emotional, alright?” Colin sniffed with faint annoyance.
Zander didn’t respond, keeping his face buried.
Standing, Colin held up his hand. “Let’s look at the facts, shall we? I’m sure you’ll see it’s not nearly as bad as you think it is. First…” Holding up a single finger, he smiled. “You’ve loved her since you were a geeky little teenager, and seeing her hurt after what that cunt—and yes, he’s a cunt, not an asshole—did to her, you knew she wouldn’t know how or be willing to accept your help, so…you did what you thought was best.”
Holding up a second finger, he added, “Secondly, you put your reputation, mental health, and heart on the line the moment you gave her a phone and offered to be the therapist she didn’t know she needed. You were being the best kind of doctor and human by giving her an outlet to talk because you were right…she was sinking into agoraphobia and claustrophobia and it would’ve only gotten worse unless she addressed it.”
Up went finger number three. “Thirdly, it was me who suggested you be prepared for seeing her in person, and I’ll take the blame that I gave you the disguise you needed. I hate to say I told you so, but even if all her instincts said it was you behind the black hair and contacts, those two things, plus the mask, were enough to keep you hidden in plain sight. Don’t feel bad about that, Zan, it’s just biology. We humans are stupid creatures.”
Taking a deep breath, Colin held up a fourth finger. “Fourthly—is that even a word? Doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t matter. Apart from work, I’ve never seen you have a hobby or interest outside of the hospital. Sure, choosing stalking as your favourite pastime might not be the best thing, but it’s forgivable because your intentions were pure. You were there for her. You were there when she had those panic attacks. You had more sleepless nights than usual because you put her needs before yours. And you did absolutely everything—including giving up your own peace of mind—to heal hers which leads me to my fifth and final thing.”
Zander slowly lifted his head. “And what’s that?”
Colin smiled gently and lowered his hand. “You say you hurt her? That you let go? I say bullshit and good for you. In the same sentence.”
“What the fuck, Col? I-I bruised her and—”
“Was she begging you to stop?”
“No, but—”
“Was she fighting you off?”
“No, but that’s—”
“Was she screaming for someone to save her?”
“No, she—”
“I rest my case.” Sitting down with a smug smile, Colin patted Zander on the shoulder. “You, my friend have finally learned to let go and put yourself first for once, and it sounds like you both had a fabulous time.”
“But I hurt—”
“Dude, give it a rest .” Colin threw his hands up. “So you roughed her up a bit? You said you gave her a safe word. She knew what she was getting into. Did she use it? Did you ignore her? Are you saying you raped her because if you did, I’ll take you to the police myself, but if you didn’t, then I’m seconds away from beating some sense into you because you have got to realise you can’t keep living your life like this. You can’t keep putting everyone else first. You did it with your grandparents, with your sisters, and with her. You need to be cared for just as much as the next person. You had rough sex. Big deal. Everyone does it. No matter how much we love someone—in fact, I’d probably say the more we love someone, the more primal those instincts get. Sex is where all that violence and desperation comes out, and it feels good. For both parties.”
Zander slowly exhaled. “Why did you have to come here with your stupid voice of reason?”
“Because you’re drunk and ridiculous, and that’s what friends do.” Colin cracked his knuckles and punched his other hand. “However, it doesn’t mean I won’t hit you a few times if you don’t sober the hell up and stop being an idiot.”
“It doesn’t fix the fact that I lied to her.”
“No, it doesn’t. She’ll have every right to be pissed, and you’re going to have to grovel. Big time.”
Zander sniffed and rubbed his nose. “You’re saying I should tell her? Even after I slept with her under false pretences?”
Colin shrugged. “Remember a few weeks ago when you told me she asked you to sleep with her and you didn’t know if you could cross that line?”
“I flatly said I wasn’t going to.”
“Yeah well, life finds a way, my friend.” He sighed and shook his head. “You’re meant to be together, Zan. And if you haven’t learned that by now, then you deserve to lose her.”
Silence fell.
Peng snuggled closer. I struggled to breathe.
I didn’t know what I was feeling.
Anger, definitely.
Betrayed, of course.
But…what Colin had said was true. Without X, I didn’t know how far I’d be in my healing. I’d probably still be rocking in the corner of my old bedroom, too afraid to stay and definitely too scared to go out.
I would’ve been trapped in a completely different hell, and the fact that Zander had known he’d become a trigger for me and done what he could to help me behind a mask was so… him .
Quintessentially him because he was the best kind of doctor, neighbour, and friend and…
I have to go.
I needed to leave before I was caught.
I needed to think about this, deliberate over this, and decide if this was forgivable.
Scooting Peng higher in my arms, I turned to go, but Zander’s soft confession had my feet rooting into the ground.
“I love her. I think I always have. I know I always will. The very thought of never being able to talk so honestly with her? The idea of living beside her and never touching her again? God, it rips out my heart.” His voice thickened. “I didn’t know how lonely I was until I started going around to her place. The night after our first bike ride, all I wanted to do was invite her in. Not to hook up, but just because I couldn’t bear to be away from her. But she declined my offer and messaged X instead. She gave him cake and kissed him and—”
“And you’re back to talking about yourself in third person.” Colin reached over and patted Zander’s hand. “What did I tell you about that nonsense?”
Zander actually smirked. “Fine, you smart-ass. I got to hang out with her that night as X but when I came home, it wasn’t just loneliness that cut me but gut-ripping jealousy. I was so fucking jealous because this alter ego earned everything I ever wanted.”
“Isn’t that saying something, though? She likes this version of you. This version that you’ve pretended doesn’t exist all because it doesn’t fit in with your idea of what a ‘good guy’ should be?”
Zander ignored him, muttering, “X got to be everything I was too afraid to be. I was free when wearing that mask, Col, and…she’s never looked at me the way she looked at X, and honestly…I don’t think I have the strength anymore.”
Colin’s eyebrows shot up. “What are you saying?”
Zander took his time replying. “I’m saying I love her. I’m in love with her. But…she’s not in love with me. And because I don’t have the courage to have her hate me, I can’t tell her. This secret will eat me alive for the rest of my life, but I’m done. I function better on my own anyway. I should never have thought I could deserve her.” Sitting stiffly, he nodded as if he’d made up his mind. “I’m going to kill X off and be done with it.”
“So…wait.” Colin scowled. “That’s it? You’re not even going to try to date her as yourself? Red hair, glasses, and all?”
Zander bowed his head and dug his fingers into his eyes. When he looked up, they were suspiciously wet. “I can’t. I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”
“Then how about you tell her everything and let her forgive you .”
“She won’t forgive me, that’s the problem. And I don’t blame her. What I’ve done is unforgivable.” Standing, Zander headed up the two steps toward the kitchen. “Thanks for coming round, Col, but I’ve sobered up and really want to go to bed, so…I’ll walk you out.”
Colin swooped to his feet and balled his hands. “You’re a frustrating son of a bitch, you know that?”
Zander didn’t reply.
Stalking into him, Colin threw a single fist right into Zander’s stomach.
Zander doubled over with a groan. “What the—?”
“That was for Sailor.” Rolling out his wrist, Colin stomped through the house and disappeared.
Zander slowly kneeled where he stood, cradling his middle.
And I faded into the night as a single tear rolled down his cheek.