Chapter Forty-Four Mo
Chapter Forty-Four
MO
‘What’s this about her wanting to give the money back, Mo?’ Rhona’s voice was a pick axe. ‘And why’s she booked herself onto a flight back to Australia tomorrow?’
‘Hello to you too, Rhona.’ Mo held the phone limply to his ear as he lay on his bed. The drawn drapes had plunged the room into premature darkness—a feeble attempt to end the disaster of a day early. He hadn’t moved a muscle for the hour he’d been home.
‘I thought you were a bit quiet when you dropped the car back but clearly something’s gone down in Margate you’re not telling me about,’ Rhona said. ‘What happened?’
Mo released a long, exhausted breath. ‘I fucked up, okay?’
‘Elaborate.’
‘We—’ Mo clamped his lips together and tried to herd his thoughts. ‘I’m sure you can work it out.’
Rhona sighed. ‘You slept together, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, duh, Mo! That was obviously going to happen. The chemistry between you two was like Bridgerton on steroids! And Netta’s great! So what’s the issue?’
‘That’s not the issue. The issue is— Oh, Christ, Rhona, do we have to do this?’
‘Yes. We do.’
‘I told her something, okay?’ he said. ‘I told her why I needed the diary back so badly that I made her come from the other side of the planet to give it to me. And now she knows who I really am. That’s why she can’t wait to get away.’
There was a gentle silence at Rhona’s end of the call. ‘You must’ve felt very comfortable with her to have told her that,’ she said. ‘You haven’t even told me.’
‘I did,’ he admitted. ‘There’s something about her—’
‘That makes you feel like a real person?’
She’d nailed it with irritating precision. As usual. ‘Yeah.’
‘But isn’t that good, Mo?’ said Rhona. ‘To not have to be someone all the time, and just be able to be you?’
Mo ran his free hand through his hair, gripping it just tight enough to hurt a little. Then tighter. ‘It’s more than that,’ he said. ‘She makes me feel like I can’t hide anything. I thought I wanted to tell her, but it was a huge mistake. Some things are best left buried.’
‘How did you leave things?’ Rhona asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Mo rolled onto his side, letting the phone balance precariously on his ear as he jammed his hands between his pressed-together thighs. ‘She seemed pissed off.’
‘What, because you’d spent two days in the love shack and then you went weird and retreated and made her feel like it’d all been in her head?’ Rhona’s aim was sniper-level.
‘Maybe.’ His thoughts dragged behind his voice as he gripped the phone and pushed himself up, sitting with his back against the wall.
Literally and figuratively. ‘No. I don’t think I made her feel like it was all in her head,’ he continued.
‘But something happened in me that I couldn’t control, Rhones.
I told her about it, and afterward it was like someone had pulled the lid off a pressure cooker and I just filled up with steam and had to get out of there.
And then when I dropped her at the hotel this morning, I told her I didn’t know if I could see her again. ’
‘Oh, Mo.’ He could practically hear Rhona shaking her head at him. ‘Honey. What on earth happened to you when you were a kid?’
‘I can’t— I just can’t tell it again, Rhona. Not now. I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ she reassured him, ‘but I think if it’s heavy enough that you’d throw someone like Netta away, then it’s something you need to talk about with someone. Like a therapist. You deserve to be happy.’
Mo had no response for that. If Rhona knew what he’d done, then she’d know that happiness was the last thing he deserved. He tipped his head back, letting it connect with the cool plaster, and thumped his fist into the mattress.
‘You can’t let her go home without sorting this out, Mo,’ said Rhona.
He stood and paced the length of his bedroom.
‘It’s not something I can just sort out, Rhona.
I’ve fucked it,’ he said. ‘And I think it’s highly probable that it’s now totally unable to be unfucked.
I can’t go back in time and keep my mouth shut.
It’s out there now and no matter what might’ve happened between us, it’d always be there like a great, big, dirty cloud she’d always be looking at me through. ’
‘So, what do I do?’ Rhona asked, her voice flat with frustration. ‘Do I give her the bank details so she can return the money?’
He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed the heel of his hand into his temple. Exhaustion coiled heavily, squeezing. All he wanted to do was sleep this whole fucking thing away. ‘No. I want her to have the money. She needs it for something really important to her.’
‘I’m tipping she probably feels pretty grubby, Mo,’ said Rhona. ‘Think about it from her perspective: she sleeps with you, you go weird, and then five thousand pounds lands in her account. I can kind of see where she’s coming from.’
‘No! It’s not like that at all. The money was on the table from the start. It was part of the whole deal in the first place. She has to keep it. Don’t give her the details.’
‘Okay. But Mo, I’m going to send her flight details to you. What you choose to do with them is your business, but I’m thinking something along the lines of that scene from Love, Actually might be an advisable course of action.’
‘Where the kid chases his crush to the airport to kiss her before she goes?’
‘That’s the one,’ she said. ‘I know you’re hurting, Mo. I can hear it. But don’t be a fucking peanut. She’s too good to let go.’