Chapter 11
Breht was breathless by the time he arrived.
Anger and guilt warred within him for dominance.
He didn’t want an argument with Brierley; he’d had far too many of them in his life and craved a deeper connection than just fleeting romance.
He wanted to show her he was committed to pursuing her.
Bonding with her. As a life mate. He had shown her a side to him that no one else knew, being vulnerable and honest with her in a manner he’d hidden from everyone else.
And yet, all that he’d hoped for had been stamped on because his ex couldn’t accept that they were over.
Counter to his desperate mood, the bell above the door tinkled merrily.
Putting his thoughts at odds. The moment he saw the tears falling from her cheeks, he knew he’d been a fool to get involved with her.
He could have spared her the pain she was suffering if he’d managed to stay away.
Get his own affairs in order before embarking on something new.
But the heart didn’t work that way. Seeing her so upset only made him want to pull her closer and offer her comfort with his strong arms around her.
To be the one who had caused this? Tore his world asunder.
“Brierley,” he whispered as he drew close to her desk, wretchedly taking every agonising step across the store to be before her.
She didn’t even deign to look at him again. The one singular glance from when he first entered the store was all that she was willing to give.
“What you just saw, it wasn’t what you think,” Breht tried to explain, but even those words sounded feeble.
Like an excuse for doing a dirty deed behind her back.
Dark eyes watched her for any hint of a reaction, but she remained impassive to his pleas, “Brierley. Princess, please, will you just look at me? Say something. Anything?” He begged.
Gingerly, she put the tool she was holding down on the table, without looking in his direction. Strengthening her resolve as she undertook the simple action. Words struggled to form in her mouth, knowing how final they sounded. “I can’t. I am too upset to be near you right now. Please. Leave.”
He straightened at her words, the tips of his ears flattening to the sides of his scalp.
He patted her wrist, idly playing for a few more sinister seconds in her presence before slowly turning away.
When he got to the door, he looked back, but Brierley was busy with her craft.
Carefully, he opened the door and closed it behind him. Respecting her wishes for solitude.
The walk across town back to his hotel room was a sombre affair.
He kicked stones that skittered across the road as though he were punting the worst aspects of his life away.
The parts that he had so bitterly tried to change over the course of four days.
His distant parental upbringing was booted underneath a hedge.
His foul, former relationship was crushed under the wheel of an oncoming car.
And in his frustration, he even labelled one of them his business inheritance, sending it flying across the road in his desire to be rid of the pressure it placed on his unwilling shoulders.
It was only when he returned to the quiet of the hotel room that he felt the compelling need to talk to someone about his predicament.
He took his phone out of his jacket pocket and scrolled through the list of numbers, but in a time of crisis, there was only one person he wanted moral support from.
He tapped the screen of his phone and brought it to his ear. The tone rang on, and just when he was about to give up, they answered with the clipped greeting of, “Mr. Merloft?”
Couldn’t she call him Breht at least once?
“Ma?”
“Yes?” She replied with a harried tone.
“I’ve fucked up, Ma,” he stated, taking the burden of his issues entirely on his own shoulders.
Blaming himself for the faults of others.
He could accept Brierley’s pain. Reconcile her stubbornness in not wanting to hear him out while she came to terms with her emotions.
He’d caused all that, thanks to Rosani’s intrusion.
“What have you done?” She accused, but there was another hint in her voice. Hope. Dura had wanted his venture to fail from the start. And here he was, calling her, she’d assume, ready to slink back a failure.
Breht’s brow twitched as he caught onto it, but didn’t press the thought. “There’s been this girl,” he started to explain. “Brierley.”
“From Ohpaua?” Dura asked.
“Yes, and God. Rosani’s here. And she thinks she caught us doing something and…” he stammered.
“Rosani caught you cheating?” Dura jumped to conclusions.
“No, Ma! I’m not with Rosani, I keep telling you. Brierley. She saw Rosani trying to kiss me and…”
“Why don’t you come home?” Dura suggested. “It’s where you belong, and we can sort this whole mess out?”
He let out a terse sigh. The support his Matriarch offered was practical, but running away from his problems, from Brierley, felt discordant with everything he had set in motion.
He wanted to stay in the seaside town. With her.
Work all this craziness out. His next words froze in his throat like ice before they had a chance to form; Dura’s implication stopped him dead.
“Is she going to keep it?”
“W…What?” He eventually managed to stammer.
“Is she willing to have an abortion?” Dura rephrased.
He felt sick. That his own Matriarch could suggest that he was so terribly irresponsible, on multiple levels, turned his stomach.
“Do you think I am that bloody reckless?” He hissed down the phone. His choler was once again quick to rise, caught off guard by such a wicked accusation. Strong fingers gripped the flowery duvet on which he sat, trying to calm himself before biting back, kicking off an argument with his Matriarch.
“It wouldn’t be the first time, Breht,” she replied. Finally, using his given name, with all the condescension a mother could muster.
“What?” He repeated dumbly, wrong-footed once again by one of her statements. A falsehood being levelled at him.
“Rosani came to me once.”
He swallowed hard, and his face slipped into his hand, thick fingers holding the broad bridge of his nose.
“And you believed her?” He lamented. Not a single inch of him was surprised that his ex would lie about something so major.
It wasn’t an argument worth pursuing; yes, he could call Rosani and scream at her down the phone, but what would that do other than bring them both back together?
It’s exactly what she would want. Even if they’d be at one another’s necks again.
He’d rather assume that she’d cheated on him and gone running to his Matriarch with a sob story.
Rosani had been unfaithful before, so why would he assume any potential child, real or imaginary, would be his?
“Then what is the issue?” Dura asked. It was at that moment that he realised that she’d never understand.
He needed the guiding light of another person to help him understand how to deal with Brierley when she was upset.
Someone who could actually help him to make things right, rather than look for excuses to bring him home and back into a life he no longer wanted to be a part of.
“I’ll ring you tomorrow, Ma,” he said with another lingering sigh. He should have known better than to phone Dura. She wasn’t the beacon of loving support that he needed right now, and he ended the call before she could get in another condescending word.
He twirled his phone over in his hand, biding his time.
Rather than putting it down on the duvet next to him, he scrolled through the numbers in his phonebook.
He gazed at each of the numbers in turn.
Lingering on the names of those nearest and dearest. For a singular moment, he considered calling Gorim, but his friend would just ply him with alcohol until all understanding of reality was lost in a drunken haze of regret.
His thumb hovered over the number of someone he thought would listen. Who would help? After a deep breath to steady his nerves, he pressed the call into motion.
She answered after the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Breht, is this…?”
“Tori, yes! How can I help you, Mr?”
Tori had forced her number upon him during the party, and Alluin’s, and he was now glad of the fact.
He reclined on the bed, resting his back against the wall as he recounted what had happened.
He poured his heart and soul into the conversation, and Tori, for her part, listened to the lamentations of the orc as he explained the intricate details of his life and recently departed relationship with Rosani.
He went further than explaining what Brierley had been witness to; imparting the troubled dealings with his Matriarch, what his future held and how he felt about her best friend.
He heaved another broken-hearted sigh as he added, “I know this is what I need to tell Brierley, but she was really mad, and I get that. I really do. I just don’t know what to do.
And was hoping you could help?” He eventually asked, hoping that Tori had some wisdom to impart.
That she could tell him something to fix his mistakes.
“What is it you’re hoping I can do, Breht?” Tori asked, her tone serious. “I don’t know as if it’s my place to speak to her on your behalf.”
“I’m honoured you think that’s what I want,” Breht replied. “I was just hoping for some advice. You’ve known her a long time and spent more time with her. How can I get through to her when she’s so upset?”
“Well, she’s not really a flowers and strawberries sort of girl. Actually, she broke up with one of her exes after they made that gesture. I don’t recommend it.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at the poor man’s misfortune.
“She’s the sort that needs time to simmer down so that she can see things rationally again.
Maybe try and give her a call and explain things to her when she is ready to listen?
” Tori suggested. “But, there’s something else.
I don’t know how things have gone between you, there’s something I know about her that not many do. ”
“Okay,” he nodded along as Tori spoke, taking her advice on board.
“Despite what I said about the flowers and strawberries. She loves being treated. I mean, what woman doesn’t, but, Princess-y,” Tori explained. “You know what I mean, right? She loves a man with confidence, so when you talk to her. Treat her like she is the most precious thing in your world.”
“That won’t be difficult,” Breht answered with a glimmer of a smile on his face.
“It’s not my place to say, Breht, but she’s been a lot happier since you came back into her life,” Tori ploughed ahead with her words, saying the things that she shouldn’t in the hopes that it’d bring the two closer together once again.
“And I don’t just mean for the sake of her business.
She talks about you nonstop. I haven't seen her light up like that before.”
He didn’t even know how to answer that, but a broad grin was plastered behind his tusks. Even if Tori’s words weren’t true, they cheered him endlessly. When he didn’t reply, she elaborated.
“What I’m trying to say is that you already treat her right.
You’ve given her confidence and something to believe in again.
Something she always had, but lost sight of.
Herself. And, I don’t want to see her losing out on that again.
So, when you’re feeling good and ready, you ring her.
Tell her what you told me, and maybe offer to take her out to dinner, just take care of her. You got that?”
“I got it,” he replied, deadly serious, instilled with a glimmer of assurance in his voice.
“Thanks, Tori.” Brierley’s friend was a lot more forward than he’d been expecting, but if her words were to be adhered to, he would have to be the one to initiate the next step between them.
Brierley wanted to be treated well; he could do that.
If she wanted more than tender, drunken kisses, well, he had nothing wrong in that department either.
“One more thing,” she said before he managed to hang up, bringing the phone back to his ear.
“What’s that?” He asked.
“You hurt her, you go running back to that fake-breasted bimbo, I swear, I’ll come down on your ass like a ton of fucking bricks. You seriously won’t know your arse from your elbow! Understand?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied. What the woman could actually do to him if she were being every inch serious as she sounded, he didn’t know. She was only small compared to his large frame, but he didn’t doubt her conviction for a second.
“Good. Go get her, tiger,” she giggled down the phone before hanging up.
He closed his eyes as his hand lowered. Deciding to wait before trying to call.
According to Tori, Brierley sounded like the sort of woman who needed time and space to calm down when she was angry.
If he pushed her too soon, it would only end up exacerbating the disaster.
Time passed in torturous slow motion. It already felt like hours since he’d left her working in the shop, but when he checked his phone, it was still only mid-morning.
Using the machine in his room, he brewed himself a strong coffee and wasted a bit of time by pulling out the art materials he’d brought with him.
Doodling some fresh designs as they came to him, putting his one qualification to good use!
His mood dictated how they turned out. Jagged lines and geometric shapes formed before his eyes, looping in symmetrical knotwork.
He coloured in the central stones with the radiant colours of blues and greens found in paua shells, taking care to make sure the jewellery could be easily replicated by Brierley’s loving hand.
All the while, a rehearsal of the looming conversation was playing out in his head.
After completing several designs, he picked up his phone again and bit down on a well of anticipation.
He rang Brierley’s number. Picking the right moment to give her a call was tenuous; how long would she carry her anger?
The sound of his heartbeat rushed through his ears, beating to a crescendo with every note of the dial tone.
A ray of hope when the dial tone stopped was swept out from underneath him as the merciless, electronic announcement asked him to leave a message after the tone. Rather than pour his heart out to the dead-end of an inbox, he hung up. He’d try again later. He had to.