Chapter 22 #2
Shit. I managed to cover my area just in time. You only needed to have the collision once to automatically protect yourself forever more. She was like a human battering ram.
I missed being greeted like that, though. With everything going on, Leona had temporarily spent more time with Chris, and it was good to have her around again.
I ruffled her hair, making her scowl. “Hey, what’re you doing?”
She flashed me her cheesy, toothy grin. “Watchin’ Peppa.”
What else?
“Can Oaley watch it with me?” she asked, already pulling on Oakley’s hand.
“You should ask her.”
“Of course, I’ll watch it with you,” Oakley said, but there was little choice since she was already being dragged into the living room. “You’ll have to tell me everyone’s names, though.”
Leona’s face lit up. “Well, there’s Peppa and George and Sooozie and Recca…”
She’d pronounced a couple of them right, at least. I would actually miss it when she no longer got words wrong.
I stopped listening to her. One, because I already knew them all. And two, because that show drove me nuts. Peppa was a little brat.
I went into the kitchen where Mum had already started getting the fresh pizzas out of the fridge. Mia was getting the full report from Oakley’s grandparents and my dad. They didn’t waste any time.
Sarah had a lot of questions in her eyes when she turned to me.
“She’s doing as well as can be expected, I guess,” I said, knowing what was going through Sarah’s mind. “She’s been under their control for most of her life and then had four years of waiting around and preparing for the trials. She wants to be the one in control of her life now and move on.”
“I have no idea how she does it. I feel like a mess most of the time. She’s so strong and so focused.” Sarah had said, dabbing her eyes.
“She deserves the world. And so do you,” I said.
“Thank you, Cole. I’m so glad you two found each other again. If any two people were made for each other, it’s you and her.”
I grinned like an idiot, feeling exactly the same. It meant a lot that Sarah believed that, too. There weren’t many people she trusted her children with anymore, despite them now being adults.
Oakley was the other half of me. No wonder I’d felt hollow the entire time she was away.
“Well,” she said, exhaling deeply. “Let’s do what my daughter wants and move on. I think we all deserve a bit of happiness now.”
“Okay, so we’ve got about a hundred pizzas, garlic dough balls, and crispy chicken strips. Anyone want salad, too?” Mia offered, opening the fridge.
“Who the hell wants rabbit food when we have pizza and meat?” Jasper asked. With a look of horror, he rejected the lettuce in Mia’s hand, pushing it away like it was going to harm him.
I nodded. “He’s got a point. Not the animal food thing, but I think we have enough.”
“I second that,” Lizzie said.
Mia chucked the lettuce back in the fridge and closed the door. “Good, because I can’t be bothered to make it. But I can be bothered with this,” she said, holding out two bottles of Prosecco to Dad.
“Celebrating?” Oakley asked. I spun around. She leant against the doorframe, chewing on her lip. Her eyes darting from the food to the drinks and back to us.
“We’re celebrating new beginnings,” Sarah said, leaning into Miles. He was a really nice guy, but he was a tie to Australia. I got the impression that Oakley, Jasper, and Sarah would be staying together. How would they choose where to end up?
If it was even going to be a choice.
Her lips pulled up into the faintest smile. “I’ll drink to that.”
“I need some, too?” Leona said, pointing to the champagne glasses on the counter.
Mia smiled. “Of course.”
She handed Leona a champagne glass filled with lemonade, but from the goofy grin on Leona’s face, she thought she was getting the adults drink, too.
I bet Mia would have a word with Leona’s nursery teachers, telling them that it was a fizzy drink rather than alcohol she’d had.
“To new beginnings,” Miles said, raising his glass.
Oakley clinked my glass and brought hers to her lips.
“All right. Who has vodka?” Jasper shouted.
“Eat something before you do shots,” Sarah told him. “Please.”
“You underestimate me, Mother.”
She grinned, pointing a finger at him. “I mean it, I’m not cleaning up your sick.”
Oakley laughed and shook her head at her brother.
We drank and ate and laughed—most of it at stupid things Jasper said—but the heavy atmosphere had vanished.
“Come on, Oakley! You must remember those hot twins. They were at the Christmas beach party.”
She sighed. “No, Jasper, because you made them up.”
“I did not make them up. They were hot and all over me.”
“Yeah, that definitely sounds like a lie,” I said.
“Dude, why would I make that up?”
“Why wouldn’t you make that up?”
He huffed. “I don’t need to prove anything. You all know.”
Oakley put down her drink. “Okay, we need to change the subject before I’m sick.”
“I’m so glad Leona dragged Dad and Miles outside,” Mia added.
“You don’t need to make up stuff, Jasper. We all like you, you know,” Lizzie said, patting his hand.
Jasper deadpanned. “Well, thanks for that, Peroxide, but it happened. Believe me, that’s not something you forget. But, anyway, I don’t care what you lot think.”
“Oh, and those highlights in your hair are all natural,” she shot back.
He touched his hair, deeply offended. “Nothing has touched this head. It’s perfect as it is.”
I rolled my eyes and touched Oakley’s back. “Come on.”
The doorbell rang as we walked out of the kitchen.
“I swear the entire universe is trying to stop me being alone with you,” I said, groaning into her neck.
She nudged me, laughing. “Answer that, take Mia’s latest delivery, then we’ll sneak upstairs for a bit.”
My eyes widened. She didn’t need to ask me twice.
“The look on your face right now, Cole…”
She should also see hers. The fire in her eyes and heat in her cheeks. I’d never get used to the way she looked at me. Never.
I pulled the front door open, and my face fell when I saw two police officers.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Cole Benson?”
I frowned. “Yeah.”
“Can we come in?”
I stepped aside, and they walked in.
“What’s happening?” Oakley asked.
I turned, seeing the worry on her face, and then everyone else filtering into the hallway.
My dad, who had come back inside, asked, “What’s this about?”
“I’m sorry to do this,” the taller officer said, turning to me. “Mr Benson, I need you to come to the station to answer an allegation of having sexual intercourse with an underage—”
That was all I heard because Oakley shouted, “No!”
She stared at me in horror, and then I couldn’t see much of her through the black dots that danced in my face. I had to answer to my relationship with Oakley.
It’d been made out like it was the same situation and Frank.
“No, you can’t do this,” Oakley told them, and grabbed my hand.
I blinked hard, clearing my vision. “It’s okay. I have nothing to hide.”
Questioned for sleeping with a minor.
Fuck.
This was bullshit.
“We don’t want to cuff you, so I suggest you come with us now,” the other officer said.
I wasn’t certain, but it didn’t seem like they wanted to do this. The facts were out there. Oakley and I had slept together when she was fifteen and I was seventeen. But we were in a country where that was legal, and we’d held off when we got back to England until she was sixteen.
And I wasn’t a disgusting old man, praying on a child. We were together.
“Is that really necessary?” Dad asked. “You surely know the situation.”
Oakley wasn’t letting go. The only thing that made her still look alive were the tears rolling down her face.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll get this cleared up.”
“You can’t do this.” Mum sobbed. “This isn’t right. They weren’t even in the UK here then.”
“Mr Benson can explain that at the station. I’m sorry but we need to go.”
“We were in Italy,” I told them as I was escorted outside, Oakley still holding onto my hand.
“You need to let go,” the cop told her.
She shook her head. “No, you’ve got this wrong. You can’t do this. Who the hell told you to?”
“Hey, baby, it’s okay. Look at me. It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
They’d have to take me in now and ask their questions, but I’d tell them the truth, and they’d have to let me go.
Oakley was freaking out and crying. Sarah held onto her as I pulled out of her grip.
“I love you,” I said. “I’ll be back soon.”
I was oddly calm for a man being taken to the fucking police station.
She shook her head in her Mum’s arms. “No, please. You can’t do this. Please. Please? Cole, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Leave him the hell alone,” Mr Gregory from across the road shouted. “They’ve been through enough. How dare you?”
Shit. The whole street was getting involved.
I got in the car, wanting this to be over already. The faster the took me in, the faster I could be home.
As the car door was slammed shut, I looked back at Oakley. One of the cops spoke to her, but I couldn’t hear what was being said.
“What’s he doing?” I asked as the other one got in the car.
“He has some quick questions for her.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.”
He turned and looked over his shoulder. “Then, you don’t need to worry. I know who you are, and I know who she is. Clear it up at the station, yeah?”
Oakley looked at me as she spoke to him, her light eyes panicked and afraid.
Sarah caught her as her legs gave way as the other cop joined us.
It was just like the day she left, only this time I wasn’t the one broken on the side of the road.