Chapter 10
GUY
After the Naisbett Wedding
What was I doing in there?
I could have just told that dick to back off Lyra. It’s just he’d been on at her all through the speeches, then after in the bar. I saw it and it made her even more uncomfortable than everyone around the bloke.
She shouldn’t have to put up with that shit. She’s a nice girl, photographing a wedding.
That’s all it was, I try to convince myself as I head to my Barbie car.
But there’s a devil on my shoulder that I’ve heard so many times in recent years. He’s telling me I wouldn’t have taken the same approach with any other woman.
Lyra’s apology from earlier was playing on my mind, is playing on my mind. She’s ashamed that she kissed me at that hen party – that bit doesn’t surprise me. I’m a naked butler, for Christ’s sake. But she apologised as if she’d done something abhorrent.
I guess, what I should have said was, I’m not sorry she kissed me.
I kissed her back, no question. As soon as the taste of cherry cola bottles reached my mouth, the silk of her lips pressed to mine, that groan she let out like I was the best meal she’d ever tasted, the bow of her back, the feel of her hips in my hand.
I forgot myself. Who I am. The washed-up musician. The broke naked butler. The brother who wasn’t enough. I lost myself in her hold.
So maybe I should have told her the truth, if only to change the narrative playing unfairly in her head.
But I didn’t. For the same reason I never replied to her WhatsApp message.
I don’t want to lead her on. She’s a good girl. From the plait in her hair and her bright summer dresses to her endless smiles and helpful nature.
I see the way she reacts to me, as if I’m still the man she saw on stage in Madrid.
I’m not him.
I open the car door manually, set my backpack on the driver’s seat and start unbuttoning my shirt.
There’s something that takes over me when I’m around her and it’s bad.
A vulnerability I could do without. I have no idea why she’s infiltrating my dreams. That particular dream, getting mixed up with the girl I let slip from my grasp the same night everything else started to fall through my fingers, too.
I’m sure a therapist could tell me something textbook, like I’m attracted to the warmth of her because I’ve never had it from women in my life. It doesn’t matter. The top and bottom of it is, I should do what’s best for her and that can’t possibly be me.
I clip my white collar and black bow tie into place around my neck. As I toss my shirt on the back seat and reach for my black trousers and apron, my phone rings. Must be Dave.
By the time I dig the mobile from the bottom of my backpack, it’s rung off. I’m about to mindlessly redial when I see the caller ID wasn’t Dave, it was Bex. My sister.
A message pings through from her.
I’ve heard you’re back in the north east. Is that true? Call me. Please.
Now I do call Dave and as soon as he answers with ‘Hey matey!’ I respond with, ‘You need to stop giving out my new number.’
There’s a bleep of an opening car nearby and I see Lyra slip inside it, something twisting inside me as I watch her pull out of her space. Did she hear that? If she did, she’ll think I was talking about Dave giving my number to her. She’s that girl. She gives a shit.
‘If I want to see my sister, I’ve got her number, I know where she lives. You need to butt out.’
‘She wants to invite you to her birthday party. Is that a crime?’ Dave replies. It sounds like he’s driving. Probably heading here with the all-female band who’ve been hired for the evening reception tonight.
‘Am I on speaker phone?’
‘Yes! Hi, Guy!’ one of the girls, I think Tiff, the lead singer, calls out.
I shake my head, exasperated. ‘My sister needs me at her birthday party like she needs a hole in her head.’
‘She loves you.’
His words hit me somewhere deep inside. So deep, I don’t want to even register where I feel them.
‘She thinks I can still afford good gifts. Stop giving out my number.’
‘Even to me?’ Tiff asks coyly, laughing.
I don’t want to be a shit, so I choose not to reply, hanging up instead before I say into the late spring sunset, ‘To anybody.’ My head is busy enough with just me in it these days.