CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Corey
‘Corey.’ Mum wrapped her thin arms around Nora, who returned the hug like I’d instructed.
Mum was a hugger, constantly needing that tangible love. Part of me wondered if it was because Dad was rarely home, always late at work closing a deal or rubbing shoulders with a new client. Perhaps she needed that physical touch to make up for her withdrawn husband.
‘Who is this lovely lady you’ve brought with you tonight?’
Mum dragged her impressive gaze up the navy cocktail dress Nora insisted I wear. Refusing to stumble around my oversized childhood home in heels, we’d compromised on some gold sandals.
‘This is Nora, a friend from class,’ said Nora.
I shuffled my size six-feet forward like a stranger to my own house. Not that I really needed to pretend, I’d never felt like I really belonged here.
‘Such a pleasure to meet you.’ Mum smiled
‘And you. What a beautiful home you have.’ During the long drive up the winding driveway around the manicured lawn, I’d practiced what to say, yet somehow, my rehearsed greeting came out like a fifty-year-old woman who’d come for afternoon tea.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the most mortifying moment.
Before my brain comprehended what my body was doing, my knees bent, and I bobbed in a little curtsey.
A curtsey.
Nora’s entire face wrinkled as she mouthed, ‘What are you doing?’
My mother, bless her soul, had the courtesy to ignore the royal gesture that would haunt me – and probably Nora – for the rest of our lives.
‘Come in, come in. We’re all having drinks in the living room.’
My feet wouldn’t move past the threshold as I lingered on the pristine white doorstep.
I’d successfully avoided the last five family dinners, and I reconsidered whether this messy moment was the right time to finally show up.
There would be questions Nora couldn’t properly answer, and accusations hurled she shouldn’t be forced to deal with.
It was unfair of me to put this on her, but there was also no turning back now that we’d arrived.
Nora scrunched my brows together as she waited. ‘You okay?’
‘You can’t mess this up.’ The words were an order, but my tone pleaded.
She reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze which managed to travel up my body and give my heart a comforting squeeze.
With Nora by my side, I stepped past the heavy wooden door and led her into the living room.
Standing next to Nora was like being a lion trapped in a cage.
Life buzzed through my arms which I forced to dangle at my side, my fingers wiggling with nerves like little snakes preparing to strike.
‘Remember what I told you,’ I whispered.
Before she could reply, Steven, then Ben, then Luke all took turns slapping her back hello.
Her hand ripped from mine in their commotion of pass the parcel.
The golden drinks cart glistened inviting gleams, and I frowned knowing I couldn’t help myself to my favourite bottle of whiskey.
I searched the huddled faces for a glimpse of my own, trying to decipher the smile on Nora’s face.
Was it genuine, or was she already miserable?
And had she scoffed at the marble statue in the corner yet?
Everything appeared bigger and grander in this small body.
I almost hated to admit it was… pretentious.
‘We’d been taking bets on whether you’d show.’ Steven grinned, his eyes as grey as mine, with a hint of Mum’s blue around the pupil.
‘I knew you wouldn’t let her down.’ Ben’s words were already slurred.
It had been almost two years since his wife left him before we’d even met her due to their shotgun destination wedding, yet month by month he threw back Dad’s whiskey faster and faster.
‘Who’s that?’ Luke wiped his golden curls from his forehead for a better look at me.
‘I’m Nora, nice to meet you.’ I extended my arm to shake my favourite brother’s hand.
Luke needed the most protection from my father.
His dimpled smile, innocent eyes – blue, entirely Mum’s – and his wild imagination.
This guy would rule the entertainment industry one day.
The ideas that popped into his head were insane.
Fresh views, bright concepts. Dad had grumbled about his tuition fees and how he might as well flush his money down the toilet, but it would be damn well worth it.
Luke’s talent would be wasted on my job.
‘So, you two are…’ Luke’s suggestion that we were dating warmed my cheeks.
‘Friends.’ Nora spoke louder than necessary.
Luke raised his hands in surrender. ‘I only asked.’
‘How’s work been, darling?’ Mum handed me a foul-tasting gin and tonic like her own, then turned to Nora with the whiskey I wanted.
Nora’s chest rose and fell, preparing the speech we’d gone over back at my apartment.
‘Great, Mum. Diploma almost done and dusted, Dad signed on a bunch of new clients, what more could I ask for?’
I’m normally so busy putting on my game face, that I’d never noticed the sorrow in Mum’s eyes. As though she knows.
‘Are you happy?’ she asked.
Nora blinked, and her gaze darted to me. Mum had a way of conjuring unexpected questions out of the blue.
‘You look different tonight. Is something going on?’
Mothers’ intuition, Nora would call it. Only a mother could look at her son and recognise it wasn’t him. Nora believes entirely too much in karma, and positive thinking, and all sorts of hippy woo-woo thinking, but she appeared to be right about this.
‘Why wouldn’t I be okay?’ Nora’s eyes watered after taking her first sip of whiskey.
Such a diplomatic response, but she glanced to me, her gaze pleading for help.
‘Corey, I’d love a tour of this beautiful house. I noticed there’s a pool outside.’ I beamed with her pearly whites on display.
Dim lights glowed through the window, the clear water beyond glistening. Nora smiled, grateful for the excuse to leave my mother’s interrogation and placed her glass on the coffee table.
‘Sorry, Mum. You’ll have to excuse me.’ Nora stood and whistled at me like a dog, motioning with her head for me to follow her.
My mother gasped, and her hand clutched her chest. She’d never seen her son treat someone so poorly. Mainly because she’d never seen me at work, I suppose. Surely that would ensue an immediate case of cardiac arrest.
‘Seriously?’ I hissed at Nora around the corner. ‘Whistling at me?’
‘Well, I can’t imagine you’re much of a charmer, so it seemed about on par with your ability to romance. Didn’t want them getting suspicious or anything,’ Nora laughed.
‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘You keep saying that, yet somehow, I know everything about you.’ She gestured to the bulge in my pants.
‘Don’t make me embarrass you when we go back inside,’ I threatened despite the grin taking over my face.
‘You’d only be embarrassing yourself once we switch back.’
I groaned. ‘Which we can’t seem to figure out how to do.’
We crossed the patio to the perfectly maintained lawn.
The scent of freshly cut grass lingered in the air, thanks to their seventeen-year-old gardener, Gregory, a kid who worked at the golf club on weekends.
Dad overheard him mention he needed more cash and jumped at the opportunity to underpay him.
‘Holy shit, you have a fountain in your pool.’ Nora’s eyes sparkled in awe.
‘It’s not a fountain, it’s a water feature.’
‘Whatever. You’re like, really rich. Even richer than I realised.’
‘I’m not rich, my parents are rich,’ I corrected.
‘Spoken like a true rich boy,’ Nora scoffed.
She crossed the lawn, opened the gate, and sat on one of the lounge chairs by the pool.
Nora glowed under the lamps while the water feature trickled, and my black hair brushed my cheek from the gentle breeze.
A real scene from a movie. The kind where I’d bring her out here for a glass of wine and sweet talk her into taking all her clothes off and diving into the pool.
Except, if she took her clothes off, I’d only see my own body.
‘You know, you act like some tortured soul when you really have had your life handed to you on a silver platter.’ She spanned her hand around our excessive yard in demonstration.
Sure, if the platter had been tarnished beyond repair.
I shook my head. ‘You don’t have a clue about the things I want.’
‘I don’t think even you have a clue about the things you want.’
She thought she had me all figured out, but she’d never understand what it was like to have your life customised by your father, leaving your dreams nothing more than that – a dream. She might want what I have, but she didn’t stop to contemplate that maybe I didn’t want what I have.
My fists tightened, and I jumped from my chair. ‘God, you can be such a bitch sometimes.’ I was mad at my father, not Nora, but I couldn’t help taking my frustration out on the first person I saw.
Her.
Nora abandoned her chair and towered over me in response. ‘And you can be such a jackass.’
‘Maybe this is why you didn’t get the promotion.’ I didn’t mean it, and I knew I’d taken it too far the moment the words left my mouth.
Nora’s face scrunched in a mixture of shock and hatred as she lifted her hand and shoved my shoulder. I took a step back to balance myself, but my foot landed on the edge of the pool and slipped. My toes touched the cool water, and a moment later, my body followed.
‘Nora!’ Luke ran out the backdoor.
By the time I’d swum to the stairs, Mum hurried out with stripey towels in her hands, Ben and Steven close behind.
‘I slipped,’ I insisted as I climbed up.
‘You pushed her,’ Luke yelled at Nora.
‘She told you, she slipped. It wasn’t my fault.’ Nora winced and rubbed the stubble on her cheeks.
Mum placed the towel around my shoulders in a gesture that almost made me sob into her chest like a child, begging her to wrap her arms around me and make everything better. A mother’s touch was such a simple act that could heal even the deepest wounds.