Chapter Thirteen #3
When we stood, I hugged him suddenly and, with a deal of force, kissed his bristled cheek. ‘I’m so sorry you have been through so much in your life. I cannot imagine what that was like, Nick. I love you. You are a good man.’ He kissed my head again. ‘Let’s get you a beer,’ I said.
As we emerged into the late afternoon, the temperature outside had plummeted, and a frosty wind raced through the city. I loathed the cold, and I buried my nose into his warmth while he teased me, calling me and all Australians ‘children of summer’.
‘Have you ever been to England?’ he asked.
‘I did a Contiki tour once.’
‘That doesn’t count.’
‘I slept with a guy from Essex.’
‘That definitely doesn’t count.’ He laughed. ‘Abbey, I don’t know how you would survive an English winter.’
‘Oh, I’d survive. I am a survivor and I never complain.’ My lips were shivering.
He shook his head, but he took pity on me, dragging me into the first pub we spotted. It was warm with a mass of bodies, and he joined the queue for drinks. By the time he emerged, two miracles had occurred. I had ducked next door to buy us a little something, and I had found a table.
I reached into a bag and handed him his gift and he looked at it, puzzled. I clinked my glass onto his, feeling quite pleased with myself.
‘Don’t you believe we should have discussed which team we were supporting tonight?’ he said.
‘No. I decided. You need to deal with it.’
‘Sweetheart, if you are going to pick teams for me, you are going to have to give me a reason.’ His voice was low and flirty.
Jesus Christ, this man is fire.
He leaned over the table and took my hand, running his thumb over the cheap silver flower ring I had on, causing electricity to course up my arm. ‘So, Abigail, why this team? Why am I an Essendon Bombers fan tonight?’
‘Well, Nicholas … admittedly, I don’t know heaps about AFL, and I would never normally dream of being such a controlling person to make decisions for you.
’ I paused for emphasis, and he rolled his eyes, grinning.
‘But what I know for absolute certain, mostly because it is a well-known fact amongst Australians at large, is that Collingwood supporters are the worst. So, by elimination, we are indeed now Essendon fans. C’mon the Bombers!
’ I did my best Lleyton Hewitt impersonation.
I reached over and wrapped the scarf around his beautiful throat, pulling him close and pressing a kiss onto his lips. ‘Now drink up, gorgeous man. Google tells me there are at least three more pubs on the way. And this game will be fucking packed.’
He looked at me with devotion, which made my stomach flip over itself. I wanted this man in my life. Permanently. Anything less than that was simply not enough.
Nick
I woke the next morning feeling significantly better than I had expected when I went to sleep five hours ago. I rolled over in the unfamiliar bed, trying to find her in it and did not have to look too far, for her head was on her pillow and she was facing me.
She had my T-shirt on and a small crease between her brows that I knew from our holiday meant that she would wake with a headache from the alcohol.
Her chest was rising and falling in peaceful slumber and her hair was absolutely all over the place.
The most beautiful disaster I had ever laid eyes on.
I felt an ache deep in my gut at the thought of not seeing her again. It was very difficult to imagine, and I knew it would cause me untold pain.
We had got home at three in the morning, after approximately seven thousand beers, forced to drown our sorrows because the mighty Bombers got fucking smashed.
A Collingwood fan had taken against me in the crowd and had called me a ‘fucking whingeing Pom’ at which Abbey (the most peaceful woman on earth) had taken offence.
‘Oi,’ she had said. ‘You shut your goddamned mouth.’
I’d looped an arm around my little Valkyrie and gently guided her to the bar.
We’d pub-crawled back to the hotel and then had a hell of a time trying to find the key. Abbey was pawing at my pockets and then fell over with her hand in the rear pocket of my jeans, taking me down as well. We both lay on the floor in the corridor, crying with laughter.
I eventually found it in my jacket pocket, picked her up over my shoulder and carried her in.
I put her down, and we just looked at each other and then she reached forward and kissed me.
But her rules from earlier in the day and knowing how exposed her heart was made me attempt to slow her down.
Her kisses though were forceful, urgent and needy – and don’t get me wrong – I want Abbey all of the time and I have not had enough sex in the last ten years for my cock not to be hard when this woman who I desire above all others is shoving her tongue down my throat and trying to get us both naked.
Not getting the response from me that she wanted, she pushed me away and then stripped off every layer she had on, standing there naked in front of me. When I didn’t move, she walked slowly towards me. She slid her hands into my hair. Fuck. This woman.
‘Baby,’ she whispered, pressing the full length of herself against me. She had never called me that before and it had my stomach turning and my cock twitching against my jeans. ‘I have needs, Nick.’
I smiled at that, and she gasped as I placed my icy hands on her waist. ‘Needs?’
She nodded at me and then my fucking little temptress licked her lips. I closed my eyes and let images flood my brain of the many, many ways I could satisfy her needs.
‘You were rather specific earlier today that it was not to happen, so I can’t let it, sweetheart. As much as I would like to take care of your, uh, needs.’
‘Urgh,’ she groaned into my neck. ‘It’s not fair for you to use that against me now. I know what I want.’
‘I’m not disrespecting Sober Abbey. Drunk Abbey is a flirty little minx.’
‘Only with you, baby.’
I swallowed the unexpected emotion that came over me when she said that. ‘Still. I’ll make you a deal. Once we both wake up and recover from the hangover that is sure to come, if Sober Abbey has needs and decides she would like my assistance, then I am her servant.’
She looked me in the eye – her eyes are the kind of blue artists would want to paint – and she bit down on her rosy full bottom lip. One last attempt at drunkenly seducing me. Fuck me if it wasn’t working. I could feel myself raring to go.
‘Fine.’ She sighed. ‘But I am going to sleep in your bed naked and press my arse into your cock all night and you are going to be hard and not be able to sleep.’
‘Fine,’ I said, deciding to live with the torture rather than cross the line.
I made her drink water before she went to bed and rummaged in her handbag for pre-emptive painkillers and found some, thank God.
I climbed into bed, her arse pressed into my hard cock as promised.
A few minutes later, she was still shivering from the cold, so I pulled my T-shirt off and put it over her head before resuming the tucked position we were in.
Two question marks curled, the answer unspoken in the peace of the position.
‘Nick,’ she had whispered into the dark.
‘Yes?’
‘It wasn’t your fault, you know.’
‘What wasn’t my fault, Abs?’
‘Rebecca dying. Or your mum and dad dying. Or foster care. None of that was your fault. You did your best every single time, babe. There was nothing else you could have done. It wasn’t your fault, Nick. None of it.’
There she went, shining her light on my darkness. Offering me absolution, I desperately wanted to believe. I pulled her closer and cried silent tears into her hair before the alcohol forced me to sleep.
The sleep I have when Abbey is with me is peaceful and dreamless, the best sleep I have had since forever.
She finally woke, her eyes fluttering open to meet mine. I loved watching her wake up. She was snuggly and warm and liked cuddles and coffee in the mornings.
‘Hi,’ she said quietly.
‘Hi.’
‘Were you watching me sleep?’
‘You snore. It’s like a gorgeous symphony.’ I reached for her, and she snuggled into my chest, fingers straight into my chest hair, while mine were in her golden curls. ‘What do you want to do today? I think the wind has died down. Do you want to go home? More footy?’
‘God no.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘I just want to be near you. I don’t care what we do.’
My hands stilled. Now that she had declared her love, I kept feeling it in everything she said and did. It was like this solid, warm glow in my chest. There was something comforting and yet astounding about being loved by her.
‘Actually, I need breakfast,’ she said. ‘And I desperately need Panadol. But apart from that I don’t care what we do.
Let’s go buy a book each and lie in the park.
Or stay in bed all day and watch crappy movies.
I wonder what degree of freezing it will be today.
I don’t have many clothes.’ She rolled over to check her phone.
‘Ah, fuck. I forgot to charge it. It’s dead. ’
‘Here, I’ll charge it.’ I grabbed it off her and connected it to the charger on my bedside table.
She settled back into my chest. Her breathing became regular, and I wondered if she would fall asleep. My fingers fell into her hair, and I felt so connected to her, almost as if our two souls had merged and become something whole.
‘Abbey, I want you to know—’
Her phone ringing interrupted me and that was probably good timing because I had no idea what was going to come out of my mouth.
She went to ignore it but then said, ‘It might be Ella,’ and climbed over me to pick it up. ‘It’s Peter.’
I sat up because I heard anxiety in her voice.
‘Hi Pete. Is Ella okay?’
I watched as she instinctively wrapped her naked bottom half in the sheet, covering herself as if she didn’t want her ex-husband to see her.
I wondered, not for the first time, who this guy was.
I obviously thought he was a bit of a prick and, honestly, Abbey brought out jealousy in me that I had never experienced before.
The envy is interesting and probably had to do with not being able to say she was mine, a problem of my own making.
But I didn’t like that he made her beige.
Abbey had told me on several occasions that he never called her and was a text-message-only guy, even through their marriage, so his phone call made me worried that something was wrong. I have stood at too many graves. I stress about phone calls from guys like Peter Parker.
‘Hey, Abbey.’
I could hear him through the phone, though he wasn’t on speaker. He was speaking slowly and I felt the urge to shout, ‘Come the fuck on,’ though I managed to suppress it.
‘Umm, Ella’s fine. Sorry to bother you. I know you’re away on a work trip. Abbey, the nursing home can’t seem to get in touch with you or Kate and they said Iris had a fall. She’s okay. They said that her heart is playing up, and they wanted to let you know. I guess I’m still the next contact.’
‘Shit. Okay. I’m going to come home.’ She closed her eyes tightly, and her hand gravitated to her throat, where her pendant should have been. ‘Thanks for calling me.’
‘Of course, Abbey. Of course.’
I watched her internal crisis as her eyes filled with tears before they spilled over, and I wrapped her into me. I had started to feel her pain as if it was my own. I’m so far gone.
I wanted to fucking rage at myself and anything in the world that hurt her.
I couldn’t keep denying these feelings I have for her.
They wanted to spill out. I wanted to shout them from the top of the tallest building or Oprah’s couch.
I have two options here. And the only one I think I can live with is to walk away at the end of this weekend.
Sometimes, when I was being particularly cruel to myself, I imagined I hadn’t been through what I have been through.
That I met Abbey, but I was a different person.
That our relationship was out in the open.
Our families barbecued together, our girls played Taylor Swift songs and danced around her house.
That I got to wake up to her every day, that I told her I loved her so often she’d started to roll her eyes when I said it.
I needed to get her home to her family.
‘Sweetheart, let’s get back to Sydney. Let’s get you home.’