Elliott
So, she slept with someone, but who’s his Dad, Carson, someone else. If I believe what her Mum told me then it is Carson’s. My head is fucked up, I need answers.
Dale kept asking me to talk to him, but I couldn’t. When I confronted Carson this morning, he’s lucky I didn’t just knock him the fuck out, I thought the little shove he had got him off lightly, instead, I went to the Crematorium. There’s not much of a grave just a small stone as she was cremated, her choice though. I’d rather have her buried; but I sat by and just watched, waited - for what I haven’t a clue, but I felt a little calmer when I came away. Whether it was because I was closer to Mum there I don’t know, it’s not like I got any answers.
I made my whole set of songs up this morning when I was lying awake, the plan was to get Cass, to make her remember what we had all those years ago, hoping she would at least talk to me, just be civil. She seemed so angry last night for me just being back here, but she doesn’t know what I know. I wanted a fresh start, I wanted to forget everything and try again, but now... I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Right now, I’m singing all our favourite songs, well, they used to be. I wish I hadn’t though because it makes me remember and I’m way too angry right now to go there in my mind.
I was reluctant to come back anyway, but when my Mum kept on asking all the time, I knew I had to man up and just do it, it’s a pity it was too late. I never really expected Cassidy to still be here. Fuck why is it all so hard?
I start my final song of the night. I strum the starting notes as Cass looks up at me from the back of the room, with my lips in front of the mic I start to sing, “Every breath you take…” by The Police. I sing the words to her, she is my breath. My eyes don’t leave hers as I sing every line, from here I can see how her jaw tenses, her harsh breathing. As I come to the end she turns away sharply and leaves. This is my safe haven, the lights, the microphone, my guitar. Here I can bleed the words from me. Music is my heaven. Once the song comes to a close I’m cut wide open, for Cass to see me. I put every bit of effort I had into that song into that and I know she felt it too.
I finish my set and start putting my guitar away. I’ve made a decision while I’ve been standing up here. On this very stage, this is where I sang my very first song with the band - where it all started. It’s where I drank my first legal pint, I can’t keep living in the past. The crowd has begun to move through to the bar. As the room clears, I see Cass standing behind the bar with the cloth in her hand. She rounds the bar and walks towards me.
“Hey.” She says cautiously. “I thought you may want this?” she holds out a glass of Pepsi to me.
“Thanks.” Taking a long swig from the glass I put it to the side of me.
“Good song choices. That’s one of my favourites.”
“I know it is. I remember,” I look to her. “I remember everything, Cassidy.”
“Can you give me just five minutes and I’ll be finished.” Giving her a chin lift, she walks away again.
She comes back and sits down next to me on the edge of the stage. “I know you’re angry with me.”
“I’m not angry, Well, that’s a lie. I don’t know how I feel.” I sigh heavily, “I’m not angry because I’ve found out you have a son, I’m not even angry or maybe I am, I’m confused, Cass. I never expected you not to move on, but shit - he’s nine! What did you do, fuck the first willing available man?”
Her mouth drops open in shock. “How dare you!” Her voice rising to a high-pitched screech.
“Well, what do you want me to think. Or maybe it’s Carson’s and neither of you are brave enough to tell me because he seems very protective of you both…. it stands to reason I suppose.”
I don’t look at her once. My gaze fixes on the photos on the wall instead. When I do manage a glimpse, she’s scowling. “Or maybe he’s mine and you just didn’t tell me. Maybe that was the plan all along between you and Carson? Get rid of me and then you two could be together?”
“Have you heard yourself? I never wanted you to leave Elliott. I never wanted you to go. I told you that, but you promised me you’d come back. So maybe it was me you wanted to leave behind…”
Snapping my head this time to look at her gorgeous, but angry eyes, she steers her gaze away from me, but I tell her the truth anyway. “I loved you. You were everything to me.”
“I obviously wasn’t enough.” She forces out.
“I’m not back to make things hard for you Cassidy, this is the reason I never came back in the first place, but don’t worry I won’t be hanging around a place I know I’m not wanted, I wouldn’t want to disrupt your perfect existence.”
“Perfect? There is nothing perfect about my life, other than my son.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“You don’t know anything.” I turn my head to look at her and see the cold look in her eyes. “So, you’re leaving again?” Her head snapping back to face me again.
“Why not Cassidy? The only person who wanted me back here is gone. Maybe I should start afresh, somewhere different, somewhere new where there aren’t all these memories. At least you’ll be happy, then whatever you’ve got going on with Carson, you haven’t got me ruining it for you both.”
“Ell, there’s nothing going on with Carson, and if you’d have stayed around long enough on Friday night, you’d have seen me slap him…” She stops for a breather and stands, “but you know what, you’re right. You always run away, why did I think this time would be any different?”
“I didn’t run away last time Cassidy. I left to tour, you know that!”
“Yeah, call it whatever you like. You still didn’t come back.”
“You’re wrong, I did come back when you stopped answering my letters.…” I watch a crease appear on her forehead as she thinks about what I’ve just said but it doesn’t last long.
“What do you mean, you stopped writing to me. You tossed me aside!” With another glare, she turns to leave.
“Cass? I would never toss you aside. You made my heart beat, you kept me going.” I inch closer to her standing behind her, “who’s his Dad?” I don’t stand too close, but just enough to know I’m there. She doesn’t answer me, but her heavy pants of breath give away her racing heart. Trying to shake off the anger I whisper to her... “Got nothing to say? We could’ve been really good together again if we’d have had the chance... but it’s gone.” Her breaths rapid as they rub against my chest.
“Cassidy, are you in here?” My eyes turn to the voice, it’s not Carson. Who is this dick? “There you are? I’ve been looking for you.” The mousy haired man says to her as he kisses her cheek. Cassidy’s eyes close as I look between them. I wait for her eyes to open to gauge what’s going on in her head, but she doesn’t look at me again.
Instead of waiting for something I’m not sure I want to witness, I grab my guitar, “see ya.” I step back and leave the room.
I slip into the next room and see Carson. “Pay me up I’m leaving.”
“What you mean, you’re leaving? Don’t do this Ell.”
“You have no right to ask anything of me.”
“Does Cassidy know?”
“Not that it’s anything to do with you but I have mentioned it, but I’m not sure she’s too concerned either.”
He pulls some rolled up notes from his pocket and hands me two hundred pounds for the two nights. “Thanks.”
“So, you’re just going to leave then and break her heart all over again?”
“I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, bud, but she doesn’t want me here anyway, so there’s nothing to break.”
“If you believe that you’re a bigger fool than I thought. She’s pined away for you for ten years!”
“So, who’s the tool that’s in there with her now? Something else you decided to keep from me? I should never have come back.”
I don’t give him time to answer me, instead, I shove the money into my back pocket and walk away, yet again. I hear my name being called as I walk out the door though.
Placing my guitar in the boot of the car I start driving, but instead of going home, I head down to the beach. I sit at the top of the beach against the wall, the tides in right now.
I spent hours on this beach, Cass and me. I always used to come down here to think which is why I’m here right now. It’s peaceful here. The smell of the sea and splashing of the tide makes me relax. I don’t want to leave here, I love being by the sea, but I left because I was feeling claustrophobic from being in such a small village... I wanted to see what was out there.
I thought there may have been a small chance for us, I knew it was going to be hard, but I was willing to work at it, but this... I don’t know if I can get my head around it.
Standing up, I wipe the sand from my jeans and get back in my car to head to bed.
Saturday nights in The Anchor is disco night with a DJ. Officially I’m not working here anymore but I didn’t work Saturdays anyway. This week has been one of the worst weeks of my life for the last ten years, it’s dragged by in a blur of regrets, no sleep and trying to make heads or tail of what’s going on.
Walking through the front door, I push my way through the crowd and head to the bar. Sam brings me a bottle over, I pass her a five-pound note, wait for the change and move to stand at the end.
“Where’s Cassidy tonight, Sam?” She comes over to me, her huge tits bursting out of her low-cut top, as she leans on her forearms on the bar, her biceps pushing them together giving her the image of a first-class porn star. I won’t say it’s a bad view because it’s fucking not, and she knows it.
She leans forward even further until her lips are at my ear, whispering. “You know Elliott, maybe you should forget about Cass. I wouldn’t turn you down.” Lifting my bottle to my lips I tip it back and take a long gulp. Sam’s watching every move as I lick my lips of the beer that’s coating them.
“Samantha,” I whisper back, I trace the shell of her ear with the tip of my tongue, barely touching her then whisper back as she gasps, “you have customers.” She glances over her shoulder and sees a couple of waiting.
“Fuck! I’ll be back.”
“Don’t rush. Oh, and grab me another couple of bottles while you’re there.” Shaking my head as she walks away, I can’t believe the gall of that woman. She has no shame. She flirts with every decent looking man in here, as long as they’ve got a dick she’ll flirt. I’ve had enough of those type of women in my life over the last ten years, I definitely don’t need another one. There’s only one woman I want and right now I can’t see her being in my future either.
Carson comes to stand next to me. “What you having?”
“Two bottles of Bud mate please.”
“Fuck that shit!” He turns to the top shelf and pours a double JD from the optic and places it down in front of me. “On the house.”
“Cheers but why?”
“Because you’re my best friend and have been for way too many years to count now. Elliott, I don’t want this to come between us. I don’t like what happened and me giving her a job here was self-explanatory, she’s my friend too. She had a hard time too, I wanted to help her.”
Taking a deep breath, I look at my best friend, I can see the sincerity in his eyes, so I back off.
My head sits in my hands. “I don’t get it, Carson. He’s nine years old, I’m confused to fuck. Whose kid, is he? She wasn’t pregnant when I left… Is he yours? I want the truth.”
“I swear to you, he’s not mine. All I can say buddy, is talk to Cass, sort it out, this is between you two - no one else.”
Samantha places my two bottles on the bar when she’s done with the others but leaves again with a flirty grin. The place has got even busier. I knock back the shot and grab a bottle, lifting it to my lips chasing the JD with beer.
“Carson, set me up a tab, dude. I aim to get wankered”
He nods but carries on serving the customers. He’s right we’ve been friends since we were five-years-old - girls didn’t come between us in the past when we were kids and I won’t let women come between us now we’re adults.
An hour later I have a happy buzz going on, the DJ is playing some decent tunes, it’s eighties night. All the best power ballads came from the eighties.
Carson stands with me every chance he gets until he has to serve some customers. Sam comes over a couple of times, but I ignore her glances and little touches of my arm, not giving her anything to hang around for. The door opens and in walks Cassidy.
“Fuck.” My eyes eat her up dressed in black skin-tight jeans which hug her every curve and a strappy bright pink top, the outline of her tits visible from underneath. My dick instantly wakes up to her, I don’t even have to be fucking near the woman to wake that treacherous fucker up. I want to touch her, kiss her, runs my palms over every single inch of her. She looks around until our eyes meet, they widen in surprise at first but close in the next breath. He follows her, that little prick that came here last night for her. Dressed in trousers and a shirt, what the fuck, who comes here looking like that. Maybe that’s what she likes now, jumped up little fuckers who think they’re better because they have a brain and wear a suit. Well, it’s not going to stop having what’s mine eventually.
The beer keeps coming until I’m sick of Budweiser and I go to the top shelf. The DJ changes pace from rock to pop and plays Heaven is a place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle - she used to love this song. We were both born in the late eighties, so our era was the nineties, but eighties music topped that year, so we listened to it all the time.
She’s been dancing since she got here. He knows I’m here because every chance he gets he looks over at me, it’s every time he touches her, tries to get close to her. I tipped my bottle at him and smiled just to piss him off. I’ve watched her dance to Girls just wanna have fun by Cyndi Lauper, It’s Raining Men by The Weather Girls, and I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany. I swear she’s dancing like that just to rub it in my face, but still, I’m stood here not able to take my fucking eyes off her.
Banging my glass down on the bar, I shout to Carson to pour me another. Being the friend, he is and knowing what’s going on right now, he obliges and puts another on the bar but not without a word of warning. “Take it easy, Ell.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m good.”
Turning back and looking around the packed dance floor, I don’t see her, I see him whatever is name his - I don’t really give a fuck about him. He’s holding two drinks so maybe she’s gone to the toilet. My eyes carry on searching though, watching for her. A couple of minutes later I see her heading for the front door making sure she isn’t seen by him and slips out of the side door.
Pulling open the front door, I walk around the side of the pub, I feel like a fucking stalker, watching her all night not able to tear my eyes away from her. Seeing her laugh with him, even talk to him crucifies me. I know she’s not in love with him, Cassidy has little tells - she doesn’t hang on his every word like she used to with me, she also pulls away from him when he kisses her for a minute too long. She’s my girl. Always was, always will be.
Jogging to catch up with her and wrapping my hand around her bicep to stop her, I spin her to face me, a small squeal leaves her lips, her hand covering her chest. Pushing her to the wall, my hands either side of her head I cage her in, taking her both hands in my one. I move them above her head, a step closer to her hot, lithe body, pushing my knee between her legs to hold her in place.
“Cassidy. Fuck! You’re driving me crazy. Do you know how much I want to fuck you right here?” She answers no with a shake of her head, her breathing heavy. “I think you do. You’ve been shaking that arse in front of me every chance you’ve had tonight.” My free hand makes its journey down her body, feeling, caressing. My nose nudges her ear as I bite down softly on the lobe making her mewl. My lips track across her cheek, placing light kisses until my lips are touching hers. Her soft gasps resonate through my body making my dick twitch even more. My hand travels further down her body until I reach her hip, I grip it to keep her in place while I grind against her.
My lips kiss from the corner of her mouth then down her neck, sucking and nibbling as she expands her neck to give me more room as she breathes her agreement. My free hand moves back up again until her ample breast is in my palm, massaging as my thumb rubs across the stiff nub. Her body arches, pressing against me.
“Elliott!” She gasps, “let my hands go?”
Shaking my head. “No chance babe. I’ve wanted to have you like this for a long time now.”
“Elliott, please.” I dip my head to capture her lips again as I free her hands, I’m a little surprised when it pushes into my hair pulling me closer. Her nails scraping against my scalp moving into my beard as I kiss her. Our tongues each fighting for dominance. She pulls away panting heavily looking me in the eyes as door bangs shut at the front, a can gets kicked across the floor and echoes in the quiet air. Cass jumps in fright. “Shit! I have to go.” My hand cups her chin holding her in place while I kiss her hard, giving her something to remember.
“This isn’t over Cassidy. You’re my girl.” She breaks out of my hold and turns to walk away from me, flicking her hair around after her, before turning the corner she glances back at me, our gazes hold before she walks away from me again.
My back hits the wall, my head against it as I look up into the dark sky, my eyes closing on a groan. That woman always had a way of getting under my skin and still knows how to by the looks of it. Not going back inside I make my way home, I can’t go back in there now. After making the fifteen-minute walk home I reach my Mums house and let myself in. My brother is with some girl on the couch, slapping the back of his head as I walk by to get to the kitchen.
“Oi, dickhead. Take it to your room.” Lifting his hand above his head he raises his middle finger at me. I’ll take that as a no then! Grabbing a glass of water, I drink it down in one and head to bed.
Lying in bed I try to forget about Cass, she’s not mine anymore. As much as I tell myself she is, that’s just me deluding myself, but it sure felt like she still wanted me tonight especially the way her nipples stiffened as I touched her. My dick hardens as I think about it, straining against its confines of my jeans. I undo the buttons with no time to waste giving me slight relief but not enough. Pushing down the waistband of my tight boxers, my dick springs free as my hand wraps around it, squeezing, wiping the bead of pre-come from the head with my thumb. My hand strokes up and down as I think about her mouth, her hot body as I rub my hands over it. Hearing her puff out my name as my lips connect with her neck, imagining it’s Cassidy’s hand wrapped around me and not my own. her soft squeezes and delicate touches making me harder, stroking faster - her hot gasps, prickle my skin, breaking out in goosebumps. My legs begin to stiffen as she pumps harder and harder. “Cass.” Calling out her name as my climax shoots all over my hand, gasping heavily as I try to open my heavy-laden eyes realising she’s not here with me. “Fuck!” Using soft strokes as I bring myself down from my high before cleaning myself up and going to sleep.
Yep, I’m going to make sure she’s mine again.