Joy sounds so happy to hear from me when I call her in the morning as I’m eating my breakfast at the new breakfast bar. “So they decorated your room for you?”
“They’re like my brothers. I wish I’d confided in them,” I whisper, thinking nobody could hear me.
“It’s probably good you didn’t,” Kai grumbles from behind me, startling me. “If it’d been you that told us, I’m not sure I’d have been stopped. If it wasn’t for your ex-bastard,” that’s what they’ve been referring to Lockhart as since we got back last night with the junk food and ice-cream, “we might not have been able to stop us from killing him.”
“That sounds like a good story,” Joy says and I have to agree. I put her on loud speaker.
“Kai meet Joy, my literal joy inside the rehab prison. Joy, you’re on speaker.”
“Hi Kai,” Joy says happily.
“Hi Joy,” Kai replies and then whispers close to my ear, “Is she hot? She sounds hot.”
I shove him away as Joy asks, “Did you try to kill him? I’d have paid money to see that.”
“Oh yeah, well when news broke Thatcher had just been arrested like ten minutes prior. He was leaving the Lockhart building with his Police escort, hands in cuffs, as we were arriving.”
I cringe at the thought.
“Dane was the one who saw the news. It was… well… you probably know, Joy.”
“Unfortunately, I do,” she replies, sounding sad. “He has to go down for this.”
“He almost did,” Kai chuckles, though there’s no humour in it. “Security spotted us coming and tried to stall us. We were fucking losing our minds.” He shakes his head, sending his blonde locks tumbling into his face. “Literally losing our fucking minds. Lockhart came out of the elevator and Thatcher was behind him looking so damn pissed.”
“Go on,” I snap, needing to hear the rest. “Stop drinking my coffee, you twat.”
He just grins and continues with a smack of his lips. “Well Dane was the first to run at him. I didn’t know who it was; I’ve never met Thatcher. Dane met him at the Halloween party.” He squeezes my shoulder comfortingly when he sees me cringe at the mention of the party that changed my life. “We just charged, screaming and cursing. Dane managed to get him by the throat but Lockhart grabbed him. Security already had me in a choke hold.” I frown at that, hating the thought that they got hurt on my behalf. “We were screaming at him, threatening to quit if he didn’t kill him right there.”
“We were detained until he was loaded into the back of a Police car. The media circus outside was insane. There’s pictures of us flipping the fuck out. I swear my eyes were glowing,” Dane explains, also appearing out of nowhere like Kai did. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about how… scared you must have been and I just…” He makes an explosion sound with his mouth and moves his hands from his head. “Blew.”
“Joy, this is Dane,” I say quickly.
“Hi Dane,” Joy replies and Kai goes on.
“Lockhart took us into the room behind the reception desk. He was so calm. I couldn’t understand how he could have been so calm.”
“Yeah it was weird; it made me uneasy.”
“Then when we stopped yelling at him, he just said in this really deep voice, ‘patience, boys, let the Police do their jobs’.”
Dane nods excitedly. “Yeah! And then he said something like, ‘revenge is always a dish best served cold, and with an alibi’.”
I blanch at that. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I think he was just saying that because we were threatening to kill him. I just don’t know how he was so calm. He was so, so fucking calm.”
“Did I mention how much I hate it when he calls us boys?”
I shrug it off to hide my pain. “Because he doesn’t love me. I became a burden to him and he moved on.”
“That makes no sense. The way he looked at you and treated you…” Dane shrugs. “You don’t just look at anyone that way. He was really protective of her, Joy.”
“I bet it was so hot,” Joy sighs wistfully, her voice sounding so far away. “Can I just take this moment to fangirl over the fact I’m speaking to the entire Ellipsis band? I mean… WHAT THE FUCK!”
“Kai, she fancies you,” I say, smirking.
“It’s those blonde locks,” she giggles. “I want to have your blonde-haired babies. They’d look like little frothy top cappuccinos with our skin colours combined and your hair but my afro.”
“Oh my god!” I laugh so hard I about die. Dane does too. Kai however just looks like he’s winning at life. “Changing the subject… can you still come for the trial on Saturday? I don’t want to be alone when I testify and you’re the only person I can actually say it out loud to or in front of.”
“I’ll be there, though is it still okay if I crash on Friday night? Me wanting your band brother’s babies doesn’t make it weird, does it?”
“Like you actually care, you massive hussy.”
She cackles at my retort and I just know I’ve made a life-long friend.
“She can have my bed,” Kai offers playfully and I actually hear Joy swoon through the speaker.
“Behave!” I slap his arm and smile at my friends. They aren’t babying me or pussyfooting around me. They’re just being so normal, or as normal as normal can be now. I love it. “I’ll send you the postcode for our apartment. There’s parking around the back, but if you get stuck let me know. This city is a nightmare with all of its one-way systems.”
“I’ll be there Friday night,” she states, “making sure you get enough rest for the horrible day you’ll have ahead.”
I blow out a breath. “Thanks, Joy.”
“No problem. But I want a song dedicated to me.”
I laugh again and we say our goodbyes.
“It’s so good to hear you laugh,” Dane tells me sweetly. “It wasn’t until you had your breakdown that we realised just how long you’d been breaking for.”
“It took a lot of therapy to get to where I’m at emotionally.” I shrug. “It makes me sad wondering how other victims would cope if they didn’t have the money to pay for the kind of therapy I got.”
Dane pinches my cheek playfully. “I’m glad that you and my future guitarist niece are safe and happy.”
“Maybe they’re just stronger than me,” I mutter, shaking my head at myself and my own foolish choices. Seeing the love of the people I have now just makes me wonder why I felt so alone before.
Then I close my eyes and wash it away with a metaphorical mind wave of positivity. As sickening as that sounds, it works sometimes.
It doesn’t matter if somebody is stronger than me. That doesn’t affect my strength; it weakens my resolve, doubles my shame, fuels my embarrassment and swaddles me in a blanket of self-loathing. That’s not how I want to feel.
I make dinner in the evening as I need to keep busy and I haven’t cooked something in so long.
While I’m making dinner, I give Dane and Kai the notebook I scribbled in while in Rehab. They read through some of the lyrics and Dane even tries to put a tune to some with his guitar. I owe them something. I owe them more than something. They were there for me. They tried to kill Thatcher for me.
I smile at the thought.
* * *
There’s a knock at the door and Kai moves to open it as Dane continues to sing quietly and strum notes on his guitar.
“These two lines are just so fucking good,” Dane says loudly, then bites the pen lid and pulls it from the stick.
“Which two?” I call back, glad that he likes my lyrics.
“’With a blade from wrist to me, I watched my frail flesh part’. And this one – ‘Hurt is water, we are earth, the vessel to its ever-changing pace’. Not together, but your lyrics… they’re deep, babe.”
“I think I wrote that in week four of recovery.”
“You can tell the difference in mindset from when you started to when you left. The first twenty odd pages are just depressive ramblings and rhymes with some epic quotes. Towards the end they’re more about winning and ambition and less about dying and guilt.”
“If it makes good music…”
“Umm…” Kai reappears. “Lockhart is here.”
I tense, frowning. “Why is he here?”
He raises a brow. “Why do you think? To see you.”
“Send him away,” I reply.
“Not gonna lie, I already tried.”
I mentally cheer on my friend for trying to keep that wanker out of my way. “But…”
“But I can be very persuasive.” Lockhart steps into the light and raises a brow at me. “Good evening, Cerise.”
“Make it quick, Tobias,” I snap, turning back to the beef I’m searing in the pan on the stove.
“Kai,” Dane calls him over and reluctantly Kai leaves.
Forcing me to be alone with the biggest pain in my life.
I push the meat around the pan with a wooden spoon. It doesn’t need it but I want to look busy.
I hear the sound of keys jingling and my curiosity gets the better of me.
He raises them to his eyes and smirks when he comes across the key in particular that I used on his car. Shit. He knows. “Trespassing and defacing somebody’s property…”
“What do you want, Tobias?” I snap, folding my arms over my chest.
“Nothing. I just came to see how the mother of my child is doing.”
I turn back to the stove as he puts the keys back onto the hook.
“You have no idea how happy it makes me to know your fire is back, Wild One,” he says into my ear. I don’t know how he got so close without me hearing his steps. Freaking ninja. “And your jealousy.”
“I’m not jealous,” I lie, because I am. I’m burning with it. “Now what do you want? If it’s to see that I’m fine, I am. I’m still pregnant, I’m still alive, I’m happy, I’m loved and I’m not interested in seeing you.”
My words affect him. I can tell, purely because I know him on a deeper level than I ever realised. I guess that’s a gateway that love opens for you if you’re interested enough to step through it. It’s almost like a sixth sense.
“Too bad.” He simply shrugs and places a hand on my shoulder. “I know things are…”
I spin to face him and shove his chest. “Don’t you fucking touch me when you’ve been touching her.”
He raises his hands and has the gall to look ashamed of himself. “Georgia has been contacting me about you constantly. She’s worried for you.”
“Give me her number,” I demand as I pull my mobile from my back pocket. Then I shrug off my jacket, revealing a long sleeve black turtle neck top that clings to my body like a second skin.
“You look so radiant,” he comments breathily, looking me up and down. “It’s such a surprising feeling, seeing for the first time a woman I loved, pregnant with my child.” Stepping into me, he drags his fingers over my bump before cradling it with both hands. When he drops to his knee, I gasp and try to step away but his hands grab the waistband of my stretchy jeans.
“Tobias,” I hiss, yanking his hair back.
“I’m having quiet time with my child. She’s likely never even heard my voice. Or does their hearing develop in the first ten weeks? I bought baby books but I didn’t get that far yet.”
I melt. I can’t control it. I have to stifle my smile and my tears.
He’s just such a contradiction.
So loving and affectionate in such a cold shell with such a cold attitude.
He’s ruining me.
“Hey there, baby,” he says to my stomach whilst caressing it and stroking it with his hands. “We can’t wait to meet you.”
Oh I can. I totally can. I’m dreading it. I’m terrified.
“I’m so glad your mummy was irresponsible with her pill and sex life.”
“Tobias!” I whine, pushing him away at his shoulders, though he’s such a strong and solid figure that I only succeed in moving myself back a step. “I was not irresponsible with my pill or my sex life.”
He gives me just one look that has me correcting myself on a pout, “Okay, maybe my sex life, but not my pill.”
“You didn’t factor in the partying and puking you did,” he chuckles, pulling me back to him so he can again address my stomach. “Your mummy is mad at me, but it’s okay. I’ll win her over before you’re born.”
At this I growl but he just smiles that ridiculously handsome and charming smile at me.
“You’re not winning me over,” I hiss.
“You’ve never been able to resist me, Cerise. Your fire burns for me.” With this he stands, dragging his fingers from my bump to my waist and holding me tight. “Your fire that has recently been relit, like I said it would.”
I inhale a long breath and close my eyes when he dips his head and kisses my jaw.
His hands move from my waist and cup my rear, startling me and making me tingle and ache between my thighs desperately.
“I burn for you too,” he mutters. “I wish you could see that.”
As if doused by a bucket of ice, I jolt backwards and demand, “Get. Out.”
“Cerise…” He tries to calm me after seeing how fucked off I am right now.
“No. Don’t say my name. You don’t deserve to.”
“I know,” he agrees. “But I can’t help it.”
“Maybe I should call Rebecca for you…”
He laughs quietly. “Trust me when I say she means less than little to me and is no more than a means to an end.”
Horrified and heart broken I step backwards away from him. “I don’t want to know… Means to an end? Why? Because your psychotic girlfriend was holed up in a padded cell and you couldn’t get any, you just jumped on the bitch that’s available?”
“That’s not what I meant, Cerise…”
“You’re disgusting. You both deserve each other.”
He frowns. “Just listen. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then why are you with her? Why?”
When he doesn’t reply, I inhale a shuddering breath.
“Go, Lockhart. Now please.” I close my eyes tight and pinch my lips together. All of my progress just seems to be vanishing. Everything I worked for. I’m trembling, I’m in so much pain. “Please just go. Please.”
“Listen to me.” He grabs my arms and forces me to look at him. “You have to trust me. I love you. I only love you.” His voice is such a quiet whisper. “I need you to see that, okay?”
I’m so confused. “Why are you fucking with me like this? Why won’t you just leave me alone? This stress it’s not good for me and it’s not good for the baby…”
He looks devastated. “If I don’t come, you won’t call. You won’t offer information and I don’t know… I don’t know how long this is going to last.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Tobias?” I think he might be the mental one.
“Nothing.” He blows out a breath, a heavy one. “You’re right, I’m toying with you and it’s unfair. I guess I just don’t want to lose my child. I want to know everything. I feel as though I’m missing so much.”
His admission of the truth I prayed inwardly wasn’t true really hurts.
“You are,” Dane snaps, leaning against the doorway. “She kicked my hand yesterday. Not yours. Because I’m here and you’re not. Because you’re fucking that horrible bitch that you never should have started fucking to begin with.”
When Kai appears next to him with a baseball bat just casually resting on one shoulder, I tense and my mouth drops open.
This is escalating.
“Now, she asked you to go and you’re still here,” Dane continues and Kai twists his hands on the bottom of the bat, trying to be intimidating. They would be to a lesser man, but Lockhart just simply stares at them as though they’re no stronger than insects.
He’s not the type to get intimidated.
“If you want a baby so badly, go plant another one. You aren’t manipulating Cerise into handing over this one,” Kai snarls and my heart pounds aggressively at the thought that this is Lockhart’s plan. Is he trying to keep me close for some reason? I can’t work it out.
Tobias tucks my hair behind my ears and kisses my forehead. “I’ve caused too much trouble. I’m going now. If you need anything at all…”
“She won’t.”
“Anything,” he urges, ignoring Kai, “then please call me or my mum, brother… Enri… whoever. They’re all here for you. Just don’t lose faith in me. Keep that fire, keep that jealousy, don’t let it burn out, Cerise.”
“I think he needs a week in the padded cell you just gave up, Cerise.” Dane laughs and I almost laugh with him.
“I’m going,” Lockhart says calmly, raising his hands to show he means no harm.
“And don’t come back unless she calls you first,” Dane tells him, his sneer in place.
“Don’t push my temper,” Lockhart grits out.
“Don’t push her,” Kai shouts. “When she tells you to get out, you get the fuck out or you’re no better than Thatcher.”
Kai hits his verbal bullseye and Lockhart looks winded.
“Kai,” I whisper, shaking my head. Lockhart deserves a lot of things, but not that. Though if it gets him to leave then I’m not going to complain.
“You’re surprisingly right,” he agrees with Kai, much to our surprise. “Please call me. You have my number. Just call, that’s all I ask. Update me on my child. Tell me of your appointments so I can be there for you both. Or if you don’t want me there, tell me so I can help you in other ways, like arranging transport.”
“She’ll call when she’s ready,” Dane barks and then steps to the side. “Now fucking leave, for crying out loud.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” I mumble, trying not to smile too smugly.
As we pass Kai and Dane, Lockhart radiates an anger that could boil ice. I pat them both on the shoulders and snigger, “Down, boys.”
We move to the door silently and Lockhart yanks it open. His arm muscle strains with the movement and I know he’s tensing to restrain himself.
I miss touching his shoulders with the tips of my fingers.
“I’m sorry that my relationship with Rebecca is causing so many issues. If I’d known you were pregnant, I’d have done all of this differently,” He says, suddenly looking so remorseful.
“So why didn’t you end it?” I snap, so confused by everything. “We could have moved on. I understand why you started dating.” I stand in the shadow in the corner of the room just to the side of the door. “I was awful to you. I tried to kill myself. I bled out all over the piano you gave me and fuck… saying it out loud is…” I shake my head and blow out a breath. “But when you found out why, why didn’t you end it with her?”
“The truth is it didn’t start until the day I found out why I’d so suddenly lost you.”
Now I’m really confused and extremely hurt. I want to punch him in the nose. “You didn’t think I was worthy of more time? Another chance? Or is it the fact I’m damaged goods?”
“No,” he snaps, backing me into the corner and pressing his body to mine. He cages me in with his arms and leans into my ear before speaking so quietly I hardly register what he says. “Don’t you ever say that again. You are not damaged goods and you are worthy of everything good in this horrific world that has been so cruel to you.” When his hand moves to rest on my stomach between us, I close my eyes and let my tears fall, tears of confusion and hurt, tears of the drifting feelings and such an unjust attack on my body. “But I have to be cruel to you right now.”
“Just explain it to me, all of these cryptic little messages. Are you trying to keep the carrot dangled? Because you should know right now that I will never come back to you after you’ve been with that woman,” I hiss, prodding him on the chest. “I should tell you what she did. I should see who your loyalty actually lies with, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want anything to do with either of you and if it wasn’t for this baby, you’d never see me again.”
I turn towards the door and motion for him to leave.
“Call me,” he urges, ignoring everything I just said, which is really bloody frustrating. “Please, Cerise. It has to be you that calls me.”
“I’m not calling you, Tobias. You’ve made your choice. Rebecca.”
He growls a curse and stomps away before turning back, grabbing me and kissing me harder than he ever has before. I smack his shoulder but he releases me just as suddenly as he kissed me.
“Keep that fire, Wild One,” he mutters, his breath fanning across my lips. “Call me.”