Page 29 of About Last Night
‘To be honest, I’ve never sent a woman flowers before.’ He frowned. ‘Not that I should be admitting to that.’
‘Really?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Maybe that’s why your last relationship broke up.’ She followed her comment with a smile, which quickly dropped off her face when she saw he wasn’t smiling back.
It had suddenly struck him, like a lead bar to the stomach, that he’d never sent anything of a personal nature to Marcy, or any of his other girlfriends, come to think of it. He’d bought them things, sure, but the gifts had never been targeted to them as individuals. They’d been cold, hard objects – symbols of his wealth and status.
He gave himself an internal shake. Time to move the conversation away from him and back onto her.
‘What led you to become a DJ?’ he asked, leaning back in his chair and attempting to relax his tense shoulders.
‘I like the way it allows me to be in control of the conversation.’ She flashed him a self-conscious grin, which he returned this time.
There was a pause in which she straightened her cutlery on the table.
‘I spent a lot of time in my own head when I was young and there’s something really freeing about being given a microphone to speak into without having to see people’s reactions to what you’re saying. Also, I like that people are interested in my opinions and that I can spark interesting conversations with the power of my voice.’
Her cheeks were pink again and he wondered which bit of her answer had made her uncomfortable.
‘Why did you spend so much time in your own head?’
Her gaze flicked to meet his, the expression in her eyes wary.
Yup. That bit.
She sighed. ‘My parents were really young when they had meand hadn’t been together very long – they met at university. Obviously, I wasn’t planned. They were both ambitious and wanted to build their careers and didn’t exactly have a harmonious relationship. They’re both really fiery-tempered and after one of their arguments they often wouldn’t speak to each other for weeks.’
She gave a little shiver. ‘There’s a very particular type of silence between two people who are angry with each other and it made for a really tense atmosphere in the house. I was their only medium of communication – I had to pass messages between them – and I used to get caught in the crossfire of resentment.’ She grimaced and put the tips of two fingers against her temple, pretending to pull a trigger. ‘Shooting the messenger.’
‘Sounds hellish.’
‘Yeah, well, it wasn’t a lot of fun. I’m not a big fan of confrontation so I spent a lot of time hiding out in my room.’
‘You’re an only child?’
‘I was then. I have two half-sisters on my mum’s side and a stepbrother on my dad’s now.’
He nodded, starting to understand where she was coming from.
‘They were very good at providing all the material stuff I needed though, can’t fault them for that,’ she said, with a forced brightness in her voice. ‘My dad paid to put me through university and bought me my apartment to live in. He’s very good at buying his way out of a problem.’ She pinched her eyebrows together in derision.
Tristan felt another thump of disquiet as he thought about how he’d been guilty of the same behaviour whenever he’d upset Marcy by point blank refusing to discuss getting married.
‘What did they argue about?’ he asked, not wanting to dwell on the troubling insight.
‘Ugh! Everything – although mainly about whether they were going to get married.’
His stomach sank further as he realised he’d walked out of the frying pan and straight into the conversational fire.
‘My mum really wanted to, but my dad was dead against it,’ Lula continued, totally oblivious to how much this topic was making him squirm. ‘I think my mum felt he didn’t love her enough to make the commitment and it eroded their relationship so much she went off and had an affair, which split them up. She’s married to the guy she cheated on my dad with now though and couldn’t be happier.’
Tristan snorted, appalled that she clearly believed matrimony was some sort of magic fix. ‘Really? My father’s been married five times and it’s never made him happy.’
‘Wow, that’s… er…’ she was clearly lost for words.
‘Obscene? Yeah. My mum died when I was twelve and he got married again six months after we buried her.’
‘How did that make you feel?’
He shrugged. ‘At the time I was really angry because it was as if he was disrespecting my mum’s memory by moving on so fast – as if she hadn’t even existed, but I came to realise he just couldn’t bear to be alone.’
