Page 88 of Charlie Sunshine
“I’m gonna get my man,” I say, pointing at the barman. “He’s not getting away. Every.” I hiccup. “Every breath he takes, I’m going to be there.”
“Okay, Sting, that’s not even remotely worrying,” he offers. “But I think we should order a taxi to take you to your poor boyfriend because you’re currently pointing at a potted plant.”
I wave my hand in a regal fashion. “Order away, barman, while I compose my reconciliation speech.”
“Shit,” he mutters.
CHARLIE
I wander into the kitchen in my family home, rubbing my eyes.
Aidan looks up from the table where he’s sitting reading the paper. He shoots me a keen gaze. “You okay?”
I nod. “I’m so sorry to come here and dump everything on you.”
“You didn’t exactly dump, sweetheart. Just turned up looking heartbroken, said you’d had words with Misha, and then tried to comfort me about the whole situation.”
I wince. “I think I was more tired than I thought.”
He gets up and brushes my hair back so he can look at my face. Hiseyes are bright and knowing. “Well, you look a lot better now. You looked like shit earlier.”
I think of the man—Adam—at the wedding and wince again. “Great. Just what I wanted to know. I’m pretty sure that Mr Perfect didn’t end up sleeping at his dads’ house dressed in old sweats and a Mutant Ninja T-shirt.”
“That green really sets off your complexion though,” he assures me gravely. He grins as I raise my middle finger at him.
He walks over to the kettle and switches it on. “Charlie, I’m pretty sure that Misha would fancy you if you were coming down with the flu, so get that other bloke out of your head.” He looks back at me. “It’s no surprise that you were out of sorts. You had a turn this morning in front of someone you’ve entered into a new relationship with, which is bound to be strange for the first few times. Then you tried to run around all afternoon at a wedding being Mr Congeniality.”
“I didn’t have a sash, so it doesn’t count.”
“I’ll make you one,” Aidan assures me and puts a cup of tea down on the table. “Come and sit with me,asthore.” He smiles at me as I obey him. “Did I ever tell you about the time your dad and I split up?”
“What?” I jerk, startled. “I didn’t know that. When?”
“It was a long time ago. You were small and didn’t know anything about it.”
“What happened?”
He rests his elbows on the table and looks at me. There are crow’s feet around his eyes, and the dark waves of his hair have some grey in them, but his eyes are still that golden green, and I only have to look at him to see the merry man who’d entered our family and made it complete.
“I love you so much,” I say impulsively and his eyes warm even more.
“I love you too, Charlie. It’s been one of the great joys of my life to have had a hand in raising you.” He winks. “Just be thankful, though, that your mam and dad had more of a share.”
“Never mind that. Why did you split up?”
“I didn’t treat him well at first,” he says slowly, the Irish in his accent thick.
“Really?”
“When we met, I was very free and single and firmly convinced that marriage and monogamy were heterosexual propaganda. I didn’t want it, and I definitely didn’t want any ties.” Aidan laughs. “And then one day I opened the curtain to a cubicle in casualty and there he was.” He shrugs. “And those ties I hadn’t wanted? Well, he was all of them straight away, but I refused to admit it because he scared the living shit out of me. He could have done so much better than me. I knew it, and I was convinced he’d come to his senses very quickly, so I played him up and I insisted that we weren’t in a committed relationship despite knowing damn well that we were. The short story is I did some shitty things, and he dumped me. He said that he didn’t want to share me, and when I scoffed, he broke up with me. Shocked me silly, and I missed him and you so fucking much for those couple of awful weeks we were apart that I knew we were meant to be. We got back together, and that was it. I got the family I never knew I needed.”
“I’m so glad you came back,” I say.
“Me too.” He smiles. “The moral of that little story is that we shouldn’t do other people’s thinking for them, Charlie, because it never ends well. There’s a reason that we’re only given one brain, and it’s because we can barely cope with the one we’ve got. Don’t presume to know what Misha is thinking. He’s always been a straightforward lad, so just ask him what you want to know.”
Before I can reply, the doorbell rings. And rings. And rings.
“Who can that be?” I say, getting up and walking into the hallway. “Has someone passed out against the doorbell again?” I open the door and freeze. “Misha,” I exclaim, my heart starting to thump madly.
