Page 30 of Gideon
I shake my head. “What the hell? I might as well enter the church.”
Jacinta immediately bursts into laughter. “Gid, you’d burst into flames if you even entered a church, and black really isn’t your colour.” She pauses. “Although red is. You could be a cardinal. Do they still have them? How about lime green? Who wears that?”
“It’s the church, not the catwalk in Paris Fashion Week,” I mutter.
Eli looks earnestly at me. “I need you to promise, or I’m not going anywhere.”
I stare at him. “Okay,” I say slowly. “I promise I will not drink alcohol.”
Anyone else with any knowledge of how often I break my word would hesitate, but strangely he doesn’t. Instead, his expression clears of worry, and I know instantly that I’ve fucked myself because I don’t want to break that look of trust.
He slings his backpack over his shoulder and looks at Oliver rather doubtfully.
“Go on then. Have some fun,” I say heartily as if I’m fifty years older than him.
He nods. “Okay, I’m going. But I’ll have my mobile with me all the time. I’ll text you when it’s time to take your pills. I want you to promise me that you will take care, and if you feel even the slightest bit poorly you will ring me.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “I promise.”
He nods awkwardly, gives Jacinta a faint smile and, with a wave of his hand he’s gone, Oliver padding at his side and leaving me with a silence that is positively vibrating with Jacinta’s need to talk.
“No,” I say quickly and she scoffs instantly.
“Fucking hell, when has that tone of voiceeverworked on me, Gideon Ramsay?”
“Never,” I say dolefully. “Why couldn’t I have taken up with a stupid person?”
“That’s your tragedy,” she says kindly.
I snort and look at one of my best friends in the world and arguably one of only two people who knows me. She sits curled in her chair, the sun shining on her blonde hair coiled at her neck. Dressed in a pale green, short sundress, she looks slender and tanned. But more importantly, she looks healthy.
“You’re glowing,” I say, and she flushes.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I nod. “You are, sweetheart. You look so well.”
“I feel well,” she says earnestly. “I haven’t touched a drink or any drugs for ten months.”
“Well done,” I say passionately. “You still going to meetings?”
She nods. “Every week, no matter where I am.” She looks at me. “Thank you.”
I shift uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do,” she says steadily. “You got me into that treatment centre by the scruff of my neck, and you were with me every step of the way.”
“Only because I didn’t have anything better to do,” I say quickly.
She smiles at me lovingly. “Okay, sweetie. You’re the heartless wanker who looked after me at the lowest point of my life better than my own family ever did.”
I shudder at the thought of when I’d found her in a hotel room in Spain. She’d been thin to the point of emaciation and strung out with track marks over her thin arms and her complexion grey and pallid. I’d kicked out the two men she was in bed with and stuffed her in a shower while she shouted obscenities at me. Once she was clean I’d dressed her and driven her to a clinic I’d heard good things about. I’d stayed in a hotel nearby for two months after she made me promise not to leave her. I’d lost out on a film role and been fined a humungous amount of money for backing out of another film. I’d also cornered the nickname Reluctant Ramsay from the press, and Frankie had raged for weeks.
I’d ignored him and stayed out there, visiting every day once I was allowed. Then when she was discharged, I rented a villa for another month, the two of us taking long walks, swimming and talking. It had felt like the most intimate time I’d ever spent with her despite the years of us fucking each other and many other people. I’d got to know her, and unfortunately she’d got to know me even better, which is why I know she’s not going to accept any bullshit.
“Where’s Alex?” I say quickly in the hope of diverting her.
She smiles at the thought of the tall, gentle professor she met when she knocked him off his bike in London. Steady, kind, and loving, he’s her perfect foil, and I couldn’t have picked anyone better for her.
