Page 17 of Thick as Thieves
But instead of dropping the axe, culling me from his life, he surprises me and says, “Don’t take her from me Xander. I know you could. You’re probably the only one who could.” His face is full of panic. Of doubt. “I know you always liked her, loved her. Why didn’t you say you wanted more with her when we were young? I wouldn’t have asked her out.” He’s watching me closely, hardly hanging onto his emotions, his fears on full display.
I grin at him, trying to lighten the mood. “Bullshit. You kissed her in that river and you were a goner, probably before that if you’re honest with yourself. You wanted her so fucking badly, so I let you.”
He looks at me sharply. Don’t think that helped.
“Did you though? I know she kissed you in the churchyard, I saw you. You never said a word about it.” His eyebrows are at his hairline, questioning my intentions from back then. “But yeah, after I kissed her and the night we saw her in the lodge, yeah I wanted her. So fucking much. I never shut up about her.” He points his finger at me. “You never said you wanted her out loud, so I stepped forwards to ask.” He’s jabbing it towards me now. “So like I said, don’t take her from me. You’ll make us all fucking miserable if you do.”
His eyes are burning into mine. I can feel the searing heat from them. His anger, mixed with trepidation.
I grab his elbow and tow him out of sight of the main field. He doesn’t fight me, he allows it. I spin him around so that we’re nose to nose. “I don’t want to fucking take her from you.” I enunciate every single word. “I’ve told you, I want youandher.”
I pause and take another deep breath, hardly believing I’m asking this of him, myself, never mind asking him out loud. “Call me selfish, I know I am. Call me the greediest bastard on this earth, and I’d take that.” I hold both of his arms. “Because you, me, her—thatis what I want.”
Relief washes over me at my confession. At last I’ve put it out there.
“I would never take her from you,” My face must show the hurt, the pain of what that would do to me, as he makes a noise at the back of his throat. I soldier on. “Because doing that does not get me what I want.”
I gaze into his eyes. He is a glorious man, the body of a god, but he knows it. And I fucking want it all.
“Fuck, Xan, I can almost see it.” He has a dazed look on his face now. A glow around him. But it’s tinged with sadness. “But I don’t know. She might freak out and think we’ve played her all along.” The horror of that dawns on his face. He starts to involuntarily shake his head. “‘The Spectator Sport’ she calls it. Well it would be with both of us. Jesus, the whole fucking world will be watching.”
He’s drifting off into unknown territory. Unknown horrors. And I punch his shoulder to get him to focus.
“Just us, Marcus. Not one other person.” I’m ducking my head to make sure he focuses on my face. “I’m happy to do that for us, no one else. I don’t want any spectators. We have never had one single spectator, ever. And I am not interested in starting that now. I never was with the ones I love.” I waggle my finger backwards and forwards between the two of us. My face is serious, my heart rate running wild, along with my imagination.
He looks poleaxed. I know I’ve just blown his world wide open. But is it to wondrous possibilities, or to a black hole of pain? I don’t think either of us know.
“We’ll have to tread carefully.” His mind is mulling it over, his thoughts voiced aloud. “I don’t want her to run again, and take my babies with her.” Now we’re getting to the absolute fears, the truth. “Fuck, that will be a disaster, I don’t think I’d survive it again. I couldn’t face it. Life would be over for me.”
His face is haunted as he clearly thinks of the time pre-Evie with his first wife and then when he was in LA and Evie at home, pregnant. The tortured life he led at that time.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to hurt them. That is the last thing I would ever want. “She didn’t want me to leave Scotland, was hanging onto me. Fuck, that was hard not to touch her like I wanted to. I wanted to tell you, but I left instead,” I admit, trying to rationalise my feelings.
“She wanted you in Devon at Christmas. I heard her onto Marshall about it. He kept telling her not to call you. That’s where James gets it from. She's relentless. But Marshall took her phone, said you needed a life of your own.”
I laugh out at that. “I want a life of my own, with you two. Just different from what we have now, but also kind of the same.”
I can see it, life as we are now. How we all fucking fit so well. How we love so well. It’s innate. It’s bone deep. Soul deep.
The sun is starting to set—hopefully not on my happiness—as a shout comes across the wide open expanse of the festival field, breaking the intensity of the situation.
“Oy, lovebirds, get over here and see my fucking show—dads,” James, shouting out to us both. We can see his cheeky grin from all the way across the field.
We look at each other, my eyes getting wider. “Is he bugging us, do you think?” My voice is edged with panic. “Jonno would, and he says James is better than him.” I start to chew my lip, worry picking at my stomach.
“Fuck. What will we tell them?” Marcus gasps out. “They might not speak to us, tell us to fuck off. Xan, I have to think this through.” He’s hit another panic button. But before he can go into total meltdown, James starts up again.
“Hurry the fuck up,” he shouts, still grinning like a Cheshire cat at us, and waves for us to follow him.
“Fucking kids,” pants out Marcus, trying to laugh, but it comes out more like a strangled cat meow.
We follow. I know I shouldn’t. He hasn’t agreed to anything, but I feel totally high. He didn’t say ‘No way fuck off’. He didn’t punch me in the face and batter me black and blue. He could have. He was certainly entitled to do that, but he didn’t.
Could this be? Could we do this? I need to be clear on what I want. I need them to be clear that I want it to be for us all. I know it will be all or nothing. Of that I am absolutely certain. Not a one and done, not a one night party fuck and leave. I know with every breath in my body, every fibre of my heart and soul—If I am lucky enough to get my hands on them both, it will be game over for me.
8
Xander
