Page 40 of The Fallen
Fucking potholes in the road bounce the car around, keeping me just slow enough to see the girls hanging out around the next bend. Skirts too short, hard features showing me they’re on the same road as my own mother was. Anything for a fix – anything to get the rent paid.
I sigh as the roads lead me to another place I haven’t been for years. Should’ve been here more, shown him the respect he deserves. He wouldn’t want me to. Never did. He wanted us both away from here, long gone and onto better things. At least I managed it. Might have sent my brother down in the process, but that's my fucked up morals doing something worthwhile.
Slamming the door, I head into the cemetery and wander through the knackered old gates. Even they’re scrawled over with tags and graffiti. Pisses me off. It’s one thing to deface the government’s attempts at housing, but another to disrespect the dead. This place is full of them, generations of people who tried as best they could. It’s different now. Was when we were kids, too, but back then, there were good people around here – hardworking war veterans and their wives just getting through each day.
I eventually end up at Gramps’ grave, my hand brushing away the dead weeds and fingers pulling up some of the ivy growing wild. Both of their names come into view – John and Ethel Locke. Good people. Honest people. It’s about the only thing in my past that is, the one thing I go back to in the hope that I can try as best I can for them if nothing else.
Don’t really know why I’m here, but I guess it’s something to do with family – with Stefan and what I did to him, maybe what I’m continuing to do for him. Landon’s gonna have me straight over a barrel for helping Neve out. He’s going to make me pay for it, and these feelings I’m idling in aren’t helping me see right. She’s nothing to me. Shouldn’t be. She’s just a woman who’s way out of my league and neck-deep in her own shit. I don’t even know why that matters to me. It was a simple fucking task – catch her, keep her.
Send her home.
Can’t though. I’m struggling with that. Or maybe I’m struggling with the fact that I mean nothing to her. I’m a tool at the moment, something she needs. And even if I wasn't, she deserves more than me in her life. She'll get married to some other wealthy bloke, and they’ll have kids and live in mansions. I’m nothing compared to that. I’m poor in comparison, less than fucking perfect in manners and education, and not something she’ll ever consider as useful after this.
As if on cue, my phone rings. I don’t need to look at it. It’s the same ringtone it always is for him. I do pull it out of my jeans to look at it, though, as I get comfortable on the gravestone. The L flashes. That’s it. That’s all he’s labelled as. It’s not like he needs more than that, just that letter is enough to mark his importance in my life. Should've called him Lucifer. Would've matched his attitude, but without him Stefan’s fucked, probably dead, and yet here I am sleeping with his sister behind his back and bringing problems my way.
A deep-rooted guilt crawls over me at the thought, as the phone cuts out, and I watch as the voicemail springs up on the screen. I don’t need to hear that either. It’ll be a pretty straightforward attack. Always is with him. Probably includes a threat. I know his tone well when he delivers them.
It all makes me sigh and pocket the fucking thing, memories trying to find some sense. Feeling guilty about putting my brother away is already enough. Add in the disloyalty I’m now showing to the man who saved his arse, and I’m tripling the feeling on myself.
“It’s all fucked up, Gramps,” I mutter. “Don’t know what to do. Think I care about her. Shouldn't. Fucking stupid.”
He doesn’t answer. Not like he can, is it? In fact, I don’t even need him to. It’s a pretty simple thing I need to do. Get her gone. Get her gone to the people she should be with, so I can do what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. All this thinking about possibilities that are not for a Croydon boy from the wrong side of the tracks is stupid. There isn’t anything but fucking going on between us, and that’s only because she needs me. She doesn’t now. Lewis Davis is wherever the fuck he is. I’m a pointless addition to her life other than the brute strength she thought she might be able to use. And she needs to be with her family regardless.
Fuck whatever game we’re playing.
We’re done. My time with the prettiest princess I've ever seen is at its end.
Time for some realism.
“Sleep well, Gramps. Thanks.”
I get up and make the walk back to the car; not one look back at the ground they’re buried beneath. I got what I needed from them – from this trip – a reminder of who I am. This is all me. No prince’s life. No privilege or university fed silver spoons. No striped up, manicured lawns on acid. I’m just a Locke.
And she’s a Broderick.
~
The late evening light barely shows the road into the farm, but I don’t need it to. This track is like a memory now. I park when I reach the end of it and cut the engine, eyes directed at the light on inside the house. She moves past the window, then stares out into the night with a mug in her hands. Guess she can see the car or maybe heard it pull up. Either way, I can see her, and it’s not something I’m prepared for. I was supposed to drive in, get out, and tell her straight how it’s going to be. Should’ve phoned Landon and made that reality I couldn’t avoid because instead of doing that, I’m looking at her in my space and smiling.
She looks good there, looks like part of it – part of me even. Fucking ridiculous, but it isn’t stopping me getting out of the car and thinking things I shouldn’t be thinking again. Nanna used to stand at the sink under the window. She used to stand there and wait for Gramps to come home, a plate of food warming for him in the oven and a smile on her face. Doubt this princess has cooked me anything, but the thought’s more appealing than it should be. Makes me consider kids and a future and what the fuck I am going to do with my life.
I open the door and shrug out of my jacket, dumping it on one of the old wooden chairs, then pull the hoodie off because of the heat in here. She looks at me and sips her drink, no words to say, apparently. Fine. I’ve only got a few to get out, and whilst she’s not going to like any of them, they need saying.
“Do you feel better now?” she asks before I manage to say anything.
“What?”
“You said you needed space. You’ve had some, so I’m assuming you feel better now?”
Not really. In fact, definitely not now she’s standing in front of me and confusing the situation so quickly with a few words. I rub my face and try to forget about her body, or her skin, or those fine fingers gripping the mug tightly, and head into the lounge. They’re just a few fucking sentences. Easy enough. You’re going home, Neve. Deal’s off. Game’s over.
“What did you get up to?” she asks, following me in. “I've been looking at the surveillance at the farm you set up. Nothing happening there. No Lewis. Still.”
I watch as she leans on the door frame. Look at her exposed legs in a skirt as she crosses them and smiles gently at me. “Thinking,” I mutter. “About you.”
She looks surprised. Don’t know why. It’s pretty fucking obvious what happened last night was not part of the plan. “What about me?”
I’m not saying anything else about that. What’s the point? The only thing that needs saying isn’t something I want to say yet. Kinda proves I’m not even remotely fucking interested in saying it at all, regardless of the simple reality around the situation.
