Page 55 of Marley
“You all right, dude?” I asked him.
“I’m gonna go and see your sister.” He stated while staring at the television screen.
“Why?” I asked, honestly curious as to his reason.
He turns and looks at me. “I need to know, Marls. I need to tell her everything, and I need her to hear me out. Then I need to know if there’s ever going to be a chance for us to sort this mess out.”
I nod my head, whilst debating internally as to whether it was a good idea.
“From what Jim and Len tell me, she’s miserable, and I’m still fucking dying here without her.” He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin.
“I can’t carry on like this anymore. I’m existing, but I’m not living. Even if she says no, if she tells me straight up that there’s no chance of us ever getting back together, at least then I’ll know. It’ll hurt... fuck, it’ll be agony, but it can’t be any more painful than what I’ve been going through these last few years.”
“When?” I asked. “When you planning on going to see her?”
“This week. I don’t wanna wait now that I’ve made up my mind, and I don’t want Jim or Lennon to know, just in case they warn her. I don’t wanna give G a chance to overthink what she’s feeling, I’ll just turn up. I know her, Marls, I know her inside and out. I’ll know as soon as she sees me, what she’s really feeling.”
As much as I cringed with the knowledge of how well Maca knew my little sister, I also accepted that what he said was true. Those two were inseparable for five years, and were sleeping together for the last year or so they were together. Nobody knew George as well as Maca did, and being the big brother that I was, that was actually the way I’d like it to stay—him being her one and only.
I have no idea if she’d seen other blokes. I know Jimmie had mentioned that she’d finally started going out with this new friend, Ash, but she’d never mentioned her dating anyone. She did say that she didn’t go to my mums for Sunday dinner anymore because she was out most Saturday nights. That was something I hadn’t yet mentioned to Maca.
“Whatever you feel you need to do, man. I won’t say a word to anyone. Just let me know if there’s anything I can help do to make this happen.” I patted him on the shoulder as I spoke.
We both stare at the television in silence for a few seconds.
“Fuck, I need a shag, I’m actually sitting here with a semi because of a fucking cartoon cheetah cat woman on the telly.” He stated.
“Oh, come on. What’s not to get hard about Cheetara? It’s when you start getting hard over Jaga you need to worry, or worse still, WilyKat. Now that would just be wrong, dude.”
I watched as he smiled and shook his head.
“Seriously though. We have to fly to Ireland tomorrow for that charity, do the interviews Len’s lined up, but we’re back home next weekend. Perhaps I can try and find out what she’s doing next week so you’ll at least know where she’ll be.”
“I’d rather talk to her somewhere private, not at your mum and dad’s in front of everyone.”
“That’s fine. I’ll just find out when she finishes work. She’s living in the flat above the shop now so it shouldn’t be too hard to get her on her own.”
“Thanks, mate, appreciate it.”
“Least I can do brother, the very least.” I told him as I headed off back to my bedroom to shower and get dressed for our run out on the bikes.
By the time I’d showered and dressed, Maca and L girl were chatting and laughing like old friends in the kitchen.
“Olivia wants to know if we could collect her mate from where she stayed last night and give them both a lift back to Chelmsford?” I wasn’t sure if Maca was asking on L girls behalf, or telling me that that’s what we were going to do. He shrugged his shoulders before continuing, “I just thought it might give us a decent run out on the bikes.”
“Can do.” I replied. “I was actually thinking of heading out to my parents’ place ... ya know, to see what I could find out about what G’s up to for the next few weeks.” I informed him, trying not to give too much away in front of our present company.
“I’m not sure, Marls. Who’s gonna be there?”
“By the time we get there, no one you’ll need to worry about, but I’ll check on whose cars are on the drive once we’re there anyway. If there’s a problem, we’ll just keep driving and drop the girls off.” He still doesn’t look too happy, but I continue. “Where’s your mate want picking up from, sweetheart?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Turns out that L girls mate was actually her sister who spent the night at their brothers, just around the corner from us.
I sometimes wonder how stupid I was at that stage of my life. At the time, I thought I had my shit together, but my decision making skills and the complete lack of thought I put into them were obviously something I had yet to master.
We picked L girls sister up and drove out towards my parents’ place with the girls on the back. It felt good. It was a Sunday afternoon and the traffic was light. Living the life that we do, the freedom of the open road—no cameras, no fans—just complete anonymity was something to savour and I decided as we drove, that that was something we should make time to do more often.
