Page 78 of Kissing Games
He closed his mouth and breathed slowly in and out through his nose. His sister waited. Finally, he felt more in control. He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed.
‘Tab, growing up I was always in your shadow. You were everything Dad wanted me to be and I resented you and him. I acted like a complete dick. The only time I felt true to myself, the only time I didn’t hate myself and everyone around me, was when I was with Jennifer.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I know no one believed me. They thought I was just a kid, but I fucking loved her, Tab. I loved her for five long years. And when it all went to shit, I hated myself and the world even more. When I met…’
He swallowed, the name caught in his throat.
‘When I met Caroline, I wanted her to replace the life I’d lost with Jennifer. I wanted to get married and have kids. I desperately wanted kids with her.’ He paused, his tender heart opening to his deepest truth. ‘She said we were too young. She didn’t want us to live together. She didn’t want to get married. Then she wanted me to leave the army. But I had no career to go to. No degree. I wanted to work my way up the ranks, make enough to support a family. So she dumped me, and the next thing I know, she’s marrying some wanker from the City. I knew it was bullshit, so I waited, and sure enough, she came back. She said she’d leave him if I left the army. So I did. But she didn’t leave.’ His voice was barely a whisper. ‘And now she’s pregnant with his baby.’
‘Oh, Charlie.’ He could hear the pain in his sister’s voice. ‘Are you sure it isn’t yours?’
He nodded again. ‘Yes. She’d been withholding sex for a while and we always used condoms anyway. She went away for a holiday to the Maldives. I thought it was with her mum, but it was really with him. She told me she conceived there. She’s about twenty-two weeks now, almost the same as you. She’s also having a little girl. I’m so sorry, Tabbie. I totally freaked out when you told me. I’ve always wanted kids and just presumed you didn’t.’
‘Charlie,’ his sister sighed. ‘I’m sorry too. And I’m sorry I was away when it all happened. I never knew Jennifer meant so much to you. I never understood why you were so angry all the time or what any of us had done to deserve you behaving like you did.’
Charlie let out a huff. ‘I was a fucking prick ninety-nine per cent of the time, Tab. You can still call me that to my face.’
He swore he could hear his sister smile. ‘I’m trying to be nice.’
‘I don’t mind. I deserve it. You can kick this dog when he’s down as much as you like.’
‘Okay, then. Caroline was a cold-hearted bitch who didn’t deserve you.’
A shocked laugh burst out. ‘Don’t pull any punches, Tabitha.’
‘It’s true. She used you. She didn’t give a toss about your feelings. You were just her pretty pet. She could show you off to her friends, then put you back in a box when she got bored. We all saw through it. And we all fucking hated her for how she treated you. You know why Dad went so mental when the two of you got together?’ Tabitha didn’t wait for him to reply. ‘He hated your CO. I mean, really fucking hated him. Dad had to lower himself and kiss his arse to get you at his table that night. He did it for you. To try and give you a leg up. To give you a chance to prove yourself. When you went off with Caroline, he wasn’t mad because you embarrassed him by shagging her. He was mad because he knew what a cunt your CO was and didn’t want you anywhere near his family.’
‘Tab!’
‘Oh, come on, Charlie. You think I haven’t heard that word before? I run an army base. I use it every day. Your CO was Cunty McCuntface and his cow of a daughter wasn’t far behind.’
‘Tab! You’re going to be a mum!’
His sister laughed. ‘Yeah, a fucking kickass mum who’s going to run the army by the time she’s done. Since when did you turn into such a prude?’
Charlie laughed, feeling lighter than air. ‘You’re right. You can call him whatever you like. He made my life hell.’ He felt a twinge of pain in his heart for all the time lost, for the relationship he could have had with his sister. ‘I’m so sorry, Tab. For everything.’
She sighed. ‘Me too. I’m sorry I didn’t know any of this and I’m sorry I couldn’t have supported you more. But it’s done now. You need to talk to Mum and Dad. Say all this stuff to them. You’re still coming to their party, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, I’ll be there.’ His throat tightened. He thought of his sister having a baby. What an incredible gift it was for their family. ‘You’re going to be the best mum ever, Tabbie,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘And your little girl is going to have the most devoted uncle in the whole world.’
25
Valentina stared blankly out the window as Charlie drove her to Inverness, his phone clamped to her ear. Whilst she talked and listened to various family members, she worked her way through a box of tissues on her lap. By the time Charlie parked, most lay crumpled around her.
He opened her door and shook his head when she tried to clean them up. ‘Leave it.’
As they walked through the centre of Inverness, she held tightly to his hand. Being in public helped control her tears, and the fresh air was like a cold shower, calming the heat of her emotions. Charlie’s hand was warm, strong, reassuring. The only solid thing in a world turned upside down. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have a focus, a goal that drove her on, a grand plan that made all the shitty jobs and shittier people worth dealing with. She felt completely adrift and unstable. She was angry with her family, but also guilty for assuming her dreams were also theirs. When she thought about the reality of taking Manny and Maria’s kids out of school, uprooting her family from their friends, their church, their community, their home, she felt sick with shame.
She’d been a child when she stood in front of her brother’s coffin and had her idea. An idea that, like a dog with a tattered toy, she hadn’t been able to drop. And for what? Her teens and twenties were lost to work. Rather than pay for an assistant and a manager, she’d taken on those jobs herself, leaving no time to grow as a person and discover who she was. She hadn’t found a hobby, hadn’t read books or listened to music. She realised with a lurch that she hadn’t even made any real friends.
Charlie squeezed her hand. ‘You okay?’
She shrugged and managed to smile at him. He was incredible. In the middle of all her turmoil, he was there. Reliable, dependable, unflappable. He was effortlessly kind and thoughtful, and hilariously, stupidly funny. He also had a brain and the wherewithal to use it, hidden inside a man so good-looking that her underwear was ruined the second she thought about him. She’d assumed he was a man who had slept with half the world, but he wasn’t. Just because he had the face of a bad boy and the body of a god didn’t mean he was a player.
He stopped. They were standing outside a mobile phone shop. His golden-green eyes held hers. He reached down and brushed a kiss against her cheek that made her shiver.
‘You’ve got this,’ he whispered.
She moved her lips to find his. She wanted to lose herself in him. Use the blinding pleasure he gave her to blot out everything else. She tugged his head closer, her tongue slipping into his hot mouth, her body pressing hard against his. He groaned, sending a pulse rocketing through her, then pulled back, breathing heavily.
