Page 14 of Slow Burn (The Boston Beauties)

‘That won’t affect my performance,’ I assured her, taking her hand and placing it on my already-hardening cock, giving it a squeeze via her hand. I didn’t really want to fuck Lisa. I mean, I did, but even I knew in my drunken state that I’d regret it in the morning.

She took a deep breath and gave me another light squeeze. ‘While it’s hard to resist such a romantic proposal,’ she told me sarcastically, ‘I’m not a booty call.’

‘I know,’ I assured her, holding her hand in place over my cock. And it was true, she was more than a booty call, she was a friend of sorts, which was why I let her dismiss it, and I didn’t pursue it any further.

She slid her hand away, looking at me and shaking her head, not looking impressed. ‘You’re drunk, not going to happen.’

I was pretty sure she’d been wanting me for a while, long before Jessa’s disappearance, and that if I’d come to her sober, she’d have jumped on the opportunity, literally. Even in my foul-arsed mood lately, I saw the way she looked at me, the way she tried with me.

She undid my seatbelt, reached over me, opened my door and unceremoniously pushed me out to stumble into the construction site—as she had put it—that I called home.

The next day I awoke with another hangover. It was becoming the norm for me recently. However, when the fog cleared, I hung my head in shame from my actions of the night before, not even able to look at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth. I wasn’t much to look at these days. I couldn’t remember the last time I shaved and was at least a few months overdue for a haircut.

I needed to apologize to Lisa, but when I saw the car in the driveway, I knew she’d already been here and clearly didn’t want to speak to me if she hadn’t knocked to drop the keys off.

As if it couldn't get any worse, the day turned out to be the one my breaking point came. I got a text from Abby confirming that I would be called to the stand during the trial as a witness—which she had already told me, even though I had objected every time it was brought up. I didn’t want my affair of sorts with Jessa out in the open. But today she was texting to let me know she had just been contacted by Matt’s attorney for a deposition. That’s when I was well and truly done.

I called my best friend Ali after reading Abby’s text. The weight of my grief was too heavy to bear alone. It was getting harder to get out of bed. I’d been drinking more to deal with my feelings, or rather numb them so I didn't have to deal with them at all. It wasn’t something I wanted to continue. While I didn’t really remember my father, my mother had said he was a drunk. She wasn’t much better, and if this was hereditary, I needed to stop the cycle. I’d been talking to Ali a bit more recently; he knew I was off and was really trying to help me.

‘I’m flying into Manchester in the morning,’ I told him when he answered his phone; I didn’t wait for a greeting. ‘Can I stay with you?’

‘Yeah, mate, of course,’ he responded immediately. He still lived on his own in Manchester, not far from his family and where we went to university. I had been counting on this answer as he’d told me many times I was welcome to stay in his spare room.

He had recommended a few weeks ago that we go on a vacation, just us and maybe another one or two guys we knew from university. Our closest friend Ned, who also lived in Manchester, was still single and ready to take off work to blow off some steam. While our other friend Nigel lived in London and was engaged, like Ali, both of their partners were cool—they liked me.

‘Ok, good, I’ll book my flight and head to the airport,’ I responded, wanting to end the call.

‘You all right?’

‘Not really, just need to get out of here,’ I told him truthfully.

I packed a bag, not knowing if I should just pack up everything and call it quits on America, on the Cahills, or just a bag for a trip to see my friends.

In the end, I packed a medium-sized case and left most of my things behind in the reno. I still had contracts to fulfill in the spring, and I needed to finish this fucking beach house for the Cahills, I owed it to them. I owed them a lot more than I was giving them at the moment, that's for damn sure.

I turned everything off, cleaned out the fridge of the few contents left, and put the trash to the curb. Luckily, it was trash day tomorrow. I shut all the power off, as I didn’t know when I’d be back. I drove to the Cahill Global headquarters to let Steve know I needed to get away and to leave the Audi there. No parent should ever have to go through the hurt they have once, let alone twice in the matter of a few years. Josh and Jessa were both young, they hadn’t even lived their lives yet. Sometimes fate was cruel.

I hadn’t seen Steve or Colleen in almost two weeks. It didn’t escape me or him that by leaving right now, I was essentially flaking on Thanksgiving. It was nothing to me, I’d never celebrated, as it didn’t exist back home, but based on all the chatter about it over the past week or so, it appeared to be as big or as important as Christmas or Easter was where I was from.

I was being selfish, but I told myself I was allowed. It was a bad week, and I needed to be alone.

Steve offered to drive me to the airport, to charter me a flight, to do anything to make my pain go away. If there had been anything that I could do or buy to even ease his own, I’d go to the ends of the earth and use every favor I could call in and my last cent to do that for this man.

His eyes looked less haunted then they had before, but time wasn’t making things easier on me as it was with him. It killed me a bit more every time I saw him and spoke to him, as all I saw was Jessa. They had the same eyes, and I saw how much he missed her, and I remembered our good times and just how devastated her loss has been on me.

I took an Uber to the airport, booked my economy ticket even though I could afford first class now. Aside from being a friend and a father figure to me, Steve Cahill was my boss who paid me extremely well. When my van finally died, he bought a company truck and gave it to me to use, and I also had Jessa’s Audi to drive, when the truck wasn’t the best choice. I lived rent-free and had many jobs and contacts thanks to him. My bank account is the only thing that’s come out of this unscathed. Steve paid me well above what I was worth, well above what anyone else ever had, more than even I thought I was worth. When I brought it up, letting him know that some weeks I wasn’t working on his projects and that he was paying me without being invoiced, he told me I was on payroll as a salaried employee, that I had benefits with the company and to look at it as retainer fee for when he needed me.

I paid for me and my friends to spend ten days in Mauritius, our airfare, hotel, and our excursions. It was a great time, and the distraction I needed. To be far away and disconnected from social media did a great thing for me. I still wasn’t myself, I still had trouble sleeping, still had difficulty accepting that I’d never see Jessa again, talk to her for hours or hold her in my arms. And when I thought about this, I still cried, and my chest physically hurt.

I stayed for a week in London. First with Nigel and his fiancée for a few days after we returned to England. It was seeing them together, their love that affected me the most; knowing how close Jessa and I were to sharing a life together, to having what Nigel and his fiancée Scarlett shared.

Next I went to stay with my sister Nicole and her kids. The one time I called around to see my mum, she had rounded up all my siblings, their kids and significant others of the day and told them I was treating them all to dinner at one of the local high-end Indian restaurants. It was a nice place, and of course, they all expected me to pay. They knew I was working in America, and if I had the money to come home, then I must be able to afford to feed ten adults and half a dozen kids.

I just had to shake my head at them, especially since each of them, other than Nicole, had tried to hit me up for money. ‘I don’t have it,’ I lied to them, not disclosing the fact that I’d just paid for an all-inclusive first-class vacation for me and my friends and still had plenty of cash in the bank. Cash I hardly ever used, other than for food, drinks, gas, internet, and my cell phone bill. I’d purchased very few clothing and household items. I didn’t know what I needed it all for, but giving it freely to my family to squander wasn’t going to happen.

The truth was, they weren’t asking for much, and I could more than afford all of their requests, all at once. I just didn’t want to give it to them. Without having been asked, I did give my sister Nicole some money and stocked up her kitchen, which, while not bare, could do with some padding.

She was a bit embarrassed but thanked me for it. At least with her, I knew she appreciated me and how hard I worked for it because she worked just as hard—harder, when you considered she was also a mum.

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