My mood is darkening with every breath I take. I need this conversation to end before I lose my shit completely. Not that there won’t be a conversation about this, but it will be private—between me and Anita and it will be happening the second we leave this car if I have any say in it.
Anita
My stomach hasn’t stop churning since I saw Tristan…I still can’t get my head around him being called Christian. My slip up, calling him by the name I’d known him go by has caused raised eyebrows and smirks if not suspicion from Liv and Mase—Declan? Well, that is a different story because as much as he has held my hand and kept me close, he is antsy and agitated with everything, but I suspect mainly me. Did he hear something when he came to the kitchen? Something I said, or God forbid, what Tristan said? I am certain he didn’t hear anything about me having sex with the other man or he’d have said something, of that, I am sure.
“So, where are you two going? Home, Dec’s, ours?”
Liv spins in her seat to face us. I remain silent, deferring to Dec to make the decision for us both. My preference is to go home and not face the conversation I feel sure is impending with Dec, a conversation I neither want nor have any clue what it might involve. At least going back to my sister’s home will allow me to avoid whatever awaits me a while longer or possibly even gain some insight into what that conversation might involve.
“Mine,” Dec replies, blowing all alternatives out of the water. “I have work later and Anita and I have things to sort out before then.”
Liv frowns as her glance lands on me. My response is a shrug. Dec says no more while Mase remains silent but takes a turn that confirms we are going to his brother’s home.
~~~
Dec is pacing the floor of his flat while I sit on the sofa, watching him, waiting. Seconds turn into minutes and the minutes seem to last for hours.
I get to my feet. “Maybe I should go—”
“You are going nowhere!” Dec roars, turning until he stands before me. “I don’t even know where the fuck to start here. There is something going on between you and Christian…I don’t know what or why but there is something and I don’t fucking like it.”
I stare at him, unable to deny any of what he is saying. I wish I could.
“Say something!” he barks at me, his grip on all things good seems to be hanging by a thread.
“What? What do you want me to say? You have got something of a bee in your bonnet about me and a member of your family and you expect me to say something? But what? Why? I don’t know what you want from me, Dec. You have said it yourself, you don’t know whatitis or why you think it, but somehow this is my problem rather than yours.”
Dec steps away, his fingers running through his hair, tugging the ends, hard judging by the pained expression on his face.
I move towards him and feel nothing but guilt now. Not because I think I owe Dec anything in the way of an explanation about my past any more than he owes me one, but because I know I am lying to him, or about to if pushed. His reaction to discovering me in his mother’s kitchen, talking, regardless of what he heard, to the man I now know is his stepsister’s husband, has convinced me that telling him the truth would be a bad idea. Until I must. If I must.
I briefly acknowledge to myself that there is plenty that I do feel guilty about but none of that is something I intend to discuss or divulge to him…to anyone.
“Dec. I don’t know what’s going on here. If I have done something, tell me. If you’re pissed off with me, tell me, but I am not staying here to put up with your mood swings based on whatever is in your head. So, if you want to talk about it, we can, but I mean talk with actual words, not sulking.”
Silence is his only response for a few seconds as he seems to consider what I am saying.
“Sorry,” he eventually says. “I don’t know why it bothered me so much, but when I came to find you in the kitchen, you seemed familiar with Christian. Too familiar.”
“Familiar?” I am doing everything I can to hide the panic that I hear in my voice.
“Yes, familiar.” He sighs loudly. “I don’t know what it was, but…for fuck’s sake. Sorry. Look, there’s something I need to tell you and maybe that is what’s wrong with me. Why I got myself in such a fucking state hearing you talking to another man.”
He sounds disgusted with himself that me speaking to Christian, regardless of what he heard, got under his skin. I do briefly smile before remembering that my conversation in the kitchen, whilst innocent on this occasion has less than innocent origins.
“Dec, maybe I should go—” I repeat my earlier offer. Maybe it would be better for us both to have some time to think. Dec to think through whatever is bothering him and me to think about what I am going to tell him because despite my earlier thoughts on telling him nothing. Lying. I won’t do that, not that I plan on telling him the whole truth.
“No, please, stay. I told you, there’s something I need to tell you and I think that something is fucking with my head.”
“O—k—ay.” I feel nervous now. What could possibly be fucking with his head like this and as it is clearly related to me, maybe he would be better off removing me and it from his life.
“This afternoon, I was thinking and then I came to a realisation, and I was okay with it, or so I thought.” He looks awkward. “I am okay with it, kind of, but it’s a shock and not what I planned on any level—”
I cut him off, hoping to somehow stop his ramblings. “Dec, you’re worrying me.”
“Sorry.” He takes a very deep breath. “Although maybe you should be worried. “Anita…” Another deep breath follows. “I love you, okay? I. Bloody. Love. You.”
Chapter 20
