I lift my head to look up at him. “Do you have to go?”
“Soon, but first I want to ask you something.”
Oh, Jesus,I think.He wants to go back to that conversation. He wants to know what went wrong with my marriage.I brace myself accordingly.
He comes up to rest on his elbows and I like how it brings his face closer to me, that strong jawline, his dark eyes, and that adorable bump in his nose.
“Can I take you out for the day tomorrow?” Marty asks. “Like... on a date?”
The Next Day
Chapter Twenty-One
Marty
It quickly becomes clear that unlike me, my father didn't come three times last night.
After our fifteen-kilometre or so warm-up getting to the foot of the small Kalathenes mountain range, Dad races off up our first serious incline without a glance back at me, until he's confident the gap between us is sufficient. Then he looks sideways for the briefest moment, just so I can see his shit-eating grin. Well, fine. I know I'd much rather be trailing a sixty-one-year-old man after incredible sex than have legs full of beans for a dawn mountain climb. Besides, I want to save my energy for the day ahead, my day with Jenna.
I’m not sure why, but she took some persuading to come out with me. In the end, we agreed if I could make her come again then she would go on our date, and while I had been ready for the challenge - the competitive streak in me always hard and eager - even I was pleasantly surprised when it had taken mere minutes once I'd settled between her legs. But then I'd become impossibly hard and she told me there was no way she wanted me wasting my erection. She promptly flipped over onto her hands and knees and I got to see exactly how fantastic her arse is in that position, and we rocked, thrust, slammed into each other until we came, at almost exactly the same time.
She was just as astonished as me about that and I think her words were “a happy fluke”. I wasn't sure it was a fluke, but I wasn't going to tell her that when she is the one who knows more about these things than I do. She has words for all this sex stuff, I just have a new fascination at how it’s so good with her. That waswhat I had been thinking about as I cuddled her to sleep - which took no time at all - then I wrote my phone number, a time and location on a piece of paper by her bed, kissed her head once – maybe twice - and left.
And now I'm getting my arse kicked by my father who is taking great pleasure in gaining the lead on me. But my competitive edge - and legs and cock - are still recovering from last night, so I'm going to let him go ahead, and leave him thinking I'm busting my balls to keep up with him by closing his lead here and there. That works for the whole of our sixty-kilometre ride, during which we watch the sun climb high above the horizon. I think briefly about some of the sunrises Arnie and I watched together, and I smile.
I smile and that's it. Now that feels like a very happy fluke.
Back in our villa, Dad goes straight to the fridge for a beer. Mum and Maeve are at a yoga class, so I know he's going to sneak one in before Mum gets home, probably while he dips his feet in the pool, which she'll also kill him for if he's not yet showered.
“Hitting the shower, Da,” I call out.
“Son,” he says. I stop and turn because my father so rarely seeks out my company without a sporting activity or game we can play together.
“Yeah,” I say but don’t walk back into the room.
“Thanks for doing that with me. I dare say you may have had a better offer last night and maybe this morning too, but I appreciate you coming back and riding with me.” He gives me three winks during that little speech and each one makes me feel a little queasy.
“Sure, Da.”
“Your mum appreciates it too,” he says. “I'm working on her, you know. I know it's not been easy, but she's... honestly, she was a fecking mess when you were gone and we didn't know where you were for a while. And then when we got the call about your accident, we really thought the worst. It was like... Well, you can imagine. When Colm and Sheila lost Arnie, we couldn’t help but think about what it would be like if we lost one of you. Your mother holds on to those kinds of feelings a lot tighter than I do. We all know what she's like when she gets her claws into something.”
“I get it, Dad,” I say, and I do. I have thought about this a lot over the last year or so. They loved Arnie too, and they are close to his parents. I know it's been hard for them, Mum especially, but it's harder for me to admit that sometimes my own pain and loss made anyone else's feel like a mere graze in comparison. Mine was an open stab wound, bleeding profusely. And I didn't have any capacity to stem the flow of my own blood loss let alone find plasters or bandages for theirs.
“Just go easy with her,” he says. I pull the inside of my cheek between my teeth, then turn and walk away because I'm done with this conversation now.
Twenty-five minutes later I return – showered and dressed - and Mum and Maeve are there in their yoga gear.
“Aiden!” Mum calls out. “You want a coffee? Breakfast will be here in fifteen minutes.”
I walk to the door and slide my Birkenstocks on. “Nah, Ma, I'm heading to the breakfast buffet, and then I'm going to be out most of the day.”
“What?” I see her head pop out from the side of the open fridge door. “Where are you going?”
I take a deep breath. In between reliving some of my favourite views of Jenna, I went to sleep last night thinking about how this conversation would go, so it's time to find out which of my many hypotheses is correct.
“So, here's the thing... I have a date,” I say.
“Such a dirtbird,” Maeve mutters without looking up from her phone.
