Vanessa laughed and shook her head. “Disagree. I’ll see you before we leave. Or, if you’re not back, text me.”
She left the room, shouting at Jackson who must’ve been somewhere nearby and I was alone with my thoughts and a bundle full of nerves.
Chapter Seven
Killian
It was only really Max who looked at me funny when I mentioned that Claire and I were skipping dinner at home and eating out.
“You’re taking my sister out for dinner?” he said, sipping on a protein shake. “Do I need to beat up you or her?”
I shrugged. “Neither of us.” I eyed him, trying to get a read on what he was actually thinking and failing. Max was the master of the poker face. “It’s a date we’re going on.”
He raised his eyebrows. I had learned over the years that this was a Callaghan thing; letting silence accrue so the other person started to speak. It wasn’t something that generally worked on me, so I cricked my neck and closed my eyes, enjoying the sun.
“A date?” he said finally. I cracked a smile. “With Claire?”
“Yes.”
“K, she eats men for breakfast and picks on their bones for a mid-morning snack. Are you sure you want to go there?”
I laughed quietly. That was how Claire presented herself. I knew differently but now wasn’t the time to explain that. “If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, have a look for my remains.”
Max shook his head. “I didn’t think you thought of her that way.” I heard the tone of his voice change although he was trying to hide it.
Honesty always was the best policy. “She’s never been my sister, Max. You know I’d never hurt her and I’d kill anyone who did, but I’ve never thought of her as my sister.”
“Do I want to know how you thought of her or will it result in violence?”
I chuckled. “Only violence towards you. Probably from her. If it makes you feel better pretend Claire and I are going out to talk about Katie’s security, but I don’t want to lie to you, man.”
He avoided my eyes. “I appreciate that. It just feels weird. Yeah, I know my sister dates and I’ve heard about far too many of those dates and where she’s woken up. Sometimes I feel sorry for whoever she went out with as she could bust a pair of balls with just one look. But you’re not just a date.”
“So, it’s me you’re worried about?”
“Fuck off,” Max said. “I’m worried if something happens between you and it goes disastrously wrong.”
It already has,she ended it,I wanted to say, but again, now was not the time. “We’ll deal with that if it arises.”
He nodded. “I’ll just pretend it’s not happening, until you get married or something.” He gave me an odd look that I couldn’t interpret.
“I’ll say nothing until then,” I said. That was where I was feeling this would go. Claire had always been it for me: the girl I thought of when I was overseas; the one I wanted to come home to; the one I thought of when it was late at night and I couldn’t sleep. Now, older, hopefully wiser, I wanted to see how we were together, whether the chemistry we’d had was because of our youth or something deeper within us. And I still wanted to fuck her so she forgot every name but mine, including her own.
I left him to it, heading inside to shower and get changed for dinner, thinking about Claire and what she was thinking now, whether she’d find some excuse to not go. She was running scared of something, probably to do with why she never gave me the reason why it was over.
Half an hour later and I was ready, sat in a chair at the front of the house, head facing up to the sun with my eyes closed.
“Hello, stranger,” she said, smiling. She looked beautiful and I resisted the urge to grab her and carry her over my shoulder to a bedroom where I could make her mine again. She was petite, small framed, that hadn’t changed over time, and her big brown eyes gazed up at me. I would sometimes forget that she was a foot shorter than me until we were face to face like now.
I could be a gentleman and offer her my arm, leading her down the country pathways towards our destination, keeping it very formal and proper, but I wasn’t that man. My hands went to cup her face and I bent down to kiss her. Just a kiss at first, until her arms moved around my back and her fingers wrapped into my hair. Her mouth opened and the kiss deepened, becoming harder, as did what was beneath my belt.
A cough sounded and we broke apart, still holding on to each other.
“Sorry,” Seph stammered. “I thought you should know I was there. Sorry.” Seph looked mortified, more so than when I had caught him fucking one of the secretaries from his offices in the toilets of a club, as in by the sinks, rather than a cubicle. He’d still been with his girlfriend at the time, although they’d possibly been going through a rough patch – there had been several. Seph seemed to forget the facts that suited him, having berated Jackson for bathroom sex and it being unsanitary.
“It’s fine, Seph,” I said. “And there’s no problem if you want to tell people what you saw either.”
“There isn’t?” Claire said.
