ABBY
We spend the rest of the afternoon in bed, getting to know each other intimately several times. Callum collapses back onto the pillows and pulls me gently down to rest on his chest, enveloping me in the security of his strong arms. My lips taste the sweat from his dewy supple skin, and I listen to the comforting pounding of his heart. Planting a tender kiss on my forehead, he exhales a low whistle.
‘Abby Queenan, you might be the death of me yet.’ I hear his smile, though I can’t see his face.
A brief flash of Esmeralda’s words about losing someone close to me flits nauseatingly through my mind, followed closely by a reminder that this fabulous man also isn’t called Patrick. It’s a good job I don’t believe in her ridiculous notions. It doesn’t sit well that she had been right on the work opportunity prediction, but it was a fluke. It had to be.
‘You okay?’ Callum mistakes my prolonged silence as regret.
‘Never been better,’ I assure him.
‘You hungry?
‘Actually, I am. Shall we order take out?’
‘I’ll get some menus from the kitchen.’
We order sushi and sit on the couch with it, half watchingThe Snapperon RTE. It was an eventful day, in more ways than one. I contemplate hitting the road. The walk of shame to the radio station in the morning’s not an option I’m prepared to consider.
‘You’re not going already, are you?’ Callum asks in surprise, from his position next to me.
‘I’ve been here all afternoon. I should give you a bit of space. Or do you normally keep a woman around the place for your pleasure any time you feel like a bit?’ I ask curiously.
‘Do you want to know the truth?’ Those beguiling blue eyes pull shamelessly at my fragile heartstrings.
I don’t relish the thought of the skinny models before me, but there’s no point avoiding the issue either. All I’d have to do is type his name into Google and see multicoloured images that would be forever imprinted on my mind.
‘Go on then.’ I readjust my bra strap.
‘There have been a lot of women. You wouldn’t have to do a lot of digging to see for yourself.’ He’s not proud. ‘But I didn’t have any real feelings for them.’ An earnest intensity transfers in his stare.
‘None of them came to my home. I never let anyone in before.’ He’s no longer merely talking about his apartment.
‘Why not?’ I’m desperate to glimpse behind the carefully construed wall.
‘I didn’t trust them not to use me.’ He shrugs.
‘So you used them instead?’ I’m missing something here, but what, I have no idea.
‘Yes and no. I never lied to anyone. I never led anyone on.’
I’m flattered that he considers me different. But where do his trust issues originate? Why wouldn’t he let anyone in? He trusted them with his body, but not with his heart. With my background in psychotherapy, I can’t sit with it until I understand his trigger. Especially because now I’ve crossed the threshold, I’m conscious of doing something, even by chance, that might drive him away.
‘Did you never want to settle down?’ I probe carefully.
‘Honestly? It didn’t occur to me, not until lately anyway,’ he admits.
I will him to expand. I laid myself bare to him today, both emotionally and physically. I need him to do the same for me. It’s a big ask, but if he does, it could be the start of something meaningful between us.
He takes a sip from a glass of water positioned on the coffee table next to him, trying to summon the right words.
‘When I was seven, my mum left us,’ he begins quietly.
Immediately the pieces fall into place. It makes perfect sense. He experienced his own version of a broken heart, delivered by the only woman in the world that he didn’t expect it from. Not only did he lose his mother, but presumably, he would have been raised with only his father’s masculine role. A role which mightn’t have been the most objective when it came to women, if his wife walked out and left him.
‘I’m so sorry, Callum. I had no idea.’ I stroke the back of his hand sympathetically.
‘How could you have? We deliberately kept it out of the papers.’ He sighs, as he remembers.
