“You stay here,” she said, pushing open the suite door. “I’ll go by myself.”
“Are you sure? I can come with you.”
A pinhole of space inside her knew that was what she wanted. For Patrick to fly home with her, pay for the taxi, come with her to her mum’s bedside, and hold her hand the entire way. To smooth things over the way love was supposed to do.
Care for me, the pinhole screamed. Please, God come with me. But don’t make me ask. Please don’t make me ask. I can’t ask. I need you to understand. If you love me, please understand?
But Patrick just stood there, waiting for her to tell him what to do. The pinhole closed, locked, and became solid steel.
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on his stubbled cheek. “Sorry this happened on your birthday. Have fun at the awards.”
He reached for her, but she put her suitcase between them. “I’ll let you know when I’m back in Melbourne.”
“Cheryl,” he said, his mouth turning down at the corners. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” she whispered. “But I have to go.”
She didn’t cry on the way to the airport, or as she sat at the boarding gate, waiting the four hours before her flight. She spent her time researching care homes and emailing every upscale strip club and gentlemen’s bar in Melbourne to see if they had any availability for a thirty-two-year-old with no experience who needed to earn upwards of three thousand dollars a week. She didn’t buy cigarettes, but she drank cup after cup of black coffee until she felt strung out and sick.
Patrick messaged again and again, until she put her phone on ‘Do Not Disturb.’
It was over between them.
Maybe when it came to sex, Patrick could be the big man in charge, but she’d needed him and he’d had no idea what to do. ‘Put the blame on me’ he’d said—well she did. But she blamed herself too, for seeing this coming from a mile away and believing it wouldn’t be a total disaster. She’d had fun pretending like she and Patrick could be a couple, but now the worst had happened and she had to handle things the way she always did. On her own.
She kept working on the plane, connecting to the Wi-Fi so she could email more strip clubs and update her LinkedIn. As she retyped her resume, a Google alert popped into her inbox. Someone had put up an Instagram post about Patrick.
She’d set up the alert years ago so she could follow his career and tease him about the occasional bad photo. She removed the alert with a few clicks, then, already furious with herself, opened the link to the post. It was a fluff piece from ClearStream Spring Water, who were sponsoring the event.
There Patrick was in his nice suit, one arm slung around a middle-aged guy holding a trophy, whom Cheryl assumed was a sportscaster. Patrick was smiling his big superhero smile. He looked gorgeous.
You were mine, she thought. For a little while.
She swiped to the second image in the post, and though she had been sure things couldn’t get worse, they did. The second photo was Patrick arm-in-arm with Darling Belfort, a Kiwi model she recognised from Mecca’s hydrating mist campaign. The same mist she kept spraying on her face.
Darling was blonde with huge China-blue eyes and she was smiling up at Patrick with such obvious attraction, Cheryl almost choked. Aware it was tantamount to self-harm, but totally unable to stop herself, she looked up Darling’s age. Twenty-two. Cheryl closed her laptop and cried the rest of the way to Melbourne.
16
One week before the yacht party
Patrick’s car smelled like flowers. The bouquet beside him took up the whole passenger seat. Tiger lilies and orchids and little white things, all wrapped in pink paper. It cost two hundred and fifty bucks. If one look at them could tell Cheryl everything he wanted to say, he’d have spent more.
He’d been parked on the street outside her apartment for half an hour. Neighbours kept looking out of their windows at him, and they’d probably call the cops if he didn’t move soon. But he couldn’t move. He needed to tell Cheryl how he felt. Tonight. He’d decided the date weeks ago. A Wednesday so he knew she’d be home and not too busy with work. He’d even written down what he’d say.
I always tell you that I love you, but I never say how. I love you the way you love the girl you marry.
But no amount of planning or prep work was helping him get out of his fucking car. Even the flowers hotboxing him with their tropical scent weren’t enough to get him moving. His phone buzzed. He picked it up, hoping Cheryl had guessed what he wanted to say, and he didn’t need to do this. But it was a random text.
Hiiii Patrick! I got your number off my cousin Issac. I have the biggest crush on you!!! Do you want to meet up for a drink? Nessie xxxxx
She’d sent a photo. If it wasn’t a catfish, Nessie was a youngish blonde who owned red lingerie and enjoyed bending over.
Frowning, he blocked the number and deleted the messages. He hadn’t slept with anyone in months. Hadn’t kissed a girl since before his brother’s wedding. Now that he knew what he wanted, everything else was just a distraction. But he guessed he owed Nessie one because her creepy text got him to grab the bouquet and climb out of his car. Maybe every girl wouldn’t back off when they knew he was taken, but surely it would slow down shit like this.
You can do this, he told himself. She feels it too. There are a million signs.
But as he climbed the stairs to Cheryl’s apartment, those signs started to feel a lot like delusions. Had she really been staring at his cock when he wore grey sweatpants? Or was that just wishful thinking? Was she actually jealous when he told her about the chick throwing her underwear at him at the obli gig? Or just mad anyone thought that was a good idea?
