I flop down instead, with all the grace of a drunken elephant.
Katie carefully removes the porcelain pieces from my skin, wincing at the sight of the deep cuts. I guess that the wince is more out of sympathy for me than the actual cut. She doesn’t seem bothered by blood. Katie cleans the wounds and applies bandages to prevent any infections. “There we go.”
“Am I pretty again?”
She smirks, crawling over me and tousling my hair. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I pin her against me and pull the duvet over us, shutting out the outside world.
“Aiden?”
“Hmm?”
She plants a soft kiss on my forehead before muttering, “You’re always disgustingly beautiful.”
My arm screams in protest as I reach for the phone and search for Craig’s number.
“You’re not making a work call right now?” Katie growls.
“I’m not,” smirking at the phone, I pull her closer with my uninjured arm. “I’m going to see about getting those tiles replaced.”
19
KATIE
I haven’t seen Aiden in four days, which is highly unusual given the fact that I haven’t been away from him this long in weeks. It’s a much-needed break, or at least that’s what I keep telling myself every fifteen minutes to ease the growing anxiety that I’ve done something wrong. I had six book covers to create and four tours to organise; all were done in a day of non-stop work. Thank God for hyper-fixation. I can move mountains when there is a tight deadline, but heaven forbid that I take a moment to relax and recharge.
Not that I’d be recharging much with Ciara currently burning a hole through my floors with her pacing. “You need to dump him,” she says to a picture of our late nanny, but I’m sure that one was directed at me.
I stuff a handful of fizzy cola bottles into my mouth, taking my time to think of an answer other than “go fuck yourself.” I love my sister to bits, I do. I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world. But she is pushing her luck by offering unsolicited advice that I clearly don’t need or want.
“How about, no.” I finally respond, making a point of chewing as loud as possible just to irk her.
“He had something to do with those guys going missing; we both know it!” Her dark brown hair falls in loose waves around her face as she steps closer.
“Wedon’t know anything.Wecannot remember a damn thing.Wewere spiked, remember?”
“He did something, Katie!” she insists. “What are the odds that it was his club it happened in? That it was his house we woke up in. That he has inserted himself into your life since it happened.” Her fingers tangle in her hair as she scrapes it away from her face. “He watches you like a hawk. He’s now your boyfriend? How the hell did that even happen?”
I don’t know if I should be insulted right now. “Are you insinuating that Aiden’s too good for me?”
She scoffs. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just find it all too coincidental, don’t you think?”
Stuffing another handful of cola bottles in my mouth, I mull over her words. I know there is something that he’s not telling me. I know he’s dangerous in, at least, some aspects; the gun gave that away. I know he has something to do with the missing arseholes from that night, but I can’t quite piece it all together. Not yet.
Still, call me lovesick, blind, or just plain stupid, but I refuse to believe that the man who has shown me more kindness and understanding than anyone else I’ve ever known could be involved in something sinister.
“Ok,” I say slowly, swallowing the jellies. “Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say you’re on to something. Let’s say that Aiden, for whatever reason, has something to do with those two arseholes disappearing.” I get to my feet, grab the emptysweet bag, and toss it into the fireplace. “That means that he saved us that night.” I turn to my sister, righteous indignation burning in my eyes. “We were drugged, Ciara. Those men could have done anything to us. Best case scenario, we were going to be assaulted. Worst case, we were dead.” I pause for a moment, letting the weight of my words sink in. “If Aiden was involved, he saved our arses that night.”
Ciara swallows hard, her eyes welling up with tears. “And if they’re dead?”
“Good riddance,” she flinches at my blunt response. “If they’re dead, I hope that whoever killed them made it fucking hurt.” Aiden’s hoodie hangs loosely around my shoulders, a constant reminder of the night that changed everything. He never took it back from me, even though I offered to return it countless times. He never took his bank card back, either. After two days of trying to hand it back to him and him not budging on the matter, I spent eight hundred euros on Shein, then ratted myself out, and all Aiden did was laugh. Apparently, his tie clip costs more than my entire new wardrobe.
Let’s see how much he’ll be laughing when he sees the price of my new windows and doors. In my defence, he keeps insulting them; I’m in desperate need of new ones, and he left me unsupervised with his bank card.
The dopamine hit was what I imagine addicts feel like shooting up with black tar heroin.
“So let me get this straight.” Ciara follows me into the kitchen. “Drugs and alcohol are a hard no for you, but murder and your boyfriend breaking into your house are fine?”
I shrug, reaching for two cups from the cabinet. “You saw what we grew up with,” I say, pouring hot water over theteabags in the cups. “I’d take getting fingered by Edward Scissorhands over reliving that shit.”
