The slender crescent moon shimmered behind the altostratus clouds of a night sky. A star so bright, I could have mistaken it for Sirius, twinkling on a velvety black bed.
The scene reminded me of The Princess and the Frog's Evangeline, the spirit of Ray's former love, who people wished upon in the hopes of dreams coming true and becoming new realities.
Velleities may never come into fruition, but indue discouragement will not stand in the way of an overachiever. I pulled myself across the backseat and stargazed until dark thoughts segued into wishes. It's not a rare shooting star, but it's the brightest star in the sky.
The universe might be good to me.
I wish I could press the reset button and start again. I wish I could turn back the hands of time. I wish I had offered my life for yours. I wish that you were here with me instead of there with them. I wish I could take away your pain, silence and sadness and replace it with strength, braveness and courageousness. I wish we could follow the stars and find our way back to each other.
I hope you have a safe place that feels like home. I hope you see the light in the darkness. I hope you know that you are always in my thoughts. I hope you know that I could never forget about you or replace you. I hope you know that I love you more than anything else in this world. I hope you love me, too, even though it's not what I deserve.
Recognising that I had lost my marbles to humour fleeting madness, I crawled into the front compartment and sat beneath the glittering pattern of starlight above.
Either the world has gone nuts, or I am positively unhinged. I will go with the latter, a crazy, certifiable woman praying to the universe to reconstruct her life and fix her problems. There is no hope left for me or the people surrounding me.
Parked on one of the most prestigious streets in Kensington, I marvelled at the terraces of townhouses in immaculate condition overlooking Knightsbridge garden square. I am almost ninety-nine point nine percent sure, Mary lives ten minutes down the road, and she would throw a hissy fit if she found out I never swung by for a visit.
My stomach grumbled. I might pass out if I do not eat soon. I can't even remember the last time I had something to drink.
If Big Guy is in a better mood, when he returns, I can ask him to drive by a local convenience store for me to grab a pre-made sandwich. I will settle for a packet of salt and pepper crisps if he is not feeling generous.
The mysterious occupant from townhouse six—a short black woman with goddess-style locs, white-framed spectacles and leopard print leisure wear—unlocked the front door and went to the side for Big Guy to leave. He was in no rush to return, though. He lingered on the second step, arms folded and face bleak and downcast in the moonlight.
Minutes passed. The woman glanced over at the Bentley, and then her attention went back to him. I was not close enough to hear the conversation. From this angle, I could tell he was much calmer and more emotionally stable. He also smiled, such a lovely yet mischievous smile, when she talked lowly, rubbing the side of his arm. The acquaintanceship seemed platonic and professional but close and familial. I wondered about them, how they knew each other and what she meant to him.
Not wanting to be accused of downright nosiness, I unlocked my phone and downloaded a gaming application on the App Store.
Subway Surfers is an endless running game where my dude spent more time colliding with loud trains and relentless inspectors than collecting gyrating coins and mystery boxes.
"Oh, come on," I complained to none other than myself as the young graffiti artist slammed into a barrier. "Use your brain, Kid. It's not hard—"
"What are you doing?" The unexpectedness of Big Guy's stentorian voice had the phone in my hand flying into the abyss. "Seriously? A video game?" His arm came through the half-opened window to grab the phone on the floor by the assortment of pedals. "How old are you?"
"Do not judge me." Impossibly red-faced, I snatched the phone out of his hand before he got comfortable in the driver's seat. "You have been gone for hours. I had to occupy myself during distressing times of neglect and starvation."
Brad eyed the state of my appearance. "Your hair is a mess," he pointed out, and I immediately ran my fingers through my hair. "And your eyes are puffy. You fell asleep."
"I did." God, I slept the day away with no dreams to contemplate. I must have been exhausted. "Shamelessly.
"You were not bored. You only just woke up." Grasping the passenger side headrest, he threw the car in reverse and eased a foot onto the accelerator to drive down the street in the same direction he came in. "What's the deal?"
"Fine." My shoulders sagged guilty. "I saw you come out of the townhouse with that woman and didn't want you both to think I was snooping or eavesdropping. I downloaded a game to keep my brain ticking over and curiosity at bay."
Brad's focus was on the road. "Starvation?"
"I will die from lack of food."
"And people have the cheek to call me a drama queen." His ringed fingers worked the gearstick. "Name a decent restaurant."
The menu consisted of patties, cheese, lettuce, onion, pickles and a portion of cheesy garlic bites. "Chicken nuggets," I all but groaned in pleasure. "A quarter pounder and large fries."
"A McDonald's implication? You can get fucked." His overt disgust was both offensive and humorous. "I am not eating that shit."
I could almost taste the melted cheese on my tongue whilst imagining crispy garlic bites dipped in a pot of ketchup. "You are not obligated to eat anything, but I will love you forever if you throw a few McChicken Sandwiches at me," I joked, or even flirted, which, by the looks of it, he did not appreciate. "Please, Big Guy. I promise to be quiet if you let me eat."
"For Christ's sake." He swerved into the next lane with the abruptness of a dickhead driver, undercutting vehicles and taking sharp turns. "You owe me for this one."
Fifteen minutes later, an illuminated McDonald's sign appeared straight ahead. My tummy growled in appreciation when the scent of fries and hamburgers wafted to my nose.
Brad embarked on the bumper-to-bumper vehicles of a twenty-four-hour drive-through and waited, high-strung and impatient, for an employee to speak on the intercom box.
"You could have chosen any restaurant in London but opted for the contaminable hole in the wall." He pulled a leather wallet from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. "What do you want? And don't say, 'I don't mind' because that is a response from a high-maintenance woman who knows exactly what she wants and decides to be difficult instead."
My forehead creased. "What?"
"I will not sit here, confused and frustrated, whilst you reject every suggestion I throw out." His arm relaxed on the window ledge as he examined the digital menu. "Nobody has time for that."
Have I missed something?
Why is he so testy all of a sudden?
"Are we still talking about the McDonald's order?" I asked him, and his eyes flared with unreserved annoyance. "Only, it sounds like there is an underlying issue here."
An uneasy quietness settled in the car.
"What do you want, Emma?"
"A McChicken sandwich, Big Guy."
"McChicken sandwich." His head cosied on the headrest whilst he relayed the order to the women talking through the intercom box. "My girl loves to be awkward and indecisive, so chuck in a medley of greasy, unpalatable burgers and some filthy, undercooked sides. Maybe overconsumption will help her to decide."
The female hollered at my expense. "Difficult damsels."
I scoffed at the ridiculousness. That's the second time someone has outright called me a damsel today.
"Right?" Brad's deep, heavy laughter synchronised with the troublemaker's merriment. "Are women deliberately difficult, or does it come naturally?"
"Hey!" The girl in the box put on the fake, I am offended, act. "Do not put us all in the same category. I happen to be very laid back. You will not get any headaches from me."
Big Guy is aware of the camera on the intercom box, where his new friend is most likely watching, dribbling and ogling. He smiled for the lens but never responded.
My blood boiled. "You are such an asswipe."
"Thank you." He drifted the car around the bend to the next window. "I try to be the best."
"I don't want food anymore."
"Well, I paid for it now."
"Well," I mimicked the man's frantic hand gestures and immature impulses, "I have lost my appetite."
"Unfortunately for you, I do not appreciate rudeness, ungratefulness and constant vacillation." At the next window, he paid for the order by card, accepted a brown paper bag of fast food and tossed it on my lap. "Enjoy."
His flippant tone irked me. I dumped the McDonald's order on his thighs. "You could not pay me to eat such begrudged sustenance."
"You call a bag loaded with calories, sodium and unhealthy fat sustenance?" A vein of satirical anger throbbed at his temple. "From where I am from, those are key ingredients for atherosclerosis."
I went ballistic. "I don't care about potential heart attacks right now!"
"Why would you? You don't care about anything these days!" Spearing a hand through his hair, he transferred the bag to my hands, slammed down on the accelerator and swerved back on the main road. He almost collided with a red car—the other driver honking the horn with furious fists—but he is not fazed or apologetic. Hell, he owned the damn road. If someone ends up in the hospital because of his reckless driving, I doubt he would even lose sleep over it, as long as nothing happens to him or his precious Bentley. "Eat the food, Emma."
Refusing to shed one more tear in front of this man, I rolled down the window, threw the bag out for the seagulls to ravish and dusted off my hands. "I said it before, and I will say it again: you could not pay me to eat such begrudged sustenance. And before you start, I have every intention of paying you back. I will not let you hold the disposal of atherosclerosis over my damn head in the future."
His jaw muscle flexed. "Why the stubbornness?"
"Why the spitefulness?" My erratic heartbeat had yet to simmer down. "You are angry at me. You have not forgiven me for this morning. That much is obvious. So, why am I here?"
"You wanted to be here. You asked me to put you in a room with Macauley. You begged me for a chance to fight for your son. I was happy to interrogate him without you." Brad is right. I did plead for the aforementioned. "Look, if you have changed your mind, I can drop you home and go to Quintin. Terrence moved into your flat on a temporary basis. You are safe there."
"Why did you move Terrence into the flat?" No, I cannot handle a moody bodyguard first thing in morning. "And where is he supposed to sleep? It's only a two-bedroom property. I am not okay with manscape products left all over the bathroom and clothes chucked on every item of furniture in the living room." My demands were unreasonable, given the overall change of circumstances, but I was too angry and upset to care. "I never agreed to live with a man, full stop. I like my own space."
"Are you done?" A storm brewed in his dark eyes. "Only, at this rate, I will be able to hear your long, high-pitched complaints in my goddamn sleep!"
My nostrils flared.
"Terrence is to sleep in Carter's bedroom until further notice because that is the room Macauley used to get inside the apartment. Your bodyguard will live inside the property to ward off any threats." His voice dripped with the type of venom that could poison someone. "This is not a negotiation, Emma. I made an order. You can protest all you want, but I will not be overruled."
My phone vibrated non-stop. I will check the notification in a minute. "The animosity between us is almost unbearable." I felt a pull on my heartstrings. "Tell me how to fix it, Big Guy."
"You cannot fix what's broken." He resigned to the fact our friendship had run its course. "We both know it."
"Oh." I felt a pinch in my chest. "It makes me sad that you feel that way."
An incredulous chuckle. "Would you prefer it if I lied?"
"Probably," I said with a short, regretful laugh. "Your lies are less painful."
Brad cast a stern glance at me, and then his eyes revisited the road. "When I met you, I did not think, not for one second, that you were crazy yet likeable. I did not want to see you again. I never looked at the cafe once to catch a glimpse of you." His hand shifted the gearstick. "I never wanted to be your friend."
My phone vibrated again. I ignored it.
"There was never a time where I stared at my new friend and thought, she is beautiful. Why has it taken me so long to notice? Are her eyes always that green? Have her lips always been so delectable?" He indicated to the right and travelled around the roundabout. "I did not wonder if she tasted as sweet as she looked."
My face was on fire.
"You were complicated from the very beginning, Emma, if not more so, when Carter went missing," he said, and I had to look away. "I knew that because we started as friends, and friends are not afraid to be themselves. We opened up to each other and allowed our internal victims to become acquainted. You shared your hurt. I shared mine."
This man is breaking my heart.
"But the dynamics changed somewhere along the way. You wanted me. I wanted you." His thumb tapped on the steering wheel. "Now, how do we fuck without triggering each other? Oh, that's right. We don't. We have to work on ourselves first." He clicked his tongue a time or two. "Christ, I hope she is worth it. I have to open some dark, ugly scars for her."
Although I could not face him, I listened to every single thing he had to say with bated breath.
"You are not easy on me. I thought, if we can be patient and earn each other's trust, sooner or later, I will get the girl. But I guess there is a higher force out there determined to throw us worlds apart." He took the vibrating phone out of my hand, reading the notifications on the screen. "One step forward, two steps back. It's been one thing after another."
Yet, here we are, close enough to touch. Perhaps, on the contrary, the universe is trying to keep us together irrespective of hardship. Surely, that has to count for something.
"I hunt, and you hide." His throaty voice was a mere whisper now. "Why do I insist on being that guy for you? Is it the thrill of the chase? I am not used to women turning me down. Is it because I am too stubborn to give up? I am not a fan of going without. Or is it that I look at you and think, fuck, this woman is something. I could love her someday."
My stomach was tight with butterflies.
"You had questions. Why did I stand there and allow Cherry to bully you? Shock. Humiliation. This cannot be happening." He let out a short, caustic laugh. "I have done everything within my power to be different for this woman, and some scorned bitch can walk up in here and ruin everything. Late-night heart-to-hearts, solemn promises and therapy sessions for nothing." His foot eased off the accelerator in time to turn another corner. "I lost my chance. Again."
My fingers twitched restlessly on my lap.
"Let's cut the bullshit for one second, shall we?" He gave me a long stare. I felt the heat of his eyes on the side of my face. "Cherry is not the reason for the breakdown of our relationship, friendship, whatever the fuck you want to call it. It's not on her."
I nodded because he was right. We have not bounced back since I found out Alice Montgomery was pregnant with his second child.
"It's on you," he accused with a tone that brooked no argument, and I sat there and took the frustration, the hurt and the rage like a champ. "You hide me from me. You shut me out. You play with my emotions."
Big Guy is neither right nor wrong. I do not hide from him. I know, in my heart, that he could be the reason for my happiness someday. He only has to look at me, and I smile. But those rare moments of rapture come with guilt. My son could be locked in a dark room, crying for his mother, and where is she? She is distracted by the possibilities of a future with this man and his children.
"I haven't looked at another woman since I promised to be yours. I can't remember the last time I fucked and enjoyed it. If sex is not with you, I do not want it." He stopped by the signalised crossing to let pedestrians traverse the road to the pavement. "I am quite literally the opposite of what you want, yet I am falling over myself to prove that I am everything you need." He rubbed the scruff of his jaw with unease. "I don't even recognise myself anymore."
My eyes watered.
"I have been patient and understanding. I have danced to your tune and entertained this back-and-forth malarkey. And for what? The battle of commitment?" His words were negative and monitory, not soft or pleasant. "Frankly, I think you can be selfish. Is self-centeredness unintentional? Who the fuck knows? But when I do my utmost to prove to you that I have never felt this way about a woman before, and you retort with dismissals and rejections with no intention of actually letting me go, I have to take a huge step back, re-evaluate my life and end this fucked up situationship before I fall harder for someone destined to break my goddamn heart."
I knuckled a tear beneath my eye.
"I hate you." It was a lie. He could not hate me, no more than I could hate him. "I hate you for being so beautiful. I hate you for getting inside my head. I hate you for messing with my heart."
Brad was harsh but honest. I respected him for that. But I wanted to defend myself and explain why our spiritual bond and emotional connection cracked at the surface.
"So don't ask me how to fix this." Driving one-handedly down the street, he replied to a text message on my phone. "I don't think it can be fixed, Emma."
"Big Guy, I am sorry for hurting you." My throat was sore as I willed myself not to break down into a blubbering mess. "I do care. I care a lot. More than fear allows me to admit."
"How long do you expect me to wait for you?" He is straight to the point with his argument. No-holds-barred. "For Carter? Is that what it takes for you to accept me as I am? Do you realise how unrealistic that sounds? I will never stop looking for that little boy. I want to save him. I want to bring him home. But there is a high fucking chance that he will never see the light of another day," he spat, and I had to bite the corner of my lip to stifle tremors. "We both know it."
"Regardless of Carter, I wanted to weather the storm with you," I unleashed my tongue on him. "I wanted to be in this together."
His palm struck the steering wheel. "You fucking walked away!"
"You impregnated another woman!"
"That happened before you!"
"Yeah, well, it changed everything. You have other commitments." My anger resurfaced. "I am not part of the program."
"By choice," he growled, and I said nothing in return. "You chose to isolate yourself. I never turned my back on you. Not until today. You are on your own now."
I laughed once. "Yet, I am still in the car with you."
"You self-righteous bitch." With that, he slammed on the brake, the tires screeching to a halt, the car jarring in the middle of the road. "Go on. Fuck off." Holding the back of my headrest, he leaned over me to open the passenger's side door, the cold breeze whispering through my hair. "Get back to that rock you crawled out from."
My hand gripped the seatbelt. "Are you seriously going to leave me on the side of the road?"
"What do you want from me?" Even with anger ablaze in his eyes, he looked ridiculously handsome. It was impossible to stay mad at him. "Go ahead. I am all ears. Tell me how you really feel because I am fucking done with pretending to understand you."
Instead of arguing, I leaned in and made the impulsive decision to kiss him, as it may very well be the last time we shared a moment of intimacy.
His lips were soft, smooth, unmoving and unforthcoming, but his eyes closed to savour the connection. Rejection crept in when he never kissed me back.
With shame and guilt weighing heavily on my shoulders, I turned my head to the side, but before I could overanalyse the man's disclination of affection, I felt the faintest graze of his lips on my cheek.
His hand, rough on the fingertips, palmed my jaw as he brought my mouth back to him for a long, breath-snatching kiss that demanded reciprocation and attention.
Captivated by him, I splayed my fingers over his chest and parted my lips for his tongue.
He came to me willingly, his tongue dancing with mine, the world around us blurring into nothingness.
His fingers held the weight of my nape as his thumb applied pressure to my throat. He gave my swollen lips a gentle peck, a hot caress, then came back hungrily, his other hand sliding to the back of my thigh.
My heart pounded.
With him in control, I could only mirror his demands. The lash of his tongue, either tentatively slow or passionately fierce, took the lead.
A car horn blared.
Our lips ripped apart.
"Emma," Brad said in a shaky voice. "No." His forehead rested on mine as he pulled on the door handle to shut the door. "I can't do this anymore."
"Big Guy..." My sentence was cut short by the man's firm shake of the head. "I can't lose you, too."
"I am done talking about this." The car had stalled. Brad re-started the engine, dropped into first gear and accelerated forward. "Here." He tossed the phone onto my lap. "It's your ex-boyfriend. I told him to put a nine millimetre to his head and pull the trigger."
My eyes rounded for a fraction of a second. "Brad..."
"Do not lecture me about Tommy O'Shea. I don't need another reason to stab the fucker within an inch of his life." The corners of his mouth lifted in a snarl. "He mentioned Quintin."
I digressed from one issue to tackle another. "Before Christmas, I asked him to escort me to the prison for a visit. He is letting me know that he has arrived at Jace's place."
"Right." An irritated expression crossed his face. "Do you want him to take you instead?"
"No, I want you to be there." My eyes scanned over the message thread. "But I feel bad for dragging him across the country for no reason."
"Text him." Rather than wait for the green light, he veered into the next lane to change direction. "I will drive over there and pick him up. Jace, too."
"Why?" My thumb hovered above the phone screen. "Can we not murder my son's uncle? Much to your chagrin, I do not hate him and do not want his death on my conscience."
"Oh, I won't kill him," he said, calm and casual. "Listen, I am not fond, but I do not have to like him to work alongside him."
I typed a short text message to Tommy.
"What better way to get the old geezer's hackles to rise?" Brad slipped a toothpick between his lips. "Tommy's betrayal outweighs the re-emergence of an old friend." By friend, he meant enemy. Quintin will burst a blood vessel when he sees me later. "As for Jace, I might be able to tolerate the Irish prick more if the tattoo junkie is present."
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I will be back for typos. ❤️ x
Thoughts on the update?
I might post the second part later... 👀
—Emma?
—Brad?
—Carter?
—Macaulay?
—Tommy?
—Jace?
—Quintin?
—Any mentions I forgot?
Thank you for reading. ❤️
Please do not forget to vote. ⭐️