“What happened to you happened to you. My story’s different. You were helpless to stop what your husband did. . . I. . . fuck.” I don’t know how to explain this to her without explaining it to her, without telling her everything.

  “You don’t know me well enough yet. When you know me better. . .”

  “So you can know all of my humiliating, dirty little secrets, let me sleep in your bed, bury your tongue inside me, but I can’t know? Ya know what? It’s fine. Total honesty you said, so how’s this for some total honesty? You’re full of shit.”

  Before I can respond, she pushes the passenger door open, slides out of my truck, then uses two hands to slam the door shut.

  “Fuck!” I tilt my head towards the interior roof and shout while squeezing my eyes shut. When I open them and turn towards the front door, I expect to see Lauren standing there waiting for me to let her in. She’s not.

  When I look around, I find her inside the pool fence, the pool cover winding back while Lauren’s pulling off her clothes.

  “What the fuck?” I question as I climb out of my truck. “What the fuck are you doing?” I shout again as I approach her. Without a word, she steps off the side and straight under the water wearing just her underwear.

  Despite the sunny skies, it’s after four in the afternoon in mid-July. It’s mid-winter, and Melbourne’s coldest time of year. Thankfully, since having the pool cleaned, I’ve had the solar kicking over, but we’ve had barely any sun this week, so the water will be freezing.

  Reaching the edge, I stare down at where Lauren jumped in, but she comes up in the middle of the pool and takes in a loud gulp of air.

  “It’s fucking freezing in there. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Fuck off,” she shouts before going back under. Coming up this time at the other end of the pool, about the farthest part away from me.

  “Get. The. Fuck. Out of there, Ren,” I shout as I march around to where she is. Still gasping for breath, she goes back under before I can reach her, this time, coming up treading water right in the middle of the pool.

  “Frustrated much?” she shouts. “Sucks big fat hairy balls when something’s out of your control, doesn’t it? When someone won’t do as you ask and there’s nothing you can do to make them? Well, suck it up, buttercup, and welcome to my fucking world.”

  “Ya know what? You wanna act like a child, stay there. Freeze. I don’t give a fuck.” Sounding a lot calmer than I feel, I shout out to her as I walk back towards the pool fence gate.

  “I’m the child? You can’t have a discussion about events in your life that have made you the way you are, but I’m the fucking child? I think it’s you that needs to grow the fuck up, Gabe. This is how adult relationships work. It’s called communication, and guess what? It’s a two-way thing.”

  She throws my own words back at me from a week ago, and on the inside, I lose my shit.

  Reaching the outdoor furniture that sits in front of my pool house, rage and frustration hit me like it hasn’t done in years. I kick the first chair I come to, sending it crashing into the fence. I pick the next one up and throw it. It bounces off the table I aim it at before hitting the tiled floor.

  I walk to the edge of the pool and snarl down at where Lauren now stands in the shallow end. “You want total. . .” I’m stopped dead in my tracks as she flinches and steps away from me. I take in her wide eyes, the way her chest moves up and down and her mouth hangs open as she draws in breaths.

  “Ren,” I say quietly, reaching out with my hand. The water splashes as she ducks and backs further away from me.

  “No,” I straighten and call after her. “No, no, no. Baby, please. I would never. . .”

  She pulls herself up the steps and out of the pool, arms wrapped around her as she moves to the sun lounger where she left her clothes.

  “Babe, listen to me. . .” I stop both talking and moving towards her when she holds up her hand to me.

  “Stay—Stay over there,” she pants out.

  I want to believe she’s cold and that’s what’s making her body shake and her jaw tremble, but I know, I fucking know what I’ve done.

  “Shit,” I hiss, but stay back, watching on helplessly as she fights to pull the blouse, she’d looked so gorgeous in as we laughed our way through lunch earlier, over her wet body. Sticking to her skin, it rolls and bunches at her back. She senses the movement as I instinctively step forward to help her.

  She lets out a small sob that guts me as she cowers and steps away from me. I shake my head.

  “Let me help you. I’d never hurt you, not ever. You know that, Ren, you fucking know that.”

  Holding her phone, jeans, and ankle boots against her, she turns to look at me. Her brows are raised, eyes still wide and I can see her entire body physically shake.

  “Please, just let me in the house to get my stuff, and I’ll leave. I just need to get some—some things.” She sobs out the last two words.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” I tell her as I follow her to the front door. She doesn’t reply, instead, she steps to the side, giving me a wide birth so I can open it for her.

  Pushing at the door, I move out of the way.

  “I’ll go,” I tell her. “You stay here. Go up and shower. Warm yourself up. I’m gonna go. I’ll stay at my brother’s tonight. You stay here, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  When I give her the space to move past me, she’s shaking her head but doesn’t say anything.

  “You’ve nowhere to go, Ren. Please. . . Look. . .” I take my house key off my keyring and throw it into the hallway. “I won’t come back tonight, I promise. I’ll call you tomorrow, and we’ll talk, but please, please don’t leave.”

  I watch as she walks inside, bends and picks up the key, gripping it in her hand as she holds it to her chest.

  “Please, Ren. Please don’t go,” I repeat. She stands there, hair and body dripping wet and vibrating with fear as she gives me a small nod.

  “I’m so sorry,” I repeat before climbing back into my truck, pulling out of my drive and onto the esplanade.

  Palms pressed against the frame surrounding Cooper’s door, I wait for someone to open it. When it finally swings back, it’s Jess I come face to face with. She smiles, opens her mouth to say something then closes it when her eyes meet mine. Once she’s done a top-to-toe scan and sees that I’m not physically hurt, she steps aside.

  “What happened?” she asks quietly.

  I don’t move from the doorway.

  “Coop,” she calls before stepping closer to me. “What happened, Gabe?”

  “I fucked up,” I squeeze out around the ball of guilt and self-loathing lodged in my chest and throat.

  Staring down at the floor, I feel too ashamed to look Jess in the eye and admit what I did. Her hand brushes the side of my face, her warm palm remains there, and that’s when I feel the tears burn the backs of my eyes.

  “Dude, what happened? You okay?” I hear my brother ask. I swallow a couple of times, then let out a long-held breath before looking up and meeting both their eyes.

  Instead of talking, I shake my head.

  “Get in here,” Cooper orders as he hooks his arm over my shoulder and pulls me into the house. Steering me towards his den, I hear Jess call out, “Is this a beer or bourbon kind of fuck up?”

  “He can’t even talk, Jess. I’m guessing bourbon.”

  Jess is already behind the bar pouring our drinks when I sit down on a stool in front of her. Cooper sits down next to me.

  My sister-in-law pushes a half-filled glass towards each of us and leaves the bottle on the bar as she starts to walk away.

  “Stay?” I request. “I don’t know how I’m gonna fix this, I’m gonna need all the help I can get.”

  “Sure.”

  With her lips pressed together tightly, she gives a small smile and a quick nod. Moving back around the bar, I watch as she pours herself a glass of wine.

  “Fuck me, what did you do, little brother?”

  I knock back the entire contents of my glass without even bothering to add ice. The warmth hits my belly, and I savour it for a few long moments before meeting my brother’s concerned brown eyes.

  “I lost my shit and threw a chair,” I admit.

  “What?” Jess and Cooper ask in unison.

  “I scared the fucking life out of her.”

  “You did this in front of Lauren,” Jess asks. “The woman who’s just left her violent husband?”

  The hot sting of shameful tears hits the back of my eyes again as I nod.

  “Where the fuck is she now? What did she do?” Jess continues to question.

  “At my place. She wanted to leave, but I told her to stay and I left.”

  “You left her on her own?” Jess snaps out.

  I nod, remorse causing the bourbon in my belly to bubble like acid.

  “Mate,” my brother says with a headshake. “What the fuck? Why’d you kick the chair?”

  I snort out a laugh.

  “We were talking about how good things are between us, how blown away we both are at finding what we have.”

  Jess adds ice to my glass before topping it up. This time adding only half the amount she did earlier.

  “It’s good, ya know?” I admit. “Like what you said in the pub the night I met her, you don’t know why, you don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It’s not going away, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “You said all that?” Jess asks Coop with a soft smile.

  “Babe, like you don’t know how it is,” my brother responds.

  “Carry on,” Jess orders, still grinning at my brother.

  My eyes dart between the two of them, and I want to punch myself in the head knowing how badly I’ve fucked up my chance of ever having something like this with Lauren.

  “She asked me why I’ve never let anyone in before,” I explain with a shrug. “I refused to go into details, and she cracked it when I wouldn’t tell her.”

  “She cracked it, or she was hurt?” Jess asks.

  “Hurt?” I question.

  “Hurt, Gabe.” Looking from me to Coop, she continues, “Didn’t you tell me he saw her straight after her husband hit her when she was still beat black and blue?”

  “I did,” I answer for him. “I saw her the very next night, that’s when I took her back to mine.”

  “So you’ve seen her at her worst, at her most vulnerable, and you couldn’t share with her why you’re the way you are, what you’ve been through? So yeah, she was hurt. I thought you really liked this woman?”

  “I do, a lot. And what happened with me is different.”

  “It’s not what happened with you, Gabe, it’s what happened to you. Why do you still not accept this?”

  I rake my fingers through my hair and close my eyes.

  “I fucked up,” I mumble.

  “Damn straight you did. You held back like you always do, refused to share with her, then you behave just like her ex, get angry and start throwing furniture about, terrifying the poor girl, and just to make sure the jobs well done, you fuck off and leave her on her own,” Jess doesn’t hold back as she lists my fuck ups.

  “You definitely fucked up,” my brother agrees.

  “You think I should’ve stayed? She was pissed off and scared, I thought it’d be better if I left. I didn’t want her going somewhere her husband might find her.”

  “Yes, you should’ve stayed. You should’ve stayed and shared with her exactly what’s gone on in your life to make you so closed off to the idea of a relationship,” Jess tells me.

  “It’s too soon. What if it changed her mind about me? What if she thought it was my fault or that I instigated it? She already thinks I’m a dog. She saw girls coming up to me in the bar when we first met, then Alysa called while we were in the car the other day and asked to hook up.”

  I watch Cooper close his eyes and give a head shake of his own.

  “Gabe, you have never, not once, turned up at our door asking for relationship advice, so the fact that you’ve done that today, tells me you like this woman, right?”

  “I think that’s blatantly fucking obvious, Jess,” I bite back.

  “Mate, watch yourself. Don’t talk to her like that coz you’ve fucked up. Now settle down and listen to me.” I grind my teeth together, waiting for the lecture I’m about to receive from my eldest brother.

  “Relationships are about putting yourself out there. They’re about taking a chance on someone else. Handing over your heart, and saying, there ya go, that’s yours now, look after it. It sounds to me like she’s giving you all of that. I know it’s early days and you’ve kinda been thrown together, but I also know you, probably better than anyone. I’ve never seen you so turned inside out by a woman.”

  He pauses and we stare at each other. I feel a nerve tick in my jaw because I’m tensing it so hard. Breathing heavily out of my nose, I stand and start to pace while waiting for him to continue.

  “It’s a two-way thing. You can’t take all that from her and expect her to put all her faith in you if you’re not gonna give her anything back, even if it does mean risking everything.”

  “But what if I fucking lose her? Once it’s out there, there’s no taking it back,” I throw my arms out to the side and shout.

  “But what if you fucking don’t?” Cooper shouts in response.

  With my hands to my hips, I stand and stare at my brother. His long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest as he rests his arse on a stool and stares right back at me.

  “What if telling her is the start of the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

  “What if it’s not? I don’t know that I’m ready to risk losing her,” I admit quietly.

  “Then you don’t deserve to keep her. It’s gonna come out, Gabe, she’ll find out, and she’ll be devastated that you didn’t tell her.”

  “You got your phone with you?” Jess asks.

  “Yeah?” I reply, confused.

  “Text and ask her if she’s okay. Apologise, then ask if she’s comfortable with you going back there and talking. If she says yes, I’ll run you home.”

  I finish my drink, use Coop’s bathroom, then I text Lauren.

  I’m so sorry Ren. You doing ok? X

  I wait. Fifteen minutes later I get a reply.

  Trunk

  I’m still staring at my phone, trying to work out what she means, when the next text comes through.

  DURNK

  Then the next.

  FFS

  Followed by:

  Drunk

  “Great,” I announce to my brother and sister-in-law. “I’m here pouring my guts out, and she’s at home getting pissed.”

  “Good girl,” Jess says with a smile. “You better let me get you home and sort this shit. She sounds like my kind of girl, I wanna be able to get drunk with her one of these days.”

  I want that. I want my family to know her, for her to know them, and as much as it scares the shit out of me, I know what I need to do to make that happen.

  “You’ll love her,” I tell Jess, not caring even a little bit that my brother is hearing all of this. “She’s as funny as fuck, can’t sing to save her life, dunks her toast in her coffee, has the best comebacks, and is miserable in the mornings. . .”

  “But instead of crying over today’s events, she got drunk. My kind of girl,” Jess says.

  “She probably cried and got drunk.”

  “Still my kinda girl.”

  Cooper drives my car back to my place; Jess follows behind in hers. Luckily, she has a spare key to my place on her car keys because I get no response when I knock at the door. When I make my way upstairs, I find an empty wine bottle on the kitchen bench, a half-empty bottle of vodka on the bedside table, and a passed-out Lauren in my bed.

  She’s makeup-free, damp hair piled on her head and already in her pyjamas. Even with her eyes closed, I can see she’s been crying. The pile of tissues on the bed next to her add another twist to the knot of guilt in my gut.

  Sitting beside her, the adrenaline rush that had been with me since I left, finally fades and a wave of tiredness hits me.

  I have a site meeting in the city at seven tomorrow, then brunch with a client. I promised Lauren I’d be back here in time to give her a lift to Red Hill for her 2 o’clock client walk-through. It’s doable, but it’s not going to give us any time to talk until tomorrow evening.

  I’d rather we get our shit sorted now, but, knowing that’s not going to happen, I take a quick shower and climb into bed beside Lauren.

  I stare at the ceiling unable to sleep with the day’s events replaying on a loop through my head.

  My brother and Jess are right, if I want to keep her, I need to take a chance, put myself out there, and tell her my truths.

  Feeling absolutely terrified for what’s to come, I finally fall asleep.

  When my alarm wakes me in the morning, it’s still dark outside, and Lauren is still sleeping. The only good thing about the last part of yesterday, is that as soon as I climbed into bed, she wrapped herself around me, and before I can climb out of it this morning, I have to gently untangle her arms and legs from over me.

  Chapter 28

  Lauren

  Keeping my eyes closed, I listen to Gabe move around the bedroom. I didn’t hear him come home last night, but I woke a couple of times and felt his presence.

  After a mostly great day, yesterday ended spectacularly badly. I behaved like a brat. Gabe, in turn, behaved like an absolute dick and scared the crap out of me. I know it wasn’t intentional, and I still truly believe he would never hurt me, but right at that moment, his level of anger freaked me out, and I just needed to get away from him. I’m not sure how I feel about all of that. Our argument seems petty in the cold light of day, and yet, he still lost his shit to a level that he was throwing furniture around.

  For my part, I behaved the way that I did out of pure frustration. Wine followed by an Espresso Martini also egged me on from the side lines. Neither of them is any excuse for my behaviour, but I’m so over Gabe constantly banging on about how I frustrate him when he just wasn’t getting how he made me feel yesterday.

 

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