A heart can be destroyed by a sledgehammer disguised as rejection, by a bulldozer masquerading as a careless word. A heart can be blasted to pieces and ruined to the ground.
But even knowing all that, I need to move forward. I need to take that chance. I need to trust in Bram and trust in myself that giving myself to him, opening myself to love and letting myself fall for the first time in my whole life, doesn’t have to end in rubble.
It can reach the clouds, pierce the sky. It can be that bridge from the life I had before, from that person I knew before, to something so much better.
I don’t tell him this though. I don’t dare. I keep these feelings – I love you, I need you, I crave you – and the fears – you’ll break me, you’ll wreck me, you’ll condemn me – all to myself. But I let him inside that night. I let him in deep. I want him to discover these parts on his own, without the fanfare, without the expectations.
And when he comes, his eyes holding so much magic, and I think that maybe he knows.
Maybe he finally knows just what he is to me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bram
“Hey, fuckface,” Linden says as I answer the phone.
“Hello, Linden,” I say politely. I’m in the middle of a meeting with the board of directors from San Francisco’s Inner City Initiative and even though a coffee break has been called, there’s no way in hell I’m going to greet my brother like I usually do.
“Caught you at a bad time, eh brother?” he says. “I’ll call back later.”
“What do you want?”
“Just wanted to check in with you,” he says, sounding defensive. “Jeez, your own family can’t see how you’re doing. I haven’t talked to you since you got back from your Disneyland excursion. Which, by the way, thanks a lot. Now Steph is harassing me wondering why she hasn’t been whisked off to the happiest place on earth. I don’t know how you did it with an actual child in tow.”
His comment makes me flinch, as most of those types of comments usually do. “I did it for Ava,” I tell him, “as well as Nicola.”
“Fine, fine,” he says. “I’m just saying, you’re a saint. And I never thought I’d call you that. She must be really getting under your skin. Don’t tell me you’re going to pull a Jerry Maguire and go all ga-ga over the kid. I can’t imagine Ava telling you how much the human head weighs.”
No, but she would tell me the names of a lot of the dinosaurs from the Jurassic period. But I don’t mention that to Linden. I don’t want to give him any ammo.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I tell him, lowering my voice so the people at the end of the table sipping their water and making small talk, don’t hear, “I am ga-ga over Nicola. She’s a shag like you wouldn’t believe.” I had to throw that part in there or Linden might accuse me of being a body-snatcher victim.
“I bet she is. Why else would you still be around?”
I breathe out slowly through my nose, trying to not let him get to me. I knew my brother would never understand any of this, any of what I feel and anything that I’ve been through before. There is so much he doesn’t know about me, so much that no one knows, and lately I’ve been feeling like it’s all boiling too close to the surface.
“You just watch out, Linden,” I tell him. “Pretty soon Steph is going to start harassing you for wee babies and then where the fuck are you going to be? You’re going to be taking them little shits to Disneyland and I’m going to be having the last laugh.” I pause. “And yes they’ll be little shits, because you were an epic shit when you were young and that will be your bloody karma.”
He’s silent for a change. “I’d say the same to you,” he eventually says, “even though I know no girl in her right mind would ever want you to be her baby daddy.”
And again, straight into the gut. I take another deep breath and remind myself that Linden has no idea.
No idea.
“Is that all you wanted to do?” I ask him, trying to sound unaffected and bored. “Trade barbs with me?”
“Where are you anyway?”
“Busy,” I tell him, not about to get into the specifics. He and my family still don’t know about the potential charity work, about my building and ideas. No one outside of Nicola knows and I much prefer it that way. Although tonight there is a black-tie gala for a fundraiser that attracts some pretty important local people. If Linden followed the news or local politics at all, he might get an idea.
Thank God he just sticks to flying helicopters, though that’s obviously no small feat on its own.
“I see,” he muses. “Well, whenever you’re not busy and you’re not shagging the single mum, come by and we can dip in some beers.” There’s a patch of silence. “Sometimes I miss you, brother. Just not this time.”
“Fine,” I tell him. I whisper into the phone, adding, “Fuckface.”
I hang up and then realize that the people at the end of the table – Mr. Arterton and Mr. Bayswater – have heard what I’ve said.
I give them an apologetic smile. “Wrong number.”
Thankfully the rest of the meeting goes well. Everyone is on board with my idea. It’s just that no one has the money. It’s kind of the same story everywhere I go. I guess things are a bit easier for me because the money has already been put down – I’ve bought the building and that’s a huge chunk of fundraising I don’t have to ask anyone else to do. But I need to have income coming in in order to pay the mortgage and that’s where people are always coming up short. They believe in it – they just don’t have the means to help.
I leave them feeling particularly despondent about the whole thing. When I get home though and see Mrs. Williams in the hallway, the aging and disabled woman with too much heart and not enough strength, I’m reminded of why I’m doing this. I do want to help, to feel like I’m of fucking use for once in my life. Maybe it’s partly selfish – I don’t think you can make money unless you are – but it’s giving everything purpose.
And so is Nicola. She’s not working today since we have the gala tonight, so before I even head to my apartment, I do what I usually do and go to hers first. I have a key now – well, I’ve always had one – but now I’m using it because I’m her lover and not her landlord.
Lover. It’s not exactly the term I want to use to describe what I am to her, but I’m not sure what else will do. It’s funny how lover is seen as more appropriate than boyfriend when lover has, well, deeper connotations. But Nicola has seemed a bit cagey ever since Disneyland, which was a week ago, and I don’t want to push her.
The truth is, I consider us together. I consider her my girlfriend, though I wouldn’t dare say it in case it freaks her out. Still, she has to come around sooner or later. I know I’ve not been completely honest with her and I know I have a few skeletons in my closet that could bite me in the arse. I know this. I just figure it will all come out in time, and when I’m ready. I want to establish trust first, a strong layer of it, that won’t shatter when she really gets to know me.
It’s close. She’s close. I’m just not sure what I can do to make her let go with me. She’s come so far, become so open and free and, fuck, so sexually awake. But until I really get through her defenses and her fears, I don’t think she’ll trust me one hundred percent.
Still, when I open the door and step inside her apartment, breathing in that familiar smell, that combination of coffee and plastic toys and her sweet skin, I have hope that the trust is there. That this is the day she lets go and gives herself to me completely. And I’m not talking body – I’ve had that all along. I mean her heart and her soul, the rarest things of all.
“Hi,” she says brightly when she sees me. She’s dressed in just a towel, though her hair is all done and piled on top of her head and her makeup is perfectly applied. Too bad all that does is make me want to throw her on the bed, open up that towel and proceed to mess up all that time and effort.