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Heart punching through my chest, I stumble away from Tricia as if my skin touching hers is burning the both of us. I fall backwards, knocking into the chair, then scrambling back further until I hit the wall and there’s nowhere else to go.
‘I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry...’
The voice is coming from somewhere, but it doesn’t sound like me. I’m breathing too fast and clutch at my chest where my heart won’t slow down. My blood is molten lava sliding through my veins, my skin ice cold, and I can’t look at her. My stomach flips. I clamp my fingers across my mouth, thinking I might throw up, hot breath hitting the bank of my hand. Something solid inside is crushing me, my eyes sting but I daren’t close them.
‘I’m not like that.’
Like what? Like Craig? Like Simons?
‘I’ve never...’
I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in anger in my life.
‘Christ, I’m sorry.’
She moves, blocking out the shred of moonlight from the edge of the curtains. I flinch when her fingers touch my shoulder, but she doesn’t back off, coming closer, her arms going around my neck. I should tell her I don’t deserve her attention, her sympathy, but she’s hushing me, telling me it’s fine, telling me I was dreaming, but it’s alright now.
Is it? If it was a dream, does that make it alright?
I drop my forehead to her shoulder, my eyes closing as the scent from her t-shirt calms my breath, her neck beside my head warm and soft. I hold her gently under hands that feel detached from me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I mutter, and mean to say more, but she stops me with her mouth on mine, her movements slow and delicate, her lips parted. My hand reaches for her jaw, drawing her closer and returning the kiss with the same careful tenderness she’s showing me, letting her know I’d never hurt her, I’d never hurt any woman. I’m not that man. Her fingers on my neck and in my hair are enough to make me think she believes me, enough to make me forget what I did, and who I am.
*
I’m alone in the bed with the sound of the fan from the bathroom rumbling through the thin walls of the en-suite. Daylight projects in a single strip onto the wallpaper at the other end of the room. I roll over on my stomach, stretch my arm across the crumpled blankets and feel them still warm, my fingers tangling in a strand of fair hair on the pillow.
Last night we had taken our time, her body shaking under my hands, or mine was, neither of us saying anything, both of us forgetting what I had done for us to end up there. Not so easily done now, in the cold light of morning. I cover my eyes with my hand, recalling her pinned beneath me, frightened by the rage that wasn’t meant for her.
Her phone vibrates on the side table, snapping me from my pathetic self-pity. I turn over, peel myself to upright and pull on my boxers. Retrieving my phone from my jacket pocket, I switch it on and drop onto the edge of the mattress, running my hand through hair that feels thick with the dust from this room. A handful of messages ping through when the screen lights up, all from Ange. I read only the latest and tap a reply, telling her I’ll be home sometime later. I mute the phone just as the door of the en-suite opens.
‘Hey,’ I say, as Tricia comes into the room wearing only the t-shirt she had on last night. Her smile is thin, and she avoids looking at me as she scoops up the rest of her clothes from the floor.
‘I’m taking a shower. I won’t be long,’ she says, reaching for her phone.
‘Course. There’s no rush.’
‘I think we’ve missed breakfast.’
‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll grab something on the way back.’
She taps a message into the phone and returns it to the side table. ‘I need to be at the practice. One of our dogs has taken a turn for the worse.’
‘I’ll get you there.’
She nods once, and turns to the bathroom.
‘Are you okay, Tricia?’
She hesitates before answering. ‘I’ve never done this before.’
Done what, I could ask, but I don’t want to hear the answer. ‘Me neither.’
She looks down at the clothes she clutches in her hands. ‘You realize we can’t do it again?’
‘Don’t say that.’
Her eyes come up, and she’s wearing the same contorted expression of concern that she did twenty-four hours ago when I picked her up.
‘I won’t be the other woman, Steve.’
I don’t know how to answer that. And I don’t get time to, anyway, the bathroom door closes behind her. The shower starts up, beating against the tiles in time with the pressure building in my chest. We passed a line last night, one we can’t go back on. It’s either forward or nothing. But the thought of going home, then to work, playing the husband, the dad, the copper and all the rest of it, stretches out endless and hollow in a way it’s never done before.
So what is it I expect of her? That’s what she wants to know, isn’t it?
Dropping my chin to my chest, I stare at the ring on the finger of my left hand, not thinking of anything other than what it is. A piece of metal. A bind. An instruction manual of what you can do and what you can’t. When did it become that?
I twist the thick gold band over my knuckle, and when it comes loose, it leaves behind an indentation I fail to rub away with my thumb. Dropping the ring on the side table, I examine my hand anew. Just a hand. Just me. The same me that always was.
I get up from the bed and cross the room to the en-suite, pressing down on the handle, which clicks open. The shower cubicle is misted with steam so that all I see is the outline of her body, the colour of her skin, and her movement as she pushes the water from her hair. I go in, closing the door loud enough for her to hear. She stops and turns, not moving as I take off my boxers and put my fingers to the glass panel to slide it open.
Water drips from hair that tries to curl in the steam and droplets cling to her pale, freckled skin. Her eyes on mine are wide and unreadable, but not telling me to go, so I push the panel closed, sealing us inside. When I turn to her this time, my mouth on her damp lips is hard and searching, my hands glide over her wet skin. She draws me to her, backing up to the wall, the shower beating down on us, driving us on, fingers curling into slicked-back hair. And as I press her against the tiles, lift her thigh over my hip, there’s nothing else but this. Her body, my hands, her mouth, too much and not enough.
Despite the heat from the shower, and the steam that robs me of my breath, when I come inside her, I shiver, my grip tightening around her waist, fingers pressing into her skin. And it’s only because of her hands lightly stroking my back, her whispered words in my ear lost to the rage of the thundering water, that I realise at some point I’m sobbing. And I have no idea why.
