Page 134 of Never Tell Lies

“Then call me,” Elliot answered eventually. I rubbed a hand over my tired eyes. They were gritty with exhaustion, my whole body aching with the need for sleep.

“Elliot, I don’t understand what’s going on,” I whispered, and when I opened my eyes again, I found him full of pity.

“I know and I’m sorry, but I can’t divulge information to you that he wouldn’t give you himself.” It was strange to see such a severe bear of a man being gentle. I guess this was the night for strange things.

“I know.” I was tired of feeling like I was on the outside of a world of secrets. I turned to go back into the room but before I could, Elliot spoke again.

“Miss, I’m glad you’re here.” I looked back and found his expression rich with the deep emotion that he held for the man on the other side of the door. “Please don’t give up on him.”

I could only nod in reply. The moment hung between us for a heartbeat before he gave me a quick nod of his own and left me alone. I listened to him go, finding it peculiar that a man of his size didn’t make more noise as he moved.

Clutching the bag Elliot had given to me, I returned to the room. Alfie’s eyes were trained on the door as I came through it and there was a faint glint of surprise as I entered, as if he hadn’t expected me to return at all. His gaze fell to the bag inmy hands and I wondered for a heart-breaking moment if he had been expecting to see a crisp cheque clenched between my fingers instead.

Ignoring that dark thought, I collected a glass from the drinks stand that neither he nor I had ever touched and poured water from the crystal decanter. I returned to him, popping open the pill bottle and shaking two into my hand. Alfie leant up enough to swallow them then collapsed back into the pillow. His eyelids drooped, heavy with exhaustion, but he forced them open, keeping them on me as if I might disappear.

What should I do now? Should I sleep in another room? I didn’t want to risk jostling him in my sleep and hurting him but I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving him. In the end, I decided to do the only thing that felt natural. I shrugged out of my towel and slid in beside him. Exhaustion hit me in a fierce wave and I almost succumbed to it, but not quite yet. There was still one thing I had to do. I had to return him to me.

Alfie lay beside me, his head turned toward me, his arm bent and hidden partially under the pillow. I reached out and stroked a gentle line from his scarred brow down his cheek.

“Come back to me,” I whispered, using the same words I’d used in the office the last time he’d been like this. “Alfie?—”

“You stayed.” He spoke so suddenly it took me a moment to believe the words had actually come from him. I could have cried with relief.

“Of course I did. Where else would I go?”

It broke my heart to realise that he had thought I would leave. I’d seen a side of him that wasn’t glamorous or pleasurable and he had expected me to run.

The room was deathly quiet save for the echoes from our earlier fight, echoes that seemed to live in the very walls now, our harsh words soaked into the bed sheets, the word‘Toxic’burned into the quilted wallpaper. We had created ghoststonight, and the games room, the bathroom, this bedroom would be forever haunted by the darkness that had passed between us.

We were silent for long minutes before he finally spoke, his voice an exhausted plea.

“Say yes.”

I closed my eyes. Every part of me screamed at me to give in, to give him what he needed…but I couldn’t. Not yet. “We’re going to kill each other over this if one of us doesn’t cave.”

“So cave.” There was life in his tone, a dark humour, a spark of Alfie Tell. “Don’t make me beg.”

“Don’t make me run.” His eyes widened and I winced at how much like a threat that had sounded. I cut him off before he could panic. “Alfie. You can’t force me to go, I have to choose it. We aren’t tied together yet, we aren’t married, we don’t have children. This might be the only time I get to live my own life. Don’t you see that?” I held his gaze, imploring him to hear me for once. “You’re leaving in two weeks. Give me until then to decide. Please, Alfie.”

His eyebrows knitted together and I could see the cogs turning in his head as he tried to figure out a way to bend this situation to his liking. Part of me was relieved to see him coming back to life, and another part dreaded what would come next. For long moments I waited for the fight, but it didn’t come. Instead, he gave me the smallest of nods.

Just like that, all the tension left my body. Finally, after this whole day, this whole damned night of harsh words, and even harsher fucks, he’d finally heard me. It was such a small thing to most couples, to communicate and compromise, but for us it was a mountain and I was finally standing on the summit, victorious and high on relief. What he’d done to himself tonight terrified me more than I could say, and we would have to talk about it. He would need to tell me everything, but not tonight.

I nuzzled into him, our foreheads touching, my hand curling around his arm, our mouths an inch apart, poised for a kiss that wouldn’t come this side of the sunrise.

We’d fucked and fought, shed tears and hurt each other, but the dawn had come and we were still together. There was hope. I was drifting away when he spoke again, so quietly I wasn’t sure he’d intended me to hear him.

“Two weeks, O’Connell. Don’t expect me to be idle in the meantime.”

Forty-Six

Iwoke alone in the low rays of the afternoon sun. It took all of ten seconds before I was hit by a wave of panic.

Alfie.

Memories of him hunched over and scalding himself danced before my eyes. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, afraid I might find him hurting himself again. But the bathroom was empty.

Before embarking on an Alfie Tell manhunt, I quickly brushed my teeth and removed the remnants of last night’s make-up. I turned in the mirror, inspecting my left shoulder. I was glad to see that all that remained of my brush with the water was a slightly pink tinge to my skin.