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The man looked me up and down, cocking his head in that way that had my stomach doing little flip flops. "You don't bore me."
I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face. He didn't bore me either.
Fifteen
Asilence hung between us as we appraised each other, the candlelight glinting off his marble skin.
He broke the silence first and I was glad because I had lost all of my words and thoughts.
"You said that Natalie and Ryan are the total of your family. I’d like you to tell me what happened to your parents. Where are they?" Damn. I'd known this topic was coming but I'd dreaded it all the same. I took a rather large gulp of my wine and topped up my glass. I hated talking about my parents. It was like having the worst superpower—the ability to destroy a cheerful mood in ten seconds flat.
"My dad left when I was four, so I don't really remember him," I said, trying to keep my voice as relaxed as possible. “My mum passed when I was twelve." My hand went to my bleeding heart necklace, I clasped it, rubbing it gently between my finger and thumb. Alfie eyed me, his gaze intrusive.
"Tell me how she died." He didn't ask, didn't politely request. He'd demanded I tell him this deeply personal thing. Yet, it didn't anger me. It was refreshing to be with someone who didn’t tiptoe around my mum’s ghost.
"She was driving when our car was hit broadside by another vehicle. The driver was drunk. Her car went into the river." The rush of water sounded in my ears. It was a sound I'd heard a thousand times since that day. It had faded over time, but every now and again, I could smell that dank river water. I could hear the banging as my mum tried to kick the windshield open. I closed my eyes and took a deep, steadying breath, then another and another. They didn't help so much, really. They just reminded me that I wasn't drowning. I opened my eyes and found him watching me still.
"You were in the car."
"Yes." I could have stopped and left it there, but I didn't. I told him all of it. "One of the windows was already open part of the way and the car filled up so fast with water. My mum sent me out through the window. It didn't occur to me that she wouldn't be able to fit through as well." I gritted my teeth against the nausea that swarmed me whenever I thought about that moment, that specific moment when I'd swam away, abandoning my mother to die alone.
When I met his eyes, he looked so sad for me. I wanted to flip the table. "Don't you dare pity me. I can't stand it."
"I don't pity you, O'Connell. I was just wondering how you turned out so…"
"Normal?" I finished for him. "I have good people around me. When my dad left, my mum moved in with my gran, so she raised me after mum died." I took another sip of wine, eyeing him over the rim of the glass. I straightened my spine, relaxing as the sound of rushing water faded away.
"She was diagnosed with cancer when I was 16, and she passed away when I was 18." Those two years had been brutal. I hadn't been ready to be an adult. I hadn't been ready to grow up.
"You cared for her?"
"Of course." Watching her skin turn paper thin while she shrank into a shell of her former self had been a thing of nightmares. But yes, I'd cared for her, with Keira as my back up. That girl had been my ride-or-die since we were in nursery school. I wouldn't have gotten through any of my losses without her.
"Tell me about them. The people you lost.”
"Hell, Alfie. Are you trying to ruin the night?"
"You don't want to talk about them?" He tilted his head again, eyeing me, but I stared right back at him.
"I don't like to."
"Why not?"
"Because it makes me cry." I hadn't meant to sound flippant, but talking about their lives was somehow worse than talking about their deaths. I can say how my mum was killed. I can use venom to spit out those words. But ask me to describe the way her feather-light blond hair would tickle my cheek when she kissed me and I would crumble. Her death was a pain that, despite the years, still hadn’t passed. I wasn’t sure it ever would.
Alfie watched me closely, his index finger tapping against the stem of his untouched wine glass, waiting for me. I knew without asking that he would wait all night if he had to. This was something I was learning about him. When he wanted something, whether it be a person, property, or information, he zeroed in and didn't deviate until he had it. Right now, what he wanted seemed to be the contents of my head. I took a breath. I didn’t understand why I was doing it, but something in his eyes had me opening my mouth on a subject I usually avoided at all costs.
"My mum, Judith, she taught me to grow strawberries when I was three." I hadn't talked about my family in so long, it felt strange to feel my mum's name on my tongue—like reading an old diary.
"Those strawberries were the first thing I ever grew and after that I was hooked. It was magical to me that I could watch something come to life before my very eyes. " I paused, remembering. "She loved gardens more than anything else in the world, except for me of course. She was always desperate to go to this show, it’s called the Chelsea Flower Show. She promised she would take me but we could never afford the tickets. And my gran was a gardener too. That's where my mum learned it."
"They were gardeners by profession?"
"No." I shook my head. "My gran was a housewife and worked part time as a cleaner after my grandad died. He died before I was born. My mum was a primary school teacher. Being a gardener by trade, I think it just wasn't something that women did in my gran's time or my mum’s. Outside work was seen more as a man's profession."
"You don't see it that way?" he asked, and I shrugged.
"I like to be outside. I don't worry about whether I'm supposed to like it or not."