Page 56 of Everything After

I told myself Alfie’s grand gesture of following me to London meant that he really did want to make amends, that he loved me no matter what. It helped that he’d barely mentioned the baby, and his focus was primarily on where he thought we’d gone wrong in our relationship.

I’ll admit, I could understand how Alfie had misread my behavior at times. And I supposed because I’d been extra careful never to whine about the time we’d had together, Alfie had assumed that I didn’t care.

Hell, even my friends thought that way too. And all because I had never complained or protested about our situation. Now that I’d accepted that our rift was down to poor communication, I should have been able to accept Alfie’s apologies and move on.

However, with his need to have a child and me being pregnant, I couldn’t just blot out how it felt to find out I was pregnant during those few anxious weeks that I’d lived without him.

“How do we move forward from this?” I queried, unsure my resentment would allow me to forget our time apart.

Alfie looked up at me with a gaze full of determination, stood from the table and the way he dropped to his knees beside me melted my heart. The careful way he turned my chair to face him and took my head in his hands instantly filled me with hope.

“If you love me, I’m asking you to trust me. We both know now that what happened was down to our miscommunication. From now on we need to learn from this experience and speak up. We should never take for granted that each of us doesn’t feel the same.”

I began to cry despite my attempt to stay strong. Alfie’s brows furrowed in concern as he swiped my tears away with his thumbs. “What do you say we each take a shower and get out of here for a while? The fresh air will do us both good?”

“A walk in the park sounds lovely. I’ve been couped up at home since I got off tour,” I agreed, thinking any activity would help reduce the suppressive feelings surrounding me right then.

The smile Alfie had been wearing died on his face. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Lily. Christ, sorry doesn’t feel like enough,” he mumbled again.

“Right, shower,” I said, smoothing over the moment before he launched into another round of apologies. The last thing I wanted was for the heavy conversation we’d been having to continue. Alfie had convinced me enough that I’d wanted to at least give him a chance to put things right between us.

He pulled me to my feet and slung an arm around my shoulder. “We’re not at the showering together stage of our relationship again yet, are we?” he teased as he flashed me his lopsided grin. Although I smiled back, I shook my head. “That’s cool, I just thought I’d ask,” he mumbled, his smile growing wider.

“You can ask, I’m not offended,” I joked back. “But…” I wanted to say we were far from back where we’d been before he’d blamed me for neglecting him.

Letting me go, Alfie stepped back and placed his hand on his heart. “Lily, baby, I’m joking. You forgiving me after all I’ve put you through is all the gratification I need right now,” he whispered.

I might have forgiven his reaction to him thinking I didn’t care. Forgetting the previous few weeks would take more than a few choice words with me hearing what I wanted to hear.

Battersea Park was usually always quiet on a weekday in late autumn, which afforded us the privacy and freedom to walk and talk uninterrupted.

Although Alfie had been tactile at my parents’ place, once outside in the park we’d walked side by side, both of us with our hands in our jacket pockets.

“The girl I was photographed with is a student at the university. Derek thought I might be able to give her a few performance tips.”

“I see.”

“No, I don’t think you do. I hadn’t intended to rub your nose in the fact that I was living my life. To be frank, in all the time I’ve been away from you I’ve barely been getting by. In fact, during that time, if it hadn’t been that Oscar was with me, I think I’d have drowned in a bottle of something.”

“I wish I could have done that,” I muttered, reminding him that I’d found out I was pregnant so couldn’t drink. “Delilah is a very pretty girl,” I added.

He nodded. “She reminds me of you at that age, extremely talented, but still finding her feet. I’m sorry the paparazzi took those pictures. It was stupid of me to think I could share a pizza with her after a long session in the studio.”

“I felt humiliated when that alert about you came on my phone and I saw those pictures,” I admitted, as I kicked a stone in my path with my leather boot.

“Fuck, you know the paparazzi, they’d make a mountain out of a mole hill. I swear to God, it was only a pizza. Hell, I even made it clear to her that I was very married, and the invite was only for food.” My heart missed a beat, and I stopped walking. As he was then a stride ahead, he turned and frowned at me. “What?”

“Did she come on to you?”

“Jesus Christ, no. I asked her for pizza, and she made a flyaway comment… something like how could I refuse a hot rock star, or something like that. I responded that I was very married, and it would only be pizza, even though I thought she was joking.”

“I see…” she mumbled.

“I’d like you to come and meet her. I think you’d love her. She’s classically trained but there’s a budding rock chick screaming to get out. I don’t think I can add any more value to what she does right now, but I think you’d be great with her. All she needs is a good female mentor to guide her in the right direction.”

We continued walking while I considered what he said and nodded. “I’ll meet her… not sure when though. I’d need to see where there’s a gap in my schedule.”

Once I’d agreed we continued our walk in silence until we reached the Peace Pagoda and Alfie chuckled. “Kinda apt that our feet brought us here, eh? Come on, let’s sit on the steps,” he encouraged. Taking his jacket off he spread it along the small wall facing the statue of Buddha. “Rest against that,” he mumbled, taking me by my waist and leaning me against it.