Some Boy (What's Love? #1) (8 page)

“Mum, Dad. This is a surprise. Won’t you sit down? I’ll make some tea.”

“What kind do you have?” my mum asked, as she inspected the bench seat I had gestured them to, before sitting stiffly.

“Ah, tea bags,” I said.

“None for me, thank you.”

“Do you have coffee?” my dad asked.

“Only instant.”

“Ah.” That was a no then. And so there was nothing for it. I just slid onto the bench seat opposite them, and smiled too brightly through my anxiety. Brendan slid in beside me and lay his arm across the back of the seats, around my shoulders. My smile tightened but didn’t falter.

“Mum, Dad, this is Brendan. He’s… he’s, ah, studying, ah, science and maths?” I said, realising I didn’t know exactly what he was studying, and the words were coming out as a question. “Same as Justin. You remember Justin, right?” I said, latching on to a new path, and nodding at him.
 

“We’ve been having a well nice chat,” Justin said, and my eyes widened at his slight but noticeable Yorkshire accent — an accent he didn’t normally have, being from West London.

“And Steph, Justin’s girlfriend,” I added, with a nod and smile towards the small, dark haired girl entering with a mug in her hand. She beamed at this introduction and I saw Justin pale slightly. Served him right.

“And you know Izzy,” I said. Strangely enough, my parents actually seemed to like Izzy. She’d been home with me several times to have dinner with my parents, and she always charmed the pants off them. Especially my dad.

But they’d obviously already said their hellos, because the attention was squarely back on me again. I was still smiling like a loon.

“So, ah, what are you doing here, guys?” Guys? Since when did I call my parents ‘guys’?

“Just visiting our one and only daughter,” my mother said, trying to smile. Which made me worried. ‘Just because’ was never a reason for anything in my parents world. “Well, we wanted you to come to lunch today, also.”

My mouth was opening and closing like a fish, as I processed this. Then I nearly died when Brendan replied.

“We’d love to.”

It was my parents’ turn to gape like mullets. But they didn’t say anything. My dad just looked kind of red in the face and nodded tersely. I could see the inner conflict between his deeply ingrained politeness in public and his shock at someone else’s lack of decorum. Especially when that someone was a strange boy with an arm around his one and only daughter.

I looked at Brendan sharply myself, but I couldn’t blame him. He was just doing what I’d asked him to. And I needed to say something, before the lawyer in my dad woke up and overtook his manners. “Sure, okay,” I said briskly. “Should we go now? Let’s go.”

“Are you going to get changed first?” my mum asked, looking me over.

“Uh, yeah. I’ll just be a minute.” I pushed Brendan along so I could scoot off the bench, too, and headed to my room, ignoring the faintly alarmed looks on my parents’ faces at being left alone again. I’d taken Brendan’s hand and pulled him along with me, which didn’t help put them at ease. But at least it meant my mum wouldn’t dare follow me and try to help pick out clothing.
 

I didn’t know if they’d seen the hickey or not, but there could hardly be any doubt in their minds that he’d been in my bed, even if they were experiencing severe cognitive dissonance trying to remain in denial about it.

In the safety of my room, I flopped down on said bed and sighed. Brendan leant against my desk, opposite.

“How’d I do? Want me to dial it up at lunch?”

I laughed. “Nice work on that, by the way. Inviting yourself.”

“Thanks,” he said and beamed ridiculously. “I don’t actually have to come, though,” he added more seriously.

“Do you want to come? I’m happy for you to be there—you’re kind of a nice buffer—but I wouldn’t
want
to be there, if I was you.”

Brendan shrugged. “It’s kind of fun to watch them squirm. And besides, free lunch.”

“True. And a nice one. Make sure you order something expensive. And some booze, too, something fancy.”

I stood up and moved closer to him, and he brought his arms around me and pulled me in.

“You got it,” he said, and grinned. Then he stood up straighter, tightening his arms, and he bent his head to kiss me. I cursed my parents even more then, wishing I could just strip off my clothes and crawl back into bed with Brendan. But instead I had to strip off just to put on something stuffy and straight-laced.
 

I moaned a little, and Brendan deepened the kiss, his hands roving suggestively. He flicked open two buttons on my plaid shirt before I’d even realised. I grabbed his hand in mine to stop him as he tried for the third.

“I’m just helping you get changed,” he said.

“Sure you are,” I said, but when he tugged his hand out of mine, I didn’t try too hard to stop him. And he undid the rest of my buttons, slowly, his amber eyes never leaving my face. And with every one, the heat in my body intensified until I was surprised I wasn’t a puddle on the floor.
 

“God fucking damn, I want to take you back to bed right now,” he murmured, dipping his head to kiss my neck and run his tongue along my collar bone. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and he pulled back my undone shirt, one half at a time, kissing each breast as it was revealed.

I swallowed thickly. I was literally weak at the knees and had to grip his shoulders to stay standing. “I don’t think I could stop you,” I murmured, smiling down at him when he looked up from kissing my skin. His eyes were dark. And then he stood up and kissed me, pressing my lips open with his, pushing me back to the bed. Flicking my jeans open. Tugging at them, and then his own as I shimmied mine the rest of the way off, along with my underwear.

He lowered back down to me, already hard and pulsing, and pushed into me suddenly.
 
I stifled my gasp against his shoulder, but I was already rocking with his thrusts. We moved together in tightly entwined rhythm. I bit down harder to stop myself from crying out, as I reached the peak rapidly, forcefully, and Brendan met me there with shuddering exhales. We collapsed onto the bed, panting. And I was laughing.

Brendan leaned over me, eyebrows raised. “I’m glad I amuse you.”

Still laughing, I shook my head, but I was too breathless to speak. Brendan was grinning. I lifted up and kissed him, then dropped my head back down with a sigh. And then I opened my mouth to say something, not entirely sure what, but I could feel some rush of emotion coming on. And I didn’t like it. It made my heart thud even harder in my chest than it already was.

So instead of saying anything, I shoved him out the way and jumped up, ducking into the bathroom, snatching up my underwear on the way.
 

And when I reemerged, I avoided looking directly at him as I searched through the dresses hanging in my closet for something suitable. Brendan was already dressed again, since he only really had to button his jeans and he was done.
 
I stifled the urge to mention the wrinkles in said jeans, and his T-shirt, from lying crumpled on the floor overnight. It would drive my mother even crazier than me, and wasn’t that what I wanted?

And when I felt the urge to put on a purple, bohemian maxi skirt, I sighed and leaned my head against the edge of the closet.

“What’s up?” Brendan asked, watching me.

I rolled my head to the side to look at him. “Why do I have this urge to totally fuck with my parents? I mean, a week ago I was crying myself to sleep because I thought I’d killed my mum. Now I want nothing more than to totally piss them off.” I chewed on my lip. “Do you feel that? With your parents?”

“My dad, yeah. But he’s an arsehole.”

“Well, if I can ever return the parental-pissing-off favour on your end,” I said, “I’ll do my best.” I grinned at him, and he half smiled back, but there was something in his expression that was dark, like a cloud passing in front of the sun.

“That would require my dad giving a fuck about what I do with my life,” he said. My smile faded completely then.
 

But a knock at the door distracted me from probing further.

“Kat?” It was Izzy, through the closed door this time. “Your mum was going to come looking for you, but I said I would. Probably can’t hold her off much longer, though. Even Justin is running out of steam.”

“Okay, thanks, Iz. Sorry. I’ll be right there.”
 

Purple, bohemian skirt it was.
 

*-*-*

The silence was so awkward that I think even Brendan had started feeling nervous.
 

Once we had ordered our food and the drinks had been poured—Dad ordered wine for us all—the silence had descended like an impermeable haze. I literally could not think of a single word to say, even something inane, or trite, which I normally did whenever I wanted to ruffle my mum’s feathers.

Eventually Brendan started talking, expounding on some mathematical concept he had been learning in one of his classes. None of us understood, though we all nodded and mm-hmmed at appropriate moments, just to avoid a lapse back into nothingness.

Brendan was finally exhausted, and we picked up our glasses and took gulps of wine. Brendan stared at me over his wine glass. I put my hand out and squeezed his knee under the table. I could feel his nervous tension, and wondered if perhaps he was rethinking how much he was willing to pay for a free meal, after all.

“How’s school going, Katherine?” my mum finally asked, almost sighing as she said it.

“Good.” Words. Words. Where the fuck are the words? “Uh, my exam resit is on Monday.”

“Oh, you didn’t take that already? I thought you had,” my dad said, glancing at my mother. “Clare, you said she had.”

“I thought she had,” my mum said to him, then turned on me. “You said you had. When I was in the hospital.”

“I said I’d arranged the resit—that it had been approved. But I only take it on Monday. I definitely said that.” The looks of consternation on my parent’s faces was baffling. I shook my head slightly. “Why does it matter, anyway? It’s not a big deal.”

My mother was muttering to my father, something about “I thought she said…” I couldn’t hear most of it. And my father had his indignant face on, the one he had whenever he felt like my mum had done something silly and should have known better, and
why are you making my life so difficult, Clare? Don’t you know I’m a busy man?

“What is going on?” I interjected. Too loudly. Several nearby heads swivelled in our direction. It stopped my parents, though. They were both staring at me in wide-eyed shock. And a little bit of suppressed rage on my father’s part. I could see the redness creeping up his neck.

Just then, the food came, delivered with a flourish, but the waiter quickly noticed the terrifying tension at the table and scurried away without a word.

And then my parents glanced at each other.

That was the most worrying thing. They never looked at each other like that, not in public. Not in front of me, in our family meetings. Because I knew that was what this was, now. There was something to Discuss.

The glance meant they were trying to decide something. That they were unsure of how to proceed. A full on PDA from them at the table would have been less shocking. Never in my life did my parents admit they weren’t sure.

My mother gave a slight nod. And suddenly she looked tired. Like she’d finally been allowed to drop a heavy bundle, and never wanted to pick it up again. Like I could suddenly see through her heavily made-up facade to the weary woman underneath. My dad remained stoic, but the redness had crept into his ears now. I saw his jaw clench and release a few times. Then they both looked at me.

I think my heart stopped, and my hand crept over to find Brendan under the table again, any part of him to hold on to. He found my hand with his and linked his fingers through mine. He squeezed.

And if even Brendan could pick up on the strangeness of my parents’ behaviour without knowing them like I did, then something was up.

And it was about to be dropped on the table in front of us, in the middle of our cooling soups.

“Katherine, you know your mother and I love you very much,” my dad began. Do I? I thought. And then my brain went to money. They
were
bankrupt. I was losing my credit card. Or they’d spent my trust fund. I’d have to drop out of uni.

Was that why they were asking about my exams?

All this was whirling in my brain so loudly, that I almost missed what he actually said next.
 

“You’re…what?” I stammered.

“We’re getting a divorce.” My mother repeated my father’s words, but more firmly, definitely. She clearly wanted no room for misunderstanding.

My first feeling was relief, and I almost laughed. I wanted to tell my parents they should be proud, since my first thought was money. And my second thought, in the face of my parents announcement, was relief that it
wasn’t
money.

“You will still be provided for,” my dad was saying. “I will be putting more money in your trust fund, and we have decided to hand that over to you early, for your twentieth birthday. So that you know you are secure.”

“We didn’t want this to upset you, Katherine. We had thought you would have finished all your exams by now,” my mum said, with a tone that made it clear she considered the matter of the upcoming exam my fault. “But there are things in motion, and we wanted to tell you ourselves, first, before anything else came out.”

Like they were celebrities or something, and I was going to read about it in the tabloids? I had tightened my grip on Brendan’s hand until it was almost painful. But that was the only solid thing I could focus on. The solidness of his hand in mine.

I was shaking my head, and then nodding and smiling. Stoic. Unemotional. Taking it all in my stride. Wasn’t that just how they’d always taught me?

“Thank you for telling me,” I said, graciously. And they accepted it, and smiled, like they were proud of themselves for how they had handled this unpleasant business. And now it was over.

I saw Brendan turn his head to look at me. I knew what he was thinking. Or I could imagine, because somewhere in my brain, behind the well-trained politeness, I was thinking it, too.