Sticks and Stones (23 page)

Lou looked over Browen’s shoulder as she cried. She saw a box of Bendicks mints on the counter, along with diet, cherry cokes and all her favourite magazines. She tried to fight it but she knew the warm feeling in the pit of her stomach was spreading, and despite everything, she did not have the strength to fight anymore. There was no way she could resist this, and for the moment she was going to give in. For once in her life she was going to let herself be taken care of.

Slwtens

Dylan listened as Lou made another of those weird hairball noises in the back of her throat. She lay sprawled across the bed and him, completely unguarded and uninhibited. This was why he always made sure to wake a good hour before he knew she would; it was the only opportunity he had to catch her with her guard down, and definitely the only opportunity to feel her soft body pressed against his.

She’d gone back to wearing her skimpy pyjama sets, which he took as a good sign. But then again he had been enjoying seeing her in his t-shirts; it had felt like he was a step closer to her actually belonging to him. Sheets of her thick, shining, wavy hair were spread loose down her back and over his arm at her waist, her long eyelashes casting shadows over her cheeks, which already had a much healthier glow. Her graceful jaw jutted out as she ground her teeth, still making the weird noises in the back of her throat, and Dylan didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful. She was starting to stir and after a few minutes she flopped away from him in the bed, her arms going above her head as she lay on her back. The movement exposed the lower half of her abdomen, and Dylan’s jaw clenched as he saw the vivid red line down the centre from the laparotomy, and the smaller inch long scar next to it from one of the stab wounds. He’d become used to the sight of her scars by now, having slept in bed with her for the last two weeks. Even though the laparotomy scar was the longest, running the entire length of her stomach down the midline, he found that he actually loved it; it represented the saving of her life and for that reason he hoped it never faded. In contrast the smaller scars from the stab wounds he absolutely hated, and had to tamp down the familiar anger he felt every time he caught sight of them.

That evil son of a bitch was recovering on the ward now. There was still some minor brain damage from the beating he took, but the bastard was having rehab. Rehab. As if he deserved to be rehabilitated after what he’d done. If it wasn’t for the fact that the evidence against him was so compelling that he was guaranteed a lengthy prison stay, Dylan would consider finishing the job that Alun had started. She shifted again and Dylan carefully moved forward, burying his face in her neck and thick hair, and inhaling deeply. He knew from experience that he only had a few more minutes until she was fully awake and back on her guard, and he wanted to make the most of what time he had left.

It was two weeks since he’d brought her back to the flat and essentially moved himself and his mum in with her. After that first argument when she had hilariously thrown the glass at him, she had been surprisingly compliant with the situation. Dylan suspected it had something to do with his mum’s arrival. He wasn’t above playing dirty to get what he wanted, and he knew that she wouldn’t say no to Bronwen. At this point he was fully prepared to use every weapon he had to wear her down. There was no way a bloody stranger was looking after his Lou.

When Frankie had told him that plan it felt like it was he that had the knife plunged into his gut. Of course Frankie and Sarah weren’t going to let her use the agency, but Dylan decided that it was time to make sure everyone knew where he stood when it came to Lou. Frankie was sceptical, but when Dylan took her aside and told her what he’d found in Lou’s wardrobe she reluctantly gave in, after promising to put
him
in the hospital if he hurt her again. He had never heard Frankie threaten anyone with violence before, and despite her size and angelic appearance, the gleam in her eye and the stony expression she wore as she issued it made her sound surprisingly menacing.

He had managed to get two weeks off work, and even though everyone had agreed to back off and let him look after her, that did not mean they trusted him. The flat was like Charing Cross with the amount of visitors Lou had every day (thankfully none of whom included her actual family) and Dylan had had to lay down the law on more than one occasion when he could see Lou was flagging.

But, however tired she was, Lou never allowed him to turn away the children, especially Benji who was one of the most frequent visitors. Despite all his bravado it seemed that Benji was having a few problems since the attack. When he was over at the flat he stayed close to Lou the entire time, shadowing her movements in a way that was almost disturbing. When Dylan asked Sarah about it she’d told him that Benji had been having nightmares so extreme that he would wake the entire house with his screaming. The only uninterrupted nights he had were those after he’d seen Lou in the day; hence frequent visits that included not only Benji, but also his three brothers and often Lucy thrown into the mix. In Dylan’s opinion this was not restful, but Lou seemed to almost draw strength from cuddling the toddlers or talking to the boys, almost as though their sheer life force was healing her.

The fact that she had been letting Dylan sleep in her bed, and in her sleep had proceeded to wrap herself around his body, had been encouraging. She had also seemed to accept his sustained assault of regular and casual affection, which he had embarked on since she left hospital. He reasoned that the sooner she got used to it the better. He wasn’t going anywhere, and eventually he was going to wear her down. But over the last couple of days the colour had slowly been coming back to Lou’s face, and along with it he could see her building up her strength to pull away from him.

The year he’d spent without her had been the worst of his life, and seeing her hurt had definitely been one of his worst experiences. She could push him away all wanted; he was staying put. Ever since he’d found that box in her wardrobe he was convinced that he could win her over, but recently that conviction had been wavering. He could feel her slipping through his fingers, and, other than at night when she wrapped herself around him in sleep, he felt like he was losing the little ground he had gained.

He felt her shift again and pulled back from her neck to see her beautiful sky-blue eyes staring up at him. As with every morning, when she woke up a look of pure wonder passed across her face before she masked it and withdrew behind her shield again. Yes, he thought to himself, definitely making progress.

‘You two keen on a cooked breakfast?’ he heard from behind the bedroom door, then closed his eyes in frustration as it was pushed open and his mum peered her head round. ‘It’s your first day back today isn’t it cariad? Need to make sure you’re on top form for saving lives and all that.’

His mum had actually moved out a week ago when Lou had stopped needing any help with showers and the like. She had told them that, now Lou could do everything for herself in the bathroom, that she wanted to give them some time alone together before Dylan had to go back to work. Lou had rolled her eyes and told her that she could take Dylan with her, but to Lou’s obvious exasperation his mum just laughed her off, as she had done all Lou’s attempts to put her straight about the nature of their relationship over the last two weeks.

His mum might have moved out but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still making full use of the key Dylan foolishly gave her, along with his dad and sister.

‘Mam,’ Dylan said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve told you not to just burst in here this early. It’s weird and it freaks me out.’

‘Pah! Fiddlesticks. You’ve never been a shy boy and it’s not the first time I’ve seen you in bed with a girlfriend. And at least this girlfriend I actually love like a daughter; not like some of the slwtens* you’ve presented me with.’

‘Mum!’

‘Okay, okay,’ she said, holding her hands up in mock surrender. ‘I’ll go, but I’ll come back in if you’re not out here in five minutes for your breakfast. Your father might skip the odd breakfast, but he only serves drinks and fixes what needs fixing around the pub. You fix
human beings
and you can’t do that on an empty stomach.’

*****

Lou thought it was cute that Dylan’s mum always made it sound like he was the one singlehandedly keeping the NHS afloat, and the lives of the Welsh people firmly in the saved category whenever she talked about his career. It was the antithesis of how her parents referred to her work and she found it refreshing. She knew that although Dylan hated it, and his face would always cloud with irritation when she did it, that he would never say anything to make her stop. He adored his mum, as well he should, and Lou knew there was a lot he would tolerate from her before he called her out. She pressed her lips together to stop herself laughing, and Dylan’s irritated green eyes narrowed at her as she tried to contain her amusement. She finally snorted a giggle after she heard the door click behind his mum. At the sound of her suppressed laughter Dylan’s face cleared of irritation and his eyes dropped to her mouth.

‘Christ you’re beautiful,’ he breathed.

Lou sucked in a shocked breath and started pushing on his shoulders in an attempt to dislodge him.

‘Get off,’ she huffed. When he didn’t move she finally glared at him and said, ‘You’re hurting me.’ He wasn’t, but she needed to work out what the hell was happening, and she couldn’t do that with his body pressed against hers. He moved off her immediately, as if he had been given an electric shock, his face awash with concern. Needing more space between them and also feeling at a disadvantage lying in bed with him, she flung her feet over the side of the bed and stood on shaky legs.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she whispered and he frowned at her.

‘Doing what?’

‘This,’ she said gesturing between the two of them. ‘All of it: staying here, looking after me, moving in, moving your mother in, kissing me, treating me like I’m actually important to you. Why are you doing it?’

She’d been thinking over the last week. Thinking about why he was suddenly showing her the kind of interest she had craved from him for so long. As the fug of pain and weakness had cleared, her brain had finally shifted into gear, and she had come to the only possible conclusion.

Guilt.

Guilt was the driving force behind everything he was doing for her. He knew he had a hand in ruining her career, he had acted like a complete bastard and now he was feeling bad. He’d seen her get hurt and wanted to do the right thing.

‘You’ve always been important to me Lou,’ he said, sitting up in bed so that the duvet fell to his waist and the glorious planes of his broad chest came into view, momentarily distracting her. He must have noticed her eyes flicking down from his to check him out and gave her a smug grin. It was a mistake. You should not grin like that at a woman as close to the edge as Lou was in that moment. Lou focused again on his face, losing her temper.

‘Oh yes,’ she snarled, her voice low and thick with emotion, ‘so important to you that you shagged every – what did your mother call them? Ah, yes…sltwen…in sight at Uni, right under my nose. That you even used me as some sort of wing-woman in your sick games to accumulate yet more women to shag.

‘That you copied my notes, let me nurse you through your hangovers, defend you to the professors whose lectures you couldn’t bother to turn up for, drag you through the coursework you were too lazy to complete on your own, ring you every morning in our clinical years to remind you to get your sorry arse out of bed and into the hospital for ward rounds. Never saying thank you, never really thinking about why…’ she broke off and looked down at her shaking hands, her pride preventing her from voicing anything to boost his already colossal ego. ‘I went toe to toe with my whole department and yours to save your bacon, and all I got in return was ugly words hurled at me in front of everyone.’ Her voice then dropped to a whisper. ‘You know about my family and you used that against me.  I trusted you and you went out of your way to hurt me. So don’t you fucking tell me that I’ve always been important to you.’

‘Lou I – ‘ Dylan’s face was the palest she’d ever seen it, desperation and what looked almost like fear written across it.

‘Get out.’

It never even began

He walked towards her and Lou hardened herself to the anguish in his eyes. Cupping her face in his big hands, he leaned his forehead down against hers.

‘Please,’ he pleaded, pain lacing his voice. ‘Please let me show you what you mean to me. I’ll prove it. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you if you’ll just let me.’ She put both her hands against his chest and pushed him away, stepping back from him.

‘Why now?’ she asked. ‘Why all this interest in me now? I’ve spent the last twelve years watching you chase, sleep with, charm, pay attention to every woman you met other than me, so why now?’

‘Look, babes,’ he gritted out, his jaw clenching in frustration. ‘Can we just forget about the other women. It’s not as if you’ve lived like a nun for the last twelve years yourself.’

Lou let out a hollow laugh and Dylan’s brow furrowed in confusion. ‘Do you know how many men I’ve slept with in the last twelve years Dylan?’

Dylan shook his head. ‘No, no I really don’t Lou. You see it doesn’t matter to me.
I’m
not judging
you
on stuff like that.’

Lou laughed again, and the sound was so heartbreakingly sad that Dylan actually winced. ‘You think you have all the answers don’t you Dildo? You probably think I slept with half your ridiculous friends on the rugby team. Am I right?’

‘Let’s not rehash the past Lou it’s not – ‘

‘Am I right?’ Lou shouted, close to losing it.

Dylan held up his hands. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he said in a voice that was meant to be placating, but only seemed to fire Lou up more.

‘I’ve slept with two people in my life Dylan.’ Dylan’s mouth dropped open, his face openly shocked.

‘But  I – ‘

‘Yes, yes I know the rumours. To be honest I never cared that much about what stupid boys wanted to make up when it came to my love life. It started with Terry Aldershot and just spiralled from there.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘Have you heard from Terry since Uni Dylan?’

‘Yes, I saw him at the old boys’ match a couple of months ago but what’s that got to do with any – ‘

‘Anything about Terry surprise you in the last few years?’

‘Well aside from coming out after we left Uni there’s not much…’ Dylan trailed off and stared at Lou.

‘You didn’t sleep with him,’ he said. ‘But why would you…?’

‘He asked me to do him a favour. All you lot were racking up the notches on the bedposts, and he never got any action unless it was down at the Vauxhall Tavern. He was my partner in our physiology project in the first year. We spent a lot of time together. One day I told him about Jimbo and how he couldn’t tell our parents he was gay, and after I’d finished Terry burst into tears. He said there was no way he could come out and still live the life he wanted, still be a part of the rugby club.’

‘Of course he could have – ‘

‘Really?’ Lou raised her eyebrows. ‘It wouldn’t have been a problem? You showered together for goodness sake. You even shared that insanely huge bath together at the club. Are you saying that no one would have had a problem with Terry?’

Dylan shifted uncomfortably in front of her and said nothing. He knew as well as Lou did that there were a lot of pricks in the Rugby club.

‘He reminded me of Jimbo; so lost, so scared. I told him I’d buy him some time until he was ready to come out, and I told everyone else we had a wild night together and that he was insatiable. It had to last him a while in the lad stakes, so I had to make the details pretty impressive.

‘Little did I know that just that one story would make everyone think I was some king of nyphmo. The other boys jumped on the bandwagon and made up their own “Sands wild night of freaky sex stories”. Some of them I may have snogged then turned down, but most I’d never even touched. I didn’t care enough to correct them. It wasn’t as though I was a virgin or anything; I lost my virginity to my boyfriend at school before he left for Uni, sort of as a goodbye.

‘So, the ridiculous thing is that I have this huge reputation for being wild in bed, and I’ve only had one night of awkward fumbling when I was seventeen with a boy who never breathed a word to anyone, and the other guy I’ve slept with doesn’t even bloody remember it, let alone spread rumours about it.’

Dylan frowned and rubbed his forehead, before his head snapped up and his eyes locked with hers. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he breathed taking a step towards her. Lou took a step back but came up against the door. Dylan kept coming until he was caging her in with his hands either side of her face. ‘I dream of you. I’ve been dreaming of you for eighteen months. But they’re not dreams are they? They’re memories. Memories of something that really happened.’ He groaned and leaned into her even more; his eyes filled with so much pain she almost flinched. ‘Shit, I dream we’re lost in each other. I dream about you telling me that you – ‘

‘Shut up,’ she hissed. ‘Whatever you think you remember it’s bullshit. We might have slept together but I was just as trashed as you. Just because I don’t have convenient morning-after memory loss, doesn’t mean I wasn’t drunk enough to say and do things I didn’t mean.’ She tried to keep her voice from shaking as she saw the cogs turning in Dylan’s head, and something working behind his eyes.

‘You care about me Lou. Don’t deny it. Don’t make it sound like that night didn’t mean anything.’

‘I’m not the one that couldn’t even remember it.’ Dylan flinched like she’d struck him but that wasn’t going to stop her. ‘I’m not the one who thanked God that it didn’t even happen. Who said what a mistake it would have been to even go there. So don’t you dare tell me it meant something.’

‘Lou please,’ the desperation was back in Dylan’s voice and in his expression, as he continued to crowd her against the door. ‘I’m an idiot, a selfish, self-centred piece of shit, but I’m yours. I’ve been yours for years but I was just too stupid to realize it.’

Lou snorted. ‘You’ve never been mine Dildo, and neither would I have wanted you to be you loser.’

‘Babes, you and I both know that’s a lie,’ he said softly.

‘Ugh! You conceited, arrogant pig. One drunken mistake on my part and you assumed that I’m some pathetic – ‘

‘Stop saying it was a mistake,’ Dylan gritted out, shaking her gently by her shoulders. ‘Look I know I’ve messed up Lou, but I’m not the only one who’s been at fault. Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me how you felt about me years ago?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Lou voice had lost some of its strength in her shock.

‘I know you never had a thing for Wet-Pant Ewan. I know who your poisonous mother was talking about that night at the pub.’

‘You’re delusional.’

Dylan took a deep breath. He was slowly losing control of his temper. Yes he had behaved badly, but if he’d had even the slightest inkling of how Lou felt about him maybe he wouldn’t have wasted years searching elsewhere for something that was right under his nose the whole time. He was done with arguing this particular point with her. It was time for the truth. Unfortunately as he pushed away from the door he was too angry to see the vulnerability in Lou’s eyes. Maybe if he had he wouldn’t have done what he did.

He strode across the room to her walk-in wardrobe. Lou started following him, but froze when she saw what he was pulling down from the top shelf. Backing up again she eyed the shoebox like it was an unexploded bomb, fists clench by her sides, and watched in horror as he emptied the contents onto the bed. Photographs of, and stupid little notes from Dylan were strewn over her duvet, but Dylan pushed all that aside and picked up a pink and white shell from underneath. He moved around the bed to stand directly in front of Lou and brought one of her fists up in front of her. Once he’d uncurled her fingers he placed the shell inside and held her hand with both of his.

‘Don’t tell me it meant nothing. Don’t dismiss what happened between us.
I know
it meant something. I know I mean something to you.’

Lou ripped her hand away from his and took a few jerky steps back. Dylan started to follow, her but froze when he saw the look in her eyes. Humiliation and resentment washed over Lou. For him to know the extent of her obsession was almost unbearable.

‘You bastard,’ she forced out, her throat closing as tears welled in her eyes. ‘How do you think it makes me feel that you know this about me? That you know how pathetic and stupid I’ve been?’

Dylan, having realized that anything he might have wanted to achieve with revealing the box was backfiring on him big time, started looking a little panicked. ‘Babes I – ‘

‘Just shut up! Shut up!’ she shouted, feeling on the edge of hysteria. ‘How dare you ask me why I didn’t tell you I was in love with you?’ Dylan’s body tensed at her words and his eyes went wide, but she was beyond paying any attention now. ‘From the moment we met you were obsessed with my best friend. You never showed even the slightest bit of interest in me. Do you think I have so little pride that I would beg you to choose me and not Frankie? I thought at first there was no way you two wouldn’t be a couple once you got past her barriers. I thought you were so bloody wonderful that I couldn’t even comprehend someone turning you down, and I loved Frankie enough to want that for her. But of course Frankie is Frankie; unpredictable as ever she had her sights set elsewhere. She didn’t even notice how you watched her, how you went out of your way for her, how protective you were of her. But believe me
I
noticed. I noticed and it broke my heart over and over again.’ Lou was crying in earnest now, but when Dylan took a step towards her she held up her hand again to ward him off. ‘Even after you gave up on her you still would never have touched
me
with a bargepole.’

‘Lou that’s not true, I – ‘

‘I heard you in the library Dildo. What was it you said to the boys? “High maintenance ball-breaking bitch” I think that was it. What? You think I’m so low maintenance now you’re willing to give me a go?’

‘No,’ Dylan said warily. ‘I don’t think you’re low maintenance.’

‘Well then! What’s the point of all this bullshit? Don’t piss on my Louboutins and tell me it’s raining. I’m not buying any more of this crap. Guilt trip is over, okay? All is forgiven. You can stop this ridiculous charade now.’

She threw the shell at him and he caught it in midair.

‘This isn’t about guilt Lou,’ Dylan said, tucking the shell carefully in his pocket and then running his hands through his hair in frustration.

‘Then why?’ Lou asked, her voice now small, having lost its previous fire. ‘After all these years why now?’

‘Cause I’m twp* okay? Because I thought I knew what I wanted but I was wrong. The only time I’ve been even halfway on the right course is when I gave you that shell. Do you remember what we promised?’

Lou, who had every moment of that night on the beach burned into her brain and had been holding onto the thin hope it gave her for years, rolled her eyes. ‘Of course I remember dipshit. Why do you think I’ve kept it like an obsessive stalker for eight years.’

They had been on their elective together in South Africa. Frankie and Mike had long since gone to bed, but Lou and Dylan were lying out under the stars. The beach was covered in tiny pink and white shells. They’d just finished talking about one of Dylan’s recent conquests that went pear shaped, and how Dylan didn’t think she was ‘The One’ anyway. Lou had teased that he had a snowball’s chance in hell of finding ‘The One’, and the way he was going he’d end up old and alone until some money-grabbing niece or nephew (his sister might not settle down, but the way she was going she was unlikely to avoid an unplanned pregnancy or two) shoved him into a home. They made a pact to marry if they were still both single when they got to forty, and Dylan had picked up one of the shells and tried to shove it on Lou’s ring finger as a pre-engagement ring.

‘Right, well. There you go. I think that was my subconscious trying to break free or something, trying to get me what I actually wanted.’

Lou stared at him for a minute. She wanted to believe him, but after years of his indifference it was too hard. After she slept with him she knew for a fact that the old saying ‘Better to have loved and lost than to never love at all’ was bullshit. The pain of actually having Dylan then losing him a few short hours later had been unbearable. She was tired of not being worthy of people’s love. She was tired of giving and never getting anything in return.

All those years wasted trying to please a mother who would always hate her, all the years since trying to catch a man’s attention who would never notice her. She deserved to meet someone and for them to instantly know, just like she knew with Dylan, that she was the one for them. She was tired of coming in second place.

‘I’m sorry but I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘I want you to leave.’

‘No Lou, just listen I – ‘

‘No you listen. I’m tired. I’m in pain. I don’t have any more strength to fight with you and I want you to leave.’ Lou knew it was an underhand tactic to use her pain as an excuse, but she also knew that it was about the only thing that would get him out at this point. If he thought he was causing her pain there was no way he’d stay. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw him backing off, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender.