After the Rain (The Twisted Fate Series Book 1) (13 page)

16

The most perfectly
inopportune moment

Stormy was lying. She’d always wanted kids. Especially a little girl – she could imagine picking wild flowers with her, making brightly-colored dresses, plaiting her hair and tying it up with luminous ribbons. They could skip and play with dolls and when she was older, she would teach her all about what life was really about, hold her hand when her heart was broken for the first time, and get giddy with excitement when they chose a pink wedding dress together. Actually, a boy would be good too – a muddy, naughty little boy she could catch frogs, build tree houses and play pirates with. A boy who would grow up to be a gentleman, and respect women and be the best dad possible to her grandchildren.

She’d thought about this a lot.

But the truth was, she would never dare to have kids. She was terrified of turning out just like her mom – or her dad, for that matter. They were both equally terrible. She didn’t have a single example of good parenting in her life. Even her foster mom had been a total cow. She’d constantly accused Stormy of trying to seduce her fifty-year-old husband, when in fact it had been the other way around. He had a thing for young, pretty blonde girls who looked “innocent and ethereal”, those were the words he always used. Nothing hectic happened, except the odd inappropriate leg touch; but when it looked like he was going in for some boob action, she went out, dyed her hair bright green and got a nose ring, and he’d never touched her again. And then the look just kind of stuck. It had served her well over the years, keeping away people she didn’t like – normally people like Marcus, although that wasn’t working this time. Normally guys like him just saw a freak and didn’t bother, which she preferred. Marcus’s world was not one she was vaguely interested in being a part of.

But Marcus himself, without all that stuff that she so hated, was a different story. She had to wonder what he would be like in his natural habitat, though. Would she still like him if he were sitting across a boardroom table, throwing big legal words around, like ‘objection’ or ‘sustained’? (She’d watched some legal dramas over the years, and could totally picture Marcus in a crisp suit, delivering some dramatic closing argument to the judge.) But the way he touched her back so protectively, and tenderly tucked the hair behind her ear, she craved that even more than the sex – and that was saying something.

She glanced over at him again and had to stop herself from resting her head on his shoulder. This was really all very confusing; they had gone from not liking each other, to not being able to keep their hands off each other sexually, to craving a very different type of touching…

But while Stormy was stuck in her head, contemplating such
things, someone else was contemplating something, too. Something important, something
potentially life-changing.

She’d left them alone for too
long now. Far too long indeed.

It was time to
intervene once more. To pull their strings and watch them
dance once again to Her little beat. Oh, how these
two opposites amused Her, and when this was all over
, She was sure it would be Her best work to
date.

So, no time to waste. They needed Her now
. The moment was calling for it, and this was the
most perfectly inopportune moment for a perfectly opportune disaster to
strike once more…

It was time to stoke the fire
, add some fuel to it and see if it would
smoke…

Marcus suddenly felt the car shudder, and a large puff of white smoke came billowing out of the bonnet, accompanied by an incredibly disturbing sound that was reminiscent of cats wailing at night.

“Oh no, what’s wrong with Sammy?” Stormy looked genuinely concerned for the car’s wellbeing.

“Old piece of junk, that’s what’s wrong,” Marcus muttered.

“Hey,” Stormy turned to Marcus and started whispering. “You can’t speak like that in front of her.”

“That’s ridiculous! A car doesn’t have feelings!”

“No, but negative thoughts can be very destructive. It’s been proven scientifically. If you shout angrily at water, the water molecules actually look ugly.” Marcus turned and raised a brow. “I swear. Google it. It’s true,” Stormy cut off his response, predicting his usual skepticism.

“I will.” And he absolutely intended to.

The smoke and sounds got even worse and the car started spluttering and shuddering. Marcus glanced at the dashboard and saw that the internal dials reflected dramatic overheating. Smoke was now pouring out of all the car’s orifices, and Marcus was forced to slow down to a crawl.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Marcus exclaimed loudly, banging the steering wheel as the car finally came to a very loud and shuddery stop. “Crap! This is just what we need.” He looked at his watch – time was not on their side. They needed to be in Mombasa tonight so that they could leave on the only flight for Dubai first thing the next morning, and from there catch another plane to Prague if they were going to make the rehearsal dinner and the bachelor and bachelorette parties. At this rate, they weren’t even going to make it to the wedding, especially since they were clearly in the middle of nowhere. He’d hardly seen a car pass them since the start of their journey, and a tow truck would probably take hours to reach them. They were completely stuck, by the look of it, and he did not have much faith in Sammy’s spontaneous healing abilities.

“Hey, stop hitting Sammy!” Stormy pulled his hands off the steering wheel angrily. Marcus swung around, feeling highly irritated – he hated it when things didn’t go according to plan, and having a car break down on them was definitely not part of his plan right now. “Seriously, Stormy! Seriously!”

He climbed out the car, slamming the door behind him, and walked over to the bonnet feeling pissed off as hell. He tried to open the bonnet, but it was too hot and the smoke almost choked him. “What a piece of shit!” he cursed in between coughs.

Stormy jumped out the car. “I told you. Negative energy. That’s why she’s broken down.”

“No Stormy, ‘Sammy’,” he gestured inverted commas around the name sarcastically, “has broken down because it’s an old, crappy piece of crap from last century that probably hasn’t had a service in years, or hasn’t had its oil changed since the turn of the millennium.”

Stormy gasped. She actually gasped as though she was really, truly shocked that he was saying this in front of the car. “He doesn’t mean it, Sammy,” she crooned, glancing over at the car and patting its roof. “Just give her a few minutes to cool down and she’ll be okay again,” she said, turning back to him.

Suddenly her upbeat positivity was irritating him. Her glass half-full attitude was rubbing him up the wrong way. “No, it won’t. The engine has completely overheated and that smoke there is not a good sign. I actually know a thing or two about cars. Sammy is going nowhere anytime soon.”

“You don’t
know
she won’t start again.”

“No, Stormy, I do. Trust me. See that, smoke is even coming from underneath the car!” He bent down to look and coughed a few more times.

“Do you have to be so negative? Why don’t we look on the bright side?” she berated him.

“Bright side? We’re stuck on the side of an almost-deserted road with no traffic passing by, in the full blazing sun, and we are about to miss my cousin and your step-sister’s wedding preparations and maybe even the actual wedding if we don’t get going.” Marcus wanted her to understand that some situations were just crap, and no amount of looking on the bright rainbow sunshine side of things would change that.

Stormy walked up to Marcus boldly and poked him in the chest with her finger. “That kind of attitude is going to get us nowhere. The rehearsal dinner isn’t until tomorrow evening, and the wedding is the day after. We have time to figure this out. We’ll make it.”

“I hope so. Because we’ll be cutting it very fine, especially if one more thing goes wrong. Which it probably will, considering the recent chain of events,” Marcus said angrily.

“You stress way too much.”

“And
you
stress way too little. Or stress about the wrong things – like cows having feelings and shit like that.” Marcus was getting worked up now, and they had both taken a step closer to each other. Tension was building. So was something else.

“Your stressing is going to cause your chakras to –”

“If you say ‘chakra’ once more on this trip, I swear I’m going to, going to… I’m going to –”

“What?” You’re going to what, Marcus?” Stormy had stepped all the way forward now and was waggling her angry little finger at him and that was all he needed –

He
kissed her.

He just kissed her. He couldn’t help it. He grabbed her by the waist and walked her backwards until she was pressed up against the side of the car. He shoved her back into it, hard. His mouth moved down her neck and Stormy threw her head back and let out a moan as he pushed her legs apartand collapsed between them. He grabbed one of her legs by the knee and pulled it up; she wrapped it around the back of him and dug her nails into his back. He went back up to her mouth and grabbed her behind the head with such force. With his free hand, he started pushing up her skirt and his fingers moved all the way up the inside of her thigh and then…

He stopped. He turned and walked away. As fast as he could.

Stormy’s back was pressed up against the car and she was gasping for air as Marcus stopped and just walked away. Why was he walking away from her? What had just happened? What had she done wrong?

And then she realized: he was probably lying about that picture. He
had
been looking at his ex. He’d probably been thinking about her this whole time as he shoved her against the car, possibly even last night in the lift and against the bathroom wall too, and when he realized it wasn’t her, he stopped. There was no other explanation for his behavior.

Well, screw him. Why did she even care?He was such a doofus. Stormy climbed back into the car and slammed the door hard. “Sorry, Sammy. I didn’t mean to,” she apologized, absently patting the dashboard. She adjusted the rearview mirror, and saw that Marcus had picked up his pace and was walking even further away.And even though he was far away, she could see that he was talking on his phone. She knew exactly who he was talking to.

Stormy didn’t feel so good.

17

Had the whole entire universe gone
mad?

“I am not going to be that guy who fucks you against a car on the side of the road.”

Stormy jumped as the car door suddenly flung open and a flustered looking Marcus stuck his head in.

“What?” she blinked at him, caught off guard by his sudden agitation and presence. He’d been walking up and down the road for almost ten minutes now, while Stormy had been left to stew in the hot car all alone.

“You deserve more than being some fuck on the side of the road. I’m not doing that to you.”

“What if I want you to?” she challenged him.

“Well, then I’ll be totally pissed off with you. Because you shouldn’t sell yourself so short. You’re worth a lot more than that.” He was deliberately avoiding eye contact and his body language suggested he was on the defensive for some reason.

“Here,” he handed the phone over to her. “Lilly is going to phone you back in five minutes, she wants to speak to you.”

Stormy was confused. “What’s Lilly got to do with this?”

Marcus ran his hands through his hair, still avoiding her prying eyes. “I called Damien. I needed to chat.”

“What did he say?”

Marcus looked as sheepish as hell. “He crapped on me. Called me an asshole and said that if I hurt his future sister-in-law, he’ll kill me.”

“Seriously?” Stormy perked up, feeling touched by this. “He said that about me? That’s so sweet!”

“Sweet?” Marcus repeated loudly. “The guy’s threatening to kill me, and he’s not someone you want to mess with. He may look thin and wiry, but trust me, in a fight he could take me down.”

“He’s just joking.” Stormy smiled slightly as she imagined Marcus and Damien in a wrestling match.

“Sure, he’s not going to
kill
me, kill me,” Marcus conceded. “But the point is, he’s pissed.” The phone rang and Stormy looked down at the screen as if it was a giant hairy spider.

“Slide that thing across,” Marcus pointed.

“What thing?”

“That icon at the bottom of the screen, slide it with your finger.”

“Why do these things not have buttons!” Stormy wailed in frustration, and started poking the screen with her finger. Marcus snatched the phone back and answered it; he handed it over to Stormy and then turned away to give her some privacy.

“Oohhhh
Storm, what’s going on?” Lilly breathed down the phone as soon as Stormy answered. She sounded excited, for some bizarre reason.

“I don’t know, Marcus and I –”

Lilly cut her off. “Are so perfect for each other! I am sooooo giddy with excitement. You guys make so much sense. Exciting!”

“What? You’re not serious, Lil!” Stormy shook her head in exasperation. How could Lilly think that she and Marcus made sense? No two people made
less
sense as a couple, as far as Stormy was concerned! They were like oil and water, pigeons and starving cats, garlic snails and strawberry yoghurt.

“I’m totally serious,” Lilly insisted. “You guys would be so awesome together. Ying to Yang.”

“Lil, have you taken drugs?”

“No?” Lilly sounded taken aback.

“Your brother’s little white pills again?”

Lilly sighed. “That was two years ago. When will this family stop teasing me about it?”

Stormy managed a little laugh, because the answer was
never
– it was too damn good a story. It’d happened when she and Damien had first met.

“Lil, you thought your bunny rabbit slippers were talking to you.”

“Let’s not change the subject here. You and Marcus. I love it.”

“We’re too different,” Stormy argued.

“But that’s why it’s so perfect. Look at me and Damien – we’re total opposites. I mean, I want our first dance to be Celine Dion and he wants Depeche bloody Mode. The song sounds like something that should be played at a funeral, not a wedding. Depro.”

“You’re skipping the gun here, Lilly. Besides, Marcus is not into it. He’s just made that very clear.”

Lilly made a conspiratorial “Mmmm,” and then started whispering down the phone. “You’re wrong. I think he phoned Damien because he is
so
into it and it’s totally thrown him.”

Stormy thought for a while.
Could
he be into it? This strange thing between them? Stormy put the phone down a little while later feeling mightily confused. Lilly was really counting chickens before they crossed the road here. She and Marcus were not ever going to be a couple, that wasn’t even on the cards…

The cards,
she suddenly remembered. A consultation with them would clear up the whole mess and confusion in her brain. Plucking the deck off the dashboard, where she’d abandoned them earlier, she closed her eyes and pulled one out of the pack.

The Sun!
Material happiness, fortunate marriage
…What? That was completely wrong. Maybe the cards were having a bad day. She decided to choose another one.

The Two of Cups…Noooo, that couldn’t be right either.
Love, passion, union…
She pulled yet another one.

Ten of cups:
Contentment, perfection of human love
and marriage…
Had the whole entire universe gone mad?

The door opened and Marcus climbed in into the driver’s seat again. “I didn’t have the heart to tell them that we might miss their rehearsal dinner. We’ll tell them when we’re absolutely sure we won’t make it.”

He was changing the subject. But Stormy didn’t want to. “Can we talk about what just happened, Marcus?”

“I’d rather not, to be honest. Damien is right, I’m being a complete asshole, you know, sleeping with you and stuff. He said I was using you.”

“Are you?” Stormy asked, not really liking the sound of that, or its implications.

Marcus looked up at her with eyes that seemed to be full of a million feelings and thoughts. “Are you?”

Stormy thought about it for a moment. Was she just using him for sex? Was he just using her? Were they using each other, or was there more to this thing? Stormy shrugged, unsure of how to answer him. “That makes it sounds so icky. Like we’re horrible horny nymphos.”

Marcus looked away, gazing out the front windscreen thoughtfully. Stormy thought she detected a hint of disappointment or hurt in his expression. Silence fell between then once again.

When Damien had accused Marcus of using Stormy for sex, he’d wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. Because in that moment, he realized he wasn’t. He didn’t want to tell Stormy what he and Damien had really discussed – he’d left out the whole other half of their conversation. Because after that – despite himself and his usually sound judgment and proclivity towards logic and reason and the cleverly constructed arguments he was used to delivering in court – he’d admitted to liking her.

He liked her.

He couldn’t quite believe he was saying the words out loud. He’d barely admitted it to himself yet, let alone someone else. But there it was; for some bizarre reason, he liked her. He actually
liked
her. But he hadn’t particularly liked the part of the conversation when Damien had told him Stormy only dated guys for six weeks and then broke it off. Marcus was a settle-down kind of guy; Stormy was not. Damien had said that whatever was going on between them would only end in heartbreak for someone. Lilly had told Stormy the same thing, obviously. And they were right. Nothing more could happen with him and Stormy – they were just too different, and wanted completely different things from life.

He had to put and end to this, once and for all.