Behind the Pitch, a novella: Seeking Serenity 1.5 (11 page)

Great. Fecking Heather.

“Hey,” she said. She moved like a snake, gliding toward me, her nails like fangs ready to strike.

Heather didn’t smell like Autumn. Her skin wasn’t as soft, too tanned, too untouchable. But she had a nice face, a small button nose and luscious, thick lips. What? I’m a bloke. Hard not to notice those things. I knew what she wanted. Those claws were itching to scratch down my back, I could tell, but I couldn’t shake that picture Morrison had painted for me. Couldn’t be rid of the memory of him holding Autumn’s hand or the feel of her fingers working over my dick.

I needed to tell Heather the truth. I needed her to understand that she and I weren’t ever going to happen.

When she leaned up on her toes, planted a kiss on my cheek, I pulled her arms away from me. “Heather, what are you doing here?”

“Coffee?” she said like it was supposed to explain everything. Like that one word promised more than a brief conversation and a flaky pastry.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The lipstick on my cheek left a mark on my sleeve when I wiped it away.

“Why not? It’s just coffee, Declan. I’m not asking you to marry me.” Her laugh was too high, too piercing and I was just about to deliver the Gollum speech, just about to make a clean break, but then Morrison walked past us, his phone to his ear and I heard him say Autumn’s name. The images came back and Primal Declan kicked my rejection back down my throat.

“Yeah,” I said, watching Morrison as he laughed into his phone. Heather curled her arm around mine and for a moment I forgot that I didn’t want her touching me.

But only for a moment.

Joe bought the house on Matthews Street after I’d been in Cavanagh for a few months. I came here first, at his insistence, and kipped in the dorms until he made it to town. It isn’t some sprawling estate, isn’t some McMansion that folks in the States seem eager to live in. The house, in fact, was at least seventy years old, a Craftsman with a wide front porch and a swing to the side. Before Autumn came into our lives, the place was quiet and smelled of cigars and men. She made it a home. Brought all sorts of girly things in like pictures and rugs and bowls of dried flowers that took the male funk away.

I haven’t been here since I snuck in to grab my shite. Days, it’s been, but as I walk up the steps, take in the planters of flowers on either side of the door and the wreath covered in oranges and yellows, I know that Autumn hasn’t stopped visiting. I knock once, holding my breath, like a vacuum salesman waiting to be given the toss. Funny how a place I loved and the people in it can make me feel like an invader.

Joe opens the door and the smile on his face lowers. “Deco?” he says, like he can’t believe he’s looking at me.

“Yeah. How is it, Joe?”

“Good, mate. Good.” He looks over my shoulder, then back at my face. The smile returns. “Have a drink?” I nod and he opens the door wider for me to enter.

It is awkward being here, wandering around my own home, eyeing corners and tables to see if there have been changes. But as I sit at the dining table, rest back against the chair while Joe fetches a bottle of Newcastle from the fridge, I let the warmth settle in my chest, try to eradicate the tension I can feel lurking around the corners of the room.

I nod a thanks to Joe when he slides me the bottle and sits across from me. He watches me, I’m guessin to see if I’ll start a row, but I can’t do more than lower my eyes to the bottle label and pick at the ends. He wants an explanation, same as me, likely an apology. Sayo was right. I’m an arsehole. Joe’s not elderly, but he’s been ill and punching him like I did was stupid.

“Look, Joe, I’m sorry,” I say. The corner of the label on my bottle digs underneath my fingernail.

“Deco, I know why you were upset. I do, son.”

My eyes shoot to his when he calls me that. We don’t mention what I know is on both our minds. I’m not his son. Not really. He raised me for a good space of my life, but we aren’t blood. My father was a wanker who skipped out on his wife. Shagged my mum and got her up the pole before he went back to his proper family. Joe and Autumn, they’re all I have, I know it. Joe knows it, but him calling me son just doesn’t seem right.

“I reckon you had your reasons for not telling me the truth.” I take a swig of the beer, giving my stepdad a chance to respond. He doesn’t, just stares at me as though he’s waiting for me to finish. “I don’t know what good reason you could have had for any of it…me, my father, the shite you kept from me about Autumn—” I stop speaking when Joe exhales, like he’s tired of rehashing the past. “It’s not something that can just be brushed under the rug, is it?”

Joe slouches, covers his face with his thin fingers. When he speaks, his words are muffled behind his hands. “I’ve explained everything to you about that, Deco.” He folds his arms over his chest, tight, defensive. “And if I’m being honest, it’s nothing to do with you, that bit with Autumn and my family here.”

My temper flares, but I’m able to push back my anger with another drink. “If you say so.”

“Autumn’s forgiven me, son. I was an arsehole about the whole situation, but the thing with your father, that was to protect you.” Joe leans on the table, folding his hands into a steeple. “Micah O’Malley was wild, careless, and when his wife found out about you, well, aside it being a scandal, it was quite the mess. The things that stupid cow said about your mum, Deco, no one wanted you to be caught up in that. Clara told me, they thought of leaving town, she and your mum, but then O’Malley takes his wife and moves off instead.” Joe brushes his hand across the table, wiping away the moisture my beer left on the surface. “When I went back home, when your mum was sick, she told me she hadn’t ever mentioned Micah to you. He’d been long dead by then and I reckon that’s a part of what made her the sad thing she was. But he’d had a son with his wife, a sickly little thing from what I heard, and your mum was still so very eaten away by grief and shame over the whole mess. She didn’t want you to know, was afraid it would hurt you.”

“So she asked you to keep it from me?”

“Not as such, no.” Joe lets his hands fall into his lap, moves his thumbs together. “But she did want to wait, until you were older. But then we came here and Autumn and you and…well, things were good, you see.” He wasn’t wrong. For months, we’d all been happy and Autumn had slipped into our family like she had always been a part of it. “I didn’t see the sense in dredging up the past, not after all I’d already put the pair of you through.” We let the quiet eat the seconds between us. There was a lot of information to take in, details that made the mystery of my past, of who my mum had been, fit together a bit more than it had, than what I had realized from my kid-sized view of things.

Still, it would have been so easy for Joe to tell me these things years ago. I was a big lad. I could have handled it. But he was ever the puppet master, still controlling, releasing small shards of truth when he saw fit. The thought of his needing to control our lives allowed my anger to return some. But more than anything, I wanted our family back. I wanted Autumn to slip back into where she belonged, at my side, here in this home, the three of us together again. But then Joe clears his throat, sits up straight as though what he said next was a commandment I shouldn’t bother refusing. “I think you should take the money.”

“No.” It slipped out of my mouth instantly.

Joe was surprised, I could tell. He looked at me as though I’d grown a third ear. “Deco, it would be a good start for you and Autumn. Set you off on the right road. You wouldn’t have to struggle so much. You’ll both be done with your studies soon and then you’ll want to marry, maybe have children. That money could help.”

I laughed at the idea. Joe was angling for a future that Autumn and I were far, far away from. It was what I wanted, eventually, but now, especially now? Please. I couldn’t even get her to return my texts. “Joe, Autumn doesn’t want any of that. Not with me.”

“O’course she does.” He seems genuinely surprised, as though he hadn’t caught on to the fact that we haven’t spoken in days. “Oh, you’ve hacked her off well and good, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. Take the money, son. It’s the least O’Malley could have done for you.”

The money again. Damn it, why can’t he just let that shite go? “I don’t want his money. I don’t want anything but Autumn, and I don’t even have that now. She won’t take my calls. She won’t see me, she won’t talk to me and all you care about is the fecking money?”

I have a fair notion that I should leave. Now. My anger is intensifying and I know that if I’m not careful, Joe and I will be at each other’s throats again. He just didn’t get it. What’s the point of that money? It won’t bring my mum back. It won’t make up for the fact that I’m some wanker’s bastard.

Joe’s arms are tight across his chest and I can tell that he’s not saying whatever has popped into his head. He senses the tension. Knows me well enough to recognize when I’m losing it. “Deco, I just want you to be able to take care of her. And yourself.”

“Yep. I got that.” It was clear to me now, his insistence on me taking that money. Just why he thought it was the only thing to do. Damn him, it all made sense. My chair squeaks against the floor when I jerk out of it eager to get away from my stepdad.

I’m not good enough for her, I know that’s what he’s thinking.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around, Joe.” When he follows me, stops me right at the front door, I don’t jerk away from him.

“Saturday night, at McKinney’s Autumn and Sayo want to have a party. My birthday, you see. Something small, karaoke and cake.”

I close my eyes, feel worse that I’d forgotten Joe’s birthday, but then a thought comes to me and I frown at my stepdad. “You hate karaoke. Autumn does as well.”

“It was Sayo’s idea. It’ll be a laugh. You should be there, son.”

I don’t make any promises to my stepdad, even though it’s not like he’s unfamiliar with the concept of broken promises. “Thanks for the beer.” I leave my home, with Joe staring after me, wishing I knew when I’d be back. If I’d be back.

I couldn’t go anywhere in this fecking town without seeing Autumn.

She was in the library. She was sitting in the courtyard. She even walked past the bloody pitch on her way home.

Not that I’d noticed.

Much.

She was at McKinney’s. A bloke can’t have a bleeding pint with his mate without her showing up. Everywhere I go, she’s fecking there. Looking like she did, all pink cheeked and full lipped.

Freckles covering her face, her neck.

Jaysus.

Just thinking of those freckles, and knowing how they scatter down her neck, across her collarbone, to her gorgeous round tits, had me harder than bleeding steel.

I’ve tried to stay away. It’s for the best, if I’m being honest. Take the book sale for instance, I managed to keep away from her all day, though I will admit I couldn’t keep from watching her. But I managed, you see, and felt right grand about it. But then Joe put her on the spot, asked her about her birthday and what did Autumn do? Bleeding caved. Let him talk her into something she didn’t want any part of. Fecking bitty martyr, that one.

I told myself I’d hang back. I told myself that if she knew the truth, knew about my family, about me and Joe, then she wouldn’t be too keen on me chatting her up. She wouldn’t want me kissing her. She wouldn’t want me touching her.
Christ
. Just the memory of what she had let me do to her that night at her apartment made me want to skewer my eyes out every time I thought on it. I wanted to drive the taste of her skin off my tongue. I wanted to give her the space she needed, until Joe got off his arse and told her the truth.

But stay away from her completely? That wasn’t bloody likely.

I thought I’d have a nice, quiet night with Donovan. We had a shedload of shite to finish for our Modern Analytics project. So this night out at McKinney’s was meant to be a means for us to bounce ideas off each other. Then Autumn walked in with that skirt curving around her glorious arse, and that fitted shirt showing off her glorious breasts, and all thought of work with Donovan went to hell.