Rowan Read online

  He clears his throat.

  “I’d better go and get a shirt on,” he says soberly with not a hint of teasing. “Wouldn’t want them to get the wrong end of the stick.”

  I swallow hard as he moves past me to go in search of clothes.

  I can handle having an easy conversation, not so sure I can handle protectiveness.

  Rowan

  The walk is great.

  The scenery is just as stunning as it was yesterday, and I get to watch Raven’s fine pegs as she walks ahead of me the entire two miles, in her DMs and fishnets with her dress swishing around her knees, while she is talking to Simon, the alcoholic.

  He is an odd fish in our little five fish pond because he is so much older than the rest of us. I spoke to him a little last night and his problems are kind of a lifetime ahead of mine, or Tristan’s, or Charlie’s.

  His wife of nearly thirty years threw him out five months ago because she’d had enough of him drinking and his anger issues. From the way he tells it, he wasn’t that bad. But my gut feeling is, he went for her a few times. It’s funny because speaking to him sober as he is now, he doesn’t come across as the majorly aggro type. On the contrary, he seems affable, funny, likable, intelligent, if suffering from a severe case of verbal diarrhoea. Still, there is an underlying edge to him.

  I’ve known guys like him. He’s pretty much like a lot of the aged fighters who hang around gyms and come to fights, drinking and betting. In their heads, they are still on form and in control and top dog, when in real life, they are just swaying drunks with popping veins and bloodshot eyeballs who lose a lot of money and treat their women, if they have one, like shite.

  Not that Simon’s a fighter, he’s a suit, but same difference.

  He talks about his family a lot. Showed me pictures of two gorgeous teenage girls in his wallet. His daughters. Apparently, his wife throwing him out just made her a bitch, but his older daughter telling him she was scared of him and didn’t want contact as long as he was still drinking sent him into rehab. The power of children. Good on her. But it begs the question what does a man have to do to make his child scared of him?

  It makes me wary of him and I keep a close eye on his interaction with Raven. I also doubt he’s gonna make it in the long run. That old adage of you want to do it for yourself springs to mind. I know I do. Betting nearly cost me everything I love, and most of all, it turned me into a complete cunt and a slave for a while. I got out of slavery and I don’t wanna be a cunt for the rest of my life.

  Somebody falls in step with me and I turn my head to see the young blonde ballerina from the Irish nurse’s - Elijah? Eli? Elias? something like that - house sidle up to me.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey,” I reply.

  We walk for a bit without saying anything else. It’s weird how just somebody else’s presence can alter your thought patterns. With her arrival in my periphery, I suddenly stop contemplating the people around me and see the view again. The stunning blue of the sky, the width of the heathland.

  “Beautiful around here, isn’t it?” the blonde says in a plummy voice, and I nod. “What’s your name? You weren’t at the induction and I didn’t get a chance to talk to you last night at the barbecue.”

  She’s friendly, not at all shy but also not brazen or condescending. I like her. In a display cabinet kinda way. Her world and mine are galaxies apart, I’m sure.

  “Rowan,” I say. “I arrived late.”

  She giggles.

  “Yeah, I know. Everybody knows. Ravenna was mightily put out about that. I’m Ann-Marie. Pleased to meet you.”

  Mightily put out. Pleased to meet you.

  Yup. Galaxies. But, hey, no harm in a bit of friendly banter between aliens.

  “How do you find your house, Ann-Marie?”

  She hesitates before she answers, and I glance over at her in the pause to see her cheeks blush.

  “It’s good,” she says then hurriedly changes the subject. “Is it allowed to ask why you’re here?”

  “You’re allowed to ask anything you like, Ann-Marie. Doesn’t mean you’ll get an answer, but you will on this one. It’s kind of the point of us being here, isn’t it? ‘Fessing up. I have a betting issue.”

  “Oh,” she exclaims. “How unique.”

  I’m not sure if I want to piss myself laughing or howl in despair at the gulf between us. So I do neither.

  “What about you?”

  “Fentanyl addiction.”

  And just like that my view of her changes in an instant. She’s a hardcore junkie, fighting a hardcore fight. Hats off.

  “Whoa. That’s hardcore shit. How did you end up taking that crap?”

  “Back operation.”

  “Fuck,” I say.

  Good luck, girlie, I think.

  Raven

  We have a deal with The Windchimes, so the table is normally laid for us either in the function room or under a wooden shelter in their beer garden if it’s a nice day. Today we’re outside and you can see the people at the other tables, mostly tourists, eye us up with curiosity.

  I don’t blame them. Our cohorts rarely make sense to the outside observer. I think most of the time people decide we are on some kind of corporate retreat. I’ve been asked a few times in the past, and when that happens, I answer neutrally, ‘We’re from The Village.’ Eight out of ten people just accept that answer. Number nine will ask ‘which village’, in which case I give the name of the village that The Village used to have, and leave them frowning. And then there is number ten, a local who knows what that means, looks around for her handbag and drags it onto her lap before she urges the husband that it’s time to leave. Today is clearly the turn of the tenth one in the shape of a middle-aged woman in a flowery dress who grabs my wrist as I pass her table on my way to the bar to give them our collective drinks order.

  “Excuse me, young lady, I couldn’t help wondering who you people are,” she says in a tone that suggests she’s already worked it out and disapproves.

  I look silently back and forth between her hand on my wrist and her face until she drops it. Then I answer.

  “We’re from The Village,” I inform her and watch as she grabs her handbag from the floor and lifts it onto her lap.

  So predictable.

  I’m about to move off without further comment when the woman’s eyes grow big at somebody behind me. I already know by the happy shiver running through my body who it is before that thunder growl voice rolls over my shoulder.

  “That’s right, lady,” he says. “You keep hold of your valuables. The junkies are about.”

  The woman gasps and kind of shrinks away in her seat. I turn to tell Rowan off, but when I meet the twinkle in his eye, I can’t help but smirk back at him.

  “Come on,” he says to me, ignoring the old witch now. “I came to see if you need some help. And to ask you something.”

  We move off together and he holds the door open for me when we enter the back corridor of the pub. I roll my eyes at him and he shrugs.

  “Can’t help it. It’s how Sheena brought us up.”

  “Who’s Sheena?”

  “My second mum.”

  That’s right. I read that in his file. His mother died when he was eleven. Doesn’t say how. At first, he stayed with his stepdad and half siblings, and then he was fostered by non-family and adopted by that same woman a few years later. She’s down as Mrs S O’Brien on his forms as his next of kin. I guess I now know what the S stands for.

  “You always do what your mom tells you to do?” I ask teasingly as I throw him a look over my shoulder, and nearly choke on my tongue at the expression on his face.

  It’s fleeting, but it’s pure sorrow.

  Shit. What did I say?

  I automatically start hurrying toward the bar as we enter the main pub area as if I could run away from what I just saw in his eyes. Before I can get anywhere, though, his large hand clasps around my shoulder. The dress I’m wearing is strapless and I left
the shawl I used to keep the sun off on my chair, so his palm makes direct contact with my skin.

  Oh my fucking god.

  It’s the first time he’s touched me since our handshake yesterday, and I can feel it in every fucking cell in my body. I half expect the shape of his fingers to be branded into my skin when he lifts it. Not that he does. His hand stays there while I spin around to face him.

  We look at each other for what seems like forever, just staring.

  I’m vaguely aware of his thumb swiping back and forth over my clavicle, almost like he can’t help it. Truth be told, I’m not even sure he’s aware of it.

  I am.

  I am more aware of that thumb than of anything else in the universe.

  He clears his throat.

  “Why the rush?” he asks.

  “Erm.”

  I don’t know what to say. I can’t think. At least not beyond totally inappropriate stuff like, for fuck’s sake move that hand lower, cup my tit, move the pad of that thumb over my nipple, tug on it, let me take you to the restroom, let me back into a stall, climb on your lap and fuck your brains out.

  I can see in his eyes that he can read my thoughts perfectly well, and it’s confirmed when he finally releases my shoulder, only to use the same hand to adjust his junk.

  “I was gonna ask you a question,” he says evenly, still fucking rearranging his hard-on. “I couldn’t help but notice that everybody ordered soft drinks. What’s with that? Are we all expected to stay sober, even if alcohol is not our problem? I kinda fancy a beer, you know. I haven’t had a pint in weeks. Not since before I started training for my last big fight. I’d quite like a lager after that walk to be honest.”

  I shake my head apologetically.

  “Again, that was covered in that induction talk you missed. In support of our recovering alcoholics we all agree not to drink during the Sunday carvery.”

  He frowns.

  “That’s dumb. I mean that’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? Going out into the world and not falling into temptation. Besides, I’d bet my arse that Simon wasn’t a pub boozer anyway. He’s got stay at home, get pissed over the course of the evening then get narky with the wife and kids written all over him. His problem will be passing the alcohol aisle in Sainsbury’s, not sitting in the pub not drinking. I bet he fucking excels at not drinking in public.”

  I narrow my eyes at him because, although he’s probably right where Simon is concerned, I don’t like the way he looks down his nose at a fellow man in recovery.

  And there are also a few more alcoholics in the other houses, some of whom might well be pub boozers, as he calls it. I’m about to say something but Rowan isn’t finished.

  “So is nobody allowed to bet on Ascot either?” he asks somewhat petulantly.

  “What?”

  “Well, if I’m not allowed to drink, then nobody should be doing any gambling on account of me. And no Candycrush on account of Tristan, and no sticking your hand in the medical cupboard on account of Ann-Marie, no food bingeing on account of any bulimics, no...”

  “I get your point,” I interrupt him.

  “Oh shit,” he says, his face suddenly turning crestfallen from his previous slightly ribbing expression, and he cups his crotch protectively for a moment. “There aren’t any sex addicts among us, are there?”

  I hate the fact he makes me laugh.

  “No, not this time.”

  A wolfish grin spreads across his way-too-fucking-handsome face and his eyes light up.

  “Well, thank fuck for that then.”

  “Rowan, I told you, I-“

  “Ha! Gotcha,” he interjects then leans forward, over my left shoulder, until his mouth is level with my ear and whispers, “You’ve thought about it, haven’t you? You’ve thought about everything you didn’t see yesterday.”

  He blows lightly across the shell of my ear, and I nearly turn into a puddle.

  My hand darts forward on its own accord because I need to hold on to something, need something to steady me. That something turns out to be the edge of his left pec, so that my palm is spread over his sternum, which means I can feel his heart through his skin-tight white tee.

  It’s beating. Fast. Erratically.

  “I told you, I can’t,” I mumble, and he makes a hissing sound.

  “Who says I’m talking about you,” he says teasingly and straightens up. “Halosan can’t tell the guests not to shack up, can they now? Ann-Marie is cute. Bit ribby but I bet she makes up for it in bendiness. And posh birds fuck well, all that ‘plum in mouth’ translates.”

  It’s like the proverbial bucket of cold water. I retrieve my rebellious hand and let my spine snap straight, glaring up at him.

  “You really are a–“

  He puts a hand across my mouth and grins mischievously.

  “Now, now, Ravenna. Was that something unprofessional you were about to say there?”

  He winks and takes his hand away, only to drag the pad of his thumb across my lips.

  I hate myself for the way it makes me shiver. That fucking thumb, I should bite it the fuck off.

  But then he smiles, a genuine smile reaching all the way up to his hungry, hungry eyes.

  “Don’t you worry, there is no competition here,” he whispers and brings his thumb to his mouth and kisses it where my lipstick has stained it red. “None,” he reiterates and turns away toward the bar. “Right. I’m gonna get me a beer.”

  Rowan

  I regret that beer for the next thirty hours solid.

  Not because I wake up the following day with a hangover. I don’t. A pint of lager, and I only had the one, doesn’t even make a dent in it for me, even though I rarely drink. There is just too much of me to soak it up.

  Not even because of the scathing looks I got from my, what did Raven call them again? Fellow men and women in recovery. No. That was kinda the point. Like it always is with me.

  And not even because it overshadows my entire first day in rehab proper, being the subject du jour in both my first group session and my first one-to-one with my allocated therapist. In the group session, they practically annihilated me under the not so careful guidance of the Denyers, Judy and Ed, a middle-aged couple with his-and-hers short grey hair, his-and-hers thick framed glasses and his-and-hers M&S wardrobes. It was hilarious. I really struggled to keep a straight face. But I did it.

  And the Oscar goes to Rowan O’Brien for looking contrite.

  The counsellor chick who does my one-to-one slot, Dr Lewin, loved it, though. I could practically see her salivating over this case. Idiot. But at least an easy-on-the-eye idiot, in a mid-forties but still wears the boho wardrobe she cultivated in her twenties and her ash blonde hair in a French plait with artful wisps framing her face kinda way. She is all about the knitwear, Sheena would say. She seems okay though. We’ll see how useful she’ll prove. Seems a bit obsessed with my thought processes. Didn’t quite get it when I tried to explain to her that ninety-nine percent of the time the lack of thought process is my problem.

  No, the reason I still regret that pint a day later is because Raven stopped engaging with me the minute I took my glass back to the table in the pub garden. No matter how many jokes I cracked about the atrocious food, no matter how much I tried to bait her, she completely shut me out. She ignored me during the carvery, during the walk home, during the evening that followed, even during the fucking night. It’s fucking impossible really, but I just know she consciously made herself not think about me next door somehow. As if I were just any other guest.

  And I don’t like it.

  I don’t want to be just any other guest. I get that she can’t go there with me without putting her job on the line and incurring a mountain of debt, but I still want to be somebody for her. Not a lover, if that’s too costly, but also not just another face that happens to pass through here. I may only have known this woman for all of two days, but I know I want to be the Rowan to her Raven, even if that makes zero sense.

 
; So after the first day of therapy is done, I do a few rounds in the gym, which to my surprise even boasts a punch bag corner, swim a hundred lengths in the pool, and then I go and do what I do best.

  Eat humble pie.

  I have a fucking black belt in eating humbles.

  I find her in the communal garden, sitting at the table outside our house, reading. Not an e-reader, an actual book. I’ve not heard of the author, but the way the name of the writer is printed bigger than the title and the font is frill-less, I can only assume it’s a thriller or a police procedural. Fits her. I bet she inhales reruns of CSI the way others snort coke.

  I’m pretty sure she’s noticed my presence standing in the backdoor, but she isn’t going to make it easy for me and doesn’t let on. I clear my throat.

  “Raven? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She slowly lifts her eyes from the page and looks over to me, disdain marring her features. I hate that she looks at me like this.

  “Can it wait? I’m on my break. I have an hour before we start dinner prep. Come back then?” she suggests coldly.

  Fuck this.

  I approach and sit down opposite her, already talking before my arse hits the chair.

  “No. It fucking well can’t wait. But I’ll be quick, okay? I came to say sorry for yesterday. I was out of order. I shouldn’t have done it. I won’t do it again.”

  “Yeah, right,” she shrugs it off as if I’d lied to her a million times before and that pisses me right the fuck off.

  “Oi, if I say I won’t do it again, I won’t do it again, alright?”

  She flinches at my ‘oi’ but composes herself quickly and levels her eyes with mine.

  “You’re an addict, Rowan. Do you know how often I’ve heard an addict say they won’t do it again?”

  “In this line of work?” I ask dryly. “I suspect a lot.”

  I can see the tiniest smirk form around her beautiful mouth and the relief I feel is ridiculously out of proportion to what is happening. I want to dwell on this relief, but I know we are nowhere near there yet.