Page 117 of Rafferty's Rules
‘Watch your mouth,’ I growl.
‘Ah. So she does mean something to you. Thought so.’
‘So what? It’s not reciprocated. It’s just an arrangement we made.’ The truth. ‘We both needed something the other had to give.’ The truth again. ‘Fuck off,’ I add in the face of his scathing expression.
‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve both had plenty to give. And take.’ I smile despite myself because yes, that side of things has been amazing. Better than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
‘That, at least, wasn’t fake.’
‘So what happens now?’ he asks.
‘Nothing.’
‘You need to tell Byron. You can’t stay away another two years.’ At last, something we can agree on as I rub my hands down my weary face. ‘Otherwise, it just makesyouthe pussy.’
‘I’m a bit old for your line in pastoral care.’
When Tom doesn’t answer, I look up from between my fingers, my heart sinking fast in the face of Byron’s stony expression.
Chapter 36
RAFFERTY
‘By.’ I say his name like I’m in pain. And I should be for what I’ve done.
‘Thomas.’ My brother claps his hand on his friends should who looks up. ‘Be a good mate. Off you fuck.’
There’s a picture in a book I remember once seeing a photograph of. A book of hours, an ancient Christian devotional text from back in the Middle Ages. It had a painting of the Crucifixion; Jesus on the cross, John the Evangelist supporting Virgin Mary. But I’ve never forgotten the way Pontius Pilate was painted, his expression a mixture of horror and culpability. And that’s the way Tom looks at me now.
‘How long were you standing there?’ I ask, shame curling in the pit of my gut.
‘To hear all the juicy bits,’ he replies with a deadpan expression.
I’d rather have my toenails pulled out than have this conversation. No one wants to admit they fucked up, but worse, I don’t want to see him hurt.
‘When did it happen?’ If he’d been standing there for the full conversation, he might’ve started with something else. I suppose I can assume he knows what I’ve done. And about Lissa, too.
‘I don’t remember exactly. By, I’m sorry—’
He holds up his hand. For the world, he looks like he’s about to bless me when a punch in the jaw is more appropriate. But he looks calm. Calmer than I thought he’d be whenever I imagined this conversation, and I’ve imagined it plenty. But you know what they say, calm comes before a storm. But I can take it, and I can wait for his forgiveness however long it takes.
‘You’ve stayed away all this time because of this?’
‘How could I not? I can barely look you in the face.’ I exhale a heavy breath as Byron does the same, hooking his elbow on the tabletop.
‘Tee, I don’t know how to tell you, but we weren’t even thing.’
‘Nah.’ I swallow thickly. This isn’t his fault. He doesn’t get to play this shit down. ‘That’s not true. Not the way I remember it. You bought her a ring. I was at the pub one night when she was flashing it about, telling everyone how devoted you were.’
‘Then how come I haven’t just married her? The truth is, she bought her own ring. And more to the point, the woman isn’t right in the head. Katya had just died, and I had twin toddlers and a business to run. I wasn’t interested in a relationship. It was just sex, and it was a mistake.’
‘Nah.’ I shake my head; it can’t be right. ‘She knew all this stuff, stuff that was going on at home. And that night, she said you’d had a fight, that you had split up. I’d had a lot to drink and I don’t remember much.’ She was crying and I remember her asking me to hold her, but that’s about it. ‘Then the next morning, she said you’d called and made up.’ I’d felt so sick already but that news just finished me off. ‘She said we should never speak of that night again.’
‘Lies. All of it. We had one argument. There was no making up and no breaking up. There was nothing.’
‘But I fucked her, By. That’s not nothing. It was fucking wrong.’
‘I agree,’ he replies equably. ‘I feel the same after fucking her, too. But just to recap, you’ve stayed away for almost two years because you put yourself on a guilt trip for screwing my sloppy seconds?’
