Decline (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #1) (24 page)

“You’re afraid?” I guessed.

She nodded as fresh tears sprung to her eyes.

“Of me?”

She seemed to struggle with her composure for a second. “Not
of
you as such. I know you’d never hurt me physically or anything. I just . . . I can’t trust you. I don’t know if I can survive what we had before. Not anymore. Not with someone else to think about.”

“I want to fix that. How can I?”

She shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. But I guess time will be one way.”

Time? I thought about that. I had another month and a half or so before I was due back in Sydney. But I knew that wasn’t the sort of
time
Alyssa was talking about. Then I remembered Alyssa’s words on the plane. She was leaving Australia for good. She was only in Australia for another couple of months. A fissure ripped open in my chest and my breathing sped as a panic attack gripped me in its icy claws.

They’d never been as frequent as they were now. I turned so that I was sitting with my back to the table and leaned forward to put my head between my knees. I cupped my hands against the back of my head and tugged on the hair there. I tried to calm myself down but it wasn’t working. The thought of Alyssa leaving for good in just a few months, of never seeing her again, tore at me. Once again, she rubbed small, calming circles on my back.

“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” I panted, trying to get her to talk about something that would hopefully stop the panic.

“I’ve pretty much been full-time at uni. Between that, a part-time job down at the local shop and Phoebe, I’ve been pretty busy. And then I got the job offer from Pembletons.”

Fuck, that wasn’t helping. My breathing hitched again and Alyssa seemed to sense that because she shifted her body a little closer. I was treated to the scent of her, and that did help calm me a little.

“I’m not taking the London offer,” she whispered.

My breath left my body in one exhausted, but relieved, sigh. “Why not?”

“I can’t be that far away from my family. Or from Emmanuel.”

I nodded. Which meant she’d never move to Sydney. Which meant if I wanted to be with her I had to give up what could be a promising fucking career or at least one that could be promising again if I could get my head back in the game. And that meant we were right back where we’d started.

Something inside me screamed at me to run again. Run as far away as I could as fast as I could. Get the fuck away from Alyssa and all the drama she was sure to bring into my life.

No
! I thought in response.
Fuck that
.

Sydney wasn’t that far from Brisbane, a little over an hour by plane. If I could be fucking man enough to pick up the phone, maybe we could at least be friends again. Although, I wasn’t sure whether
friends
would work when I was getting hard as a fucking stone just from her rubbing comforting circles on my back. This smallest amount of contact from her did more for me than being balls-deep in any of the whores from the clubs.

I didn’t understand why she had so much sway over me, but it had always been that way. That’s what made me run initially and had kept me running since. I didn’t want to be tied down and unhappy in my job like my father was. He’d worked crazy hours for as long as I could remember and he’d told me so many times how he’d had his dreams and maybe he could have achieved them if he hadn’t married so young and fucked up his chances.

As always, I was torn between what half of me wanted and what the other half feared. Alyssa and the fucking perfect connection that made me want to bury myself in her.

Finally, I was able to gather control over my breathing and the panic subsided. I turned back toward her, resting my arm on the table and putting my fingers in my hair instead of linking them with hers again.

“Where does that leave
us
though?” My heart hammered my ribs, trying to break free as I asked the question.

“Is there an us?”

I thought about it for a minute. “I’d like there to be. Would you?”

She shrugged. “Yes and no. I don’t want to get hurt again, Dec. It nearly tore me in two when I saw you—” Her words died on her lips. She met my eye and seemed to have an internal debate. “In the hospital,” she added in a hushed whisper.

I frowned. The hospital was after so much other stuff between us. Unless . . .

“You were there? After Morgan . . .” I trailed off.

She closed her eyes and her tears wet the lashes. She didn’t confirm it, but she didn’t have to. Her reaction made it clear that I hadn’t been having visions. She’d actually visited me in the hospital, but obviously hadn’t wanted me to know.

“Then when you got on the plane beside me, I cursed fate. How could I be so unlucky? And then we . . . ” She tailed off, but I didn’t need her to elaborate. I knew exactly what she meant.

Fucking without complications.
Yeah, fucking right
.

“Do you know the real fucked-up thing about that night?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“I wanted to tell you that I loved you before you bolted from the room.”

With a frown, she narrowed her eyes at me.

“I didn’t even realise you meant sex without strings until after you’d left. I was so fucking drunk when you found me, I just didn’t know what was happening. It ripped my heart apart when you walked out of the room.”

I thought she might see the truth in my words, and realise that I’d been changing since that night. But instead her face was set with anger.

“Is that why you went back downstairs? To the bottle of whiskey?”

I nodded. “It was the only thing that made sense.” I wasn’t trying to make her feel guilty, I just wanted her to know the truth. Her reaction, however, startled the fuck out me.

She started to scream at me. “You thought the best way to deal with that apparent pain was to drink a fucking litre of alcohol?”

I was shocked and sat blinking at her, unsure of what she wanted me to say. She seemed to be demanding a response though so I nodded again.

“Fucking hell, Declan. You really haven’t grown up a fucking bit have you?”

I just stared at her, uncertain of what I was being blasted about, but unwilling to add to it by saying the wrong thing.

“This is what I fucking mean about trust. One thing goes wrong and you fucking drink yourself into oblivion and end up in hospital. I mean Christ, what if I’d left for the night or didn’t hear that bottle smash. You could have been fucking dead. How would I explain that to Phoebe? How could I tell her that her father died in a fucking alcohol binge session because one thing didn’t go his fucking way?” She’d started her rant in shouts but ended it in tears. As soon as the crying started, I felt emotion return to me. I pulled her tightly into my chest. She sobbed against me for a few minutes before her breathing settled.

“This is what I mean, Dec. I can’t trust you to make decisions if that’s the sort of place they lead you to. And if I can’t trust you to make responsible decisions, how can I trust you with Phoebe? How can I trust you with
me
? I think you need therapy.”

I scoffed. “Been there, done that.”

When she pulled away, her face was set into a mask of determination. “You need to talk to a psychiatrist. If you genuinely want me to try to trust you again, that’s what I need you to do. Before we can ever have a hope of there being an
us
you need to sort yourself out. I won’t allow Phoebe’s life to be ruined just because you don’t have yourself together.”

“So let me get this straight. You’ll only allow me into my own fucking daughter’s life if I see a shrink? And I don’t get a fucking say in that shit?”

Her eyes flashed. “Legally, she’s not your daughter.”

“Fuck that. You and I both know she is. I don’t give a flying fuck about legal. If I want to see her, I fucking should be able to see her.”

“Do you want to see her?”

Alyssa’s question startled me with its frankness. “Um . . . I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” she asked incredulously. “Are you kidding me?”

“Look, fuck, I’m trying to be honest here. I’ve known for all of a fucking week that I’m a father. I don’t fucking know how to deal with that shit. What I want to do though is what’s right.”

“What’s right is sorting yourself out and then seeing her.”

A dark chuckle escaped me. She had no fucking idea. “Sorting me out could take fucking years.”

Alyssa’s response was a genuine laugh. She either didn’t realise just how fucking serious I was or she was trying to lighten the now tense atmosphere. “At least start trying, that’s all I’m asking.”

“What do I get in return?”

She raised her eyebrow at me. “Besides being less fucked-up you mean?”

A scoffed exclamation left me. “Yeah, besides that.”

“What do you want in return?”

“Will you agree to let me take you on a date?”

She thought about it for a second and then nodded. Then she smiled slyly. “One date for every session.”

It was clear she thought she’d outfoxed me. “How will you know if I’m actually going?”

“It’s about trust, Declan. I will
try
to trust you again. Part of that will be you earning my trust by showing me you are worthy of it. If you lie to me about something as simple as whether you’ve had a therapy session or not, how can I ever trust you on anything else?”

I nodded. It made sense. “Do phone sessions count? If I have to see a fucking shrink, I’d at least like to go to one close to home but”—I dropped my voice and broke eye contact because it was hard to admit to my feelings after hiding from them for so long—“I don’t want to wait until I go back to try
us
again.”

I didn’t voice my greater concern that by going back to Sydney there would be no more us.

“I’m not just going to jump into bed with you,” she said.

“Is that what you think I want? Fucking nice vote of confidence, Lys.”

“Just going off recent evidence.”

“Gossip mags and fucking innuendo.”

“Are you saying they’re wrong?”

Fuck
. “No.”

“Then you can understand why I would think that.”

“Fuck, Lys, you should know you’ve always been more than that to me. It’s why I can’t do brunettes.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Nice. You draw the line at fucking brunettes. I guess I should be glad that you believe at least some part of the population to be off limits.”

“Shit, Lys. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant . . . Fuck. I’m sorry I said that, okay? I just, well, fuck, I just want to be honest with you.”

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. “I have a few more conditions on the dating thing.”

“What?”

“First, you do so exclusively. No screwing random chicks. You wait until I’m ready and have a relationship with me alone. Even if that takes six months or more.”

It’s fucking disgusting to admit, but I did have to consider it for a few seconds. I was already so fucking wound up that I needed stress relief and my hand just didn’t fucking cut it. The promised land at the end was Alyssa, though. She was worth the serious case of blue balls I would no doubt encounter. I nodded.

“Thank you.”

“What else?”

“You stop drinking, and drugs if you are on any.”

I shook my head. “I’m not on anything illegal.”

She cast me a doubtful stare.

“I’m not,” I reassured her. “Not anymore,” I added in a quiet voice.

“And the alcohol?”

“C’mon, Lys, it’s not like I’m a fucking alcoholic.”

She considered me for a second. “Fine, not completely then. But you’ve got to stop drinking to excess and definitely not as a solution to your problems.”

“I can try. All of what you are saying. Everything you’re asking, I promise I’ll try.”

“I would say that’s all I can ask, but instead I’ll say this: whenever you think you are trying your best, then try just a little harder. Make yourself someone who is worthy of that little girl. As much as it will kill me if you fuck up, she’s the one I really need to protect here.”

“Some people would say I’m a pretty fucking good catch.”

She smiled slightly. “And they’d probably be right.”

I preened a little.

“Once you’ve sorted yourself out, that is,” she added before pressing a kiss to my cheek.

Without another word, she walked off.

For a dazed moment, I sat, unsure whether I should follow her or not.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: LET’S RIDE

WHEN I CAME to my senses, I jumped from the table and chased after Alyssa. I wanted to show her that I would follow her lead in things for the moment, but that I wasn’t going to back away. That I wouldn’t run again. I would go as fast or as slow as she wanted to, but I also wanted to take the chance to show her that we could be friends again. All things considered, we’d actually gotten along fairly well. It was a reminder of what we’d shared before lust and heartbreak had interfered with us.

“Alyssa, wait!” I called.

She stopped and then turned back to face me. When she did, the small smile from before had disappeared. “What is it, Declan?”

My steps slowed and my confidence faltered. Maybe I’d misread the signs and she wanted space. “I, uh, just wanted to ask you if you wanted to hang for a while, and maybe go shopping.”

She burst out laughing. When she collected herself, she raised an eyebrow at me. “Shopping? Seriously?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Why on God’s green earth would
I
want to go shopping with you?”

My face fell as fast as my hopes. I hadn’t expected a rejection quite so harsh, especially to an offer which was only one of friendship.

A look of horror crossed Alyssa’s features. “No. I—I didn’t mean it like that, Dec. I’m not saying I don’t want to spend time with you. As a friend.” She gave me a pointed look. “I just don’t understand why that has to be spent
shopping
.”

“Oh, fuck, sorry, I should have fucking explained better.” I chuckled as relief flooded through me that her words hadn’t been intended as a flat-out rejection. “I
need
to go shopping. Because I left home so quickly”—I left the reason for my speed hanging in the air for a moment—“all I brought with me was winter stuff I already had packed for London. I just thought you might . . . I don’t fucking know. Oh fuck it.”

I couldn’t seem to form any fucking words for some reason, especially not any that could be misconstrued or twisted away from their intended meaning. With a frown forming, I turned to walk back to the table thinking that chasing after Alyssa had been a fucking mistake. I should have just sat still and shut up until she was gone so that I didn’t fuck up the progress we had made.

Alyssa’s hand closed around my arm to stop me, and my gaze shot to it, unbelievingly.

“It’s okay,” she said with a cautious smile. “I’d like to go shopping with you.”

“Good ’cause I’ve got no fucking clue when it comes to this shit.”

She chuckled darkly. “And you think I do? Obviously you don’t remember me very well.”

Despite regular visits to the Grand Plaza when we were younger, we’d very rarely actually shopped. I found myself laughing along with her. She was always far more focused on textbooks and texting than designer Dior.

“If you want style advice, Flynn’s probably a better companion,” she teased.

I decided two could play at that game so I trailed my eyes up and down over her body in a mock appraisal. “Yeah, probably. Do you have his number?”

She laughed. “So you don’t want to take me now?”

I pretended to sigh. “Well, I mean, you’re obviously no Flynn, but I guess you’ll do.”

She slapped my chest and smiled, not one of those half-hearted small smiles she’d been giving me before, but a true fucking light-up-the-room type of smile. It made my heart clench with something as close to joy as I could feel.

“You’re so fucking beautiful when you smile,” I said before I’d had a chance to consider the possible ramifications.

The smile fell straight away and she looked away from me and sighed. The she stepped away from me, locking her emotions away.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m willing to try and be friends. I’m even willing to try dating with the conditions we’ve discussed. But I can’t have you saying shit like that to me; it’s just not fair.”

I mumbled an apology even though I didn’t want to apologise because it was just the fucking truth. After a moment, I said, “Alyssa, you’re going to have to tell me what to do, all right? I have no fucking clue how to handle any of this shit. I just know I wanna try. If I step over the mark, just fucking tell me to shut up or something. Don’t push me away, okay?”

She nodded and a hint of a smile crept back onto her face. She held out her hand to me. “I guess
this
is okay.”

With a grin, I grabbed her hand and led her back to Mum’s house to get my car. Truthfully, we could have walked to the Plaza, but I didn’t want to have to lug home a pile of heavy fucking bags if I actually managed to find some clothes that I wanted to buy. I fucking hated shopping. Most of my wardrobe consisted of gifts from corporate sponsors, so I rarely had to actually step foot inside a shop. They generally loved it if you were caught out and about in public wearing one of their shirts. It’s what they paid for after all.

The walk back to the house was just as silent as the walk to the bench, and again our hands didn’t break contact the whole way. I pulled my car keys out of my pocket and unlocked the Monaro. Heading for the passenger side, I held the door open for Alyssa. She climbed in and took a deep breath. My car may have been a few years old—it was the last CV8 Monaro off the production line and I had wanted to buy that shit for posterity—but I kept it pristine, so it still had the lingering new car smell. The smell of the leather seats was fucking intoxicating. I smiled to myself that Alyssa noticed that shit too.

“Nice car,” she said after I’d climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Thanks.” I smiled at her as I started the engine. “I didn’t think you liked cars though?”

Shifting into first, I checked the road and then squealed the tyres as I left the kerb. Showing off for Alyssa a little, I revelled in the sounds that issued from my baby. I always loved the fucking soft purr of the engine. It was the only music I needed, and the rhythm of my life. I’d even put a new exhaust system on the beast to get the note just right.

Alyssa laughed, but I wasn’t sure what at and when I looked at her she shook her head to indicate she wasn’t going to tell me. “I guess between you and Flynn I didn’t really have much choice.”

“He’s into cars too?”

“Yeah. He’s more into fours though. He’s got a Silvia.”

“Fucking ricer.”

“I don’t know . . .” Her voice held a quiet challenge, as though daring me to react to her next words. “He gets that thing to do some crazy shit. He got a fourteen eight at the drags.”

Although I wasn’t going to admit it, I couldn’t help but be slightly impressed by the numbers. Despite the fact that he was gay, he was still my rival for her attention. I couldn’t help but be jealous that he was the one who got her into cars when all of my attempts had failed. She’d never once shown any interest in that shit before I’d left for Sydney four years ago. Instead of saying anything complimentary toward the fucker, I turned to Alyssa and raised one brow. “You wanna see how a real fucking car handles?”

She shrugged but the corners of her mouth turned up slightly. “I can’t be gone too long. I need to pick Phoebe up from Mum’s in a few hours.”

I shook my head. “This won’t fucking take long.”

Then I had a thought. “Actually, why don’t we go to Garden City for shopping instead? Kill two birds and all that.”

“That should be okay.” I took that as an acceptance and headed toward the motorway. When I hit the on ramp, I slowed right down. After ensuring there was no one behind me, I pulled to a complete stop. Then, when the motorway ahead was clear enough, I dropped the clutch and floored the accelerator, slamming through each gear and pinning Alyssa back in her seat with the G-force of my take-off.

It felt good and right. It was what I was made to do. When I tore past one-twenty, I hesitated because I wasn’t sure about Alyssa’s reaction. I honestly thought she would scream or get pissed with me like she used to when I pulled this shit after first getting my licence. She fucking surprised the shit out of me by giggling and fuck if it didn’t sound terrific. It made me forget everything that had happened in the last four years. I was simply a fucking boy taking his girl for a drive. I flicked it into sixth as we sailed past one-fifty kilometres per hour before finally slowing back down to the speed limit.

“So, will—” I cut myself off. I was going to ask whether she’d tell me a little about Phoebe, but wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it or broach any topic that wasn’t completely and certifiably safe. “Why don’t you tell me about uni?”

Alyssa told me all about her course, her studies, and what she’d been doing. I listened with rapt attention as I headed in the general direction of Garden City, hoping it wasn’t a wasted trip. For all I fucking knew the place had been torn down or whatever in the years I’d been gone, but I assumed Alyssa would have said something if it had been. Back when we were kids, it was always bigger than the Grand Plaza, so I figured it still would be.

IT TURNED out my instinct was right and the shopping centre was fucking huge. It was the sort of place you could easily get fucking lost in. After parking the car, I walked to Alyssa’s side and offered her my hand. I pushed the lock on the remote and prayed to high fucking heaven that no one touched it. For their own sake.

When I walked into the shopping centre and saw an expanse of white marble and flashy shopfronts, I freaked the fuck out.

“Where the hell am I supposed to go to get clothes from?” I thought out loud.

I didn’t really expect a response, but Alyssa laughed and pulled my hand, tugging me away from the food court and in the direction of some shops. We passed a surf shop and I pulled her inside. Grabbing a few pairs of boardies and a couple of surf tees, I headed straight into the change rooms. Usually I wouldn’t have given a shit whether they fit or not, or even what they looked like on me, but I wanted to prolong the time I spent with Alyssa. The fact that it meant she had to look at my body to see whether the clothes looked any good was just an added fucking bonus.

We spent the next hour going from shop to shop, but I only found two pairs of shorts and three fucking shirts that Alyssa said looked good. I refused to buy anything that she didn’t like. The few items we’d got weren’t going to be enough to get me through for long. Which meant that I had a ready-made good fucking excuse for another day of shopping with her. Internally, I celebrated, but outwardly, I sighed. “I guess we should head back?”

I glanced up and noticed we were back where we started from, near the food court.

Alyssa looked at her watch and nodded. “Do you mind getting something to eat first?”

Fuck no
. I shrugged. “What do you feel like?”

She shrugged. “Sushi?”

“Okay, my treat.”

She looked like she was going to argue. I put my finger on her lips, partly to stop her argument, but mostly because it gave me an excuse to fucking touch her lips again. “For dragging you around against your will.”

She laughed and muttered something about it not being totally against her will, but relented.

ON THE way back to Browns Plains, Alyssa’s phone rang. She had a quick discussion with whoever it was and then hung up.

“We’ll go straight to my house, if that’s all right?” she asked.

“Of course, but what about Phoebe? Isn’t she at your mum’s house?”

“Flynn picked her up and took her home after her nap.”

I felt my eyebrows scrunch reflexively, but tried not to let it show to Alyssa. There was no way I was going to screw up our decent day. “Are those two close?”

“I guess. I mean he’s practically been a father to her since she was born. So she’s comfortable around him at least.”

“Does she love him?”
Do I really want to know
?

Alyssa shrugged. “Yeah. I mean as much as a three-year-old truly loves anyone. He dotes on her though.”

I wanted to say that it was all right, that I understood, but I couldn’t. My fucking chest burned too much. Even though I knew I had no right to be angry about it, and that I only had myself to blame, I couldn’t get over the fact that some other fucker was playing dad to my daughter. I fumed.

“She takes after you so much,” Alyssa said. I could tell it was a distraction. I wondered how she knew exactly the right moments to fucking distract me—especially when she claimed to not know me anymore. “She’s a little hothead too. And so stubborn.”

“Stubborn?” I asked, my eyebrow raised. “I seem to recall you had the market cornered on stubborn.”

In my peripheral view, I saw her open her mouth to say something, but then she shut it again almost immediately and her expression fell.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Tell me what you were going to say, please?”

“Uh-uh. No way.”

“What were you saying about stubbornness being my trait?” I laughed.

Her replying chuckle made me smile. “Okay, maybe you have a point, but you still out-stubborn me.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked. Then I glanced at her and groaned. Sorrow filled her eyes, forcing me to see exactly what made her say that. Despite the news she’d had to impact, she’d given up calling me long before I would have ever accepted her call. In fact, even if she’d called every fucking day for the past four years, I probably wouldn’t have answered the phone. It was only a pure fucking coincidence that threw us together on that plane. If it hadn’t, I’d still be ignorant to everything and ignoring the pull to return home—to return to her.