Unbind (60 page)

I scoped what he’d been out doing—the evidence spread all over the floor in dozens of designer bags. I stooped down to empty a Ralph Lauren bag and saw the tag on one of his favourite-style polo shirts.

“How? How are these so cheap?”

“I know,” he grinned.

I rummaged through more. The Gap. Levis, plus numerous things he’d picked up from Neiman Marcus, Dillard’s and Macy’s. Brooks Brothers…

“I would’ve invited you along but I needed to restock and I know you get all your stuff free so… yeah, I hunted some bargains at the outlets.”

“I’ll say.” There was underwear, nice stuff too. Not comic at all. T-shirts, button-down shirts. Pants/trousers. A hot Levis jacket I was already envisioning him in! Yet from quickly scanning all the tags, he couldn’t have spent more than $500. You could easily fork out that on one shirt in New York.

“Are you skimping because of my ring?”

“What?” he took his eyes away from the TV. “No. I don’t need stuff, I just need things to actually go out of the house in so that I’m not naked.”

He was right, and it was nice stuff, but my feeling had always been that he had loads of money so why was he bargain hunting? Unless he was thinking about buying a house, the wedding costs, stuff like that? How much was a ring from Cartier? I didn’t know!

“I just… it’s weird when I could have spent this same amount on a pair of Manolos or something, you know?”

“It really doesn’t matter to me so long as the jerks I work with don’t comment on me not wearing labels. In fact, they’re the only reason why I do wear labels. I’d get Wal-Mart shit if I thought I could get away with it.”

“Shut up!” I yelled with a laugh. “You like to look good, don’t tell me that you don’t! Don’t give me that!”

He laughed, falling back on the bed. “I just said… listen, it doesn’t matter. Do you wanna see these pants I picked up? I think you’ll like them. They’re definitely Cartier-friendly, engagement ring buying pants… so let’s see.”

He rummaged through his bags before pulling out a pair of pants that looked pretty scrummy. Not his usual denims or drainpipe chinos. They were white, Hugo Boss, and when he pulled them up his legs, a nymph might have done a little dance in my belly. He fastened them and pulled out a brown leather belt too. He tucked in the cream shirt he was already wearing and turned.

“Hmmm,” was all I managed, admiring his bum. Those buns weren’t half tight. I grabbed a good handful of his ass and squeezed. “They’re Cartier-proof, but not Chloe-proof.”

“Put a dress on. I’m gonna ask them to take a photo for the grandkids.”

“You’re the worst boyfriend on the planet! It’s official,” I said, my hand gestures exaggerated, “nobody wants a man who wears white pants
and
looks good in them… buys Cartier rings and admits to wanting grandkids.”

He caught me from behind as I bent over to pick some things out of my suitcase. He brought me up to standing so I was level with him and in my ear, he whispered, “I don’t just wanna give you what you just said… I want all that… and I want to make you believe in it, too. I wanna watch you give birth to our babies, to hold them in my arms. I wanna sleep by your side every night… no more nights apart. I want to cherish you forever. I’m utterly in love with you. You make me so happy.”

He squeezed me tight in his arms, his nose and mouth buried in my throat. I felt the first tears of happiness over this engagement seep out. I leaned into him and barely managed to say, “I love you,” I was so emotional. A delayed reaction, or something.

He turned me in his arms and stroked his knuckles down my cheeks, touching his lips to mine. “Let’s go get you a stunning ring.”

Seriously, how did I have any fight left in me?

WHILE I TRIED on rings in Cartier, I didn’t fail to notice that some of the staff in the store were armed. That was new. Cai wore his white pants and I wore the white dress I’d worn that time I came to New York and he found me in his gallery. We found a ring I really wanted—a round solitaire that reminded me of old-fashioned elegance, a platinum setting with one large diamond in the centre and lots of tiny ones set in the outer band.

While I admired some necklaces, Cai discussed the price (it was written down so I couldn’t hear) and the jeweller said he could phone the New York store and have our order ready there because they didn’t have my size in stock right then. I kind of liked it that we’d have something to look forward to back home.

We watched the big fight that night, the atmosphere around the ring fizzing—adrenalin, testosterone and excitement palpable. Women dripped in diamonds and designer couture. Cameras flashed throughout. The roar of the crowd got you involved even if you didn’t want to be. Cai was into his boxing of course but I never expected him to be like a child at Old Trafford, going to see his first Manchester United match. He was on the edge of his seat, constantly nervous about the result.

I asked him why he liked boxing so much and he told me, “All men want to fight, they need to fight, Chloe. These are the best fighters in the whole damn world and you don’t seriously understand why this is a big deal?”

His eyes were smiling the whole time but all I could do was wince every time a punch was thrown and liquid flew through the air. Only six rows back, the sound was brutal but while the women grimaced, the men sat with mesmerised expressions. It was a sport and it had rules, but I still felt uncomfortable watching.

I tugged on his arm. “Cai, I want to go back to the room. Cai… please.”

Either he didn’t hear me the first time, or he didn’t want to know.

I sat with my eyes closed, trying to block out the images, but I couldn’t. This was why I hid in my Sheffield flat for so long. I willed myself to be okay, but I wasn’t.

Cai took my hand and moved in closer to say in my ear, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the… I can’t see, Cai. It’s the… the thing. I want to go home.”

I was up on my feet at his insistence and he pinned me to his side as he got us out of there. In the hall, he took me in his arms and hushed me. I was crying but there was no sound coming out.

“You never had treatment, did you?” He guessed right.

“No. It’s the sight… it makes me feel threatened. I don’t want to be taken back there, but when I see it on that scale, I can’t help but be taken right back… to that night.”

“Aw, I’m so sorry sweetheart. I didn’t think, didn’t know. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know.”

“Is this why you arrange stuff neat all the time?”

“Hey?” I sounded surprised.

He smiled and stroked my cheek. “I’ve noticed, you know. You do stuff sometimes. Like… I don’t think you even realise. You don’t step on lines and you don’t like mess. You had no belongings when you moved in with me. You have everything ordered, inside here,” he said, tapping my skull. “I noticed but I didn’t realise there was any reason behind it all… just pushed it to the back of my mind.”

“OCD,” I said slowly.

“It’s not that, darling.” He shook his head, side to side.

“It’s not? What else could it be then?” I said, perplexed.

“PTSD. Otherwise known as shell shock. I’ve seen it in guys who’ve survived head injuries and stuff… you know. If I were to guess, I’d say delayed shock. Didn’t they do a psyche assessment on you in the hospital?”

I grimaced, looking back. “They did but I was fine. Until about six months later when I started finding excuses to stay in all the time, after dark anyway. It comes and goes. It’s not something I can control but it’s not bad enough to make me reclusive.”

He breathed out low, shaking his head. “I don’t understand how nobody was there for you, damn it.”

I raised my brow. “I hid it well, Cai. We both know about that, don’t we?”

“You’re seeing my therapist when we get back to New York. No arguments.”

“Oh-kay.” I gave him a look.
You have a therapist?

He got me back to the hotel room and into the tub, where I quickly forgot anything was wrong.
Except that he did in fact have a therapist…

WE spent Sunday wandering through other hotels. We took a gondola through the Venetian and had a long lunch in the ‘Eiffel Tower’ restaurant. We ate three courses at his insistence because he had plans for us that night, and they didn’t involve dinner. Of course my mind immediately touched on sex…

However, that wasn’t his plan. Before night fell we got in the rental still dressed in our casual clothes and he drove us to the supermarket, stocking up on bottled water, snacks and juice boxes.

I was intrigued but he said to trust him, so I did. We got out of Vegas, the lights bright behind us as we headed directly into the night. I looked at him quizzically but an Eighties radio channel kept me amused as he drove on.

Two hours outside Vegas, Cai stopped the car at the side of a dirt road. I had almost nodded off and when I opened my eyes to see where we were, I worried bandits or felons of some sort might try and hassle us. Yet as I looked, I saw there wasn’t a car around.

“Let me show you something,” he gestured outside, opening his door.

We exited the vehicle and my eyes were immediately assaulted.

“What the hell is that?” I yelled, staring in wonder at a zillion stars in the night sky. A rainbow spectrum stared back at us!

“The Milky Way.”

“Holy shit!” I stared, my hands on my head, my neck still craning like it had done the whole time we’d been in Vegas. “Wow, oh my!” I screamed, when forked lightning shot across the horizon, revealing the tops of jagged mountains, like natural-born castles in the sky—illuminated by electricity. I started clapping and bouncing. “This is amazing!”

Cai popped the trunk and got his camera out. “Help yourself to drinks. We don’t wanna get dehydrated, not on a road trip. Besides, I intend on getting you roaring drunk when we get back to the hotel… last night here and all.”

It hit me square in the gut that it was our last night. I’d known it would only be a long weekend but something made me want to never leave. I wanted to hold on to the way this place made me feel, to how I would now always feel about it—the special association being that we had gotten engaged here.

Cai took plenty of shots while I sat on the edge of the trunk and drank my way through a ton of water and juice. I snapped open some chips and noshed down on those too. Cai was lost in his art, capturing whatever he could—the stars, cacti, the stretch of road ahead of us. He’d not taken any pictures in Vegas but now in the desert, he was running riot. I admired his body while he worked, noticing the strength of his thighs as he knelt lower to the ground, the solidity of his forearms in his shirt as he held the long lens up without it shaking. I desired him so badly, it sometimes made me wonder if I shouldn’t be more wary of giving all of myself away. There remained that element of doubt. I guessed that was the same of most relationships, but ours wasn’t most relationships.

With him, I couldn’t see clearly—I only knew that the way he made me feel took me beyond all the pain of the past and shot me right up to the heights of peace, the like of which those stars overheard surely felt too as they stared down on the universe and its many striking wonders.

He spent almost an hour shooting before he threw his camera bag back in the trunk and stood between my open legs.

“What do you think?” He arced an eyebrow.

“I’ve never seen so many stars. It’s like we’re not even on Earth… like we could be right in the atmosphere with them.”

“I know,” he smiled, pulling my body closer to his, his arms fast around me. He examined me carefully with a mysterious smile then pulled away. There was a moment’s hesitation before he surprised the hell out of me.

He dropped to one knee in the dirt and I saw the rest like we weren’t us anymore, we weren’t ourselves, and this wasn’t Earth. It was somewhere better. He reached into his pocket and revealed the ring, the one we were meant to pick up in New York.

Cai looked more beautiful than he ever had done. I saw all our time together reflected in his sparkling, otherworldly eyes and it made me shake all over—to think this almost didn’t happen, yet it had, and it had so far been life-changing for the both of us, in so many different ways.