On Dublin Street(33)

Jesus C… “Loaned her out?”


“Mm hmm.”


“Does she have no self-respect?”


“Did you not hear the part where she’s a slut?”


“I can’t believe Braden would do that. Just loan her out.”


“Maybe I used bad word choice. She was actually the one who told Braden she wanted Adam. Braden didn’t have a problem with it so he let them have sex.”


Kinky, a little cold maybe, but mutual, so who was I to judge? “So she has self-respect. What’s the big deal?” I tried to dig to the real source of Ellie’s dislike. “The girl likes sex.”


“She’s a slut!”


Oh yeah. I definitely knew the real reason now.


Adam.


“You really like Adam, huh?”


She exhaled slowly and closed her eyes tight.


A streak of pain lashed across my chest as I watched the tear roll out from under her lashes and drip down her cheek.


“Oh honey.” I sat up and pulled her into my side, letting her cry quietly into my sweater. After a while, I reached for the half-eaten packet of cookies and handed her one. “Here. Sugar up and let’s watch Jason Bourne kick some ass.”


“Can we pretend it’s Adam’s ass he’s kicking?”


“I’m already on it. See that guy… that’s Adam, and Bourne is kicking his slutty little tushy.”


She giggled beside me and I marveled at how someone could be so strong and yet so fragile.


~9~


A couple of weeks, one panic attack, and one visit to my therapist later, and there I was struggling with my manuscript again. Usually when I was in the middle of writing my brain would wander off into fantasyland at the slightest notice, whether I was at the laptop or not. Nowadays, I had to force my imagination into action. And that never worked.


With the book flagging and my anxiety dipping and diving over whether I could ‘cut it as a writer’ and worrying what the hell I was going to do if I couldn’t be one, I decided to do what I do best: shoved it down under that steel trap inside of me so I couldn’t think about it, and focused on something else.


Now that the Edinburgh Festival was under way I took on extra shifts at the bar, and I hung out with Ellie whenever she asked me to. On my last visit my therapist encouraged me to try out family dinner again, which I did sans panic attack—win! I hit the gym a lot and avoided the come hither smiles of Gavin, the personal trainer.


To Ellie’s relief, Vicky disappeared out of Braden’s life as quickly as she’d come into it. Not that I would know unless Ellie told me since I hadn’t seen him since that morning on Princes Street. Work was keeping him busy—something was happening with one of his developments and he also had this big event planned at his nightclub, Fire, at the end of the Festival. This was when I discovered that Adam was Braden’s architect, so when Braden was busy, Adam was busy. The few times we were all supposed to meet up—one time to see a comedian, one other time just for drinks, and the last time for the family dinner—Braden had cancelled, proving me wrong: he actually did work for his money.


I began to see his absence as a good thing. I felt more relaxed than I had in weeks and Ellie and I had grown closer. She’d confessed the whole Adam fiasco…


Having always been in love with Adam, since she was a kid, Ellie had finally plucked up the courage to do something about it after he punched out the * who’d set her up to get info on Braden. She went over to his apartment and pretty much threw herself at him. And because Adam was a guy and Ellie was beautiful, he’d taken her up on the offer. That was until she was almost completely naked and on her back underneath him. Adam backed out, explaining he couldn’t do that to Braden or her, and that Braden would never forgive him and he’d never forgive himself. Realizing he thought it was just a one-night stand kind of thing, Ellie had left, quietly nursing a broken heart and a bruised ego. I would never have guessed that stuff was between them. Ellie was super cool around him. She said she didn’t want things to change and she tried her hardest to be okay about everything. I’d seen it in action. She did try hard. But sometimes something soft, something ‘more’ would enter her expression when she looked at him. When I thought about it, there was something ‘more’ in the way Adam looked at her. Thing is, I couldn’t work out if he was just lusting after her, or if his feelings ran a little deeper? I was curious as hell, but I also knew it wasn’t any of my business, so I was keeping my nose out of it.


After opening up to me, Ellie had tried to talk to me again about my family, about my past.


I shut her down.


Dr. Pritchard said it would take time. For now, I couldn’t let go, and no matter what the good doctor said, I still wasn’t sure if it was in me to let go.


“Writer’s block again?”


I spun around in my seat to find Ellie standing in my doorway waving an A4 manila envelope at me.


I grimaced, closing my laptop. “I should just get that printed on a t-shirt.”


“It’ll pass.”


My only reply was a grunt.


“Anyway, I hate to ask but…”