Off Course

  And I've never even told her those things.

  Without another word, I bend down and lift her in my arms, carrying her back to her bedroom. She leans her head on my shoulder and the move touches me.

  Laying her on the bed, I tell her, "Get under the covers."

  I strip out of my clothes but leave my boxers on. I want her to understand this isn't about sex right now. Crawling into bed beside her, I pull her into my arms so her face is lying against my heart.

  Taking a breath, I say, "I don't know where this is going, Renner. But I don't want to leave the path we're on. I want to see what's in the future for us."

  She's quiet for a moment, digesting my words. "I don't feel like I belong in your world. And my world isn't much... I work in a bar. I just don't see what we have other than sex. Which don't get me wrong... it's great. The best ever. But I'm thinking that's all it will ever be."

  I reach up with my hand and cover her mouth to get her to stop talking. Pushing her back so I can see her face, I tell her, "We have more than just sex, Renner."

  "Really?" Her voice sounds so hopeful, if not muffled by my hand, so I remove it.

  "Yes, really. Granted, nine times out of ten when I think of you, I think about how sexy you are and how much I love being inside of you. But I'm happy just lying here like this with you, too. I just like being around you."

  "But... I really don't know a lot about you. I mean... you know all about my family, but I know nothing about yours."

  And so begins the test.

  The test to see whether or not this girl is really more than just an amazing fuck, or if there is something deeper as I suspect. Because I don't talk about my family with anyone. I'm not sure exactly what's going to come out of my mouth, but there's only one way to find out what this girl can incite me to share.

  Pulling Renner back down to my chest, I begin, "My early years growing up were nice. I was an only child. My mam was from England and she had only one sister who has never been married and doesn't have any kids. My da is a Dubliner and he's an only child. So our family wasn't very big. I didn't have cousins the way you do. My parents met at university. In fact, that's how I know Keefe. He was good friends with my parents as they were all friends at Trinity together."

  I can feel her actually smile against my chest and it makes me hurt that she's not going to be smiling for long. It also makes me long for the type of family she has. She talks about them so much, I feel as if I know them.

  "My dad was an executive at Guinness. He made a lot of money and we had a nice lifestyle. And life was great... for a while anyway."

  I'm getting to the not-so-nice part about my family, and she knows it by the tone of my voice. I can feel her stiffen slightly in my embrace. I stroke my hand down her arm, and I'm not sure if it's to comfort her or me.

  I clear my throat, because the next part is hard. "My da was an alcoholic. And I think there was some mental illness there too, although I was too young to understand it. Over time, his behavior became erratic...abusive."

  Renner sits up in my arms suddenly and looks at me a bit wildly. Putting her hands on my chest, she exclaims, "You don't have to tell me!"

  "Shhh. I want to tell you."

  She leans in and kisses me softly, pulling back to stare a moment in my eyes. They are filled with compassion and it tugs at something deep inside of me. I push her back down to my chest, because I honestly don't know if I can continue when she's looking at me like that.

  When she settles, I continue. "Da became abusive. By the time I was thirteen, he was regularly beating my mom. I would try to stop him, but then he'd turn on me. Still...I'd rather have him hitting me than Mam. She was so tiny... it was hard for her to take. Sometimes his behavior bordered on sadistic. Once when I was fifteen, I came home from a friend's house and found him holding her down, burning her with a cigarette. I went nuts. I picked up a kitchen chair and hit him over the back with it. It didn't even seem to faze him. He picked up a clock from the mantel and hit me in the face. He fractured my jaw on both sides. That's when Social Services got involved."

  "What happened next?" she asks in a whisper.

  "A lot of legal stuff, but I ended up with Keefe and his family for a few years while my da tried to put himself back together. He tried rehab a few times, bouncing in and out. Finally, it seemed to work. He went for about six months sober, and my mam felt he was stable enough for me to come home. That was about the time I was getting ready to graduate from secondary school, which is our equivalent of your high school. And it was good when I went home. Da seemed like the person I remembered from when I was younger."

  I trail off, clinging to those few months when my memories were good. My da was back working again, although he'd long lost his job at Guinness. He and my mam seemed happy and I was happy. I clearly remember that.

  "But it didn't last," she guesses, shaking me back to the present.

  "No," I agree. "It didn't last. He started backsliding right before I graduated. It would start with him drinking a beer... insisting he could just have one. Then one became two, and then two became three. It wasn't a quick spiral; it was just gradual enough that Mam sort of got sucked back into the process. It's amazing how quickly she could forget the horrible things that could happen when he got drunk."

  "Sometimes, it's hard for us to see the bad when we really are hoping for the best in people."

  "That's true enough. But I didn't stick around to see how it played out. I left for London fairly soon after graduation, staying with friends, playing impromptu gigs with various bands. It was my summer of fun before I started at The Royal Academy."

  Renner sits halfway up to look at me. "Not to get off track, but how did you get into there?" Her voice is wondrous and a little disbelieving and it makes me chuckle.

  "I see you doubt my talents."

  "No," she assures me. "It's just... that's a really prestigious place. I've seen your talent...I know you have it. I just assumed you had to have some really great connections to get in."

  "Well, you do have to have some connections, plus a bit of talent. Keefe is the one that encouraged me to apply, and thanks to Keefe's firm hand when I lived with him, my grades were quite good. We also had a great music program at my school, so I had some really good recommendations. And, I'm assuming they liked my auditions. I auditioned for their Composition program and made it in."

  Renner pulls completely out of my grasp and sits on the bed cross-legged and facing me. "And you told me why you dropped out. To pursue making music with OTE."

  "That's right. And I never looked back."

  I'm quiet, because we've been sidetracked off the real story, and I'm not sure I really want to finish it. It was a lot easier when she was lying with her head on my chest so I didn't have to look into her green eyes.

  Reaching out, she picks up one of my hands and starts stroking it. She runs her fingers over my palm, rubbing her thumb on my wrist. She even grazes her knuckles along mine, in an attempt to soothe me.

  "Finish the story about your parents," she says quietly.

  I stare at her a moment, knowing that I'm entering into new territory. It's frightening yet I also want to lay everything out on the table. To see if what we have is real.

  To see if she can know my horrors and still want to be near me.

  Sitting up in bed, I drag my free hand through my hair. "My parents didn't like the fact I dropped out of university. We argued constantly about it, and it kept me away from home. My mam was a bit more understanding, but my da would rage at me any time I called. I could tell he was drunk half the time. I tried to get Mam to tell me how things really were, and she assured me that it was okay. I chose to believe her rather than go home and deal with it. So I stuck my head in the sand and continued pursuing my dreams."

  I stop for a moment and look at Renner. Her eyes are filled with worry, because I've been dragging out the last few lines of my story, dreading the ultimate conclusion. She doesn't say anything, just continues t
o rub my hand and watch me.

  "Apparently things weren't that great. My mam was hiding a lot from me. Neighbors later told me that they heard vicious arguments coming out of the house, things being thrown...screams. One night... Da got really drunk... I don't know all the details, but he pulled a gun out and shot my mam. Then he turned it on himself and finished my family for good."

  Renner lets out a strangled cry and her hand drops mine, covering her mouth. Tears immediately fill her eyes and start pouring down her face. I watch her mourning for me and my heart twists in a painful knot.

  She propels herself to her knees and leans forward, gently taking my face in her hands. She leans in close, wetness coating her cheeks in silvery rivers. "I'm so sorry, Cillian. So, so, sorry."

  A sob escapes her mouth and I finally react. I pull her in to hug my chest, feeling her tears soaking into my skin.

  "It's okay," I assure her as I stroke her hair. "I've made my peace with it."

  "No," she says, shaking her head. "How do you ever make peace with that?"

  "Shhh," I reassure her. "I made peace with it because it's done and it was probably beyond my control."

  She goes still in my arms and then she leans back to look at me. Her eyes and nose are red, and she drags the back of her hand across her face to wipe at the tears.

  "Control," she says in understanding. "That's why you like to be in control."

  It's a statement, not a question, and she now knows and understands something about me that no one else gets.

  "Yes. It's why I have to be in control. Because if I'm not...bad things can happen."

  CHAPTER 19

  Renner

  Cillian is taking me away for the weekend. He actually asked me if I would take a few days off from The Hibernian, rather than demand it of me. And there was no way I could say no. Not after what he shared with me. Not after the leaps we made in our relationship that night when he told me all about his painful past.

  His revelations have led me to a deeper understanding of what drives him. I understand his need for control, although I won't always bow to it. I also get why the situation with Maeve is so difficult. Cillian has a greater understanding as to the depths of hell an alcoholic can journey to. He has a need to help Maeve through this that I can now appreciate on a new level.

  It doesn't make me like her anymore, but at least I have a better awareness as to where Cillian is coming from. I vow that I will do whatever I need to do to support him.

  I take my eyes off the majestic Irish countryside and glance at him. He looks so amazing, with a pair of Ray Ban Aviators perched on his nose. His hair is all stylishly mussy and he's chewing on his lip rings. My heart swells and I think about the fact that I may be falling in love with this man.

  It started happening the night he told me about his family. My heart opened up, poured out my grief for him, and then sucked all of his goodness inside. I wanted to hold him, to stroke him, to make love to him. I wanted to do all of those things over and over again until I banished all of the tragedy from his memory and only had good things to remember.

  When my tears had dried, I kissed him. Hotly, passionately. I crawled on top of him and pushed him backward on to the bed. I kissed, nibbled and licked all over his body, causing his hips to jerk off the bed in rapture. I took the lead and stripped his boxers off, pulling my clothes off as well. I scrambled to get to the condoms in my bedside table and with calm, sure motions, rolled it onto his throbbing length. I lowered myself onto him, groaning at the invasion, reveling in the way his eyes closed and his fingers dug into my ass. I rode him slowly, lovingly, hoping to pour every bit of comfort I could into my actions. I looked him in the eye the entire time, never once letting my gaze wander, even when he closed his eyes as he climaxed.

  He pulled me to him after, stroking my skin everywhere, murmuring "cailin alainn " over and over again until we fell asleep.

  ***

  I step out on the porch of Cillian's small cottage in Oughterard. We've only been here a few hours and already I feel relaxed and peaceful. The first thing we did when we got here was break in his bed.

  We had stepped out of the car and he walked over to me. He hauled me over his shoulder, marched me into the house, and stripped me naked. He grinned at me like a devil the entire time he had his way with me and I could see the triumph in his eyes glow brighter and brighter every time I called out his name.

  We had collapsed onto the bed in a big pile of heaving chests and entwined limbs, where we cuddled for a long time, talking about life. It was a perfect start to our weekend holiday.

  Cillian steps out onto the porch behind me and takes my hand. "Want to take a walk?"

  I shake my head. "No. Let's just sit out here a while. I'm feeling lazy and for someone who works on her feet all the time, I just want to be a slug."

  He laughs at me and kisses my hand. "Sounds like a plan. Let's slug out."

  We sit in the side-by-side wicker chairs, and gaze out over his front yard.

  "Did you do all of this landscaping?" I ask, soaking in the beauty of the English cottage gardens.

  Cillian snorts. "Fuck no. I'd kill a plant if I looked at it for too long. The couple I bought the house from did all of this and I pay someone to maintain it. It's nice, huh?"

  "Nice? It's gorgeous. So many colors. It must make you happy to have this."

  He looks over at me, his eyes serious. "I thought I was happy to buy it, to have something that I owned. It was a sign of my success. But no, I've not been truly happy I had this until I had you sitting on my front porch with me."

  I swallow hard over the lump that forms in my throat. A pang strikes through my chest, in a deliciously painful way. It tells me that Cillian has burrowed deep in my heart. It's a feeling I've never felt before. Never even came close to it with Cormac.

  And I realize, with sudden clarity, that I have no room in my life to worry about the things that had happened to me with Cormac. I couldn't let his actions rule my life, nor could I make decisions based on what had been done to me. Clearly, my "formula" for the perfect relationship was fucked up, and as I look over at Cillian, I understand that there is no formula.

  There's only Cillian.

  Standing up, I walk to him and drape myself over his lap. Laying my lips against his, I sink my fingers into the hair on the back of his head. "You overwhelm me. But in the best possible way. Don't ever stop overwhelming me, okay?"

  His smile lights from within and he nods. "Okay."

  Then he kisses me and something unique happens. Whereas there is normally a hot unfurling of lust that courses through me when Cillian touches me, now it is something more. Oh, it's still just as electric, shocking to my senses. But it's also different. There is a settling quality to the feeling he is invoking. It's like two halves being made whole. I feel a completeness.

  Our kiss deepens, sucking me in further. I want to shout out to this man that I'm falling in love, but I'm too scared to take that next leap. Cillian is multi-faceted and complex. I don't have a complete handle on him and so I do the only thing I'm sure of. I continue to kiss him.

  We are so lost in each other, I vaguely process that Rock the Casbah is blaring. It's only when Cillian curses and pulls away from me that I realize his phone is ringing. He lifts me up slightly to pull his phone from his pocket, shooting me an apologetic smile.

  "Howeya, Maeve. What's up?"

  He's silent for a long time as he listens to her. The smile on his face falters and then disappears altogether. I get worried when his brow draws inward, and finally my gut clenches when he stands up from the chair, gently setting me down. He walks a few paces away, to the edge of the porch, his back turned to me.

  After several moments, he says, "Okay. Just please stay where you are and I'll be there in a few hours. I'm packing up and leaving now."

  He says a few more words of encouragement to her.

  Don't do anything rash.

  Just take a deep breath and calm down.

&
nbsp; It will be okay, I promise.

  Then he hangs up and turns to me.

  "What's wrong?" I ask, worried sick that Maeve may have done something really bad.

  He shakes his head in consternation. "Maeve's having a rough time. She's thinking about drinking and wants me to come back."

  Fear and anger well up in my stomach. Fear, because I don't want Maeve to backslide because I know it will be devastating to Cillian. But anger, because I can't help but feel that the timing of her call is a little too contrived.

  "Did she know where you were?" I ask casually.

  He walks by me to head into the house, distracted. "Yeah, I emailed her, Sean, and Daniel that we were coming here in case they needed something."

  I want to give Maeve the benefit of the doubt, but the things she said to me in the bathroom that night keep echoing off the inside of my skull. She told me she plays dirty, and I feel so guilty wondering if this is dirty play, or a truly legitimate cry for help.

  There is no choice though, but to consider it a true need on her part for Cillian.

  Swallowing my negative thoughts, I tell him, "Well, let's hurry up and get back so you can see her."

  He stops and turns to me. "Thank you. For being so understanding. I'm sorry this weekend is ruined."

  "No problem," I assure him. "There will be others."

  ***

  I'm getting ready for bed. It's nearly midnight and I can barely keep my eyes open. We had made it back to Dublin in good time and Cillian dropped me off at my flat with a quick kiss to my forehead and a promise that he would come back over to stay the night with me.

  That was over six hours ago and I have heard nothing else other than a brief text from him almost two hours ago that said, "Making progress. Hope to see you soon."

  I debate over what to do for a few moments, and then decide to call him. I have every right to check in and see how he's doing.

  The phone rings several times and I am convinced it's getting ready to go to voice mail when he answers. His voice is whispered. "Renner. What's up?"