Fall From India Place

  With that I turned around and walked away from him, hoping he didn’t see my legs trembling.

  The first thing I did when I got to the locker room was to send a text to Nish, who was on her honeymoon in the Maldives. It pretty much warned her to stop giving Marco my weekly schedule and permission to the receptionist at school to let him in. Or else.

  I used the f-word a lot.

  Even though I had time to visit the gym the following Monday, I didn’t. I hadn’t received any more calls or surprise visits from Marco, but I wasn’t chancing the gym again. It didn’t matter, though. He’d won. He was inside my head, just where I knew he wanted to be. I kept expecting him to appear everywhere, and I hated that I was at once relieved and disappointed whenever I got through the day without seeing him. It would seem my mind knew exactly what it wanted, but my body and my heart just wouldn’t agree with it.

  I tried relaxing by going to dinner with Michaela and Colin on Saturday, and visiting with my family at Sunday lunch. I must have done an okay job of at least pretending relaxation and calm because I wasn’t peppered with concerned questions. I’d even managed to convince Ellie so she’d stop being annoyed with me.

  School was particularly busy because it was only a few days until Halloween and the kids were hyper. This meant I was really looking forward to my book group because it was relaxing and interesting and a total escape from my real life. It was a group of eleven of us, but usually only eight or so ever turned up on the night. We ranged from twenty-two years old (me) to fifty-eight (an outspoken dental receptionist called Ronnie). We were reading The Help and I knew the subject matter would make for some opinionated chat. It would take my mind off things for a while.

  I walked into the room we used in the community center that evening feeling like tonight would be the night to put Marco and his strange behavior of the last week behind me for good.

  I smiled hello to the only guy in our group, Chris. Chris was forty-five years old and a high school history teacher. He’d joined the book group as well as a chess club and bowling team in an effort to move on from his divorce. I settled down in my usual seat between Chris and Laila, a twenty-five-year-old book blogger who had a photographic memory and had read more books in her short time on the planet than all the rest of us collectively.

  “Oh, Hannah, come meet our newest member!” Ronnie called.

  I glanced up from pulling my copy of The Help out of my bag to look across the room at Ronnie. Disbelief crashed over me.

  Marco towered over her, grinning at me.

  “Oh, my God,” Laila murmured, devouring Marco with her eyes. “He’s totally my latest book boyfriend.”

  I shot her a dirty look before getting slowly to my feet. I walked toward Ronnie and Marco, wondering how to handle this new situation, and also wondering how the hell to stop the tingling between my legs at the way Marco was looking at me.

  I felt his eyes roam over me, lingering on my breasts, following the curve of my hips and skimming my legs, before traveling back up again. When our eyes met, his were filled with the kind of blatant heat I would have done anything for five years ago.

  “Marco.” I greeted him flatly, deciding not to hide the fact that I knew him.

  Ronnie’s eyes widened. “You know Marco already?”

  “Yup.” I raised an eyebrow at him in question and he gave me that grin again. That was a new grin. And it had an immediate effect on my lady parts.

  Damn him.

  “Well, what a coincidence.” Ronnie smiled, her eyes moving back and forth between us.

  “Mmm.” I rounded my eyes in mock agreement. “Coincidence indeed.”

  Marco laughed outright.

  Ronnie appeared suddenly confused.

  “So, Marco… I didn’t know you liked to read.” I puckered my brow in fake confusion.

  “Yeah.” He nodded innocently. “I’m a big reader.”

  “Or a big liar,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Sorry, Hannah?” Ronnie leaned in to hear me better.

  I ignored her as politely as I could, my saccharine smile directed at Marco. “It’s nice to welcome you aboard. How did you find out about us?”

  He chuckled. “Anisha. Apparently, she doesn’t do well with threats. Know anything about that?”

  Nish. Of course. I should have known better – threat tactics would make her do the opposite of what I wanted her to do. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. “And I’m going to kill her.”

  Ronnie sighed. “I’m very confused right now.”

  I sighed too. “Let’s just start, shall we?”

  We took our seats and Marco sat next to Ronnie in the chair directly opposite me in the circle. All eyes were on him as Ronnie introduced him, and not just because he was new to the group, but because he stood out in so many ways. One, he was gorgeous; two, he was American; and three, he just had that special something about him that drew people to him.

  I’d have thrown my book at him if it wouldn’t have gotten me kicked out of the group. I even seriously contemplated it for a moment and by the silent laughter parting Marco’s lips he knew exactly what I was thinking about doing.

  I glared at him and looked away.

  “Have you read The Help, Marco?” Ronnie asked him, clearly enamored with him.

  “Nope, can’t say I have.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. Just follow along with our discussion.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Sure thing. I made a childish face in mockery and his snort brought my gaze swinging back to collide with his. He was laughing at me. He found me amusing.

  He was enjoying himself!

  I attempted to join the discussion, attempted to say all the intelligent things I had to say about the book, but with his blue-green eyes boring into me the whole time, my brain wasn’t cooperating.

  Thirty minutes later, Chris was shooting me concerned looks and Ronnie was preening because she’d brought up most of the talking points this week. She turned to Marco. “Is there anything you might like to add, now that you’ve heard a little something about the book?”

  I froze, my eyes glued to him despite myself. My heart sped up in anticipation.

  Marco didn’t disappoint. He looked straight at me and replied, “I think it sounds like a book about determination, about pursuing what’s right, what feels right, despite the odds stacked against you or the possible fallout. It sounds like my kind of book.”

  I was frozen in that moment, looking at him as he looked back at me with all the determination he had mentioned. My palms began to sweat, I couldn’t hear over the rushing of blood in my ears, and I wondered where the hell I was supposed to go from there.

  He was telling me he wasn’t going to give up.

  I think I believed him.

  Clearing my throat, I abruptly stood up and stuffed the book in my bag. Without a word, I hurried out of there, ignoring Ronnie’s concerned call of my name as the others murmured their bafflement.

  CHAPTER 9

  “W

  hen I’m with you it feels like everything’s going to be okay. I can’t explain it.”

  I couldn’t get Marco’s voice out of my head, those words he’d said to me so long ago. They had meant so much to me then because I knew that he wasn’t the kind of guy who expressed his emotions well, and that day he’d let himself be vulnerable with me.

  Despite everything that had happened, despite him leaving me and breaking my heart, I couldn’t stop those words from haunting me.

  Standing alone on the small patio at the back of the house where I grew up, I stared at the ground and I fought with myself, calling myself foolish for dwelling on the sweet when it was the bitter that had done so much damage. But in a way, I guess, the bitter wouldn’t affect me so much if the sweet hadn’t been so damn sweet.

  “Nanna.”

  I glanced up at the now open French doors that led into my parents’ dining room to see Cole gazing at me in concern. The noise from
the front of the house filtered toward me now that the door was open. Although Joss, Braden, Beth, and Luke weren’t with us because they had tickets to a children’s musical, the house was still crowded and loud. Liv and Nate had made it this time, along with Lily and January. Ellie and Adam were there too with William, and Jo, Cam, Cole, Dec, and Penny had joined us.

  I smiled at Cole. Ever since Lily started calling me Nanna, Cole used it playfully. “What’s up?”

  He stepped outside, closing the door.

  I frowned at the thin T-shirt he wore. Although it exposed his artwork, it also exposed him to the spiky November cold. “Go back inside and put on a jacket.”

  One corner of his mouth pulled up into an amused smirk. “I’m fine, Mum.”

  “You’ll catch a cold.”

  “I’m fine,” he insisted. “You? I’m thinking not so much.”

  It was getting harder and harder to pretend with my friends and family that I wasn’t in a mood. I’d spent the last week completely discombobulated, living inside my own head. I didn’t know how I felt about Marco’s persistence and because no one else knew the whole story I didn’t even have anyone to turn to. And in the end that was my own fault.

  “Hannah, seriously.” Cole’s smile slipped, a deep frown line appearing between his brows. “You’ve been quiet all week and you’re out here by yourself, looking like you have the weight of the entire world on your shoulders. I’m worried. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I sighed, not wanting to piss him off with an obvious lie. “Do you remember Marco from the wedding?”

  He nodded and waited for me to continue.

  “I used to be in love with him.”

  Cole’s eyebrows rose at that little bomb of information. “How did I not know this?”

  “You and I weren’t as close back then. Jo, Ellie, Joss, and Liv know about him. We met when I was fourteen and by the time I was seventeen I was mad about him. He’s older, so we were just friends. Sometimes I tutored him. But I always wanted more. We kissed when I was seventeen” – I diluted the information – “and just when I thought maybe he felt the same way about me, he went back to America. The wedding reception was the first time I’ve seen him since then and… he told me he’s been back in Edinburgh for four years.”

  My friend’s eyes glimmered with sympathy. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I wish I’d known. I would never have left you alone that night.”

  “I needed to be alone,” I reassured him.

  “His reappearance is obviously messing with your head.”

  “No, actually he is.”

  Cole’s face instantly darkened. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he wants a chance to explain why he left the way he left, and he’s been turning up everywhere I go in an attempt to get me to listen.” I went on to tell him about the school, the gym, and the book club encounter.

  His glower cleared. Now he just looked amused. “So, listen.”

  I jerked back in anger. “No. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Hannah, you were kids. If he’s taking the time to pursue you, then he clearly feels bad and wants a second chance.”

  “He’s had that chance for the last four years.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know what to say.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours,” he said with a laugh. “But, Christ, you’re working yourself into knots over him when all it might take to give you a little closure is a better understanding of where his head was at. He’s offering you that chance.”

  I gave him a low-lidded look of displeasure. “If I wanted a voice of reason I would have asked for it.”

  Cole chuckled. “I’m just saying, unless there’s more to this than you’re telling me, I think he deserves a chance to explain.” Some dark suspicion suddenly entered his gaze. “There isn’t more to this, is there?”

  I shook my head with faux calm. “No… but he is the reason I made a stupid decision back then. So… there’s that.”

  Understanding settled over Cole’s features and he replied kindly, “You can’t hold your own actions against him.”

  Feeling guilty for lying to Cole and angry at Marco and myself for the predicament I found myself in with my family, I nodded glumly. There was no way I’d get the right advice without my friends and family having the full story, and I had no intention of rewriting the history I had given them with the truth. “Let’s stop talking about me.” I waved the subject away. “How’s you? How’s Steph?”

  He made a face. “Steph and I ended it last night.”

  My lips parted in surprise. “And you’re only just telling me this?”

  He shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. We were out after work last night and we bumped into some of my friends from school and she started a catfight with one of the girls.”

  “Catfight?”

  “Her jealousy is ridiculous. She has major trust issues. It was time to end it.”

  “We all have issues, Cole. Relationships aren’t easy. Sometimes you have to work at it.”

  “Agreed. But I didn’t want to work at it, so what does that tell you?”

  “She’s not the one for you.”

  “Exactly.” He turned and opened the door. “Now that we’ve beat our relationship issues out for the day, let’s get fed.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked, following him inside.

  “I’m fine,” he promised. “I’m relieved, actually. Steph’s problems were exhausting.”

  Although I wanted him to be happy and that was what mattered most, I couldn’t help but feel for Steph and sympathize with her. Cole’s words depressed me and I took them far more personally than he would ever have wanted me to. But the truth was, I was like Steph. I wasn’t insanely jealous, but my own insecurities came from a lack of trust in the opposite sex. It was crazy, I knew it was. I was surrounded by good men who didn’t stray from their wives, but what Marco had done to me and the consequences of that night had cut deep. It had left ugly scar tissue I’d been able to ignore until he was suddenly back in my life. Part of the reason I never bothered trying to find anything serious was because of that feeling Marco had left behind, but also because I suspected that most men would react to me and my issues like Cole had to Steph: with ambivalence and impatience. So what was the point in trying?

  “Something’s going on,” Jo mused, staring at Liv and Nate across the table. She waved her fork at them. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Cam snorted beside her. “Maybe that’s their business, sweetheart.”

  “Well, it would be their business if they’d managed to pretend they weren’t fighting, but things are feeling a little icy,” Ellie added.

  Liv rolled her eyes. “Nate’s being a tool.”

  Nate didn’t lift his gaze from his plate as he ate. “Nate’s not doing anything,” he murmured back.

  Nate was definitely doing something. He was barely talking to his wife, and anytime he was forced to, he wouldn’t look at her.

  “Keep the domestics at home, people,” Cole pleaded.

  “It’s not a domestic.” Liv made a face. “It’s an example of man’s inescapable immaturity.”

  “Oh, do tell,” Ellie leaned in eagerly.

  “I was clearing things out of the house and I specifically asked him to make a pile of things he didn’t want to give to charity and a pile of stuff he did want to give to charity. It is not my fault that he got the piles mixed up.”

  “I did not.” He glared at her, finally looking away from his plate. “Why the hell would I give away every single one of my favorite T-shirts? Did you not think when you were looking through them that it was a bit strange they were all in there?”

  She sniffed before responding. “I didn’t look through them. I just assumed you gave me the right pile and I put them in the charity bag and gave them to the lady who comes to collect the stuff.”

  “Some of that shit was irreplaceable.”

  Lily gave this cute litt
le girlie gasp and Nate closed his eyes, wincing.