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Handcuffs had never featured in any of my bedroom activities. Gabby was a trouble maker. I could feel the stares from the rest of the group. Ignoring their unasked questions, I turned to Adaline, but she’d gone from my side and stood the other side of the table with Elliott and Steph.
“I came back about three months ago, Gabby, why did you wait for me?”
“I’m your girlfriend, of course, I’m going to wait for you. I don’t remember you breaking things off with me.”
Her mask slipped for a moment, then she looked at the rest of the group. I could see her calculating the number of men and women and coming to the obvious conclusion.
“We were never a couple, Gabby, we had a onetime thing, and we didn’t see each other for a month before I left for Nairobi.”
“I’ve known you for twenty years, we went to school together. You said you had a crush on me way back in school. I thought we had the beginnings of a relationship, but you’d already committed to building a school for your charity.”
She’d whined and use the passive aggressive tone I hated.
“You hated me at school, you humiliated me at school. Why would you think we had a twenty-year romance? We fucked once. Where is this coming from?” I was stunned that she was reading more into our one-night stand than it was. She was the one who insisted that we didn’t make a big deal out of sleeping together.
“Oh, well, maybe I misread the signals. Anyway, there’s a school reunion next week, you must come. You haven’t answered my text about it. I’ll text you the details again,” Gabby said. She kissed my cheek and waved goodbye just using her fingertips.
I turned to the others to see if they could tell me what the hell just went on. One person was missing.
“She left just after she heard Gabby say she was your girlfriend,” Scottie said. “Who the hell was that?” he added.
“The popular bitch at my school. I made the mistake of sleeping with Gabby before I went to Kenya. It’s a long story for another time,” I said and checked that I had my phone and keys. “I’m going after her.”
“Good lad,” Scottie said and downed the rest of his whisky. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
They all waved me away, not arguing that I needed to chase after Adaline. I hoped she’d gone back to the flat. If she hadn’t, I’d have no clue where to go next.
I ran down the steps of the pub and turned right to run up the hill. I wasn't expecting to be running like my arse was on fire this soon after the triathlon. It took two minutes to get to our flats. Fumbling with the key in the door, I eventually opened it, cursing that I'd had too much to drink to operate a key in a lock. I hoped to god I didn't sound slurred when I tried to explain about Gabby to Adaline.
The shop was in disarray, the mess I'd left it in, the last time Scottie and I worked on the shelving units. It was in darkness, but that wasn't my indicator to tell me if Adaline was home.
Running up the spiral staircase, two at a time, I used the concrete wall to balance my body in case I missed a step and hurtled back down to the floor in a heap, unconscious, unable to make things right with Adaline. I'd never had such dramatic thoughts before I met her but the scenarios racing through my mind at the moment bordered on paranoid insanity.
Finally, in the hallway, I swivelled my head keeping my body still deciding which door to go through. She’d given me a copy of her key a week ago, but now I didn't know if I was welcome. Deciding on the red door, I had more luck in getting the key in the lock first time and flung open the door. Slamming it too loudly, I hurried down the corridor and into my living room.
The lights were on and sitting crossed legged in the middle of my cream fluffy rug was Adaline nursing a glass of water. She twirled the ice around and around with the tip of her finger, occasionally stabbing the ice, so it sank to the bottom. When it floated back up, she continued stirring.
Adaline had her back to me. She'd taken her hair out of a chignon and changed it to a messy bun. The curve of her neck invited me to stroke the soft hairs at her nape. I didn't dare touch her until I knew her mood. After slamming the front door and stomping down to the living room, Adaline still didn't acknowledge my presence, but she knew I was in the room. I'd caught her tilted head gesture when I came into the room.
Carefully treading toward her like a gamekeeper approaching a tiger, I sat down next to her. I stretched out my legs in front of me and rested back on my hands. For a few moments, I let my head drop back and shut my eyes. The room spun, I really couldn’t handle my whisky.
Where in the hell did I begin to make this right? I'd never had to, before Adaline.
“She was never my girlfriend,” I said.
She turned her head. The image of her bloodshot eyes strangled my heart. In a perverse way, it gave me hope that she was upset. I told her I loved her and then she thinks I’m cheating on my girlfriend.
“She seems to think so. Gabby waited for you for over a year. She must be in love with you.” Adaline said while she jabbed at the ice cubes.
“The only person Gabby is in love with is her next rich boyfriend. She's a gold digger, always has been, even in school. She mercilessly went after the richest boy in school until it didn't work out. Then moved onto another. She never looked twice at me because I was fat and ginger.”
“That was then, what if she's changed? What if, she realised as soon as you got on the flight to Kenya that she loved you?”
“It doesn't matter,” I said, combing what little hair I had with my fingernails. I shifted position so to block Adaline’s view of the muted TV. Taking the glass from her hand and putting it on the coffee table, I mirrored her position and grabbed her hands. “I don’t love her,” I said. I had to look away, I thought I would cry if I looked at her face of disbelief any longer.
“Is this how you treat women? Fuck them and then discard them when you’re done?”
She yanked her hands from mine to scoot back until she reached the sofa. She carefully climbed up not taking her eyes off mine until she sat on the cushions.
