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Adoring.
33
DANNY
* * *
I’m three drinks in and still hurting everywhere. My face. Jesus, my face. I reach up and press gently into my swollen lip, sucking back air. The touch upsets the clotting blood there, and it starts bleeding again. “Fucker.” I lick it away, creaking up from the chair and raking a hand through my hair. I need to fucking sleep. Rest. But there’s no chance of that. Or I could drink. I look at my glass and knock it back. I can drink myself into a coma. I pour another before leaving the office to stretch my legs, tired of sitting there, thinking of all the reasons Rose and I are bad for each other. Toxic. Damaging. Dangerous.
But fucking perfect.
I step out into the nighttime air and light up, following the path through the garden. Past the patio, past the pool, all the way to the back. “Cindy, Barbie,” I call, putting my Marlboro between my lips as I dip to pick up a ball. “Good God,” I moan, my muscles screaming. The girls appear from around the back of the summer house, running at me, as I creak my way back up from crouching. “Heel.” They both sit at my feet. “Fetch?” They’re up again, that one word telling them it’s time for some relaxing.
I spend half an hour wandering the grounds, sipping my Scotch, smoking, the dogs flanking me, waiting for me to throw the ball for them. Each time I do, they dash off, barking. Cindy always returns with the ball.
I circle the back of the house and stop in front of a bed full of roses. All kinds—climbing, reds, whites, yellows. “Pretty,” I murmur, for the first time taking notice of the beautiful, established rose bed. Pops would be proud. He loved his gardens.
I light up another cigarette and turn my head to blow the smoke away from the roses, frowning when I hear a high-pitched, shrill yelp of a woman coming from Brad’s room. I look up at his terrace. The lights are on.
“Brad!” she yells.
I can just about muster the energy to be happy for the miserable fucker. Even if his choice of outlet is a fucking lawyer.
“You dick,” I mutter as I carry on my way, dawdling, smoking, now kicking the ball for the girls so I don’t have to stop and dip, saving myself a little discomfort. I could do with a massage. “Yeah, not happening,” I say, laughing but not. I come to a stop below the terrace for our bedroom, hearing Maggie crying, and I sigh, bracing myself for another night with no sleep. I don’t rush to the bedroom to try to help Rose. She made it clear I’m not welcome in the marital bed. Then I made it clear that the day we don’t sleep in the same bed is the day I die. I scrub a hand down my face, finish my smoke, and head to the house. “That’s enough for tonight, girls,” I say. “Release.” They dash off, up the garden, abandoning their ball, back on duty.
Mum’s in the kitchen when I get there, sitting at the island, reading a magazine. She looks up at me when I come to a stop in the doorway. I can’t even muster the strength to tell her I’m okay. Tell her not to worry.
“Look at the state of you,” she breathes, closing the magazine and coming to me. She holds me still, a hand on either side of my neck, turning my face slowly each way to check the damage. “Why haven’t you been cleaned up?”
I take one of her hands and pull it away, making her automatically release the other. “My wife’s not in the mood to tend to me, and I don’t know where Doc is.”
“Sit.” She goes to the cupboard and I do as I’m told, dropping heavily onto a stool at the island. “Doc’s gone out for drinks with a lady friend.”
“What?”
She nods, eyebrows high as she carries a box back over. “A nurse he used to work with.” She flips the box open. “Twenty years younger than him.”
“The rampant old git.”
“He bumped into her while he was out and about.” She soaks a pad in some liquid and comes in close, starting to wipe me up.
I wince. “Where does Doc go out and about?”
“I think it was at a clinic.” Mum dumps the used pad and gets a fresh one. “Maybe he’s moonlighting.”
“We pay him too much,” I mumble. “Ouch!”
“Shhh,” she murmurs, holding my chin as she dabs at my cut lip.
“He was carrying piss around last week,” I say.
“What?”
“Brad’s piss. Doc had a sample. Brad said something about a water infection.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He was obviously lying.”
