‘Would you mind?’ he nodded to hers. ‘It’s just that I feel this article may be a two-bag job.’
* * *
By the time he got off the plane, Will felt depressed. He hadn’t had a lot of sleep in the past week, and the reading he had done on the plane had left him feeling guilty and dejected. Though he was desperate to see Kate and put things right, he was also anxious about facing her after all he had put her through. And he had deep misgivings about his welcome at the O’Neills’.
So he was amazed and touched when he came into the arrivals hall and saw Lorcan in the throng at the barrier. At leastLorcan still had faith in him, he thought, smiling at him as he made his way towards him. It didn’t even register at first that Lorcan wasn’t smiling back, but as he got closer, he noticed that his friend’s mouth was set in a grim line and his eyes were spitting fire. Still, he was here, Will thought – at least he was giving him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Lorcan, it’s so?—’
Wham! The next thing Will knew, he was lying on the floor, his face throbbing. He would have said he didn’t know what had hit him, but he had seen Lorcan’s arm move and had at first expected him to throw it around his shoulder. Instead, he had landed a ferocious punch on Will’s nose. By the time he sat up and opened his eyes, all he saw was his friend’s rapidly retreating back as he stalked out of the airport, shoulders hunched.
Still dazed, Will had just picked himself up and was brushing himself off in front of an audience of open-mouthed onlookers when a flash went off in his face.
‘Will! Will!’ the eager photographer called, but he was lurching towards the doors. His nose stung and his eyes were pumping water.
By the time he got outside, Lorcan had disappeared, but he soon found Dave, his driver.
‘Home, Will?’ Dave enquired, looking at him curiously as he tossed his bag into the boot.
‘No, drop me at Lorcan’s, then take the luggage home.’
Realising for the first time that his nose was bleeding profusely, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his face.
Catching sight of himself in the driver’s mirror, he was shocked by his appearance. He looked totally dishevelled and washed out. His clothes were bloodstained and grubby, his face deathly pale. He looked like a kid who had been beaten up in theplayground – and by his best friend, he thought, feeling thoroughly sorry for himself.
‘You all right?’ Dave asked, making eye contact with him in the mirror.
‘I’m okay, thanks,’ Will answered. ‘Just stings a bit,’ he said, in an attempt to explain away the tears that, to his mortification, were welling in his eyes. He was shaking uncontrollably, and he knew it had less to do with the physical trauma than with the shock that Lorcan could have done such a thing. On top of everything else he had been through in the past week, it was the last straw. He longed to crawl under a duvet and cry his eyes out.
Carmen answered the door on the third ring.
‘Hi, Carmen.’
‘Hello, Will.’ She didn’t ask him in. ‘Lorcan doesn’t want to see you,’ she said apologetically.
‘Please, Carmen, I have to talk to him.’
She thought for a second, then nodded wordlessly, standing back to let him in and waving him towards the living room.
‘He’s in there.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, then slipped quietly out of the house.
Lorcan was pacing twitchily around the living room. When he saw Will in the doorway, he came to an abrupt halt. His eyes widened in surprise and his face froze, his mouth set in a furious line. ‘Did Carmen let you in?’ he asked, his eyes as hard as Will had ever seen them.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you can let yourself out again,’ he said coldly. ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’
Will was momentarily rendered speechless by Lorcan’s bitterness. ‘Lorcan,’ he began, ‘please, just let me explain.’
‘What’s there to explain?’ Lorcan raged, eyes blazing. ‘Did you or did you not shove your dick in my sister’s mouth?’
‘It’s not like they say in the papers.’
‘Oh, which bit did they get wrong? The bit where you screwed her and ditched her? Or the bit where you whined to your precious girlfriend that it didn’t mean a thing and you couldn’t live without her?’
‘Where did you get that?Wow!magazine?’ Will snarled, his anger rising now to meet Lorcan’s. He noticed a bundle of tabloids on the coffee table – they weren’t Lorcan’s normal reading.
‘They make it sound so sordid and… commonplace,’ he said.
Lorcan hooted derisively. ‘Whereas this was one of those magical blow jobs that only comes along once in a lifetime?’
