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“What are you talking about?” Alex asks.
“I need you to be you, Alexander. This,” he waves his hand at Alex. “Is of no intrinsic use to my purpose.” Alex frowns and stands up, concern on his face for the first time in god knows how long. “And you will fortify yourself, my Rose. We are one, yes?” She stands up, too, tilting her head at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have been duped.” Duped? I could laugh at the theatrics.
“Duped?” Alex again.
“Hmm. We shall go hunt, yes?”
I don’t know why he bothered asking because I’m pulled out the door before anyone answers, hotly pursued by both Alex and Beth. I glance back at them, shoulders shrugging at his authority of the situation at hand. Alex smiles, wickedly. I don’t know what at, but I hope it’s not my backside in his face because that isn’t going to happen again.
“Stop it,” I snap, at him. He chuckles. It’s not funny. And Beth’s look of utter confusion says as much. Oh, good god, she still doesn’t know, does she? “And tell her before I do.” I look back at Pascal in this mood of his. “Or he does.”
“Actually, I do know,” she says, walking across the pavement with her chin held high. “Pascal told me.” Oh, maybe that’s why she was so pissed off about my hair pulling earlier, which she normally likes to be honest.
“You do?” Alex asks, opening the car door for her.
“Yes. And I hate you for it.” Oooh. Conversation. It’s a start. He holds a hand out to her back, fingers reaching for her. “You’re an utter bastard. And don’t even think about touching me.”
Maybe not yet then.
Oaf drives off after a while of us all getting comfortable, Beth trying her hardest not to allow one piece of her to touch Alex in any way. I’m not surprised, but she needs to get a grip of herself. Sadly.
“Plane,” Pascal says into the air, as if Alex should know he means he needs it and should call it for him. Alex does. It’s all quite seamless. I snort, wondering what all the bloody confusion has been about. I mean really, one look from him about something really important and we’re all – well, apart from Beth and her attitude, which she deserves to a degree – back to knowing each other inside out.
“You’re all bloody ridiculous,” I say, digging in my bag for my nail file.
“And you’re an up yourself bitch,” Beth says. She can have that one. Just.
“Would you rather he’d have killed someone?”
“What?”
“Mmm. I thought him fucking the angst out into me before he did something stupid was more sensible, but if you would have preferred murder then who am I to argue.” She looks at me, mouth open, and then to him. “He cried, Beth. What’s his normal reaction to that?”
“You cried?” He frowns and looks out the window. “Alex?”
Nothing. Stupidity.
“Oh for god’s sake, Alex. You don’t have to be bad all the time. Vulnerability is quite acceptable. Beautiful actually.”
There’s nothing but a snarl of annoyance after that, one that has me filing my nails and staring at him the entire way to the airport. Vulnerable? I narrow my eyes, not sure what in his past has made him feel vulnerable. Why would he be so anti vulnerability, short of his need to dominate?
I smirk a little to myself and think back to all the conversations we’ve had when he’s drunk. There’s nothing been given away, apart from his love for these two who sit beside us. No stories of growing up. No discussions about home life or parents. Not even a hint at what he was before all this, other than what I’ve seen in him over time.
“Were you abused as a child?” I ask.
The sharp glare that comes back at me makes me gasp at its intensity, and the following noise from Beth indicates that was not a question to be asked. Fuck that. Nothing will be resolved here unless he opens up, to all of us. “I’ll take that as a yes then.” He frowns and looks back out the window again, clearly not willing to discuss the matter in any way.
Silence again.
It’s saddening. And useless. I can feel the tension surrounding us all, burrowing into what should be open, honest and yet deviant in any way it chooses.
“Mother or father?” That was me again, because screw letting this drop. I won’t, not until I know all the facts. No response.
“Father,” Pascal says. I look at him and find him staring at Alex, his face softened to the man who loves freely and gives everything he has to those he cares for. “It is all about his father, my love.”
