8
My dad turned from the window. “It’s him,” he said.
It welled up inside me: Love for Damien; disappointment, bitter and corrosive because he’d believed a stupid tabloid article instead of me; fear that he’d convince me to try again.
I didn’t know if I could take any more.
“Don’t let him in, dad.” I went quickly to the stairs; I needed to be in my room where I felt safe, where I couldn’t see Damien or hear his voice or smell his familiar scent. “I don’t want to see him.”
At first I heard a mumble of voices at the door. Then, although I’d virtually begged my father not to let him in, I heard them move into the house. I felt a rush of panic when I thought that Damien was coming upstairs – What was my father thinking! But then I heard the rumble of their voices coming from the kitchen.
They were down there forever. I wondered what Damien was saying that took so long. I imagined them down there under different circumstances, the two men I loved – my dad for being such a great father and Damien because I couldn’t help loving him. A little fantasy rolled through my head, one where Damien and my dad were downstairs arguing good-naturedly about soccer. I knew Damien would insist that the game he followed was called football, since the players weren’t allowed to handle the ball, and that he’d be trying to convert my dad into supporting the same team that Damien had watched since he was a kid – West Ham. I could see my dad gently teasing Damien, and Damien, being the man he is, wouldn’t recognize that he was having his leg pulled. He’d get all serious and a little sniffy, and it would be up to me to make some smartass comment that got everybody laughing.
I sighed – Why couldn’t it just be like that?
The knock at my bedroom door shocked me almost right out of my skin.
“Hey,” my dad said as his head appeared.
“Has he gone?” I asked, not knowing which answer I wanted to hear.
My heart leapt when dad shook his head. “No. He wants to talk to you, but he said he’d leave if you said get lost.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
My father shook his head again. “I can’t answer that, Kylie. This is none of my business. What goes on between you two is between the two of you. You’re a grown woman.”
I loved him for that, for not influencing me either way. He wouldn’t poison me against Damien, he’d let me decide, but I knew I could count on his support no matter what came out of it.
Damien looked worn out when I saw him sitting at the table, a cup of tea in his hands. His face brightened when he saw me; he half-stood and then froze, not knowing whether to offer me an embrace or to keep away.
The distance option was the one I preferred.
“I love you, Kylie,” he said. Damien sat down and gave a little shrug. “It’s that simple,” he added. “Alexandra’s fired. She was the one responsible for all this. She’s been friendly with Jenny; she knew you were scared and deliberately set you up. That thing yesterday, when I was drunk and answered the door in my underwear … I’d been upstairs changing, Kylie. I was so fucking angry when you came banging on the door that I didn’t bother getting dressed.”
I wanted to believe him but there was the little detail of Alexandra half-naked to deal with. But he explained that too, and I was inclined to believe him, it fitted with what I imagined that woman to be capable of. After all, hadn’t she deliberately impersonated me and been responsible for that article in the paper?
Damien turned his handsome face towards me. “I’ve been a complete idiot, again. I shouldn’t have believed it, Kylie. Not about you. I’m sorry, I can’t describe how fucking sorry I am.”
He told me he loved me – that was the second time he’d said it – and that if I went back to him he’d do his damndest to never hurt me again.
“Fuck the contract, Kylie,” Damien continued. “Forget it. I don’t just want you sexually, I want the whole deal. I want all of you, and I want you to have all of me. Nobody else. Not now, not ever.”
And then he said it again: “I love you.”
My heart cracked open when I heard the sincerity in his voice.
I smiled. “I love you, too, I said.” And then I went to him.
Dad came in, saw us kissing, and said, “I just remembered I have to go to the mall. See you in a couple of hours.” He paused with his car keys in his hand. “Is Damien staying for dinner, Kylie?”
I looked at Damien, who smiled and nodded, saying, “If that’s all right?”