The Lie(63)

Of course some guilt threatens to raise its head, waiting to come out and play, as it always does. It tells me that I can move on, with anyone but her.

But I only want her.

And I’ve always only wanted her.

I guess that’s where most of my fear lies. Because with Natasha this isn’t a fling and this isn’t a casual relationship. I was mad for her before, and I’ll surely lose myself again if I haven’t already.

I mean, it’s been only a few hours since I was inside of her in my office and it’s not enough. It will never be enough. I watched her walk out of my door and I immediately felt muted and curiously frightened, as if something dire would happen to her between the time she left my office and the time I’d see her again at the bar. Maybe because I know what it’s like to lose so much, it makes the stakes that much higher. The threat of having to go through it all again. Fate might have a target on my back now, loss attracting loss.

But thinking that way won’t help anything, so I do my best to bury my fears and get on with my day.

Naturally, my thoughts turn to Natasha at every moment.

The way her lips parted when the passion was too much.

The liquid gaze of her sex-fed eyes.

The little sounds that escaped her mouth, breathless and raw, as she came.

The memory of our naked, sweaty bodies together taints me and I can feel it with everything I do.

I had been with a few girls before Miranda, and it had never been like that. I’ve had my fair share of passion with Miranda too, especially just after our wedding.

That hadn’t been like that either.

What Natasha and I shared surpasses all expectations and dreams. It’s difficult for me to wax poetic about it without sounding flowery or clichéd. But I guess the word transcendent could work, even though a single word could never say enough. I doubt all the words could.

At six, I get ready, throwing on jeans, a t-shirt and my jacket, checking myself out in the mirror before I head across the street to the pub.

It turns out I’m nervous as fuck. It makes no bloody sense, all things considered, but it’s the truth. I nod to Max and take my usual seat at the bar.

“Alone tonight?” Max asks as he pours me a pint.

“For now,” I tell him.

“Same broad?” he asks, his eyes twinkling.

I take the beer from him and give him a wry look. “Broad? Are we in the 1950s? Same woman, yes.”

“Good,” he says. “I was starting to think you were going to be sitting alone here forever.”

I cock my brow. Max and I have a strictly bartender-patron relationship, but he does know about Miranda and Hamish. My second night in the bar we got to talking, and when people ask about my past, if I have a family, I’m not one to hold back. I don’t give them a lot, but I give them enough to know the truth.

“We’ll see,” I tell him, ever so cautious.

“Nah,” he says loudly, with a big smile that shows his canines. “You know I’m an expert in love.”

“Just because you’re a bartender…”

“Yeah, a bartender, of course,” he says, leaning across the bar. “But I was also a celebrant. A humanist. I still am.”

I look Max up and down, nearly spitting out my beer. Max has got to be in his late fifties, with a big beer belly, straggly grey hair and a mustache that looks like it’s been ripped off the face of Groucho Marx. He looks more like a grizzled old roadie than he does a celebrant.

“You mean you married people?”

“Yes. Those who weren’t religious or who wanted a wedding outside. People would do their paperwork with the register office, but then the ceremony was performed by me. It was my gig long before taking over this place. I brought people together back then, and, well, I hear their troubles now,” he adds with a laugh before his expression turns serious. “So believe me when I say I’ve seen a lot of couples.”

How pathetic is it that I want him to continue on about me and Natasha?

“You’ve known her from before,” he notes.

I nod. “Yes. A few years ago.”

“I can tell that, too.”

I fold my hands in front of me. “What else can you tell?”

He grins at me like he’s holding all the cards. “I can tell she’s in love with you.”

His words send my heart spinning. I shake my head, unwilling to believe it for a second. “I don’t think so.”

“She loved you once. That doesn’t go away.”

“And how do you know she loved me once?”

He shrugs with one shoulder, looking around the pub. “It’s a skill possessed by whoever isn’t the one in love. You can’t see it until you’re outside of it. And unfortunately, when you’re outside of it, you’re often too late.”