Page 19 of Crying in the Rain
“Hey, maybe you could come along as my chaperone,” he joked.
Shaunna rolled her eyes. “Or maybe I should stop trying to mother you.”
Kris laughed and got up. “I’m going for a shower.”
“OK, hun. You want a shirt ironing?”
“What was that about not mothering me?”
She grabbed the tea towel the dog had nicked earlier and flicked it at Kris’s behind as he passed.
He dodged away and ran upstairs, returning half a minute later. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at—” Her eyebrows arched in surprise as she took the plain black shirt from him. “It’s a date, not a funeral!”
“I know! It’s just…Ade mentioned he used to wear bright colours, and…well, I should start toning it down a little. I’m nearly forty, after all.”
“So?”
Nothing to add in his defence, Kris started back up the stairs, listening to the clanging of the ironing board being set up.
“He must be pretty special,” Shaunna called after him.
He stopped and glanced over the banister, giving her a hopeful smile. “Yeah. I think he is.”
8: No Entry
Ade
Ade climbed thestairs to his apartment, clinging to his good mood like a drowning man to flotsam. Ten hours ago, he’d been racing down these very stairs, trying to outrun the shitstorm that was his life with Fergus Campbell in it. He’d genuinely believed it was futile. In a stupid moment of weakness, he’d let the emotion vampire back in, been seduced by his lies of getting help, trying harder, doing better, and what was the point in running when all you were doing was running around the same circle? It was easier to lie down and submit than fight to break free again.
But then Kris had shown up, and the shock seemed to have jolted Ade’s heart back into its old rhythm, reminding him: he’d had a life before Fergus; surely, he could have oneafterFergus too. Whether Kris would be a part of that life in the longer term, Ade didn’t care to predict, but he was certainly persistent—not in a pushy way. He’d given Ade plenty of chances to back out of their date, which Ade had no intention of doing, and he really wished he could have given Kris an unqualified yes, but he didn’t know what he was coming home to or if he’d be able to get out of the apartment without causing a scene.THE apartment? YOUR apartment, for God’s sake! What happened to your backbone?
Slowing his steps, he tiptoed the last few yards to his front door and halted, listening for noise within.
Nothing.
Fergus usually had the stereo blasting and the TV on at the same time.
He’s gone.
Sagging in relief, Ade pushed his key into the lock. It wouldn’t turn.
“The absolute…” Ade knocked on the door, irritated he had to. He was so done with the mind games, but of course, he got no answer. He knocked again, harder this time. “Ferg? Open the door, please.”
Still nothing and getting angrier by the second, Ade called Fergus’s phone and heard it ringing inside the apartment. He hammered on the door. “Fergus, come on!”
But along with the anger, he was starting to worry. He’d been here before, when Fergus had taken an overdose after Ade finished things the second time and then sat sneering at Ade in A&E, knowing he’d won. Then he’d threatened to electrocute himself—I’m taking a bath with the toaster. Goodbye, Adrian—the fourth time, or maybe the fifth. Ade had lost count by then, along with any sympathy for Ferg’s mental health or supposed lack of. It was emotional blackmail, pure and simple, and it had worked until now.
Ade gave it one last try, banging with his fist and even with the edge of his phone, but all his hammering achieved was to disturb his neighbour Mary, who opened her front door and beckoned him with a crooked finger.
“He’s on the balcony,” she whispered, tilting her head back for Ade to follow her inside. She led him through the living room and out onto her balcony, from which Ade could see his own, where, sure enough, Ferg sat with his back to them, an empty wine bottle upright on the table, another on its side on the floor and a third bottle, still half-full, in his hand. He swayed back in his seat, completely off his face and in a world of his own. Ade felt the tears rise in his throat and bit down hard on his lip to stop them. Mary gently touched his arm, and it broke him.
“Come and have a sit down for a while, lovey,” she said and steered him back inside, shutting the French doors behind them. “It’s a bad do, this.”
He nodded behind his hands. A tear squeezed between his fingers.
“Oh dear. Right, you sit here…” She nudged him sideways and backwards until he felt the edge of the sofa behind his knees and sat. “I’ll fetch you some water, give you a chance to pull yourself together, lovey.”
