“Don’t lie to me, Verity.” Max’s voice actually sounded hurt and Verity sighed. “Heath never gets drunk enough to lose control and you never call in sick to work. Ever. Something is going on with you two.”
“It’s just an… inconvenience.” Verity took a sip of her tea and looked down at the granite surface. “We have to go up to Harrogate to sort out some things next week. It’s going to be unpleasant. Heath’s always been a bit more…” she trailed off and put her mug down to rub her temples. “Look it’s nothing. Really.”
“Why the fuck do you have to go to Harrogate?” Max seemed angry at the prospect of this which confused me. The twins had grown up in Harrogate. Part of the “posh north” as Max would say. They were the type of northerners who had no trace of an accent and lived in ancestral homes. A few hundred years ago Heath and Verity would have been the nobility and we would likely all have been working their land for them. “There’s nothing for either of you up there,” he said.
Mia was looking between Verity and Max in as much confusion as me. “What’s in Harrogate?” she asked.
“My mother and my now dead father,” Verity said in an emotionless voice. “We have to bury the old bastard next week.”
Chapter 18
No big deal
Heath
My head was pounding and my eyelids felt like they had been glued shut. Hangovers were not routine occurrences for me. Normally I had no desire to drink myself into oblivion. It was ironic that now was the time I chose to lose control. I took a deep breath in, allowing myself to be calmed by the scent of washing powder on my sheets. Everything in my home was clean – I made sure of it. But it wasn’t just the scent of clean sheets I noticed. There was another light fragrance in the mix. That’s when I realised that my hand was covering a much smaller one and my leg was thrown over a soft body in my bed. I blinked open my eyes and there she was. That beautiful face an inch from mine. I must have jerked in surprise as she stirred, and her eyelids blinked open. When confronted with her warm, brown-green eyes it took a moment before I could accept that this wasn’t a dream. So many of my dreams were filled with her nowadays that it felt a little unreal.
“Hey,” she said, her voice rough with sleep. “You okay?”
There was something in her tone that made me frown.
“You were pretty out of it last night,” she explained.
“How did I–? I mean I don’t remember… “
“We helped V get you home. Listen, Heath I’m so sorry about your–”
She broke off as I pulled away suddenly, putting a foot of distance between us.Thatwas what was in her tone before. Pity. She was here out of pity.
She knew.
I sat up in bed and pulled my hands through my hair, covers falling to my waist and my chest on display. Yaz also sat up then moved to sit cross-legged on the bed facing me, a frown marring her forehead.
“Heath I–”
“Is that why you’re here? You feel sorry for me?”
“No, I–”
“Because there’snothingto feel sorry about. Good fucking riddance to the old bastard.”
Her mouth dropped open and then snapped shut. I’d shocked her. Good. Shock was better than pity.
“Okay,” her tone was more cautious now. “Last night you seemed–”
“Shitfaced. I seemed shitfaced. You should probably forget anything I said last night. I don’t make sense when I’m drunk.”
“You don’t drink.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “There’s a marching band stomping around in my head that would strongly disagree with you there.”
“You know what I mean. You don’tnormallyget drunk.” She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think youareokay. I think that–”
“Why do you even care?” I snapped. There was this ball of angry energy in the pit of my stomach. It had been building since I’d spoken to our family lawyer a week ago. The bastard was dead, but itstillwasn’t over. I still had to go back there. A wave of frustration washed over me and I felt like I couldn’t get a deep enough breath in. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks. You didn’t care about me then. My dad carks it and you’re–” I broke off as my throat started feeling too tight. Knifing out of bed, I sprang to my feet and lurched towards the window. I opened it wide and looked out at the sea, but still it felt like I couldn’t quite take a deep enough breath. My vision started closing in on me and my fingers started to tingle. It was as if I was on a cliff edge with nothing to hold on to. Like I might get sucked backthereagain. I hadn’t had flashbacks in years.
Then I felt the pressure of her warm hand on my back. For some reason it grounded me in the present, anchored me there.
“Heath,” her voice was soft but firm enough to prompt me to turn and look at her. I stared down into those eyes, deep brown flecked with green, alive with concern, and my breathing slowed. Her eyes searched my face as one of her hands rested on my chest, the other swept down from my eyebrow over my cheekbone. She then lifted my hand to the centre of her chest, allowing me to feel her steady heartbeat and the rise and fall of her breathing. “That’s it. Come back to me. I’m here.” I allowed myself a blissful moment basking in all that was Yaz: her beauty this close was almost unreal. The soothing nature of her voice washed over me, and I felt the first small oasis of peace I’d had all week. But I knew that a moment was all I could really handle. So, I moved back and paced away to my chest of drawers, pulling on a t-shirt and then moving to shrug on a pair of jeans. Yaz was dressed already in her standard jeans and surf t-shirt. I didn’t know if she’d slept that way or been up already. I couldn’t remember much from last night apart from holding onto her hand…thatI remembered. She’d been anchoring me then too. My head was really pounding now. A wave of nausea hit me and I flew into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Hopefully she’d take the hint and leave.
