But I couldn’t bring them all with me.
And staying wouldn’t be making the most of potential, which everyone expected me to fulfil. It wouldn’t get Sarah the dream home she deserved. It wouldn’t make six figures of private education worth it. Mum did it just to get me into the most competitive junior rugby school—so I could live, breathe, and bleed the sport.
We all need to make sacrifices. I told myself.
Being enveloped in everyone’s appreciation and excitement made the prospect ever the more difficult though.
Pushing down another wave of panic, I downed my pint to rapturous applause before wrapping one arm around Sarah, and the other around Drew.
The two people I couldn’t live without.
And yet, I couldn’t shake the sense that everything was about to change.
FOUR
SARAH
Tiredness pricked the back of my eyes as Jake took me through Derek’s house and out into the back garden. Festoon lights glazed the tipsy faces scattered through the garden. Orange globes reflected in half-lidded eyes, some mascara-lined and others shadowed by bruises from the rough game. I let Jake lead us to the crowded benches under a wooden canopy, while I wished we’d just gone home after leaving the pub.
The din of voices mingled with the bubbling of the party-sized hot tub to the left of the seating area. No-one had swimsuits. It hadn’t stopped them from going in. Bare flesh everywhere. I slid my gaze over their naked, lust-drunk bodies.
Jake tucked me against his chest, an arm wrapping around my waist. In an instant, people gathered to him like moths to his ever-abundant flame. Jake, the bright light in any room.
I sat in silence, smiling along with the ever-increasing chatter effervescing around me. Sometimes I felt like a ghost beside him. People looked past me for a glimpse at him, talked over me to share a moment with him.
And I got it.
He was perfect.
So why did I feel like something was lacking? Why did I fantasise about him pressing his fingers beneath my skirt while everyone around us was unaware? Why did I close my eyes in bed and pretend he was a stranger—someone who needed me so badly he would just take me? Why did my mind dip to sordid, desperate places just to get me to the edge while I had a man I adored between my thighs?
Why didn’t he feel like enough?
Maybe the truth was worse. Maybe I wasn’t enough.
For hundreds of women, Jake would be the ideal man. The man of their dreams. Successful, attractive, sweet, and loving.
But something deep inside me stained our relationship. It had started so tiny. Just a kernel of need that I could ignore. One that grew larger as the months passed and became difficult to ignore. The unease started in the bedroom, contained there at first, until it bled into even the most innocent moments.
‘You okay, honey?’ Jake asked, trailing his fingers over my spine, ignoring the deluge of attention for a moment. I wanted nothing more than to tell him no. That I wanted him to call me a whore and fuck me like he hated me. To use those thick thighs to pin me against the wall and make the entire party hear my squeals.
To claim me.
But I couldn’t say any of that. It would ruin the person he believed me to be.
‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘Just a little tired.’
Jake took my hand in his and gave me a reassuring squeeze. ‘Do you want to go home?’
‘Or... we could go in the hot tub with the others.’
He actually shuddered beneath me at the sight of the raucous party in the steaming water.
‘Baby, they don’t even have swimsuits on. They’re marinating in genital soup.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, hating the flush of embarrassment that heated my face. ‘I just thought it might be fun.’
Jake pulled me closer and kissed the side of my neck. ‘Why don’t I get us home and take you to bed, Miss Frey? I can show you some real fun.’
