A/N: This chapter was pretty amazing to write. Ummmm...On Thursday, I get my exam results and I'll know where (or if) I'm going to university. If it's good news, I shall post another chapter. Chapter 21 is still a big writer's block so this story MAY have to go on hiatus in a few weeks :\

Enjoy :D

Chapter 17

"Dad, I'm home," Andy called.

Gabriella looked over from the kitchen sink and waved at Andy with her wet, soapy hands. "Hey. There's some leftover pasta in the microwave if you haven't eaten," she offered.

Andy dropped his bag by the settee and approached the kitchen. "Do you mind me asking why you're in our flat, doing our washing up?"

Gabriella laughed as she set a saucepan on the dish rack. "Well, your father invited me over for tea. He said that as I'm a guest, I shouldn't help with cooking or cleaning. However," she exclaimed as she rested her hands on the edge of the sink, "he started complaining about how he needed a shower. He wouldn't shut up so I sent him for a shower without any arguments."

Andy smiled as he began re-heating the pasta. "Sounds about right. Is it a special occasion in order for Dad to invite you home? Not that I don't want you here. But he never brings women home. Ever."

Gabriella paused as she reached for a dishcloth and began drying her hands. "Well, there's no reason. We finished work early and we wanted to spend some time together." She began drying the dishes and crockery. She glanced at Andy. "Andy, it was just pasta. No big deal."

"Hey! It is a big deal." He took the heated pasta out of the microwave and set it on the island counter. "You do know that Dad fancies you, don't you?"

Gabriella had to occupy herself with stacking plates away in cupboards so that Andy wouldn't see her blush. She couldn't help the heat that spread through her body when she recalled exactly how she and Troy had spent time together before they'd had dinner. They hadn't gone all the way. It was too early for that. They had simply held each other and kissed, revelling in the peacefulness that they hadn't yet experienced as a couple. "Andy, I'm almost forty. I know when a man fancies me."

He quirked an eyebrow. "And what about you?"

Gabriella finally turned to him and tugged unsurely at her shorts. How could she possibly tell Troy's son that they were together? It wasn't a conversation she'd ever had before and she wasn't sure that even Troy had had this kind of conversation, either. "Well, I like your father. I try to keep personal and professional lives separate but I guess that doesn't always happen." She suddenly paused and stepped closer. "Andy, have you been drinking?" she asked quietly. There was a subtle change in the air. Before his arrival, the air had smelt mostly of pasta and the Tesco's own brand of lemon-scented washing up liquid. Now, though, there was a hint of the tell-tale smells of a typical English pub that clung to your hair and clothes for days: grease, tobacco smoke, and alcohol.

He shrugged as he began tucking into his pasta. "A few of my friends are going back home before graduation so a couple of us went out for a few beers." He glanced up at her. "Is that okay?"

Gabriella quickly turned away and busied herself with wiping down the sink. "It's none of my business. I'm just your dad's...employee."

Andy was quiet for a moment before he opened a cupboard. Gabriella could see out of the corner of her eyes as he poured himself a shot of whiskey and downed it in one go. The familiar enticing scent lured her in until she could almost feel the whiskey itself burning its way down her throat. It was so easy for her mind to tell her that it would only be one drink, one shot of whiskey, and then she'd stop.

But you won't stop, will you? Her conscience taunted her.

Andy followed her gaze and slid a shot of whiskey across the counter towards her. "Have one?"

She shook her head and looked away. "No thank you. I, uh, I can't drink."

Before Andy could question her use of 'can't' instead of 'don't', a loud, rather girlish scream emanated from Troy's room. Gabriella and Andy glanced at each other before they rushed across the living room and burst into the adjoined bedroom.

Gabriella had to smile when she saw the man that she was attracted to dressed only in a towel around his waist, stood precariously on the armchair in the corner of his room, shaking like a leaf. "Troy, what's wrong?"

He pointed a shaking hand to his bed. "There's a spider. Under the duvet," he gasped.

Gabriella and Andy shared a glance as she stepped forward and pulled the duvet back. She spied a small money spider scurrying among the mass of sheets. "Come here, Barney." She coaxed the spider into her hands and headed towards the window.

"Dad," Andy groaned, "you really need to get over this. It's not good to have a woman rescue you all the time."

Once he was sure Barney was outside, he slowly got down from the chair. "Gabriella doesn't mind rescuing me, do you?"

Gabriella folded her eyes and looked Troy up and down. She took a moment to appraise his long legs, slim hips, and muscular chest. His body was firm, his muscles pronounced; the body of a labourer. The sunlight flooded in from the window, catching the water droplets that still clung to his chiselled body, making him look as if he was made from crystal. She quirked an eyebrow. "Don't I?"

"Aw, come on, Brie. I love you," he murmured. A teasing tone laced his voice but a moment later, an icy look glazed over his eyes as if realisation had just dawned. Sure, it was meant as a joke. But the other possible implications suddenly made him feel self conscious. It wasn't like he actually did love her.

Right?

She broke the awkwardness by nudging his shoulder. "I know you do. Let's just call this my thanks for helping me the other week."

Andy rolled his eyes. "Jesus. Dad, you'll be needing a cold shower if you two don't stop flirting with each other. I have re-heated pasta to finish."

When Andy had closed the door, Troy and Gabriella burst out laughing. Troy pulled her into his arms and smiled into her hair. "Was he grumpy because of Steph or because I'm acting exactly the way he does?"

Gabriella's smile slipped slightly as she leaned back to look at him. "He's been drinking. I-" She cut off sharply and sighed. "He was drinking whiskey out there. I'm not sure what I'd have done if you hadn't screamed rather loudly and femininely when you did."

Troy frowned. "Brie, I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "It's not your fault. You didn't know. It's why I'm here, really, isn't it?"

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "Well, nothing happened, did it? And how can I possibly thank you for rescuing me?"

"You don't have to," she whispered. "I told you: this is my thank you for not running away when I needed someone."

Troy's lips curled up in a smile and a moment later, his lips were pressed against hers in a passionate kiss. His arms tightened around her, pulling her closer to his body. Her arms wrapped around his neck, clinging to him as if her life depended on it. She'd been with a fair few other guys. But she'd never been with someone who made her feel like her addiction didn't have to run her life anymore. He made her heart race, her knees buckle and, overall, made her feel like a teenager.

Gabriella pulled back when she felt something hit her feet. "You've lost your towel, haven't you?"

Troy couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah. I have." He bent down to pick it up, wrapping it back around his waist.

Gabriella rolled her eyes and patted his chest as she walked past. "Get dressed."

Before she could leave, Troy said, "What I said before, about me loving you, it was a joke."

Gabriella nodded slowly. "Don't worry, Troy. I got it."

When Troy emerged from his room in some old jeans and an old grey t-shirt, he found Andy sat on the couch drinking a bottle of beer and Gabriella in the kitchen wiping down the counters. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know she was simply preoccupying herself. He headed over to her and stood behind her. He began gently massaging her shoulders.

"You okay?" he murmured.

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, revelling in his touch. "I'm fine."

"You're still okay with this?" he asked quietly as he slowly turned her to face him.

She gave a small smile and nodded. "I'll be fine."

Troy nodded and kissed her lips. "You will be," he whispered as he took her hand and led her over to the couch. They sat quietly together, holding hands and watching the football game that Andy had put on TV.

After a few minutes of watching the sport that made Troy feel ashamed to be English, he reached for the remote and turned it off. "Andy, we need to talk."

Andy took a swig of beer and looked across at his dad. "I get it. You two are together. It's no big deal."

Troy and Gabriella glanced at each other. "I suppose we should've seen that one coming," he muttered. "It's not about that. Actually, it's mainly about Gabriella."

Gabriella could feel Troy's firmer grip on her hand. She'd never voluntarily told anyone before. The only times she had was when she had finally admitted to herself and to Alejandro that she had a problem and needed help. She honestly wasn't sure how to approach it. She'd been young once and suffered lectures by adults, warning about the effects of drugs and alcohol abuse. And at Andy's age, you honestly think you know everything and that all of the horror stories, such as hers, were just that: stories. Nothing that bad could ever happen to you, could it?

Gabriella frowned for a moment but before she could say anything, Andy was already talking again.

"Am I going to be an older brother? Because I'm really not ready for that," he exclaimed.

Gabriella smiled and shook her head. "I'm not pregnant, I promise." She sighed. "I want you to know that I'm telling you this because your dad's really worried about you."

Andy shrugged. "Okay?" he replied more as a question.

Gabriella took a deep breath. "I know what it's like to lose somebody. And I know that saying that never makes it any better. I know that when you're alone, you overanalyse things. Or, at least, I did. And I did a lot of things I've regretted now that I'm that much older." She looked directly at Andy. "Andy, I'm an alcoholic."

Andy suddenly let out a ring of laughter. "No you're not. You were drunk the other night."

She quirked an eyebrow. "And it's that easy for me to relapse." She rubbed her forehead. "I don't want to scare you. But I started the way you are right now: feeling lonely, blocking people out and drinking a few more beers than usual. And now here I am unable for me to have champagne at my wedding."

Andy stared at his beer bottle. "You're telling the truth?"

She nodded slowly. "Only a really sick person would lie about something like this." She fiddled with Troy's fingers. It was something to occupy herself with and he didn't seem to mind. "It took me a year to admit to myself and to my family that I had a problem. And I only really realised the truth when my brother burst into my flat and started yelling that he might as well buy a gun and end it for me. That's, ultimately, what I was doing. My brother looked terrified. And although I was completely plastered at the time, what he said got through to me."

Andy looked pensive as the words sunk in. "You had to be threatened by your brother to stop?"

She sighed and rubbed her eyes, reliving moments that truly scared her, down to her core. "Pretty much. I mean, I was going to die anyway. When I started getting help, I had to visit a doctor every so often. When I first saw him, he said that the way I'd been drinking, I'd either have poisoned myself to death or the damage I'd caused to my liver meant I probably wouldn't have seen my thirtieth birthday."

"And that all happened because you lost somebody?" Andy whispered.

Gabriella nodded slowly. "Yeah. I mean, my life was over. I didn't know what I could do. So I started to drink. I promise I'm not scaring you. Just...be careful. Drink is at its most powerful when you're feeling down. Take it from somebody who knows." She turned to Troy. "Can I go home, please?"

Troy kissed her temple. "Of course. Do you want to go and clean up in the bathroom?"

She gave him a small smile before she headed towards the door on the other side of the room. Troy ran a hand over his face. "You know why I asked Brie to tell you that, don't you?"

Andy placed his half bottle of beer on the coffee table. "I get it. I just don't know what to do, Dad. She actually spoke to me the other day. She's invited me over on Saturday so you and Gabi can have a date or whatever it is old people do these days."

Troy grabbed a cushion and threw it at Andy. "We are not old!" He glanced up to see Gabriella leaving the bathroom. "I'm going to walk Gabriella home."

Gabriella sighed softly as she slid her hand into Troy's back pocket. "Well, I think we got through to him somehow," she muttered.

"You got him thinking," he murmured in response, his arm locked around her shoulders. "Trust me, I can tell. Andy sometimes doesn't think I know him but I do."

She pondered that for a minute. "I hope this thing gets sorted out soon. I don't like seeing him like this."

"I'm not a big fan," Troy muttered. In the silence that followed, he felt her shiver, despite the slim denim jacket she had worn that day. He paused their walk and instinctively shrugged his rather large, thick sports jacket off. He draped it over her shoulders. He had to smile at the sight of her. His jacket drowned her. But there was something extremely endearing and almost arousing about seeing her in his jacket. "Better?" he murmured.

She nodded, snuggling into the jacket. "Much better."

They started walking again, Troy tucking her close to her body. They were mostly silent for the rest of the journey, with the only conversation being made from Troy who made the odd comment about the weather or a car or about his family. It was meaningless drivel, only said by him to fill the silence between them.

When they arrived outside her flat door, he grabbed her wrist, preventing her from unlocking her door. "Brie," he whispered.

She sighed and looked up at him. "What?"

"You're quiet," he pointed out. "Are you mad at me? Because if you are that's totally out of line. I gave you every chance to say no to me."

She leaned back against her door and tried to force a smile at him, but it came out as a rather pathetic grimace. "I know. I know you gave me the chance to say no and I appreciate it." She twisted her bandana around her wrist. "I'm not mad at you, I promise. You've done nothing wrong."

He frowned. "Then what is it? Something's wrong and I really don't like seeing you like this."

She bit her lip as she looked down at her rough, well-worn walking boots. The toes were scuffed, the souls had lost their grip ages ago, and the laces were fraying and two of the aglets were missing. She knew she'd need a new pair come the start of winter. Although Scarborough never got a lot of long-lasting snow, it was killer for frost and ice. She looked up at him and shrugged. "What do you want me to say? Troy, right now, I have my brother threatening me on repeat, reminding me exactly why I started drinking and if it wasn't for Alex, I'd be in a grave, okay? Just face that fact: if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be together. The thought that things could be so very different if it wasn't for Alex terrifies me. He saved my life and I'm scared that one day things are going to come crashing down and that all of his support and hard work will be for nothing." She shook her head and turned around to unlock her door. "I think you should go," she muttered as she slipped inside and leaned against the closed door.

It was only when she leaned her head back that she remembered that she had Troy's jacket. She could hear her own breathing coming out in deep, heavy pants, as if she'd just run a marathon. Somehow, it didn't feel like the breaths belonged to her. She didn't know why she was this worked up. Perhaps it was the fear that despite how Troy had his own complications and baggage, he'd never be able to manage hers.

A knocking from the other side of her door broke through her thoughts. "Brie, open up."

"No," she muttered, sure he'd never be able to hear her quiet voice.

Of course, his superhero powers came into place at that moment and seemed to have heard her perfectly. "Give me one good reason why not."

She paused. She really didn't have a good reason that justified blocking him out considering he knew one of her deepest, darkest secrets. She supposed it was the fact that through telling Andy, she had resurfaced the memories of why she began drinking in the first place. They were memories with such a powerful pain that her breath was knocked from her chest and her knees buckled in weakness. The cruel irony of that is that Troy could bring the exact same effects on her. Only, she liked it when he did.

It should be easy for her to explain all of this to him, especially as there was a protective door between them, preventing her from seeing his reaction. But she knew that she couldn't. She couldn't because no matter how hard Troy would want to help, no matter how hard he would want to empathise, he would never be able to do that.

Instead of being adult enough to admit she didn't have a reason why she shouldn't open the door, she resorted to being a child. "Because I don't want to."

She heard a muffled sigh. "Well, I'll stay out here until you do."

She frowned to herself as she turned around, bracing her hands against the door as she rose onto her tiptoes to look through the peephole. She saw Troy sat on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite her door. Perhaps she should've expected that. Not only did her love her, he was a father and a fucking stubborn one at that.

She slowly pulled her door open and looked down at him. He lifted his head to meet her gaze. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She paused for a moment before she stepped into the hall and sat down next to him. Upon instinct, they automatically reached for the other's hand.

"Gabriella," he whispered.

She twisted her head to look at him. "What?"

"Zeke said you push people away before they can know about your addiction. Please don't shut me out because I know," he murmured, a pleading tone lacing his voice.

Gabriella squeezed his hand and shook her head, feeling the tell-tale pricks of tears gathering in her eyes. "I don't think I can shut you out. You mean too much to me."

He gave her a small smile and tilted his head towards hers to kiss her. "I'm sorry I made you remember all of that stuff," he whispered as he pressed his lips to her temple, her cheek, her neck, any patch of skin that he could reach.

Gabriella closed her eyes, focussing all of her attention, concentration, and her senses on the way that Troy's lips felt against her already-warm skin. A very small part of her was conscious of the fact that they were sitting out in the hallway where anyone could catch them. But then she remembered that the only other people who lived on her floor were Mr Jenson, an eighty-year-old man who only left his flat for an hour at lunch to get a paper and to feed the pigeons, and Jessie, a hairdresser who usually went out for a night on the town after work and didn't return until at least 12:30AM. The only other resident of her floor was Jay, a doctor. Young, good looking, and bordering on a nymphomaniac. She knew that if he caught her in this compromising position with Troy, he'd never let her live it down.

She'd never been good with discussing anything remotely sexual. Ever since she'd endured classes of sex education, her cheeks took on an automatic blush whenever it was mentioned. She just wouldn't be able to live with Jay's inevitable jokes about her and Troy. It was this thought that made her push herself up from the floor and look down at Troy. She could tell from his eyes that he feared that she was pushing him away again. It would be easy to rebuild the wall she'd carefully crafted around her heart.

But she held her hand out for him. It was a simple action passed between people, friends, couples, spouses, on a daily basis. And to the outside world, it was probably just that: holding hands. Perhaps Gabriella had convinced herself that she was simply avoiding Jay and his sexual obsessions. But, deep down, she knew that it was a silent invitation for Troy to be in her life. To truly be in her life.

Troy got up, took her hand and was led into her flat. He vaguely heard the door being shut but he honestly didn't know. He didn't know because as soon as they were over the threshold, they were in a passionate embrace; two bodies moulding into one. His lips were massaging hers, their tongues duelling in a battle they never wanted to end. Troy's hands pulled at his jacket that was still wrapped around her until he heard the tell-tale faint thump that the jacket had fallen to the floor. He then worked on her own jacket, tugging on the sleeves until her arms were free.

Once that jacket, too, was crumpled at their feet, Gabriella gripped his neck, holding him to her as they stumbled backwards to the vague direction of the sofa. They tumbled over the arm, landing in a crumpled knot of human limbs, Troy landing on top of Gabriella. They didn't seem to mind, only letting out quiet giggles and chuckles as their mouths momentarily parted.

Troy looked down at Gabriella, allowing them both to catch their breaths. He pushed her bangs from her forehead and looked into her eyes. They were slightly red from when she'd cried earlier, but there was also something there that told him that she wasn't quite ready for them to have sex yet. He couldn't even begin to guess why. But he wasn't going to question her.

"Remember how I said I was joking earlier tonight when I said that I love you?" he murmured.

She quirked an eyebrow. "What about it?"

He leaned down to her ear. "I lied." He lifted his head to look into her eyes. "I don't know how or when it happened. I don't particularly like it considering my relationship history. But I love you, Brie."

Gabriella breathed out deeply as she stroked the hairs at the base of his neck. She'd expected a lot of words to leave Troy's mouth, but those weren't any of them. Before she could think about what she could reply with and what she shouldn't reply with, she had already said, "I love you, too."

Gabriella nodded slowly. "Do you want a fun fact about me?"

He shrugged, unsure where she was heading, but willing to go there with her. "Sure," he said.

She held his hand and looked down at the picture in her purse. "If you'd met me twelve, thirteen years ago, you'd be talking to Mrs Gabriella Lewis."

Troy frowned. "You were married," he said with realisation.