Before I start this update I just want to say, I received a review asking what I was on about when I referred to the phone call in the previous updates. I meant the one where Zoe rang up Max and his phone answered in his pocket and she heard a girl in the background then assumed he was cheating on her... hopefully I updated that chapter? (I will check...!) Sorry :)
Zoe made her way into the bedroom, sitting herself down on the edge of the bed while Max dried himself off and wrapped a towel around his waist, pulling it tight as best he could and securing it before looking at himself in the mirror. It had only been a couple of days but he looked thinner, older...perhaps it was because he hadn't slept.
He drew in a hasty breath before returning to Zoe in the bedroom. The curtains were still open and he could see the moon low in the sky across the street.
Zoe looked up at him as he entered, her jaw slack, her brain worn tired from over thinking the past few days. She looked at him, his chest bare, just the towel about his waist.
"So tell me..."
She breathed finally, exhaling as she spoke.
He stood with his back to his window, a muscular silhouette against the moonlight, his good arm limp by his side. He seemed to chew over the words in his head before eventually speaking.
"I didn't cheat on you."
He said again, echoing his words from earlier. She looked down at her hands, spinning the ring about on her finger, over and over.
"I went to a friends..."
"What friends?!"
She interrupted, her voice a quiet hiss in the moonlight.
He paused.
"You don't know her. I've known her for years..."
She arched an eyebrow, disbelief arranging itself on her face as comfortably as an old blanket.
"Who is she?"
She asked slowly, barely moving her lips as she spoke, seeming to know the answer before she'd even thought of the question.
He licked his lips, tentatively forming the words against his tongue.
"Does it matter?"
He asked quietly.
She laughed, drawing in another deep breath.
"No...of course you'd be fine if this was the other way around? Wouldn't you?"
She felt her teeth with her tongue as she paused.
"You wouldn't want to know what the hell I was doing if I disappeared off to some blokes house that you didn't know in the middle of the night..."
She tailed off, shaking her head and looking towards the headboard, her eyes grainy from tiredness.
"She's an ex...she was barely even a girlfriend. She just ,we used to..."
He stumbled over his own words and even in the dark she could see his cheeks flush with frustration.
"You just used to fuck each other?"
She asked, raising her voice slightly.
It was his time to sigh.
"That was all our relationship was. It wasn't like this..."
He scratched the top of his head, tilting his face away from her briefly.
"Did you go there to fuck her?"She asked, holding her breath without meaning to, waiting for the answer, to which he gave none, merely looked at her in the dark, his eyes glittering in the soft light from the light in the street.
"I don't know why I went there."
He said at last.
She shook her head, twisting the ring on her finger faster until the skin burned.
"Did she try to?"
She asked, wanting to ask despite knowing that she wouldn't like the reply, that it would stay with her, would haunt her.
"Yes."
He seemed to answer before he was ready, as if he was determined to tell the truth even though he hadn't fully worked it out in his own mind.
"Yes, but it didn't work. Every time I looked at her, my head filled with pictures of you. I knew her skin wouldn't feel as soft as yours. I didn't want her to touch me.. I didn't let her touch me." He said eventually. "You've ruined me for anybody else."He added, unable to see her expression as she dipped her face to the shadows.
"Why didn't you call me?"
She asked into the darkness, her voice small and cold.
"I didn't come back, or call you because I wanted to make sure that I could do what you need me to do. I promise, I'm never going to see her again. I'm never going to speak to her again. I'm never ever going to think about her again..."
"What do you think I need you to do?"
She asked, ignoring his attempts to win her over.
"To look after you...to protect you."
He scratched his head again.
"I think you need me more than you admit that you do."
He said slowly.
"You left me...in your own bed to go and find some other woman when I'd just lost your baby."
Zoe spoke so matter of factly that she seemed detached from the situation, as though she were merely narrating a story.
"I know..."
He whispered.
"And I'm sorry."
He added, his voice wobbling, knowing 'sorry' would never be enough to excuse how he had behaved.
She closed her eyes in the darkness, still her head in the shadows, feeling safer there.
"To be fair I didn't go to her to..for that...I went to her because she's the only person I know that would tell me honestly to stop being such a wanker."
Zoe refused to reply. She'd had enough of the story, the excuses, the way this all made her feel.
He moved over to the bed tentatively, lowering herself down next to her.
"I would never have slept with her. I just needed a friend. I felt as though Tess had taken over. I couldn't help, what could I do? Robyn and Tess knew what to do.. I'm just a porter I don't have any of that medical knowledge..."
"You're not just a porter."
She whispered, clenching her teeth so hard they began to throb and ache.
"I was fucking scared, Zoe."
He said eventually, the honesty of his words making her look up.
"All that blood...and I didn't know what to do..."
He felt her hand on his own, her fingers placed so gently on top of his that they were barely there at all.
"I've never told anybody I love them before."
He said finally, feeling the pressure of her hand increase.
"Do you...?"
She asked quietly, feeling his fingers gently stroke the palm of her hand.
"I wouldn't have pawned all of my guitars and things and followed you out here if I didn't."
He admitted, stifling a yawn.
"Your guitars?"
She repeated, feeling a lilt of sadness for him, remembering how proud he had been of them.
He nodded.
"All but that one."
He gestured to the guitar by the door.
"I doubt I could even give that one away."
He added, kicking his bare toes into the carpet, relieved to feel warmth against his feet instead of the slurping wet of his shoes and socks.
"Which is why I don't have any money, to pay for this."
He rubbed the sling that held his arm in place.
"I told you not to worry about that."
She said quickly, running her fingers through her hair to remove the stray fly aways that stuck to her lips.
"Your reward will be in Devon...as my Dad used to say."
He spoke slightly awkwardly, still not comfortable with her paying out so much money because he had none.
"Devon?"
She asked, not following.
"Oh, no, sorry. It's heaven isn't it? Yeah, that's right. I used to get them confused as a kid. You know, when people die, they go to Devon..."
His usual humour jarred, horribly out of place in the situation but she smiled nonetheless.
"Funny..."
She murmured, watching the moon catch in the shine of his eyes.
"Well, not really...ruined my summer holidays, I thought my whole family were dead."
He smiled that smile and her stomach lurched, a brief fluttering stirred within her.
"You're so..."
She flailed, finding it hard to locate the right word.
"charming?"
He asked as she moved her hand away from his, back to her own lap.
"Irritatingly so."
She agreed, fiddling again with the ring.
"Well you know what you do with an irritation..."
She looked at him blankly.
"You rub it. With cream."