Et Al - Part 3
Effy comes to stay with them when the wedding plans get to be too much for her.
Its not that Cassie minds having her there. Effy’s not so bad. It’s just the way that Effy watches everything that gets under Cassie’s skin, those shockingly blue eyes, so like Tony’s, never wavering as she inventories everything around her in eerie silence, that infuriating little Stonem smirk in place.
Effy is easily the most beautiful girl Cassie has ever seen. But that’s to be expected. She is so much like Tony. They have the same narrow eyes, the same curved mouths, the same dark hair. And their hearts and minds, their souls, are equally as dark, twisted in a way that Cassie can sympathize with even if she can never fully understand. The two of them, they’re a matched set.
Cassie wonders where that leaves her.
And where it leaves Freddie, who shows up on their doorstep a few days after Effy. He’s polite and apologizes for just showing up with no notice. Tony hates him immediately.
As tall as Freddie is, Tony’s taller still, and he stands when Freddie sits beside Effy on the couch, evoking all the big brother disapproval he can muster. Freddie looks appropriately nervous, Effy looks bored and lights another joint.
“Freddie seems nice, right?” Cassie remarks that night when they’re laying in bed. She rolls onto her side and throws her leg over Tony’s. He pats her thigh above the duvet. “Tony?”
His head angles to face her. One ambitious eyebrow arches high. “Ask me again when he’s not in the other room trying to feel up my little sister without me hearing.”
Cassie giggles and tucks her face into the side of his neck.
She wants to tell him not to worry, but it’s pointless. Tony may talk of free morals and unrepressed sexuality better than any philosopher he’s ever read, but when it comes to Effy, Tony will always worry. She is the mirror of him after all. It would be foolish not to fret. She learned the best of her bad habits from him. No one’s ever done it better.
“Oh wow,” she breathes between little puffs of laughter, “you’re cute like this.”
Tony snorts. “I am not cute.”
“Yes. You are,” Cassie insists. Shifting so that she’s balanced herself on her knee, she heaves her body up and straddles his legs. “You’re a very cute big brother.”
He digs his hands into her sides until she shrieks. A thump comes from the living room, which only makes her laugh harder. “Looks like we interrupted their fun.”
“Good.” Tony pulls her down by her arms. Mouths meeting in a long, lazy kiss that makes her toes curl, Tony whispers, “Let’s make our own fun.”
……
The car ride to Bristol is quiet, despite the obnoxiously loud music Tony plays the entire way. Effy sits in the back, propped against Freddie’s side, chain smoking the entire way and ignoring the barrage of phone calls and text messages that she keeps getting. Tony does a hands check in the mirror every few minutes. If Effy notices, she doesn’t let on. Freddie does though. He shifts and flushes whenever he meets Tony’s eyes in the glass.
Cassie pokes him in the thigh with his foot when Freddie clears his throat. He smirks, squeezing her calf. She closes her eyes and takes another drag of spliff.
Tony can feel his muscles tense walking up to the door to his childhood house. He hasn’t been here for more than an hour in over a year, the first Christmas after he left, and that was awkward enough with their dad coming over for an hour for dinner and then leaving. Tony hadn’t even been able to stomach staying the night. Now, knowing that there’s some other man living in his house… his fists clench, fingers drawing inward in the same unnatural way they used to after his accident. Wrapping her fingers around his wrist, Cassie forces his tight digits loose and lace hers through them, squeezing.
The air in the house is manic the second they step foot inside. His grandmother is there, clucking over a large stack of papers at the kitchen table until she sees her grandchildren. Then she turns all of her fussing to them, smothering them with kisses and proclamations over how thin they both are. And when she finally releases Effy her eyes land on Cassie, partially hidden behind Tony’s shoulder.
“And who is this then?”
“Tony’s girlfriend,” Effy states flatly, and disappears into the living room. He glares at her at over their grandmother’s shoulder. She smirks and flips him off as she disappears from sight.
He knows how this is going to go. She did the exact same thing to Michelle one year. He moves to Cassie’s side, giving her the space she’ll demand otherwise. “This is Cassie.”
She takes Cassie’s face between her hands, pursing her lips as she studies her.
Tony thinks of all the times Cassie has done this to him. Hopefully he doesn’t look quite so alarmed.
“Well now,” she pronounces, “aren’t you a pretty thing. And tiny.” She looks over at Tony. “This one looks much sweeter than that last. And she doesn’t keep yammering.”
When she releases Cassie’s face, Cassie teeters for just a second. Tony’s been on the receiving end of his grandmother’s death grip and knows how the force can offset your balance. She rights herself, spinning to him as the lists once more become the priority.
“Tony, I think we should go unpack.”
Its not very subtle. But he obliges, picking up both their bags. Cassie can’t see his face, but she knows him and must be positive that he’s smirking (which he is) for she smacks his shoulder on their way up the stairs.
The biggest shock so far comes when he opens his bedroom door. All of his furniture is still there; his desk, his shelves, his bed. Only they’re not his anymore. Everything in the room has been doused in Effy. She’s everywhere.
“Oi, you took my room.”
Effy is lounging on the bed, her head hanging off the end. She rises up to look at him in the doorway, the blood rush flushing her fair skin unnaturally. “You’re just noticing now?”
The beginning of a headache is forming in his temples. All he wants is some spliff, a good fuck, and some sleep. “Where are Cassie and I supposed to sleep?”
Rolling her eyes, Effy returns her head to her previous position and picks up her phone from the floor. “Mum turned my old room into an office for Steve. There’s a pullout sofa in there.”
Tony grabs the baggie off the desk before he slams the door.
……
The wedding itself is a quick affair. The ceremony takes place in a little church less than ten minutes from the house. Anthea is too caught up in her own happiness to pay much attention to her children or to Cassie.
Freddie crashes in Effy’s room that night. Neither the bride nor her mother notice. Tony does. And he takes every opportunity to glare at the younger boy.
Cassie still finds it cute that Tony is being so protective over Effy. With their family in tatters around them, he feels like it’s his job. But then, it’s always been Tony’s job as Tony’s the only one of them who’s ever known the real Effy.
It takes Cassie a while to figure out just what it is about Freddie that Tony dislikes so much. When it finally hits her, she questions her drug and alcohol consumption over the years. Or she probably would have figured it out sooner.
Freddie, in many ways, reminds him of Michelle.
She thinks about how he stood in their flat, so well mannered and soft spoken. Thinks about the way he moves, with an inner insecurity similar to what Michelle had tried to keep at bay, even though it would eventually surface, at the worst moments. And he looks at Effy the same way Michelle looked at Tony for so long; utterly smitten, with those big puppy eyes, like she's the entire universe condensed into one tiny body. He’s paralyzed by love, and doesn’t even know it yet.
He sits beside Effy, the very picture of respectful attention in his dark suit. Effy looks as distant and ill tempered as Tony’s been the entire day. Though Cassie suspects a lot of that is stemming from the fact that he’d had to walk his mother down the aisle.
At first, he flat out refused. But then Effy, shockingly, had talked him into it with the logic that Tony was gone, she was leaving for Leeds in a few week - what would it hurt to do this one thing to make their mother happy?
So he’d obliged, scowling the entire way.
The reception is boring. Really boring. Tony’s relatives and Steve’s friends are indifferent to the younger people sitting around sullenly. Jal has shown up, so has Michelle, and they sit on the other side of the table from Tony and Cassie with judgmental expressions on both their faces, a few of Tony’s cousins between them. Effy is holding court at the next table over, a full table of loud, raucous teenagers swilling the champagne like water.
“So.” Michelle glares daggers at Tony across the centerpiece. “You two then?”
Sid must have told her. Otherwise she would have asked sooner, instead of glaring.
“Michelle.” Jal warns.
She ignores her, crossing her arms over the front of her low cut dress. “Wasn’t it you who said that Sid and I were wrong together, Tony? How is this not wrong?”
The cousins look back and forth between the two sides of the table, back and forth, like spectators at a tennis match.
Tony smirks, leaning back in his seat with one arm resting on the back of Cassie’s chair. “Sid still loved her.”
Huffing, Michelle gets up and stalks towards the washrooms. And after glaring at Tony, Jal follows her.
“That went well,” Cassie quips, and downs her entire glass of champagne.
Tony rolls his eyes. Letting out a long breath, his head drops back and to the side, his eyes raking up the length of Cassie’s body. She can feel the difference in him without even having to look over at him and when his hand slides onto her knee she knows where this is going.
“Loo? Or shall we find a roomy cupboard somewhere?” He doesn’t even bother to drop his voice.
Something in Cassie recoils. The entire trip he’s been reverting back to his old self more and more. And she hates it.
“Why don’t you go find one and wank.” Her chair scraping the tiled floor like nails on a chalkboard, she stands and makes her way through the throng of pissed relatives to the bar.
“What can I do for you?” The bartender looks her up and down, lecherous grin forming on his broad face. Cassie forces herself not to cringe.
She sets down the empty flute she had brought from the table. “Got anything stronger?”
“Not a fan of weddings?”
“Not a fan of my boyfriend being a right proper pillock actually,” she corrects, tearing one of the endless supply of cocktail napkins into four and then eight pieces.
A voice behind her makes her jump and all the paper falls onto the floor.
“He does do that quite a bit though.”
Sid slides onto the stool beside her, looking a bit out of place in his blazer, which is the most hideous shade of orange corduroy Cassie has ever seen, and his hair every which way on his head.
Two glasses of vodka appear in front of them. Cassie empties hers in one gulp. Sid watches, then shakes his head before sipping his.
“So… some wedding, huh?”
“You were there?”
He ducks his head. “Um, no. Just, you know, saying.”
“Right.” She lifts her glass to request a refill. “Just making conversation.”
They empty their glasses in unison.
“Where is Tony?” Sid asks, the few seconds of awkward silence too much for him to handle.
Cassie rolls her shoulders, and one thin strap of her dress slips down her shoulder. Sid reaches out, pure reflex, and pulls it back up. He seems to realize what he’s done a second too late and he freezes, his palm warm and slightly sweaty on her shoulder, and his brown eyes unable to look away from hers.
“Oi.”
Sid jerks away, smacking his hand against the arm of Tony’s Uncle Walt on his other side.
It’s one of the guys from Effy’s table, the loudest of the bunch. He’s all ready hit on her once, and then on Michelle, but he’s twice as wasted as he had been so she doubts he remembers any of that.
“Fancy a dance?” he asks, eyes on her chest.
She glances at Sid, seeing an incredulous look on his face directed at the guy.
He sways closer. “Aw, don’t be like that, yeah? It’s all in good fun.”
Some blonde girl, also from Effy’s table, intercepts him just as his hand is about to fall on Cassie’s shoulder, latching on to his shirt and dragging him away, rolling her eyes when he pulls her in the direction of the dance floor instead.
Beside her, Sid cracks up. One look at his face and Cassie does the same.
……
An hour into the reception and Tony’s ready to go. Hell, he never even wanted to come at all, but had to. Now that Michelle is shooting him dirty looks across the table and some girl with long purplish hair from Effy’s table has come on to him twice, pretty overtly, not to mention Cassie sitting at the bar with Sid having a grand old time, he is officially half past the worst mood ever.
“Don’t they look cozy,” Michelle remarks, the abundance of champagne she’s had to drink making her smile more snide than he can ever remember seeing Michelle. Her eyes stay on Cassie and Sid at the bar as they sit and chat, both with tiny shy smiles on their faces.
Grunting, Tony stands up and stalks outside. He needs a cigarette.
He finds Effy standing behind the reception hall, taking long drags off a fat joint that smells too strong to be any good. Leaning against the brick wall, Tony takes it from her fingers and does a quick experimental puff. He was right. “I know you can find better shit than that.”
She raises one shoulder. “One of the guys in the band gave it to me.” Chuckling, Tony pulls out one of the clove cigarettes he’s kept around for almost two years. Effy’s nose wrinkles. “I could say the same to you, you know.”
True. But he can do without the nicotine for the time being.
He throws it down after a few seconds, grounding it with his shoe. Feeling his sister’s eyes on him, he looks at her, eyebrow quirked. “What?”
“You’re a prat, you know that?”
“Why not,” he says. He’s been called worse.
Effy stubs her joint on the wall, and puts half of it back in her purse. “Even if Sid still loves Cassie, she doesn’t love him.”
Grimacing, he slouches and turns his head away. “Anyone ever tell you that getting in people’s head shit isn’t cool?”
She smiles. “Sid.”
Of course.
“She does still love him though,” he says. “Sid. Cassie’s always going to love him. I knew that.”
“Then why bother?”
He shrugs, staring out over the darkening alleyway and the bricks glowing with the setting sun. “It wasn’t supposed to be some big thing.”
“It’s Cassie, Tony. It was never not going to be a big thing.”
She walks back into the reception, letting the door shut loudly behind her. Pulling out another clove, he exhales heavily. She’s right. Tony knows she’s right. There isn’t anything worse that Tony could have done to Sid than to take up with Cassie, whether it was for one night or the year they’ve been together. No bigger breach of trust could exist between the two of them. Not even Michelle, they’re both long over that. And having gone through that whole mess already, it just makes this that much worse.
He sits outside for a long time, until the sun is gone and the whole alleyway is obscured by the shadow of an overcast starless night. Tony thinks about Sid, about the two of them and how much he does actually love the little ponce. He loves him more than anyone else, except for Effy. And maybe Cassie. Stopping to really and truly consider what he feels for Cassie isn’t something that Tony’s done in all this time.
Honestly, it terrifies the fuck out of him.
Tony doesn’t want to fall in love. Even with Cassie. As much as he has come to care about her, it would just be trouble. Cassie’s fun, and free spirited and beautiful, and she accepts him exactly as he is. She was there before the bus; back when he was the biggest ass to ever walk, and afterwards, when he couldn’t even dress himself. She not only knows it all, she fucking saw it. He’s never going to find anyone else who knows him that way.
One night, back when they couldn’t even leave their flat because it was snowing so hard that just stepping foot outside meant having their vision completely obscured, he was struggling to write a paper. He’d never had such a hard time on an essay before, and was so frustrated that his hands had started to draw up. After slamming his computer shut, he had tossed the nearest thing he could reach at the wall and was reaching for something else since he couldn’t leave when Cassie had wandered out of the bedroom and stood in front of him, taking hold of his stiff hands and running her fingers over the backs of his palms until he relaxed.
That was the night he realized she had a sort of power over him. And he hated it. Hates it still.
They’re on a very laid out path. The two of them can go on exactly as they are and they’ll hit all the big point without thought; marriage, kids, the whole nine. No planning required. He knows it, can feel it. Why wreck things by stopping to think about it.
Looking down that road, he tries to imagine Cassie pregnant. It’s hard. Cassie has always been rail thin - she’s made sure of that. The idea of her with a massive belly… he just can’t do it.
What he can imagine though, are children. Beautiful children with dark hair and dark eyes, her nose and his lips.
His stomach lurches.
But before he can think on it anymore, the door bangs open, and a few of Effy’s friends spill out. The loud guy, Cook, who had helped Effy run away (his fists clench), is in the middle, pissed off his face, an annoyed looking blonde girl holding him up on one side, a guy with curly hair on the other.
“Oh, it’s the brother,” Cook says when he notices Tony. “Still in a strop?” He staggers a bit, and the other two sway trying to keep the collective balance.
More irritated than angry, Tony shakes his head. “You can thank my sister for that.”
Cook grins, his mouth opening. The girl slaps a hand over his mouth, muffling whatever he says. She makes a face and pulls her hand away, wiping it on the side of her dress. “Tosser.”
He smirks at her, then at Tony. “You know some specky little bloke is in there chattin’ up your girl?” Cook tries to stand straighter, sending him and the other guy crashing into the wall.
Tony levels a hard look on him. “Didn’t you try to chat her up?”
Without an ounce of remorse, he nods. “S’what I do. That why you’re out here all by your lonesome?”
“Cook.” The girl is obviously getting more annoyed by the second, a pinched look on her face. Tony wonders what this guy ever did that would warrant her helping him home drunk.
He gives her a ‘What?’ look and turns back to Tony. “Way I see it mate, I think you find someone who doesn’t make you miserable and give it a go. Somebody moves in, you fight.”
All three of their faces turn dark, and Tony knows that he’s way out of the loop because their eyes are averting from each other. Meaning it’s the same thing making them all show their years.
“All right, time to go home.” Pulling Cook by his collar, they manage to get back into their previous formation and start off down the alley. Before they disappear from sight, he hears Cook laugh manically. “Planning to take advantage of me in my fragile state, love?”
“JJ, we’re stopping by the harbor.”
……
The crowd starts thinning out, and before Cassie knows it, an hour has passed while she and Sid have sat at the bar, talking about her time in the States and his various jobs and the past. Tony never comes up, neither does Michelle. Or Chris.
Cassie thinks it may be the best conversation they’ve ever had, even with all the stuff they’re avoiding.
Over Sid’s shoulder, she watches Effy stand up from her seat, leaving Freddie mid sentence, and head in their direction. She reaches them quickly, and without a word grabs Sid’s wrist, pulling him off his seat and towards the dance floor. The band is massacring some sappy eighties ballad, and Sid tosses a confused look over at Cassie as Effy positions his hands on her waist, turning them so he’s facing away from the bar.
Tony takes Sid’s empty seat and now she gets it.
“I didn’t cheat on you,” he tells her, making her recoil a fraction. That night before my exam. We really did have a study group and one of the guys broke out some stuff to help us unwind… and then there was music… and then some girls. But nothing happened. I danced with someone, I don’t even know her.”
Her chest warms. She smiles, taking Tony’s large hand and wrapping her fingers in his. “It doesn’t matter, Tony.”
“Yes it does.”
“Why?” She sees Michelle staring at them, not even trying to hide it.
He pauses, and her stomach drops. Tony looks down and takes a deep breath. When those blue, blue eyes of his look into hers, she can see he’s actually being sincere before he even speaks. “Because you love Sid.”
Every single fiber in her heart snaps, breaking like the strings on a cheap guitar. “Not like I did.”
Tony nods, resigned. “I know, but… Sid’s my best friend, Cass. I can’t… I won’t hurt him. Not if this isn’t real. He doesn’t deserve it.”
She has to look away. Hot tears swell up behind her eyes. It’s ironic almost, that they’re doing this now, at a wedding, with Sid and Michelle and even Jal in the same room.
“I know its probably too little, too late,” Tony goes on, “but I don’t think I really got it until now. You know?”
“Yeah.” She tightens her grip on Tony’s fingers, feeling the entire life she’s built for herself slipping away. She wants to hold on to it as long as possible, but knows she can’t. Because Tony is letting go. “It’s over, isn’t it?”
“Do you think I love you?” he asks, his gorgeous face more serious than Cassie has ever, ever, seen him. The question may seem hopelessly random, but they both know better.
So she’s honest. “In your way.”
“What does that mean?”
Thinking of the night they got totally wrecked on cheap wine coolers and Tony had drawn a tiny heart on her hip with a permanent marker that hadn’t washed off for a week, her lips curve up. “I think you love me as much as you’re capable.”
Tony laughs. “That’s… harsh.”
“Do you think you love me?” Her voice quivers, just a little, at the end.
“In my way.” Pushing a swath of her hair off her neck, Tony’s finger slides down the length of the thread thin chain around her neck, stopping to wrap around the tiny heart that dangles in the hollow of her throat. So beautiful, so delicate. “I kind of figured Effy was right you know.” Shrugging noncommittally, he takes a cigarette from her pack lying on the bar, turns it over and over between his fingers. “I thought we’d get married, eventually. What do you think our life would have been like?”
Cassie doesn’t even need to think about it. “You’d finish school and get some posh job. We’d get married, our families would have big dramatic strops along the way. Then we’d buy a house and Effy would bring her boyfriends along for holidays.” She can see it all in her head, the perfect sham of perfect happiness.
Lips pursed, Tony ponders that for several seconds. “It sounds terribly boring, doesn’t it?”
“Terribly.” She grins at him so big her cheeks hurt.
“Think we’d be happy?”
Now it’s not just her cheeks that hurt. “I think… we would think we were happy.” Pulling her fingers loose, Cassie stands and gathers up her bag and wrap. “Take care of yourself, Tony.” Leaning over, she presses a soft kiss to his cheek, breathing him in one last time before turning her back.
She walks away. Past Sid and Effy, both of them looking anywhere but at her. And she doesn’t cry until she gets on the bus.
……
Not even thirty seconds pass after Cassie gets up before Michelle takes her seat.
“This musical chairs then?” he quips. Its a good metaphor for the four of them he figures.
“You’re an idiot.” Well. Tony’s always liked Michelle’s bluntness after all.
He signals for a drink. “I’m fine, thanks. And yourself?”
“Cut the sarcastic shit, Tony. We’re all a little too old for that, don’t you think?”
Tony frowns. “I know you didn’t come over here just to critique my vocabulary.”
Michelle takes the glass set in front of him and drinks the contents down. “Actually, I did.”
“In what way?”
“For starters,” she says, and a headache sets up behind his temple, “as vast as it is, the word ‘stay’ doesn’t seem to be in it.”
Oh. Of course. “This is about Cassie.”
Michelle lays her hand over his on his knee. “Tony, you love her.”
“Yeah, I do,” he tells her. Shockingly, it had taken Cook’s words, of all people, for him to finally accept that he does love Cassie. He never wanted it, but that’s the way life works. His eyes meet Michelle’s. At one time, he had loved this girl more than anything. So he tried to downplay it. And he lost her. “Does that bother you?”
Wiping away a tear, Michelle shrugs. “Cassie, out of all the girls in the world, has you in a way I never did. I’m not going to deny that it stings a bit. For obvious reasons.”
They both look at Sid, who is now sitting between Effy and Freddie at their table, looking confused. With a shake of his head, Tony stands, ready to put this evening to a close. “In case you didn’t notice it, Michelle, Cassie no longer has me. And it was her choice, don’t forget that bit.”
Michelle snorts. “Convenient.” She stands in front of him, blocking his way. “I’ve known you for a long time, Tony. I loved you for most of it.” Something in his chest aches. “And I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you looked at Cassie when you saw her with Sid tonight. You have to fight for her.”
“You can’t fight for someone who won’t fight with you.”
“If this is about Sid, don’t worry. He may not be your biggest fan right now, but he’ll get over it. He wants you both to be happy.” She places her hand on his shoulder and pushes him in the direction of the door. “Go.”
He thinks about it. He weighs his options.
Tony can stay exactly where he is. And he’ll keep his best friend, his brother, by showing him that he’s the one Tony’s choosing. He can be a better friend than he’s been in a year.
And he’ll lose Cassie. For good.
Or he can go after the first girl that he actually feels knows him… and possibly cost himself the best friend he’s ever had.
Looking over at Sid, Tony’s head begins to spin. Then he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jacket and his fingers close around a tube of lipstick that Cassie hadn’t been able to fit in her ridiculously small bag. The dizziness increases as he thinks about lying in bed with Cassie, him reading his Lit assignment of the week, one hand laying on her legs tossed across his stomach.
He doesn’t want to chose, but he will if he has to.
……
Walking slowly down the center of the train, Cassie sat in the first unoccupied aisle seat she could find, laying her stuff in the seat beside it in hopes that no one would ask to join her. Her fingers wrap tight around the heart pendant at her throat.
The look on Tony’s face when he had asked her if she thought he loved her… Cassie has known Tony for years, and not even when he was still recovering from his accident has she ever seen him look as uncertain as he did in that moment.
Leaning her head back against the seat, Cassie exhales heavily, her chest tight and aching.
Tony loves her.
Tony. Tony Stonem, he loves her.
She never thought it would happen, but now… she’s sure of it. Feels it in a way she can’t pinpoint. She doubts she would ever be able to describe the way she just knew, when Tony let her go, but she did. Cassie saw how much Tony loves her.
He just loves Sid more.
Cassie had meant it when she said she didn’t love Sid the same way anymore. She did still love him, always would, because he was the first person who looked past her illness and just wanted to be with her. He’s special to her.
Could they get back to where they were when she left…? Maybe, if they wanted it bad enough, they could get close. It could never be exactly the same. She left. She left without a word and never came back.
Until Tony.
Whom she loves so much it hurts down to her bones.
The two of them, they never had what they could have because they were never alone in their relationship. Even hidden away in Cardiff, they’ve never been completely alone. Michelle was there, Chris was there. And Sid was there, looming larger than any ghost has the right to. They never knew.
Now they never will. A tear slips out of the corner of her eye before she can stop it.
Just as they’re about to pull out, the door to the train car opens, and Tony stalks in, still in his wedding attire and a determined look on his face. He calls out her name, scanning the passengers until his eyes land on her.
He gets stopped halfway to her seat, the uniformed conductor blocking his path. “Ticket?”
Eyes darting to her, Tony tries to step around him. “I just need five minutes-”
“Ticket,” he repeats.
Shoulders slumping, Tony sighs. “I don’t have one, all right?”
The conductor attempts to back Tony out of the car. “Off you go then.”
Not only is Tony a good three or four inches taller than the conductor, he’s also at least thirty years younger. It would be no problem for him to get around the man if he really wanted to. Instead, he latches onto the seats on either side of him and manages to halt his removal.
“Look,” Tony holds up his hands. “I’m not trying to stow away or anything.” Cassie can tell he wants to laugh as he says ‘stow away’ but restrains himself. “It’s just-” Eyes flicking down, Tony licks his lips, scrubs his hand over his mouth. “You married?”
The older man stiffens visibly. “My wife passed.”
“You love her?”
Voice cold and biting, he responds, “More than anything.”
Tony’s head bobs. “And you’d give anything to have her back, right?”
“Of course.” The conductor’s voice grows softer now than its been during the entire conversation.
Pointing a finger at Cassie, Tony and the conductor (and several other nearby passengers) look at her. “See that girl?” Her heart thuds hard against her ribs when Tony’s blue eyes lock onto hers, never wavering as he speaks. “I love her. And this may be the only chance I have to keep from losing her.” He looks back at the other man. “I just need five minutes.”
He glances back over at Cassie again. “Take ten.” He walks on, speaking into the mic on his shoulder.
Going on one knee on the floor by her seat, Tony plants his hands firmly on the armrests, effectively trapping her in place. “Cass,” he looks up, seeing the woman behind her staring at them with blatant interest. He frowns, and takes Cassie’s hand to lead her away from her seat. She grabs her things in her other hand.
Tony opens the door to the lavatory and pulls her in, locking it behind them.
“How’d you know where to find me?” she asks.
He gives her that smirk of his, moving in closer. “It was leaving before the rest.”
Cassie laughs. He’s right.
Moving them so that she’s standing in front of the small sink, Tony wraps his hands around her shoulders. “Cass, I know why you left.”
She slides one hand over his, feeling the familiar warmth of his skin seeping into hers. “You were letting go.”
“But I’m not anymore.” They’re already so close, but he takes a further step until she has to tilt her head all the way back to look up at him. “I didn’t think that you and me and Sid…” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I told him I was coming to get you. That I love you. And that I wasn’t going to let him go either.”
It’s hard to speak with her heart in her throat, and her words come out heavy and grating. “What did he say?”
A small smile tugs at the edges of Tony’s mouth. “He said okay.”
Laughing, Cassie lets her head fall land Tony’s chest. She can feel the rapid pulsating of his heart against her skin. Feeling his fingertips digging, she knows that he’s fighting the inevitable muscle contractions that hit him when things start to go out of control. Holding her breath, she waits.
“It doesn’t matter if you love Sid,” Tony whispers. “I don’t want this to be over.”
Locking her arms around his waist, Cassie burrows into him, breathing in that Tony scent that makes everything seem better. “I love you.”
The muscles in his back stiffen, so she holds on tighter. She wants him to believe her.
She needs him to believe her.
“I’m always going to love Sid,” Tony’s breathing accelerates, “just like you’re always going to love Michelle.” She raises her head up to look into those eyes. “It’s over for me. I love you.”
Shuddering out a harsh breath, Tony grips her arms and pulls her up on her toes, pressing her close with one hand on the small of her back. She leans her forehead against his, and he shuts his eyes, leaning into her embrace. Cassie strokes the curves of his ears, runs her nails through the short hairs at the back of his neck, mapping him out with her fingers.
One large, somewhat rough hand slides against her skin between the straps of her dress, grasping and clutching in a way that makes him seem unlike himself. Her body trembles against his in anticipation.
“Where’s this train going anyways?” he mumbles.
“Gooleness,” Cassie answers, fingers working on the buttons of his shirt, “I think.”
Hands pulling her face up to his, Tony smirks against her mouth. “Fancying a bit of sea air?”
She presses her lips against his, once, twice. Giggles as he takes hold of her waist and lifts her up onto the edge of the tiny sink. Tony stands between her knees, chest pressed to hers, and peels the straps of her dress down her shoulders. She tries to push his jacket off at the same time, and they get tangled when their elbows knock together. Tony rolls his eyes and laughs, stepping back to pull his arms free of his blazer and his shirt. Grinning at her in that way that makes her whole body catch fire, he steps back into her, arms once more working at getting her out of her dress.
A loud knock on the door cuts the moment. “Sir,” a voice calls, “I’m sorry, but your ten minutes are up.”
Tony pulls his wallet out and grabs a few notes. He opens the door just enough for his arm to fit through. “This should cover it, yeah?” he says, sliding the door shut again and locking it.
Cassie’s laughing so hard when he kisses her that she loses her breath and he has to pull away until she stops.
“Oh wow,” she gasps. “You’re an ass, you know that?”
Tony grins. “Yeah, I know.” His lips fall on hers, soft, and linger for a few seconds. “And you’re my girl, you know that, right?”
She nods. “I know.”
……
fin.
The book Cassie’s reading in the motel is The Waves by Virginia Woolfe. Amazing, go read it.