On Dublin Street

~17~


With a lot of sex and laughter that weekend, Braden and I closed the breach between us. I worked, Braden worked, and then on Sunday, Elodie and Clark took the kids to St. Andrews for the day so Ellie, Braden and I hung out with Adam, Jenna and Ed. It was the first time Braden and I were out in a social situation with other people since starting our arrangement. I knew as soon as we walked into Ed’s favorite pub on the Royal Mile for lunch that everyone was now aware of our arrangement. Jenna stared at us like we were a science experiment and Ed had this stupid little boy grin on his face. Adam actually winked at me. I swear to God I would have fled the premises if Braden hadn’t anticipated it and grasped my arm to pull me forward. Once they realized nothing had really changed – we weren’t a couple, there was no handholding or fondling, and our chairs were, in fact, pretty far apart – the guys just acted like normal. We had a great lunch, a few beers, and then hit the movies together. Braden did take the seat next to me in the theatre and okay… there may have been fondling in the dark.


We didn’t see each other on Monday, so I actually managed to write another chapter of my book and squeeze in a visit with Dr. Pritchard. That was fun. Tuesday, Braden took his lunch break in my bed. Wednesday he got caught up with work so I didn’t see him at all. I spent the night with Ellie, enduring a teen romance that actually made my teeth hurt it was so sweet. I insisted next movie night we watch something or someone get maimed by an action star or put on a Gene Kelly movie.


“You’re such a boy.” Ellie wrinkled her nose as she chewed on chocolate buttons.


I glanced away from the sickly sweet romance to look at her across the room. She was sprawled over the couch, covered in chocolate wrappers. How did she not put on weight? “Because I hate cheesy romance?”


“No. Because you’d rather watch someone get pummeled than declare their love.”


“True.”


“Boy.”


I made a face. “I think Braden would disagree.”


“Ugh. That was mean.”


I grinned wickedly. “You called me a dude.”


She turned her head on a cushion to look back at me. “Speaking of… Not that I wanted to notice – I can’t help my exceptional observational skills – but you seem to be doing whatever you guys are doing on Braden’s schedule? You okay with that?”


It wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed that myself. But seriously, how could I argue with it? I ‘worked’ from home, and Braden worked all the time. When I did work, it was on two of the only nights Braden was free. “He’s a busy guy. I get that.”


Ellie nodded. “A lot of his girlfriends resented it.”


“I resent being called his girlfriend,” I warned her teasingly.


“I never called you his girlfriend. I just meant… actually, you know what, I don’t know what I meant because you two boggle my mind.”


I could tell she was getting ready to work her overly romantic self into a conniption over me and Braden, so I quickly changed the subject. “You haven’t said much about Adam lately.”


My roommate’s face fell and I wished I’d picked another subject to change my subject from. “We’ve barely spoken since that Sunday at Mum’s. I think he realized he was sending mixed signals so he’s just completely backed off.”


“I didn’t notice anything weird between you last Sunday when we were hanging out.”


“That’s because you were in Braden Land.”


I guffawed. “Yeah, okay.”


Ellie shook her head. “Delusional numpty.”


That was a new one. I couldn’t remember Rhian or James ever calling me that. “Did you just call me a numpty?”


“Yup. A delusional one.”


“What, may I ask, is a numpty?”


“A person demonstrating a lack of knowledge of a situation; a silly person; an idiot; a dumbass. A delusional numpty: Joss Butler’s stupid, idiotic, blind misconception of the true nature of her relationship with my brother, Braden Carmichael.” She glowered at me, but it was an Ellie glower so it didn’t really count.


I nodded my head. “Numpty. Good word.”


She threw a cushion at me.


***


When Thursday rolled around and I got a text from Braden to tell me he couldn’t make it that night, I have to admit to a teensy little bit of disappointment. I couldn’t admit to being hugely disappointed because I’d stuffed that emotion under my steel trap door. He was in the final stages of closing a deal on the development he’d been working on this summer so I understood. It didn’t mean it didn’t suck.


I dug deep and wrote the entire day away, amazed and gratified that I’d managed to write a few more chapters without having to open up the memories that were sure to send me back into the bathroom with a panic attack. Although, admittedly, I hadn’t had one of those since the epic attack last Friday.


Thursday night with no Braden to keep me busy, I let Denzel ease my pain with a Denzel Washington marathon. Ellie gave up two movies in and went to her bed. A few hours later I was out.


I woke up as I felt the world drop beneath me. “What?” I mumbled, my eyes trying to adjust to the dim light.


“Shh, babe,” Braden’s low voice rumbled above me, and I realized I was in his arms. “I’m putting you to bed.”


I sleepily wrapped my arms around his neck as he carried me towards my bedroom. “What are doing here?”


“Missed you.”


“Mmm,” I mumbled, burying deeper into him. “Missed you too.”


A second later I was out.


***


One minute I was dreaming the world was flooding, the water rising inside our apartment with no way out, my panic growing deeper and deeper as the water crept up towards the ceiling, leaving me waiting on imminent death, when a bolt of lust shot between my legs and I looked down to see a gorgeous merman’s head there. The water drained away in an instant and I was flat on my back with the faceless merman who was now just man and he was licking away at me with gusto.


“Oh God,” I breathed, sensation ripping through me and pulling me with it into consciousness.


My eyes flew open. I was in my bed. It was morning.


And Braden’s head was between my legs.


“Braden,” I murmured, relaxing against the mattress, my hands sliding into his soft hair. He had the most magical tongue.


My hips jerked as he sucked at my *, his tongue circling it, his fingers sliding inside me. I lost control of my breathing, my heart pounding in my ears, and I was coming around his mouth in seconds.


Talk about a wake-up call.


My muscles sunk into the bed as Braden crawled up my body, his eyes smiling down at me as he braced himself above me. I could feel his hard on rub against my wet center. “Morning, babe.”


I caressed his waist, scoring my nails lightly across his skin in a way I knew he liked. “Morning to you, too. And what a happy morning it is.”


He laughed at my goofy grin and fell off me to lie at my side. I turned to check the clock but my eyes caught on the object on my desk. I bolted upright, staring at it, wondering if I was actually seeing right. I felt Braden at my back and his chin came down on my shoulder.


“Do you like it?”


A typewriter. A shiny, black, old-fashioned typewriter sat on my desk beside my laptop. It was beautiful. It was just like the one my mom had promised to buy me. Just like the one I’d told Braden my mom had promised to buy me. The one she didn’t buy me because she’d died before she could.


This was an amazing gift. A thoughtful, beautiful gift. And it was more than sex.


I felt the pressure on my chest before I could do anything to stop it, my brain fogging up like it too was too full. The tingles exploded across my skin as my heart galloped out of control.


“Jocelyn,” Braden’s worried voice penetrated the fog, and I reached for his hand to reassure him. “Breathe,” he murmured in my ear, his hand squeezing mine, his other on my hip, holding me into him.


I breathed in and out in rhythm, taking back control, letting my lungs open, my heart rate slow, my brain unfog itself. Exhausted, I leaned back into Braden’s chest.


After a minute or two, Braden spoke, “I know you don’t want to talk about why you’re taking these panic attacks, but… do they happen a lot?”


“Sometimes. More lately.”


He sighed and my body moved as his chest moved. “Maybe you should talk to someone about them?”


I pulled away from him, unable to look at him. “I already am.”


“You are?”


I nodded, hiding behind my hair. “A therapist.”


His voice was quiet. “You’re seeing a therapist?”


“Yeah.”


My hair was brushed back behind my ear, his fingers gliding along my jaw to turn my face to his. His eyes were kind, concerned. Understanding. “Good. I’m glad you’re talking to someone at least.”


You’re beautiful. “Thank you for my typewriter. It’s beautiful.”


Braden gave me an uneasy smile. “I didn’t mean to cause a panic attack.”


I kissed him quickly, reassuringly. “That’s my bullshit, don’t worry about it. I love it. It was really thoughtful.” And more. To push out the ‘more’, I grinned devilishly, my hand sliding down his stomach to grasp his cock. It hardened instantly. “I can’t accept it, however, without giving a gift in return.”


Just as my head descended Braden stopped me, grasping me by the upper arms to pull me back up. I frowned. I knew he wanted it. He was throbbing in my grip for it. “What?”


His expression had changed so quickly, his eyes dark, his features granite. “You go down on me because you want to, not because of the typewriter. It was just a gift, Jocelyn. Don’t go f*cking it up in your head and twisting it into something else.”


I let this sink in and finally I nodded. “Okay.” I squeezed him a little harder and his nostrils flared. “Then I’m going down on you in return for you going down on me.”


Slowly, he let me go and rested back on his elbows. “That I can work with.”


***


“The book is coming along then?” Dr. Pritchard asked, seeming pleased.


I nodded. “I’m getting there.”


“And the panic attacks?”


“I’ve had a few.”


“When did those occur?”


I told her and when I finished she lifted her gaze and there was something in it I didn’t understand. “You told Braden you were seeing me?”


Oh hell, was that the wrong thing to do? It had just slipped out. I don’t know why… “Yeah, I did.” I pretended like I didn’t care.


“I think that’s good.”


Wait. What? “You do?”


“I do.”


“Why?”


“Why do you think I do?”


I made a face. “Next question.”


***


I saw Braden nearly every day after that morning. We spent the next week hanging out. Ellie, Braden, Jenna and Adam, and some girl Adam had brought along as a date, stopped by the bar on Saturday night before dragging Braden to a nightclub. He seriously hated clubbing which had brought me to ask him the question ‘why he owned a nightclub?’ His reply was that it was good business. When he was being dragged out of the bar for the nightclub, I gave him a sympathetic smile. I was not at all surprised to find that he’d escaped the club to come pick me up. Sunday was dinner at Elodie’s and Clark’s, which consisted of Declan and Hannah bickering, Clark ignoring said bickering, and Elodie making the bickering worse. Ellie, in an effort to forget Adam’s date last night, was complaining constantly that she didn’t think the lenses in her glasses were right, and no one noticed anything different about me and Braden. Thank God. Elodie’s head would explode if she knew what was going on between us.


Monday night, Braden came over after he’d gone to the gym—we had memberships at different gyms for which I was thankful. I needed to focus when I was exercising—we’d hung out with Ellie, and Braden had stayed the night. Tuesday night I went on my first official required business dinner. A real one this time. What I hadn’t known was that Braden was selling his French restaurant and keeping the contemporary, upmarket Scottish seafood restaurant he owned down by the Shore. It was a private sale to a business friend. A private sale, but the local media had still found out and wrote a piece on the established La Cour changing hands, and speculating over the reason for Braden selling it.


“It’s too much,” Braden had explained after asking me to accompany him to the dinner, which was really just a celebratory thing between him and the guy who’d bought it. “The nightclub has become a much bigger success than I was expecting, the estate agency is always pulling me into some problem or another and away from the property development which is what I enjoy, and I’m just spread too thin. La Cour was my dad’s. There’s not anything about it that has my stamp on it. So I sold it.”


We met Thomas Prendergast and his wife Julie at Tigerlily. I wore a new dress and tried to be as charming as possible. Well, charming in the only way I know how. Thomas was older than Braden and much more serious, but he was friendly and clearly respected Braden. Julie was like her husband, sedate, quiet, but friendly. Friendly enough to ask personal questions. Personal questions Braden helped me deflect.


I rewarded him well for that later.


Overall, the dinner was nice. Braden seemed more relaxed now that he didn’t have La Cour resting on his shoulders, and for some reason I found that him being relaxed made me relaxed. We hung out at his apartment Wednesday night, mostly because we had to be quiet at my apartment, and that took some of the fun out of the sex. So we had sex loudly on the couch, on the floor and in his bed.


Replete, I lay in the tangled sheets of his bed, staring at his ceiling. His bedroom was as contemporary as the rest of the duplex. Low, Japanese bed, wardrobes built into the walls so they didn’t take up space. An armchair in the corner by the window. Two bedside cabinets. Nothing else. He needed some pictures at least.


“Why don’t you talk about your family?”


My whole body tensed, the breath whooshing out of me at the question I was completely unprepared for. My head twisted on my pillow to stare at him incredulously. He wasn’t looking at me warily, like he was waiting on me freaking out. He just looked determined. I sucked in my breath and looked away. “I just don’t.”


“That’s not really an answer, babe.”


I threw up my hands. “They’re gone. There’s nothing to talk about.”


“Not true. You could talk about who they were as people. What you were like as a family. How they died…”


I struggled for a moment with my anger, trying to hold it in. He wasn’t meaning to be cruel, I knew that. He was curious, he wanted to know. It wasn’t unreasonable. But I thought we understood each other. I thought he understood me.


And then I realized that he couldn’t possibly understand. “Braden, I know your life hasn’t been easy, but you can’t possibly understand how messed up my past is. It’s shit. And that’s not a place I want to take you.”


He sat up, pushing his pillow up against the headboard and I twisted onto my side to look up at him as he looked down at me, a pain in his eyes I had never seen before. “I understand messed up, Jocelyn. Believe me.”


I waited, sensing more on the horizon.


And he sighed, his eyes drifting over me to look out the window. “My mum is the most selfish woman I’ve ever known. And I don’t even know her that well. I was forced to stay with her during the summer holidays, travelling around Europe, living off of whatever sad f*ck she’d managed to manipulate into being with her. During the school year, I lived with my dad in Edinburgh. Douglas Carmichael could be a harsh, distant bastard, but he was a bastard who loved me, and that was more than my mother ever did. And dad gave me Ellie and Elodie. Elodie was the one thing I had issues with my father over. She’s a sweet person, a good woman, and he never should have chased after her and treated her like all the others. But he did. At least she ended up with Clark and Ellie ended up with a brother who will do anything for her. My dad was neglectfully affectionate with Ellie, nothing more. With me he put on the pressure. And I was an a*shole kid who rebelled against following in daddy’s footsteps.” He huffed at himself, shaking his head. “If we could only go back and knock some sense into those kids we once were.”


If only.


“I started hanging around the wrong people, smoking pot, getting drunk, and getting into a lot of fights. I was angry. Angry at everything. And I liked to use my fists to get rid of that anger. I was nineteen and dating a girl from a rough area here. Her mum was in prison, her dad gone, and her brother was a junkie. Nice girl, bad home life. One night she turned up at my door and she was just a hysterical mess.” His eyes glazed over as he remembered, and I knew instinctively that what he was about to say next was going to be beyond awful. “She was crying, shaking, and she had vomit in her hair. She’d gotten home that night and her brother was so off his face on smack that he raped her.”


“Oh my God,” I breathed, feeling physical pain for the girl I had never met, and for Braden for having had that happen to someone he cared about.


“I lost it. I didn’t give myself time to think. I tore off, running the whole f*cking way to his place on adrenaline alone.” He stopped, his jaw clenched tight. “Jocelyn, I beat him within an inch of his life.” He looked down at me, his expression remorseful. “I’m a big man,” he whispered. “I was, even as a teenager. I didn’t realize my own strength.”


I couldn’t believe he was telling me this. I couldn’t believe this had happened to him. Braden, who I thought lived in a world of elegant dinners and fancy apartments. Apparently, he’d been in another world for a little while. “What happened?”


“I left, made an anonymous call for an ambulance, and told her what I’d done. She didn’t blame me. In fact when the police found him, we covered for each other. Her brother was a well-known junkie, there were no witnesses, and they just assumed it was drug-related. He was in a coma for a few days. The worst bloody days of my life. When he woke up, he told the police he couldn’t remember who’d attacked him, but when I walked in with his sister she told him what he did.” Braden’s voice hitched a little. “He started to cry. It was probably the most pitiful sight I’ve ever seen, him crying and her just staring at him with hatred in her eyes. She left. He promised me he wouldn’t tell the truth about what had happened. He said he’d deserved it, that I should have killed him. There was nothing I could do for either of them. I never saw him again. My relationship with her fell apart when she turned to drugs to deal with what happened, refusing my help. Last word I heard a few years back was that she’d OD’d.”


I pulled myself up beside him, my whole body aching for him. “Braden… I’m sorry.”


He nodded and turned his head to gaze at me. “I’ve never been in a fight since. Lifted my hands to no one. My dad and I buried a lot of shit after that. He was the only other person who knew the truth, and he helped me turn everything around. I owe him.”


“I think we all do.” I smiled sadly, brushing my fingers along his jaw as it sunk in that he’d trusted me with this.


Me.


Oh God.


Did I owe him somehow? Or wasn’t it like that? He’d trusted me because he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone, he knew I wouldn’t judge him.


It occurred to me sitting beside him—feeling pain for him—that I knew he would never tell anyone anything I shared with him. He would never judge me. I heaved a sigh and dropped my hand, my stomach twisting as I fought with myself. “Dru,” her name just fell out of my lips before I could even think about it.


Braden’s body tensed with alertness. “Dru?”


I nodded, my eyes on his stomach rather than his face. Blood rushed in my ears and I clutched the sheets to stop my fingers from trembling. “She was my best friend. We grew up together and when my family died, she was all I had left. There was no one else.” I swallowed hard on the memories. “I was a mess after… wild. I dragged Dru to parties we were too young to be at, did things we were too young to do. It was a little over a year after… and there was this kegger down at the river. I was on this path of picking guys off, some to just make-out with or if I was drunk enough, then other stuff, and Dru was trying to get up the confidence to ask Kyle Ramsey out.” I huffed humorlessly. “Kyle used to drive me crazy. He was always bugging me, but after… well, other than Dru he was the only person I sat down and talked to about everything. He was really a good kid. And I liked him,” I confessed softly. “I really liked him. But Dru had had a crush on him forever, and I was no longer the girl he used to have a crush on. She didn’t want to go that night. But I convinced her that Kyle would be there and I forced her to come along.


It was about halfway through the party and I thought Dru was off talking to Kyle while I was flirting with the captain of the football team, but Kyle was suddenly there with me, asking to speak with me. We walked off for some privacy and he started to say all these things. How I was better than what I was doing with all those guys. How my parents would be so upset if they could see me like that.” I took a shuddering breath on that confession. “And he told me that he cared about me. That he thought he could really love me. I didn’t think. I just let him kiss me, and before I knew it we were getting pretty hot and heavy. He stopped before it went too far and told me I didn’t have to sleep with him to keep his interest. That he wanted me to be his girlfriend. And I told him that I couldn’t be, that Dru was crazy about him, and I couldn’t do that to her. We talked in circles for a little while until I decided I needed to get drunk or something to get away from all the teen drama, but when I went out into the main party one of Dru’s friends told me I was a backstabbing slut. And I realized that Dru had found out about my make-out with Kyle.”


I closed my eyes, seeing the image of her standing by the rope swing, the hatred in her eyes so intense. “I found her further down the river, drunk off her ass. She was trying to get onto this old rope swing that swung you out into the water, but it was frayed and unused and the current that night was bad. I begged her to come back to the party and talk to me, but she just kept shouting that I was a traitor and a whore. ” I looked up at Braden now to find his sad eyes on me. “She swung out on the rope before I could stop her and it snapped. She screamed for my help as the current took her and I didn’t think—I just shot into the water after her. But Kyle had been behind us and he came in after me and was a far stronger swimmer. Rather than let me get to her, he tugged me back to the rocks. Dru’s body washed up down the river. She was gone. And I never spoke to Kyle again.”


“Baby,” Braden murmured, reaching for me but I held my hand up to warn him off, shaking my head, my eyes furious.


“I killed her, Braden. I don’t deserve sympathy.”


He looked shocked now. “Jocelyn, you did not kill her. It was a tragic accident.”


“It was a series of events caused by my actions. I’m to blame.” He opened his mouth to talk and I placed a gentle hand over his lips. “I know it’s not rational. I do know that. But I don’t know if I’ll ever get to a point where I don’t blame myself. However, I’m trying to live with it. Telling you is huge. Believe me.”


Braden hauled me across the bed and into his arms, his hand at the nape of my neck. “Thank you for trusting me.”


I cupped his cheek in my hand and sighed wearily. “I think we need to have sex now.”


His brows drew together. “Why?”


“To remind us of what we’re doing here,” I replied, my tone meaningful.


Braden’s eyes narrowed. “No,” he told me gruffly, squeezing my nape. “I’d have sex with you for anything else but that.”


Surprised, I found for once I had no reply, and Braden didn’t wait on one. He pressed a hard kiss to my mouth and then slid down the bed, pulling me with him. He tucked me into his side and leaned over to switch off the light. “Go to sleep, babe.”


Shell-shocked at the night’s events, I lay there listening to him breathe before exhaustion finally claimed me.


***


“How do you feel now that you’ve told Braden about Dru?”


My gaze slid from the post-graduate degree framed on Dr. Pritchard’s wall to her face. “I feel scared, but relieved at the same time.”


“Scared because you told someone other than me?”


“Yes.”


“And relieved…?”


I shifted in my seat. “I’m perfectly aware that I keep things from people and I know that it isn’t brave, but it’s how I handle things. When I told Braden, the world didn’t end. I felt brave for once. And that was kind of a relief.”