Spiralling Skywards: Falling (Contradictions #1)

“Then who? Luke has gone into the UK offices to run things while the others are in the air . . .”

“Pffftt,” she waved her hand in the air, “I’ve given up on your brother ever noticing me.”

“Oh my god! Shain? You’re talking about Shain. I saw you two chatting a few times yesterday.”

She finally opened both her eyes and smiled at me.

“You know when I mentioned yesterday that I hadn’t had sex for three months?”

“Wait! What? You had sex with Shain yesterday? On my wedding day? Or do you mean three months ago. Shain left about then didn’t he?”

“Yes, yes, and yes.”

“To which? What bit? Start making sense, Sash.”

“Yes, I had sex with Shain three months ago before he left. Yes, I had sex with Shain yesterday. Yes, it was at . . . during or whatever, your wedding. At least one of us got lucky, hey?”

My mouth hung open in shock.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had sex with him three months ago?”

Sasha sat up and leaned back against the wrought iron headboard. She attempted to blow her hair from her face, but it just landed back over her eyes.

“He was going back to Aus. We weren’t sure how we felt about each other, so I just didn’t mention it. I felt a bit whorey to be honest.”

“Why?”

“Because we didn’t really date.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and shrugged her shoulders. “There was a lot of flirting every time we were together, and then he told me he liked me but that he’d stayed away because he thought there was something going on between me and Luke.”

She rolled her eyes at the mention of my brother. We all thought there was something going on between her and Luke. I didn’t understand it. He couldn’t take his eyes off her whenever she was around, but never, not once as far as I knew, had anything ever happened between them.

“Anyway, that night at K. L. U. B, he said that he’d seen Luke kissing Mel, and finally grew some and asked me to dance.”

“Luke kissed Mel?”

Her shoulders rose up to her ears and stayed there a while.

“He reckoned that was what he saw, they were over by the cloakroom, and he was coming back from the toilet when he said he saw them. Anyway, that was when I decided I couldn’t keep waiting for him, Sares. My heart broke every time he ignored me, and I deserve better than that.”

“Oh, Sash. I honestly don’t know what his problem is. It’s obvious he has feelings for you by the way he watches your every move, but I’ve no clue why he’s never acted on it.”

I was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness at my brother’s behaviour. Lack of sleep, lack of a honeymoon, and lack of a husband were all starting to hit me hard.

“I don’t know the answer either, but I decided that night that when Shain asked me to dance I wasn’t going to wait for Luke to decide what he wanted. I had a hot Aussie standing in front of me, and I made up my mind to go for it.”

“And that was what led to you having sex with him?”

“Basically, yeah.” I moved around the bed and sat cross-legged in front of her. “We danced. We chatted, and I finally gave him a chance and actually listened to what he had to say. I shut out the voice that had been telling me for years that Luke would finally open his eyes and notice me and allowed myself to hear Shain.”

“And that’s what led to sex?”

“For fuck’s sake, Sarah, yes. All of it. Everything combined, including the vast amount of alcohol we’d consumed that night, it led to sex.”

“Don’t shout. I just wanna live vicariously through you. This is the bride who had to take off her own wedding dress right here. The bride that didn’t get to have sex on her wedding night.” I stabbed my index finger into my own chest. “This is the bride who didn’t get to sleep with her husband on their first night as man and wife and doesn’t even know when she’s likely to see her husband again. So, yes, I very much do want to hear all about the sex you and Shain have been having.”

“Wellllll . . .” She dragged the word out. “You might wanna hear about the first and second time, but I don’t think you’re gonna wanna hear about the third.”

“Why?”

Her eyes roamed around the room and then over my bed before landing in my lap and creeping their way up my chest to meet mine.

“Seriously? You have got to be fucking kidding me. You had sex on my bed? On my wedding day? When I got nothing, nada, nix? Not even a boob squeeze or a finger in my knickers. Nothing. I got nothing!”

I watched Sasha’s lips twitch as she tried not to laugh and then threw myself back on the bed in frustration.

“Stop being a little bitch. You’ve been getting plenty for months.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Why isn’t it?”

I pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked at her. “Plenty for months but nothing on my wedding day/night/morning after, is why it isn’t.”

She chewed on the inside of her lip.