Finally Heaven (Room 103 Book 4) (25 page)

MY WHOLE BODY shook as I focussed on the outline of him through the frosted glass of the door, the porch light illuminating his shape.

“Let me in Zoe. Now!” His fist pounded the wood again. I dropped my forehead to the door. He was so close. I needed him like never before but I still couldn’t forgive him. He’d hurt me so much and I didn’t know which way was up, left, right or down at that moment, my hormones and thoughts confusing the hell out of me.

“Baby.” His voice was quiet through the door, but I heard his pain, his grief and sorrow. The silhouette of his hand pressed against the glass, the outline of his fingers overlaying my own when I placed mine over the top.

“Let me in, Zoe, please.” He dropped his forehead to mirror mine, his breath misting the window with condensation. “I’m… I’m not doing so well. I need you. I need you, Ink, like never before.”

“Daniel…”

“It hurts, baby. It hurts so fucking much. I don’t know what to do to make it stop. It’s tearing me in two. The pain... Fuck, I’ve never...”

His body slid down the door, his sobs as black as his shadow, the sound of his heartache ripping my soul from me.

“I…”

“I’m so sorry, Ink. I… fuck, I know I should have told you. But Ann, my… my wife… Christ, Zoe, let me in, I can’t do this here, your fucking neighbour, the one with the dodgy eye is watching me through the curtain… although, he may actually be looking at the guy across the road with the dog, I’m not quite sure, but I definitely think he’s…”

He stared at me when I opened the door. He was on his knees, looking up at me with tears streaming down his face. He gave a small gasp, his face scrunching up and shuffled forwards, his knees scraping on the floor until he was clutching my legs. His arms wrapped around my thighs tightly, his fingers grabbing for me as he sunk his face into my stomach and cried.

The sound of him breaking had me falling to my knees with him, my own embrace as tight and needy as his.

“Fuck, baby. I don’t know how to stop the pain, it’s crippling me. This agony inside… it’s unreal, I feel like he took me with him. Why are they doing this? Why? What the fuck did I ever do wrong for God to hate me this much?”

I pulled him back, moving us further into the hallway when Bob across the road peered from behind his curtain watching us. Kicking the door closed with my foot, I sank my fingers into his hair and held onto him, both of us using each other as a crutch and letting it go.

“Daniel, I…”

Ignoring me, he clambered onto my lap, holding onto me harder as though I was the air his lungs needed to work, or the food that fed his life force. But I was neither.

“I love you, Ink, so fucking much. And I’m scared. I’m terrified they’ll get to you too, you and Jakob…”

“Shush, they won’t…”

He looked up at me. The sight of him so damaged had all my resilience shattering with the need to make it all alright for him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t give him what he needed because I wasn’t God, I couldn’t bring Nick back, just as much as I couldn’t mend the fragmented pieces of him.

“I don’t know what I’d do if…” He swallowed the rest of the sentence, the pain of his graphic imagination strangling him.

“They won’t hurt me, Daniel.” I palmed his face, holding him and making him see me. “I promise. I won’t let them.”

He nodded frantically, his own hands mimicking mine as he embraced my face. His fingers dug into my skin, his hold painful but I went with it, I knew he needed to feel me, properly
feel
me, just to make sure I was alive and physically there. “Why Zoe, why Nick? I…”

“I know, baby,” I whispered when he struggled to say the words. “I know, you cared for him.”

He nodded, his gaze on me pleading to fix things, fix him. He was like a child, a small lost boy that didn’t know which direction to face to see the sun again.

“You can’t leave me Zoe, you can’t. I’m bleeding, I’m drowning in it. You can’t go…”

“Daniel…”

“NO!” He grew angry, his grip tightening further. His anguish was fervent and enraging, his eyes burning into mine. He slid his hands into my hair, twisting my waves around his fist and yanked my face to his until our noses clashed and my forehead cracked against his. “Please! I love you, I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

His sobs were torturous, his suffering so strong that I didn’t know what to do with him. The pain on my scalp was unbearable as his grasp tightened further and I gently covered his fingers with my own. “Daniel, listen to me.” I kept my voice soft and tender, hoping to soothe him but he screwed his eyes closed and shook his head.

“No! I don’t want to hear you say it.” He stood up, dragging me with him when he took my hand in his and pulled me into the lounge, plonking me down quite sternly on the sofa. “You’re going to listen to me now. You and the guys have made up your minds about me, but none of you have given me a chance.”

“It’s not…”

“Listen, baby. Please.”

I sighed, relenting when I witnessed the utter need in him and nodded. “Okay.” He wouldn’t let me do anything else and there was no point in arguing, so settling back into the sofa, I curled up my legs and listened.

I NEEDED TO touch her. Just the simplicity of her skin under mine calmed me, so sitting beside her I took her feet and lifted them onto my lap. She frowned, pulling at them to draw them back but I clamped her ankle in my hand and scowled at her.

“Just give me this, Ink.”

Her eyes softened and she smiled faintly, rolling her eyes. “Sorry.”

I nodded firmly and took a deep breath. “I met Ann at school. She was fun and I loved her. Things progressed and we settled into a serious relationship.”

I moved my gaze away from her when my mind took me back and I smiled. “She was pretty, blonde hair and blue eyes like you. But it was her sense of adventure that I fell for. My parents loved her, which was a surprise because I could never do anything right.” I shook my head when something clicked into place. “I think maybe they saw her as a way out for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have any drink in?” I asked her when my mouth dried. She nodded and I moved off the sofa and helped myself. After being with someone for so long, their house became yours and vice versa.

I handed her her own. “Where’s Jakob?”

“He’s with Adam.”

My eyes widened and I grumbled. “After what he did?”

“He’s still Jakob’s father Daniel, no matter how much of an idiot he is.”

How the fuck could she stick up for him? “He’s an arsehole. He hit you for Christ’s sake!”

She nodded but didn’t seem concerned. “Yes, and he won’t do it again. If he does, then he’s aware of the consequences.”

“Oh that’s all right then, so long as he’s aware of the consequences!” Bloody hell!

She frowned at me, tipping her head and studying me. “Why are you angry with Adam?”

“Are you serious?” I stared at her, my mouth gaping at her carefree attitude. “He – hit – you, Ink, while Jakob was with you. I have every right to be angry.”

She sighed, still keeping her eyes on me but her brow quirked. “I get that you are angry that he hurt me but it’s more than that, isn’t it.”

I downed my drink then shook my head. “It’s all a mess. It just makes me angry, you know. Adam is a selfish bastard who doesn’t deserve kids, yet me…”

“You do?”

I snapped my eyes to hers, the question both in her look and her tone. “Yes, Ink. I do. I didn’t use to think so but lately, after… Nick, I have finally realised that I did nothing wrong.”

Her brows pinched in the middle and she looked at me curiously. After a heartbeat her eyes widened and she let out a groan. “Oh bloody hell.” She sighed and reached for me, her hand cupping my chin softly to turn my face to her. “Shit Daniel. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I blinked back the tears. I was sick of crying, it was doing no good, it didn’t stop the grief nor did they fix whatever was broken. “Because I thought she was right.”

“Oh baby.” Her soft gaze on me ached my chest, made the pain worse. “Why didn’t you stick up for yourself?”

I clasped her hand, needing to physically feel the love she was giving me. “I was sixteen. I thought I was a freak, Ink. I thought what I felt for other men was repulsive and wrong, that I was as worthless as my parents said I was. So I pushed the feelings away, refused to feel what I felt. I thought if I ignored it then it would go away, that Ann would be all I needed.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Daniel. And there is nothing disgusting about feeling hot for men.”

“I know that now, but it was fourteen years ago, people, especially my parents and Ann weren’t so understanding.”

She reached to the table and took the bottle, refilling both our glasses. “You know, when I was eighteen, around four or five months before I met Shane, I used to date a girl.”

My eyes widened on her. I knew she liked to play around in the bedroom with other girls but I’d never known it went as far as relationships. Her eyes slipped to mine and she shrugged. “My parents made me bring her home for dinner. They welcomed her just as much as they would have done a guy, just as much as they did Shane a few months later. Whatever I was or whatever I did, my mum and dad were proud of me. And I will be the same with Jakob, whoever he turns out to be.”

I smiled at her and ran the tip of my finger down her nose. It was a perfect nose, small with a little upturn at the end. “That’s because you’re a great mum. My parents however, not so much.”

“Did they know that you were bi?”

“No, not until last week when I was splattered all over the paper.”

She frowned. “Then what was,
is
, their problem with you?”

I shrugged, pursing my lips and sighing. “Your guess is as good as mine. They were overjoyed when Ann fell pregnant by accident, which was a surprise. I thought they’d have done their nut, but I’d never seen them so happy. Now I understand. They knew it would get me out of their hair, they knew that I would settle into my own place once Ann and me were married with a child.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Ann and me got married and she had Harry. I was seventeen then, still so very young. I still had urges that I fought daily with but they grew stronger. Anyway, one night Ann went out with friends for her birthday and I stayed home to look after Harry. Her brother came round to drop off Ann’s birthday present. I’d seen him looking at me unusually for the whole time I had known Ann but I didn’t think anything of it.”

My mind wandered back to that night. Sensing my mood shift, Zoe climbed across the sofa until she was sat in my lap. Her eyes lifted to mine. “Tell me,” she encouraged softly.

“He stayed for a drink, or rather one or two while we watched a match on TV. I was engrossed in the game and hadn’t realised he’d even shifted closer to me. The alcohol was relaxing me. I wasn’t drunk as such, I had Harry to look after but I’d had enough that I was feeling carefree. All of a sudden, Glen, Ann’s brother, pipes up. ‘Have you ever slept with a man, Daniel?’”

Zoe’s wide blue eyes were so tender and accepting, and the fact that she was just listening and understanding, I couldn’t help but lean into her and kiss her. She sighed into me, the warmth of her breath having a quality that soothed all on its own, never mind the feeling of her soft mouth beneath mine. Her lips parted, allowing me to softly slide my tongue against hers. The small moan that echoed from her saw my arms wrapping around her, pulling her harder against me, the need for her almost suffocating. “Baby,” I breathed into her mouth. “I love you, God, so much. You’re everything to me Zoe. You’re the air for me, the oxygen in my blood. I don’t need food. I don’t need air or water. You’re the only thing that keeps my heart beating and if you ever left, everything wouldn’t just stop functioning, they’d die inside me.”

She nodded, finally conceding to what we had. “And I love you too, Daniel. That is why it hurt that you hid things, important things.”

“I know. And you have to believe me, I do. But after how Ann reacted, taking Harry away from me for good, I could never trust people’s reactions to my sexuality again.”

“I understand,” she whispered. “Did you make love to Glen?”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly call it making love. It was more of an awkward fumble. Both of us discovering another man for the first time. He had seen it in me, intuition I guess although I’d never had the foggiest about him. But after fighting it for so long, and all of a sudden it was being thrown, offered so easily, I couldn’t fight against it. I needed to know, needed to understand that side of me. Whether it was what I wanted, or if I was just a regular curious teenager.”

“And Ann found you both?”

I nodded, closing my eyes to the pain that engulfed me. “I was so stupid. I know I should never have done that to her. She was so sickened by us, so hurt and betrayed. I know she has a right to feel that way though.”

“But she never had a right to stop you seeing your son, Daniel.”

“Maybe.” I sighed. “Maybe he is better off without me.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped. “Utter bullshit. Harry is your son. YOUR SON. No mother has the right to stop the father of their child being in that child’s life unless they are a risk and you most definitely are not a risk. You’re a father, a father that could have so easily been a great one.”