Reverb (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

AVERY

I return from Wales to a different Bryn, one who sits up alone drinking, who is more distant than we've ever been. On the second night of waking at three a.m. and hearing the TV on low in the lounge, I decide to confront him. Lack of communication spoilt things between us once before, I won’t let that happen again.

Bryn looks up as I walk into the room, his drawn features and dull eyes pronounced by lack of sleep. “I thought you were in bed.”

“I'm worried about you.” I hover in the doorway, unsure whether he wants me here, in the room or the apartment.

“I'm okay.”

“No, you're not.” I indicate the bottle of whisky and empty glass. “I’ve never seen you drink as much as you have the last couple of days. You’re constantly in a fog of alcohol. This isn’t you. Talk to me.”

Bryn ignores me and pisses me off when he pours himself another glass.

“Is it something I did?” I ask.

“No.”

“What then?”

Bryn shakes his head. “I can't talk about this. I'm not ready.”

“Has something happened?” My heart flips in panic. Hannah? “Is this about us?”

“I said, no,” he replies gruffly.

The silence between us is filled by low voices from the TV as Bryn gulps back the whisky. After a couple of minutes, I’m unsure he’s aware I’m still here.

“Avery, I will talk to you about it once I've got my head together and decided what to do,” he says without looking at me.

About us.

“Right.” I curl up on the sofa next to Bryn and attempt to touch him but he's stiff, muscles as tense against me as his words are.

He turns his lost eyes to meet mine. “I have to go away for a couple of days.”

“Away?” I ask attempting to keep my voice light.

“Yeah, Wales. Family thing.” He switches his attention to the TV.
He’s lying
. “Tomorrow. Then I might have to go away for a little while. I haven't decided yet.”

“Band stuff?”

“Bryn stuff.” He looks around. “You’re at school so you probably can’t come, right?”

Each unspoken word behind his sentences squeezes the air from my lungs. He's not telling me anything but saying so much.
I don't want you to come.
I worried for weeks about starting my teaching training at a school across the city; but what I’m facing with Bryn eclipses any fear I’ve had.

“Yes. Where might you be going?”

“Australia.”

No.

Is Bryn stupid? Do men always forget when they've told you things? Like my last relationship, mistakes like this unravel the lies told.

He told me before, Hannah lives in Australia. What other reason would he have for going?

“Right.” I shift away, swallowing down the words I want to throw at him, to confront his deceit, but this isn’t the time. He’s lost far in his own thoughts; I may as well not exist. “I'm going to bed.”

I don't think Bryn notices me leave the room.
 

Chapter Thirty-Two
 

BRYN

How long until the world knows?

The fallout is immense.

I head to Wales, not to see Hannah but to deflect the shitstorm about to happen. I can’t talk to Avery, not yet. My head is fucked by the news. I don’t know which way is up right now and the thought of talking to Avery about this too won’t fit into the jumbled mess in my mind.

Mum's hysterical reaction contrasted Dad's silent disappointment, speaking to me as if Connor happened yesterday and I’m a naughty teen who couldn't keep it in his pants. I’m a grown man, for fuck’s sake.

Unfair. We were in love. Committed. Forever. The decision to take the final step in our relationship was made in the weeks leading up to Hannah’s departure for Australia. We had sex once. What are the chances?

Fate.

Me and Hannah, always fated.

My old certainty that the world would bring me back to the person I was meant to be with resurfaces; I begin to excuse the lies Hannah has told me, rationalise why she behaved so secretively, allowing this to explain the constant confusion over what to do between us when we reconnected a few years ago.

The world wanted us reunited, fate going about this in a horrible way by subjecting our son to cancer. I asked Hannah where her new partner is and she softly told me her relationship had broken down.

Family pressure begins, how I should 'make things right', the traditional values seeping into the situation. My shocked sisters soon begin talking about their nephew, whispered conversations about what they think I should do. I'm ripped into pieces, disconnected from everything but the need to see him.

Disconnected from Avery.

****

I see Hannah again three days after my world imploded. The shock and anger retreats enough to consider a rational conversation with her. She has answers I need in order to make sense of all this.

Hannah comes to my family home, where she sits outside on the patio and I stand a few metres away, at the edge of the lawn. Summer is late this year, the weather warmer than usual but Hannah wears a jacket against the unfamiliar temperatures.

“I forget how green Wales is,” she says, gazing at my parents lovingly tended garden. “I don’t have plants in my garden at home. They all die.”

I clench my teeth. “Hannah, I didn’t ask you to come to talk about the local climate and gardening.”

“I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. I’m still fucking pissed off with you, but I’m calm this time.”

“Okay.”

I’ve rehearsed my questions but my mind blanks. After a few moments, Hannah looks me in the eyes for the first time and I see the confusion and anxiety barely hidden.

“I need to understand why you’ve lied to me for so many years. I keep going over and over in my head and I can’t rationalise why. Especially the two years where we saw each other, why didn’t you tell me then?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I wish I had.”

I raise my voice. I don’t have time for half-hearted answers and more bullshit. “That’s not good enough; you have to fucking explain to me!”

She shrinks back in her seat. “Bryn, please don’t swear at me.”

“Answer the question!” I snap.

“My mum insisted I tell you once you became famous, that you had the money to support us but I refused.”

“Why?”

Hannah’s gaze shifts to her hands. “Because that meant admitting he was mine.”

“Does he know you’re his mum?”

“Yes, now. Not at first.”

I give a derisive laugh. “I bet that fucking confused him when you told him.”

Hannah takes a sharp breath. “He was young and accepted it. We had to tell him before he started school otherwise the whole situation would get complicated.”

“You should’ve told me too.”

She looks back at me. “I’d broken the connection in my head, Bryn. I didn’t associate him with you.”

“This is crazy!”

“I was crazy,” she says with a small laugh. “Literally, and I’m still working through… stuff. When I contacted you a couple of years ago, I intended to tell you; but when I saw you, it was as if we were back at the start, when things were easy. You looked at me the same way, kissed me with the old tenderness, and I didn’t want to lose that Bryn again. I wanted us to be the Bryn and Hannah from years before. From before Connor.”

I sit opposite her. Didn’t I do the same thing when we met again? I pretended to myself that we were Bryn and his forever girl and we were sixteen again, before the world pulled us apart. We concealed ourselves from the world and now we’re about to become centre stage.

“It’s the reason I hid when we were together. With you, I was disconnected from reality for a few hours, days; I wanted to hold onto those times. The more I saw you, the harder it was to tell you about Connor, so I didn’t.” She swallows. “Sorry.”

“Didn’t you want money?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to be the money-grabbing girl with the rock star’s love child.”

“This isn’t about you though; it’s about my son. He could have everything. Anything.” I rub my head. “He could’ve had me – us, together, for him.” The more we speak, the harder it is to control the anger fuelled by the despair she lied.

“This is why I made the decision last year,” she says quietly. “I want Connor to have stability, an ordinary life, and we couldn’t have that connected to you.” Her face screws up in confusion. “I don’t know. I really don’t. None of the decisions I made are what a normal person would’ve done. I can’t explain to myself, let alone anybody else.”

“I loved you, Hannah,” I say hoarsely. “You could’ve had everything too.”

“You wouldn’t love me once I told you the truth. I didn’t deserve you.”

I slump back in my chair. I can’t talk about us, what might’ve been. I’m with Avery. I love her. This has become a mantra the last few days, because the new pull back to Hannah strengthens each day and I can’t give in.

There is an ‘us’ and always will be, because of Connor.

“Does Connor know about me?”

“No.”

“Well, you’d better bloody tell him because I’m coming to Australia!”

Her face pales. “No, Bryn. I’m not asking you to do that.”

“What the hell? I don’t care whether you ask me or not. You tell me I have a son and don’t expect me to want to meet him? Sorry, Hannah but this is over. You can’t hide Connor from the world anymore.”

“But…”

Hannah is still deluded that she can. “My whole family knows! This won’t be a secret you can keep. I have to see him!”

“Please, don’t shout, Bryn.”

I lower my voice. “I’m flying to Australia. I can’t go with you tomorrow but I’ll be there next week. He’s sick, what if he…”
Dies.

“Okay.” But her face tells me it isn’t.

“I want to see a picture,” I say abruptly. “Show me what he looks like.”

Hannah picks up her handbag and unzips it with trembling fingers. My heart beats harder, the reality about to intensify as she pulls out her phone.

“These are from a couple of months ago.”

I take the phone. A boy with brown curls grins for the camera, holding up a gift-wrapped box. Happiness fills his brown eyes.
My eyes
. I’m not sure how long I stare at the picture, fighting tears, pushing away the anger surging closer to the surface.

“The picture was taken on his birthday,” she says.

I grip the phone until the metal bites into my hand. Eight birthdays. Eight Christmases. Eight long years of a part of me living a life, I had no role in.

“Right. Can you send me that picture?” I hand the phone back to her, attempting to keep my emotions hidden. I can carry Connor with me on my phone until I see him.

“I will, but Bryn…”

I stand, interrupting her. “I can’t talk to you anymore because I can’t promise I won’t lose my shit.” I clench and unclench my hands, the image of Connor all I can see. “I thought this would help, but the last few days are like somebody has knifed me in the heart. Talking to you twisted it deeper.”

A tear escapes Hannah’s eye, tears I’ve willed her not to cry because it would weaken me. However many times she explains, I will never, ever understand how she could do this to me – to us. Before I give in to Hannah when I’m not prepared to forgive her yet, I walk away.

****

My extended family arrange to be tested as suitable donors while I prepare to travel to Australia and see my eight-year-old son for the first time. I should tell Avery but I don't know what to say. I don’t tell the guys either. My head is fucked. They never knew about Hannah, all lost in their own worlds in the months me and Hannah were together, and I don’t want to tell them yet. Family fall-out was enough to deal with, trying to explain what the fuck just happened to anybody else adds to more people trying to influence my decisions. I do this on my own and deal with this in my usual way. On my own. When I want to share, I will.

One person from the Blue Phoenix world needs to know, the man who’s stayed off my back, relieved that one of his protégés kept out of trouble. Steve, our manager and the surrogate dad we don’t want him to be. Yeah, we’ve clashed a few times because I don’t take well to him talking down to us now we’re older but normally we get on okay.

Steve can put measures in place to head off the scandal about to hit. I’m not denying anything, and Hannah isn’t threatening press involvement so his job should be easy.

Bryn Hughes, the quiet and mysterious member of Blue Phoenix finally reveals his secret. One he didn’t even know he had.

I call Steve.

Chapter Thirty-Three

AVERY

I'm preparing lesson plans for next week when Bryn arrives home from his overnight visit to Wales. The door closes in Bryn's usual loud fashion and his large frame fills the room as he dumps his rucksack on the floor.

I watch warily from where I sit at the table, hoping he left the new Bryn who doesn't talk to me behind. His face is dark, lined by tiredness and my heart hurts, for both of us and a future slipping between my fingers.

“Hey,” I say and stand. “Good trip?”

Bryn crosses the room, seizes my head, and closes his mouth over mine. I open my mouth in surprise and welcome his tongue with the relief he wants me, unable to move away from the breath-snatching kiss firing the desire for Bryn that I’ve fought in case I lose him.

As quickly as he starts, Bryn stops and grips my face, studying me intently. “I missed you.”

Something remains in his eyes, as if he's trying to figure me out the way I'm second-guessing him. Bryn gently rubs my cheek with the back of his hand then wanders to the kitchen.

Confused, I sit back down and attempt to focus on the plan I'm writing. A few moments later, I look up to see Bryn leaning against the kitchen doorframe with a bottle of beer in his hand, the same look on his face.

“I have to tell you something,” he says.

Finally, but his expression fills my stomach with acid fear over what the ‘something’ is.

“You can tell me anything, Bryn.” I will him to sit with me, prove he wants the closeness and the kiss wasn't a one off.

“I don’t know how to say this but I have to. If I don't tell you, you'll find out from somebody else and I don’t want that.”

“Oh.”

He drinks slowly, and averts his eyes. “So, the other day, I saw Hannah.”

And with that, my fears push out the hope that I'd imagined all this. The niggling ache following me around the last few days coils around my heart, tightening by the second. “Right.”

“No. Not like that, Avery. She told me something important.” He rubs his face. “Fuck. I need to go to Australia. With Hannah.”

I dig my nails into my palms beneath the table, eyes stinging. Unable to face breaking down in front of him, I stand and ready myself to walk away. “Okay.”

“But I'll come back.”

I meet his eyes. “Will you, Bryn? Why would you? You have what you wanted.”

“I will. I'm not going because of her.” He looks away as he says the words and I doubt them.

“Why are you going then? What's happening?”

Bryn laughs softly to himself. “Yeah, guess what? I have an eight-year-old son.”

“What?”

He shakes his head and looks at the floor. “With Hannah. She told me the other day.”

Time freeze frames. Hannah. Son. What the hell do I say to that? Words scramble around my head but won’t find their way out of my mouth. “Bryn…”

I approach him and reach out, but the man looking back at me is the same lost, confused person from the night-time drinking. “Gets worse,” he says flatly. “Connor, my kid, has cancer. That's why Hannah told me. Needs a bone marrow transplant and wanted my family to get tested.”

If I'm stunned by this news, no wonder Bryn has retreated from the world as he carries the weight of what Hannah told him. Tears spring to my eyes, for Bryn and the little boy.

“I'm sorry,” is the best I can do.

Bryn slumps against the wall and drains the bottle. “When this comes out, which it will and soon, I'll be crucified. Rock star abandons his love child with no financial support. Lives his life pretending he doesn't exist. Sick kid ignored by his famous dad. Did you know he's been sick before? This is a relapse. A fucking relapse, Avery. She didn’t tell me last time!” He looks at me with desperation. “That's the opposite of what I'd have done. If I'd known about him, I’d have given him the whole fucking world!”

“I know and everybody else who knows you will.” I place a hand on his arm.

He inhales deeply, and then releases the breath. “That’s why I'm going to Australia. I don't know how long for. I have to see him. Be there.”

“Of course you do,” I whisper and move to touch his cheek. “God, Bryn, no wonder you’re such a mess.”

“Yeah. I’m fucked. I can’t deal with anything else.” He takes my hand.

“Why didn't you say when I asked?”

His fingers tighten around mine. “I was confused.”

I swallow, knowing what he means, how his confusion is around Hannah too. Whether he admits this or not, he's drawn back into her life by his bond to their child. They have a kid; and this is Bryn Hughes, the man who does the right thing by everybody he meets.

Bryn will leave me.

“I guess you have some thinking to do,” I say.

“I can't think straight, Avery. I'm lost in a weird nightmare.”

I pull my hand away, wrap my arms around his waist wishing I could wrap myself around some of his pain and take it away. Tentatively, I tiptoe to place my mouth on his; and for a moment, he doesn't respond. Dragging his lips across my face, Bryn kisses the side of my forehead.

“I want to lose myself in you, instead,” he whispers. “In us.” His hands go to my waist, pushing beneath my shirt and gripping hard, eyes darkening as he looks at me.

As I look back at him, one thought dominates. If Hannah didn't matter, if this was only about his son, Bryn wouldn't feel the need to hide the truth.

I want to keep Bryn, for him to be mine, but have I lost him already? “I love you.”

I wait for him to respond but the words don't come.
Bryn told me he was numb, that’s the reason why.

Bryn swears under his breath then tightens his grip on my waist. He roughly kisses me; his tongue invades my mouth, as he claims with a desperate need. I want to fight back, talk more, but when I try to push him away, he grabs my wrists and pulls me closer.

“Don’t walk away. I need you.”

I could yell at him, drag my arms away, and leave. He’s the one against the wall, but we both know I won't. I stand as he holds my wrists still, looking back at him, into his unfathomable eyes. Even in the days when we danced around each other I could read him, but not at this moment. Bryn kisses me again, rough, hard. I pull my mouth and hands away, relieved he wants me but concerned he’s switched from telling me something earth shattering to this.

Bryn moves his mouth to my neck instead, kissing and nipping at my skin, hand sliding beneath my shirt to my breasts. I shift against him, and he growls, the powerful arms around my waist holding me tighter, as if I might slip from his grasp if he lets me go.

“Bryn.”

“I need you,” he says, his hot mouth searching for mine again, heavy breath against my skin. I want to cry because I want him, to be the person he needs. I don't want him to go to Australia because I don't think he'll come back to me.

“I'm here. I'm always here for you.” I push Bryn’s curls from his face and hold his head, the way he’s done to me numerous times, forcing him to stop and look at me.

My heart rends at the pain in Bryn’s eyes. He’s grasping at his new world, at us, because he’s losing grip on everything around him. How can he hold on when his world has been thrown upside down and broken? Worst of all, his fear reflects mine. Everything we planned, the life we lived, the future we hoped for has.

“When are you going?” I ask hoarsely.

“Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow
. “How long for?” He looks at me desperately, and I shake my head. “Sorry, we won’t talk about it right now.”

“I’m lost, Avery,” he says hoarsely. “I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Be the man you’ve always been.” I place my lips on his. “Hold onto Bryn.”

“She lied. For years. Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

Bryn stares past me, retreating into his place of safety. I want to be his safe place, his harbour from the storm dragging him under, but am I enough? I rest my head against Bryn’s chest, his heart thumping against my cheek.

“If you’re leaving tomorrow, let’s switch the world off and be us,” I say.

Stroking my hair, he looks back at me, his panic retreating. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

Bryn picks me up, the way he effortlessly does, my legs around his waist and arms around his neck, cheek resting against his. When he holds me like this, I feel safe in his strength, held and loved. Our faces can be close enough to kiss, our heights levelled and there’s an intimacy in the action that will always remind me of the first time in the hotel in Rouen.

“Let’s get lost in us,” I murmur against his cheek.

We’ll never be truly lost while we can always find each other.

****

As I lie in Bryn's arms, I bury my face in his chest, relishing the comfort of the embrace he’s denied me recently and listen to his breathing gradually slow. After tonight, what happens? Is this the last time he holds me?

“I will come back,” he whispers into my hair.

“I hope so.”

Bryn shifts to look at me, tipping my chin. “This doesn't change anything between us.”

I wish this were true, but he knows he's fooling himself as much as I am.

This changes everything.