‘Let’s go inside,’ I whisper, breathless and bold in a way I’m usually not because this feels so right.
Mack looks at me with those magic eyes, staring deep inside my soul again, and I pinpoint the exact moment reality seeps in and the shutters roll down. He covers his face with his hands.
‘Fuck. Cleo,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m sorry.’
I stroke his hair because he looks like an anguished man, but he reaches up and catches hold of my wrist. ‘Don’t,’ he says, his breath still uneven from our kiss. ‘I don’t want this … you. It all feels wrong.’
It feels harsh and it feels like a lie because his body is telling me different. I’m aware suddenly of the late-night chill. I feel like a fool as I clamber away from him, struggling to work my clothes straight. I give up, heading for the door with as much dignity as I can muster. I bang it closed and then lean my back against it, my fists clenched. Part of me wants to open it and drag him inside but a bigger part of me feels like locking him outside and letting him freeze.
Mack
14 October
Salvation Island
WE’RE BASICALLY A COUPLE OF BURGERS
It’s more than an hour before I calm down enough to head back inside the lodge. Jeez, I’m a prize idiot. We’d just agreed to lay down our swords and I had to go and lose my head after a couple glasses of wine and the warmth of her body beside mine. Cleo’s in bed with all of the lights out so I move quietly, frustrated and still raw. I know the sane thing to do here is to go to sleep but after a few ramrod tense minutes in bed I find myself trying to say something, anything, to explain myself.
‘Susie is the only woman I’ve kissed in more than fifteen years. She was my photography professor’s daughter. I spent days studying her face from every angle, in every light.’
Cleo doesn’t speak but she shifts just enough for me to know she’s awake and listening.
‘It matters to me to be an honourable man, Cleo. I need to be able to look myself in the eyes in the mirror when I brush my teeth. My dad cheated on my mother more times than I can count. I’m not him. I’m not anything like him but still it scares me that I might fuck up, that the apple might not have fallen far enough from the tree.’
I don’t need a therapist to tell me I’ve got daddy issues. I’ve tied myself up in so many knots about fatherhood, in his failures and my fears of repeating them, that it’s a wonder I can stand up straight.
‘What just happened out there scared me. You scared me. I scared me. I’d forgotten fire like that even existed. Truth be told, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt heat like it. It kind of blindsided me.’
She sighs, and I wait.
‘Look, I appreciate your attempts to explain, and maybe by morning I’ll feel calm and more accommodating of your feelings, but right now I’m still too wound up to be as grown up as I’d like to be about this so could we please just go to sleep?’
‘Okay,’ I say, because she’s right. I knew it before I even opened my mouth.
‘You know what annoys me, Mack?’ she says, and I really wish I’d taken my own advice to let things lie until morning because now her voice is rising like a simmering pot about to boil over. ‘That we’d finally reached this paper-thin, fragile truce. It was actually starting to feel as if we could salvage this stupid, ridiculous situation, and then just like that, it’s blown sky high. And, I know, we’re both consenting adults, but I don’t like how you made me feel like such a bloody fool out there, that’s all.’
‘You’re not a fool, Cleo, far from it.’
‘I’m disappointed with myself,’ she cuts in. ‘Disappointed that I lowered my guard enough to make yet another short-sighted decision as far as men are concerned. I sat there and told you how I have a knack for letting the wrong guys close and it’s depressing that even when I’m fully aware that I’m stuck in a cycle, I let it happen again tonight. Just keep your sodding shirt on in future, will you? It was too much to come at me with all that … skin and muscle and heat.’
I don’t know what to say. Do I tell her that I couldn’t help myself, that the warmth of her body next to mine reminded me how damn lonely I am, that something about the scent of her skin slides beneath my defences, that the intimate gleam in her eyes out there on the porch tonight unravelled me?
‘Most importantly – and listen to me very carefully, Mack – I won’t shoulder misplaced guilt over kissing a married man. You’ve been separated for almost a year now and I’m sorry that your heart didn’t get the fucking memo, but cheating is a choice, not a genetic disposition. You’re not your father.’ She jostles on the sofa, aggravated. ‘Fuck, that was harsh. Too much wine. No, I’m not going to apologize because maybe you need to hear it. I’m definitely going to shut up now though.’