Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

December 22 nd

There was a knock on the door later that morning and Shay groaned. He hadn’t slept a lot since he’d told Orla he loved her, his mind whirring with everything he should have said and regrets for saying it at all. She had kissed him back – he hadn’t imagined that –and he thought that was it, they were going to get together and stop hiding behind past hurt. And while he’d practised saying those words to her many times, and imagined many different ways that it would play out, he’d never envisaged that it would play out like that, with Orla staring at him in horror.

The knock came again and he climbed out of bed.

‘That will be my family. Stay here if you don’t want to face them,’ Shay said. ‘I’ll tell them you’re resting and try to get rid of them.’

‘It’s OK, I’d like to see them,’ Orla said, sleepily stretching and looking completely adorable.

He threw on a t-shirt and jeans, blew gently on Ivy to wake her up and went downstairs, with Ivy chasing after him and tugging on the hems of his jeans as he walked. He opened the door to be met with not only Carrie and her husband Antonio, but his sister Fern, her husband Fletcher, their daughter, Ocean, their giant Bernese Mountain dog, Bones, Theo, his heavily pregnant wife Roo, their English setter, Clarke and Orla’s friend Ettie. So much for rest and relaxation.

He looked at Theo and his brother shrugged. ‘I tried. But once everyone found out you stupidly drove your car over the cliff, they all wanted to see you to make sure you’re OK and no limbs were missing.’

Shay stepped back to let them in with a sigh. His head was hurting already just at the thought of entertaining everyone. Carrie managed to wrestle her way to the front and threw her arms around his neck. ‘I was so worried.’

He hugged her back. ‘I’m OK, Mum, we’re just tired. The doctors told us to rest so we just need plenty of sleep.’

They all trooped in with Fern giving him a hug too.

‘Well you can’t be getting much rest here sleeping on the sofa,’ Ettie said. ‘Orla can come and stay at my house; I have a spare room and I can look after her and you can have your bed back.’

There was an awkward moment where they all looked over at the sofa to see there was clearly no bedding there. And then to top off the awkwardness, Ivy, who had clearly gone back upstairs to fetch Orla, came charging down the stairs proudly dragging Orla’s bra and a few seconds later Orla came downstairs with her hair a tangle of curls looking very much like a woman who’d spent the last few hours having sex, not snoring softly next to him.

‘You old dog,’ Theo muttered under his breath next to him.

Fern, Roo and Ettie rushed over to give Orla a hug and make a fuss of her.

Carrie hugged her too. ‘We’re all relieved you’re both OK. I don’t want you to worry about the café either. I’ve already put a sign up saying it’s closed until the new year. It’s high time you took a break, so you concentrate on getting some rest.’

‘Thank you,’ Orla said.

‘And that goes for you too,’ Carrie said to Shay. ‘We can manage the running of The Little Beach Hut Hotel without you. We don’t go on our honeymoon until January so we can take care of everything until then.’

Shay didn’t have the energy to argue.

Orla’s friends ushered her off to the dining room, while Carrie went into the kitchen to unload what looked like a month’s worth of food, which was completely unnecessary. Fletcher and Ocean started playing with the dogs, Ivy, Clarke and Bones, and Antonio sat on the floor and joined them.

Theo looked at him. ‘Have you?’ he asked quietly.

‘No.’

‘But you are sleeping in the same bed?’

‘Yes, but as friends, nothing more,’ Shay said, quietly. He saw Theo’s expression of disbelief. ‘I honestly don’t think it will ever be more than that.’

Theo frowned in confusion. He looked around to see if anyone was listening, but the girls had shut themselves in the dining room and no one else was interested in their conversation. ‘What happened?’

‘I finally found the balls to tell her I love her. She doesn’t feel the same.’

‘What? Are you sure?’

Theo knew what had happened between them all those years ago. Shay hadn’t told him at the time, in fact it was only a few weeks before that it had finally all come out. Theo was convinced that Orla felt the same. How had they both got it so wrong?

Except he wasn’t sure he had got it wrong, not a hundred percent. She had definitely kissed him back.

‘Maybe she’s still dwelling on the past,’ Theo said.

He frowned. ‘You think this is her way of getting back at me for telling her I didn’t love her.’

Orla was not the type to play games.

‘I think you broke her heart, despite her trying to convince you of the opposite. And she’s scared to trust you with it again.’

Shay sighed. That felt plausible. Why should she believe that this was something serious for him? He had rejected her once, why would she give him a second chance to do it again?

‘Did you tell her that you did love her back then, when you were kids, that you lied?’

Shay shook his head. ‘I thought that might make it worse. And if you’re right and I did break her heart, she isn’t going to be happy to hear that it all could have been avoided if I’d only had big enough balls back then to tell her how I felt too.’

‘I think you tell her why you felt like you couldn’t tell her the truth. You’ve had all that counselling, for you and for her, you’re a different man now than you were twelve years ago and maybe she needs to see that.’

Shay brushed his hand through his hair. Maybe it was worth a try.

‘What’s going on?’ Ettie said, closing the dining room door behind her as they all sat down at the dreaded table.

‘Nothing’s going on,’ Orla said. She was too tired for this.

‘Really, because you and Shay have clearly been sleeping in the same bed and when you came downstairs with just-shagged hair, Shay looked like he wanted to eat you,’ Roo said.

Orla cringed at how Fern must be taking all this, her best friend and her brother – it wasn’t really appropriate or fair. But Fern simply took Orla’s hand. ‘Are you OK? Death-defying leap over the cliff and a possible concussion aside, you look really stressed.’

‘I do feel stressed, emotional, tearful and a whole jumble of emotions all vying for attention. It feels like my mind is racing sometimes, as if I can’t get my thoughts in order.’

‘Honestly, that sounds like a typical concussion,’ Fern said. ‘Do you remember not long after I moved here, I was riding my bike and I collided with a wall, knocked myself out because I was too cool to be wearing a helmet?’

‘Of course I remember. I was there when it happened. You scared the crap out of me. It was the first time I’d ever called nine, nine, nine and I remembered thinking I was going to get into trouble for doing it.’

Fern laughed. ‘They printed an article in the local paper saying you were a hero.’

‘I didn’t feel particularly heroic. The crash hadn’t seemed that bad, you weren’t going that fast, but you hit the floor like a deck of cards and didn’t get back up after that. I had no idea what to do.’

‘Physically I was fine, but the doctors were obviously concerned about concussion. I was in hospital for two days before they finally let me go home but I cried for weeks after, for no reason whatsoever. I was anxious and sad and I’d worry over the silliest things. I thought I was going crazy. And I had no idea why I was feeling like this. But Shay did. He loved finding things out in books or on the internet, he loved finding out how things worked and when I burst into tears one day when we were hanging out in the lounge and I cried telling him I was so tired of feeling sad all the time, he went and looked it up – after comforting me of course, he was always a good hugger. To put it simply, concussion can cause inflammation or injure parts of the brain that are responsible for our emotions. We went back to the doctor and he said it was perfectly normal to have that response after an accident and that it would pass after a few weeks, which it did, but he did say talking about what I was feeling or what I was worried about would help.’

She looked around at her friends. They had always been there for each other through every up and down and it didn’t feel right to keep this a secret anymore. ‘He told me he loves me.’

They all gave squeals of excitement, even Fern. Orla quickly hushed them.

‘So you spent a night of passion in his bed?’ Ettie said.

‘No, I told him I just wanted to be friends.’

They all stared at her in disbelief.

‘What? Why would you do that?’ Roo said. ‘It’s plain to anyone that you two are in love with each other.’

Orla sighed. ‘We have… history.’

‘We’re going to need more details than that,’ Fern said.

‘Are you sure you want to hear it? He is your brother after all.’

‘And you’re my friend and I want to see you both happy.’

Orla wasn’t so sure.

‘Is it going to make me think bad things about my brother?’

‘No, quite the opposite, he’s the hero in this, I’m the asshole.’

‘I doubt that, but spill and we’ll be the judge.’

So Orla gave them a whistlestop tour of her and Shay’s past, starting with what happened at the party with Kirk, although Roo and Fern knew this as Orla made sure everyone knew what an asshole Kirk was, but none of them knew how it made her fearful of sex, and that made Fern hold her hand tighter when she got to that bit. Orla wondered if she’d still be holding her hand when she told them how she’d persuaded Shay to have sex with her, but Orla ploughed on regardless. She told them all about the glorious weekend here in Starlight Cottage, although she didn’t go into the details of how he’d had her butt naked on this very table, but she told them how she’d told him she loved him afterwards and he’d said he didn’t feel the same. She told them how she cut him out of her life because of it and how she regretted that more than anything.

‘And despite that we’re friends now, I’ve been avoiding coming here ever since he bought the place because I couldn’t face all those beautiful memories again, and now I’m here and we’ve kissed and he’s told me he loves me and I don’t know what to do.’

There was silence from her friends as they stared at her.

‘I had no idea,’ Fern said.

‘I’m so sorry, I know he’s your brother and the thought of us sleeping together must be a weird one.’

‘It’s fine, I’ve always felt like you two belonged together and I never understood why you two didn’t realise it too. Now all this history explains why you both held back.’

‘I can’t believe you slept with Shay,’ Roo said. ‘Was it good?’

‘Best sex I’ve ever had,’ Orla said. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Fern.

Fern smiled and shook her head to show it didn’t matter.

‘Hold up, can we go back a step?’ Ettie said. ‘You kissed, recently. Since you’ve been here?’

‘Yes, but it was in the shower, right after the accident, I was upset and he was holding me and we just sort of kissed.’

‘You had a shower together?’ Roo squeaked.

‘We were fully clothed, we were soaking wet after the car ended up in the sea and we were trying to get warm. I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here. Am I crazy for telling him I just want to be friends with him?’

‘Yes!’ her friends all said at once.

Orla sighed. ‘I’m scared of losing him, I’m scared of falling even deeper in love with him and it all ends in a few weeks and what happens then. He’s the manager of the Little Beach Hut Hotel, I run the café right next to the hotel reception. We’ll see each other every day.’

‘You already have to torture yourself by seeing him every day,’ Ettie pointed out. ‘I’m not sure it will be any different to what it is now, other than you’ll have a few more weeks of the best sex you’ve ever had under your belt.’

Orla couldn’t help smiling that Ettie was focusing on that.

‘Ettie has a point,’ Roo said. ‘What’s the worst that can happen? You date, he treats you like a queen, going on past behaviour, then you or he decide it isn’t working and you call it quits, you’ll be upset or he will, you’ll have a few weeks of awkwardness and pain but eventually you end up back where you are now, being friends again because you’ve known each other too long to let it come between you, not now you’re older and wiser. And at least you’ll know you tried and maybe it will help you move on once and for all. Or what’s the best that can happen? Look at me and Theo. OK we never had sex when we were younger, but we were best friends, and when I moved to America and my dad died, I cut him out of my life too. I didn’t handle grief particularly well. I came back here fourteen years later and well, eighteen months after that here we are, blissfully happily married with our son on the way in a few months. Isn’t it worth the risk to find out if you have that?’

Orla sighed. Maybe they were right. She never wanted to regret the road not taken.

‘From a practical perspective, you two are so different to the kids who first made love twelve years ago,’ Fern said. ‘Shay was so messed up as a teenager, he thought he was worthless – poison was the word he used once. No doubt something his birth parents said to him.’

Orla swallowed down the pain of hearing that. She’d always known his self-worth was in tatters. He was always making comments to that effect. But poison? She hated that he thought that.

‘After you left, he told Mum that he wanted counselling,’ Fern said. ‘He said he wanted to stop feeling like he wasn’t enough, that it was ruining his life. Looking back now I think some or all of that was for you. He has grown so much in confidence over the last ten or so years. I feel like he sees his worth now. When he was younger, he just couldn’t see it. No matter how many times Mum or I or you told him he was loved, and what a wonderful person he was, he never believed it until he was older. Maybe he just wasn’t ready for love back then, maybe he needed this time to grow.’

‘Do you think… Are you saying he did love me back then?’

‘I’ve always thought he was in love with you, from the moment he met you. And when you came back, five or six years ago, he was over the moon. As far as I can see, he’s never stopped loving you.’

Tears welled in her eyes, for the lost years, for what they could have had, but mostly for Shay who had hated himself so much that he didn’t think he deserved to be loved.

‘It’s not too late,’ Roo said, clearly guessing what she was thinking. ‘I don’t think it’s ever too late.’

‘And you’re here for the next few days at least while you recover from your concussion; use that time to talk to him about your fears, about why he said he didn’t love you in the past if that’s the case. Just be completely honest with him and hopefully he will be honest with you too,’ Ettie said.

Orla wiped away her tears. ‘Urgh, why are you all so sensible?’

Carrie opened the door and poked her head in. ‘Umm sorry to disturb, but Shay has fallen asleep on the sofa and we thought we’d take off and let you both get some rest.’

‘Good idea,’ Ettie said, practically leaping up from her seat.

‘Yes, these two need to be left alone,’ Roo said. ‘Erm… to rest, obviously.’

‘Call us if you need anything,’ Fern said, as she stood and placed a kiss on Orla’s cheek.

Orla stood up and followed them out into the lounge as Carrie was ushering everyone out the door. Shay was sprawled out on the sofa fast asleep; he really must be tired if he fell asleep amidst three dogs and a toddler running around.

‘Orla dear, you’d be welcome to stay at mine if you want to,’ Carrie said. ‘Our spare room always has your name on it.’

‘Thank you, but—’

‘She’s fine here,’ Ettie said, ushering Carrie out. Ettie gave her a quick hug and closed the door behind them, leaving Orla alone with Shay. And Ivy of course, who was happily chewing on what looked like a pair of Shay’s boxer shorts.

Shay looked so peaceful while he slept and so damned beautiful. Her heart broke for the boy he was and for the teenager that grew up thinking he was poison. But maybe she needed to give the man he was now a chance.

She carefully lay down on top of him and he stirred, looking at her sleepily and in confusion. She knew she was sending so many mixed messages here.

‘Hey, you OK?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘I am now.’

She lay her head on his chest and snuggled into him. He pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa and covered her in it, then wrapped his arms tightly around her and she drifted off to sleep.