Page 28 of Dream a Little Dream

She took a sip of wine and glanced out of the window, composing her thoughts. Kenny let her drift over the pain in her own time. He’d be there when she returned. When she did, she smiled, eyes glistening, and she ruffled away her tousled hair, inhaled, chest rising to cause the heart-shaped pendant on her gold necklace glint against the candlelight.

“Ever been married?” she asked wistfully.

“No.” Kenny twisted the stem of the wineglass between his fingers. “Avoided that one. Sort of got too busy to marry.”

“How long was your longest relationship?”

Kenny pretended to think about the answer, furrowing his brow and glancing up at the ceiling as if counting the fallen years. Except he knew. Off by heart. As if he’d marked each year off on the desolate prison walls he’d been left within since. “Six years.” He took a sip of wine. “On and off.”

“Bad breakup?”

“Yes. The worst. Blood and everything.” Whilst that was true, he smiled, letting her believe he was simply embellishing.

“Do you still see her?”

Kenny contemplated telling her the truth. Some people were okay with his bisexuality. Some people weren’t. And as she’d thrown in the gender pronoun, it hadn’t entered her head that he might enjoy more than one type of sex. At this early stage in a courtship, it was often easier to pretend his relationships had all been with women. Keep it simple. He’d had lovers of both genders. But neither sex had stuck around for long. No one longer than Jack. It wasn’t ever the sex, or the gender, that mattered.

It was the person sharing it.

“No. No, not really. We live in different corners of the country.”

The conversation moved swiftly onto other things then. Kenny letherdo the talking. About her divorce. Work. Anything she wanted to talk about. And as she did, Kenny listed in his head all the boxes she ticked.

One. Stable. She had a secure upbringing. Parents were still together. Had a younger brother who was a finance manager in the city. Making her an auntie to two toddlers. They had Christmases together. She painted a portrait of conventionality meaning nothing was in her past to cause her trauma. Apart from the divorce, and her husband having cheated on her with her best friend, she was remarkably of sound mind.

And fuck knew he needed someonestable.

Two. Dedicated. She had a passion for her work. Despite all the paperwork and changes in education, her eyes lit up when she spoke of the children in her class. Her enthusiasm was endearing, and the way she spoke of her lesson planning, crafting each one with care, was a trait he admired, resonated with even, but it merged into another detail, failing to stir anything within him other than emptiness.

Three. Stunning. He couldn’t deny how attractive she was. The gentle curve of her jaw, the vibrancy of her hair, her subtle yet elegant make-up framing soft features. She had a tattoo of two combined hearts on the underside of her wrist she’d got in her twenties before she’d married the man who’d broken her heart. Yet as he took in her features, they blurred into a generic template, one that failed to imprint on his mind or quicken his pulse.

Kenny’s responses to her questions were automatic, his thoughts elsewhere. As they always were, flown to dark corners and unresolved questions. To places he should forget and walk away from. After another large glass of wine each, Heathercupped her chin in her hand, eyes sparkling, the alcohol easing her ability to be a touch more flirtatious.

“What made you go into psychology?”

Kenny sat back, swishing his glass in his hand, desperate to want to linger on her, subtly peer down the cleavage peeking out from under her wraparound dress. Instead, he stared into his glass. “Had a fascination with the human mind since I was fourteen.”

“Fourteen?” She bit her little fingernail, painted red to match her dress. “Pretty sure I had a fascination withotherparts of the human anatomy at that age.”

Kenny breathed through a laugh. “I’ll bet you did.”

Heather’s cheeks glowed, and she smiled. A suggestive one. Letting Kenny know she’d been a rebel once, and fancied going back to those carefree times in her youth. “So, can you read minds?”

He could read hers, yes.

“No, I can’t read minds. But I can often explain what drives people. The patterns, motivations, underlying needs that push them toward choices that might seem baffling or wrong to others.”

“Like, why my cheating ex-husband fuck my best friend?”

“I could make an educated guess. But without meeting him, it’d only be a hypothesis.”

She straightened. Drank her wine. “Let’s hear it, then.”

Kenny leaned back, considering. “He likely has what we’d call a developmental over-attachment, possibly rooted in an indulgent relationship with his mother. If she overcompensated, did everything for him, turned a blind eye to his misbehaviour, he could have developed a sense of entitlement, an expectation that his needs are the centre of attention. Let’s say he grew up feeling validated only when he was the focus. Perhaps he was the baby of the family, accustomed to receiving special treatment, ora middle child, lost in the shuffle. Either way, he might gravitate towards relationships where he’s the focal point, the one who receives constant admiration.”

Kenny watched her eyes sharpen as she began piecing it together. He was on the right track then.

“So when your focus shifted, say to your daughter, he could have perceived that as a threat. A latent narcissistic tendency might have driven him to reestablish that validation, and rather than resolving his insecurity, he acted out by finding someone in your inner circle, because his arrested development also makes him lazy. And she offered him immediate gratification, perhaps even a sense of superiority.”

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