Page 74 of Fireworks
“I know what I’m doing,” he said quickly. “I’ve got a system.”
“So, how much of your money have you thrown away on this?” Rage fizzed inside her, ready to explode the second she loosened its lid.
“I’ll win it back.”
“Clearly.” And in the meantime, she supposed she would be the one paying for lunch and dessert and whatever else he couldn’t afford when he threw it all away.
“Can’t you just trust me on this?”
“Trustyou?” she finally erupted. “Why on earth would Ievertrust you? All you’ve ever done is throw us away! Throw everything away! Your money, your values, your commitments! While you drink and gamble and lie, I am raising our kids, day in, day out! The kids that you left, because you couldn’t be bothered with the work!”
He nudged her towards the door. “Will you shut up? The kids can hear you.”
“Good. They should know that their father is a waste of space.” And yet she still felt guilty when she turned to see Brook and his action man suspended in shock; Sky covering his ears to block out the noise.
“Mum,” Brook said, voice small, “I want to go home to Nanna’s.”
“We’re going home, munchkin.” And then, to Finlay: “Call me a cab and say goodbye.”
Finlay grabbed her arm suddenly, a sharp pain burrowing through her skin. His eyes were wild, swimming with somethingthat scared her. Something she’d never seen before. “Don’t do this.Please. I’m not letting you leave. You promised me a weekend.”
“I promised you nothing,” she spat. “Get off me, Fin. You can’t keep us here. It’s over.”
“I’ll take this to court if I have to. They’re my kids, too.”
Her blood went cold, but she refused to shrink against the threat. No fair court would let him near her kids again. “Then you don’t love them the way you say, because you and I both know you’re not fit to be a father. They’re happier and healthier andsaferwithout you.”
Slowly, his grip slackened. She rubbed the tender place where his fingernails had bitten into her, shuddering. It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered whether a violence simmered beneath his surface, but it was the first time the possibility had marked her skin.
And the last. “I’ll give you one chance to not let this be their last memory of you,” she whispered. “They deserve a proper goodbye.”
“I want to fix this—”
“You can’t. You never could. Not without admitting you have a problem first.”
Tears shimmered in Finlay’s muddy eyes, fracturing all of Eiley’s anger and moulding it into grief. She knew that, in his own mind, he was doing the best he could.
It wasn’t good enough, and she couldn’t keep letting history repeat itself. It was time to move on, properly. This, here, was the closure she’d needed. The confirmation that she was better off alone, even on the bad days, even when everything went wrong.
But it was also confirmation that shewasn’talone, not in Belbarrow. Standing in this empty house, the one built on lies, while her children looked at her with bewildered worry …Thiswas loneliness.
And, once he’d uttered a brief goodbye to the children, she basked in the fact that she’d never have to feel it again.
33
According to Maggie, there wasn’t supposed to be anybody in the bookstore this evening, which was why Warren had asked her to keep the door unlocked earlier. It was ridiculous and probably wrong, but if the ex cocked up Eiley and the kids’ weekend away, he wanted to make sure at least some pieces of her happiness were put back together by the time she returned.
Besides, she really wasn’t very good at assembling shelves.
Only, when he stepped into the darkness of a supposedly empty Thorn & Thistle, an “Oi!” pierced through him, and he was confronted with a heavy hardback flying at his head.
He ducked just in time, squealing out an “I come in peace!” that probably wasn’t very manly.
As the book-slash-weapon thudded to the floor, a string of curses shocked him. He’d half-expected his assaulter to be Eiley, which probably would have been completely warranted. Instead, it was Fraser who glowered at him a few inches away in the strip of dusk’s shadows.
“What the fuck? I thought you were a burglar, you wee arsewipe!”
Warren tried to catch his breath, snatching up the book that had almost bludgeoned him. It was too dark to even attempt to read the title, but the hefty hardcover depicted a bird painting beneath torn paper.
