The Mess Love makes

Chapter One: Come With Me

Chapter One

“Get out of my sight.” Hayley ordered, her arms crossed and her face turned away from the light.
         “Get out of mine!” Leo growled.
Hayley turned to look at her boyfriend, her eyes blazing. “Why don’t you just admit that you’re wrong?”
         “Get out of my sight,” he repeated stubbornly.
         “It’s my house!”
Leo collapsed on the sofa, rubbing his still sore cheek. “You sure have a heavy right arm swing.”
         “You taught me. Now. Get. Out.”

Defeated, Leo got to his feet and sloped towards the door. “I just don’t get what we’re arguing about.”
         “What we’re arguing about!” she cried in amazement, raising her hands to clutch her head in a gesture of frustration. “You don’t get what we’re arguing about.”
Seizing his chance, Leo turned back to her. “No. So why don’t you tell me?”
Hayley narrowed her eyes. “Nothing. We were arguing about nothing. Except you had your tongue down another’s girl’s throat.”
He sighed. “Get over it, Hails.”

For the second time in one evening, Leo was greeted with the sight of his girlfriend storming in his direction. Much more prepared, he grabbed her right hand as it flew towards his face.

         “Stop hitting me,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
         “Then stop hurting me,” she replied, angrily.
         “I’m barely holding you anymore.”  He released her wrist.
She didn’t move her eyes from his. As she drew back her hand, it found its way across her chest and rested as a fist above her heart. “I didn’t mean physically.”

They broke away from each other, Hayley crossing the room towards the window, and Leo resting his hand on the door handle. The silence was painful – Hayley thought if she listened closely, she could hear all the things he’d said before but hadn’t said this time. All the things he wanted to say but was too proud to humble himself by doing so. That he was sorry. That he hadn’t meant for it to happen. That he loved her.

         “I’m sorry I hit you,” she said eventually, her back turned to him.
         “Apology accepted.”
Hayley waited a few moments. When it became clear he had nothing left to say she turned and asked “Aren’t you going to apologise?”
         “For what?” he said wearily.
Astounded, she turned. “For kissing another girl. For cheating on me. Again.”
Leo ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was a mistake. Too much booze.”

Again there was a silence.

         “Well aren’t you going to apologise?!” she said, more of an order than a request.
Leo regarded her for a moment. “If I apologise, will you come to Italy with me?”
         “You’re using an apology to bargain your way into a holiday?” Hayley was, she decided, never going to get used to the cheek of the man.
         “Yes,” he said simply.
         “You should be using your apology to stop me from breaking up with you.”
         “You’ll never leave me,” he answered, again, so simply.
         “You don’t know that.”
         “I do.”

Hayley’s shoulders sagged. “Is that why you were angry with me? Is that why you did it? Because I won’t go on a two month holiday to Venice with you?” she looked him in the eyes, those piercing, deep blue eyes.
         “Yes.”
         “I can’t,” she pleaded. “You know I can’t.”
         “You can.”
         “Leo,” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “My mother is dying. I can’t leave her for two months to go gallivanting off into the sun with you.”
         “You heard her. She wants you to.”
         “She doesn’t want to burden me.”
         “So don’t let her.”
         “It’s not that easy, Leo. Please don’t make me choose between you.”
As if he hadn’t heard her last words, he walked over to where she was and looked into her face. “It is that easy. I know you want to come, so do it. Think about yourself for once.”
He leaned down and kissed her. He could her feel her body sag, as the bundle of tense muscles in his arms relaxed into him. When he broke the kiss he matched her dark gaze with his own, let his eyes drown in hers, their noses so close they almost touched. ‘I’m doing this for you,’ he told her without words.

And as if it was that simple, it suddenly was.

         “Say it.” She said, much more firmly than she felt.
         “I’m sorry,” Leo said thickly, feeling the words roll around his tongue. “I really am. I love you, and I didn’t think – I was feeling rejected and she was there and…” He swallowed, his arms tightening around the girl in them. “I love you. I’m sorry.”
         “You’re forgiven.” She whispered.
They stood together, swaying in a familiar dance.
         “So,” Leo started, clearing his throat.
         “Yes,” she answered before he could ask. “I’ll come with you.”


*  *  *  *  *


         “So what do you think?”
Michelle cooed as Leo snapped open the box.
         “It’s gorgeous!” she said, clapping her hands.
         “What do you think, René?” Leo turned to his other best friend.
Her lips twitched with indecision. “It’s beautiful, Leo… but I don’t know. It’s not very… Hayley, is it?”

Chelle’s fiancé, Steve, stood up and came to have a good peer at the ring. “She’s right you know.”
         “What’s wrong with it?” Leo shut the box with a snap.
         “No need to sulk, mate,” Steve said airily. “It’s great… but perhaps it’s a bit fussy…”
         “…Doesn’t Hayley like to wear silver, not gold?…” René joined.
         “…And isn’t an engagement ring supposed to have a diamond?” Chelle finished.
Leo sighed. “I didn’t want to get silver because it gets that funny colour after a while. And I got an emerald ‘cos it’s her birthstone.”
         “Well that’s a sweet reason for the emerald I guess,” Chelle conceded.
“So why not go for platinum gold?” René folded her arms unrelentingly. “God knows you can afford it.”
         “Look, I don’t know, ok? I’m not good at this sort of thing.”

René still didn’t look impressed. “What I don’t get is if you’re so ‘not bothered’ about getting married, why are you going to ask her to marry you?”
         “Catch up, René,” Steve said cheekily, throwing a cushion at her. “You know that he’s got pressure from his Dad.”
         “No-one else I know goes and proposes when he’s not sure about it just because his Dad pushes him into it,” René countered with a sneer.
         “He’ll take away my trust fund,” Leo argued. “I need that money.”
         “At the risk of living the rest of your life in misery?” She asked sceptically.
         “I love her, ok?”
Chelle giggled. “You’d better! Or I think René might decapitate you.”

René rounded on her. “She’s my best friend.”
Chelle looked wounded. “She’s mine too, you know. But I’m not going around accusing her boyfriend of two years of marrying her just for a few million pounds.”
René silenced her with a piercing look from her green eyes. “Shut up, Chelle, before I kill you.”
Chelle held up her hands in mock defeat. “Ok, ok. I’ll stop. Just be nice.”

Leo looked at René. “I do love her, you know.”
         “But you don’t know if you love her enough,” René finished for him.
         “Well, yeah. I mean,” he corrected, seeing the look Steve shot him, “I do love her enough. I just wish I had more time to make sure it’s the right choice for us. Both of us.”

René sank down onto the sofa, rubbing her forehead. “You know she’ll say ‘yes’, don’t you?”
         “I’m counting on it.” Leo moved to sit by her, and took her by the hand. “I promise I’ll take care of her.”
René met his gaze, and he saw a mixture of a promise and a threat lurking behind the green pigment. “You’d better, Leonard. Or you’ll have to deal with me.”

         “So you’ll propose in Venice?” Chelle asked, lightening the mood. “How romantic! How come you didn’t do anything like that for me, Steve?”
He grinned and flicked his longish brown hair out of his eyes.
         “No money, babe.” He stretched himself luxuriously in the arm chair as Chelle began to massage his shoulders. “By the way, is it true that if you don’t come back engaged, your Dad has got some rich bimbo daughter of one of the partners he wants you to marry instead?”          
         “Nicely said,” Leo quipped sarcastically.
         “Correctly said though, from your reaction.” Steve murmured. “So, tell me what this girl’s like then.”
         “What for?” Leo asked him, sounding bored.
Steve grinned.
         “To make sure that you’re not making the biggest mistake of your life by turning her down.”
         “Steve!!”
Leo’s best friend’s face struggled hard not to smile and laugh as two scandalised female voices filled the air.
         “Well…” Leo said, screwing up his eyes as if conjuring up a picture of her in his mind, “her name’s Kerry. And she’s definitely a looker.”
         “Yeah?” Steve leant forward eagerly, but then sat back again as he spotted his fiancé’s angry face.
         “Yeah. Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes… pity she’s got no personality.”
         “Pity you’ve got a girlfriend.” René added spicily, narrowing her eyes as she stuck up for her best friend. Leo turned to look at her.
         “Really, René, I couldn’t stop thinking about Hayley for the whole time. I love her. I really do.”
René eyeballed him warily, but restrained herself from making any comments.
         “Yeah, you’re better off with Hayley.” Steve concluded with a nod.
         “Well, I’m going to propose. I even had the ring engraved. It’s just that…” he broke off with an inaudible sigh.
         “What?” Chelle asked.
         “Well, I just wish that Dad wasn’t pushing me into marriage so quickly. I’m only twenty one!”
         “Have you told him this?” Chelle suggested, digging her thumbs into her fiancé’s back.
         “I told him until I was blue in the face,” Leo replied. “He thinks that if he marries me off maybe I’ll settle down. Not only that, but he thinks that if we ‘tie the knot’, all our problems will disappear. I mean, he keeps saying that it worked for him and Mum. It’s not that I don’t want to marry Hayley. I do. I just want to wait a bit, wait ‘til we’re old enough and mature enough to handle our problems.” His eyebrows creased. “Somehow, I don’t think they went away for my parents. Mum just gave up, and shut up about it. I don’t want that to happen in my marriage!”
         “Your Mum sounds like a wise woman.” Steve teased in the direction of Chelle, who karate chopped him on the shoulder. “Ow!”
         “You deserved that.” She replied, sticking out her tongue.
         “No I didn’t.” he mumbled around a couple of biscuits as he shoved them into his mouth.
Chelle hit him on the arm.
         “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” She chided. Steve swallowed, smiled beguilingly, and tipped his head back for a kiss on the cheek, which Chelle gave, crinkling up her nose as she smiled at him. René scratched her collarbone thoughtfully as she watched them.
         “You and Hayley could be like that.” She said softly, nudging Leo. She smiled sadly. “Makes me wish I had a boyfriend.”
         “Yeah, but relationships have their down sides too. Hayley and I haven’t stopped arguing for about a month.”
         “What about?”
He shrugged. “That’s just it. We don’t know. It’s usually nothing, and escalates into us not talking for days. Or just a regular shouting match.”
         “Well, you could stop cheating on her,” René suggested quickly.
         “It’s not always my fault,” Leo snapped, avoiding her eyes. Looking up at Steve and Chelle, who were play-fighting, he said “How do you two hang onto what you share?”
Chelle moved to sit on Steve’s lap.
         “Because it’s worth it,” she replied in a soft, gentle voice. “Like it’s worth it for you and Hayley to stick out this bad time.”
         “Is it?” he asked, suddenly seeming to drop all pretences of holding no doubts.
         “Of course it is.” René answered firmly, but kindly. “Look at what you’ve been through together – if that doesn’t prove that you’ll always be right for each other, what does?”
         “I don’t know.” Leo answered. Then he sat up straight. “No, you’re right. I’ll propose, and I’m sure that it’s the right thing to do. She’s perfect for me. I’m perfect for her. Right?”
         “And you love her.” Chelle reminded him, lacing her fingers with Steve.
         “And I love her.” Echoed Leo. “That’s enough, right? I want to share my life with her.” He looked up cheerily, checking his watch. “Thanks guys. Time for lectures – I’ll see you later.”
         “Dinner?” suggested Steve.
         “Nah,” Leo replied, shrugging on a jacket. “I think I’ll take Hayley out.”
         “Good boy,” teased Chelle.
         “See you guys.”

Leo waved as he left the apartment, completely unaware of the uneasy glances his friends shared at his departure.
         

*  *  *  *  *

         Laura Dean-Smith screwed up her eyes as she peered at the page before her. “You mean you won with this old thing?”
         “Hey,” her brother replied, hurt. “‘This old thing’ got us first class tickets to Venice. And a five star hotel.”
         “And passes to galleries and museums… yeah I know. And it’s fantastic and I can’t wait to go! But…” She frowned at the picture. “Alex, I just don’t see where the lines are supposed to be. Isn’t it supposed to be a landscape picture?”
         “It’s impressionism,” Alexander snapped as he snatched his painting back. “Maybe I should just ask Marie if she wants to come instead.”

Both siblings turned to look at the collie dog as she raised her head at the sound of her name. Laura giggled and threw her arms round her brother.
         “You are the bestest big brother in the world and I love you,” she sang, her big blue eyes shining. When Alex grunted, still annoyed at her reaction to his hard work, she took a lock of her curly brown hair and tickled his nose. “And I’m sorry I dissed your painting. It’s beautiful. Much better than my entry.”
         “Humph,” Alex grunted again, slightly appeased. “Well you’d better go pack sauce pot.”
Laura punched him on the arm as she let go of his neck. “Will you stop calling me that? I’ve only been home from Uni for one day and you’re already making me feel like I’m five again.”
         “You might be Miss grown-up Laura Dean-Smith to the world now, but you’ll always be ‘sauce pot’ to me. One year at University doesn’t change that.”
         
With a lady like sniff, Laura retreated to her room. Alex turned to his mother as she exited the kitchen. “You’ve made her very happy, you know.”
         “Yeah,” sighed Alex. “But I still wish you and Dad would take the tickets. I won them for you.”
         “Alexander,” laughed Annie as she patted her son’s shoulder, “If I went to Venice with your father he’d spend the whole time whining about the heat, and the foreign language, and the ‘funny’ food. He’s not a cultural sort of person. Besides, Laura can use the experience.”
         “Well,” Alex admitted grudgingly, “It’ll probably help a bit in some of the art history classes she has to do in some of her courses.”
         “Alex, she’s doing art. The more of it she sees the better she’ll do.”
         “That’s true.”
Annie smiled at her son and reached up to touch his cheek. “I’m very proud of the man you’ve become, Alex. You know that, don’t you?”
         “Yeah.”

The reply was gruff, and the accompanying hug was brief, but Annie knew that Alex was touched by the compliment. “Come on. Help me in the garden?”
         “Of course.” Alex smiled easily and grabbed a ball, waving it in front of Marie as she jumped up, barking, to follow her family into the warm afternoon sun.