On Dublin Street

La Rocca Non-Believer was playing. It was a favorite of mine. “You dance?”

“Tonight I do.” I let him lead me onto the dance floor and I buried into him as he held me close. “Your heart is racing. Did Elodie say something to you?”

Just the truth. She was right. I should walk away. I breathed him in, not able to picture a moment without him in my life.

And so I was selfish. I snuggled closer. I couldn’t walk away. But if I hurt him? Oh God, the thought of hurting him ripped me apart. Ripped me so totally, that I knew, I cared more for him than I did for myself.

I was in deep.

I felt my breath hitch. Reading the change in me, Braden squeezed me closer and murmured, “Breath, babe,” in my ear. I wasn’t having a panic attack, just a freak out, but I didn’t say anything, enjoying the calm as he stroked my back soothingly.

“What did she say?” His tone was hard. He was mad at Elodie.

I shook my head reassuring him. “She just mentioned how important family is. It wasn’t her fault.”

“Babe,” he whispered, stroking my cheek.

“You want to get me drunk?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

Braden snorted, sliding his hands sensually down my back to curve on my hips. “I don’t need to get you drunk to have my way with you.”

“Oh, you are so lucky I like the whole caveman thing, Braden Carmichael.”

~20~

I don’t know why, but I didn’t tell the good doctor about any of that. I coveted that piece of me, held it close, as I tried to figure out what exactly I was going to do with it. I still had no plan, but I didn’t let it get in the way of enjoying my time with Braden. I’m thankful for that, because little did I know only a few weeks after the wedding and the first week in December, everything would change.

While Ellie worked at the kitchen table, Braden and I lounged in the sitting room, the lights low, the Christmas tree lights glittering at the window. Ellie had insisted we put the tree up on the first. She was a Christmassy girl. It was a cold, December night, a Wednesday, and we were watching a Korean movie called A Bittersweet Revenge. I was into it, but it seemed Braden’s mind was elsewhere.

“Do you fancy going to the German market this Saturday?”

I’d already gone last Saturday with Ellie, but I loved the German market, and I’d be with Braden, so yeah, I was up for that. Edinburgh at Christmas time was magical, even to a non-believer like me. White lights were wrapped around all the trees in Princes Street Gardens, a German market with all these amazing smells, and pretty gifts, and weird sausages, set up camp by the Royal Art Academy, and on the east side, by the Scott Monument, was a fairground with a huge Ferris wheel that lit up the night sky. There was nothing quite like walking that street on a crisp winter’s day at dusk. “Sure.” I smiled over at him. I was lying sprawled out on the couch, and Braden was lounging at the end of it.

He nodded. “I was thinking in February we could take some time off work. A long weekend maybe. I’ve got a cabin in Hunters Quay and it looks right over the Holy Loch. It’s pretty nice. Peaceful. Not to mention there’s an amazing Indian restaurant in Dunoon, which is just across the Loch.”

It sounded awesome, especially considering I’d been in Scotland for over four years and I hadn’t gone further than St. Andrews.  “Sounds great. Where is it exactly?”

“Argyll.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t the highlands, was it? “Isn’t Argyll in the west?”

As if he read my mind, Braden gri

“You sold me at the Loch,” I exaggerated the ‘ch’ sound like he did. “Just tell me when, and I’m there.”

At that, Braden looked affectionately amused. “Sex and holidays.”

“Uh, what?”

“I’m making a list of things that make you agreeable.”

I scoffed, pushing my foot into his leg. “And all you got is sex and vacations?”

“The length of the list is not my fault.”

“Are you saying I’m disagreeable?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Woman, how stupid do you think I am? You really think I’m answering that? I want to get laid tonight.”

I pushed him harder. “Watch it, or you might get laid to rest.”

Braden threw his head back and laughed.

Scowling but not really meaning it, I turned back to the movie. “You’re lucky you’re good in bed.”

“Oh.” He grabbed at my foot. “I think you keep me around for other reasons.”

I slanted him a look out of the corner of my eye. “Right now, for the life of me I can’t think what those reasons are.”

Braden tugged harder on my foot, raising his fingers towards it. “Take it back or the foot gets it.”

Oh hell no! I yanked at my appendage. “Braden, no.”

Deaf to my warning, he started to tickle me, his grip tightening as I laughed breathlessly and kicked out, trying to get free.

He wouldn’t stop.

Ruthless!

“Braden,” I panted hysterically, attempting to shove at him with my arms but struggling as he continued his war on my feet. I laughed harder, ribs aching, and then… horror.

I broke wind.

Big time.

Braden immediately let go of my feet, his loud, rumbling laugh filling the room, laughter that only deepened when I lost balance, from kicking out at him and then being abruptly let go, and fell off the couch with an undignified thud.

Mortified as he collapsed against the couch belly laughing at my fart then fall, I grabbed a cushion and launched it at him from my position on the floor.

Of course this only made the idiot laugh harder.

I warred between feeling humiliation at farting in front of him, something you just didn’t do in company, and laughing, since his was so infectious. “Braden!” I whined. “Shut up. It’s not fu

“Oh babe,” he tried to catch his breath, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye as he gri

I slapped it away. “You’re such an immature a-hole.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who just let off.”

Oh God, it was so awful. I groaned, falling onto my back and covering my eyes with my hands.

“Jocelyn,” I felt his hand on my knee and heard the amusement in his voice. “Babe, why are you so embarrassed? It was just a fart. Brilliantly timed I might add.”

I sucked in the mortification. “Oh my God, shut up.” He chuckled again and I snapped open my furious eyes. “You’re enjoying this!”

“Well yeah,” he huffed, eyes bright. “I’ve never seen you embarrassed before. Even when I walked in on you naked you gave me attitude and acted like you didn’t care. That you’re mortified by a fart is really quite adorable.”

“I am not adorable!”

“Oh I think you are.”

“I am cool and self-possessed,” I argued. “Cool and self-possessed people do not break wind. You, in particular, are not supposed to know that I break wind!”

His lips twitched. “I hate to tell you this, babe, but I already knew that you broke wind. Part of the human condition and all that.”

I shook my head defiantly. “We should just end it now. All the mystery is gone.”

Braden was laughing hard again as he reached down to pull me up by the waist. I was in the middle of letting him help me when the crash and thud sounded from the kitchen. Our eyes flew to each other, our laughter dying.

“Ellie?” Braden shouted out in question.

Silence.

“Ellie!”

When she didn’t call back, my eyes widened on his and I jumped to my feet because Braden had already let me go to run through the apartment.

“Ellie!” I heard him cry out, and the fear in his voice had me picking up speed.

The sight that greeted me in the kitchen floored me. I stood frozen, watching as Braden kneeled on the floor, his hands hovering over Ellie whose body twitched in convulsions, her eyes fluttering rapidly, her mouth slack. “Ellie?” Braden’s pale face snapped up to me. “Call 999. I think she’s having some kind of seizure.”