Free Blood Guilt by Ben Cheetham Page B

me.”
    “It’s just I haven’t
felt anything like that since, well, since we were first together.” Eve stood
up and pulled on her underwear. “I’d better check on the spaghetti.”
    Harlan stretched out
naked on the rug, his body suffused with an almost floating sense of
relaxation. It was as though, for a brief time at least, Eve had drawn all the
guilt out of him and absorbed it somewhere deep inside her. She returned with a
tray loaded with two bowls of pasta and crusty bread. They ate on the rug,
Harlan pounding his food back as if there was no tomorrow. Eve laughed when he
asked if there was anymore, and fetched him a second helping. When he was
finished, he rested back against the sofa and sighed contentedly. He would’ve
liked nothing better at that moment than to curl up in bed with Eve and drift
off to sleep. “God, I’ve missed this,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
    “I’ve missed you too,
Harlan. More than I ever thought I could.” The tears were back in Eve’s eyes.
She swiped them away and cast him a glance, half hopeful, half fearful. “So
what happens now?”
    What happens now? It
was a question that tore away Harlan’s thin layer of contentment, gripped him
by either hand and pulled in opposite directions. On the one hand, he
desperately wanted to be with Eve. On the other, he didn’t know whether he
could allow himself to be with her. It wasn’t simply that he was an infertile
ex-con with zero career prospects – although that was a big part of it. It was
the guilt. Already he could feel it creeping back over him like a vine. Soon
the weight of it would be enough to drag him, and maybe Eve too if she was with
him, back down into a pit of self-loathing and despair. He would’ve rather
swallowed the tumbler of sleeping-pills than do that to her again. He had to
climb out from under the guilt. But he couldn’t do it by himself. He needed
help. And the only person who could help him was the person who hated him most
in the world – Susan Reed. He didn’t expect forgiveness, but he hoped that if
he helped get her son back, she would ease his burden enough to let him have a
life.
    Harlan was reluctant to
explain the way he felt to Eve, knowing his words would cut deep. Bitter
experience had taught him that concealing his feelings wasn’t an option either,
though. He sat trying to work up the nerve to put his thoughts into words, but
when he eventually opened his mouth all that came out was a lame, “I don’t
know.” He dropped his gaze. Suddenly conscious of his nakedness, he started
pulling on his clothes.
    “Why don’t we go to
bed?”
    Harlan looked at Eve
uncertainly. A few minutes earlier, he wouldn’t have hesitated to go along with
her suggestion, but with so many conflicting thoughts and feelings battling for
space inside him he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. “We don’t have to talk,”
she continued. “We can just hold each other and forget the world for a while.”
    “Forget.” Harlan said
the word with a sigh of longing. “Okay.”
    Eve took Harlan’s hand
and led him to bed. He nestled into the soft, clean-smelling sheets with her
head on his shoulder and her leg crooked over his, feeling the heat of her
breath against his skin. At first, her breathing was a little shallow and her
body occasionally spasmed – she’d always suffered from hypnic jerks when tense.
After a while, though, he felt the heaviness of sleep overtake her. He watched
her and tried to exist only in that moment, but it wasn’t possible. In the end,
he gently disentangled himself from her, gathered up his clothes, went into the
living-room and switched on the television to check for any breaking news.
There was none. The promised press conference hadn’t yet occurred.
    Harlan’s phone rang. It
was Jim. Heart thumping, wondering if this was going to be the call that
changed everything, he answered his phone. “What’s happened?” he asked, his
voice eager but