Love to Hate You: Three's a Crowd

Chapter Twenty-Six - Love and War

'So, there's um... something I wanted to talk to you about,' Tobias said, as he sat in Emily's living room, with Monica staring at him from her perch on the arm of the sofa. Emily was stroking Joan's fur whilst watching her favourite TV programme.

'Oh?' she asked, not taking her gaze from the television.

'Yeah,' he said. 'It's quite important.'

'Alright,' she nodded, pausing the TV, because despite having seen each episode numerous times, she didn't want to miss any of it. 'What did you want to discuss?' She looked at him with a warm, open face, and then she smooshed Joan into her cheek, and Joan's eyes met his. Smug. Taunting. He fidgeted nervously.

'Well,' he began, finding it very inconvenient that he felt obliged to always do as his mother said. 'You and I –'

'And the girls!' Emily interjected. 'Don't forget Monica and Joan!' He supposed Joan had good reason to look so smug, after all.

'Yes,' he nodded. 'You and I, and Monica and Joan; we're getting on well, aren't we?' Emily nodded.

'Very well,' she agreed.

'So, there's potential here,' he reasoned. 'This could become something quite serious.' It was said as a statement, but it was also a question, so he waited, hoping to gauge her reaction. All she did was smoosh Joan's face again. 'So, anyway, because I like you – and the girls – and because I think we've got potential,' for fleas or fur balls, mostly, 'I wanted to tell you something before we get too serious. Before you meet my family.'

'Okay,' she replied easily. She wasn't at all suspicious. Monica and Joan were more than suspicious enough on their own; Monica staring at him from the arm of the sofa, languidly waving her tail, like an opponent ominously toying with a penknife, whilst Joan taunted him with the affection she was receiving from her minion, otherwise known as "Emily".

'Well,' he said, rubbing the back of his neck. How does one explain an extra-marital affair with one's brother's wife? An affair which lasted four years? And ought he mention Kate and her connection to Rudy, or the husband she'd had at the time? It was less likely to come up in conversation, but in the interests of full-disclosure...? Emily was a sort-of-librarian after all, and librarians are thorough; always scanning indexes and filing things away methodically. She was bound to find out. 'Many years ago,' he said, in a storyteller's voice, 'I... fell in love. Or at least, I thought I was in love. In hindsight, I don't like her at all, so now I find it hard to rationalise – I prefer to deny it – but at the time, I definitely thought I was in love. It felt like love to me.' Emily nodded for him to continue. 'She was married,' he explained, frowning. Had he got the right tone? He needed to attempt to justify his actions, whilst also sounding remorseful.

'That's sad,' Emily told him.

'Yes,' he murmured. But it wasn't sad, because he hadn't let a little thing like marriage stop him. 'Well, I loved her, and she was married, so I tried to ignore my feelings, but she was in an unhappy marriage and she said she loved me, too...' He glanced at Monica; her tail was still swishing threateningly. 'I'm ashamed to say that after a time, I gave into my feelings. We began an affair.'

'Oh,' Emily said, drawing in a steadying breath. 'You were single at the time though?'

'I was, yes, but she was married. To my brother.'

'Your brother?' she repeated, and he thought he detected an ounce of horror. Certainly, a sprinkling of rebuke.

'Yes,' he admitted, his throat tight. 'I broke it off a number of times – I knew what we were doing was wrong – but I thought I loved her, and she said she loved me. She was terribly unhappy in her marriage and my brother had no time for her, so...' He shrugged. 'Each time I broke it off, we ended up seeing each other again. For four years.'