The Devils Pact Chapter 40 The Patriots
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7. The Patriots Ch. 19-21 free porn video
The next week flew by blindingly fast. Ellia couldn’t believe she had once been nervous about staying with Micah’s family.
The day that ‘the boys’ won the medley relay was particularly good. She didn’t worry about cheering for America instead of Australia because she wasn’t really, she was cheering for her friends.
That night they went out to a bar to celebrate and Grace and Lucas managed to sweet talk the band that was playing into letting them borrow their instruments and microphones.
The small crowd in the bar looked up in surprise when Lucas’ sharp American words sounded over the din.
‘Gracie and I want to play a song to welcome our new friend,’ he said with a big grin.
Grace was already laughing as Lucas picked the introductory bars of ‘Land Down Under.’
She was sitting at a bar table with Micah and Nicholas who were laughing freely.
‘Go on, aren’t you going to ask her to dance?’ Nicholas asked, nudging Micah in the shoulder.
Micah shook his head. ‘I don’t dance.’
Nicholas rolled his eyes and extended his hand to Ellia. She wasn’t much of a dancer, but she’d already had three gin and tonics so she allowed herself to be led onto the dance floor and spun and turned and dipped and swooped until she was laughing and the song had ended.
The band took the guitar and microphone back and Lucas bounded towards them like an over excited puppy dog. He grabbed her hand and pulled her away from Nicholas.
‘I give him fifteen seconds,’ he said to Nicholas.
Nicholas laughed and shook his head. ‘I bet he can hold out to thirty.’
Ellia was confused as Lucas wrapped an arm around her waist and started moving in time with the music. ‘What are you guys laughing about?’ She asked.
‘Watch this,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘There’s no way Micah will let me dance with you.’
‘Huh? Why not? I just danced with Nicholas.’
‘But I’m not Nicholas.’
Ellia squinted her eyes at him. What was that supposed to mean? She didn’t think Micah was the jealous type. Before she could finish that thought however Micah was standing behind Lucas, tapping him on the shoulder.
‘Is there a problem?’ Lucas asked innocently.
One of Micah’s eyebrows rose. ‘Come on, don’t make me deck you in front of everyone.’
Lucas held his hands up in the air and backed away from her, smiling. When Micah turned away from him Lucas checked his watch and winked at Ellia before going to sit back down.
‘They’re teasing you,’ she told Micah.
He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I don’t care. Some things are worth being teased about.’
She had to agree. She would endure whatever teasing came her way just to stay in Micah’s arms.
The next day she watched with the rest of the family from the live feed on the TV outside the conference room. The guys’ names were written on placards in front of where they were supposed to sit and there was some shuffling and confusion as they fought over where each one of them wanted to sit.
‘I don’t want to sit on the end,’ Lucas complained.
‘Fine, sit in my seat,’ Matthew said.
‘No, don’t let them sit together, there’ll be a disaster,’ Oliver said, nodding towards Lucas and Micah.
‘Here, we’ll swap,’ Micah said to him.
When they were finally all seated they passed the name placards to each other until they were lined up properly, Matthew, Lucas, Oliver then Micah.
Everyone wanted to know how Micah felt about sacrificing his 200 m medal chance for Lucas.
‘Well, let me ask you this,’ he replied. ‘When thanksgiving rolls around is a medal on a string going to make me laugh by burning the turkey to a crisp and then blaming it on the oven?’
‘Hey!’ Lucas cried indignantly. ‘I told you, there was a power surge. I cooked it for the time it said in the recipe.’
The three Watsons were all laughing at him.
‘Whatever,’ Lucas said as he leaned around Oliver and swiped Micah over the back of the head playfully. ‘We can’t all be little miss Julia Child like you Mikey.’
Although there were four of them there it was Micah who everyone wanted answers from. The world appeared to be fascinated by him. A reporter asked him if he was single.
Micah’s eyes bulged momentarily and he stuttered, ‘Ah, no.’
Lucas’ eyes lit up with amusement. ‘I’ll take you on a date,’ he offered the reporter. ‘I’m not Micah, but I’m a good dancer.’
Micah gave him a funny quizzical look, one eyebrow rose and the other one lowered. ‘Yeah right, you can dance the Macarena,’ he said.
Lucas looked back at Micah, a huge grin growing on his face. ‘Your girlfriend seemed to like dancing with me.’
Micah’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared and leapt up from his chair and met Lucas behind Oliver and they both fell, disappearing behind the big long desk they were all seated at. There was laughing and yelping and Micah’s foot appeared momentarily in the air.
Oliver rolled his eyes and turned to Matthew. ‘I told you.’
‘Just continue without them,’ Matthew instructed the reporters.
Not long later Micah reappeared and sat calmly back in his seat, and then Lucas followed, shaking his hand and wincing.
‘Idiots,’ Emma said as she shook her head, but she was smiling.
Ellia couldn’t stay to watch the entire question and answer session because she had to get to her interview at the Australian Institute of Sport’s makeshift offices in the athletes village.
She fidgeted nervously with her interview suit as she waited and then felt stupidly overdressed when the two guys interviewing her turned out to be wearing shorts and polo shirts.
They covered all of the basic questions that she’d been expecting and she started to relax.
‘How do you feel about living in Canberra?’ One of them asked.
‘Well, it would be fine, but I was kind of hoping to be stationed somewhere else.’
‘You want to go back to Brisbane?’
‘No. I kind of need to be in a city that has an indoor velodrome.’
‘Want to be or need to be? You don’t ride competitively anymore…’
‘No, my boyfriend does. It’s for my boyfriend. Micah will have to give up the road circuit when we move to Australia so he’ll need a velodrome to train in for track racing.’
She felt their surprise as much as she saw it. Eyes bulged and the interviewers leaned towards her a little, mouths gaping. ‘Are you talking about Micah Watson?’
When she didn’t answer they pushed again. ‘Micah Watson is your boyfriend?’
Dating someone with a household name wasn’t all it was cut out to be. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
They leaned back and looked at each other, baffled. ‘Why would Micah Watson want to move to Australia? All of the cyclists in Australia are bursting to get to Europe or the States and he wants to move there? It would be like athletic suicide.’
There was silence in the room as this reality settled over her.
The interviewers shifted uneasily. ‘Would that be a conflict of interest?’ The one with the moustache asked the balding one. ‘I mean, if she is in a relationship with a foreigner competing against the cyclists she’s treating?’
‘I don’t know. It’s never come up before. It sounds like it might be a conflict of interest kind of situation.’
They turned back to her and Ken, the guy with the moustache, held his palms to the ceiling. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. We’ll have to take this to our superiors… I’m sorry Ellia, otherwise it would be a good fit… I’ll have to let you know in a few days.’
She was stunned. It hadn’t occurred to her that being with Micah would be a conflict of interest if she wanted to work with Australian cyclists, but of course it was.
In a daze she walked out of the athletes village and crammed on the
Tube, rode the three stops to the apartment complex, but didn’t get off. She had told Micah she would go straight back to the apartment after the interview but she couldn’t face him yet.
She rode another three stops and decided to walk back to give her some time and space to think. She felt blisters forming on the backs of her heels as she walked down the busy streets, crowded with families and tourists and young people.
The seed of doubt that had always resided in her heart was starting to take root. She loved Micah. She was so incredibly in love with Micah. She wanted him to be happy and successful. Australia was a dead-end for him. He would never be the cyclist he could be if he was based in Australia.
On top of that she would never be able to have the career she wanted in Australia if he was there with her. It just wasn’t possible.
But she couldn’t conceive of giving up her own career to let his thrive in Europe or North America. She couldn’t see that leading anywhere except unhappiness.
As she had always known, it was a lose – lose situation when it came to Micah.
When she finally got to the apartment Micah was sitting at the kitchen doing something on his computer and Adrian was watching TV.
‘How did it go?’ Micah asked.
Ellia just shook her head.
He got up and encased her in a hug. ‘It’s okay baby,’ he whispered to her. ‘We’ll figure something else out. There are the state agencies too, right?’
She nodded as her tears fell off her cheeks.
He cooked dinner and they ate together with Adrian. She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t tell him now, not when he had his time trial race in two days time. She would have to break up with him after his race.
After Micah had left she sat on the couch with Adrian and watched the TV without seeing it, then went to bed before Grace and Nicholas even came home with the children. She didn’t sleep, she just cried. Her heart was breaking and in two days time she would break the heart of the man she loved.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ellia felt numb. For three days she had been living a lie and pretending everything was okay. Everywhere she turned there was someone else she had come to love who she was lying to.
The worst was the look on Micah’s face. The patient way he asked if there was something bothering her. The small, relieved smile he made when she falsely assured him everything was fine.
She had meant to tell him after his time trial race, but when he won and she saw how happy he was, and how happy his family were she just couldn’t do it. She let herself be swept up in the flow. She let him believe it was the best year of his life. She let him make love to her with a tenderness she didn’t deserve. She let him make promises to her that she had no intention of allowing him to keep.
She couldn’t go on but she also couldn’t find the strength to tell him.
It was Adrian who finally made her do it. He was going out with Nicholas and Grace and the kids and he unexpectedly came back to the apartment to get Alexander’s hat. Micah was still in the shower and Ellia was drinking tea at the kitchen table. Adrian walked right up to her and said, ‘Do it now. Whatever it is you have to tell him, just get it over and done with today.’
‘Excuse me?’ She asked, shocked.
His blonde head tilted to the side. ‘I know you have a secret. I don’t know what it is and it’s none of my business to ask, but you need to tell him. It’s eating you up.’
Then he walked out the door.
She felt such a surge of adrenaline that when Micah wandered in, all clean and smelling of soap and toothpaste, she did it.
‘I have to leave you,’ she said.
‘Huh?’ He asked with a quizzical look on his face.
‘Micah I love you very much, I hope you know that.’
The look on his face quickly turned from inquisitiveness to shock, then to horror. He plopped down into the chair beside her.
‘That’s why I can’t let you move to Australia with me,’ she continued. ‘It would be suicide for your career.’
‘I… I thought we’d talked about this. I thought we’d agreed that I would try track racing for a few seasons?’ His eyes scanned hers desperately and she felt a familiar aching sadness in her heart.
She bit her lip to stop it from quivering.
‘Elle… I love you. I want to be with you. I don’t care which country we’re in. I can ride my bike in any country that has roads…’
Tears started spilling down her cheeks. ‘I can’t work if I’m with you. They told me it would be a conflict of interest.’
His mouth gaped open. ‘You mean I couldn’t race my bike?’
She shook her head.
‘That’s… well, that’s asking an awful lot. Move to a new country and quit cycling?’
‘That’s why I can’t ask you to do it. I don’t want you to do it. You have an amazing talent and an amazing family and in the long run you will be much happier if you do things for yourself right now, not do things for us, because we will never be able to work Micah. We’ll end up hating each other for the loss of our careers and I don’t want you to hate me.’
‘I could never hate you.’ His voice wavered as he spoke softly.
‘If I asked you to give up all the things you love you would hate me. That’s why I’m not asking. I’m telling you that we can’t work. I love you and so I’m telling you not to follow me.’
She got up and went to the bathroom to blow her nose and wash her face and then she packed her clothes into her suitcase. Micah was still sitting at the kitchen table when she came out. He had one elbow resting on the table and his head cradled in his hand.
‘Micah? I have to leave.’
He looked up at her with red rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. ‘Now? Why now? Can’t you at least stay until the closing ceremony?’
‘Why?’
‘To give us more time. Just a few days.’ He stood in front of her and held her by the arms. ‘Please Elle, stay a few more days…’
She fell into his embrace and let herself sob into his shirt.
‘Please Ellia…’ He whispered into her hair as his hands rubbed up and down her back. ‘I love you… please stay with me… I’ll do whatever you want… please… I’m begging you, don’t leave me.’
‘I have to Micah.’ She sniffed as she pushed away from him and his arms yielded. She looked up at him one last time, her vision blurred by her tears. One last look at his beautiful face, his deep brown eyes, his flat nose and fat lips, and his brown skin.
And then she left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Strangely, Ellia felt none of the emotions that she thought she would when she stepped off the plane in Brisbane. She was hoping for even a tiny flicker of happiness, or failing that, relief, but she felt neither. She just felt sick. Even when she saw Laura’s worried face she still just felt sick.
Laura took her home to their parents’ house and waited while she showered. Ellia used Bryce’s boy shampoo and his face wash and wished that it would make her feel fresher. Laura had made coffee and when Ellia came out of the bathroom she installed a mug of it in her hands.
‘You have to stay up for a good four or five hours to fight off jetlag, I thought you might need some fuel.’
‘Thanks Lou.’
‘Um… do you want to talk about anything? You kinda look like hell.’
Ellia sighed. ‘Thanks, but not really. Maybe in a few days when it has settled in.’
But in a few days she still didn’t feel like talking about it. Micah had emailed her three times telling her about how much he missed her. Every time she cried and every time she typed the same answer:
‘Micah, I miss you too, but it is for the best if we try to go on with our lives without each other. I will always have a special place in my heart for you and I wish you the best fortune in life. Love, Ellia.’
She watched the Olympic closing ceremony on the TV and there
were a few shots of him with his brothers. The Australian commentators seemed to be just as fascinated with him as the media in London had been. She endured it through tears.
Never before had she cried so much. She cried at night. She cried when she left for Canberra. She cried in the toilet stall on her first day of work. She cried after she got asked out the first time. She cried the first time she tried to go on a date with a guy. He got so freaked out that he took her straight home and promptly disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Then one day she stopped crying. She still felt sick in her stomach. She still felt like crying, but no tears came. Now she couldn’t eat. Everything made her feel sick, right to the pit of her stomach. She went to the doctor who ran every test known to man.
‘There doesn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with you,’ the doctor said. She recommended stress counseling and gave her a 6 pack of high calorie smoothie drinks that supposedly had all of the vitamins and minerals she needed each day. She read the label and noticed that it didn’t have any gluten ingredients and sadly this reminded her of Micah and made her feel sick all over again.
She went online and ordered three crates of the Sustasure smoothies to be delivered to her house. The vanilla flavor was on special so she ordered all vanilla. It all tasted the same to her anyway. It was convenient. When she was at work she would go to the cafeteria for lunch and force down some manner of real food but when she went home she just drank a Sustasure for dinner and another for breakfast. It was way easier than actually thinking about food.
Micah’s emails thinned out when he realized that she was only ever going to send back the same response. She still got one every now and then and it made her stomach churn and she could never drink her Sustasure the nights that she got emails from him.
At the end of October Laura paid her a surprise visit.
‘My god! What are you doing here?’ Ellia screeched as she ran up the front path to where Laura was waiting on the porch of the house she rented.
‘I came to check up on you,’ she said as she hugged her hello. ‘How’s it going? Do you like work? Did you find a swim team to train with? I feel like it’s been ages since we talked. You always brush me off on iChat these days. Is there a special guy that’s talking up all your time and you’re not telling me about?’
Ellia rolled her eyes. ‘The answer is no to each and every one of your questions. Work is okay, but I don’t really like it yet, I don’t have a swim team or a boyfriend. I went on a date once and scared the poor boy off.’
‘Why? What did you do?’
‘Oh, just some inappropriate crying.’
‘Oh…’ Laura looked at her with squinted eyes, as if she didn’t quite know what to make of that comment. ‘Well, let’s go inside. I bought some wine but it needs to go in the fridge.’
‘I unplugged the fridge.’
‘What? Why would you do that?’
‘I wasn’t using it. I thought it was a waste of energy to keep it going. My electricity bills are really cheap now.’
‘Wait – you unplugged it how long ago?’
‘I dunno, like 6 weeks or something.’
Laura was stopped dead in the hallway. ‘You haven’t used a fridge in 6 weeks? Do you know how weird that is Elle?’
Ellia was suddenly embarrassed. She hadn’t really thought about how weird her diet might look to someone who didn’t understand how sick she felt. Now she didn’t want Laura to go into her kitchen and see the crates of un-refrigerated Sustasure, but it was too late, Laura was pushing past her.
‘Ellia, what the fuck is going on? What is this shit and why do you have so much of it?’ She said holding up a can of Sustasure. ‘Where are your fruits and vegetables and grains and meats and dairy and all of that shit?’
‘Um… well I went to the doctor because I didn’t feel good and she told me to try drinking this stuff,’ Ellia said with a shrug.
Laura closed her eyes and took a deep breath then exhaled. When she opened her eyes she sat down at the little (completely unused) kitchen table. ‘Sit,’ she ordered.
Ellia obeyed.
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘Okay, well I wasn’t feeling good so I went to the doctor and she did all of these tests. Blood tests, allergy tests…’
‘No,’ Laura cut her off. ‘Tell me what happened with Micah.’
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