I am baaaack with another snip for this week’s chapter. A reunion is coming! And all I have to say is, the situation between Caz and Suze is getting a wee more complicated.
(For context, Suze and Caz are no longer married in my AU. Suze has remarried, it’s been ten years since the explosion, and Caz’s supposed demise.)
The Box Hub was filling with tables, chairs, and refreshments. Morsels like mini quiches, potato skins, devilled eggs, and berry tarts. Josie sparing no expense with prawn cocktails and even a bucket of oysters. Of course, having to throw her Gallic taste to her Scottish friends, she ordered a tray of escargot. She compiled as many pictures as she could of all the crew from the seventies and sixties and hung them along the walls with fairy lights. An activity for them to gather and reminisce. Remember the happier days before the explosion. Before the harrowing confusion of their return. When things were simpler and made sense. She was hellbent on replicating it. Ignoring the giant, roaring elephant in the room, and focus on what really mattered. That they were all alive and well.
The hired bar was bringing in many Scottish brews. Tennent’s Lager, Scotch Whiskey, and Buckfast, all while a DJ prepped his stand with readily available records ranging from the seventies to the present.
Josie wasn’t alone, she was happy to have help from Caz, Cait, Maidie, and most surprisingly, Suze. With her attention mostly pressed on perfection and barking at the other workers, the McLeary crew were busy to their own tasks. But every now and then, catching Maidie and Cait’s alarm, Suze and Caz would exchange a word. Glances and smiles. Even a jest and some laughter. It was surreal to witness, but neither dared to test it. They kept quiet but attentive, their ears listening as their eyes and movements arranged the hall for the party. Little did they know, Suze and Caz’s exchange was a display for them.
Josie called for Cait or Maidie to go and grab the boxes of water bottles from the car, both the girls opted to it, finally leaving Suze and Caz alone. Of course, they both fell silent. Suze stayed fussing the pictures on the line, as Caz huffed with the tables. She plucked one picture, it was Caz. She flicked her eyes back to startle he was staring, too. Her hair flied to her face when she turned her head away. Then Caz came over, “I remember that.”
He referred to the photo. His earlier boxing days. His skin glistening in sweat, a nose bruised and bloodied. Yet, that wasn’t the recall he meant. Suze knew what he meant, and she stayed quiet. Her thoughts twisted and chest weighted as he came to her side and took the photo. “My nose was no the same after that.”
“Aye,” smiled Suze, a voice soft. “I… saw you quickly after, right?”
“Right. How could I forget?”
It was the night they reunited. Both in their mid twenties. Suze had recently started seeing Chamberlain, Caz’s boxing career was just starting to take off. Then they met, and both ventures ended. Their lives changed. After that, it quickly became just the two of them.
Caz gave the picture back for Suze to hang up, and she stayed looking for a moment indulgently. In a moment without the girls, without Elliot, with Josie’s distracted quarreling with staff not at all paying attention, she glanced up to Caz. Her eyes soft and sparkling, as if tears were trying. Caz could not ignore it, and the stress lines on his face faded. No words, but so much being said. Neither foolish enough to say what it was.
Caz muttered, “Suze.” His hand hovering up for her own, then immediately letting it fall back to his side. Little did he know, Suze almost had. The exact reason why Suze cowered from seeing him till now was coming to play like a hunger that could not be sated. Feelings long forgotten now raging and pulsing, nearly sending her into shakes. In that moment she forgot all reasoning. She forgot she was a good wife. She forgot, entirely. All that existed in that moment was him.
Much to her relief, Cait and Maidie came back loudly, causing Caz to drift back to the tables as if nothing changed. Suze was less savvy, she was left before the photo wall still clutching the one of Caz - grieving the moment, already.
