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Another hopeless conference, another dinner, another day. Another hopeless weekend spent in the company of completely fucking useless hacks and a completely, utterly fucking useless staff team for a minister that had too many issues to count. Though, in retrospect, she’d probably flourish with a good team, one who didn’t constantly shoot her confidence levels down through the floor or bog her down with mountains of shite.
Maybe in a different life she wouldn’t be so insufferable.
It was with this thought in mind that Malcolm found himself passing by Nicola’s room at quarter past eleven at night, after everyone else had left the party downstairs. He’d gone as well, not wanting to watch everyone embarrass themselves.
Her team were still down there as well. Glenn was chatting up a particularly pretty (but again, fucking useless) ex-minister’s aid and Ollie was dancing with some (probably already cum-stained) whore that seemed to like how many drinks he was buying her. Maybe he’d finally get his prick wet tonight. As if.
After a moment’s thought, Malcolm rapped lightly at Nicola’s door. There came no answer. Just as he was about to leave, figuring she’d either gone to bed or was having herself a shower to forget the fucking terrible events of the day, she came to the door.
Not that she’d done terribly bad, mind. She was wonderful. She was, he found, actually good with the general public. She was good at making friends, being kind, and showing how much of a difference she wanted to make. The everyday voter… She was good with the civilians. She genuinely fucking cared and that never ceased to shock him beyond words.
She looked like shit. He noticed, even in the dim lighting of the hall, how her mascara had run. She’d been crying. Of that, he was completely sure.
“If you’ve come to shout at me, Malcolm, then you can fuck right off…”
His brows drew together, a bit puzzled, and he asked, “What’s wrong? Ye were crying. Really fuckin' odd considering how competent ye were tonight. Ye actually acted like a normal fuckin' person out there. Really outdid yerself today. The three-percent swing is definitely worth all the hard work, ae. Why do ye look like someone fuckin' face-painted on yer cheeks? Post-match puking, eh? That's new.”
His insults did little to calm her, or sway her into a better mood. “It’s none of your fucking business, Malcolm. Now fuck off to your own room and leave me to my misery.”
She went to close the door and reached out to wedge his arm through. “Dinnae try that,” he simply said. “What happened?”
She paused, her weight leaning against the wall now. That was when he noticed she was in her robe, something fluffy and white from the closet, and she looked like hell. It was as if she’d been in the midst of getting changed when something had happened.
“Let me in,” he pleaded, his voice taking on a new note. It disarmed her for the moment and she moved away to let him amble inside. He tried to ignore her discarded clothes on the bed, politely glancing away as he closed the door behind himself.
“Are ye going tae tell me what’s wrong or should I just go around killing everyone in the hotel until I find the person who obviously ruined yer night? I'm no going away.”
His question caused her brow to furrow. He sounded too protective just now. It confused her completely. Disarmed her, yet again, as well.
“I…” She trailed off, clearing her throat.
He watched as she slipped into the loo, beginning to wash her makeup off. It occurred to him then just how comfortable they had become with one another if she was simply going on about her evening routine and not minding his presence.
“Because I will,” he added. “I’ll go get my axe and a shovel now, if ye dinnae start talking.”
When she was finished, she dried her face on a fluffy towel, embossed with the hotel’s emblem, and turned back in his direction. “You won’t find him here at this hotel, I’m afraid,” she told him, a fire in her eyes as she spoke. “My husband is in Manchester on a business trip.”
He made it a point not to give a shit about ministers’ personal lives, in any way, but there was something about Nicola that made him want to care. Maybe it was the way life hadn’t completely eviscerated the goodness in her heart. She was in politics because she wanted to help people. She hadn’t had the idea of doing so beaten out of her yet.
“What happened with that fuckin' cumwipe?”
Malcolm’s voice was all at once predatory and livid. What did he do to her?
She plopped her bum down on her bed, then began folding her clothes from the day. She hung up her dress and proceeded to bury her face in her hands. “He arse-dialed me, on his phone,” she began slowly.
He waited, eyeing her with trepidation. He wasn’t going to like this very much, was he? He thought not.
“Well,” she said, a puff of air tumbling from her lungs. “He bum-dialed me, alright, while he was in the middle of having sex with someone. Probably a fucking prostitute, or that secretary of his that he’s always praising. When he realized, he’d quickly hung up the phone. Ten minutes later he was calling me. He tried to apologize, as if that would fucking help. Then he started yelling. I hung up on him. I suspect he’s still trying to call me. I put my phone on silent and tossed it on the chair over there.” She made a vague movement with a flick of her wrist before having a seat again on the edge of the bed, covering her face with a trembling hand.
Nicola may have been a mess in the workplace but she wasn’t naïve in her private live. She had womanly intuition. She knew that he’d probably been having affairs for years. But to be faced head-on with the reality must have been terrible.
He stood stock-still for a moment, unsure of what to say or do. She took it as a bad sign, casting her eyes up at him and muttering, “See, I knew you’d regret asking why I looked like a train-wreck. You can leave now. It’s fine. Go on back to your room, or wherever you were headed. Do you sleep in the rafters like a fucking bat? You're a vampire, you know. Thin, gaunt, pale.” She waved a hand, wishing him away.
Glancing away again, she scrubbed her nose with a clean tissue that she nicked from the loo. What she certainly wasn’t prepared for was the way Malcolm slipped closer and half-hugged her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and upper back as she sat on the bed. He simply stood there and held her for a moment, albeit a bit awkwardly, and pulled her into his side.
It was an audible gasp that he elicited from her, much to her own embarrassment, but she took the embrace in stride. She let him comfort her, sitting there at the edge of the bed. He eventually came to sit beside her, giving her a proper hug.
“What are you doing?” asked Nicola, a bit breathless. “The only embrace I’ve ever expected from you is one where your hands are wrapped around my neck. One where you’re watching the light leave my fucking eyes.”
He laughed softly, the sound a bit hoarse in his throat. Then Malcolm said, “Dream about my hands around yer neck often, do ye? Enjoy the fuckin' hug, Nic’la. Just shut up and enjoy it, aye? I’m sorry about yer husband. If ye’d let me, I could fuckin' skin him alive and leave him out for the vultures tae finish him off.”
He absolutely tried his best not to think about the way her nose brushed his neck as she slid in closer to be held. She wasn’t one for affection like this, he knew, and it spoke volumes about her inner turmoil. She didn’t like to have people touch her.
“I don’t know where I ever went wrong,” murmured Nicola, forehead resting on Malcolm’s shoulder now as she began to cry again. “I still don’t regret any of it because of my children. You know?” She drew back for a moment, just enough to see his face, asking, “Were you ever married? I know you wear a ring, but.”
This was bordering on extremely fucking uncomfortable for him. But that look on her face asked for honesty, and though he never talked about his personal life with others, he answered truthfully. “I was. She died.”
It was like all the puzzle pieces slid into place in that moment. That last bit of Malcolm’s personality that she had never understood, with everything combined, had it all making sense now. It clicked into place for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
"It's fine." He tried to ignore the quaver in his own voice. Clearing his throat, he continued. “Dinnae be fuckin' sorry,” he added. “It happens all over the world. She had cancer. It was ten years ago. Dinnae start feeling sorry for me now.”
He wanted, very much, to make it seem as if he’d done his best to move on. But she knew that he hadn’t. It was in his eyes and in the way he couldn’t quite hold her gaze. It was all very un-Malcolmy. It was foreign and bizarre and somehow, in some way, it made him seem all the more real, genuine, and human. He was living and breathing, a real being and not just some stony, sweary, scary gargoyle. Not just the Dark Knight of Downing Street. Not just an all swearing eye. Not just a Spinny Spider-Man. Incredible as it was…
There really was someone behind that steely façade that he kept up constantly. It came as a comfort to her, in some odd way.
Malcolm noticed the screen on her phone light up again as he stared off, far away from her. It was resting on the chair in the corner of the room and his eyes just happened to catch it.
“He’s calling ye again,” said Malcolm flatly. “I almost wish ye’d let me answer the phone.”
She chuckled. “I’m almost tempted to let you, but no. Please don’t. God knows what he’d be saying about us if you did that.”
She immediately regretted her words when he turned to stare dumbly down at her. “What? What the fuck would he be saying about us, Nic’la?” It was like he was daring her to finish that thought.
She seemed to swallow hard. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not saying that there’s anything. I just… You, you know, answering my phone this late at night, yelling about a private family matter. He might think we’re—” She trailed off, unable to complete the sentence. “You know what I’m saying.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. He very nearly got up to fetch her phone but somehow managed to keep himself sat still beside her. “He might think we’re what?”
It was unmistakable. Her eyes flickered lower to his lips before she dragged herself away, chuckling nervously. Dozy bint that she was. He just watched her move away as she spoke, his gaze falling to admire her bare calves and the way she looked in her bathrobe. “He might think I’m cheating as well,” she said, “which I’m not. I would never. I might hate him, but I’m not like that.”
Malcolm rose from his seat, suddenly too aware of the unease floating in the room. He felt uneasy and uncomfortable, as well as a bit bewildered by tonight’s events. “Right, okay,” he started to say. “As if I would ever be that fuckin' stupid. I’m just gonnae go. G'night, Nic’la.”
And he left. She let him go without a single argument. They both wanted to say more, possibly even confess feelings, but it wouldn’t happen. Not this time. Not now.