by Jessica Ames
“Man, that’s fantastic. I’m happy for you.”
I grin at him. “She’s great. You’ll love her.”
“If you like her, how could I not?”
Everyone will like her; she’ll fit in well with the family. Well, most of them. Mace and my former mother-in-law… that might be another story. I don’t imagine either of them are going to be happy I’m moving on, although it’s none of their business either. I can see me putting my foot firmly down over this and telling them to mind their own business—something that is also not going to go down well.
But as much as I will tell them to keep their noses out of my life if I have to, I also don’t want to hurt them. Loretta has been like another parent to me, and Mace is my friend—as well as my colleague. I don’t want to destroy those relationships, but I also can’t be confined anymore by what others want me to do, or want me to be. Mara’s gone. She’s never coming back. I can’t change that, I can’t fix that. All I can do is honour her memory by remembering the good times we had together. I can’t stop living my own life, which I’ve done for the past few years—not to save feelings but because I didn’t feel ready myself to move on from Mara. I’m ready now, and I’m not getting any younger; it’s time to take action.
“So when are you seeing her again, Cal?”
“On the weekend.”
Alex grins at me. “It’s nice to see you happy, man. It’s been too long.”
And it really has. Whether things go anywhere with Sadie or not I am grateful for one thing. I’m grateful for the hope she has given me. The hope that life can go on and it can feel good when it does. For so long now I feel like I’ve just been going through the motions. Now, I have purpose, I have… well, joy. There is a real sense of looking forward to the future now that was missing before. No matter what happens between us I’ll be eternally grateful she helped me to reclaim that in my life.
“Yeah, I am happy.” I just hope it lasts.
28
Sadie
By the end of the week I’m in full meltdown mode. I can’t do this. I can’t go into a relationship again. I can’t open myself up to the possibility of being hurt by another man. Callum isn’t Richard, I know this, but I have no idea who Callum is since I’ve only known him approximately five and a half minutes. What if he is another Richard? What if I get fully invested in him—and I’m already heading that direction—and he leaves me like that? I can’t do this again.
Knowing I need talking off the ledge, I call the one person I know can help me—my sister. I love Emily, but she’s likely to give me a slap around the head and tell me to stop being an idiot, but Lil, she’s engaged, she has a kid on the way. She understands the intricacies of a grown up relationship. Emily’s longest relationship is her Netflix subscription.
I head over to Lilliana’s house after work on Friday and when she answers her front door, I’m greeted by a rather pale, dishevelled version of my sister.
“Are you sure you should be out of bed?” I ask as she steps aside to let me into the house. “You look terrible.”
And she does. Aside from being wan and having huge bags under her eyes, her hair is scraped up into a messy knot and she’s wearing rumpled joggers and what looks like one of Garrett’s T-shirts. I’ve never seen her look like this. She’s usually so… well, put together.
“If anyone ever tells you pregnancy makes you glow hit them. They’re liars. I feel like something the cat spewed up.”
I follow her up the narrow hallway towards the kitchen, the central hub of their house.
“Morning sickness?” I ask as I head straight for the kettle. “Sit. I’ll make you a tea.”
“There’s berry teabags in the jar. Normal tea is turning my stomach inside out lately—plus, I’m not supposed to have caffeine and Garrett will lose his mind if he finds out I have.”
I fill the kettle and stick it on to boil while I grab some mugs and start to make our drinks.
“Wow, pregnancy is rough. No caffeine? How is Garrett still alive?”
“Because I can’t stop throwing up long enough to kill him.”
She drops her head into her hands, her elbows leaning on the edge of the breakfast bar. “The doctor reckons this only lasts for the first trimester. He’d best be right otherwise I’m kicking his arse too.”
I wince at her tone. “Sweetie, I love you but I don’t think I have the right disposition to go on day trips to jail to visit you.”
She snorts. “What brings you this side of town anyway?”
I pause, unsure how to broach the subject, or what to even say. This pause gets my sister’s attention and she straightens in her seat.
“What’s wrong?”
Seeing the anxiety in her face, I curse myself for causing her stress. No doubt that is probably something a pregnant woman should avoid.
“It’s nothing bad but I do need some sisterly advice.”
Her brow nearly vanishes into her hairline. Advice is not something I usually seek and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve asked Lilliana for any. Usually it’s my younger sister coming to me.
“Now I’m definitely worried. What’s going on?”
I take a breath. “Well, Emily kind of got me into something.”
“Oh God, do you need a solicitor?”
I roll my eyes. “Of course not.”
“It’s hardly outside the realms of possibility. Emily is fucking nuts.”
This is not an unfair assessment. Emily is nuts. Case in point, signing me up for online dating without talking to me first. Although on this occasion she may have actually done something right for once.
“She signed me up for Match Me Perfect.”
Lilliana stares blankly at me. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a…” I wince, “…an online dating site.”
My sister is looking at me as if I’ve grown two heads. “A what?”
“Em thought I needed to move on after Richard’s shenanigans.”
“Well, she’s right about that.”
“Yeah, she probably is. However, her method of doing this would not have been my first choice.”
I pour the water into the cups and carry them over to the breakfast bar, sliding the fruit tea in front of Lil before sitting on the stool next to her.
“Okay, so aside from the fact Emily is as batty as a fruit bat, why are you worried about this? Have you done anything with it?”
“Well… I was matched to a guy… His name’s Callum.”
“Okay… You’re going to have to give me the speedier version here, Sadie. I only have six months before this baby is due to be born and if we’re still having this conversation then… well, you’re on your own.”
My eyes roll as if we’re kids again.
“I met him. I went to Bristol, had lunch, had a great time, in fact.”
Her eyes flare wide. “You went to Bristol to meet a total stranger? What if he was a psychopath?”
“Well, luckily all the psychopaths were off that day and I just got to meet a lovely man.”
“A lovely man?” Her brow contracts. “You like him.”
I do like him, but I’m also freaking out that I do. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“What isn’t?”
“Seeing him again.”
“And why not?”
“He lives miles away for a start. And his life is poles apart from mine. I don’t see how we would work. Besides, my past record with men isn’t exactly great.”
Lilliana gives me a look that is already parental. Is that something that happens the moment you conceive?
“Firstly, shut up.”
“Lil—”
She holds up a hand to silence me. “No, you don’t get to speak right now. I’m talking. Richard was an unfathomable shithead. What he did had nothing to do with you. It was all him and his unconscionable fuckheadery.”
“Fuckheadery isn’t a word—”
“I’m talking!”
I snap my mouth shut.
“I know he hurt you, Sades. Christ, you moped over that worthless bastard for months, but life goes on, and so does love. He wasn’t the one for you, and that sucks, but it’s not the end. There are other men out there, men who aren’t fuckheads and don’t deal in fuckheadery. But to find those guys you have to take a risk. I don’t know anything about this Callum but if you like him, if you feel there could be something there you have to let go of the past and let him in. You have to take a risk. And you know what? He might not even be the one but the guy after him might be. But to find him you have to try. So if you came here looking for me to tell you to give up, to walk away then you should probably leave right now, because I’m not going to say that.”
I stare at her. How did the awkward gangly kid who used to eat mud grow into this woman? I came to Lilliana because I thought she’d be more mature in her advice but actually she went full-blown Emily on me. In fact, Em would have gone easier on me.
“You’re saying I should throw caution to the wind then?”
“I’m saying you should live your life and take a chance. I’m saying you need to forget about Richard and try something new.” She tilts her head to the side. “Now we’ve got that pep talk out of the way I’m going to need you to tell me every little detail there is about this Callum chap. And don’t leave a thing out.”
After talking to my sister I decide to go ahead with my date with Callum. So on Saturday, I head over to Euston train station to meet him. It’s busy considering it is the weekend—then again, London is always busy. There is a mix of tourists and locals all trying to get to their destinations—some taking the overground out of the city, some heading deeper into the bowels of the station to use the Victoria or Northern Tube lines to travel into London.
I don’t come to this station often—despite living a stone’s throw away in Islington—so my gaze darts around the unfamiliar vast space as I move at a clipped pace. The main concourse is filled with food vendors, information booths and ticket dispensing machines. There is a huge plasma screen playing endless advertisements on a loop, while some generic pop song drones mindlessly in the background.
I come to a stop in the middle of the floor, standing just behind a group of middle-aged women, nattering animatedly while gathered around pull-along suitcases. Ignoring their hype, I glance up to the rows of small screens high on the wall, displaying information about the train arrivals and departures. Scanning down the line of them, I look for the Devonshire train and see it—Exeter, arrived, platform eleven. I know he had to get another train from the coast, and he hasn’t messaged me to say he missed that connection so I’m assuming he’s disembarking.
Dodging around the women, I head towards the platform, weaving around the mass throngs of people.
As I walk, I run through what my sister said to me when I visited. She told me to take a chance and to find a man who doesn’t deal in fuckheadery—and she was right. As scary as it is to open up again, I have to because a life without love isn’t really a life at all. I just have to let go of my fear.
I see him before he sees me. Maybe it’s years of living in a crowded city, but I can block out all the white noise surrounding me. Judging from his expression, he’s not finding that quite so easy. In fact, he looks positively frazzled.
Shit.
I push against the flow of people heading towards the main concourse area, cutting through the lines of people to reach him. He doesn’t notice me until I’m practically on top of him, and when he spots me his shoulders relax and he almost slumps.
Grabbing his hand, I pull him out of the free-flow of people and to the edge of the walkway. I’m inches from him, and the background fades until all I can see is him. I raise my eyes to his and I beam.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he says back to me, a lopsided smile forming.
I take a moment to drink him in, noting his mussed hair and the stubble lining his jaw. He smells good—of the rich aftershave he wears and the hint of musk, probably from travelling in a confined space for the last few hours. I roll forward on my toes and I press a kiss to his cheek, my hands gripping his biceps to balance.
“You look good,” I tell him when I pull back.
“You look better.”
This makes me laugh. “You really are a smooth talker.”
“It’s easy to be smooth when what I’m saying is true.”
“See what I mean?”
He gives me a smile that would melt the knickers off most women, and I’m not even slightly unaffected by it. The man is good looking. Really good looking. He’s hardly a chore to look at. And his personality only makes me like him more, which is good. It would be terrible to be attracted to him but dislike him as a person.
“I can’t help it,” he tells me, “you bring out the charm in me.”
“Well, Mr Charming, what do you say we get out of here and start the tour?”
His hand drops to my hip, giving a gentle squeeze and I like his touch on me. It’s reassuring and firm and unapologetic.
“Absolutely. I want the full works, though.”
He holds his hand out to me and I take it, his palm warm against mine. Hand in hand we make our way back across the concourse. I feel like a lovesick teenager on a date for the first time with a boy I’ve been crushing on, rather than a grown woman who was on the cusp of marriage just a few months earlier. There’s something whimsical and exciting about starting a new relationship, although it’s also difficult to leave the past behind. The fear of being hurt sits in the back of my mind constantly and I have to push it down more than I would like to admit to keep from freaking out. I just keep reminding myself this is nothing to be afraid of and that it’s too new for feelings to be hurt yet anyway, but I’m already feeling more for him than I probably should this early in.
“So, where are we going first?” he asks as I lead him over to the escalator that goes down to the Tube platform.
He stands on the step behind me, so as we go into the depths of the station he ends up looming over me and I have to tip my head to look up at him.
“Well, do you want to do the really touristy stuff? Like the London Eye, Buckingham Palace and all that? Or we can go to Covent Garden and have some lunch.”
His hand comes out and rubs my shoulder and I can’t help but lean into his touch. “I want to see whatever you want to show me. This is your tour, Sadie.”
I scowl at him. “You could help a girl out and tell me what you want to see.”
“Then let’s have lunch. Covent Garden… wherever. We can head over to the tourist bits after that, if you fancy it.”
“Sure,” I tell him.
We use the London underground network to move across the city. Despite living in London, I don’t tend to visit the touristy bits that much. Simply because they are touristy, and I know the areas to go where I can get a decent drink without dodging out-of-towners. But walking around with Callum brings a sense of excitement, and perhaps even an awe I didn’t expect to have because for him everything is new.
And that makes me see everything through new eyes too. Suddenly we’re not walking through my home but through a place that holds wonder.
Callum keeps a tight hold of my hand as we meander up busy streets. I point out as many places of historical significance as I can, making up the details—which seems to amuse him. My stories become more and more elaborate as our tour continues. When we reach Tower Bridge, he stops before stepping onto the walkway across it.
“So, what’s the history of this?”
I glance up at the blue and white bridge that spans the River Thames. It’s an iconic and instantly recognisable structure that is synonymous with the city. Despite living here my entire life, I’ve only stopped to really look at it a handful of times. Most of my touring of the city is done underneath its streets, on the Tube, and I’m usually in such a rush I never really stop to appreciate the architecture or the history surrounding me.
He giv
es my hand a tug and directs us both over to the edge of the walkway across the bridge, out of the way of the foot traffic. Crowds rush past us, and a group of tourists stop a few feet away to snap some shots with the bridge and the river in the background. Callum’s thumb strokes the back of my hand, his eyes directed up at the first arch leading onto the bridge itself. The Gothic-style makes it look ornate and at odds with the more modern buildings surrounding it. Truthfully, I know nothing about the history of it, which is a little mortifying.
“So, this is Tower Bridge,” I tell him, continuing my fake tour of London. “It was built in nineteen-fifty-two by two brothers from the East End. When the bascule raises, if you’re lucky, you might just get a glimpse of the trolls living under it.” I pull the details out of fresh air. I have no idea when the hell the thing was built or who built it.
His brow contracts. “Trolls?”
I shrug. “There probably are trolls living down there. Maybe.” I glance up at the crenellations and the crest sculpted over the top of the arch. “It is quite beautiful,” I tell him, brushing a stray piece of hair out of my face as the wind picks up. “I never really gave it much thought before now, but it is.”
“Hmm,” he agrees and his hand comes to the back of my neck, rubbing there, and I very much like that. “Not bad for something built in the eighteen-eighties, is it? You know the bascules weigh a hundred tons each? It’s amazing those things lift at all. It’s a real feat of Victorian engineering.”
I twist towards him, my mouth dropping open. “How do you know all that?”
He gives me a grin that makes my stomach flutter. “I read up on the train. I know more about London’s tourist industry than is probably healthy. So, I know the trolls aren’t really under Tower Bridge; they’re under London Bridge.”
I snort and lean into him. I should care that we’re in a public place and that I’m pressing him into the wall behind him but I don’t. His hand remains at my nape, rubbing there while his other settles on my hip and his eyes watch me intently, as if waiting to see what I’ll do next.
