by Nikki Ashton
After about five minutes of brisk walking, I was sure I heard more than the echo of my own steps behind me. I didn’t dare look in case I was being followed and drew attention to myself. I pulled my phone out of my bag as casually as I could and dialled Adam’s number.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he answered after only a couple of rings.
“Hi.”
Normally the sound of his voice would bring a big smile to my face, but I was trying to concentrate on stepping up the pace and when I did, I most definitely heard the steps behind me pick up too,
“Are you back from snooker yet?”
Adam had gone to play snooker with Ellis earlier, and I had no idea how long a game lasted. I just hoped he was back.
“Nope, still playing. Why?” His voice dropped and I knew he could sense something was wrong. I didn’t want to come across all needy and spoil his time with his friend, but something felt wrong.
“I’m probably being stupid and paranoid, but I think someone is following me.”
“Why? Where are you?” I heard a noise in the background and then muffled voices.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “And I daren’t look behind me.”
“No don’t!” he cried. “Just keep walking. Do you think they’re still behind you?”
I picked up my step and held my breath but didn’t hear the footsteps.
“I don’t know.” I blew out a breath of frustration with myself for being so stupid. “Adam, forget it really. I’m being stupid. It’s broad daylight, nothing is going to happen to me.”
“Something scared you so you’re not being stupid.”
“Honestly I’m fi-”
“Babe,” Adam replied, sounding as though he was running. “Just tell me where you are.”
“Adam no, I don’t want to spoil your time with Ellis. Just stay on the phone with me.” My heart hammered knowing I was being an idiot but also hoping that he insisted on coming to pick me up.
“I will, but I’m still coming to get you. Now, where are you?”
I looked around me to see if I could see anything distinguishing as I had no idea the name of the road I was walking down. I hadn’t learned the street names, just the basic route.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back shakily. “I went to the Tesco Express and turned right out of there and then the first right.”
“You went there?” Adam asked incredulously. “Shit, Sarah. Why the hell didn’t you go to that little shop on the edge of your estate?”
“Because I wanted to get going back there over and done with. Plus, that shop near us doesn’t sell the real stuff - of anything.”
“Were you okay?”
“Yes, at first it was weird, but then once inside I felt fine. Although, I thought someone was following me in there too.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
I really wished I could tell him that, but I’d been sure then as well.
“Fuck,” he said before I responded. “I’m just going to lose you for a second while I start my car up, then the Bluetooth will kick in, okay.”
“Okay.”
As the line went quiet, I definitely heard steps behind me. I wanted to check because it wouldn’t be fair on Adam if I pulled him away from his friend for someone innocently walking along.
“I’m back.” Adam’s voice felt like his arms were wrapping around me and I almost sagged to the floor. “Just keep walking and look straight ahead.”
“Should I not check?” I asked quietly. “What if I’ve got it wrong and you’ve picked me up for no reason?”
“Doesn’t matter. Now, I think I know where you are, but can you see anything at all that might give me a clue, or is it just houses.”
“Just houses.” I didn’t want to be too obvious about looking around. “I’m still not sure you should come.”
“I’m coming. Just keep walking and look straight ahead, but I think I’ll be with you in about four or five minutes… move you dick… sorry.” Adam breathed out. “Some fucking idiot decided to park in the middle of the road.”
My hand holding my phone began to shake slightly and my palms were so sweaty, I worried I might drop it. I decided if I did, I’d just leave it and run.
“Does your mum know you went to the shop?” Adam’s words were sharp and clipped, as though he was trying to keep a lid on his anxiety.
“No. She wanted me to stay at home. She said she’d get what I need on the way back from work, but I was bored.”
Adam let out a sigh. “Well you should have let her. Why didn’t you call me if you were bored?”
“Because you were going out with Ellis and I didn’t want to spoil that for you.”
He didn’t answer, but it didn’t matter; he was on the other end of the line and he was coming to me.
Without realising it, I started to sing, but it was out loud and not in my head as I usually did.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You’ll never know dear; how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away…
“You’ve got a sweet little singing voice,” Adam said with chuckle.
“Oh God, it’s awful, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. You’re pretty good. Have I heard you sing that song before?” he asked.
My mouth went dry at the thought of telling Adam I sang it in my head when I was scared. What if he thought I was mad?
“Sarah, are you still there?” He sounded worried.
“Sorry, yes… I um, well I sing it when I’m… well when I’m scared. My dad taught it to me when I was little.”
I heard Adam’s soft laugh and I instantly bristled.
“What’s funny? it helps me and if you don’t understand that—”
“Hey, of course I understand. It’s just, well you always remind me of sunshine.”
“I do,” I gasped. “Sunshine?”
“Yeah.”
Whatever I had felt about Adam tripled in size and filled my chest with something that made my head spin. It wasn’t a declaration of love, or undying loyalty it was a simple compliment which had filled me with more hope than I’d experienced in over a year. He’d shown me that I did hold some light in my life. I wasn’t all misery and darkness, there was sunshine in there too.
“Adam-”
“I can see you.”
I looked up to see him flash his headlights, even though it was daylight and I could quite clearly see his car coming towards me. He sped up and screeched to a halt at the pavement right next to me and my hand holding my phone dropped to my side as I extinguished a huge sigh of relief. Just seeing him made me feel safe and protected. Emotion pushed at my breastbone causing tears to pool at my lashes.
As Adam rushed around the car to me, I dropped the plastic bag to the floor and flung myself at him.
“Oh, God I was so scared.”
“Hey, it’s fine. I’m here.” He pulled me in tight, wrapping one arm around my back, while his other cradled my head against his chest. “Don’t cry, I’m here. I’m not going to let you go or let anyone hurt you.”
I wept against his thick trucker jacket, wetting the soft corded fabric with a wet mixture of relief and fear. Adam kissed my hair and then brought both hands to cup my face and tilt it back so I could see him.
“Babe there was no one following you, not that I could see anyway.”
My eyes widened as I took a half-step back. “I swear, I heard their footsteps, Adam. Honestly.”
He looked up and down the road, but there was no one about, except for a woman coming towards us walking a German Shepherd dog.
“Well whoever it was must have disappeared as soon as they heard you talking to me.”
He could have been right, but I was sure I’d heard shoes on the pavement only a few moments before Adam turned up; but he would have seen them as he approached me.
I nodded and sniffed. “They must have.”
Adam stooped down and picked up my carrier bag before putting his arm around my shoulder and guiding me to the car.
“Come on let’s get you home. I’ll stay with you until your mum gets home.”
“You don’t have to. You can go back to the snooker hall to Ellis.”
He shook his head and laughed. “No, I don’t think so. I need to make sure you’re okay, so I’m staying with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah I’m sure. What the hell have you got in this bloody bag by the way. It’s heavy.” Before I could stop him, Adam opened up the carrier bag and peeked inside. “Oh, shit sorry.”
He screwed it together and then quickly passed it to me.
“Adam, they’re bloody tampons.” I laughed through a lingering sniffle. “You’ve seen pretty much all of my body and you’re embarrassed about tampons.’
His face was bright red and he was rubbing the back of his neck roughly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have looked.”
I rolled my eyes and opened up the bag again.
“No, I don’t want to look at them,” he cried, holding out his hand.
“I’m not getting them out. I wanted to give you this.” I handed him the football magazine and the relief on his face made me giggle.
“You didn’t have to do that. Wow, thank you.” His arm went around my neck and pulled me close so he could land a kiss on my forehead, then the tip of my nose, and finally my mouth. As his tongue prised my lips open, I moaned at the pleasure.
“Excuse me.”
We pulled apart as the woman with the dog edged passed us, grunting about us taking up space unnecessarily.
“We’d better go.” Adam grinned and steered me towards the car. “And I get to choose the film we watch this afternoon.”
“It’s my house,” I protested, my smile firmly in place.
“Yeah well I’m the eldest, so I get first choice.”
I tutted and flopped down into my seat. “Okay what is it then, some action film, or something that’s going to send me to sleep within five minutes?”
Adam shook his head. “No, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“Oh my God, Adam. You only picked that to get me back for the tampons, didn’t you?”
Adam burst out laughing as the credits for the Fifty Shades of Grey film went up. “Want to watch the second one.”
“No,” I cried and hit him with one of my mum’s cushions.
“Well come here then.”
He grabbed hold of my ankles and pulled me towards him from my end of the sofa, and then took my hand and dragged me on top of him, tucking me under his chin.
“Fuck, I was so scared earlier,” he whispered against my hair. “I was so worried I wouldn’t find you, and… fuck I don’t even want to think about it.”
Reaching up to kiss him, that clawing panic which had crept up my throat in the street returned. I was so sure someone had been there.
“Maybe going into that shop unnerved me more than I thought,” I said, pulling away.
“Yeah, it could’ve been that. Just don’t go out on your own if you don’t need to. Or at least go to the bloody shop ten minutes away from your house.”
He sounded anxious and I wondered if that meant he thought his dad was a danger to me. I didn’t dare ask as last time we’d spoken about it, he’d hurt me with his words. I knew it was difficult for him, but selfish as it may be, I needed him to be supportive and tell me he believed me.
“You should probably tell Eleanor what happened today,” Adam said, running his fingers along my back. “She’ll tell you how to deal with it.”
“Yeah I will.”
And I would. I realised now it had probably been the trauma of actually going into the shop that unnerved me and had me imagining things.
Deciding to think about it later, I snuggled down on Adams chest and pushed my hands up his soft jumper and under his t-shirt. My fingers loved the warmth and softness of his skin and I could happily have stayed like that for the rest of the half-term, although I was sure my mum would have something to say about it.
“Fancy going somewhere tomorrow?” Adam asked, shifting us both so that he was on his side and I was tucked in front of him. “Go shopping or the cinema and bowling? Anything you want.”
“Do you think maybe we should do our history project?” I traced my finger down between his brows and along his nose and when I got to his lips, he pouted them into a kiss for my fingertip.
“We can do that on Wednesday. It won’t take us long.”
“Says, Mr History Swotty Pants.”
“Haha.” He caught hold of my finger and nipped the end of it playfully. “You should count yourself lucky you’re my partner, because we’re going to smash it.”
“Why do we always do projects in pairs?” I asked, genuinely interested. “We never did at my old school.”
Just thinking of that place made my blood chill. I pushed the images and memories to the back of my mind and flashed a smile at Adam.
“Mr Raymond thinks we become more engaged and invested in the subject if we have someone to bounce off. He’s always done it, even when we first started year 7.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Problem is.” He kissed me softly. “He has no clue how much you distract me. How much I think about kissing you and touching you instead of writing a letter home from the Bastille before I get beheaded.”
Our lips met and Adam’s tongue pushed into my mouth, gliding across mine in a silent invitation to join in. I didn’t hesitate and followed his every move. I caught his lip in my teeth and nipped on it before soothing it with a soft kiss, and then repeating it, over and over until Adam groaned and thrust his hips forward.
He dropped his hand to my bum and squeezed as he thrust forward and let me feel his hard length beneath his sweatpants. My breath hitched and when his hand went from my bum to snake up my t-shirt, I felt myself get wet.
“You know I can’t do anything, don’t you?” I whispered against his mouth as his hands travelled across the places they knew so well
“Yeah, I know, but I quite like this. Kissing and dry humping like we’re fourteen.” He laughed quietly and pinched my nipple over my bra. “What were you like at fourteen anyway?”
I giggled. “A bit of a princess, but with a wild side. I acted all girly and cute at home, a typical daddy’s girl, but when I went out to my street dance lessons, I became real ‘gangsta’. I think I told them I lived in Hackney and my mum and dad worked as office cleaners.”
Adam frowned and then started to laugh. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Because I didn’t think they’d take me seriously as a street dancer if I admitted I lived in the home counties with my mum who was an accountant and my dad who was a copper in the metropolitan police.”
“Did you ever tell them?”
“Yep, I had to,” I groaned feeling the embarrassment all over again. “My dad came to pick me up one day and he still had his uniform on. I tried to tell them it was over a DUI, but I was fourteen, couldn’t drive and had no idea what a DUI was, it was just something I’d heard my dad say. Of course, Dad came in, as he wanted to see the place considering I’d been going there twice a week for three weeks. I tried to stop him, but he insisted and when he got inside, he realised he’d nicked half of them the week before for spray painting down by Tower Bridge.”
Adam’s laugh came from deep in his belly and he pulled me closer to him.
“Oh my God, you dick.”
“I know, luckily they were all really good about it and it was the story that always came out when anyone new joined.”
“Do you miss them, your dance crew?”
I sighed and considered his question. I wasn’t sure. They’d never found out about what happened with Mr Mills, but by then I’d already alienated them because of the grief I was wading through.
“I stopped being friends with them when Dad was killed. I was so full of unhappiness I barely spoke
to any of them and then when—” I stopped and looked up at Adam, whose mouth was parted slightly, waiting for me to say something. He looked fearful, so I shook my head. “I stopped going to class after a while and they didn’t really ask why, so we obviously weren’t close, so no, I don’t miss them. What about you, what were you like at fourteen?”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Like I am now, or rather like I was when you first came to Maddison Edge, but with less muscle, less pubic hair and a slightly smaller dick and bollocks.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, but the furrow of his brow and the deep timbre of his voice told me it was something he regretted.
The air weighed heavy with emotional and sexual tension. “Want a drink?” I asked to break it, pushing up from the sofa.
“Yeah, another coke would be good please, babe.”
I smiled and stopped short of hugging myself. I knew a lot of girls hated soppy pet names, especially generic ones, but I loved it when he called me babe. It made my insides squidge.
I was almost at the door, when Adam’s phone rang out. It wasn’t his usual ring tone but a 90’s dance track I recognised; my mum and dad used to play it a lot. He practically snatched the phone from his pocket and with a horrified expression looked at the screen.
“What’s wrong? Who is it?”
Adam slowly lifted his head and stared at me his eyes wild with unease.
“Adam?” I asked taking a step back towards him. “Who is it?”
He swallowed hard and then licked his lips.
11
Adam
“It’s my dad.” My gaze moved up from my phone to Sarah, knowing that the look on her face would likely cripple me. The words had come out of my mouth before I’d had time to think about them.
“I-I don’t know what to do,” I said, looking back at the phone just as it stopped ringing.
“Why is he ringing you?”
I had no clue; we hadn’t spoken since the night he’d turned up at my house and I’d told him not to come back.
