The Love Solution

by Ashley Croft

  She wasn’t sure who broke the kiss but when it ended, she whispered softly in his ear. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Ditto.’

  ‘I never expected that.’

  ‘Nor me.’ He sounded throaty and she was sure it wasn’t the start of a bacterial infection.

  ‘You know, Professor Baxter, there’s something I’ve been dying to ask you all evening.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Just what have you got on under the kilt?’

  Ewan whispered in her ear. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out. What have you got on under the nurse’s outfit?’

  ‘Ditto,’ said Molly, feeling like she could take off and fly out of the canteen if Ewan wasn’t kissing her again, anchoring to him while their tongues danced a reel in each other’s mouths. Not even the tinny bells at the end of George’s song could spoil the moment. Happy New Year to me, thought Molly with a blissful sigh, as Ewan’s hands rested contentedly on her bottom.

  ‘And-dd, sadly that is all, folks. Happy New Year, have a safe journey home and gooooood-nighty.’

  Molly opened her eyes and blinked as the DJ cut the music. The fluorescent lights were on and from the edge of the room there was a round of applause and some ear-splitting whistles.

  ‘Always said you’d benefit from medical attention, mate!’

  Gleeful hoots and a couple of “phwoarrs” echoed across the canteen. Molly’s face heated up and she rolled her eyes. ‘What are they like, eh?’

  ‘Quite.’

  Molly wanted to kill Ewan’s rugby mates and a few of her colleagues but decided to laugh off their banter. She could handle a few pissed geeks, and anyway, she was about to get her hands on the biggest prize of all. An image flashed through her mind that made her stomach clench with lust so tightly it hurt. Ewan’s shirt and kilt cast aside on her bedroom floor, along with his uptight façade. Ewan, stark naked, standing by her bed shouting ‘Freedommmm!’ She giggled and rested her hand on his kilt, loving the feel of scratchy wool under her fingers.

  Catcalls rang out from the side of the room. Sod them. Sod them all. Let the boozy gang say all they liked. With one hand still on his arse, she reached up and touched his hair. ‘Did you know that you now have silly string in your hair?’ she said, shaking with lust.

  ‘Do I? Oh, fuck.’ Ewan dropped his hands from her waist and reached up to pull out the strand himself. He rolled it between his fingers and lowered his voice. ‘I think the party’s over, Molly.’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t have to end here, does it?’

  ‘Erm. Well it is late.’

  ‘Not that late. It’s not even one o’clock yet.’

  He frowned. ‘Well, that is still quite late.’

  ‘But not very late. The night’s young.’

  Ewan’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He did look tired, he’d been working very hard and they’d both had a lot to drink but surely, he wasn’t too tired for that.

  ‘Thanks for retrieving my party popper,’ she said, going for humour and hoping to refocus his mind on the task in hand.

  ‘Yes, I … um hope you won’t hold it against me. I mean, it is New Year’s Eve.’ He looked sheepish, and sexy. Sheepishly sexy. The perfect combination. Wow. How great was it going to feel when she finally unwrapped that uptight, stiff exterior …?

  ‘I had noticed. Tends to happen on December thirty-first every year,’ said Molly, plucking a stray piece of string off his shoulder. ‘And I won’t hold anything against you that you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Hey. Are you gonna pop your stirring rod into Molly’s beaker, Ewan?’

  ‘Ewan! The minibus is here, mate, but I guess you’ve found a better ride?’

  ‘Oy, Boss. Molly looks so hot in that nurse costume, she’ll denature your proteins!’

  The shouts from the sidelines grew louder. Molly wanted to strangle them with silly string.

  ‘I’d call them Neanderthals, but we both know that would be an insult to Neanderthals.’ She forced a smile to her face while wishing she could vaporise their lairy co-workers.

  ‘You can say that again,’ he muttered.

  ‘Phwoar, I sense some DNA sampling is going to happen in the Baxter lab tonight!’

  Ewan grimaced – not in a good way. Suddenly, he looked like someone had stuck a ruler up his bottom. ‘Molly, I’m sorry …’

  ‘That’s OK. I guess we can both handle them.’

  ‘No, I meant … I’m really sorry but I don’t think this is such a good idea. I guess I’d better go. I was offered a lift in the minibus and I think I should be on it. Team bonding eh? You know I have to be in the lab first thing tomorrow.’

  What? He was bailing out? Just because of a few crass comments from a bunch of drunken knobheads?

  ‘You are joking?’ Molly refused to let him off the hook.

  ‘No. I mean, I have the press to deal with – they want interviews about the … er … MBE thing. Look, do you have a lift home? I can call you a cab if you like?’

  A chilly wave of nausea washed over her, mixed with growing anger. Had he got cold feet because of a bit of banter from a bunch of drunken nerds? ‘I’m fine,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m getting a lift with my sister.’

  ‘Good. Um. Well, thank you for the dance … I um, think you’d better let go of me now.’

  Molly snatched her hands from his bum as if it was a red-hot potato.

  Ewan reddened. ‘Goodnight. Um, see you tomorrow?’

  She simmered with shame and anger. ‘Actually, Ewan, no, you won’t because tomorrow – technically today – is New Year’s Day and I’m going to spend it throwing up, enjoying a splitting headache and crying at Ghost like normal people, so Happy New Year and congratulations, Boss.’

  Ewan’s lips parted, closed, then he threw her one last guilty glance and walked off the dance floor, trailing silly string.

  She closed her eyes but she couldn’t shut her ears to the cries of ‘What? Changed your mind, mate?’

  When she opened her eyes, Ewan and his stupid sodding kilt and brain-dead groupies were gone. At least, she told herself, she could get the walk of shame over with now, rather than in the morning. But if she had gone home with Ewan, her walk of shame would at least have been from his bed – or hers – to the bathroom, not across the canteen, in the full glare of the remaining staff who’d all seen her get blown off by their boss. She glanced at her shoes, covered in sticky string and shiny confetti and at the ladder in her black seamed stockings and the six-inch tear in the hem of the nurse’s outfit.

  Well, Happy Sodding New Year to her.

  Sarah met her at the edge of the dance floor, holding Molly’s coat. ‘Oh God, please tell me that wasn’t what it looked like.’

  ‘I’m afraid it was. I should have known it was all too good to be true! Ewan Baxter is only interested in one thing and that’s the bottom of a bloody petri dish!’

  Sarah draped her coat around her shoulders and squeezed them slightly. ‘Come on, hon, the sooner we get out of here the better.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Molly, as a fresh wave of nausea swept over her. Once outside, the raw cold of a Cambridge winter night took her breath away. The wind gusted up her skirt and sleet blew in their faces as they walked across the faculty car park, Molly’s heels sliding dangerously in the wet slush.

  Sarah put her arm around her. ‘It’s for the best you know. Sleeping with your boss is never a great idea. He’s obviously a sociopath. Wouldn’t you rather it had ended now before you woke up in his flat and had to do the walk of shame?’

  Molly thought of Ewan, naked except for the kilt, frying bacon at her cooker.

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK. Well, it could have been worse. I suppose. If I hadn’t waited to make sure whether you’d pulled Ewan, you might have been going home on the minibus with a bunch of pissed geeks.’

  Molly bit her lip and told herself to lighten up. Sarah didn’t need her moaning on a night when she’d had such good news to shar
e. ‘Yeah … thanks, Sarah. I’m sorry if I’ve spent half the evening mooning over Ewan bloody Baxter but it won’t happen again. I’ve learned my lesson … Did you get hold of Niall by the way? I bet you can’t wait to share your news.’ She forced a smile to her face, reminding herself that she was going to be an auntie and how amazing that would be.

  Sarah grimaced. ‘No. His phone was off but it is his busiest night of the year and he probably didn’t take a break at all. I just wanted to know he’s OK, with all the drunks – the extra drunks – around tonight. Since one of his colleagues was stabbed in that pub on Christmas Eve, I guess I’m paranoid.’

  ‘No, you’re just worried but he’ll be OK. Niall knows how to handle himself.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right and you never know, when he’s sobered up, Ewan might realise what he’s just missed. He could be on the phone to you in the morning.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’ve probably won the Nobel Prize.’

  Sarah flicked the remote at the car and the sidelights winked. ‘It’s not as if that was your only chance. You’ll be back at work soon and you can be together every day of your life.’

  As she was about to climb into Sarah’s Fiesta, an icy blast blew straight down Molly’s cleavage. ‘It’s the scar, isn’t it? It’s the elephant in the room.’

  ‘Molly,’ Sarah said wearily, the way that Molly remembered their mother doing. ‘You have a teeny tiny scar that is barely noticeable and with the amount of booze Ewan has got down his neck tonight, I doubt he can even find his own balls let alone notice a scar on your face. He’s a tosser who doesn’t deserve another minute’s thought. Now, let’s get you home and into bed.’

  ‘I know. I know. I wish Ewan could be like Niall.’

  ‘Ni’s not perfect, not by a long shot.’ Sarah smiled.

  ‘But he is about to be a daddy.’ Molly reached over and hugged Sarah, desperately trying to fight back the post-party, post-Ewan tears. ‘Phone me in the morning. I’m dying to hear what he says.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  After dropping off Molly at her flat, Sarah drove out of the city towards Fenham. It was bitterly cold, a typical Fenland night. Frost glittered like a trillion rhinestones on the pavements and as her headlights swept over the roadside, the fields glowed blue-white under the moon.

  As she negotiated the icy roads, Sarah thought the fens had never looked more beautiful but she also felt guilty for feeling so happy when Molly was so miserable. They’d been like two balloons on the way home: Sarah about to go pop with excitement and Molly shrivelled up with misery and the start of a killer hangover.

  Despite how long it had lasted, Sarah hadn’t really taken Molly’s crush on Ewan Baxter too seriously until that evening. Molly had had a lot of crushes over the years, usually short-lived and never very heavy. She’d ignored all the boys at school but had a few flings while she was at university, including one with an English Literature student and another with the captain of the university cricket team. Then there’d been the Australian who’d lasted a year on and off while Molly was studying for her PhD.

  Sarah had thought he’d be The One for Molly and they’d shared a house together for a while but he’d gone back to Sydney. Molly had cried for a week but then thrown herself back into her research, landing a post-doc place in the prestigious Baxter lab.

  Since then, there had been nothing very serious, although Molly had plenty of offers, Ewan Baxter seemed to have totally captured her imagination and heart. Sarah blew out a breath of frustration as she turned into the road that led through Fenham. She wanted to shake Ewan Baxter and tell him what a total prat he was for upsetting her sister.

  She just hoped that Molly would get over her disappointment quickly and realise what an idiot he was and refocus her attention on someone deserving. There was nothing she could do about the situation and besides, Sarah couldn’t be too unhappy for long, not tonight.

  She remembered Niall’s final words as he’d called up the stairs. ‘Drive carefully, there’s bound to be all kinds of drunks and dickheads on the roads.’ She didn’t need him to remind her of that, after what had happened to her parents and, besides, she was far more worried about him than herself. She also remembered the sharp tang of his aftershave and the fresh clean smell of his uniform. He always showered before he went out and the moment he got back. No wonder – after New Year’s Eve, he’d probably seen, touched, heard and smelled more bodily fluids than she cared to imagine.

  Poor bloke; what a shitty job, literally, he had.

  She was glad – and slightly guilty – that her own job couldn’t have been more different. She ran her jewellery-making business from a small cabin at the end of the garden. She and Niall had built it together and while it was modest, it was exactly right for her. When she wasn’t making up commissions for weddings, she ran workshops there where brides and teenagers going to proms could make tiaras and headdresses, and jewellery.

  It had been a big risk to give up her safe but boring job at the bank and finally realise her cherished dream to start her own business, but Molly had been spot on. After so many years of acting as surrogate mother as well as big sister to Molly, Sarah had been ready to take a risk. So what if they hadn’t planned things this way, working for herself would fit in better with starting a family.

  She parked on the pavement outside and pushed open the little wicket gate in the hedge. The path was icy and she almost slipped on one of the flagstones, which brought a smile to her face. ‘Don’t go arse over tit tonight; I don’t want to be called out to save my gorgeous girlfriend – I may be a bit busy,’ Niall had joked as he’d kissed her goodbye.

  The lamp was on in the sitting room, exactly as she’d left it, knowing she’d be back before Niall. She wondered whether to watch a late-night film on TV and curl up on the sofa to wait for him. She certainly didn’t feel sleepy, not after a night on Coke and mineral water, and Niall would be home in a few hours.

  She felt a twinge of guilt as she pushed her key in the front door, picturing Molly in bed alone, then told herself that with any luck Mol would be out cold after all the wine. Sarah would call her in the morning and maybe pop round later for a New Year’s Day coffee, with Niall. They could celebrate their news together properly. Molly was going to be an auntie. Comforted by this thought, Sarah pushed open the door and stepped into the hall.

  Light spilled down the stairs from the landing. Sarah stopped and the hairs on her arms stood on end. She was sure she hadn’t left the light on. Or had she? She’d gone out in a rush and her mind had hardly been on such things.

  She put her bag down on the hall table.

  ‘Arghhh …’

  Sarah froze. Her stomach clenched sharply. The floorboards creaked above her and there was a soft thud and another groan.

  ‘Oooo … ahhhh …’

  There was someone upstairs.

  She held her breath. Only in TV thrillers did women walk upstairs to confront a burglar. Sarah was not in a TV thriller; she was much more scared than that. Her hands were clammy as she twisted the Yale knob and backed out of the door.

  It was as she ran down the step to the garden that two things happened at once. She realised she’d left her handbag, and therefore her phone inside the hall, and she heard a man say, ‘Oh fuck, it’s Sarah.’

  Sarah stood on the flagstones, staring at the open door of the cottage. Surely, she hadn’t heard Niall? He couldn’t be home yet.

  And yet, she knew the sound of her own partner’s voice.

  She walked slowly back into the hall. From upstairs she heard the sound of thuds and whispers; a giggle then a plea: ‘For God’s sake, Vanessa, she’ll hear you.’

  Hardly daring to breathe, she slowly climbed the narrow staircase. There were no more voices but she could hear telltale creaks from the floorboards, the soft click of a door closing, perhaps a desperate “shh”. She reached the turn of the stairs and stepped over a pair of dark blue work trousers, a thick-soled boot and a white shirt. Another shirt and thre
e more safety boots were scattered along the landing like a trail of crumbs leading to the Gingerbread Cottage – or in this case, her and Niall’s bedroom.

  Light sneaked out from the foot of the door.

  ‘Christ, she’s coming upstairs!’

  It was unmistakable this time: Niall’s soft Irish brogue, the one she’d fallen for at the club two years before.

  Sarah didn’t feel afraid anymore; she felt as if she was sleepwalking around the cottage, in the midst of a bizarre dream. She stood outside the door to her bedroom and lifted the latch on the braced door. It swung inwards with a familiar creak but what she saw in front of her was so unfamiliar, so bloody plain unbelievable that her legs almost gave way.

  ‘Niall?’

  Niall was lying in bed, his wrists tied to the bedposts with two of Sarah’s silk scarves. He was naked except for a tiara.

  ‘Um, hello, babe.’

  She stared at him, trying to compute the scene before her. ‘What are you doing home, Ni?’

  ‘I thought you were staying at Molly’s tonight,’ he said.

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  ‘You said you were.’ He said it accusingly as if Sarah was the one who was naked in bed wearing a tiara.

  ‘I said I probably wouldn’t.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘While you were getting ready to go out. Maybe you didn’t hear me?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  She gawped at his naked body, at his waxed chest and his scar from a run-in with a drunken motorcyclist and his willy, now deflating like a party balloon that had been left behind the sofa.

  ‘Right. Well, forgive me for asking, but why are you tied to the bed, Niall?’

  He peered down at his tackle as if he was surprised to see it at all. ‘I … um … this is not what it looks like, Sarah. I promise you.’