by Lisa Swallow
I’m offended on his behalf. “You’ve only met him once!”
“Whatever. He doesn’t seem very friendly.”
“I think he’s just a reserved person.”
Abby shrugs, and then grins slyly. “Invite him anyway. And any other guys you’re friends with.”
“And the girls?”
“You don’t have friends who are girls.”
“True, I just tolerate the ones I have to.”
She pokes her tongue out and throws a crisp at my head. “So it’s okay if I have a small gathering then?”
“Just say party, Abby.”
“Only a small one. If you really don’t want to come, just go to Evan’s.”
I walk past her and flick the switch on the kettle. “He’s away this weekend. Coffee?”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
The way she says okay proves she doubts him. But Abby would; her boyfriends don’t have a great track record. Evan knows I don’t approve of him running to Lucy when she snaps her fingers. She’s stable – has been for months – but she gave him such a hard time for going away for the summer. I think he’s trying to make up for his absence somehow.
Chapter Four
EVAN
I don’t want this dragging on, so I attempt to call the woman who Lucy claims is our mother. No answer. All day Saturday I call, and not once does Faye answer. Every time I go and do something else in the house, Lucy appears, badgering me to try again. By the end of the day, I lose my temper with Lucy and ask why the hell she can’t call the woman herself.
I’m absolutely fucking furious. I blew off time with Ness to do this, and for nothing. This is wrong. I’ve had enough sessions with the counselor to realize how wrong. This is a step back towards allowing Lucy to run my life. I guess I should see the guy more. Reinforce what I’m learning. If she’s not unwell, she doesn’t need me running around after her. Boundaries. But this is big stuff, not just Lucy. Long lost mothers? There’s a whole year’s worth of counseling sessions right there. I snort to myself.
When I spoke to Ness this afternoon, she told me Abby has organized a party. I know what Abby’s parties are like. I went to enough myself last year and I can’t remember most of them. I expect Ollie and the other guy will go, and the thought pokes at the wasp nest of my insecurity. Mid-afternoon, I toy with the idea of going back, but my head is so fucked at the moment I need to be on my own. I should go back to Leeds, explain to Ness what’s going on in my screwed up life. Before all this crap screws us up. But I can’t, not in this state of mind. Because then I’d have to tell her, and I’m not ready to yet.
Nine pm and nobody else is home, so I switch the TV on for company. I got very close to checking the local pubs to see if my old mates were there and getting wasted with them, but I don’t think that’ll help. Wow, maybe I’m learning something. The music channel plays an Arctic Monkeys track I recognize, one I played on repeat last year because the lyrics reminded me of Ness. When we first met and she turned me on by being so damn unobtainable.
Was that only a year ago?
***
NESS
I wish Evan was here, and that there were ten less people crammed into the small lounge room. Even though the party is subdued, by Abby’s standards, the numbers invading the house are unpleasantly large. And Abby is sulking because Jared hasn’t arrived yet, as if I’m his keeper or something. I tell Abby he’s probably in the pub and she repeatedly asks whether I actually invited him.
I give up, sit on a wooden dining chair, and drink a beer. A tall guy with short brown hair joins me. I don’t recognize him and he attempts to make conversation, which I shoot down before he really gets a chance to begin. He’s drunk. And stoned too, I reckon; he has the familiar glazed incoherence. The situation makes me think of the drunken Evan I met last year, and my stomach flips, as it always does when I think of him. My sharp tongue doesn’t deter my would-be suitor, so I introduce him to one of Abby’s friends who hovers nearby. Relieved by the ease he switches his charms to her, I disappear upstairs to call Evan.
I’m concerned. I’ve thought about the lost-Evan-eyes a lot since I saw him yesterday and when we spoke this morning, he sounded distracted. I don’t want to revisit last year.
“You okay?” Evan asks when he answers.
“I just wanted to see if you were? And hear your voice. There’s some annoying people at this party.”
“Hmm. I hope there’s no one in your bed,” he teases.
Our first, disastrous meeting at one of Abby’s parties. The night I came home from work and found a stranger in my bed, yelled at Abby for her stupid parties, and then a drunk, obnoxious Evan accosted me in the kitchen.
“Nope, and I kicked out the drunk guy who came onto me in the kitchen.” I grin at my joke.
“What?” His response is sharp.
“Evan! I’m referring to that annoying guy who said I sounded like the Queen last year. Remember? You…”
“Oh. Sorry. I’ve had a bad day.”
He sounds tired, and wherever he is, it’s quiet, just the noise of a TV in the background. Unlike the voices and music I’ve shut out behind my bedroom door. “How’s Lucy?”
He pauses. “She’s okay.”
Why is he there then? “I miss you. I hardly saw you this week.”
“I’ll try and get back tomorrow, a bit earlier.”
“Are you sure everything is okay?”
Another pause. My skin prickles with the fear we are going backwards. “Yeah. Are you going back to the party?”
“Ugh. I don’t know. There’s no one here I recognize.”
“Not your med school friends then?” The edge is back in his tone.
“They’re supposed to be here. Abby has her sights set on Jared.”
Evan laughs. “Poor Jared.”
“That’s my friend you’re talking about!”
Silence follows, the faint noise of music from the other end of the phone. The prickling intensifies.
“Ness?”
“What?”
“‘Tu me manques’.”
The prickling turns to a flutter in my stomach. My Evan. “That’s a new one. What does it mean?”
“It’s French for ‘I miss you’ but if you translate directly, I’m really saying ‘You’re missing from me’. My missing part.” He sighs, “I wish I’d never come to Lancaster this weekend.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing. Lucy’s pissed me off; that’s all.”
I could sit here for the rest of the night and talk to him, but it’s clear he’s not in a conversational mood. “I love you,” I whisper, “and I wish you were in my bed.”
“I’ll come straight over when I get back. So don’t have a late night, because you’ll have one tomorrow.”
My body flares at the connotation behind his words. “Shh. You not being here is bad enough.”
“So you don’t want me to tell you what I’m going to do to you when I next see you?” he teases.
My heart rate increases as I wait for his next words, but instead, he laughs softly. “I’ll go. Leave things to your imagination. Unless you feel like telling me what you want me to do to you?” I can hear the grin in his voice.
“No way. And you’re making things worse.” I’m tempted to stay on the phone and continue the conversation. But as I’ve told him before, I’m not taking things in the direction of phone sex. If he wants me, he knows where I am.
“Spoil sport.”
“Night, poetry boy,” I say firmly.
“Night, butterfly girl. I love you.”
The love I have for this guy surges into me, and any irritation I have with him for his absence flies away.
The glow from the conversation with Evan follows me back downstairs. I scout the room for Abby and spot a familiar blonde head standing with her, facing away from me. Jared. Wandering over, I poke him in the ribs.
“Made it here then?”
Jared turns to me. “I had a tough time leaving the pub.”
Abby’s in full flirtation mode. She’s close to Jared, touching his arm as if to claim him from the other girls around. He doesn’t stand a chance, although I doubt that’ll bother him. Jared flashes me a smile, and caught in its full beam, I see how his confidence and boyish looks work so well for him. He’s attracted the interest of others girls, as well as Abby.
“I’m glad you finally got here,” I say, and pull a face at Abby. She gives me an apologetic smile. “Have fun.”
I don’t want to stay at the party; I’d rather go back to my room in case the guy from earlier is still around, waiting to pounce. Maybe I should’ve stayed upstairs and had phone sex with Evan. I smirk to myself as I wander into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
“What’s funny?” Ollie sits on the kitchen bench, nursing a half-empty bottle of beer.
I turn pink and he looks at me curiously.
“Oh. I didn’t realize you were here.” Although where Jared is, he’s never far.
“I’m hiding. Is she still there?” Ollie cranes his neck towards the door.
“Who?”
“God, I get here with Jared and your friend pushes some girl at me in a really unsubtle way.”
I giggle and he frowns at me. “I’ll check; what does she look like?”
“Blonde, short, big…um, well-endowed and unmissable in the dress she’s wearing.”
Poking my head around the corner, I spot a girl matching his description. She’s talking to the guy who came onto me before.
“I think she’s found a replacement, sorry.” I make a mock pout of disappointment and he smiles.
“Thank God.”
“I guess you’re not a random hook up kind of guy then?”
Ollie drinks his beer and doesn’t answer me. He watches as I fill a glass with water. “Not staying around?”
“Nope. Going to bed. I don’t know anyone.”
“Hmm.” He swigs from his bottle. “You could talk to me for a bit. I don’t know anyone either. Apart from my cousin, who has plans with your friend I think.”
The idea of sitting with Ollie and talking med school doesn’t appeal and I start to think of an excuse.
“Tell me where you went in the summer. I might’ve been there too,” he says.
“Spain. Italy. Greece. Then we ran out of time.”
“We? Did you go with Abby?”
“Evan.”
He opens his mouth to say something and changes his mind. I study him warily, weighing up whether to leave. Then I feel rude; he doesn’t know anyone else. And I’m keen to hear his stories about his travels, so I pull my rear onto the kitchen bench next to him. “So? Did you go to Europe?”
Ollie shakes his head. “Europe didn’t interest me.”
“Where’s the best place you went?”
“Australia. I ended up staying there for a few months. I’m thinking about going back some time.”
“To visit?”
“Live, hopefully. After I’ve qualified. Got some experience.” He picks at the label on his bottle.
“I was going to go there. Where did you go?”
“Not as many places as I originally planned. I spent a lot of time in Perth.” Ollie launches into descriptions of places he went, things he saw, and the vivid images I stored on my laptop last year fill my mind as he describes his travels. I’ve never seen him so animated, and I wonder if he misses his life in Australia. Ollie doesn’t mention anyone he met, apart from the relatives he stayed with, and I wonder why.
“I wanted to go to Queensland. And Sydney,” I tell him. Was that a small spark of regret?
“Last summer?” He looks surprised. “You should’ve taken a year – working visa. I did.”
“I almost did, but changed my mind.”
“Oh?”
“I decided to go to med school instead.”
“Med school would’ve waited.”
“I had other reasons I wanted to stay.”
“Ah.” Ollie sets his bottle down. “Evan stopped you from going.”
It’s a statement, not a question. “I stopped me from going. It’s more complicated than you know.” I bristle. Why criticize mine and Evan’s relationship? Because that’s what he’s doing. Again. I can’t figure him out. He’s maybe a couple of years older than me, but he seems a world away. And he’s edging into the territory of patronizing.
Even though I don’t respond, I think the look I give him makes it clear what I’m thinking.
He wrinkles his nose. “Sorry, I’d make such a crap parent.”
“What?”
“I shouldn’t try to get other people to learn from the mistakes I’ve made. Like parents do with kids. This is none of my business, but sometimes I can’t help myself. Sorry.” He jumps down from the kitchen bench. Is he comparing me to a kid?
“Did she hurt you badly?” I retort.
Ollie rubs his lips with his fingertips and looks directly at me. “Who?”
“Whoever made you so cynical about relationships.”
“I learned not to try and fix people,” he says, and leaves the kitchen before I can respond.
I shake my head, attempting to process our weird exchange. When I leave the kitchen, he’s disappeared. Abby and Jared are bunched together on the sofa, and Abby’s intentions are clear. Jared could wind up disappointed because it’s unlikely he’ll find himself in her bed, and I wonder if he’s interested enough to stick around if she doesn’t come up with the goods. I roll my eyes at her as I pass them, and she glances at me but doesn’t respond. Jared’s eyes are fixed solely on her, and they’re close, but not touching. Memories of my first kiss with Evan and the snarky verbal sparring with each other resurface, and my stomach fills with butterflies again.
***
Luckily I’m tired enough to sleep through the voices and music downstairs. An exhausting week of study and the late night combine to work better than any sedative, and I fall asleep halfway through the book I’m reading. I’m jolted awake again as the door to my room opens, light from the hallway filtering through. I glance at my clock. Two am.
“Wrong room,” I grumble, pulling the bed covers over my eyes, waiting for the unwanted visitor to apologize and leave.
Someone closes the door and approaches the bed. Instantly, I’m on alert, and I sit bolt upright, ready to scream. I thought we’d got over Abby’s stupid drunk friends stumbling into my room at night.
“Damn, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Evan perches on the edge of the bed.
I slap him on the chest. “What the hell?”
Catching my hand, he kisses my palm. “That wasn’t quite the reaction I expected.”
“You could’ve been anyone! You frightened me! What are you doing here?”
As he brushes my tangled hair from my eyes and plants a kiss between them, I calm down. “You sounded unhappy before. I felt bad. So I came back.”
My sleepy brain finally catches up. “You drove from Lancaster in the middle of the night?”
“No, I walked.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Shift over.”
I shuffle across the bed and he lies next to me, still fully-clothed. His jacket smells of petrol fumes and him; his face is cool from the night air. He places his warm lips on mine and I eagerly return the kiss, wrap my fingers in his hair, and hold my unexpected visitor. Evan pulls away and strokes my face, and the sadness is in his eyes again.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, brushing my lips against his stubbled chin.
“It is now that I’m with you. I need warming up though.” Evan rubs his cold nose into my neck and I push him. He laughs, catches my arms, and wraps them around his neck.
I’d ask him to tell me what’s going on, but I’m too tired, and happy to be in Evan’s embrace, rather than alone with my thoughts.
As I consider this, Evan unbuttons my pajamas, fingers caressing my bare skin and radiating heat through me. “
Also, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And our conversation.”
I don’t protest as Evan pushes aside my too-cute cat-printed pajama top and moves cool hands up my side. He caresses my breast and brushes a thumb over my hardening nipple. The soft kisses he covers my face with aren’t enough and I hungrily pull his mouth to mine. His kiss changes as his tongue tangles with mine. His taste, smell, him – everything fills me with a hot rush of desire. Slipping a hand inside the waistband of my pajamas, his hand moves slowly down my leg and he rubs my thigh. His fingers tantalizingly close to where my mind is begging him to touch. The fact he came all the way back here to be with me kindles the fire inside further.
“I thought rather than tell you what I wanted to do, I’d show you,” he says, eyes shining.
Anticipation floods through me as Evan steps back and pulls off his jacket and T-shirt. I shiver at losing the warmth of him in the winter night, but he doesn’t stay away long.
Moving back to the bed, his heavy-lidded eyes betray his thoughts. “Naked. Please, Ness.” He pushes off the unbuttoned pajama top, before running his tongue from my stomach to my breasts and settling his mouth on my hardened nipples, tongue circling. His hand sneaks under my waistband to push down my pajama pants. I wriggle away, fighting the desire to yield just yet.
“Not without some poetry first,” I tease, grabbing his hand.
“Nope. The French was the limit of my romance for today.” Evan’s voice is distracted and huskier.
“You mean apart from driving all the way back to see me?”
He stops, looks down, and rubs the back of his hand against my cheek. “Apart from needing you tonight.”
The strength of the kiss that follows takes me by surprise, his rough passion matching the urgency of our early days, as if he wants to lose himself in us. I run my nails over the ridges of his back, digging my fingers into his shoulders as the taste and smell of him consumes me. Evan has no more words, returning to undressing me instead. He slides a hand under my backside as he removes my pajama pants. Evan’s gaze caresses my naked body as he finishes undressing.
Lowering his head, eyes searching mine, his breath comes in short bursts. “You’re the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. I love you.”
