One Take Only

by Lynsey M. Stewart

  “Nothing,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling me between his legs. “It’s nothing.”

  “No secrets.”

  He sighed. “I don’t want work to find out,” he said, at the same time undoing my jeans, inching them down. I was naked underneath, didn’t bring a change of underwear as I hadn’t accounted for…this. My panties were still in his pocket and I was pretty sure they were wrecked anyway.

  “It’s fine,” I replied. “I didn’t tell him. Don’t worry.” I wrapped my arms around his head as he kissed my thighs, licked my pussy and added a finger just to undo me.

  “Oh, God.”

  “You’re fucking perfect, Skye.”

  And just like that, outside problems disappeared.

  22

  Will

  “Where are they tonight?” I asked Skye.

  “Stacey and Matt?” She rolled onto her back, but I caught her wrist, pulling her to her original position of wrapped around a naked me. “He’s taken her to Rome.”

  “Is that some kind of male escort sexual innuendo?”

  She pushed her hand against my chest. “No! They’re on a romantic mini break, asshole.”

  “Is that something I need to plan? A couple’s thing I’ve never been party to before?” She sat up, crossed her legs and I tried my hardest not to focus on her pretty pussy. It was hard. I was hard.

  “Is that what we are? A couple?” she asked, pressing her finger against her bottom lip. “It’s just we haven’t talked about what we are.” She glanced at me but looked away. When had this wonderful woman turned timid? “I may have had conversations in my head, many, quite a few even but…not with you.”

  Oh, Christ. She was talking ten miles an hour. She only did that when she was anxious.

  “We don’t need to name it,” I said, claiming her mouth in the hope it would bring her back to me.

  We hadn’t seen each other for a few days, work pulling us apart after we’d only just come together, and I was getting the impression that Skye had been trapped in her head. Never a good sign. Text messages were like relationship Morse code. I had to figure out each one and carefully plan my answers. She was questioning us and was both doubtful and apprehensive.

  “Do you think we should?” she said, “name it, I mean?” I wasn’t sure what answer she wanted from me because Jesus Christ, I was new to relationships too. I didn’t know what was considered dating etiquette and we were never going to be the norm anyway. “Don’t answer that,” she said. “Ignore me. We don’t need labels. We’re not label people.” She took her robe from the corner of the door and put it on. “Fancy something to eat?”

  “Sure,” I replied as she disappeared skittishly into the kitchen.

  I took my time getting dressed, spending the minutes going through planned monologues about defining us and a speech about keeping us casual, loose, easy, whatever she wanted and wouldn’t result in her pushing me away.

  Shit.

  The last few days had been a blur. I was good with upheaval, but this level of confusing was starting to stress me out. I’d spoken to Gav about the porn thing. Told him I’d been helping out because I liked the message Skye was trying to get across. I awkwardly threw in a few jokes before going in with the even more awkward plea to ask him not to tell anyone at work.

  Then there was Skye. The monologue speech – whatever we were going to call it – was ready to go as I climbed the stairs to her flat, but she greeted me with a blow job, and I reciprocated with kitchen worktop sex and the monologue was long forgotten.

  “You haven’t told me how your interview went,” she shouted from the kitchen. I followed her voice and found her whipping up some eggs.

  “You didn’t give me much time,” I replied, taking an apple from the fruit bowl. “I was ready to tell you everything and then you put my cock in your mouth.”

  She rolled her eyes – I fucking loved that eye roll – and laughed before leaning over the worktop. We met on a kiss. “Tell me.”

  “I think it went OK.”

  The interview for the promotion of Senior Journalist seemed like a lifetime ago when really it had been first thing this morning. I’d prepared myself as much as possible, formulated my pitch, put together my best articles and most stunning pictures. I nailed it. Never been as sure about something in my life. Yet, I was still waiting to hear from my boss, and we were now, what was it? I glanced at the wall clock. Nine in the evening. Maybe they’d had an influx of applications and the interviews went on long into the night. Maybe they were interviewing again tomorrow and couldn’t give the outcome until everyone had been given a fair shot.

  “Just OK? I saw your portfolio, Will, and it was amazing. You’ll walk it.”

  “I’ve not heard anything yet.” I slid my phone out of my pocket to check. No calls, no messages.

  “They’ll tell you first thing tomorrow morning,” she said, stirring up the eggs. They were her speciality. She used cream instead of milk and they were part of Elliott’s staple diet, he loved them so much.

  “That takes me back,” I said nodding to the pan. The spoon she was using to scramble stopped and I heard her take a breath.

  “Really?” She bit her lip. I didn’t miss the tremble. “Why?”

  “Elliott’s favourite.” Whoosh. It was like I’d sucked the life out of the room. She was still, her shoulders slumped, and I was desperate for some conversation, namely a response, anything to break the silence.

  I wished she would talk more openly about the emotional impact of Elliott’s death. She never did. It was locked away in that beautiful, complicated head of hers. The one I wished I could read right now.

  “It’s funny,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about that. I’d…forgotten.” She started to plate up. “Things take you by surprise sometimes.” She started speeding around the kitchen, opening cupboards and pulling out drawers, mindlessly talking about nothing and everything. “He liked pepper and a tiny bit of salt and then he’d cover the whole thing in tomato ketchup, remember?’

  “I do.”

  “And we’d laugh and laugh about how his taste buds must have been broken.”

  “Yeah. He covered everything in sauce.”

  “I know,” she said, “It made me cringe but–”

  “Remember when he tried hot sauce and we had to put ice cubes on his tongue?”

  She tried to laugh, but it was swallowed in a sob. “He ate a whole tub of ice cream, poor kid. Scarred him for–” She met my eyes. Hers were wide and lost. “Never mind.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah. Just thinking,” she said, turning her back. I hadn’t missed her tears.

  I’d seen this before. The incessant talking to cover up her emotions. The funny stories she hoped would lead to laughter rather than add to her tears before zipping it all up again. This was a perfect example of Skye holding it together when the feelings she worked so hard to push down crept up on her again. I had no idea what had caused this particular episode.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. The agony of watching her was almost as painful as the agony she was spilling out in front of me. “Stop,” I said softly, walking around to her, taking the pan away and holding her in my arms. “Let it out. Just let it go. Please.”

  “No,” she said. “No,” she repeated more firmly. “I can’t do that because if I start, I’ll never stop.”

  “What’s causing this?” I asked, confused. I’d seen Skye’s meltdowns before, but I could usually trace them back to a trigger point. Elliott’s birthday, the anniversary of his death or a snide letter from her mother insinuating that she’d left Elliott in her care and hadn’t watched him carefully enough. The weight of those conflicts would have crushed others, but she held steady, often crying, but with a heavy restraint that I feared would topple her one day.

  Could this be the day?

  “Stop holding on to it, Skye,” I said. “It isn’t good for you.”

  “I don’t want to cry,” she repl
ied.

  “I haven’t seen you cry properly since…that night.”

  “The night you held me?”

  “The night you finally let yourself feel.” I’d stayed all night, cradling her as she finally opened up, felt like she was sinking, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t go on. Sometimes, the sound of her sobs still woke me in the middle of the night.

  “That doesn’t mean I haven’t cried since,” she said, her defence mechanism kicking in.

  “I hope you have,” I replied, stroking her back. “I mean…I want you to.”

  “Why?” she said, pulling away, stepping back and folding her arms.

  “I worry.”

  “There’s no need to,” she replied, shrugging. “Loss is a part of life, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” I nodded, but that seemed to make her worse.

  “Oh, you agree? Thanks. Glad I’m not going mad.” She started wiping down the surfaces frantically. I half expected her to rub a dent in the wood.

  “I can’t bullshit you, Skye. We all lose people we love, but the way you lost Elliott…it wasn’t fair. It was horrendous, hard for anyone to make sense of. But you, his sister, the one who was there for him–”

  “I wasn’t there!” she shouted. “Will!” She looked frightened and exhausted. “Can’t you see? I wasn’t there for him when he needed me the most.”

  “You did everything for him,” I replied. “You were like a mum to him, Skye. You gave up your life for him, worked three jobs just to keep a roof over his head and food in his mouth.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything now,” she said, pulling in her mouth to stop the shake. “Nothing.”

  “Stop,” I said. “I wish you’d get some help with this.” I tried to hold her, soothe her, but that wasn’t what she needed. She needed to unravel, and I was damn sure I’d still be here to pick up the pieces.

  The distraught way she was wiping came to an abrupt stop as she narrowed her gaze at me. “Do you think I’m unstable?”

  No, Skye. I think you’ve had a lot to deal with and this is a reaction to it.

  “Of course not.” I replied. “I just want you talk to someone instead of trying to carry all this guilt around with you.”

  “I deserve to.”

  “No, you don’t!” I closed my eyes, lowered my voice. “It wasn’t your fault, Skye and you can’t change what happened by going on this…crusade.”

  “Crusade?” she repeated. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “This is ridiculous,” I said, trying to calm her. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

  Get lost in each other. Heal you.

  “No, I want to know what you mean by crusade.”

  We were hurtling towards no-going-back town. In fact, I’d been fired out a cannon without a crash helmet and landed headfirst into a brick wall there. I caught my reflection in the glass cabinet behind her head and my expression could only be described as terrified. I took a deep breath. Dug deep.

  “The volunteering and handing out condoms and sex advice like the safety of the whole LGBTQ+ community is down to you and only you. Like you couldn’t exist if one of those kids took their own life because you’d add that guilt alongside what you already struggle with every fucking day of your life.”

  A large tear dropped onto her crossed arms; the ones she’d wrapped around herself. She brushed it away quickly and pressed her lips together. All this time I’d waited for us to reach a crossroads, a decisive point in our friendship, the critical stage…the climax. And I knew…this was it.

  “Something good needs to come out of this,” she said softly. “I have to make his life mean something.”

  “Not to the detriment of you.”

  “It’s doing the opposite.”

  “No, it isn’t!” I shouted, shocking us both. “You’re hurting, Skye. I can see it and, Christ, I can feel it for you.” I stepped towards her, softened my hard edges that had formed out of frustration. “Skye, I want to take care of you. Let me take care of you.”

  “Oh,” she said, pointing the spoon at me. “I get it. You think I need someone to take all this shit away. To tell me I don’t need to carry this anymore, that I don’t need to hold the guilt by myself.” She scraped her eggs into the bin. “I’ve given you some kind of superhero complex.”

  “Skye–”

  “You’re not saving me, Will. I don’t need you to.”

  “You don’t need saving, but you fucking want it. You just can’t admit it to yourself.”

  She laughed from deep within her throat, but the tapping of her knuckles against her mouth told me she was holding more in. Emotion. She wasn’t doing this willingly. She’d been pushed to her limit and was overthinking everything. How I wished she’d let it all out and cleanse herself. Let the tears wash away her guilt. The guilt that ravished her body. The guilt she didn’t need to bear.

  She breezed past me, her dressing gown billowing behind her.

  “I’m going to say this now and all I want is for you to listen,” I said, reaching her bedroom where she started picking up my clothes I’d discarded in a haze of lust no less than a few hours ago. I really wanted to be back in that place.

  “We haven’t talked about us yet,” she said, barely looking up. “Shall we start on that next or do I really want your warts and all opinion like the one you’ve given me about my mental health?”

  “Just listen to me,” I pleaded.

  “If that’s what this all about, Will, some kind of mission to save me, you can go.”

  “I won’t walk away from you even when you’re fucking pushing me!” I finally caught her eyes. Fuck, she was beautiful, but she was fighting a war and I wasn’t sure how long she could carry on fighting.

  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I know,” I replied. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  I watched her grip her lips together to stop herself from crying. She clamped her hand over her mouth and shook her head as more guilt weighed her down. “Shit, Will, I’m so sorry.” She threw her hands to her head and started pacing. “God, I’m an idiot. An ungrateful cow. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” She twisted and twirled in front of me, a wrestle between needing comfort and the fear that I might reject her. “Ignore me. That was totally uncalled for. I don’t even know where that came from.”

  “There’s been a lot going on,” I replied, “and like you said, emotions can take you by surprise.”

  And you haven’t worked out what we are yet and that’s frightening you too.

  “Why?” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Why are you staying after the way I’ve behaved and what I’ve said?”

  “Because I love you,” I replied simply. She didn’t say anything for a beat. Didn’t react. Didn’t move. Just hugged herself and tried to calm her breaths. She wiped her tears away and looked to the floor, and it took everything in me not to go to her.

  “After all that?” she gasped, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. It killed me that she didn’t know. It blew me away that she still questioned it.

  “You can throw me some banter, roll your eyes, not believe that you’re worthy of it but, Jesus, Skye, I’m allowed to feel what I’ve fucking felt for the last five years despite the fact that you can’t see just how incredible you are.”

  She blew out a breath, shook out her hands and smiled a little, but the threat of a sob was still lingering. “It scares me, OK? To give myself to someone…to you. Completely. Honestly. It makes me vulnerable and I don’t do vulnerable.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I’ll spend the rest of my life worshipping you.”

  “Everyone left.” She shrugged. “Dad, Mum, my grandma. Elliott…men.” She looked up to the ceiling. “They all left.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Because you love me,” she whispered, like she couldn’t quite believe it.

  I nodded. “I’ve seen your sides, Skye, all of them, the great, the amazin
g–” I reached for her, pulling her to me. I needed to hold her, reassure her that I wasn’t going anywhere. “The ugly crying face.” She laughed, finally, she laughed. “And I’m still here.”

  “You can go after seeing me like this.” She glanced up, her pretty face red and tear stained. “I’d understand. If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d be out of here so fast.”

  “Thanks,” I laughed, wiping her tears as I kissed her. “You need someone to remind you that this fucked-up quest to stop the guilt, isn’t necessary. You did everything you could for him.” She kissed me back. “But you know what? He’d be so proud of you.”

  “I need reminders.”

  “Yeah, so you don’t forget,” I said.

  “Will?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That crap I said about not needing anyone to save me?” I threaded my hand though her hair. “I think you’ve done a great job of trying.”

  23

  Skye

  I was the queen of self-destruction. It was a character flaw, one I hated and loathed but couldn’t stop for the life of me. It was almost as if I couldn’t cope when things were going well like I had to sabotage it before I was ruined or hurt. I’d been feeling out of synch for the last few days. Questioning everything, replaying moments of bliss that instead of warming my body, made me tetchy and stressed. It wasn’t good for me. It led to flare-ups and breakdowns and the need for tequila.

  “Right, I’m yours,” Stacey said as she settled down on the sofa next to me. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Oh, you know, just had a breakdown and scared Will away.”

  She laughed as she blew her mug of tea. “You’re gonna have to do a lot to scare that boy away.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, grimacing and rubbing my head. “I was questioning things and doing this weird crying/sobbing thing because he mentioned Elliott liking scrambled eggs and not only did that open up an extreme physical reaction in the form of tears and snot, but it put me right off eating those scrambled eggs…and I was bloody starving.”