Cherry Pop Valentine

by Debbie McGowan

  The song…well, the lyrics weren’t that great, but they were honest. I always wrote better than I sang, which was one of the reasons Sven was our front man. His voice was haunting and beautiful, just like him.

  Just like him.

  But he couldn’t sing this one. It was all on me. So I sang…about how lonely I’d been without him…how much I loved him…how empty my life was without him at my side. My chorus was little more than one long string of I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you. The music was OK, maybe more than OK, with strings, gentle bass, lots of keys, but as it neared the end, it dawned on me that he might not listen right through, if he listened at all. I should have started with my spoken message instead of leaving it to the end of the track.

  The music faded, and with it, the photo montage disappeared, leaving just me, in all my bleary-eyed, four a.m. ugliness.

  Sven

  If you don’t know by now, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for accidentally uploading us fucking. It was an immature, crass, stupid, selfish mistake. You’re right. The band became too important to me, but it has never been more important than you, I promise. I love you.

  I don’t know how to make it up to you. I don’t know if there is any way I can, but will you at least give me the chance to try?

  Ten years ago, you asked me to be your Valentine. It was a throwaway chat-up line, but you caught me, and you reeled me in. And then you asked me to share an apartment with you. I still can’t believe my luck.

  In return, I told you I wanted to marry you, and you said yes. Yet here I am, ten years later, and you’re leaving, and I want to ask you again. I know it isn’t the right time. I need to fix things between us first, and I can only do that if you stay.

  Please don’t leave, Sven. Don’t get on that plane tonight.

  There’s this great little place I used to go, you might know it? Valentine’s cocktails for two. We’ve shared a few—nine, to be exact. Anyway, that’s where I’ll be tonight, after the show, waiting, hoping that you will meet me on Valentine’s Day. We can go halves.

  ***

  The live TV show flashed by in a blur. We were in the green room, we were onstage, we were playing, Sven was singing, the audience was cheering and already singing along. We’d entered the charts at number one, but the sales came before my video confession. We’d likely plummet as rapidly as we’d soared. The end of the song was coming at me like a freight train. I tried to concentrate on playing, whilst across the stage, Sven held that single red rose in his hand.

  The time came, and he walked across to me, his gaze locked with mine. The tears made his eyes shine like glass, made mine lose focus so that he moved towards me in haze like those appalling arty films I’d made of him back at uni. He knelt before the piano and held up the rose to me. The thorns dug into his palm, piercing the skin. I wanted to crush that flower between our hands, blood on blood, skin on skin, binding us forever. Sven smiled, setting a solitary tear free, a Pierrot clown in his TV camera make-up, white leather tie, and pink linen suit.

  The studio audience roared applause, stealing the moment from us, the tragic parody of our ten-year-long relationship that had been so perfect. Too perfect. I closed my eyes, trying to shut it all out, and when I opened them again, Sven was gone.

  ***

  I ordered the Cherry Pop cocktail and sat at the bar, watching the bartender mixing the cherry liqueur and whatever else went in it. It had never occurred to me to ask before. It was sickly sweet, and we kind of liked it but didn’t, at the same time. It was just the thing we did on Valentine’s Day, for nostalgia, and to renew the first-time feeling.

  That first night, ten years ago, Sven had already bought the enormous cocktail and slid it along the bar a few inches, so that it was between the two of us.

  “That’s a huge cocktail,” I said, aware of how lame it sounded and the immediate physical effect he was having on me. He was one of the art photography students—that was as much as I knew.

  He licked his lips and smiled at me. “I thought we could go halves?”

  He separated the straws, homing in on the one closest to him, using his eyes to direct me to do the same. I leaned in and sucked self-consciously on the other straw. The drink was too sweet, too potent, but I drank thirstily, watching his face, close up, his obvious delight that we were sharing the cocktail. His lips widened into a smile; his straight white teeth squeezed the end of his straw flat. He released it and shook his hair back from his eyes.

  “I’m Sven,” he said.

  “Flavier,” I replied.

  He fished one of the two maraschino cherries out of the deep-pink liquid in the bowl-shaped glass. “Have you ever tried this drink before?” he asked. I shook my head. “It is called—” he pushed the cherry between my lips but didn’t release it for a second or two “—a Cherry Pop. It is meant to be shared. Your turn.”

  He remained close and shifted his eyes in the direction of the glass. He wanted me to pop his cherry, too, and I did so, with far less grace, chasing it around the glass and covering my hand in the sticky-wet liquid. When I finally caught the rogue cherry, I fed it to him, and he sucked my fingers clean, licking every last drop from my hand. It was so hot—he was so hot—I was sure I was no more than one touch away from coming.

  Sven moved closer, running the tip of his tongue around my lips before he kissed me, pushing his mouth hard against mine as his hand slid up my thigh, his fingertips seeking the confirmation that I was interested.

  We left the bar then, and returned to his uni house, where we fucked, safe and fast, on the sofa. Sven brought his duvet from his room, and we talked away the night, stopping only to kiss, those kisses leading to more. Our first time, he wanted me inside him, and as he came, he held his hand over the end of his cock. The next time, I wanted to feel him inside me, so he was wearing a condom. It was months before he felt comfortable enough that he forgot, and I saw him shoot. He’d blushed and looked ready to cry, but what was there to be ashamed of? To me, it was such an incredible turn-on, and I told him so. He didn’t believe me, so I kept telling him. I always wished I’d had something—an embarrassing mole or a third nipple—anything that would help him see what I saw: a beautiful, sexy man who I wanted to spend my life with.

  ***

  The ice had melted in the Cherry Pop, and one of the cherries had sunk below the surface of the liquid. That was the only way I knew how long I’d been sitting there, waiting for Sven to show. I ordered a beer, and the bartender looked at me curiously, but I couldn’t drink the cocktail on my own. I couldn’t accept the truth. Sven had gone. He’d got on that plane back to Sweden, away from all the media hype, and away from me. The tears prickled the back of my throat and nose. I picked up one of the straws and stirred the drink, watching the cherries swirl, heavily at first, but getting caught up together in the whirlpool, spinning around and around, colliding, overtaking, being thrown apart—

  “I believe one of those is for me?”

  My breath caught, and I coughed instead of speaking. Sven slid onto the stool next to mine.

  “You didn’t get on the plane,” I said.

  “It would seem not.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I realised I didn’t want to leave.”

  “OK.” I was shaking, with nerves, with arousal, with relief. “So where do we go from here? Is it still we?”

  “Yes. I am hurting, though, Flavier, and I know you are, too. What do you want?”

  “You,” I said earnestly. “You and no-one else but you. I’ll give up the band—I’ll go to Stockholm with you, if it’ll make you happy. I love you. I always will.”

  Sven sighed deeply. “And I love you,” he admitted reluctantly. I watched him for a moment, and he slowly met my gaze. “We should start over,” he suggested. “Rebuild what we had.”

  I nodded in agreement. Whatever Sven wanted, anything he asked, was his, if it meant he wouldn’t leave me.

  “OK. Good,” he said. Delicately, skilfully, he pluck
ed one of the cherries from the glass and lifted it to my mouth, his gaze once again meeting mine. I accepted the cherry and savoured it, keeping it on my tongue, relishing the sweetness of it. Sven smiled for real. “You have accepted my cherry. May I have yours?”

  I laughed and did the honours in my usual clumsy way. Sven cleaned the drink from my fingers, and kept hold of my wrist.

  “Yes, I will be your Valentine,” he said. “But this time? I’m in charge of the camera.”

  I blushed, and he released me with such a mischievous, sexy smile. He ordered a fresh cocktail, and we descended, sucking on those straws like we were sucking on each other, saving the cherries until the very end. I took his; he took mine. Then I pulled him into my arms, and I kissed away every last, sweet drop.

  The End

  * * * * *

  About the Author

  Debbie McGowan is an author and publisher based in a semi-rural corner of Lancashire, England. She writes character-driven, realist fiction, celebrating life, love and relationships. A working class girl, she ‘ran away’ to London at seventeen, was homeless, unemployed and then homeless again, interspersed with animal rights activism (all legal, honest ;)) and volunteer work as a mental health advocate. At twenty-five, she went back to college to study social science—tough with two toddlers, but they had a ‘stay at home’ dad, so it worked itself out. These days, the toddlers are young women (much to their chagrin), and Debbie teaches undergraduate students, writes novels and runs an independent publishing company, occasionally grabbing an hour of sleep where she can.

  Social Media Links

  Twitter: @writerdebmcg

  Facebook: facebook.com/DebbieMcGowanAuthor and facebook.com/beatentrackpublishing

  YouTube: youtube.com/deb248211

  Tumblr: writerdebmcg.tumblr.com

  LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/writerdebmcg

  Google+: plus.google.com/+DebbieMcGowan

  Goodreads: goodreads.com/DebbieMcGowan

  Website: debbiemcgowan.co.uk

  * * * * *

  By Debbie McGowan

  LGBTQ Romance and Relationships

  Champagne

  Sugar and Sawdust

  Cherry Pop Valentine

  When Skies Have Fallen

  Crying in the Rain

  First Christmas

  Breaking Waves

  Chain of Secrets

  Coming Up ~ co-written with Al Stewart

  Checking Him Out Series

  Checking Him Out (Book One)

  Checking Him Out For the Holidays (novella)

  Hiding Out (novella)

  Taking Him On (Book Two - A Noah and Matty novel)

  Checking In (Book Three)

  Seeds of Tyrone Series

  ~ co-written with Raine O’Tierney

  Leaving Flowers (Book One)

  Where the Grass is Greener (Book Two)

  Christmas Craic and Mistletoe (Book Three)

  Sci-fi/Fantasy Light

  And The Walls Came Tumbling Down

  No Dice

  Double Six

  General

  ‘Time to Go’ in Story Salon Big Book of Stories

  Hiding Behind The Couch Series

  The ongoing story of ‘The Circle’…

  Nine friends from high school;

  Nine friends for life.

  The Story So Far…

  (in chronological order:

  novellas and short novels are ‘stand-alone’ stories, but tie in with the series. Think Middle Earth—well, more Middle England, but with a social conscience!)

  Beginnings (Novella)

  Ruminations (Novel)

  Hiding Behind The Couch (Season One)

  No Time Like The Present (Season Two)

  The Harder They Fall (Season Three)

  Crying in the Rain (Novel)

  First Christmas (Novella)

  In The Stars Part I: Capricorn–Gemini (Season Four)

  Breaking Waves (Novella)

  In The Stars Part II: Cancer–Sagittarius (Season Five)

  A Midnight Clear (Novella)

  Red Hot Christmas (Novella)

  Two By Two (Season Six)

  Hiding Out (Novella)

  Breakfast at Cordelia’s Aquarium (Short Story)

  Chain of Secrets (Novella)

  Those Jeffries Boys (Novel)

  The Wag and the Scoundrel (Gray Fisher #1—exp. 2016)

  Reunions (Season Seven—exp. 2016)

  www.hidingbehindthecouch.com

  www.debbiemcgowan.co.uk

  All available from www.beatentrackpublishing.com

  * * * * *

  Beaten Track Publishing

  For more titles from Beaten Track Publishing,

  please visit our website:

  http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com

  Thanks for reading!