Let Me Be Your Hope (Music and Letters Series Book 2)

by Lynsey M. Stewart

  Christ alive. How was I going to survive this?

  I sighed when I imagined booking the first available appointment with the well-being counsellor—a perk of the job that Jamie Dawson would have to approve. I laughed at the paradoxical mind fuck before opening my bag and inhaling a snack-sized oat flapjack.

  I knew without doubt that this man had come into my life for a purpose. Remembering standing alone on that platform alone stuck to the same spot as I watched his train disappear into the distance, I didn’t think I would ever know what that purpose was.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jamie

  Now.

  She hadn’t returned from her lunch break. I wanted to punch the fucker that had stolen her sandwich.

  I was sitting in the staff room just waiting. I thought if I stayed there, I could take in the vibrations of her words and hold on to her like a photograph capturing a single moment in time.

  Her voice hadn’t changed. It could still make me weak and prickle the fine hairs across the back of my neck. I was happy to stand there and listen to her profanities, expletives and four letter words because they meant she still felt something.

  As the door clattered shut, I instinctively sat up, adjusting my tie and rolling my shoulders ready for battle. You can do this, Dawson.

  Then nothingness. The worst kind of ness. Fuck. If I walked down to her office now, I knew I would stutter and rub the back of my neck until my skin bled. I wasn’t in the business of attracting office gossip, especially on my first day, so I remained sitting down until Elle walked in catching me having a silent breakdown.

  ‘You scared me!’ she said, clutching her chest and turning a bright shade of red.

  ‘How are you, Elle? It’s been a while and, boom, here I am, your new manager.’ I sighed and shook my head in disbelief. I may even have laughed uncomfortably. ‘I really can’t believe this. What the fuck am I going to do?’ I pinched my fingers at the bridge of my nose and carried on shaking my head like my life depended on it. As she sat down, I did the ear pulling thing that I did when I could feel my bottom lip shaking as it considered merging into full blown sobs.

  ‘Don’t do this. It’s your first day and you need to make a good impression. I can’t begin to imagine how you’re feeling, but take a breath. You need to.’

  ‘How is she?’ I muttered into my knees.

  ‘Been better. Shocked. Trying to make sense of it all and what it means.’

  ‘What does she think it means?’ Oh God. Another bombshell I’m yet to drop.

  ‘She doesn’t know. You stopped writing after telling her she was the love of your life.’

  ‘She is still the love of my life. Always will be.’ I could feel the bile rising, so I scanned the staff room for a bowl, a cup, anything that I could hurl my stomach contents into.

  ‘Then tell her. You have to. She’s still yours. She’s always been yours,’ Elle smiled, her eyes getting brighter. The hope of a happy ending for her best friend shone across her face, but my face crumpled and that annoying shake of my head started again because my head suddenly felt too big for my shoulders.

  ‘She hasn’t told you the full story, has she? It wasn’t just me that was at fault, Elle.’

  ‘What’s the full story?’ she asked.

  She didn’t know. She didn’t know about Abi’s letter.

  ‘Ask her about the letter. Ask her what she said. We’ve both made mistakes. I’m just not sure who made the biggest one.’

  ‘What did she say? What’s wrong? Surely this is good, isn’t it? I’ve just given you the nod. She’s still in love with you. Go get her.’ She studied my face. My broken, stupid bastard of a face.

  ‘It’s not as easy as that,’ I sighed.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Is she with anyone?’

  Fuck. I didn’t want to know. Fuck. I did want to know.

  ‘No, she wants you. Always has.’ Elle smiled that hope for a happy ending smile. She was such a believer in fairy-tale endings. I clutched my chest when I lost the ability to breath easily.

  ‘Elle, I’m a colossal prick and you need to tell her to stay the hell away from me.’

  ‘What?’ She dropped her smile into a grimace of utter confusion. It perfectly illustrated what was going on in my head right now.

  Stomach contents. Fuck. Pains. Got to get out of here.

  ‘I’m taking my lunch break. Tell Colin I’ll be back in an hour.’

  I found myself sitting on a swing in the park at the end of the road. If that wasn’t a fantastic way to sum up my life right now, I didn’t know what was. New manager. Great job. Sitting on a swing. Awesome.

  ‘Can I get on?’ A cute toddler was patting her hand on my knee. She was all curly blonde hair and blue eyes.

  ‘Oh, sure, yeah, sorry. Knock yourself out.’ Her mum smiled at me warily as I moved over to the next thing I could perch my backside on—the end of a seesaw. What an even better metaphor for my life.

  First day on the job and I was fucked. Scowly Abi was not to be messed with. Every time I pictured her face in supervision sessions where she would be sitting in my office not more than a few feet away, it was always scowly. I remembered the times she’d looked at me like I was the only man alive. I’d lived for those times. I replayed them in my darkest moments.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Man, can I get on the seesaw?’

  The kid who moved me off the swing was now standing studying my face as I zoned out thinking about the beautiful creature I couldn’t believe I’d let slip through my fingers.

  ‘Yes, of course. This seesaw,’ I said, pointing to it, ‘is the best. I was testing it out for you. That swing over there— amazing. So…swingy.’

  ‘Push me?’ she asked as her mum arrived for backup.

  ‘Sorry. Another time.’

  Time to face the music.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Abi

  Now.

  ‘Where do you think he is?’ I asked Elle as she passed me a mug of tea and produced a Dairy Milk from her back pocket. ‘I can’t eat anything,’ I said, dismissing the chocolate with a swoop of my hand.

  ‘He left the office about forty minutes ago. He was in the staff room having a meltdown. I may have talked to him.’

  ‘What did he say? What did you say?’

  Questions. So many questions.

  ‘Don’t freak out on me,’ she said.

  ‘A bit late for that, isn’t it?’

  ‘He said you’ll always be the love of his life but then muttered on about staying away. Then he bolted.’ She pushed the chocolate back over to me and offered a pained expression. ‘He also said something about me not knowing the full story and to ask about your letter. What happened? What don’t I know?’

  ‘Oh fuck. This is too much. I can’t handle it.’ As I thought back to the gigantic mistake I’d kept hidden for so long, Jamie appeared in front of me all handsome and gorgeous, smelling like heaven.

  ‘Elle, can I have a word?’ He dropped his head and didn’t offer me anything. No fleeting look, no nervous neck rub or ear pull, just a quick mumble to Elle, who duly followed him down the corridor.

  Three minutes later, she was back, highly blushing and slightly tearful. She sat down behind her desk without a glance and shook her head when I called her name.

  What the hell has he said?

  She squealed in protest as I frog marched her to the toilets.

  ‘He’ll see us,’ she protested as I shut the door with a bang.

  ‘What’s he said to you?’

  ‘Abi, he’s our manager now—’

  ‘I swear to God, Elle…’

  ‘He hasn’t told me anything specifically. He just apologised for running off. Said he needed to be professional and would expect the same from us.’

  Lit fuse. Blown.

  I vaguely remember Elle shouting my name as I stormed into Jamie’s office. He was sitting at his computer looking like death; he was so pale.

  ‘If you wan
t to act professionally, I suggest you stop whispering to everyone but me. I am nothing but professional, you dick. Talk to me! Explain to me where you’ve been. Ask me to explain myself. Ask me to stay away. Anything. But don’t do it through Elle.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,’ he said, nodding his head and drumming his fingers across the desk. ‘Is that all?’ he added before turning his gaze back to his computer screen.

  I shook my head in the embarrassment that he was treating me like another number on his people to supervise list. ‘No, that’s not all. Before I start acting professional, I just want to say fuck you.’

  Professionally put, Abi. Great job.

  As I turned to dramatically slam his door, I noticed his socks. Green, orange and brown stripes. Exactly the same bloody socks that were lying under my pillow.

  The turnover rate from angry bitch to crying wreck was going to be high today.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jamie

  Now.

  I had never been so pleased to get home—a feeling was utterly wrong, totally distant and completely unfamiliar. Normally, I had to read one more file, make one more very important home visit, scan the library for a crucial research paper, or sit in the pub before making it home for the day. But tonight, I needed a soak in the bath with a beer or four.

  Home was currently an empty shell of a flat that had one dining chair and a beer crate with a table lamp sitting on top. I had a bed on order, but until it arrived, I was on the floor in a sleeping bag every night praying for morning so I could get up and crack out the knots running down my spine. A sofa, dining table and TV stand were being delivered with the bed, so once they were here, it would be home. In all honesty, the place and everything that was going to be in it would never be my home. My home was with Abi. Always.

  There was something else missing, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to think about that yet. I had another few days before I had to face it.

  I shrugged off my shirt and placed a few beers on the floor beside the bath. I turned the taps and started to run the water. The mirror on the wall was starting to steam up with the heat. I rubbed my hand across it to clear the view. When my tattoo caught my eye in the reflection I slowly traced the pattern with my finger and thought of her. I jumped out of my thoughts when I heard my mobile ring in the other room.

  A familiar name flashed across the screen.

  ‘Hey…Yeah, I’m good…It went well…They all seem nice. Furniture is arriving Wednesday. How are you?…Take it a day at a time. That’s all you can do…OK…Friday it is. See you then.’

  Fuck.

  The sound of water overflowing pulled me out of my thoughts. I quickly turned off the taps before crouching down with my head in my hands. I needed to get myself together. I undressed and put my wet socks on the radiator, took one last look at myself in the mirror before deciding I could get away with another day without shaving, then got into the water.

  The bath was so comfortable I considered sleeping there for the night, but then I remembered a news report where some woman from Doncaster had drowned after she’d fallen asleep in the bath when she got home from a nightshift. My life might be fucking terrible right now, but I wasn’t at the stage where I was fighting the urge to put my face under the water, putting the razors in high cupboards, or wrapping them in newspaper to save me from myself.

  The warmth soothed the ache in my muscles and released the tension in my spine. I let my thoughts drift to the only woman that occupied them. Abi. Abi and her smart mouth. Abi and her matching underwear. Always matching. Abi on top of me, throwing her head back and rotating her hips as she was riding me.

  I thought about sex with Abi a lot. It had been a big part of us. If I wasn’t inside her, I was thinking about being inside her. We were spontaneous and thrill seekers. She loved nothing more than when I surprised her, wrapping my arms around her waist as she was washing the pots at the sink, unbuttoning her jeans and pushing my hand inside her underwear.

  She was the only woman I had been with who actually enjoyed sucking cock. For me, it had always been a treat on a special occasion, never an active part of a relationship. Abi sought it out, often meeting me at the door and dropping to her knees to suck the life out of me before I’d even removed my shoes.

  It had been so long since anyone had sucked my cock I’d started to believe it was such an intimate act that I only ever wanted Abi’s lips drawn around it, her mouth loving me and swallowing everything I had to give her.

  Fuck. The internal voices were coming at me loud and strong.

  I’m going to need medication, the opposite of Viagra, because a permanent hard-on was going to be a problem in the office. Repositioning would become my best friend. I’ll have to put both hands in my pockets to avoid suspicious movements, hold on to it so I can tame my cock into a false sense of restraint. Fuck, it’s never been restrained.

  As I got out of the bath, still thinking about Abi, I knocked over the empty beer cans I must have drank in my sexual memory fest. I stood with my hard cock in my hand, pumping harder and faster, twisting my hand like she used to do because she knew it drove me wild. She knew everything instinctively. I missed our connection so much I could taste it. I closed my eyes and imagined the bounce of her breasts as we fucked. I imagined the curve of her back as she arched on a moan. I imagined her foot resting on my shoulder as I shaved her legs in the bath. Yep, it was that deep. Even shaving her legs was part of foreplay for us.

  I rested my elbow against the wall and continued the drive harder and faster—squeezing. Fucking hell.

  I thought of Abi during every twisted second.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Abi

  Now.

  If someone had told me at the beginning of the week that by the end of it, I would be two pounds heavier, my lost love would be back in my life as my manager, not as my love, and I would be spending Saturday night in a bowling alley, I would have told them to pinch me in the too much chocolate jowl that was beginning to develop due to the stress.

  ‘Whose idea was this?’ Elle said in a thoroughly disgusted tone as she scrunched her face to brace herself for taking off her heels to sink her foot into a seen decidedly better days bowling shoe.

  ‘Blame Gem. She said something about the freeing nature of releasing the balls,’ Kate said, pointing across to Gem.

  ‘What? I really needed to get out some frustration. Bowling seemed like a better option than punching my ex-husband in the face.’

  ‘So you’re imagining Jay’s balls, and you…’ Elle put her arm around my shoulder and arched her eyebrows at me. ‘You’re releasing the tension of the last week.’

  ‘No tension. I’m fine. Breezy. Nothing wrong here.’ I stood and moved over to the computer to start punching in the names. ‘Elle, you’re knob chomper.’

  ‘How very mature,’ Elle deadpanned.

  ‘Who wants to be cream guzzler?’ I shouted over the music.

  ‘Talk,’ Gem said, sitting down beside me.

  ‘There’s nothing to say. He’s back, he’s my manager, and as he quite rightly said, we need to be professional.’ What a load of crap. ‘Now, who wants to be the one-eyed custard chucker?’

  ‘I’m just finding the whole thing weird,’ Gem continued, ignoring my attempts to hide behind laughter.

  ‘Tell me how you really feel.’

  ‘I mean, you need to talk to each other. There is so much to sift through. Why did he end it when things were going well? Why did he stop writing?’ Gem asked. I knew. Fuck, I knew. ‘Why did he come back knowing it was highly likely he would be working with you again?’ Her questions followed one after the other, but I didn’t really know the answers to any of them. Apart from one.

  ‘I don’t think he even considered he would be managing me. If he did, why would he come back?’

  I stood and took my turn, hauling the ball down with every fucking muscle in my body. I returned to three pairs of eye
s watching me like some kind of scientific experiment as I sagged down next to Elle.

  ‘He’s been walking around like the floor contains a hidden landmine,’ Elle said.

  I laughed briefly. He was very skittish. He had barely spoken to me and he’d avoided my desk like it was covered in radioactive waste that would eventually cause him to glow green and talk in riddles if he touched it. He was an expert at avoiding me in the corridor, and by Wednesday, I noticed he’d started to bring in his own flask of tea to bypass the kitchen. On Friday, he didn’t leave his office all day, but at 4:55 p.m., as I started to gather myself together to go home, he sent an email scheduling our first supervision session for Monday morning. And that’s why I ordered four strawberry and kiwi ciders.

  ‘I can’t make him talk to me,’ I shrugged.

  ‘He’ll have to on Monday. I so want to be a fly on the wall. He’s the one that disappeared off the face of the earth. He should be feeling awkward, not you. Your turn,’ Elle said.

  I stood and bowled another ball. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about winning, which showed as the ball drifted mockingly into the side, missing every pin. ‘Listen, I may not have been entirely truthful,’ I said.

  ‘I kind of guessed that,’ Elle replied.

  ‘It wasn’t Jamie’s fault that he stopped replying. I sent him a letter telling him I’d met someone else. Can’t blame him, really. Your turn.’

  ‘Bloody fuck, Abi.’ Elle stomped over and literally dropped the ball, making it roll painfully slowly and knocking down a pitiful three pins. She returned to her seat eighteen seconds later. This was going to be the quickest bowling game in history. ‘I don’t understand. Why would you do that?’