by Rachel Dove
Stuart didn’t make her feel that way. He even made her get rid of the spiders in his cottage, whilst he ran the other way tucking his trousers into his socks. Not very masculine, as it went, but it had never bothered her before. She again wondered why she had been sleepwalking through her life, unbeknown to her till now. Was she comparing Stuart to Will, or to the person she thought he was?
Her phone sprang to life as she entered the flat through the shop, locking the van up as she carried what she could up the stairs. It would take a few trips, but she was in no rush. She had decided to move in and then decorate, and after her meeting that morning with her parents, she was certain she had made the right choice. She could get more done of an evening if she slept there, and she could cope with a bit of mess. Maybe Roger would fancy a bit of overtime. She knew he was wanting to go to Barcelona again with his hubby, so she could perhaps take a bit of time out to get moved in properly. Since she didn’t need to pay her parents board any more, she could save a little cash there for overtime.
She looked at her phone, seeing she had missed calls from Elaine, Simon, and Stuart. A text from him just said, ‘Did you forget the coffee?’ Lily snorted. She had walked out on him, and all he was bothered about was not getting a brew before she left. Hardly chasing after her to check she was okay, was he? She deleted the text, sending a quick one to both Elaine and Simon explaining she was fine and her phone had been off. She looked at the text from Will again and, opening the screen up, tapped out a reply.
***
The room was filled with overstuffed couches, circling the worn coffee table like wagons. Magazines of interior design, family recipes, and celebrity scandals lay scattered on its surface. Will’s phone pinged in his pocket, rousing him from his dazed stare, and the woman next to him frowned.
‘William, really? Work today?’
Will looked at her in apology, reaching for his coat pocket. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realize it was still on.’ He felt so tired, having had no sleep apart from the thirty-minute nap he had grabbed earlier in an uncomfy armchair. Glancing at the screen as he turned it off, he saw Lily’s name and his heart beat a little faster. Looking at the woman next to him, he hoped she hadn’t seen the name come up on the display. Answering awkward questions was the last thing he could deal with today.
He thought of the club, about how Lily felt in his arms. He had probably scared her off anyway. Who would want to be around someone capable of such anger? Lily struck him as being far too refined for that. Whoever this Stuart was, Will was betting he wasn’t some tattooed muscle-bound meathead. He would be a gent, and rightly so. Lily deserved nothing less.
It was immaterial anyway. She could be engaged to Prince Harry, or Voldemort for all he could do about it. He looked around the room, and remembered with a jolt just how tangled his life was.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ he said softly. ‘You do realize that, don’t you? We can’t stay like this for ever.’
The woman looked at him in shock, already shaking her head. ‘William, of course we can. It will get better; it has to.’
William’s heart sank. There was no talking to her when she was in this mood – he knew that, and he didn’t want to make it worse.
‘Okay,’ he said slowly, sighing in defeat. ‘Shall we get a coffee?’
The woman smiled at him then, and he just managed to smile back enough for her not to see how little he meant it. He ambled off to get the coffee, covering his damaged knuckles as best he could with his sleeve. He wondered whether Lily was mad with him, if she was okay. He felt a huge pang of guilt and clenched his fist. Whatever the text said, it was not what he should be focusing on, and he knew it.
He looked down at the wedding ring on his finger, pushed on in a hurry the night before. He fingered the band, ignoring the pain his knuckles produced. He needed to focus on this, for now at least. Anything else was just too hard, too many lies. Someone was going to get hurt, and when you see trouble on the road, you get out of the way. Will just needed to figure out whether it was worth the risk of crashing, and who would survive the aftermath. The problem was, when you were caught in the headlights, it was fight or flight, and Lord knows Will wasn’t the type to step away from a fight.
He was a veritable melting pot of clichés. Would he really drag Lily into this, for his own selfish feelings? Weave her into the worst cliché of them all – the cheating spouse? The thought of anyone hurting Lily, least of all him, made his whole body tense up. He would rather see her every day, happy with Stuart, than risk destroying her life.
As he set the coffee machine whirring with the click of a button, he suddenly wished Ryan would walk round the corner, so he could smack him again.
***
Monday morning, and February was on its way. January was over this week, and people were starting to perk up. The need for frugality and healthy living was waning somewhat, as people started to crave chocolate and alcohol, sick of water and salad on a tight post-Christmas budget. Spring was on the way, and love was in the air, payday around the corner.
People would soon be planning their Valentine’s Day treats. Nights out, nights in, presents, declarations of love, affirmations of marriage and commitment. Lily loved this time of year, when the winter started to lose its grip a little on the weather; the trees showed the first stirrings of waking up. Roses and daffodils: beautiful blooms, and a pleasure to work with in their own individual ways.
She had been up late, putting together what she could, listening to the radio till the small hours, making a dent on making the flat her own. The buzz of waking up in her own place far outweighed the inconvenience of her sleeping on the floor again, and she practically danced down the steps to the shop that morning. Roger wasn’t there yet, so she opened up, flicking the kettle on and sitting at the counter to look at the order book.
The delivery would be here soon, and things would soon be busy. She liked the mornings here, the promise of people and events in the air. She hadn’t replied to Stuart yesterday, and he hadn’t contacted her again. He must by now have realized that she was mad, but she guessed that he wouldn’t have a clue why. Pulling her phone out of her handbag, the crumpled-up T-shirt fell out. She held it up, curling her lip in mild disgust at the slogan.
‘Well,’ Roger said from behind her, coffees in hand from next door. ‘It’s not your usual style. Are you giving yourself a makeover?’
She pulled a face at him. ‘It’s from Stuart’s. I slept in it the other night.’
Roger raised an eyebrow. ‘You sleep with clothes on?’
Lily blushed. ‘Er yes, Rog, I do usually. Don’t you?’
He raised a devilish brow of his own at her. ‘Mais non,’ he said, ‘of course not! Where’s the fun in flannelette? Not the easiest thing to get jiggy in, surely!’
He passed her a coffee, giving her a quick peck on the cheek in greeting, and she made an involuntary mmmm sound as she caught a whiff of the caramel syrup.
‘Thanks, I love you too. And I do not wear flannelette – it was Saturday night, I was cold, so I borrowed a T-shirt. That’s all.’
Roger nodded. ‘I bet you watched sport, ate takeaway, and went to bed early, didn’t you. Sit with your parents too, did you? On a Saturday night. In your twenties. Why didn’t Stuart take you out?’
He swished off his coat and scarf, sitting down next to her to sip at his own half-caf no-fat no-taste skinny hazelnut concoction. Lily shrugged.
‘The golf was on. In all honesty, we were at Stuart’s. I told my parents I was moving in upstairs, and it went down like a lead balloon. Stuart showed up when I was closing, and took me to his for the night. I ate Chinese food, had a shower, and was collapsed in front of the television by half nine.’ She added defensively, ‘But I did go to a club on Friday, like a person in their twenties would. I got drunk, saw a fight, and was mortally hung over the day after. That’s a win in the bucket list stakes, surely?’
Roger nodded slowly, rapt
as though she was telling him the secret of life.
‘And you are moving out. Actually moving out. Upstairs.’
‘Yep,’ she said, brightening up as she thought of her little home. ‘I HAVE moved out. I slept there last night, which reminds me, I have a lot of stuff coming today, so if it’s quiet later, I was hoping to bribe you with cake for some time off. I have a whole flat full of furniture to assemble.’
Roger said nothing. He was looking at her as though she had just dropped out of the sky in a spaceship.
‘Wow,’ he said finally. ‘So is Stuart coming to help? Is he moving in too? What did he have to say about you moving out? Am I asking too many questions?’
Lily balked at the mention. Bugger. She hadn’t even told Stuart. She had moved out, and he didn’t know. She just hoped he didn’t speak to her parents, before she got a chance to tell him. Why haven’t I told him? What is wrong with me lately? She had a flashback to the club. She had told someone she was planning to move above the shop. She had told Will. The first person she had thought to tell about such a significant development in her life wasn’t her fiancé. She pushed the thought away, not wanting to delve into the whys and hows of her thought processes. She had a nagging feeling that she had deliberately not told Stuart yet, because she knew he wouldn’t approve.
Roger looked at her in understanding.
‘So,’ he said, pulling the order book closer. ‘You need time off to move into your bachelorette pad, no problem!’ He started to thumb down the order list, and noticed the vase of wild flowers.
‘They’re nice, new line you’re working on?’ He sniffed the nearest flower. ‘Wow,’ he exclaimed. ‘They are lush.’
Lily blushed. ‘Actually, they’re …’
‘They are from me,’ a deep voice said behind her.
Will stood there, a couple of takeaway coffee cups from next door in his hand.
‘Hi!’ she said a little too brightly.
‘Hi,’ he said, looking straight into her eyes with his deep brown ones. He was dressed in casual trackies, a hoodie, trainers, and fitted T-shirt. His hair was freshly washed and tousled. He looked like an advert for a gym, the after picture, and Lily swallowed hard. Roger, standing next to her, did the same as they both ogled him. The man truly was a sight to behold.
He stepped forward, setting down the coffee cups.
‘Sorry, Roger, I didn’t realize you would be here this early. I didn’t bring you a coffee.’
Roger recovered his faculties when he was addressed. A bulky guy with a clipboard came through the door then, followed by another and Roger tittered. Lily heard him sing ‘hot guy drop-in day’ under his breath.
‘No problem, honey, I have one right here,’ he said, addressing the room again. ‘Lily, it looks like our packages have come! Will, if you have time, please drink your coffee here before you go to work. We shan’t be long!’ He nudged Lily then, and she nodded dumbly. Roger had said ‘packages’ like you would ‘strippers’ and she had been having a mini daydream a la Magic Mike, with Will in front, brandishing his long umbrella. Roger hummed a couple of bars of ‘Pony’ and Lily laughed out loud. The two delivery men looked at each other, rolling their eyes, and went to open their respective vans.
Roger went with them, looking over Will’s shoulder at Lily with an expression that made Lily guffaw again. Will raised an eyebrow, a small smile on his face, and she smiled back.
‘I am so sorry about that – mad half hour. For me?’ She reached out for one of the cups. He was still looking at her intently as he passed her one, and she felt a spark when their fingers touched around the cup. She could smell the caramel and she felt an absurd rush of butterflies at the thought of him remembering her favourite drink again.
‘You got the flowers then?’ He pointed to the vase, which was sat on the counter. ‘Surely they should be hidden in the back somewhere, in case someone wants one themselves?’
Lily rolled her eyes. ‘I will just tell them I did them, you know, take the credit.’
Will nodded, taking a sip of his own coffee. He seemed to sag a little as he drank, and she noticed he looked pale. ‘Good plan. I would do the same.’
‘Sorry I didn’t reply to your text till later. My phone was off.’
She had replied to him last night but heard nothing, although she hadn’t expected to. She had only written, ‘I don’t think less of you. I am sure you had your reasons. I had fun too. Lily.’
She had debated for a full five minutes about adding a kiss, or even a wink/kiss emoji, but in the end decided to go with a full stop. Boring, but safe. Just like her. When he hadn’t replied an hour later, she was cursing her own vanilla text. She had even tapped out a text to Stuart, saying, ‘We need to talk’, but she had deleted it, choosing to clean her kitchen cabinets out instead to vent her frustrations.
What would she even say to him? Marry me now or lose me for ever? I met a man who makes me tingle, and by comparison, I now find you somewhat lacking? Stop being a git and treat me a bit better? Buy some less sexist T-shirts? All of the above needed saying, but Lily knew she would never say them out loud.
‘It’s okay,’ he said kindly, taking a seat on the stool next to hers. She sat down too, and they both drank their coffee. They could hear Roger talking away to the two men as they unloaded. A divan mattress came out of the back of the second van, and Will looked at her in question.
‘You really moving in?’ he asked. He had a half-smile on his face, a look of admiration.
‘Yep,’ she said, grinning. ‘Actually, I technically already did. I have a mountain of jobs to do though, so I am taking a bit of time off today. Make a start. Be nice to sleep in my own bed tonight.’ He looked at her, his smile gone. ‘I mean, I have a bed at my parents’, but I slept here last night, on the floor. On my own,’ she added, blushing. Will looked relieved and the butterflies flicked their wings again. ‘I meant it will be nice to sleep in my own bed.’
He nodded. ‘You got help coming?’ He looked behind him, as if Stuart was going to materialize there with a baseball bat in hand.
She shook her head. ‘Nope, I am kinda doing this alone.’ He looked at her again, his eyes crinkling in the corners as he gazed at her. ‘So …’ She changed the subject before she burst into flames under his gaze. ‘So, you off to work today, with Archie?’
He shook his head, looking away. ‘Nope, I have a couple of days off. I won’t need my order today either.’ She nodded, but didn’t ask why. Maybe Kim and him had had a fallout. Maybe she didn’t deserve flowers today. She found herself looking at the wild flowers in their vase again.
‘I was going to go for a run actually, thought I would come see you.’ He locked eyes with her. ‘To cancel my order. I can help, if you like?’
Lily looked from him to the van and back again. The man was still lugging furniture out of the back.
‘Honestly, there is a lot. I couldn’t ask you to do that.’
‘You didn’t ask,’ he said, standing and drinking the rest of his coffee. ‘To be honest back, I could use a distraction today, and the company.’
Lily nodded, biting her thumbnail nervously. A whole day, in her flat with Will. The thought was amazing, but she knew it was wrong. She drained her coffee as the bulky man walked into the shop, mattress trailing behind him in plastic wrap. She had to decline politely. She had to.
‘Where do you want this?’ he asked gruffly, looking at the pair.
Will looked at her. ‘So, where do we want it?’
CHAPTER TEN
It was when Lizzie had baked the sixth batch of chocolate chip cookies that she finally cracked. She was humming along to the radio, delving into the pantry for Tupperware containers, when she actually thought about what she was doing.
Reaching for a box and lid from her pile, she turned and put it on the island in her kitchen. Looking across, every surface was covered with cooling trays of cookies, a variety of chocolate chips within.
/> ‘Who am I even baking these for?’ she muttered to herself. There must have been enough treats out to totally cover a whole school bake sale single-handed. Not to mention the two Victoria sandwiches she had made and stored yesterday, or the cherry muffins she had made the day before and frozen. Between the baking, the cleaning, and the organizing, the whole house shone like a new pin and smelt like a bakery.
Irvin had pretty much taken up residence in his den, and the pair of them had avoided each other as much as possible. So here she was, baking for no one in a near empty house. Looking around her, something snapped into place in her mind. Taking off her pinny, she folded it neatly, switching off the oven as she went past. She boxed up all the muffins, switched off the radio, and headed to the front door.
After filling up the car, she came back into the hall, checked her hair in the mirror, and slicked on some lippy. Giving her silver hair a quick flick, she pursed her lips and plucked a piece of paper out of the letter rack. Then she shut the door behind her.
***
Irvin heard a car. Looking out from the den, he saw Lizzie’s car driving away. It looked like it was filled with boxes. What was she playing at?
He looked back at the TV, where the snooker was playing. He sighed and looked down again at his morning paper. Celebrity scandals and economic gloom, as usual. He sighed again and threw the paper into the wastepaper basket. He noticed then it was full, and he realized it was a good while since the room had been cleaned. Lizzie didn’t come in here any more, and it was becoming more of a man cave every day.
The look was a bit pathetic, truth be told, and he missed her coming in and berating him for being a scruff. She would come in like a whirlwind, whip the room back into shape, give him a little kiss, and bustle out again, leaving the scent of polish and her perfume in the air. Now, even the solitary plug-in air freshener had long since depleted itself and was hunched in the socket, looking as forlorn and pathetic as he felt.
