Drop Dead Dirty

by West, Jade

  My heels were clacking along the path just fine as my thumbs worked their magic on the handset. I was all set to send a ping to my mum asking her to put the kettle on ready for my reappearance when I heard the footsteps behind me.

  My stomach fell. I was ready to curse at Robbie and tell him I really was heading home, but it wasn’t his slick-styled cockerel brilliance greeting me when I turned around.

  My stomach kept falling, but this time it swirled with a whole fresh flurry of butterflies. The tickle was undeniable as my eyes widened to find the piercing gaze of Oliver Kent staring down at me.

  His hands were up, gesturing. His voice was an ocean more familiar in the quiet of the outdoors.

  “Please, Maisie,” he said. “I know this isn’t the place, but I came here wanting to talk to you. Please, can we talk?”

  Chapter Six

  Oliver

  I wasn’t sure which of us was reeling the most. We stood there staring at each other, both of us transfixed. The awkwardness was palpable, but it was more than that. A chaotic blur of ten years, leaving just the teenage heartbreak pounding in the air between us. Yet still, it was a beautiful tension. The sun was low enough in the sky that the world had a pink hue, along with Maisie’s cheeks. She was open-mouthed, lips shimmering with some kind of glitter gloss, just like old times. And her eyes. Still so much her. Still so much of the Maisie I knew burning there.

  Intoxicating.

  Her wide eyes were absolutely intoxicating.

  I had to pull my senses together and keep on speaking, and the words came. They sounded so loud in the air between us.

  “This isn’t how I expected our initial conversation to go, outside some crappy school catch up with your idiot ex spouting off inside. I didn’t expect you to be dashing out after a few stilted words at the bar and leaving the rest of the school year dancing drunk on the dance floor, Ryan included.” I paused, gave her a smile. “Hell, me included.”

  She brushed some loose strands of hair behind her ear. I remembered the softness of it between my fingers. Remembered her smile as I teased it back from her cheeks and pressed my mouth to hers.

  Fuck, I had so much to tell her. So much I needed to say. Needed to share. Needed to take.

  “I didn’t expect you to be here,” she said. “I mean I heard the gossip, that you’d be here at the reunion, but I didn’t expect it. Not to really see you. Not after so long.”

  “Is that why you’re leaving?” I pushed. “Because I’m really here?”

  She shook her head. “I just… no. That’s not why I’m leaving. I have a son, at home… I’m missing out on a decent TV night with him…”

  “Freddie, right?” I asked, and those wide eyes widened even further. “Ryan filled me in. Told me he’s a great kid.” My stomach felt the pang as a smile bloomed on that pretty face. It was a strange twist in my gut. A need. A want. A desire to know more of her motherly pride. A desire to be on that beautiful road along with her.

  “He’s truly amazing,” she said. “An awesome little guy, he really is. I’m so proud of him.”

  I didn’t doubt it. Not with the love burning in her eyes.

  “Ten years,” I commented. “A whole decade since we spoke. It’s gone so fast and so slow. So much change.”

  She nodded. “I hear those ten years have been very kind to you on the business front.”

  I shrugged. “Life is a lot more than any business front.”

  She tipped her head. “I heard you’re married, so I guess the romance front has been pretty kind to you as well.”

  I took a step forward, all ready to blurt out the truth on my saga with Naomi. My truth in general. I took a step forward and registered Maisie’s breath hitch. Nervousness.

  Hell, how much I wanted to be close to her. But it wasn’t the time. It couldn’t be the time.

  She must have spotted the approach of people before I did. Her eyes left mine and shifted back to the venue behind, and I heard the familiar bullshit tone of Sawyer’s cocky voice fast approaching.

  “Crap,” Maisie hissed, and with that she stepped to the side, heading right for the idiot before I could say another word. “I’m going home already,” she told him, but he kept on marching up in a drunken swagger.

  I should have expected the way he swung an arm over her shoulders and tugged her close to his side. I should have expected the way his eyes were burning with the same bravado he’d burned bright with back at high school.

  “Heard you’re going back to London tomorrow,” he said to me, and I shrugged.

  “I have no concrete plans.”

  His lip curled. “Yeah, well maybe you should have. I think you’ve outgrown this place.”

  I couldn’t hold back the smirk of my own. “I might enjoy a few more days around here yet. Who’s to say?”

  “I’d enjoy a few more days far away from my boy and Maisie, if I were you,” he said, and Maisie squirmed away from him.

  “Stop it, Rob,” she snapped. “We were saying hello. Nothing much more and none of your business even if it was.”

  His eyes were burning as they crashed on hers, and it was painfully obvious how besotted he still was with her under his bravado. “Always my business,” he said and ran his fingers down her cheek.

  “Jesus, you’re smashed drunk already,” she said and brushed his hand aside.

  I was cringing inside as I noticed Ryan marching on up the street in our direction with a couple more onlookers. Sawyer turned to face them, and so did Maisie, flashing me a raised eyebrow and a shake of her head as the scene promised to get busier.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan asked as he reached us, giving Robbie the kind of brotherly slap on the arm he definitely wouldn’t have given him back in our school days.

  “Your posh boy mate here was trying it on with my Maisie,” the jackass said, and my smirk widened.

  “You still haven’t got any respect for actual conversation skills, I see,” I said, but it was Maisie he was listening to.

  “He wasn’t trying it on and I’m not your Maisie,” she told him, and her voice was a sassy hiss I barely remembered from her.

  “I’m sure he wasn’t trying it on,” Ryan offered, seemingly in my defence. “It’s a hello, I’m sure. He’s married down in London.” I shot him a glare, shaking my head enough that he shrugged, but he kept on going. “Seriously, Rob, this is nothing more than a few drinks out at a reunion. I’m sure Maisie was on her way home.”

  “Maisie can do whatever she wants to do,” I told the both of them.

  “Yeah, and she wants to get her ass back home without you sniffing around her,” Robbie snapped back. “Our boy is waiting there.”

  “Our boy is waiting just fine with my parents,” she said. “You want to get your ass back into the disco and stop blustering.”

  The showdown as Sawyer and I glared across at each other was a repeat performance of the standoff hostility on the school football field. He was the same billowed chest jackass, thinking he owned the show. I was the same cocksure geek staring back at him with a smirk on my face. Goading for more, unspoken. Daring to bristle with enough confidence to take his on.

  “Get back to the disco,” Maisie said. “I’m going home to Freddie. Ollie’s staying to enjoy the reunion with Ryan. Nothing crazy to see here.”

  It was the stability in her voice that made my own hope drop a little. Maybe there really was nothing crazy to see here and never would be. Just long time exes with nothing left in common.

  “Chill out, Rob, Ollie really is staying with me,” Ryan confirmed. “Sofa surfing like high schoolers. No big deal.”

  “I really am talking to Maisie,” I interjected. “And she’s perfectly capable of deciding whether she wants to or not.”

  “Five fucking minutes,” Robbie snarled regardless, and pointed a finger at Ryan. “You be back inside with that prick in five fucking minutes or I’ll be back out here.”

  I took a step forward to carry on with my argument, but the
idiot was already swaggering away.

  “Leave it,” Ryan hissed in my ear. “Forget about him and his crap. He’s the same old jackass.”

  But I didn’t want to. I wasn’t the kid who’d simmer quietly and keep my distance anymore. I was the man who stood up to bullshit and kept my footing firm on whatever uneven ground was under me. I was the kind of man who’d tell an idiot like Sawyer he had no power over Maisie Moore or whoever the hell she wanted to converse with.

  It was the gentle squeeze of her fingers on my arm that jolted me out of my simmering.

  “Sorry about him,” she said, and her eyes were ripe with embarrassment. “You know what he’s like. Still thinks he’s the big I am.”

  Ryan nodded his head as though we were settled, then moved away with the other straggle of onlookers, leaving me and Maisie back in the spot, facing each other all over again in the quiet.

  Just a shame the magic was gone.

  “I really should get back home to Freddie soon,” she said. “And you should get back inside and enjoy the reunion.”

  “I really did want to talk,” I told her. “And I really didn’t want it to be here.”

  “That’s a good thing, then,” she said with a smile. “If you’re here for another few days we can catch up. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, Sunday roast calling, but I have an hour’s lunch at one on Monday. From the store. If you’re around, I mean…”

  I nodded. “I’ll be around.”

  “Great,” she said, but her smile was one of those standard ones that seemed fake as hell as she stared up at me. The magic in her eyes was hidden. Jaded.

  I was about to tell her I’d walk her home like a gentleman, conversation or no, and wouldn’t let her head onto the dark recreation ground alone. I was about to tell her she was able to do whatever she wanted to do, regardless of what that moron had to say about it, no matter how much he wanted to kick my ass.

  I was about to tell her the talk was something I’d been thinking about for an age. That she was something I’d been thinking about for an age. That maybe marriage hadn’t been nearly so kind to me as she expected.

  But no.

  Her two friends Amy and Kate were the next to appear on the scene, their heels clipping the pavement like a pony trot as they dashed their way over and grabbed her arms in theirs.

  “We’ll walk you home, before Robbie comes back out and spouts more of his shit and ruins the whole damn night,” Amy said, and Maisie sighed and nodded.

  “Sure thing. I was heading back for Freddie anyway.” Her eyes met mine, and just for a moment there was a flash there of the girl I knew well enough it slammed my memory. “Goodnight, Ollie,” she said.

  “Goodnight, Maisie,” I said, and watched her leave.

  Chapter Seven

  Maisie

  My Sundays usually go lightning quick. A blur of amazing family time before the chug of the working week comes back calling.

  With a Monday catch up chat with Oliver Kent brewing, my Sunday ticked by a whole load slower. Excitement fizzed deep, even though my nerves were ragged. My sensibilities kept spinning around my head, desperate not to get carried away. How could they? He was a distant ex, with a whole life in London and a stunning wife waiting back there. I was… me. Just me.

  That didn’t seem to put a stop to the simmer of excitement though. I’m sure my mum saw it too as she helped me prepare our roast lunch. She flashed me knowing smiles and asked pointed questions about the previous night, even though I’d already told her enough about Robbie being his regular jerk self and the girls rocking on up to walk me home.

  No idea what Ollie might want to talk about? Surely not just a general catch up? Any idea what he’s doing back here? Just a visit with Ryan Neil?

  Over and over I shrugged in response. Unsure. No idea whatsoever.

  But just one more day and I would have.

  Amy and Kate were pinging me on the group message chat after lunch, eager to be kept in the loop on the run up to my chat with the newly gorgeous millionaire businessman. It was like crush gossip from our school days all over again, but there was no gossip to be chatted over. Not really.

  While I was finishing up dinner and washing the dishes and helping Mum serve up apple pie for dessert, I wondered what Ollie would be doing in Much Arlock on a Sunday afternoon. If he was hitting the same selection of local pubs he’d enjoyed back when he was barely legal. If he was chatting tech theories with Ryan over some video game, like they did when they were teens. If he was on the phone to his wife back in London, promising he wouldn’t be away much longer and couldn’t wait to hold her tight, and plant kisses on her glorious lips, and carry her upstairs to the bedroom.

  I wondered if he knew I was a happy mum with a happy little life around here, even if it wasn’t anything like the dreams we threw around together when we thought the whole world was ours to conquer.

  Turns out he really did conquer so many of the dreams he’d conjured up back then.

  I wondered if he knew how much I’d thought about him over the years, especially late at night in an empty bed, or even when Robbie was rolled over with his back to me, our love long since dried to nothing. I wondered if he knew how much I’d craved to hear more of the fantasies he used to whisper. The fantasies that used to make me feel so dirty and exposed, even back then.

  I wondered if he still had those filthy fantasies. I wondered if his wife was every bit the dirty girl I expected her to be, or if she’d managed to tame him into being a good, wholesome, conventional husband.

  Somehow, I doubted we’d be talking about any fantasies on a Monday lunchtime while I was in my checkout uniform. Somehow, I doubted we’d ever be talking about these fantasies full stop.

  And so the day ticked on. I took Freddie out to the recreation ground after lunch and smiled to myself as he climbed the climbing frame and threw himself down the slide. I smiled at the other parents passing through, waving to several I knew, my stomach panging to see some of the couples making such great family time together.

  Robbie had never been much of a man for making great family time together. He was most likely still nursing a hangover with one of his regular Saturday night conquests still in his bed.

  His incredible son wasn’t anything like him.

  “Hey, Mum!” he shouted and climbed up the slide the reverse way.

  I clapped his effort and air punched along with him when he reached the top, and the pride flooded me beyond anything, just as it always did.

  Sitting in the afternoon sun with a belly churning with Oliver Kent catch up nerves and a heart swelling with pride for the son who was my everything, I really did hope our catch up would be enough for Ollie to realise how much I had achieved in this world, even though it may seem a little different to the road I’d mapped out with him.

  I hadn’t made it to city life or anywhere close. I hadn’t made it to a career that had my brain ticking over a million questions and theories. I hadn’t made it to a marriage with someone who set my soul alight every day they came home to me. But I had made it to an incredible creation beyond all creations.

  “Can we read the monster book when we get home?” Freddie grinned as he sat himself down on the bench alongside me.

  I ruffled his hair and pulled him close. “Sure can. You know I love the monster book as much as you do.”

  “Is Dad coming over? Maybe he can read it too?”

  I took his hand and tugged him to his feet along with me. “I think your dad might be busy,” I said. “But we can always ping him a message to find out for sure, if you want to see him.”

  The way Freddie’s smile was sunshine bright as he nodded his head filled me with relief. He clearly had no idea that I didn’t want to see his idiot dad at our house for the next hundred years.

  “He loves the monster book,” Freddie told me. “He always wants to be the t-rex voice.”

  I couldn’t stop myself smiling, knowing full well that the t-rex in the monster book was an arrogant jack
ass too.

  It was an easy sigh from me when Robbie’s message sounded back to mine that he was too busy for the monster book. Too busy nursing his poor alcohol-fried brain for the evening.

  It was a happy ticking through of the evening hours to take on the t-rex voice and have my son laugh an amazingly bright laugh right the way through the story.

  It was a less than calm ticking when my son was fast asleep in his bed that night, and I was trying to get fast asleep in my own. The ticking was frantic. Needy. My imagination was turning wild as the fantasies of what Oliver Kent wanted to talk about ran ragged through my mind. I tossed and turned. I tried to count sheep. I tried to flick through my social media messages and hope the distraction would be enough until sleep caught up with me.

  But it wasn’t.

  Of course it wasn’t.

  In just a few more hours I’d be speaking in person again with Oliver Kent.

  I’d be staring up at that perfectly neat stubble and those gorgeous dimples, and that messily un-messy hair. I’d be seeing the sparkle in his eyes and remembering how filthily they used to sparkle when he urged me to indulge his fantasies.

  I’d be smelling the citrus undertone to his familiar scent.

  I’d be wanting to touch him. Feel him.

  I’d be wanting him. So much of him.

  That’s why my fingers finally found their way down between my legs and my breath hitched as I gave in to the urges. I was a dirty girl as I remembered the dirty things he’d whispered and wanted, and the dirty things I’d promised to give to him. I was a dirty girl as I held the gasps back as the orgasm rocked through me, toes curling tight as the new image of Oliver Kent replaced the old one in my mind.

  Damn, how I wanted him. Damn, how he was still the man who could drive me crazy.

  I threw the covers back to catch my breath, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness and realising that the chat tomorrow lunchtime would be a whirlwind enough to stir up my heartbreak and my disappointment that we were really done all over again. That he really left. That he really lived in London, far away with a stunning wife in his stunning world.