This Love

by Anna Bloom

  “I’m glad you decided on yes.” He leans in and kisses me on the cheek, which is tame considering he had me pinned to a table a few moments a go. “I’ll see you around.”

  And with that he’s gone back into the pub.

  I give it a few moments and then trail in behind him. As I turn for my table and forgotten friends, I search for him but he’s long gone. No sign other than the remaining tingle on my skin and lips that he’s even been here at all.

  DATING

  Considering Freddy and I already had a first date, nearly eleven years ago, I’m surprisingly nervous. I’m acting like, well, I’m acting like I did nearly eleven years ago, which has made me realise I was averagely cool then, but now not even close. Not even edging near to cool.

  I’m glancing out the front window every minute and a half while waiting for him to arrive.

  I’m wondering what the night is going to involve.

  Really, I’m just wondering if it’s going to involve sex. I mean, last week in the pub garden was outrageously sexy, it’s been on a constant loop in my mind ever since. I’ve trimmed the “bushes” just in case.

  I’ve seen Freddy since the pub, I’ve waved at him across the street during the day, both of us grinning as we walk on past. I’ve seen him at school when he picked Bailey up; apparently Wednesday is his afternoon to have Clever-Clogs-Bailey. Not that I’m bitter it turns out Henry’s son is naturally gifted at everything, especially mathematics.

  But more exciting than all of that is when he’s turned up at my doorstep every night at half past ten to wish me a good night. I did explain that there is technology called mobiles, and we could swap numbers, but he said he’s worried I will slip into my text addiction days of the past, so he’s keeping it old school. So at ten thirty I open the door, he’s standing there looking all hot, normally freshly showered, and smelling divine. He gives me one of his cheesy grins as he leans against the doorframe and asks about my day, and I lie and say I wrote some blinding new material, then he kisses me goodnight. And my God, are those kisses worth waiting all day for.

  He never asks to come in, and I’m sure the reason he comes at ten thirty is because he’s heard through the Danni Grapevine that ten o’clock is roughly when Isaac gives in and finally falls asleep.

  So this week there has been grinning, kissing, a handful of lingering looks and I can safely say my ability to block all thoughts of Freddy Bale has seriously disintegrated. I’ve gone from three controlled thoughts a day to about three thousand.

  "Are you going to stand there until he comes?” Danni goads me from the lounge doorway.

  “I’m not standing anywhere, I’m checking the net curtains are straight.”

  “Whatever.” She laughs and shuffles back to the kitchen where she is convincing mum that Meals on Wheels aren’t a patch on her cooking. I’m not convinced and mum, who doesn’t have a clue who Danni is no matter how many times I remind her, doesn’t look like she’s bought into it either.

  “So,” I lean against the doorway and attempt to look nonchalant. “Do you know where I am going?”

  “Nope.”

  I give a little tut. ‘Am I dressed right?”

  She glances me up and down. “Yep.”

  “So you do know where I’m going, you liar.”

  Danni gives me a cherubic smile.

  “Danni, can I ask a question?”

  She places her hands on her hips. “Do you need protection? I don’t know for sure, but I’d hedge on yes.”

  Waving my hands, I try and stop her talking. “Shh, my mum’s through there.”

  “You’re nearly twenty nine, I think you’re allowed to have sex.”

  I purposely ignore the prospective thought of having grown-up sex with Freddy Bale. “She think’s I’m eighteen most of the time,” I sigh.

  “Is that because you act like you’re eighteen most of the time?”

  ‘I do not! I’m a very sensible mother heading towards thirty.”

  “You were just watching for your boyfriend through the curtains!”

  ‘I was not, and he’s not my boyfriend.”

  Danni rolls her eyes. She’s taken great joy in teasing me all week, which brings me to my question. “Danni, why are you so sure that this is a good thing between Freddy and I, when ten years ago you thought it was a terrible mistake.”

  She stops stirring her concoction and turns to face me. “Because I made a mistake ten years ago, and when I met Grant I realised how it might have been for you, but it was too late for me to tell you.” She picks up her spoon again. “Also, I saw how Freddy was after you left and no one suffers like that if it isn’t something deeper than just fancying someone. If you’d bothered to ring me, you know, to say hi, tell me you’d had a sprog, that kind of thing, I would have told you.”

  "I wish I’d rung you, not just for that, I just wish I’d rung you.”

  “Yeah, and I wish I’d harassed your mum and dad to find out where you were until they gave in and told me.”

  “Sorry.”

  "So you should be, bitchface.”

  Before I can fire back a name of my own, the bell rings. My heart literally leaps out of my chest and my knees give a little wibble wobble.

  “Have fun, Amber.” Danni laughs, taking in the state of me.

  “Uh. I don’t want to go now.” The bell rings again so Danni pushes me towards the door. “Make sure mum eats, please.”

  ‘Yes.” She cranks the front door.

  “Can you call Mai and check on Isaac, he may get homesick and want to come home?”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “Maybe I should call quick before I leave.”

  “No, you won’t,” Freddy’s voice murmurs into my ear and his fingers link with mine, leading me down the steps. "Is she trying to get out of the date?” He shouts back to Danni.”

  “Yep!” she calls back, making Freddy shake his head and tut at me in dismay.

  “I’m not used to dating.” My explanation makes me flush brighter than the burning sun.

  He laughs even louder, his eyes dancing. “And you think I am? Come on, Amber, lets wing it.”

  I’m about to ask why he’s not practiced at dating but the sight of his old truck parked up on the verge distracts me. It used to be flash as cash and top of the range. Now it’s decrepit and far more my type of vehicle.

  “I think I prefer this now,” I say, admiring the rust mingled with the former metallic finish.

  “That’s why I kept it, I knew how fond you were of all the knobs in there.” His tone is teasing and his eyes crinkle with laughter as he watches me try and clamber in the passenger seat and figure out how to work the seatbelt buckle.

  “Are we going or not?” I snap.

  He doesn’t answer, slamming the door and walking around to his side. I take the moment to practice my calm breathing.

  Breathing is going to be the way to get through this.

  * * *

  “Strike!” Freddy shouts and gives little fist pump. Pulling my ugliest face, I poke my tongue out.

  Laughing, he comes and sits on the bench by my side and gives my knee a sympathetic pat. The continuous chuckling seriously undermines the sympathy. “Don’t worry, Amber, the next ball will go your way.” He laughs some more. “Well, hopefully the right way.”

  “Ha, bloody, ha.” I stand up and place my hands on my hips, giving it some attitude.

  Imagine my shock when I found out our second first date was to be at the bowling alley.

  Grabbing a ball off the conveyor, I slide my fingers into the holes and try not to imagine the hundreds of people who’ve done it before me, nor where their fingers may have been.

  “You should see your face,” Freddy mocks some more. “Do you want to ask the desk to clean the ball again?”

  I roll my eyes and turn my back on him. Seriously, if he wasn’t Freddy Bale, wasn’t so hot, and I wasn’t hoping there would be some serious action later, I would have been out of the door ages ag
o.

  Stepping up to the lane, I try to not focus on the squidgy feeling under my toes in the rented shoes and concentrate instead on the elusive ten pins. This time I’ve just got to keep it out of the gully. It shouldn’t be too hard.

  I swing the ball and give that little jump, curtsey thing that Freddy makes look so easy. The ball glides down the middle of the lane, and I have a split moment of satisfaction watching it go the right way. Then my right foot steps over the black line and I slip, my feet flipping high in the air as I fall onto my arse with a painful whack.

  The whole place is silent as I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling; the bright lights glare down, blinding me. If I could die right now, that would be just about perfect.

  Freddy falls to his knees next to me, at first I think it’s an act of concern, but then I feel him shaking with laughter next to me. “Come on, Amber.” He pulls me up by my hands until I’m sitting with my legs sprawled at awkward angles. “The good news is you got four down that time.” I glance down the lane and see that I have in fact knocked down four pins. “Do you want to take the other shot?”

  “No, I want to go home,” I grouch.

  “Come on, I’ll help you.” He straightens up, wincing slightly as he puts weight on his right leg.

  “Oh, don’t do the whole, I’m so injured thing with your leg. I just had a smack down in the middle of a packed bowling alley.”

  “It’s true! My spinal cord damage is nothing compared to that, what was I thinking?” His grin flashes wickedly and I pull a very unattractive face in return.

  He grabs my hand and holds the ball for me to take. “Just relax and lean into me,” he says directly against my ear.

  I fit my back into the curve of his chest, it still feels as firm as it did ten years ago, a ripple of excitement runs through me. It’s just a shame I’m not as firm as I was ten years ago.

  “Ready?” Moving my arm along with his, he guides me with his hand, his body pressing into mine as he leans me forward, his legs fit tight into the back of my thighs.

  When I release the ball, it slides perfectly down the lane before slightly curving to the right and taking down the remaining six pins.

  “See, you can do it.” He doesn’t move away from me, his lips brush along the skin on the back of my neck.

  My heartbeat kicks up a notch and then another as he plants a kiss at the place where my swept up hair meets the top of my neck. A shudder of pleasure tingles down my spine. “Fancy getting out of here?” he whispers.

  “No, I’m really enjoying this, I think we should book another go.” I spin and face him.

  “I’m going to have to take you off that Saint pedestal I’ve had you on. You’re actually a pain in the arse.” His hands slide along my shoulders, firm fingers running down my arms.

  “Is the older me more of a challenge?” I add a tone of defiance into my voice, goading him on. “Can’t you cope?”

  He laughs and lifts one single finger to tilt my chin until my eyes meet his and his mouth is millimeters from mine. “Oh, I can cope, Amber. That won’t be a problem.”

  I wait for him to kiss me but he doesn’t. He stares at me, reading me, looking for something. The same way he did when we were young and I was never sure if he found what he was looking for. I guess for the last ten years I figured he hadn’t. Now, I’m not so sure.

  “Come on,” he says with a tug of my hand. “Lets go and eat, I’m starving and I think this game could take a while!”

  Laughing, he leads me away form my disastrous attempt at bowling, and I breathe a serious sigh of relief; hopefully that’s the humiliating part of the evening over.

  “So.” He leans over the table and wipes a smear of Spare Ribs sauce off my chin. “You haven’t been bowling much while you’ve been gone?” This is what he does, he talks about my absence like I’ve been gone months not years. In ways it makes me feel better, in others it makes me feel a whole lot worse.

  “It’s hard to go bowling with a baby when you don’t have a babysitter.”

  His eyes flash with something but he doesn’t say anything. He nods his head in agreement, popping another chopstick load of noodles into his mouth.

  ‘Why did you choose bowling tonight?” I try and deflect the conversations away from me for a while.

  He thinks as he chews, mulling it over. “I guess I’ve had some time to reflect on the months we spent together.” He starts to load his chopsticks again. I just try and get mine to sit right in in my hand. “I realised we never really did any of the normal date stuff. It was kind of a bham situation.”

  I nod, there is nothing to disagree with in that statement. After I left and while I waited for Isaac to arrive, it was all I could think of. I ran over the few months that Freddy and I spent together over and over in my mind. All I could work out in the end was that it was as he said the day we broke up. It was too much too fast. Bham. The fact I couldn’t face going home to tell him about Isaac was yet more evidence that it wasn’t meant to be. Well, that’s what the eighteen year old me worked out, anyway.

  Freddy continues, “Guess I figured as I was getting second chances then I should do something different.” A mischievous smile flashes. “Obviously, if I’d known how rubbish you’d be at bowling I would have taken you to the cinema and we could have made out in the back row.”

  “I guess the other girls you’ve dated were better at bowling?” I give up with the chopsticks and pick up the china spoon meant for serving the rice, and use that to shovel food into my mouth.

  His eyes hold mine, another long look, then he grins. “Now, Amber, is this when we have that conversation?” I flush crimson when I realise what he’s talking about. The memory of the first time we had ‘The Conversation,’ floods back and smacks me straight in the face. We’d only been dating about a week the first time, and if I remember correctly, I came off looking the worse. He told me he’d only been with one person before.

  “I don’t think we need to have that conversation ever again.” I reply dryly.

  He laughs and leans towards me, a conspiring look on his face. “You know, you completely misunderstood what I said that night.”

  One. I nearly blurt it out but manage to hold myself in check.

  “I don’t think so.”

  ‘Yeah, you did.” He nods his head, his expression serious. “When I said one, what I meant was you; you were the only person I’d met who had even made me consider chancing a relationship.”

  The china spoon slips out of my hand and clangs onto my plate. “What? That’s not what you said at all. You said there had been one person but you’d decided not to waste your time.” I remember it as clear as day.

  “No, I said that I’d met one person and that I’d decided I didn’t want to waste my time with the wrong people. To be honest I probably wasn’t as upfront or as clear as I should have been.” He grins his cheekiest smile yet.

  My mouth is just hanging open. This completely changes everything that I ever thought I knew. I don’t even know what to say. I blow air out of my mouth a couple of times.

  “So, when I was feeling completely sluttish for my number, you were sitting on a hoard of past shag-partners?” I ask eventually.

  “It’s not the way you’re making it sound.” He smiles at me and takes a sip of drink, his eyes twinkling over the top of the glass. I’m starting to have difficulty deciding if I’m really annoyed or not. Ten years ago I was obsessed that he had only been with one other person and that I wasn’t the one he was looking for. It’s what I told myself over and over again in the first few months after I left. I was never his one.

  ‘To be honest, Amber, it all came out wrong. The truth was that there were other girls, but I knew they would never be anything to me, it was the truth I told you on the beach that time, but then when I met you something about you was so different, I knew you’d be worth making a play for.”

  Musing silently for a moment, I let him sweat it out before flashing him a wicked look. “I k
new you were too good to have such limited practice.”

  That line sounded much better in my head, where it should have stayed.

  He laughs and wiggles both his eyebrows. “Good, hey? Glad you’ve remembered.”

  The strongest feelings I’ve felt in a long time surge through me and I grab his hand across the table and give it a firm squeeze. “Thanks for taking me out, Freddy.”

  He laughs. “You are very welcome.”

  Inside me I feel this new sensation taking root, it’s warm to the point of hot and it feels like it’s running through my veins. It’s filling me up with this explosive emotion.

  I lean forward so I can keep my voice low. “I don’t suppose you fancy going back to the car to make out, do you?”

  He laughs out loud. “You just read my mind. That, I can do.” And with his words, he waves for the waiter and a quick escape.

  BODY PARTS

  The house is nearly dark when we pull up outside. Freddy leaves the truck running as he turns to me and rests his arm along the back of my seat. His fingers gently slide up the back of my neck until he holds me in place; leaning in, he kisses me deeply.

  After a few moments I pull away, fractionally, and take a deep breath. Screwing my eyes shut I avoid contact for the next bit. “Do you want to come in?” I practically shout the question at him.

  He pretends to think. “But what would Danni say?”

  I giggle again. “I’m sure Danni has a lot to say about most things!”

  "That’s true, she does.” He kisses me again, stalling the moment, moving himself against me. I’m going to become the human torch if things continue like this.

  “So, are you coming?”

  “Amber!”

  “Shut up!” I smack him with my hand. “Listen, Isaac’s out, mum will be in bed…”

  I don’t think I’ve sounded so close to my teenage self in a very long while. He turns the key in the ignition, silencing the vehicle and the increasing the tension humming between us ten fold.