Messed Up and Magic: (A New Adult Romance Novel)

by Stone, Holly

  Jack burst out laughing and took a huge bite of his toast, looking very amused and just a little smug. He had every right to be.

  “Shit, Jess. You have a one track mind,” I said.

  “Yeah, but it’s on the right track!”

  “This is Jack. He’s just kipping on the sofa for a few days. Nothing untoward going on here.”

  “You see, Amy, that’s your problem right there. There is nothing untoward about sex except not getting enough of it.”

  “Oh lord, Jess, don’t start. Have you got time for a cuppa?”

  “Not really. They’re watching me like a hawk at work. I can’t be late. Are you around later?”

  “I’m working,” I said.

  “I know that, Cinderella. I meant after work. You are allowed to come to the ball, you know.”

  “By the ball I take it you mean the pub.”

  “Where else is there to go in this armpit of a town?”

  “True.” I looked at Jack who was watching our conversation like it was centre court at Wimbledon. “I don’t know. I have a guest.”

  “Your guest can come too.”

  “Maybe my guest has other plans.”

  “Mmm…he can have other plans with me anytime!” Jess said, laughing and wiggling her eyebrows again. Those things were almost alive.

  “Jess,” I said, sounding as exasperated as I felt. “Leave the boy alone. You’ll traumatise him.”

  “Pfff...he’s no boy. He’s all man and there’s no way he’s as innocent as you’re making out. Look at him. Some lucky girl out there has already tapped him for the good stuff.”

  Jack was laughing, leaning against the edge of my old beige armchair and I was feeling more than faintly embarrassed at Jess’s brashness. This wasn’t unusual behaviour for her. If I was being honest, I was surprised it wasn’t her who had taken Jack’s v-card. He was probably one of the only men in a five mile radius that hadn’t had a go on her. The thing was, she was a good person, just a bit loose with her morals and her knickers. I’m no psychotherapist but her dad left when she was six and I suspected she was always looking for some kind of male presence in her life. Only she couldn’t see that the way she was going about it was all wrong.

  “Okay, Jess,” I said, crossing the room towards her. “Time to go.”

  She looked at her watch. “Shit, I’m running late.” She started towards the stairs. “Bye, lover boy,” she called to Jack, and then she turned to me. “Say you’ll come tonight. I need to talk to you.”

  I really didn’t want to. I knew I was going to be shattered after a long weekend shift but I didn’t want to turn her down. If she’d popped in for a ‘chat’ it meant she had something to tell me.

  “Okay, Jess. I’ll come for one drink.”

  “You’re the best.” She disappeared down the stairs and I turned to Jack. He was still smiling.

  “Don’t say anything,” I said.

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “Yeah you were.”

  He shrugged. I noticed he did that a lot. “I was going to say she seems fun.”

  “Yeah, she is. Sometimes a bit too much for her own good.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Look, I’m gonna have to get ready quickly. You can have a shower when I’ve gone. I’ll leave you a spare key so you can come and go as you like.” Jack looked like he was going to object and I stared at him pointedly.

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “And I’ll write down my mobile number in case you need to get in touch. Text me so I have yours too.”

  “Okay."

  I smiled and left him standing in the lounge, rushing through my shower, hurriedly putting on make-up and practical clothes I could wear through my shift. When I looked in the mirror at myself I forced a smile that would fool no one.

  Jack was sitting on the sofa looking at his phone when I was finally ready to leave; his hair flopped over his face, big hands tapping a too small screen. He looked up when he heard me enter and his eyes drifted over me as if he were taking in the sight of something bigger and more impressive than I was in reality, leaving a trail of heat in their wake that made me shiver.

  I already had my bag ready so all I had to do was give him a key and a shredded piece of paper with my digits on it, grab my shoes and coat and head out for a morning of doing my duty. My father’s requests of me were nothing out of the ordinary. He relied on me and I’d taken it all on, running errands, organising, sharing responsibility for the house and the business. Although his requests were expected, today I wanted to stay home and help Jack, who needed my assistance more than Dad did, but it wasn’t to be. Jack seemed to want to do things by himself.

  “I’ll see you later, okay?” I said, placing the things he needed on the coffee table. “Come and go as you please and call me if you need to.”

  “Okay. See you later, Amy,” he said quietly and I couldn’t help wondering if he might want me to stay too.

  Chapter 5

  JACK

  The flat was quiet when Amy left and seemed shabbier somehow, as if she were the thing that brought it to life. While she’d been in the shower I’d formulated a rough plan of action for the day. Shower, get down to where I worked to see if I could get some extra shifts lined up – I was going to need more money, whatever happened – then call around to see if I could get some accommodation. I knew there might be a chance of getting some housing assistance as I had, for all intents and purposes, been made homeless. Going on the social wasn’t something I ever wanted to do, but I didn’t really seem to have many options. While I was sorting that out I was going to try and find a cheap bed and breakfast that might do me a good deal. It wasn’t exactly holiday season and I was hoping, if I went a bit further out of town, I might be able to stretch out what I had until I could work some more or get the assistance. I needed something to tide me over, just until I could get sorted.

  It was bitterly cold outside as I walked down to the supermarket where I worked four late shifts a week. A few months back I’d asked if there were any extra hours to pick up and there hadn’t been, but in the run up to Christmas I was hoping things might have changed. The store was busy and I wasn’t sure the manager would have time to see me, but he was friendly when he called me into his office after he spotted me lingering in the doorway.

  “Jack…you’re in early,” he said in his booming voice, taking a huge bite of bacon butty. Stan was a walking advertisement for the negative effects of too much canteen food. His belly was almost a separate entity; it hung over the waistband of his trousers and I wondered if he was mistakenly reassured he could still get into them, as tucked as they were under all the bad food choices he had ever made.

  “Hey, Stan,” I said, hovering in front of a chair but not feeling comfortable enough to sit.

  “Take a seat,” he barked with his mouth full. What he lacked in manners he made up for in kindness.

  “Thanks. Look I was wondering if there are any extra shifts going? I’ll take anything you got.”

  He looked at me for a second with eyes that narrowed quickly, as if he suddenly noticed something about me he hadn’t seen before.

  “You need the money for something, Jack?”

  “Yeah, life!” I said, trying to make light. I didn’t want to have to reveal my pathetic situation so it would end up a hot topic in the staff room. People heard things and thought they knew something about you, and looked at you differently because of it.

  “Life, eh? Well, I know how that can be. Yeah, I think we can send some more work your way, Jack. Let me chat to Heather so she can get it on the rota.”

  I knew the schedules were done three weeks in advance so that wouldn’t be soon enough.

  “Any chance you have anything this week? I can cover sickness at short notice. Anything you got.”

  “You in some kind of trouble, Jack?” Stan asked, dabbing ketchup from the corner of his mouth. I thought I must be wearing a sign for people to keep noticing my predicamen
t.

  “Not trouble, Stan, just a change in circumstances is all.”

  “Okay. Look, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said standing. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  I turned to leave and he said, “You need anything, Jack, you just give me a call, okay?”

  I didn’t know what to reply to that and didn’t trust my voice to respond. I nodded and left, narrowly avoiding getting sucked into conversation with some of the staff that I knew.

  When I got outside, the car park was packed and it had started to drizzle. My leather jacket didn’t have a hood so I walked fast, avoiding the runaway trolleys and toddlers who were ambling slowly with their parents. I headed back up the high street, thinking about Amy and what she would be doing. She had said that she needed to run errands but that could mean anything. I thought she must be pretty close to her family to be rushing off at a moment’s notice; maybe there’d been some kind of emergency. I’d seen her dad a few times at The Chubby Friar, checking up on her maybe. He was a loud man; short, but larger than life with his brash voice, and I’d taken an instant dislike to him in that way you can from afar. I wondered now if I’d been right in my appraisal; he had obviously raised Amy to be a compassionate person and not just to me. The way she had spoken about her friend that morning had been more concerned than judgemental.

  As I crossed the road, my phone started to ring. Cheng had a habit of calling me at this time to chat. All the years of his parents getting him up at the crack of dawn to study must have made it impossible for him to sleep in even now that he was at Uni in Manchester and away from their whip cracking.

  “Cheng,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible.

  “Barry, hit the lights. It’s boner time!” he shouted in a cheesy American accent.

  “Fuck, Cheng, you still rolling out that Road Trip shit?”

  “Don’t diss my favourite movie, Harlow. I know where you live.”

  “Funny,” I said, thinking no you don’t, not anymore.

  “What’s going on in the small town? You see Lee recently?”

  “Nah, he’s been working, and that new bird he’s seeing is keeping him busy.”

  “Shit, never thought I would see that arsehole tied down.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So, what’s going on? You still wasting away over there?”

  “I don’t know. Still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Trying to pick up a few extra shifts.”

  “Yeah. You getting the money together for a visit? I can show you what you’re missing. There’s this girl who lives down the hall, she’s got tits like watermelons.”

  “Yeah, and what are you doing about it, Cheng? You made a move?” I couldn’t help ribbing him. It was how every conversation we ever had ended. He was full of big talk and was used to us trying to get him to keep it real.

  “Not yet, but I will,” he said, laughing.

  “Yeah, sure. When you’ve got her digits, call me and I’ll come for a visit to check her out, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. You better be ready to come up next week, man.”

  “I’ll be ready, Cheng.”

  “So, what else?”

  “Not much. Not much.”

  “You sound like you’re out?” he said, sounding a bit wistful. We had good times around town when we were kids. North Riding was tiny and unimpressive but a safe enough place for children to grow up.

  “Yeah, just in town.”

  “Okay…well, I’ll let you go.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Bye, Harlow, you cunt.”

  I hung up, shaking my head. We'd been mates since nursery and chatted the same rubbish to each other for most of our teenage years. He was a good guy, and while everything was going smoothly, our friendship was great. He just didn’t know how to deal with any drama. I don’t think his mum and dad liked me much, especially after the parents evening when my mum had turned up full of gin and slurred all over them. The thing was, Cheng had been sheltered from the real world by over-zealous parenting, and he just didn’t understand that what he experienced in life wasn’t an experience shared by everyone. His parents were strict but they gave him everything he ever asked for, the labels and gadgets that were every boy’s wet dream. They loved him so fiercely he had grown to expect that adoration from everyone. I envied him that. Not the stupid material things but the family backing and the unwavering, unquestionable love.

  Further down the road my phone started to ring again and I went to answer it, expecting it to be Cheng with more cusses and idle chit chat, but it was my mum. I stood still, looking at her picture flashing up on the screen, contemplating swiping her off, but as angry as I was, she was still my mum and I always had it in the back of my mind that one of her boyfriends would turn on her and she would need me.

  I answered but didn’t say anything.

  “Jack,” she said, “are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” I said, sounding as cold and distant as I felt.

  “Are you okay?”

  I held the phone out and looked at it incredulously. She had never been the brightest but her flippancy was fucking insulting.

  “Yeah, I’m great. Thanks for caring.”

  “Don’t be like that. Are you staying with Lee?” That must have been where she thought I would have gone. Lee’s family lived in a two bed flat, his mum and her boyfriend, his sister and him. Lee slept on the sofa, the poor bastard. It was already like a tin of sardines round there without me showing up needing charity.

  “No.”

  “You staying with your girlfriend?”

  I exhaled loudly with frustration. “I don’t have a girlfriend, mum. Anyway, what do you care about it? I could have frozen to death last night while Darren was chilling in my house enjoying the central heating, the fat faced prick.”

  “Don’t be like that, Jack. You brought this on yourself, you know. You broke his nose.”

  “The fuck!” I shouted. “He swung for me first, but you’ll always defend him, won’t you? The grown man, not your fucking son.”

  “Jack, you don’t get to speak to me like that, okay? I’m still your mum.”

  “In name only.” I hung up, my heart pounding, everything in me coiled up tight and I wanted to fling my phone against a wall, but I wasn’t stupid enough to give in to my anger. Not this time.

  Chapter 6

  Amy

  When I arrived, the house was in the same state it usually was when I hadn’t been home for a couple of days. Plates piled in the sink, crumbs on the worktops, things left wherever my dad or sister had decided to put them down. It was a dump. I didn’t have much time but I cleaned up what I could, scrubbing away my frustration until my right arm was aching and I was sweating.

  On the kitchen table was the stack of household bills that needed sorting and dad’s cheque book. He had signed three cheques for me, leaving all the details blank as usual. It took me half an hour to work out what we owed and stuff all the paperwork into envelopes. Everyone else seemed to use Direct Debits but my dad still liked to deal with things the old fashioned way, or rather, have me deal with them.

  I ran upstairs to my room to grab some clean clothes and an outfit for tonight. I hadn’t been planning to stay another night at the flat, but now that Jack was there and Jess wanted to go to the pub, I needed some extra bits and pieces.

  I checked my watch on the way back down the stairs, realising I was running behind. The things dad wanted dry-cleaned were draped over the back of the sofa – he couldn’t even be bothered to put them in a bag for me – so I flung them over my shoulder, grabbed the post and my handbag, and headed out the door. It was freezing outside, and I was grateful to get into my car, chucking the pile of stuff I’d gathered onto the passenger seat next to me. It was a ten minute drive to the fish and chip shop that dad ran, Don’s Place – my dad wasn’t renowned for his originality – and I would have about five minutes to
show my face if I’d a hope in hell of getting back to The Chubby Friar in time to prepare for the day and open on time. I put my foot down, braking sharply when I came up behind a doddery old man in a mustard car that looked like something off the set of Minder.

  I cursed loudly, my heart beating too fast with the stress of it all, and then my phone started ringing. I answered it so it came through on the car speakers. It was my dad.

  “Amy,” he said, sounding aggravated. “Where are you?”

  “On my way,” I said, accelerating again, now that the slow driver had pulled into a side turning.

  “You’re running late,” he said, and I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I tried to stop myself from snapping back at him.

  “I know, Dad. I told you I didn’t think I would have time to do it all before opening time.”

  “Well, you had better get yourself back there so you don’t disappoint your customers. You’re coming home tonight?” It sounded like an order rather than a question, but I’d promised Jess.

  “I was going to stay at the flat. I’m going out after work.”

  There was silence on the line as he digested the news, obviously not happy about it.

  “You’re spending too much time at that flat recently. You’ve forgotten where your home is.”

  “I haven’t, Dad. It’s just easier to be close to work sometimes.”

  “You make sure you don’t forget about your family, girl,” he said, in the way that always made me feel like shit. “There are two kinds of people in life. Those that live up to their responsibilities and those that don’t; who do you want to be, Amy?”

  “You know, Dad,” I said quietly. He always said things like that, reminding me indirectly what my mum had done to our family, what kind of person she had turned out to be, the insinuation that I could turn out just like her as clear as day.

  “Do I?”

  “I’ll be back for lunch tomorrow, okay?” He was quiet for a few seconds and I waited for him to tell me it wasn’t good enough. Instead he exhaled.

  “Okay. I’ll see you then. Watch yourself, Amy.”