by Emily James
“Hmm... Listen Joanie, I’ll just pop to the bathroom. Be back in a sec.”
“But Melinda, you just went...” I call after her, but Melinda dashes out of her chair as if her sex really is on fire, and is soon out of my line of sight.
I glance around the bar, which really wouldn’t be so bad if they added a few soft furnishings, maybe a rug here or there and some grey paint. Most of the other customers sit on wooden chairs and sing along with their friends. A few brave folks even stand near the edge of the stage and bop to terrible renditions of classic songs.
The German giant’s torture of our eardrums is replaced by a loud ear-piercing squeal and the DJ announces that the next singer is ready.
I wonder how awful this one will be.
I take a sip of my drink and look for Melinda, wondering too late if I should plug my ears. The opening bars to John Legend’s All of Me starts, and I say a little prayer that the singer doesn’t desecrate my favourite love song.
I freeze.
I recognise that voice.
My head spins and my eyes widen in shock.
Ryan is singing on the stage.
My mouth is wide open, as I look around, trying to work out which of the other women, who also sit and stand with their mouths agape, is his date.
I can’t tell because he is looking at me as he croons. He smiles as I look behind me. He points his index finger at me, to clarify that he is in fact singing to me.
Ryan starts walking towards me, off the stage and across the small wooden area of flooring until he’s right near my table. The other people in the pub are looking from him to me as he sings right at me, his eyes unfaltering and beautiful.
Six takes one of my hands in his and pulls me up. He sings the last few notes and wipes away tears that I didn’t realise had fallen.
The crowd whistles, cheers and literally goes nuts for Ryan. But I don’t see them. It’s like they’re a far away distraction because all I see is Ryan with his dark, mesmerising eyes pinning me still, sucking me in.
Ryan looks nervous as he assesses my reaction.
I’m still in an utter state of shock. Then he leans in and whispers, the heat of his breath sending shivers all down my body. “Joanie, I do. I’m in love with you. I don’t want to see you with Chris or anyone else for that matter, and I don’t want you to move, unless it’s in with me. I love you.” I stare into his eyes, wondering if this is some kind of dream, almost certain that I have not been drugged because the feeling is a million times better than any drug. “Joanie, no pressure but it’d be really great if you kissed me about now. If you want to that is, or else I might have just made a complete Wally out of my...”
I cut off his words as I literally fling myself at him. He takes two steps back and braces my weight as I part his lips and slide my tongue all the way home.
Ryan takes ownership of the kiss and my hands grip his shoulders, letting out a groan into his mouth. It’s then that I hear the wolf whistles in the crowd. Ryan gently puts me back on my feet and grabs hold of my hands. He has a sheepish grin on his face as he asks, “Shall we get out of here?”
“Yes. No, wait. Melinda?” I look around, but she’s vanished.
“Yeah, um about that.” Ryan’s eyes house a mischievous sparkle. He pulls me close. “I asked her to bring you here. I’m date ten, your last blind date, I hope. If you don’t mind that is? Six and Four do make ten after all...”
I bite my lip to stop from leaping on him again. “Six and Four do indeed make ten. What are your plans for me, now that you’ve taken me hostage?” I ask.
“Whatever your heart desires, my beautiful, Joanie.”
A devious plan formulates in my mind.
“I still have that crossword at home to finish. Six across and seven down are still waiting for our attention, you know...”
Ryan’s lips part to form an ‘O.’
“Exactly, let’s go.” I giggle.
Ryan doesn’t need to be told twice. He flings me up onto his shoulder and jogs towards the exit.
Trust Ryan to be excellent at crosswords.
Epilogue
6 MONTHS LATER
MIKEY PULLS THE ROAST beef out of the oven and my mouth salivates. Lately it seems to do that often.
“Here babe, let me get that for you.” Ryan grabs the tray of glasses out of my hands and places them down on Mikey’s dining table. He plants a kiss on my head and pulls out a chair at the table. “Sit and rest.”
“So, tell me all about this engagement. Go on, I know you’re dying to,” Melinda says and pulls out my left hand to admire my ring as I sit beside her.
Chef slices the meat and Mikey puts huge trays of potatoes, broccoli, Yorkshire Puddings, and carrots onto the table.
“Well, we were in London on the London Eye, overlooking the city, and Ryan just asked me. No premeditation. No big fanfare. Just two people in love, making a deal.”
Ryan sits the other side of me and smiles a mega-watt grin.
“Joanie said yes!” Mikey claps and does a little dance. “This calls for a celebration! We’ll have a party; I’ll do the food.”
“I’ll organise the music and guest list,” Melinda chimes in.
“Hang on,” Mikey says and my stomach drops, wondering if he’s guessed. “What’s your new surname going to be?”
“Jones,” Ryan says proudly.
“Wait, your new name is going to be—Joanie Jacinda Jones?” Melinda smiles, though I know she’s dying to crack up laughing.
“You’re J-J-Joking!” Mikey spits with laughter. The whole room can’t help themselves but laugh, including Ryan.
“Hey—Joanie Jacinda Fox Jones!” I defend.
“It’s a beautiful name, baby,” Ryan reassures.
“Besides, we want to do it before the baby arrives...” I casually drop into the conversation.
Mikey drops the plate he is holding onto the table and Melinda jumps up in triumph!
“Oh my God, when, how?” Melinda asks, with beaming smile.
“You of all people should know how,” I laugh. “I’m four months pregnant, we just found out it’s a boy.”
Ryan’s arms reach around me from behind. He does that a lot lately. My eyes start to fill up. They also do that a lot lately.
We eat a wonderful lunch and I consider how blessed I am, sitting here with my best friends, the people I’m fortunate to have found.
As Mikey and I do the dishes, we plot a revenge that has been a long time coming.
“She’ll never go for it,” Mikey says.
“That’s why we aren’t going to tell her.”
“How are we going to set her up on ten dates without her even realising that she’s on a date?” Mikey asks.
“With very careful planning.” I smile and wink to Mikey who high fives me.
“I think that is a brilliant plan!” His eyes are alight with mischief.
Ryan walks towards me and wraps his arms around my waist, planting a kiss on my neck. Even though I’ve enjoyed a thousand or more such kisses, they still set off fireworks in my belly.
“What are you guys whispering about,” Melinda asks as she brings some dirty plates out into the kitchen.
“Trying to talk Joanie out of calling her son Tennyson,” Mikey says with a giggle.
“Hey, I like that name,” I say.
“Ryan?” Melinda checks.
“Well, it’s basic math. Four and Six do make Ten,” he jokes, though his eyes are sincere as they gaze down at me, holding me in a caress.
“I love you,” I whisper a breathless reply, enamoured by his intense, kind eyes.
Ryan kisses me and rests his hand on my tummy and whispers, “I love you too and our little Ten, forever.”
Trust Ryan to make loving us forever be all I ever wanted.
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THE END
Ten Dares
Chapter 1
A GROAN ESCAPES MY lips, shooting a thousand daggers into my dehydrated brain. “Thirsty Thursday always leads to Fragile Friday,” I whine and push my face back into the pillow, hoping for five more minutes before my alarm begins its crescendo of torture.
With my face deep in the foam, I pretend I’m not newly divorced. That life is as it was just six months ago—gloriously mundane. When I play these games, I can almost smell Steve beside me, like his scent is ingrained in the sheets and the bed. Which is impossible, because the first thing I did when I found out he was cheating was rip up the sheets and burn the old bed.
A full ten minutes goes by before I can stand to face the day and go take a shower. When I do, water cascades off my body filling the room with a mix of peony and vanilla. I massage the shampoo into my scalp in firm circular motions and try to rinse away my shame—and my champagne and gin infused headache. Thankfully, the children are currently at their father’s and did not bear witness to last night’s shenanigans.
My phone rings from the nightstand in the bedroom and I quickly rinse my hair and go put the wailing device–and my ears–out of their misery. The caller ID informs me that it’s my friend, Mikey. No doubt calling to wish me luck with the real estate viewing I have planned for this morning.
“Hello, Ms Spencer? This is Detective Inspector Plod, from the Little Haven Constabulary. I’m calling about an incident last night,” Mikey says in a faux police demeanour. The chuckle he’s trying to cover is on the very tip of his tongue. “My sources claim you allegedly disturbed your seventy-six-year-old neighbour with your late night karaoke. They assert that you insisted she be a back-up dancer when she arrived at your door to complain, and then you threw up on her prized Rhododendrons. How do you plead?”
I sigh into the receiver and recoil from my foggy memories of last night.
“How did you find out?” I groan, not entirely sure I want the answer.
“Small town life, Melinda. You know how quick news travels around here. It’s probably all over the senior’s community bingo group and halfway to the London Eye by now. Mrs Bugden is not a happy camper. I saw her in Costco this morning. I’d nipped in for this week’s Celebrity Tattler magazine and ended up with a tale so salacious I’m not sure even the Tattler would print it.” Mikey snorts a laugh into the phone. “She said you were wearing your wedding dress and swigging from a bottle of champagne?”
While Mikey talks, I clutch the phone between my chin and shoulder and proceed with pulling today’s clothes off hangers and searching for a clean pair of knickers. When he mentions my wedding dress, I’m immobilised from my task and slump onto the bed. Opposite me, behind the door to my bedroom, is my wedding dress, which lies in tatters much like my marriage. It’s filthy with mud stains splattered across it and with a tear right through the delicate antique lace all the way through to the sweetheart lining. Steve had referred to the dress as “a bit conservative, verging on boring.” Now it reveals a slash of thigh right up to the hip. I doubt anyone would call it boring, least of all Mrs Bugden.
Noticing the empty bottle of champagne on the dresser beside the dress, I tentatively reply to Mikey. “In my defence, Inspector Plod, it wasn’t just any champagne. It was a wedding gift. A 2003 bottle of Dom Perignon. You know how good champagne makes me go all lamebrained. You also know your source, Mrs Bugden, has never had a good word to say about anyone, especially me.” Acid burns through my veins. “Hyacinth Bugden, my neighbour of twelve years, is most well known for her calculating stares, blather-mouth and acid tongue. She’s stocky for an older lady and generously proportioned. I once saw her accost a shoplifter with the gusto of a sumo wrestler. She’s no sweet old lady, that’s for sure.”
“Melinda, she said you manhandled her?”
“I did no such thing!” I cut him off sharply. I can’t help smirk even with the knowledge that my indiscretion will be across town by now: Hyacinth Bugden, standing at my door in her flannelette nightdress and wide-open mouth glaring at me in my wedding dress and hair in pigtails. It was a sight she won’t forget. Even funnier was the horrified look on her face when I dragged her inside and told her I needed a back-up dancer to this absolute banger of a tune. Returning my attention to Mikey, I try and explain. “You and I both know Hyacinth Bugden only came to my door last night for one reason—to accumulate gossip—not to ask me to turn the music down. That was when I had the epiphany we should do the Locomotion, but Mrs Bugden didn’t want to swing her hips or jump, and all hell broke loose when I tried to help her use her arms like a railway train.” I giggle, remembering Mrs Bugden’s usual grey pallor turning red, and her ordering me to switch off the karaoke machine and put down the microphone or she’d contact the police. “Yesterday morning she’d hounded the poor postwoman all the way to my door, berating her for stepping on her lawn, and she saw me sign the receipt for the divorce papers. That was the only reason she stopped by last night. She wanted the scandalous details of my divorce. I thought it best to take ownership of the information she was liable to spread. She’d been asking for months where Steve was and relished in telling me she saw him with another woman. So, I gave her what she wanted. I told her that Steve is a cheating git who had an affair with the barmaid from the Dog and Duck.” I let the weight of my confession hang in the air and then muse, “You know, it still surprises me that he cheated. He was always so useless at multitasking.”
Mikey half chuckles, then sighs. “Melinda, why didn’t you tell me the divorce papers came through? I could have come over to support you and we could’ve terrorised Hyacinth together.”
That’s the Mikey I know and love. Always having my back, even if it might get us both arrested. “I’m fine. It’s not like I didn’t know the divorce papers were coming. They just arrived earlier than I expected, that’s all,” I dismiss. “And yes, I did throw up on Hyacinth’s garden. But I’ve been mowing that woman’s lawn for twelve years without even a thank you and this is how she repays me. She had it coming, and I’d do it again,” I huff.
“Melinda, I’m worried about you. You’re normally so sensible and organised, cautious and....”
“Boring and compliant? That’s what Steve thought too. He said our marriage had become monotonous. What was monotonous was Steve’s insistence on missionary, followed by spoons, followed by missionary every Thursday. He had the audacity to call me deviant for suggesting some backward cowgirl when he was the one who slipped and fell into someone else’s vagina!” My hands are clamped into hard fists, unshed tears brewing in my eyes. “Well, screw him! I’m sick of being Ms Goody-Two-Shoes. Most people get their crazy years out of their systems while they’re in their late-teens and early twenties, but those years passed me by while I was up to my eyes in nappies and baby puke, and what good has it done me?” I blink away the tears that have spilled over my lower lids and put Mikey on speaker. I continue with the task of dressing and pick out a tight red skirt, a low-cut black shirt and a patent pair of black heels so high I feel invincible. I will not allow myself to wallow in self-pity.
“I didn’t say you’re boring! Tightly strung? Yes. Always Ms Sensible and Organised? That too. Melinda, you’re my best friend and I don’t do boring people, never have. You’re smart and sassy, funny and kind. Steve needs his head tested for screwing up your marriage. It’s refreshing to see you let your hair down. In fact, I actively encourage it. Loosening up will do you the world of good. Just promise me in the future you’ll do it because it’s fun, and not because you’re miserable and going through a crisis?”
I clear my throat to wash away the lump that’s formed and, noticing the time, I make my apologies to Mikey. “I have to go. I have the viewing at the farm this morning. Since Steve made us sell the house, I’m having trouble finding a suitable alternativ
e. We’ve only got four weeks until the new owners move in here and Peaches Farm is our last hope of not ending up homeless.”
“Okay, babe. Good luck. Call me later and let me know how it went. Call me anytime you need me. I’m right here, always.”
I end the call to Mikey and quickly pull up subsection six of my to-do list and add, “be less bonkers” to the “be the best you” section. I’ll research that later. For now, I have to hurry my morning routine if I am to accomplish today's goal: Operation Find a New Home.
I’M DUE TO MEET THE agent at Peaches Farm at 10 a.m. At nine-thirty sharp I sweep my shoulder-length blonde hair into a chignon, apply a second coat of red lipstick, and adjust my leather jacket so it reveals just a smackering of cleavage from the V of the neckline. My heels are an unrespectable five inches, and though not farm attire, necessary due to my five-foot-two stature. I’m always more confident in a pair of heels, and a little extra confidence is definitely in order today. They also allow me to better make eye contact with the tall folks.
Considering my earlier funk, I’m ready in time and feeling determined to secure a post-divorce property I can afford with no one’s help.
Once I’m behind the wheel of my six-seater, ancient-people carrier, I recheck the contents of my handbag to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything and notice I have two new voicemail alerts on my mobile.
The first message is from Sam, my builder. Something came up and he can’t attend the farm viewing, but he recommends—subject to survey—I make an offer, since, in his words I’ll be, “Shitting unicorns to get a decent house around here within budget!”
Sam’s right. It’s terrible enough that anything decent gets bought by city folk, but even the properties they don’t want are driven up in price. To keep the promise my ex-husband made to our children, I have had my work cut out finding a home within the catchment of the children’s schools. Peaches Farm is in the village next to our town, which is a thirty-minute drive away.
