Bad Guys

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  He’s silent for a while, then owns up. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Maybe we convince ourselves we’re actually in control, but we’re not. The things people do impact us and send us off in different directions. It’s chaos, really. I mean, look at Chloe, back because she thinks Adam’s still the one for her.”

  “Oh god, really?”

  The fireworks start outside but I pick up the remote for the blinds and close them all.

  Fuck that.

  I trudge to my bedroom and get under the covers, turn the lights low and admit, “I’m the world’s worst best friend, Theo.”

  “You can’t help how you feel.”

  “I can’t, but I could not act on it, and I could also tell her the truth.”

  “Ever get the feeling she doesn’t know where she belongs and that’s the problem?”

  “All the bloody time. Another one of us constantly out to punish herself.”

  “Eh, well. I better get to bed, Sass.”

  “You’d better.”

  “Let’s pray everything works out, eh?”

  “It already has for you, mate. Pray for me, yeah? Pray I don’t kill Paul before you do.”

  “Do you know? That’d be okay by me. Doesn’t matter who does it, just so long as he’s not anybody’s problem anymore.”

  “Yep. Anyway, Happy New Year.”

  “Same to you.”

  “And to Lily, send her my love.”

  “Bye,” he says.

  “Goodbye.”

  I lie beneath the covers, switch the lights off and try to ignore all the happy people outside.

  God, this is depressing.

  I’m still struggling for sleep when I get a text.

  I roll over in bed and the glowing light of my alarm clock tells me it’s 12.31.

  Who the hell?

  Heart pounding, I’m wondering if he’s changed his mind… when…

  ROBERT: Happy New Year, beautiful. And yes, I’m single. Call me x

  Well, fuck me.

  I shake my head and roll the other way.

  Maybe I will… maybe I will call the bastard.

  ***

  A couple of weeks into January, I walk into the Alchemist in Leeds (a favourite of mine), wearing what can only be described as my revenge dress. It’s tight, of course black, and shows off the curve of my arse, my cleavage and my legs in their full glory. I’m not messing about this time.

  Robert is waiting for me by the bar and signals me over. At first, he can’t even speak and the barman’s there waiting for him to order, impatient, while he tries to get some words out.

  “Vodka, top shelf,” I tell the barman, “surprise me. He’ll have whisky. Neat.”

  I lean my elbow on the bar and look him up and down.

  Tonight is either my chance to discover what might have been or see if Susan really was as intuitive as she claimed.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” he says, despite it being over two years now since we last saw one another.

  “Neither have you.” Except his shirt’s different tonight… paisley… and it suits him.

  Anything would.

  I once thought Robert couldn’t be any further removed from Adam but now I see their similarities. They are both tall, lusty and intelligent. Robert is just a little older, that’s all. As Adam gets older, he’ll also get more handsome and, what’s the word…

  Distinguished.

  “What’s new with you?” he asks.

  “Nothing much.”

  “So, not living in New York yet?”

  Our drinks are placed on the bar – some fancy glass for me frothing with ice and filled with silly decorative bits and pieces; just a plain old shot of something dark and delicious for him. He holds his card out and the barman allows him to tap it against the machine to pay.

  “Funny you should mention that. I’m moving there next month.”

  His eyes widen. “Really? Wow. So, you class that as nothing much new?”

  I laugh and follow him as he leads me over to a table. We’re drinking on a Wednesday evening and it’s the one month of the year when people have no money left for booze… plus it’s Dry January… perfect time for me to showcase a dress like this, when it’s quiet and anytime is a good time for wearing kickass clothes.

  “It’s not that new. I’ve been practically living out there. My airmiles last year bought me a whole new wardrobe.” I enjoy the views out of the window and feel his eyes on me, but while I once would have been gasping at the thought of him staring at me, now it doesn’t feel so exciting.

  “And yet, you’re here?” he asks, gaining my attention.

  I turn my face and give him a friendly smile. “Well, I’m leaving, so…”

  His shoulders jump up when he sniffs. “Charming.”

  “So, tell me. How is single life?”

  He rests his elbows on the unusually clean table and grimaces. “I’m working hard, I really don’t have time to register the difference.”

  “Fully fledged now? Got your stripes and all?”

  “Few months, yeah,” he admits. “They’ve asked me to transfer to London. Turns out I’m pretty good at what I do.”

  “Good for you. Is that why you texted me out of the blue? On New Year’s Eve no less?”

  He shrugs. “I found myself thinking of you for some reason. Call it maudlin, or whatever.” I chuckle half-heartedly, then his expression changes to serious. “Truth is, I don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about you in two years.”

  I swallow the ball of tension in my throat and consider how this could go. I could be upfront, or I could test Susan’s theory.

  “Well, I’m not the girl you once knew.” I stare at him, willing him to cotton on.

  “I see,” he says, nodding. “That’s why New York suits you.”

  I try my best to seem nonchalant. “Maybe.”

  He doesn’t smile but turns his head, looking down on the frozen streets below as I was doing just a few minutes ago. Perhaps he imagined this night going so differently.

  “How permanent would it be?” he mumbles.

  “Well, within a couple of years I’d be comfortable enough to start my own business. Or not. I’d be comfortable enough to live modestly for the rest of my life.”

  “Wow,” he says.

  “I own half my own flat and it’s worth at least a million. I’m renting it out while I’m away but I could potentially have no rent to pay while I’m out there if I decide to use company accommodation.”

  “How things have changed, hmm?”

  More than he will ever know…

  “Adam mentioned your divorce was pretty nasty,” I comment. “I saw him last year, at Lily’s wedding. She’s another friend of ours.”

  Best not to mention the rest… at least, not yet.

  I watch regret and something else fill his eyes. “My ex wouldn’t settle for irreconcilable differences. She just wanted to keep going and going until she’d found something out about me. She told her solicitor there was no problem between us and she was convinced it was me, wanting to marry someone new and get rid of her for a younger model.”

  “Isn’t that true?” I laugh, trying to perk him up.

  “Yes… no. Maybe. Sami was traditional. She didn’t get it. It didn’t matter to her there was no love there. It mattered there were things we had together, like the house, a bank account, history. Love… was way down the list of her priorities.”

  His words make me think deeply about what it means to love someone, how rare that is… how I spent months in New York searching for something amazing… not even realising I was even searching. And I ended up finding it right here, in Leeds.

  “Am I wasting my time?” he says.

  I offer him a lopsided grin. “What do you mean?”

  “Would you consider dating me?” He flushes red with embarrassment.

  “It doesn’t bother you I’m very much deflowered?” I say jokingly, so he doesn’t think I’m a weirdo.
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  “Umm, I’ve definitely been no saint since my divorce came through. Trust me.” He smiles into his own hand, like he can’t believe he’s admitting it.

  However, his words make me think of Adam, who isn’t like that at all. Adam is such a deep person; it isn’t in him to put himself about. That’s not who he is. All the women he’s been with are people he’s loved, he once told me.

  “Did Adam tell you about Susan?” I try not to grin with glee as I wait for his reaction.

  “No, but I heard the whole thing from my mother. About the money for the IVF and the handbags and way he hasn’t seen her since they split, like she disappeared off the face of the earth. You were right about her. Unbelievable.”

  Adam never mentioned he’d tried to see her. Perhaps that was to get some closure?

  I want to shout, “Of course, I was right! Of course!” But I find myself dwelling on something else.

  “Did Adam try to find her, then? And he has no idea where she is.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s been to see Boris a few times to try and find out where she is. She even quit her job, you know.”

  “Oh my god. Where is she?” That’s a scary thought… Susan on the lam.

  Robert’s nose wrinkles. “I think she ended it with a note. Wouldn’t you want to have some sort of closure from someone if they’d done that to you?”

  “Yeah, I guess…” But just the thought of him being in the same room as her makes me feel ill.

  “I think Adam’s resigned himself to the reality that she’s probably busy lining up husband number two or something. The divorce is due to come through in the next few weeks.”

  “I heard that, too.” Albeit from Theo, who heard it from Lily, who still doesn’t know Paul is back.

  We finish our drinks and he asks, “Do you want another or do you want to get dinner somewhere? Perhaps my place? I’ve got a nice flat now. It’s got good views… I have some food in the fridge. Some wine… or we could pick up vodka on the way home?”

  He is absolutely beautiful… and definitely the doctor factor makes him ridiculously attractive.

  It’s also clear Susan was very wrong about Robert… he’s not some weirdo only interested in virgins. He’s an ordinary guy. Just another example of her jealousy of other people’s connections.

  “I don’t know, Robert.”

  “It’s fine, honestly. We can go down the street and pick somewhere.”

  I nod fast. “That sounds good. Okay.”

  “Okay, good. Let’s go, then.” He holds out his hand for me and looks immensely relieved.

  He has no idea how relieved I am, too.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We find a fancy pub to eat inside and we’re halfway through a bottle of sauvignon blanc when he gestures at the way I’m ravenously powering through a double burger with extra bacon and cheese.

  “Is this what you’re used to now? Working in New York?”

  I grin and offer him a chip, which he takes gladly. Robert’s picked something a little classier off the varied menu: lamb shank with mashed potatoes, vegetables and lashings of mint sauce.

  “I work hard, I need the fuel. I’m lucky, really. Always been able to eat what I want. Sometimes I play that down because I’ve had to deal with people’s jealousy all my life.”

  “Really?” he asks, intrigued.

  “Yeah. To be honest if it weren’t for Chloe, I’d have been massively bullied at school. Nobody dared touch her. She was hard as nails. You didn’t wanna get in a scrap with her.”

  He laughs. “Was she a member of the hockey team?”

  “Oh yeah, hockey, netball, everything. Not a lesbian or anything, though. In fact, right now she’s across town doing her Australian bloke. He’s over from Oz for a little while so I don’t know where I’m staying tonight.”

  That was either a genuine slip of the tongue or I really am giving him the impression I need somewhere to park my bum tonight. Not that I don’t have the means to get a hotel. Also, my car is safely tucked away in a 24hr car park. I’m at liberty to go where I want, do what I want.

  “We’ll figure something out,” he says grinning. “So, why would you have been bullied?”

  He’s eager to dig into my past, I can tell.

  “I was Russian. I was quiet, too. I spoke Russian when people pissed me off so they couldn’t understand what I was saying.”

  “Really? Say something in Russian.”

  In Russian I reel off, “You’re absolutely gorgeous,” and he stares, wondering what the hell I just said.

  “You’re not going to tell me what that means, are you?”

  “Oh, absolutely not.”

  He throws his head back laughing. “You could’ve said anything. My imagination is running wild now.”

  “Oh yeah? Maybe I gave you the codes, you know?”

  His eyes dance. “Oh, the codes…”

  We laugh loudly and he pours more wine while I tackle the rest of my juicy burger.

  “So, you were quiet?” he asks, persisting with his line of interrogation.

  “Very much so. Any attitude I display these days, I learnt from Chloe. If she ever pulls her finger out and believes in herself, she will surely become one of the country’s top barristers. She could argue anything, I tell you. Anything.”

  He finishes his food and rests his elbows on the table, chin on hands, watching me intently as I finish my feast.

  “And you were picked on for being very beautiful?” he says, his eyes betraying something tender but passionate.

  I take a deep breath. “Mostly by my mother. Hence the way I dress. One day, I just said to myself, ‘fuck her, really, fuck her’ and this is me.” I gesture at myself, wearing a tight black dress and heels in January, when it’s two degrees out there and I should be bundled up in a duvet somewhere.

  “That’s what I like about you,” he says, trying to hide his smiles, “you’re strong. You’re more than the way you look. I saw that about you right away.”

  His words make me unnerved and his stare makes me want to leave this place right now and find out if I should have jumped him, way back when. Perhaps things would have been complicated between us, courtesy of his wife, but right now Robert is winning because he has said goodbye to his ex-wife and he doesn’t seem like the type of bloke who’d pick his knobhead best friend over me, either.

  Adam clearly hasn’t properly moved on from Susan and he also dumped me at Christmas for Paul. I’m not sure I will ever be able to forgive that. Or forget, more importantly.

  “What else do you see about me?” I challenge him, as I finish my burger and turn my attention to my chips next, dipping them in the various sauces left on my plate.

  “Aside from you being so exquisitely beautiful I can hardly tear my eyes away or even breathe right now?”

  He makes me blush and I press my lips together, looking down at my chips. “Come on, you know what I meant.”

  “That right there,” he says, “that excruciating way you’re so modest. That, and, well, the way you talk Russian… that is fucking hot. And also something else.”

  I swallow hard. “What might that be?”

  “I think you’re looking for something. The same as I have been. Or someone. Someone who might share the same sorts of desires.”

  “What?” I was going to put a chip in my mouth, but now it’s suspended in mid-air.

  “Tell me I’m wrong,” he says.

  “I—I don’t know—”

  “You want a particular type of lover, one that’s hard to come across. Believe me, I’ve looked too. People like us, we’re rare, Saskia. I think you know that, don’t you? That’s why you ran away from me.”

  I gulp, not sure… but starting to understand.

  “You’re confusing me, Robert.”

  “No, I’m not. You know what I’m talking about. That itch you can’t scratch. Somewhere deep in the back of your soul. I thought when you said you’d found something to like about New York you meant the scene
over there, but that’s not it, is it? You’ve still not discovered it, have you?”

  I feel a rash creeping up my throat, threatening to reveal myself. “No.”

  “That’s okay,” he says. “I can help you. We can go as slow as you want.”

  “You did this with your wife?” I ask, still with my eyes down.

  “No. That was the problem. She wasn’t into it.”

  “Spanking,” I finally murmur.

  “Don’t simplify it, Saskia. You know what I’d want. You can taste it on your tongue already.”

  “Ownership,” I murmur.

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  This is what Susan meant… when she said he was a freak…

  She recognised something familiar in Robert. I go over my conversations with her and realise… I read into her words about Robert in the way that I wanted to, but now I think about it, perhaps she knew even then I was one of them, so to speak. But how would Susan know? Unless she’s into this sort of thing, too?

  “What do you know about Susan?” I lift my eyes to his.

  “I’ve seen her in clubs,” he whispers. “Since she split with Adam. She’s on the scene. She has a thing for extreme pain. I don’t think Adam ever knew.”

  “Absolutely not.” I can say that for sure. “She’s still around here then?”

  “No, in London,” he says. “I ordinarily prefer to keep work and pleasure in separate cities.”

  I’m almost breathless listening to him. Since we last met, it’s like he’s discovered this role for himself… though it was always there. But still, now he’s grown into it. He’s commanding.

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “No,” he says. “I always keep myself to myself. Everyone wears masks, you see. But her body… it’s not a body she can hide and everyone talks about her.”

  I gulp, the heat at the back of my neck making me reach for my hair and pull it all over my shoulder at one side.