If questioned, and if Nathan wasn’t interested, she could cover it with, “Oh my, how did that get there? Chloe playing her pranks again. I just grabbed the first topper.”
Yes. She would do it. Her whole cafe felt filled with happily loved-up couples! Amber could find love, too.
A hectic lunchtime arrived. Customer faces and orders were merging into one. Amber remained at the coffee machine, frantically making up the orders as Chloe ran them through the till.
Nathan arrived alone amidst the throng. Chloe gave a signal so that Amber knew to sprinkle heart-shaped chocolate onto his cappuccino.
“I ordered two hot chocolates,” Nathan said.
Amber turned red, flustered. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She set aside the coffee with its chocolate heart. “You usually … ”
As Amber was about to make Nathan’s two hot chocolates, the next customer said, “I’ll have that coffee then.” He winked. “Save it going to waste.”
“Are you sure?” Amber recognised him; he’d already been in that morning - with a woman. She hesitated as she handed over the cappuccino, saying, “I don’t mind making you a fresh one.”
“This one is fresh - you just made it.” He smiled as he took the cup. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the heart on top, nor would Nathan – but the two men were far from blind.
“Did you have anything else ordered?” she said, noticing the woman beside him as he placed the coffee on his tray.
“No, Stacey’s having a diet Coke.”
“Oh, okay.” Feeling the heat rush to her face, she set to work on the hot chocolates. Mortified wasn’t a big enough word to describe her feelings. And they needed to work on Chloe’s signals!
“Cream?” she asked Nathan.
“Just on one, please.”
Amber squirted one hot chocolate with cream, forming a cone, and dusted it with chocolate. Not a love heart in sight! Nathan took the drinks and sat at a small circular table. Amber couldn’t help herself; she kept watch – who was the other hot chocolate for? Her question was soon answered as a woman joined him, impressively dressed. They laughed, and kissed like lovers. Amber felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.
All she wanted was for the tiled floor to open up and swallow her whole - Chloe would cope without her.
“Amber, two lattes. Make one a skinny,” Chloe ordered, her voice raised to break into Amber’s doldrums. With the cafe busy she couldn’t dwell on Nathan. Chloe gave her a look, telling her she understood. They’d talk about it once the rush was over, a good proper girly chat. Maybe dig out the large box of chocolates she’d been saving for a celebration. They’d work for commiserations too.
Ah well, plenty more fish in the sea, as her mother would say.
She didn’t want just any fish; she’d wanted Nathan.
The lunchtime rush slowed, and Chloe wiped the table where Nathan and his girlfriend had sat. Amber polished her coffee machine, lost in her disappointed thoughts.
A man appeared at the counter, holding an empty cup and saucer. Amber, mumbling a thank you, went to take the cup from him, but he held onto it for a moment. She met his gaze.
“I know the chocolate heart wasn’t for me,” he said, smiling with a twinkle of mischief in his blue eyes.
Oh, my … It was the guy she’d given the cappuccino to, the one intended for Nathan. Oh! And he had heard Chloe blabbering this morning about the heart stencils. Amber blushed. He continued, “But if you’re interested in dinner, a movie, or just a drink, I’d like to take you out.”
Chloe pretended to clean tables, grinning and encouraging Amber from the other side of the cafe.
Amber studied him. He came in regularly, probably as often as Nathan. Why hadn’t she noticed him before? Because … “Won’t your girlfriend mind? Stacey, wasn’t it?”
The man laughed. “Stacey is my colleague, and happily married I believe.”
“Oh.”
“So?”
“Then, yes, I would like that very much,” she said. She willed herself not to turn pink.
“Are you free tonight?”
“Um, yes, I think so.” She’d make herself free.
“Good. I’ve got two tickets to some seventies tribute band. Heard they’re pretty good.”
“Oh, sounds fun. What do they cover?”
He winced. “Hot Chocolate.”
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Half a Heart
By Brigid Coady
“Cheer up, love. It might never happen!” I resist the urge to stick two fingers up at the drunk and shout that it already had.
I make my way through the couples, girls clutching bouquets of roses, heart shaped balloons bobbing above them. As they hold each other and slowly weave down the street, I thread my way through heading away from the hubbub, trying to get home.
I pass a man and woman in a passionate clinch at a bus stop. I duck away from them, hiding my frown. There is no passion any more; there is only emptiness.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” A girl screams as she shivers; she’s wearing minimal clothing for the cold wind blowing off the Thames.
Valentine’s Day. It is another landmark to mark off on the calendar. The calendar, which I hate but cling to, shows I have survived these empty days and weeks. But when I flip the page I see that they trample on, each day a day further away from you.
I take a turn down a small road off Victoria Street and suddenly there is no one. For the first time this evening I’m alone and I can breathe freely.
No one will notice I’ve left the party except maybe for Jamie, the spare man that had been dragged in to even up the numbers. Once there had been two of us against the world, but now I am only one half without you to make me whole. I’m a right-handed glove without a left; useless and superfluous. And everyone keeps trying to find me a new match.
I stop as a wave of grief almost flattens me to the ground. It cuts me at the knees and they wobble. It is as if the scythe-wielding Grief Reaper, the odious and lingering stepbrother of Death, has sliced me. His blade is just as keen but takes you down a million cuts at a time without reprieve.
Did I say I could breathe? Because now I can’t, I’m gasping again. I’m trying to swallow in oxygen, and to stop myself leaking tears. I should be desiccated and salt encrusted the amount I’ve cried over you but there is a bottomless spring deep inside me always bubbling.
I sink down and sit on the steps to a block of mansion flats. Suddenly I don’t want to go back to our flat because it isn’t home without you.
I’m stuck.
There is no way back because the life we had doesn’t exist any more.
But there is no way forward because you aren’t here with me.
I lean my head on my knees, trying to make myself as small as possible. I want to fade away, to stop existing.
“I thought I told you not to cry?” Your voice comes from above me.
Slowly I raise my head, rubbing my cheeks with the heels of my hands.
I’m dreaming. I must be.
But you’re here, I can see you backlit by the street light. It makes you glow.
“Rory?” I whisper not wanting to break the spell.
“Hello, Dearheart.”
And then you move to sit next to me but you aren’t quite the same. You have your beautiful springy wild hair back and your cheeks, which had been so hollow at the end, are filled in again. And when your shoulder brushes mine it tingles like static.
I stare at you, my mouth open.
“How?” I ask.
“Always with the how,” you say.
And I remember how many times you’ve said that over the years. Always teasing me because I need to know how everything works. And then you telling me that sometimes there is no man behind the curtain, sometimes it could be magic.
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“Just believe.” You smile as you say it and I can see the crease in your cheeks deepen. The smile so much happier than the grimace you have in the pictures in my head.
I’d forgotten what you looked like well. All my memories have been photoshopped. All my memories only show you unwell.
“How can I believe if you aren’t here?” I say. I want to grab you and hold you tight but I know you’ll disappear again.
“Penny-lope.”
Your name for me rings in my ears. No one says it quite like you; loving, exasperated, belonging.
And then you lean down and kiss me. Your lips brush mine as light as a moth’s wing. There is the faint smell of citrus and the smallest hint of bitter coffee lingers on my lips.
It feels like a benediction and it feels like a goodbye.
It is different from the last kiss when your lips were chalky and cracked. That kiss was desperate. The smell was of hospitals and illness. The taste was chemical and astringent. It was the shell of you.
And as you pull away and I feel you stand, I reach out one desperate hand. Maybe you could take me with you?
And you smile down at me as my hand touches you. I feel the sizzle and sting of static and you fade into the lamplight until I am left staring at the harsh electric light.
You’ve left me again. Left me here on someone else’s doorstep with half a heart.
It feels like half a heart too much.
I’m not sure when I get up but I find myself with my key in the door of the flat. And briefly I rest my head on the glossy hunter green door.
I let myself in and stand in the bright hallway where you will never be again.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mummy!” a bundle of pyjama-clad boy comes galloping from the kitchen and launches himself at my knees.
I look down into your eyes and your smile.
“He wouldn’t go to bed!” the bossy voice of our eight year old scolds as she joins us.
“That’s ok, sweetheart.” And I reach out, stroking back her hair. Your springy wild curls.
“But Mummy!” and she says it with the same blend of loving exasperation as you.
“Made you a card!” Joey tugs at my coat and thrusts into my hand a red and pink glitter strewn card.
I crouch down and wrap an arm round his shoulders. He is warm and alive.
“See, there is you and me and Abby.” He points to the stick figures under the heart. “And here is Daddy, he’s in heaven looking after us.” And there, peeking over the top of the heart is you.
And all those memories that I thought had been replaced by shoddy copies are refreshed.
I remember you, smiling shyly down at me when you asked me on our first date. Both of us crying and laughing when you fell over trying to propose. The feel of your hand clasping mine tightly as we took our vows. Your terror as you first held Abby and the ease with which you first held Joe. Every morning when you bent down, kissed me and said, “Love you.”
I look up and see my mum at the end of the hall.
“I thought they could stay up. They need it as much as you.” She says and turns and leaves me with what I have left of you.
And the flat is not just a flat any more. It is home again, for the first time in months. It is a different home. But there are flashes of you in everything they do. It is a home where you watch over my half a heart.
Happy Valentine’s Day, love.
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HarperImpulse is an exciting new range of romance fiction brought to you from the women’s fiction team at HarperCollins. Our aim is to break new talent from debut authors and import the hottest trends from the US, bringing you the very best in romance. Whether that is through short reads for your mobile phone or epic sagas that span the generations we want to proudly publish romance fiction that gets everybody talking.
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HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014
Copyright © Nikki Moore 2014
Copyright © Teresa F. Morgan 2014
Copyright © Brigid Coady 2014
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