A thought occurred to me. “Why did Shay always wear riding clothes?”
“A fetish? I never found out…” He shrugged.
“Did she ever talk of riding?”
“Never,” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe what she wore was just a uniform.”
“Strange uniform.”
“Marked her out as unique though, didn’t it? She stood out among the other girls, with their tight dresses, nurses’ uniforms and leather skirts.”
“I suppose. Anyway,” I cleared my throat, after finishing the last of my sandwich, “I think we owe Bethan that shopping trip.”
He smiled wryly. “Is there even anywhere round here to shop?”
“Of course! Well, it’s a few miles away…”
“Of course.” He winked.
A couple of hours later, we parked up at Market Green shopping centre out in Midleton. There wasn’t the choice I was used to in London but Bethan didn’t care, scrambling around as fast as she could for dresses, tops, jeans, shoes and more tops. She took as many items into the dressing rooms as she could carry and plonked all that she wanted into Edward’s arms. It was still weird and bizarre calling him Edward and having him in my life. Very weird.
It was in Heaton’s department store that she spent quite a lot and when the clerk told me the amount, I realised I’d run out of euro notes, so I had to hand over my new company credit card.
Edward waited several metres away, watching on patiently as we coughed up. He seemed occupied since he’d finally got phone service – like he’d been checking through emails as we walked around.
“It’s declined,” the clerk said, “but I’ll try again.”
“Okay.”
I started to sweat, wondering if there was something wrong with my account.
“Declined again,” said the shop assistant.
“Edward,” I called.
He came over. “What’s wrong?”
I whispered in his ear, “My card. Don’t know why, but it’s bust.”
“Really?” He chuckled, unperturbed. “Probably because we’re abroad. Use mine,” he said, slapping it on the counter. “You should’ve informed your bank.”
Out of the corner of my mouth I said, “Well I didn’t expect her to drain my wallet.”
Shaking his head, he mumbled, “You can pay me back.”
“How?”
“In cash… or kind, of course.”
I avoided his eyes when I said, “You couldn’t afford me, not when the things I’d have to do to punish you would be insane.”
“Are we done yet?” Bethan cut in, bored.
Edward punched in his pin number and the transaction went through fine.
Outside the shop, Bethan spotted some friends of hers and ran screaming towards them, all three dozen of her bags flying around her as she left. She spoke with them a moment and then hurried back over.
“She’s always been like this,” I told Edward, “always more popular than me.”
“She’s just more extrovert, that’s all,” he said, touching me lightly on the back.
She returned, out of breath and looking downhearted. “They’re all off to the arcade and cinema. I never get to go!”
“Just give us your shopping and go!” I exclaimed.
“But I don’t have any money.” She pouted.
“Wait,” Edward said, and pulled out a few tens from his wallet. “Do as your sister says, go have fun.”
Her face was a picture. “OH MY GOD! Thank you!” She hugged him, simultaneously lobbing her stuff at us and screaming, “I’ll get the bus home! Oh and thanks for the clothes… fashion show later! Yippee!!”
“Teenagers,” I sighed. “Wouldn’t want to be one again, but you know–”
“No cares in the world, right?”
“Right.”
We picked up all her bags, trying several times to do it gracefully, until I had to get down on my hands and knees – and so did he.
Laughing, we walked back to the car and dumped everything in the boot.
“I saw a salon in there,” I suggested, “I feel like a change. It’s been a while since I’ve had mine trimmed.”
Solange was the last person to touch my hair, back in June when I had it all chopped off.
“Whatever you want.”
I slid my hand into his as we walked back inside the shopping centre, trying to keep my eyes from sliding sideways to check out his ass, hidden in a pair of heavy-duty jeans. He looked at home in a checked shirt beneath a cable-knit jumper. I was prepared in a Barbour coat and skinny jeans, a pair of spare wellies in the boot in case the weather turned nasty on the route home.
We walked into the salon and I got paired with a stylist right away.
“I’ll grab coffee because I need to make some calls to the kids and to my mother,” he said, showing me his phone.
“I’ll ring when I’m done.”
“Okay.”
He kissed me on the cheek as he moved back and out of the salon, and when our eyes met, we both smiled wide for some reason. Once he was gone, I touched my cheek where he’d kissed me and felt myself blush when I took the same hand to my mouth.
“Hello, Ciara? Is it?” I was greeted by a very tall, very dark and handsome stylist.
“Yes.”
“I’m Barry. I’ll take you to my station.”
He led me to his workstation and standing behind my chair, be began faffing with my hair.
“What would you like?”
“Have you got some magazines? I think I know what I want, but I’m just… you know?”
He winked. “Sure.”
He grabbed me some magazines and I went to a section with short haircuts. Showing him the style I had in mind, he held his fist to his mouth, angst in his pinched eyes.
“Sure?” He looked petrified.
“You should think yourself lucky I didn’t make you cut it earlier this year!”
“Why?” His jaw dropped open.
“It was down here.”
I pointed to my bum and I swear he almost fell over.
“You must be fuckin’ insane,” he said.
“Oh god, yes!”
“Let’s get you washed, lady.” We moved over to the sinks, where he washed my hair in silence, massaging my scalp, almost until I was asleep.
Back at his station, he looked at me seriously. “Tell me why before you make me cut it.”
“I’m a Dominatrix and I need to look as badass as I am.”
He laughed. “Good enough for me.”
He got on with the snipping as fast as he could and we chatted throughout. I told him I was visiting from London and had left the area years ago, but still had family here.
He told me, similarly, that he’d moved away for a time – but he’d come back.
“What made you come back?”
He grinned. “Love.”
“Really?”
“Hmm-mmm. My childhood sweetheart. I heard she split with her first husband, who she married far too young and probably to hurt me. I came back to scope it out when I heard they split, you know?” I nodded. “The rest is history. We got married six months later. She’s cooking our third kid right now.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. How did you even split up in the first place?”
“Me. Being stupid and young, I thought I wasn’t ready. I probably wasn’t. I guess when you know, you just know. Sometimes the timing isn’t always great. That’s the thing, I guess.”
I frowned, thinking deeply. When you know, you just know.
“Who was that feller you came in with?” he asked me straight.
“He’s Edward. He’s my shield from harm right now.”
“You mean you’re cock teasing him as you get over an ex?”
I laughed out loud. “Something like that.”
Was I that transparent?
“What was wrong with the other guy?”
I looked into Barry’s eyes and decided to be honest. “He only wanted m
e because he thought I needed saving, like he needed saving.”
“But he was the one who really needed saving.”
“Turns out you can’t save someone who doesn’t wanna be saved.”
“I know the sort.”
It occurred to me that since landing in Ireland, time had slowed right down and it was the first time in weeks I hadn’t felt remotely anxious or in pain over having lost Dante.
Maybe I was starting to get over him?
Following a mountain of hair wax and a gallon of hairspray, I was suddenly reminiscent of Halle Berry.
“Wow. You look absolutely gorgeous,” he said, still preening my hair, all the layers wonderfully jagged so I’d be able to style it numerous different ways. I had two curls, just kissing my cheeks right in front of my ears. “Your curls shouldn’t be too much to handle at this length. Let it be natural. It really suits you, I’m not just saying that.”
“Phew.” I touched it, feeling pleased. “It’s amazing, thank you. I’m so glad I didn’t get a bad do, what with it being so short now! I wouldn’t be able to do anything else with it!”
He laughed, shaking his head. I picked up my phone and texted Edward:
Whoops! I need cash again… unless I give them pounds?
I’m done by the way… x
He replied:
On my way.
Barry led me to the payment desk and I hinted, “Just waiting for someone.”
Edward turned up a moment later and flamed red when he saw me.
“Do you like it?”
Barry folded his arms, observing us with a smirk.
I spun around so Edward could get a proper look.
“Take the card,” Edward said, slapping it down.
He began to reach up to touch it when he asked, “May I?”
I smiled shyly, nodding.
Edward ran his hand up from the nape of my neck and into my hair. I shuddered as he grabbed the thicker section nearer the top, murmuring, “It’s so soft.”
His touch was so intimate and sensual. Touching me like this, so publicly! Nobody had ever touched me like this in public.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?” Barry said, ringing in the bill, his tall frame lowered as he sat on a stool behind the till. “You can see all her face now. Isn’t she a–”
“She’s more beautiful than I can take,” Edward said, unashamed.
I looked at Barry who winked, and with my feet gliding on air, we left the salon with a number of eyes fixed on us as we did.
We walked in a daze and before we knew it, we’d lapped the shopping centre.
“Do you want a new dress? Anything?” he asked, and I felt his fingers tremble between mine.
“No.”
“There’s a cinema. Shall we see what’s on?”
“Okay,” I said, in blind numbness.
I had no idea what was happening to me.
We bought tickets for something (I didn’t know what) and I had a massive box of popcorn shoved into my arms and before we knew it, we were sat in the cinema with the adverts on prior to the screening of whatever it was we were seeing.
I didn’t see pictures or images, just blobs. My heart thundered in my chest at the memory of his hand under my hair, feeling it in his fingers. His only need had been to feel what it would be like to hold it like that… as we…
But no. I couldn’t do this. I still had feelings for Dante, who I’d agreed to marry. Maybe he and I weren’t right for one another, but that still didn’t mean I was over him. I still had the ring though I didn’t wear it anymore and I also had six years of lost life to get over and make up for. I needed to go out and do crazy things… be single… be loud and mad and proud. I couldn’t be bothered with falling in love once more, only to be trapped… again!
I assumed the film was starting as the title credits came on and I realised he’d brought me to see a big action flick. Didn’t he know I hated them?
He took the box of popcorn from me and put it on the floor between us. His arm around my shoulder, he said, “Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“You’re so quiet.”
“We’re in a cinema.”
He kissed my cheek like he had earlier, except this time he lingered and nuzzled his nose into my new hair.
Not coping with the pounding of my heart, and the heat in my chest, I closed my eyes but when I did, all my other senses became heightened. I smelt his cologne, and his sweet breath, and I felt the warmth of his body next to me.
I turned my face slightly and our cheeks skimmed and before I knew what I was doing, he slid his hand across my jaw and started kissing me. His silken lips lightly pressed to mine and with his arm around my shoulder, he pulled me into his body. He didn’t use any tongue, merely let me feel his lips on mine. So soft, almost a whisper.
He pulled back slightly, gazing into my eyes. I couldn’t blink or speak or move. He had me entirely. He’d just been here for me, he’d listened to me… and he’d wanted me. He’d shown me a different man to the one I had presumed him to be.
I looked at the best friend of my former lover, knowing there was so much wrong about this. But maybe the right outweighed the wrong?
I smiled at him and turned my face forward. He tightened his arm around my shoulder and I snuggled into his side. He rubbed his nose in my hair again and I watched the whole film with him, hardly able to recall a minute of it by the end credits.
We left the cinema in silence and somehow, through virtue of telepathy perhaps, we walked back to the car and I started driving us home.
Half an hour later, I parked on the street and we walked into the empty courtyard, letting ourselves into the main cottage to leave all of Beth’s shopping in the living room. The door was open but I didn’t hear my dad about, probably out with his carer for a walk or something. I hoped all of her stuff would be safe.
“Let’s go to the pub,” I told him.
“Great idea.” He smiled, a smile which reassured me in every way possible.
Taking his hand once again, I led him to Moby Dick’s where I immediately got accosted by O’Briens and Lynches and O’Donoghues and the rest…
“Oh, she’s back…”
“So grown up…”
“Never a prettier girl round here…”
“Your t’ird cousin twice removed died, you know?”
“Gawd, where have you been…?”
“Who’s this then? A decent man, I hope… barrister? Get him a feckin’ drink.”
Edward clearly hadn’t expected the invasive nature of the locals who all remembered me, obviously. After we were given our first drinks on the house, soon a céilí band began playing and it was impossible to hear one another talk. I laughed over my Guinness glass as all sorts of women gave him the good look-over.
“We’ll get fish and chips on the way home,” I shouted to him.
“What?” he hollered, hand at his ear.
“Fish and chips!”
The landlady pounced on us. “Hungry, are we?”
“I, urm, I’m fine,” he said, taken aback.
The landlady eyed him up and down. “Ciara, tell me he’s not hungry.”
“He’s always hungry!” I yelled.
She winked and by the sounds of it, she told him, “Be right back.”
Not more than ten minutes later, she was back carrying a huge platter of sandwiches. She slapped hands away as she walked across the room and presented Edward with his platter, a dusting of crisps on the side.
“Can’t have a growing lad goin’ hungry in my inn,” she said, winking at me.
“How much?” he said, hungrily eyeing the pile, his hand reaching for his wallet.
“Don’t insult me, lad,” she said, “I’m doing nought but honouring a treasured guest.”
She winked and left us again and I fell about laughing. He looked so uncomfortable, it was hilarious! With the band on a break, we could actually talk properly, although we had a number of envious onlookers staring
at his sandwiches to contend with.
Edward got right on down to eating and I picked up a salmon sandwich for myself, too.
“Someone has a fan,” I said to him.
“She’s wasting her time,” he groaned, conceding, “but these are fucking good sandwiches.”
I waggled my finger at the barman, showing him our empty glasses, and a few minutes later he popped over with another couple of pints.
I handed him a twenty. “Put it in the till; she won’t let us pay for these sandwiches.”
“She must think he’s feckin’ pretty. She won’t even let me have sandwiches these days,” the barman said, obviously the landlady’s son. “Living off scraps, me.”
I laughed. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
He winked and left our table. Edward smiled at me, and said, “I’m having a great time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said, “let the Guinness flow.”
I looked at my drink, remembering suddenly I wasn’t supposed to be drinking like this again – not yet – not until my head was right once more.
Then I remembered that for the first time in six or seven years, I wasn’t worrying about a thing. I was just enjoying myself. So I sipped more Guinness, ate more sandwiches, and got up to dance later on when everyone else did.
IT was much later when we left the pub, laughing our heads off.
“I feel raped,” he exclaimed, “dirty!”
He was joking of course. All the women in there (and some men) had ogled him all evening.
“Shouldn’t have brought you along then, should I?”
He laughed. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
“Ah, let’s go get our dinner now.”
“Wait,” he said, and before we left the corner of the pub, he huddled me into a disused doorway and pressed his hands to my cheeks. “Watching you in there, dancing and laughing, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. God, if I don’t kiss you properly now, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the balls to try again.”
I pulled him closer and wrapped my hands around his neck.
He could have had any woman in there tonight but he’d stayed with me, danced with me, kept the drink flowing, kept me smiling…
Scratching my hand through his hair, he took that as a green light.
The Fix (Nightlong Series Book 2) Page 33
