Run

by Mandasue Heller

  ‘Don’t threaten me,’ Leanne said indignantly. ‘You’ll get your money. Now move your foot before I call the police and have you arrested for harassment.’

  Slamming the door shut when Roger withdrew his foot, Leanne rested her throbbing forehead against the wood as she listened to him make his way down the stairs. When the front door had opened and closed, she went back into her room and sank down on to the bed. This was the last thing she needed, but there was no point sitting here thinking about it. As disgusting as this place was, it was better than being out on the street – which was exactly where she’d end up if Roger had his way.

  3

  Jake heard his phone ringing and rolled over in bed to blindly grope for it. It stopped before he got to it, and his eyes snapped open when he heard an unfamiliar voice whisper: ‘Sorry, he’s asleep; you’ll have to try again later.’

  Pushing himself up on his elbows, he squinted at the naked girl who was standing by the window with her back to him.

  ‘Oops, sorry!’ Sally gave a sheepish little grin when she turned round and saw him staring at her. ‘Didn’t mean to wake you.’

  ‘Who was it?’ Jake asked, averting his gaze from her breasts.

  ‘Someone called Ben.’ She walked around the bed and handed the phone to him before taking a short, black satin dressing gown off a hook on the door. Slipping it on, she leaned over and kissed Jake on the lips. ‘Stay right there, lover. I’ll only be a minute.’

  Jake wiped his mouth on the back of his hand as soon as she’d left the room, and dialled Ben’s number as he jumped out of bed and looked around for his clothes. His cock wasn’t fussy where it ended up after a night on the bottle, but a repeat performance in the morning was determined by his eyes. And while Sally might have looked all right last night, now, with her make-up smeared and her hair extensions matted, she looked ropey as hell.

  ‘Well, good morning, Mister I’ve only been back in town a few weeks and I’ve already had more leg-overs than your average rock star,’ Ben teased when he answered. ‘Who’s the lucky lady this time?’

  ‘Sally Walker,’ Jake told him as he snatched his jeans off the chair by the window.

  ‘What, the Sally Walker?’ Ben sounded surprised. ‘The one who told Pete King you were spying on her in the leisure centre changing rooms that time and got him to kick ten shades of shit out of you?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Jake muttered, quickly zipping his fly before reaching for his shirt. ‘I don’t think she’s realized who I am, and I’m not going to enlighten her. I just want out of here. Can you pick me up?’

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Ben asked slyly. ‘Now you’re there, you might as well stay for breakfast.’

  ‘I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t copped off with that little tart last night,’ Jake grunted as he fumbled with his shirt buttons. ‘So quit taking the piss and get moving.’

  ‘Keep your hair on, I’m only messing. Where are you?’

  Realizing that he had no idea, Jake walked over to the window and peered out through the net curtain, but the road below held no clues.

  ‘No idea. I’ll have to ask her and text it to you. Now get in the car and be ready.’

  As he ended the call, Sally came in carrying two cups of coffee. ‘You’re not going already, are you?’ she pouted, handing one of the cups to him. ‘My mum and dad have gone out, so we’ve got the house to ourselves. I thought we might spend the day in bed.’

  ‘I’ve got things to do,’ Jake muttered, placing the cup on the bedside table and sitting down to pull his shoes on.

  ‘Aw, don’t go,’ Sally moaned, perching beside him and resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I was really looking forward to picking up where we left off last night. Or should I say this morning,’ she corrected herself, giggling softly as she walked her fingers up his arm. ‘You’re a bit of a beast when you get going, aren’t you? I thought you were never going to stop.’

  Jake was starting to feel queasy. There was a gaping hole in his memory between arriving at the party last night and waking up, and he was pissed off that he’d let himself get into such a state. Sally was obviously satisfied, so the booze clearly hadn’t affected his performance. But he didn’t remember a single thing about it. He only hoped she hadn’t given him a dose, because he could do without the hassle of having to book himself into an STI clinic.

  Sighing when he didn’t answer, Sally said, ‘Okay, if you really have to go, I suppose I’ll let you – but only if you promise to take me out tonight. I thought we could go for a meal, then hit a couple of clubs. What do you think?’

  ‘I’ve got a lot on,’ Jake said off-handedly, standing up so abruptly she fell flat down on to the mattress. ‘What’s your address? I need to let my mate know where to pick me up.’

  Sitting up, Sally sulkily told him the address and smoothed her hair as she watched him text it to Ben. ‘So when am I going to see you again?’ she demanded when he was done.

  ‘I’ll ring you,’ he lied, taking a swig of the hot coffee to ease the pounding in his head before snatching his jacket up off the chair and heading for the door. ‘Cheers for last night.’

  ‘Wait, you haven’t got my number.’ Sally jumped up and rushed to get her phone from the other side of the bed.

  Jake had absolutely no intention of calling her, but he pretended to type her number into his phone to keep her quiet, and then tried again to leave. Sally pounced before he reached the door, and it was all he could do not to shove her off when she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest.

  ‘I’m so glad I met you,’ she purred, confirming his suspicions: she hadn’t recognized him. ‘I don’t usually bring men home on the first date – and, believe me, they always ask,’ she went on. ‘But I’m not that kind of girl. I only go with men who are really special – like you.’

  Above her head, Jake’s eyebrows shot up. Who did she think she was kidding? Back in the day, she’d had a massive reputation for putting out at the drop of a hat, which was why Pete King and his idiot mates from the Year 10 footie team had sniffed around her like dogs on heat. So, unless she’d become some kind of born-again virgin since he’d left town, she was lying through her teeth.

  ‘You are going to ring, aren’t you?’ she asked now, her needy tone telling Jake that she probably didn’t get too many callbacks.

  ‘Yeah, course,’ he lied, quickly disentangling himself when he heard a car horn beeping outside. ‘That’ll be my mate. Best go.’

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ Sally offered, following him out on to the landing.

  ‘There’s no need,’ he said, quickly setting off down the stairs. ‘Go back to bed and finish your coffee.’

  ‘I want to wave you off,’ she insisted, sticking on his heel. ‘Anyway, I can’t let you go without a goodbye kiss.’

  ‘Probably best if we don’t,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve got wicked morning breath.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she trilled.

  No, but I do, he thought, wondering why tarts like her could never take a hint.

  Determined not to let her lips come near his again, Jake yanked the front door open when they reached the foot of the stairs and lurched out on to the path, sure that she wouldn’t follow him out in that slip of a dressing gown. Nodding goodbye, he rushed to Ben’s car and leapt into the passenger seat.

  Craning his neck to look Sally over when she came out on to the doorstep, Ben muttered, ‘Oh, my!’ when he saw her nipples jutting out through the thin satin.

  ‘They’re fake, like the rest of her,’ Jake said scathingly. ‘Now, if you’ve finished gawping, drive.’

  ‘Rough night?’ Ben asked, glancing round at him as he set off.

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ Jake let out a weary breath and sank into his seat. ‘She took me to a party in the Moss, and I can’t remember a thing after that.’

  ‘Head fuck,’ Ben chuckled, guessing from the location that the party would have involved copious amounts of weed and over-pr
oof Jamaican rum.

  ‘Headache,’ Jake muttered, lighting a couple of cigarettes and passing one to Ben. ‘How did you get on?’ he asked as he rolled his window down. ‘You looked like you were well on your way to a happy ending when I left the club.’

  ‘Well I didn’t get one,’ Ben admitted, squinting as he took a drag on his fag. ‘Some rugby-player types turned up, and I didn’t see her for dust. Probably just as well, though,’ he added philosophically. ‘I think she might have been a bit young.’

  ‘A bit?’ Jake snorted.

  ‘Yeah, well, I won’t be going back there in a hurry,’ Ben sighed. ‘Our Glen had a good time, though.’

  ‘Glen?’ Jake frowned.

  ‘My cousin,’ Ben reminded him. ‘The stag? Jesus, you’ve got a bad memory.’

  ‘Getting old.’ Jake shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Ben agreed with a smirk. ‘So old, you don’t even remember what you got up to last night. Sally Walker, though, eh?’ He shook his head. ‘Never saw that one coming.’

  ‘All right, drop it,’ Jake muttered, pulling his phone out of his pocket. ‘I’ve got more important things to think about.’

  ‘Like what?’ Ben asked.

  ‘This and that,’ Jake said evasively as he flicked through his emails. ‘Have you got a charger for this?’ he asked when the ‘low battery’ alert popped up on the screen.

  Ben glanced at the phone, and then nodded at the glove compartment. ‘In there.’

  Jake took out the charger and plugged one end into the cigarette lighter and the other into the phone, then settled back to finish his smoke.

  When they pulled up outside Ben’s house a short time later, a figure at the other end of the road caught Jake’s eye, and he quickly unbuckled his seat belt.

  ‘What’s up?’ Ben asked when he leapt out of the car. ‘Do you need the loo, or something?’

  ‘Just someone I need to talk to,’ Jake called over his shoulder. ‘Go in and put the kettle on. I’ll be up in a minute.’

  *

  Deep in thought, Leanne had been staring at the ground as she made her way home. As if her day hadn’t started off badly enough with the visit from her obnoxious landlord, it had got a whole lot worse when she’d called into the job centre to ask why her rent hadn’t been paid, only to learn that her benefits had been stopped because she’d been placed on a six-week sanction for missing an appointment.

  She hadn’t received either of the letters they claimed to have sent out: the first calling her in for the appointment, the second informing her of the sanction. But the woman she’d spoken to clearly hadn’t believed her – or cared – so she was now facing the prospect of trying to survive without money for the next six weeks.

  Still reeling about her bad fortune, she muttered an apology when she bumped into somebody, and stepped aside to go around them. Irritated when they did the same and blocked her path, she looked up at last and was shocked to see Jake smiling down at her.

  She hadn’t been able to see him clearly in the club, but he was even more handsome than she’d thought, and her stomach did a flip when she noticed the gold flecks in his chocolate-brown eyes.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ she murmured, acutely conscious of the fact that she was still wearing the same clothes she’d had on last night, and hadn’t even brushed her hair before rushing out of the bedsit this morning, never mind her teeth. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘No kidding.’ Jake grinned. ‘Anyway, I’m glad I bumped into you. I looked for you last night, but you’d already gone, so I didn’t get the chance to ask if you fancied meeting up sometime – for a coffee, or whatever?’

  ‘With or without Sally?’ The words slipped out before Leanne could stop them, and she gave herself a mental slap across the face as her cheeks burned.

  ‘Sally?’ Jake drew his head back and gave her a questioning look.

  ‘She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?’ Leanne said uncertainly, wondering if she’d got the wrong end of the stick – hoping that she had.

  ‘No, she’s not!’ Jake exclaimed, as if the very thought disgusted him. Then, frowning when it occurred to him that she might actually be friends with Sally and could already have heard it from the horse’s mouth, he asked, ‘What made you think that?’

  ‘I just assumed you were together when I saw you with her last night,’ Leanne admitted, her blush deepening, because now she’d let him know that she had checked him out before leaving the club.

  ‘Well, we’re not,’ Jake said, smiling again as he added, ‘And now we’ve cleared that up, what are you doing tonight?’

  As stupidly pleased as she was to hear that he and Sally weren’t an item, Leanne didn’t want to appear too eager, so she gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘Nothing much. Chrissie said she might call round for a brew on her way home from work, but that’s all I’ve got planned.’

  ‘How about we meet up after that, then?’ Jake suggested. ‘I’ve got some stuff to do this afternoon, but if you give me your number I’ll ring you when I’m done.’

  ‘Okay,’ Leanne agreed simply, still playing it cool.

  ‘Great!’ Jake grinned. ‘My phone’s in the car,’ he said then, taking a step back. ‘Wait there a sec while I—’

  Before he could finish, Ben called his name, and he turned to see his friend waving his phone in the air.

  ‘It’s Sally. I told her to ring back, but she says it’s urgent.’

  Furious, because he hadn’t given Sally his number and could only assume that she’d gone through his phone and copied it down before Ben rang this morning, Jake gritted his teeth before turning to Leanne.

  ‘I’m really sorry about this. Give me a minute to get rid of her and I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Leanne said coolly.

  ‘Hey, wait!’ Jake spluttered when she turned and started walking hurriedly away in the direction she’d come from. ‘It’s not what you think. I can explain.’

  Forced to stop when he caught up with her at the corner, Leanne raised her chin proudly. ‘I really haven’t got time for this, Jake. I’m busy, and your girlfriend’s waiting to talk to you, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?’

  ‘But she’s not my girlfriend,’ Jake insisted. ‘Last night was the first time I’ve seen her in years, and I didn’t even want to talk to her, but I couldn’t get rid of her.’

  ‘So why did you give her your number?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Leanne released a weary breath. He looked and sounded sincere, and she really wished she could believe him. But she’d been down this road with Dean, who would argue that black was white and night was day, and she had no intention of being taken for a ride again – by Jake, or any man.

  ‘Mate, are you coming to take this?’ Ben shouted. ‘She’s getting impatient.’

  Leanne looked at Jake with disappointment in her eyes, then shook her head and walked away.

  Sensing that it would be futile to follow her again, Jake marched back to Ben and snatched the phone out of his hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I only wanted to say hello,’ Sally replied warily, thrown by his angry tone. ‘I know you said you were going to be busy, but I didn’t think you’d mind if I caught you before you got started. I really enjoyed last night, and I know you enjoyed it too, so I thought—’

  ‘Let me stop you right there,’ Jake interrupted sharply. ‘I’ve tried to be nice about it, but you obviously can’t take a hint, so let me spell it out for you. You’re not my type – never were, never will be – and last night was a mistake I won’t be repeating, so don’t ring me again. In fact, delete my number, ’cos if I’d wanted you to have it I’d have given it to you!’

  Ben sucked in a sharp breath when Jake abruptly disconnected the call. ‘Bloody hell, man. I know they say revenge is best served cold, but that was pure ice.’

  ‘It had nothing to do with revenge,’ Jake replied tersely. ‘She needed telling. Oh, and cheers for yelling her name out like tha
t, by the way. I’d just convinced Leanne that I’m not seeing her, but now she thinks I was lying, she’ll probably never talk to me again.’

  ‘That was Leanne?’ Ben frowned. ‘Aw, mate, I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize her. I would never have said anything if I’d known.’

  ‘Forget it.’ Jake sighed, raking a hand through his hair. ‘You weren’t to know. Hurry up and open the door, ’cos I really need a coffee.’

  Ben unlocked his front door, but didn’t follow when Jake stepped inside. It had taken Jake a long time to get over Leanne, but it was clear that he was still holding a torch for her if the gutted look on his face right now was anything to go by, and Ben felt guilty for ruining his chances. Determined to make up for his gaffe, he took his spare key out of his wallet and tossed it to Jake.

  ‘Go on up and put the kettle on. I just remembered I need cigs.’

  ‘Get me some while you’re there,’ Jake said, reaching into his pocket.

  ‘My treat.’ Ben was already heading back to the car.

  4

  Leanne was furious with Jake for lying to her – and even more furious with herself for being gullible enough to almost fall for it. But that’s men for you, she thought bitterly. They’ll say anything to get a leg-over – and to hell with the girls whose hearts they’re breaking in the process.

  Determined to forget about him and concentrate on looking for somewhere else to live before Roger turfed her out, she called in at the newsagent’s on her way home and picked up a copy of the local paper. She’d come out and was about to cross the road, when a car suddenly swerved in towards the kerb and screeched to a halt, forcing her to jump back on to the pavement.

  ‘You stupid idiot!’ she blasted the driver through the windscreen. ‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going?’