by Anna Bloom
I only have a fiver though.
Even cheap vodka isn’t that cheap.
I turn for the till, the butter getting softer in my hand, but every step seems slower than the last, like I’m wading through thick mud. The queen of the perm still has her eyes down, her attention on her crossword. I swipe at the small bottle and slide it into the waistband of my tracksuit pants.
My heart thuds so loud it makes my head hurt. My pulse races in my veins until a splurge of spew threatens to find its way onto the shop floor.
The lady’s eyes lift to mine as I reach the till. Sweat prickles my top lip and I lick at it with my tongue. She stares a little closer and I freeze. Please don’t ask what I’ve got down my pants.
When she doesn’t move, continuing to watch me with that confused expression, I understand what’s going on. Recognition. She knows me from somewhere, she just can’t place me. Dressed in my tracksuit with my hair in pigtails and wearing just moisturiser on my skin I look very much like the plain relative of a famous person. I’ve seen that look of recognition my entire life; a blank flicker in the recesses of someone’s memories when they think they should know me but can’t marry the sight of me in slouch wear with the girl from film and magazines.
That’s good. I’ve got a quart of vodka in my knickers.
"Just the butter, love?"
I nod, my erratic pulse removing any chance of vocalising a response.
"Here with Blake, are you?" She continues to eye her crossword, there’s just one row left.
"Yes," I squeak. "He’s my bodyguard," I add, mainly for my own benefit.
Her wire-rimmed eyes lift to mine. "Oh, we all know, dear."
"Well, thank you. I need to get this butter to Bernie."
"Of course, you do, my dear."
Grabbing the butter and my small change, I turn for the door.
"You can pay me for the vodka another time," she says.
The floor falls out of the universe.
My eyes refuse to lift from the floor but finding a surprising determination I force them to meet her gaze. She shrugs. "Or, you can just pop it back when you’re ready."
I give her a stiff nod. Her meaning isn’t entirely clear. "Thanks."
I’m thanking a woman for allowing me to steal from her shop and not calling the police as she rightly should.
I open my mouth to say something, anything, but she waves me off before I speak. "Enjoy your stay."
"Uh, thanks."
Outside I tremble like a leaf, air hitching painfully in my ribcage. I stole from an old lady and got caught. Worse I stole alcohol when I’m supposed to be sober.
What am I doing? Is this my lowest point? My mind flickers to the other night with Johnny. My low moments are becoming immeasurable.
Outside I gaze blindly until I find the dark clothed shape of Blake leaning against the wall of the shop, his eyes guarded, his dog lying on the pavement at his feet.
Blake.
I take one stumbling step toward him, followed by another.
Chapter Twenty-One
Blake
I slouch my way off the rough-edged wall, pulling my wool jumper away from the red bricks like Velcro. Matilda nudges my leg, applying a warm nuzzled sniff to my jeans. "Did you get the butter?"
Her face and throat blotch with embarrassment. Why she needs to blush when buying butter, I have no idea. Maybe she’s pissed I’ve come to check on her. I’m being insanely overprotective, but I truly could have killed my mam for sending her out like that five minutes after arriving. What a way to roll out the warm Welsh welcome.
"I got both types, your mum didn’t say what she wanted." Sophia proffers the blocks and I take them from her, Matilda’s lead hanging loose in my hand. The lead isn’t really necessary, but still, she can run for miles after a rabbit and I’m not in the mood for a workout of that intensity.
"I didn’t even know there were two types of butter," Sophia begins to babble, her cheeks still flushed. "Fancy being twenty-two and not knowing there’s salted and unsalted butter. I’m pretty useless, right?"
My eyes run over her face, checking her over. "Sure you’re okay, Sophia?" She steps closer and I think she’s going to slide her hand through my arm, but she doesn’t. Do I want her to? Who the hell knows! "I thought we could go for a walk along the beach and then do some yoga if you want." I nudge her with my arm. Anything for some physical contact—I’m pathetic.
"Okay, can I change into some jeans first?"
"Sure."
We head back to the farmhouse, Sophia clutching herself tight around the middle. She must surely be in pain, maybe it’s some after effects of the drugs. I curse. Why didn't I take her to the doctors, get her blood checked? I’ve been negligent because I’ve been too busy kissing her.
I’m a moron. End of.
At the house she slips into her room, Matilda trailing behind her despite me calling her back and offering her treats. I find Mam in the kitchen. "Here’s your butter," I thrust the blocks at her, "did she pass your little test, whatever that was about?"
The Mamster’s iron rule is suffocating at best. Some of us can’t cope with it, while others like Amanda relish in the cotton wool lining Mam provides.
Mam raises her eyebrow. "Glynis rang."
My stomach drops to somewhere around my toes and I groan—Glynis Jones: shopkeeper, one woman neighbourhood watch, and harpy of a gossip.
Mam’s hands reach for my face. "Blake, listen. I just don’t want you to get hurt. We’ve all been through enough. You know how this tale ends—in suffering and heartbreak."
I catch her hand easily, holding her touch away from my skin. "Mam, I’m not going to get hurt. I’m just looking after her." This is no longer true. I crossed that line in the shower when I kissed her. And all the times I’ve allowed us to tangle into one another since. It’s still pure, still contained, but how long I can maintain that for I don’t know.
I need her like I’ve never needed anything before.
"From what, herself?"
Frowning, I shake my head. "No, she’s been getting some vile mail again." I scrub a hand over my stubble. "Someone wants her to pay for the addiction she’s struggling with."
In this day and age wouldn’t social media sabotage be easier? Hacking? I don’t know. I’ve had enough time to think about it, yet I still can’t unravel the clues. Sending threatening mail covered in wank stains and photographs seems so old school. If those pictures were on the net, her career would be dead already. Destroyed in one fell swoop. But they aren’t, they are working their way through snail mail to her doorstep.
Mum’s questioning glance lands on my face, and I drag my thoughts back to the present. "Does she know? Is that why she’s struggling with her sobriety?"
I frown. "She’s clean, Mam. She had one blip, but she’s got it under control. Believe me, I haven’t let her out of my sight in weeks." Apart from those few terrible hours with Jonathan Fairweather when I let her walk away from me angry and dropped my guard.
A furious anger forces my hands into fists.
Mam gives a slow nod. "I know how you like to rescue broken things, Blake, I’ve seen it before."
Stiffening at her words, I push away from the kitchen table. "I don’t want to talk about it, not if you’re going to be all judgemental."
"Sure you don’t. Do you want to talk about Sophia and why you’ve really brought her to our home?"
Mam’s question takes the wind out of my sails. Why have I brought her here? Couldn’t we have gone anywhere, any holiday destination, where she could have hidden out of the public eye and gathered herself together once again.
It’s because I want our lives to be linked.
I know it. My need for her is etched on my soul with a tattooist’s ink.
It’s because I want to believe for one moment that this can work. That a sensational Hollywood actress could be something with someone like me.
Spinning on my heel I storm for the door. Mam’s always
over involved with all of us. I’m thirty for goodness sake. I no longer need her to come sort out fights down back alleyways. Not that I ever needed her to anyway, especially as my opponent was usually Shayne.
My feet are already pulling me towards Sophia when she calls me back. "I hope she tells you everything."
I hesitate. "What do you mean?"
Mam gives a little cheer and fills in the remaining crossword space before her dark eyes find mine. "She’s got more to tell you than whatever went down at the local shop."
Mamster, as well as ruling the house like a disciplinarian correctional facility, also favours herself as some Welsh prophet—not that Darren would ever agree.
I scrub my hand through my hair. "I know."
Breathing a sigh, I focus on the mission at hand. The Save Sophia Jennings Mission.
She’s a lot to tell me and it’s time for her to start talking.
"Your mum hates me." Sophia’s leant against the hallway wall, Matilda sat on her feet, not by them, on them.
"She hates everyone, it’s what she does," I offer her a genuine shrug. I’m not even exaggerating for Sophia’s benefit. "She’s like the gestapo of friends. I don’t know how any of us survived childhood with friendships intact."
Sophia tries to move but Matilda doesn’t budge, and I scoot to Sophia’s side pulling Matilda by her collar. "Move, you giant doorstop."
Sophia giggles and it does something to the gloomy atmosphere of the hallway, it brightens like someone’s switched on a lamp. "Where are we walking to?"
I grin. "The beach."
"It’s cold though."
Chuckling, I grab Matilda’s lead and push Sophia for the front door. "Does Amanda not want to come?" she asks, reaching for her woolly hat I’d hung on one of the coat hooks.
Is she mad? Like I’m going to let Amanda trail us anywhere. Last thing I need is my sister wandering after us with her jabber lips going nineteen to the dozen. "She’s doing homework."
Sophia scrunches her face in confusion. "Homework?"
Sophia hasn’t ever lived through a normal day of school, not since she left England when she was just a child. "We can’t all have personal tutors like you, Sophia." I knock her playfully with my arm. "Amanda’s just finishing up her degree so I think she’s working on her dissertation or something."
"Oh." She pauses, fastening her knitted cardigan as high as it will go. I mourn the loss of seeing the pale skin of her throat. Still it’s chilly, I can hardly blame her for zipping up. "Can I?" She holds her hand expectantly for Matilda’s lead.
"Sure. Oh, we need to go get some boots from the garage."
She glances at her feet. "What sort of boots?"
"Wellies, you’ve worn a pair before, haven’t you?"
"Uh, of course I have." She lifts her chin.
I bite down on a smile. "Have you ever worn Wellington boots in the actual mud before?"
She laughs, linking her arm through mine. A protective burst blooms across my chest. "Don’t be ridiculous, Blake."
As we leave, the brush of cold air smacking us in our faces, I glance back at the closed kitchen door. Whatever has gone down at Glynis' shop I’m going to have to find out the hard way.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sophia
"I’m sorry about my mam." Blake falls into step at my side. I don’t know if he’s shortening his long stride on purpose, but our feet consistently land on the pavement at the same time. I love it. It’s like we are at one, together.
This must be what it feels like to crush and swoon over someone.
His kiss whirls through my memory and I want it again so bad I could salivate. I want to kiss him for hours until my lips explode and my tongue is numb. The craving for him deeper than for the bottle of vodka in my room.
I hadn’t opened it. Remorse-filled, I stashed it like a guilty secret under the bed.
If I can focus on Blake and his kisses, and not the bottle, I will feel like I’m winning.
Blake’s mum though—wowser. I thought mine was bad. Maybe I’m not the only one to suffer from an over-involved parental unit in my life.
"It’s fine, she just cares about you." I laugh, a blurry of fog lifting from my mouth. "Although I can see where you get your intimidating stance from."
He booms a laugh and his fingers brush mine. My breath catches in my throat, but he doesn’t grab my hand the way I want him too.
"I mean, I guess she wasn't exactly expecting you to bring home an unbalanced actress," I say. Though unbalanced is probably too kind a description of myself, it sounds better than 'raving unstable fruit loop'.
He nods, his dark hair falling across his head. "Guess not." A sly grin slides across his face and I want to know what he’s thinking almost as much as I want to kiss him.
Blake guides us along winding lanes. Matilda bounds at our heels at a buoyed trot until we reach a sand covered path.
"Mind your step." He catches my elbow. "This path is notoriously slippery."
The muddy sand squelches under my newly acquired Wellington boots. Blake’s not lying, my feet fly in every direction, my dignity threatened as I scrabble for balance. When we make it to the end of the path, the battered wooden fences give way to open curves of pale, wet sand. I come to a stop, my lungs puffing out all the air they hold.
It’s beautiful.
A murky sea sparkles off in the distance, and the sand shimmers a dull bronze under the winter sun, dipping and curving, catching the light. Blake snaps Matilda’s lead off her collar and ruffles her hair, pulling me from a sea and sand induced trance. "Go run you crazy mutt," he tells her. She leaps off, pounding on powerful paws all the way to the distant sea, droplets of sandy water bouncing off her coat as she goes. "You can give her a bath." He doesn’t look at me, but I catch his lips twitching and my stomach does a twitch of its own in response all the way down to my lady parts.
He still doesn’t hold my hand. Okay, I could grab his, but honestly his mood swings are taking epic proportions, I no longer know what’s happening. One moment we are kissing, possibly on the cusp of something dark and delicious. The next—not so much.
He walks in Matilda’s trail of paw printed destruction and I follow, keeping close to his side, mainly in a bid to block the nipping wind rushing through my coat, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I’m also waving my hand about every so often to see if he grabs it. He doesn’t.
After we’ve walked in silence for a few minutes, I can no longer take the strain and begin to bumble like a blathering idiot. "Why didn’t you become a policeman, Blake?"
Inside that kitchen it felt as if there was a tight wire of protection binding Bernie and her offspring together. Yet, Blake had spent five years with me until he left. There’s got to be a story there—something doesn’t sit right.
He sighs, his dark eyes sweeping the horizon and his gaze trailing Matilda as she chases seagulls, scattering them squawking into the air. "It was a messy time."
Is that all I’m getting? He knows everything about me, down to the fact that a few months ago I tried to kill myself. My breath wavers in my throat at the memory.
I haven’t told him, outright. We haven’t talked about it, but I know he can read it on my skin, read the emotions on my face. Yet, he’s still this brick wall of evasiveness, the brick wall I tried to kiss five long years ago, the brick wall who spurned my advances, even though he now insists he’d loved me all along.
"That’s all I get?" I shift away from the dark wool of his jacket. "That’s all I get when you saw me puking and unconscious just two days ago? You really are taking this bodyguard role seriously."
A hand snakes out at lightning speed, grabbing my arm, tethering me tight into his chest. His eyes flutter shut and he breaths through his nose like he’s mid yoga practice. "It’s not that." He still doesn’t open his eyes, and he breathes deeply again. "It’s hard for me. Talking doesn’t come easy." His gaze snaps onto my face. "I didn’t grow up in the States where everyone is freewheeli
ng with their emotions."
I struggle against his grasp. "This is supposed to be a walk, not a battering with a wooden stick of social reprimand." The vodka becomes more appealing with every second I stand with my boots sinking into wet sand.
He laughs, a loud booming shout of mirth and his hands squeeze my arms as they pull me in. "I’m a stick of social reprimand now, am I?"
Releasing my frustration, I smile, tilting my head to look into his face. "You’re a dick."
He does what I’ve been waiting for. Catching my face in his hands, his eyes bore down onto mine as he slides his mouth against my lips. It’s heaven. Better than any hit, better than any sip of alcohol. It’s better than anything. I allow my eyes to close and smile against his mouth. His own lips turn up against mine, curving at the edges, a tantalising smile come kiss.
"What are you smiling at?" His lips murmur still pressed against my mouth. His voice deepens into a low burr and my stomach flips in response. Kiss talking is as sexy as hell.
"Your kisses."
"My kisses?" He sounds as if he’s grinning now. I wrench my eyes open to check—I can’t miss a Blake grin for anything, not even a kiss. Sure enough, there it is, the blindingly gorgeous smile of Blake Henderson. Then the smile drops. "I’ve always had my guard up against you, I had to. It was my job."
Hesitation pauses my motions. "And what’s your job now, Blake?" My tongue tingles as it dries and sticks to the roof of my mouth—where it’s been permanently superglued since Blake and I embarked on the new kissing development of our relationship.
Sighing he drops his forehead until it rests against mine. "I don’t know." The tip of his nose brushes an icy trail along the bridge of my own. "This is uncharted territory."
His words sting deep in my chest and I push against him. I don’t want to be unchartered territory, I want to be discoverable, conquerable, by him. "Well, when you’ve made up your fucking mind you know where to find me." I propel myself away. His hesitation rings in my head forcing my feet on a separate path to his.
