by Amy Muscat
“URGH...”
My head was pounding. What the hell was I thinking last night drinking all that? Oh yeah, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Blake had basically rejected me and had made me out as some desperate hoe, who wanted a relationship with him. Fucker.
But as thoughts of Blake filtered through my head, I remembered the text I sent him.
Shit!
Turning over to grab my mobile, I felt a wave of sickness roll through me that makes me sit up as fast as you can say vodka. Urgh, vodka. Just the thought of it makes me feel even worse.
Raising a hand to my still pounding skull, I begin to rub circles into my temples and breathe steadily through my nose and exhale through my opened mouth.
God… this felt awful.
Blindly reaching a hand out to my bedside table, I feel around for my phone and finally pluck it from the edge.
Lifting it up, and slowly opening my eyes, I look at the screen, only to find missed calls from Peyton, my mum, my dad and one missed call from Blake, along with two text messages.
Scared of what Blake had to say, I flick my thumb across Peyton’s name and ring her back.
RING… RING… RING… RIN–
“Hello, best friend in the world,” Peyton’s chirpy voice vibrated through me and made me groan in pain.
“Not so loud, Pey, please.” My voice was begging her to keep quiet.
“Lott's, I wasn’t even that loud… are you hung-over?”
“Yeah, and my head hurts like a mother, so please just whisper to me,” I ask her.
“Okay, sorry.” She whispers to me. Perfect. I loved this girl.
“Thank you. So, what did you ring me for anyway?” I asked her curiously, Peyton had never been an early riser, so she must have ne–
“I'm engaged!” She whisper-shouted.
Ohmygod!
“OHMYGOD!!” I shouted in joy for her.
I wince. Oww… that hurt!
“Shit, that even hurt my ears, Lott's. Don’t know what it just done to you,” she said chuckling softly.
“Yeah, that hurt. But don’t worry about that, congrats hunny, I'm so happy for you! Tell me how it happened,” I ask her.
She told me how Keller had taken her to a top restaurant called E.B.Y, and how he had hired out the rooftop and when dancing to their song, ‘Into the Mystic’ by Van Morrison, he’d asked her to marry him with his mother’s ring; a ring that Peyton had always loved, apparently.
“Aww, that’s lovely Pey, I'm so happy for you guys and Ivy,” I said, feeling myself get worked up slightly. They, all three of them, deserved this. More than anyone I know, they deserve happiness.
“Thanks, hon. I’m deciding on having a wedding ASAP because I don’t wanna wait too long. I’ll be as big as a house at my wedding if I wait or maybe I should wait until the babies are born. What do you think?”
Blowing out a breath, I told her I didn’t know and it was completely up to her. “Either way Peyton, you'll look absolutely beautiful on your wedding day.”
“Thanks, girl,” now she was sounding choked up.
“Don’t cry,” I tell her sternly. “You’ll make me start crying too,” I say wiping under my eyes.
“Okay, sorry. These pregnancy hormones are killing me, Lott's, I swear. All I do lately is cry, pee, cry, eat… did I say cry?”
Laughing, I said yeah. Bless her; it must be hard, being pregnant with twins.
“So, what did you do last night when you left, anyway?” Peyton’s curious voice asked me.
Crap!
“Erm… nothing really just went home, had a shower and wentoutwithBlake,” I said in a rush.
“What? After you said shower, I didn’t hear anything apart from gibberish,” Peyton said, in a confused tone.
Inhaling a deep breath through my nose, to calmly say it again, I exhaled the words, “I went out with Blake last night,” and bite my bottom lip, waiting for her response.
“What?” She gasped. “Blake Walker? Keller’s best friend Blake? That Blake?”
“Yep, that Blake.”
“You went out on a date with Blake?”
Sighing I say in my most exasperating voice, “Yes Pey, I went out on a date with Blake.”
Silence.
All I could hear down the line was silence.
“Peyton?”
“How did it go?” She asked quietly.
“It went really well…”
“That’s gre–”
“Until the end and he went and fucked everything up,” I say interrupting her.
“Oh no. What happened?”
“We went to this bar, had dinner, laughed, joked around with each other, ate some great food, drove back to my place, shared the best kiss I’d ever received, and then he turned funny on me,” I confessed.
“What why? How? What did he do?” She enquired.
“I don’t know what happened, Pey. We were kissing and then we came up for air, he just turned into an epic arsehole. So me being me–”
“Yeah…” She said cautiously. Ha! She knew me too well.
“Well, I basically told him, I only wanted him for a shag because I had heard he was good for it,” I wince as I say it. That had been bitchy of me, but then I thought of what Blake had said to me and how he had looked at me; like I was some desperate girl. Begging for him. Prick.
“Lottie,” she said with a groan.
“No, fuck that, Peyton. You didn’t hear the way he spoke to me and how he looked at me.”
“He hurt you, didn’t he?”
“No–”
“Don’t lie to me, I know you Lott's. I know that you are trying to hide the hurt behind your bravado,” she calls me out. She was right. It had hurt me– he’d done this to me twice now. “Wait– that’s why you got drunk, isn’t it?”
Peyton was my best friend for a reason; we may not have known each other for years and years, but we’d known each other long enough to know when the other was upset and what they were thinking without them saying anything,
“Yeah,” I told her quietly.
“Lottie, can I ask you something?” I tell her yes. “You’ve gotta tell me the truth, too. Otherwise, I won’t know how to help you.”
“Yes, yes. Just ask me, Pey.”
“What happened with you and Blake, before? And don’t tell me nothing happened because I know something did. I just never wanted to pressure you into telling me, I figured you’d tell me eventually, but as you haven’t yet; I’m asking you to tell me. Please, I’m worried.” Her voice had taken on a sad tone, and I didn’t like that. Peyton, my best friend who should be at her happiest right now, was sad because I had yet to tell her what had happened on the night out for my birthday, all those months ago.
“Okay, I’ll tell you.”
“Thank you.”
“So, you remember the night of my birthday?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, that’s when it happened.”
“I knew it.” I hear her whisper down the line.
“Shush, and listen, Pey. So, when Blake and I dropped you and Keller off at his place, we drove back to my place and when I was about to get out of the cab, I thought fuck it, and kissed him. At first he didn’t kiss me back, so, embarrassed, I quickly got out the cab. Then I heard a door slam and felt a hand on my shoulder. I was being spun around and Blake's face is a hairs breath from mine. Then he kissed me. Passionately. He asked if he could come up, I said yes, and then when we got into the flat, we were all over each other and before I knew it; my dress is over my head, thrown on the floor, we were laid out flat on the sofa. Blake's mouth is on my nipple and two of his fingers are fucking me,” I retell her.
Again, silence.
Until…
“Wow, Lott's. That sounds hot. What happened next?” Asks my curious friend.
“Well, we were kissing, sucking, and finger fucking–”
“Yes, yes, I get that! I don’t need all the details Lottie, just the part where shit went down,�
� she interrupts me, her voice sounding slightly disgruntled.
I started chuckling at her and her prudish ways.
“Pey, if I remember correctly, I've heard you and Keller going at it like a pair of sex-deprived monkeys,” I say to her through my laughter.
She gasped. “We said we weren’t going to talk about that again!”
Laughing harder at her outraged tone, I told her to calm her horses.
“Okay, but, just don’t– oh just fuck off and tell me the rest of the story,” her voice is stern, but I could hear the humour in her tone.
“Okay. So, as I was saying, he’s fucking me with his fingers and all that jazz, and then he made me come. Oh God, Peyton! You don’t even understand. Best fucking orgasm I’ve ever had! Like ever. So after all the groaning and moaning had stopped, we were just lying there for a minute, when all of a sudden, Blake jumps up, and I'm on my back thinking ‘oh yeah, sex here we come’, when he just buttoned up his jeans and said he had to go. GO! Just like that!” I fumed to her.
“No!!” Peyton gasps, her tone dripping in astonishment.
“Yes! I'm lying there all naked and laid fucking bare for him, basically begging for his cock, and he just ups and fucks off. After stewing about it for a while, I just figured that he might not have been able to get a hard-on; you know the drink and all that? Some men just can’t perform in the bedroom after having a couple drinks, and he was embarrassed. I actually felt sorry for him! Fucker. Anyway, so a week or so goes past and I don’t see him and then I do, and he ignores me. Like it never happened. That hurt, but again, I figured he didn’t want you and Keller thinking anything, or that he didn’t want any atmosphere in the room; so I left it. And then I didn’t end up seeing him for a while. I had to go back to London, sort that shit out, and then I was busy with work, and it was only when you were taken that I saw him for the first time for about a month or so. But after everything was over, I just sort of forgot about the whole thing and just put it down as us doing something silly while drunk. Then yesterday after we’d finished at yours, he asked me out. But just as friends. Then the prick kisses me and then does the same thing as before.”
Last night was the second time Blake had more or less rejected me and he wouldn’t be doing it again.
The saying, ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me’, comes to mind.
“Oh, Lott's. I don’t know what to say to you. I mean whenever saw you and Blake with each other, I always thought he really liked you; there was just something in his eyes as he looked on at you. Do you want me to ask Keller to say something to him?” She asks me softly.
“No. No, it is okay, Pey, don’t worry about it. I don’t want him thinking I care, and if Keller says something, he’s gonna know I'm going on about it, you know?”
“Yeah, but I'm worried, I know this has hurt you, Lott's. I know you. I also know you’re hiding all that hurt behind a façade. You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“Yeah, love, I know I can. Thank you; I don’t know what I’d do without you. I love you, Hun.”
“I love you too, but I've gotta go, I'm peeing myself. And I really don’t think you wanna hear me pee, do you?” she laughed down the phone. “Okay, no laughing, Peyton. I’ve really gotta go, babe.” She sounded out of breath.
“Okay, girl, I’ll speak to you later. Congrats again, to you and Keller,” I tell her, blowing her a kiss down the line.
She blows me one back and says bye.
Pressing ‘end’ on the phone, I drop it on the bed, and stretch my arms above my head and lean back, feeling my back crack; releasing some of the tension stuck in it.
Picking up my, now hot phone, I pushed the covers off me, stand up and walked out of my room and into my kitchen… My smashed up kitchen.
Shit, fuck!
I’d completely forgot I’d done this last night.
Groaning, I walked back into my bedroom and pull on a pair of UGG’s so I couldn’t cut my feet on the glass that was scattered everywhere.
I open the door of the pantry in the kitchen; pick up the broom, trash pan and brush, other cleaning products, and set of to start cleaning up the mess I’d made.
Five hours later, I’d finished cleaning the whole flat. Every room was sparkling, I'd taken everything out of their boxes and sorted through them and chucked away a load of shit. I was knackered and starving.
Deciding that I was going to get a Chinese for dinner, I walk into my gleaming bathroom, strip, and jump in the shower; quickly washing my body and hair.
Thirty minutes later I was dressed in a pair of leggings and vest top, with my hair bundled up in a messy bun.
Grabbing my purse, bag, phone, and keys; I leave to go to the local Chinese shop that was a street away.
When I step outside, I feel the slight chill in the air and regret not bringing a cardigan out too. I look up to the darkening sky and scowl. As I walk down the streets of New York, I think about how similar it was to London– not in looks– but the wide diversity of the people. The busyness, the nutcases standing around shouting out something or another, the people sitting on a blanket on the sidewalk with a cardboard sign in their hands asking for money for food and drink… things like that.
Five minutes later, I’m at Chan’s Chinese. As soon as I step into the shop, the tantalising aromas of Chinese food assault me.
Mr Chang and I were buds. I'd made it my mission to become friends with the man who made the best Chinese food I'd ever tasted.
His sweet and sour chicken was to die for.
Walking up to the counter, I see that Mrs Chan is taking orders. “Hi there Mrs Chang,” I grin at her.
“Nǐ hǎo, Lottie. How you today?” She asks in broken English.
“I'm good thank you, yourself?”
“Good, good. Want your usual?”
“Yes please.” My usual being their famous sweet and sour chicken, vermicelli noodles, curry sauce and ‘fries’. “Can I have two cans of Diet Coke, too?”
“Yeah, sure,” she says nodding her head at me and pressing the buttons on her till. “That’s $33.70, please Lottie.”
I pull out two twenty’s. “I'm just gonna run to the shop, how long is it gonna be?”
“Ten to fifteen minutes” She replies.
“Ok, I won’t be long,” I say picking my bag up from the counter and walked to the shop on the corner of 9th Avenue.
While in the shop, I picked up some of the essential stuff for indoors; bread, milk, some sweets and chocolate, toilet roll, wine and a couple other bits in the large fridges that were lining one wall of the store.
After paying for my items, I walked back to Chan’s. I only had to wait another five or so minutes for my takeaway. Mr. Chang popped his head out and said a quick hello, before having to go back into the kitchen: they were getting busy now so he couldn’t stay and chat.
I got back to the flat about ten minutes later, struggling with all the bags. I'd just gotten the key into the hole when I heard my name being called from behind me.
As I spun around, I saw a face. One I didn’t expect to see, nor did I want to see.
“Hey, can we talk?” Blake asked me.
To say I was shocked was an understatement. I never expected him to come back here.
“What are you doing here Blake?” I asked with a sigh. I was in no mood to speak or listen to him.
“I… I just wanted to talk about last night. I didn’t mean to just go. I'm sorr–”
I cut him off before he could say anymore. “I don’t want to hear it, Blake, if I'm being honest with you. What happened last night? It was a mistake. We’d had a few drinks, so it doesn’t matter.” It did matter. That had hurt, but I wasn’t going to tell him that and let him know that I did actually care.
“What? You don’t mean that…?”
“No, I do. You’ve done this to me twice now, and it won’t be happening a third time, I can tell you that.” I say to him, getting angrier by the second.
“Yeah, that’s what I've come around to tell you, Lottie. What I tried to call you for, earlier. Can I com–” Again, I cut him off.
“No, you can’t. I just want to go inside and eat my Chinese, which is probably cold now, and forget about last night, okay?” I snap at him.
Looking regretful, he says okay and that he’d see me soon.
With a grunt, I turned around and with the toe off my UGG, kicked the door open the rest of the way. Without a backwards glance at Blake, I shut the door in his face.
ARRIVING AT WORK THE next morning, I say hello to my assistant, Hayley.
“Mornin’ Hale’s, got any messages for me this morning?” I didn’t come into work every day, as I preferred to be at home and work from there. But, I tried to come into Carter Books INC. a couple of times a week.
“Nope, nothing. Well, Mr. Carter did want to talk to you about something, I don’t know what, but other than that, nothing.” She smiled at me, passing me a coffee from Starbucks, that she always gets me. Bless her.
“Okay, love. I've got a manuscript to go through today and write a report about, so I'm going to be busy doing that all day. So only ring me, if you really need too.”
“Okay, Lottie will do.” From the day Hayley started working here, which was two years ago, I'd made her call me Lottie; I never really liked anyone calling me ‘Miss Carter’: I sounded too much like an old boss.
Waving a goodbye to her over my shoulder, I walk in the direction of my dad’s office. Saying a quick hello to his assistant, Timothy, I walk straight into his office and sit down on his black leather sofa he had situated in there.
“Hey, dad.”
My dad looks up from his paperwork and smiles a big happy smile at me. “Hey, pumpkin.”
Michael Carter was a big man. A big, imposing man with his ash-blonde dark hair and his navy-blue eyes –same as mine– his 6ft, 200-pound frame; he could be scary. But to me, he was a big teddy bear, albeit an overbearing, protective teddy bear. He was my dad, and he was the best one anyone could ask for. He liked to spoil me rotten; being an only child does that. But he could never do that when I was younger. We were never poor, but we were never well off either. All that changed one day when my dad had put on a stupid bet. One that, no one ever would have thought would come in. But he did, and he won a big amount of money. And with that money, he paid off the rest of the mortgage on the house we had in London and then he started up a little publishing company. And then it became really successful when one of the authors who were signed with us, got spotted and a big film company bought the rights to the trilogy and made three very successful films out of them.
