“Can I put my spin on it?”
“Go on,” she says hesitantly.
“Mum died in not very nice circumstances. Her death was drawn out over a week from the first stroke to the last. We had to see her as a vegetable and we wondered whether we would have to make a decision… it was horrible. The waiting… the pain.”
I rub my forehead and feel the trauma of it all sneak back into my thoughts.
“Don’t waste any more time on someone unworthy, Jules. You never know when your time might be up. Whatever his excuse, I bet it was a poor one.”
She burrows into me and I don’t stop her.
“I’ll never get that day back. Never. That’s the truth of it. Did he set out to do me wrong? I dunno.”
“We could, I don’t know, relive it,” I say, the idea coming to me from nowhere, “a kind of bid to lay his ghost to rest. We can revive it, bit by bit, and see if we can’t shake off those demons.”
“There was a lot of sex,” she reminds me.
How I hate that hellion Laurie… I shake off that disdain.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll buy a blow-up man and let you two get freaky.”
I laugh heartily and she pulls back with her eyebrows raised.
“We seriously need to get off the sofa,” she announces, jumping up and off me. I quickly cover myself with the duvet.
“We’re showering… separately. Then let’s get a roast and a pint.”
“Good decision,” I agree.
We share lunch at her local and I head home afterward. We arrange to meet the following Saturday, when I will give her an improved version of that life-changing day. I told her to leave it all to me…
Chapter Twenty
Warrick
A week of thinking time has confirmed only one thing.
I am in love with Jules Simonovich.
Julianne.
I love her: how do I know?
I have fallen so hard I hardly think about a single thing else.
Her voice haunts me.
Her body is my only comfort; the thought of it against mine. If only…
I don’t think Laurie could have possibly felt what I do. I feel like I know her so well already. I want to make love with her but most of all, I want to understand her. I want to help her, yes, but I want to ‒ make her fall in love with me. I want that. I want her, all of her. I can take it if she ultimately rejects me but I wouldn’t handle it if she and I bedded one another and then she walked away. I wouldn’t be able to stand that. I’d never get over it.
Last week, I wasn’t lying. I laid there for a full ninety minutes while she slept and I was awake, stroking her hair. I wondered whether the smashing of my heart against my chest would wake her.
Did I mention I am in love?
Chuffing hell.
I’d be gutted if we fell out or I messed up now. I’d be forlorn beyond repair. I am so lovesick. I feel hungry all the time, for her, for her presence. I need her in my life. The weeks are dragging without her and the weekends pass so quickly. How do I make this happen?
I felt pretty pleased with myself when I managed to sneakily use the whole Laurie thing to get her to come for a day out with me. When I got home and thought about it though, I began to wimp out. I may not be able to pull this out of the bag. This is, after all, a kind of repeat of the day that continually makes her feel sad and alone.
All this time with Jules is forcing me to admit all my foibles. I want to be worthy of her but I just don’t know if I am.
It is a thorn in my side, every day, that I wrecked my marriage. I regret the mistakes I made, bitterly regret them even, but there is no going back. My ex made that clear. It was a build-up of far too many mistakes.
Back to Jules. I know there was a coffee shop, a shopping trip and an Italian meal. My aim is to replicate that without any emphasis on the whys and wherefores. The day has to run smoothly and she needs to sail out of it just as easily.
By the way, did I mention she is now sat in my car and I am driving her to town? She’s gorgeous. In just jeans, musty coat and black polo neck, she’s so beautiful. She’s been doing more with her hair lately and today it is French plaited down her back so I can see her face. I try to concentrate on the road and not stare.
“Nice hair,” I venture, seeing whether she will react.
“Thanks.”
She gazes off and I get the distinct impression her mind is elsewhere. I leave her there. She seems to need some space.
I head for a multi-storey and we leap out of the car. She slams the door and I warn, “Watch the vintage, love. Delicate she is!”
“Oops, sorry,” she covers her mouth in mock-fear.
The vehicle seems unscathed as I check it.
I wave my finger at her and we head for the elevators. We stand side by side and I slip my hand through hers. She turns her head and looks at me aghast.
“This is purely for demonstrative purposes only,” I convince her.
Her eyebrows practically crawl off her face and she cannot hide her blush. I want to crush her against the wall and kiss her face off.
“Huh,” she mutters and lets me have my way.
I tighten my fingers and savour every second she lets me hold her hand. I love her hands. If I was Laurie she would be kissing me and asking me to hump her by now. I sigh inside.
I direct her around the grey city streets and we bypass the canvassers by shouting in unison, “We help the poor already!”
The old lady in a Bumble Bee costume could put them to shame with the 100K she’s collected…
I know exactly how much money from the streets goes to real people in need and it’s barely anything. Jules gives me a wry smile and she knows what I am thinking, or senses it. She knows. There are so many ways to help people without shoving money at them.
Her hand in mine is so warm and I decide to let myself get a bit amorous. It is an occasion for it. I just need to show her the man underneath, the one desperate to jump her bones and make hot, passionate love to her. She smells so good. She must have used henna recently because it smells sweet but there is an underlying earthiness that has failed to wash out. She’s piled on perfume to cover it. I am not complaining.
“I missed breakfast, can we get something?”
“Yep, where?”
“Anywhere,” she replies.
In the city we live in, there are few places to really live it up without going off the beaten track. You know, those gaffs where you can really go to town. So instead, we go for what I know she likes. Fast food. American style.
In the diner, we sit down with our trays and she chucks her coat over the back of her chair before tucking in. She’s eating pancakes, bacon and syrup. A vanilla milkshake and a blueberry muffin. I eat my bacon sandwich slowly and watch her. She eats, big style. I love watching her. She looks natural when she eats because she isn’t thinking about anything else or worrying about a thing. She’s enjoying herself. She sits back and burps and I laugh.
“Good?”
“Sensational,” she responds, wiping her chops with a napkin.
I can tell she wants to put me off with her ladette behaviour but I am not put off at all. Her midriff is showing as she stretches her back over the chair and it’s giving me a good look at her belly button. An outy. She notices me staring and hastily sits forward.
My coffee is going to burn my mouth if I try to bolt it as quickly as she did her meal. She notices my sluggish appetite and jumps up.
“I want more.”
I know I can’t stop her. She goes to the counter and orders again. My appetite has completely left me because I feel nervous. So nervous. And she will never know. I’ll probably declare my love and she’ll run a mile and then we will never get chance to discover what is really going on here.
“Nice,” I nod at her burger.
A burger!
“I eat salads all week so I can eat all weekend,” she mumbles between mouthfuls.
“You go girl,” I tell he
r with a snigger.
She smiles and tucks in. She’s going to have a big gut hanging out of her jeans and I am going to get to see her outy again.
I am obsessed…
I lead her onwards with my hand in hers again and we walk the streets. When we pass a romantic old church, built from limestone and surrounded by shrubbery, I have to mentally pull myself back. There are plenty of places behind hedges and crumbling walls to take her with me and hide, and maybe, kiss her. No humping the possible love of your life outside a place of worship. Christ I am ill.
It’s her aura, or something. Her smell. Her eyes. I don’t know. Maybe her vulnerability. Something. Maybe I have just been alone far too long.
I love her.
I just know it.
So, we know that after she and Laurie had their ‘romantic’ coffee shop experience (I took her to a fast food chain), they went back to hers and got freaky. So instead, I am going to take her to my favourite place and attempt a kiss. I will manage it, you’ll all see… Warrick Jones knows how to romance a woman!
We wind our way through the cobbled, overhanging streets of the Old Town, which bears hints of this city’s maritime history.
She looks curious, but she is less annoyed about all this than I thought she would be. She is smirking, even.
“What is that face for?”
“Nothing. Just find it funny that you seem to be dressing like a cad of late.”
She has me there. I have made some recent additions to the crusty old wardrobe. I walked into Debenhams the other day and bought an outfit I saw on a mannequin, thinking it would be what guys wear these days. I don’t know if I got it right or not. The jury is out…
“You look… different,” she says.
I have a brown, paisley neckerchief on, a mustard sweater and green cords. Plus builder’s boots with fur trims. What was I thinking? The woman in the shop was probably working on commission for these things. £120!
“I went shopping,” I mutter, shooting her a frown.
“I’ll say!” She chortles.
I don’t respond. I hate clothes shopping. I hate clothes. Garden of Eden would suit me. One leaf and done. One for her too…
“You look, I don’t know, not like you. The cagoule had something endearing about it. The cravat says twat.”
I ignore her snipe at my clothing. She’s digging. Her comment makes me smile inside. I think it says twat too. We continue walking.
“I think we shall buy you a new coat later, and I won’t accept no. That thing you have is… endearing. But totally unsuitable for winter with its scruffy edges. So there.”
She buttons it and I swagger. Have that.
We continue further into the Old Town and reach Georgian Row, a period street very much intact. There’s a hidden, private garden just off. It used to be for the residents only but now it’s open to everyone. After she marvels at the listed buildings, she is even more in awe when she sees the lush, hidden little realm in between.
We sit on a bench and she rests back and closes her eyes. It’s cold but the garden still looks nice, with leaves from the horse-chestnut trees scattering narrow paths and plants all cut back and trimmed, for wintertime. Fallen petals decorate the borders in dull pinks and purples.
“Why here?”
“I just like it here. Came here when I was young to write or listen to music. You know, as lovesick teenagers do.”
“Why else?” she persists.
I admit, there is another reason. How did she know?
“My parents got engaged here. I might not have existed if it weren’t for this garden.”
“Oh,” she whispers. “That’s something.”
I know there is a hidden, romantic side to this woman and I am willing to wait a lifetime to wrench it out of her. She’s bound to have such notions being an English teacher, surely? So I hope to appeal to that hidden, passionate side I know she harbours beneath the waxwork exterior.
After sharing my parent’s story, I decide this is the moment. This is it. Time to share. We’ve shared so much already.
“I want to kiss you.”
“What?” she gasps.
“As a test. You knew him one day, you’ve known me a few days now. Let’s do a test. We can just try it… see if it has the same effect. A lesson of sorts.”
“Like, just a peck? A cheek? What?”
Her eyes are avoiding mine. She is tapping her knee. I’ve ruined it. It’s ruined.
“Whatever feels right.”
“Um, okay, whatever feels right.”
She rolls her eyes.
I wonder, Should I take the lead?
“This is an experiment,” I reiterate.
“Oh, of course! No motive.”
Her eyes smile, her mouth doesn’t. It twitches. Of course, I repulse her.
Her impetuousness deserves a reaction, though. Without thinking it through, I reach across, grab her cheek and kiss her on the mouth. My eyes and hers are wide open. I actually did it! Our mouths are smashed together uncomfortably and we just stare, or rather glare. What am I kissing? A rigidly frozen, shut mouth, that’s what!
I pull away and we giggle. She wipes her mouth and shakes her head.
“Done. So, can we eat again now?”
“Fine,” I agree.
I’ll agree to anything. It was the least romantic kiss of all time but it was our kiss. Our first. How did I do it? I hope we do it again!
I am in so deep I may sink and drown quite happily.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jules
I feel weird. This is weird, right? I am thinking about what his body might look like beneath his clothes yet I really don’t think I fancy him. I am not sure. The kiss was the least passionate I have ever endured.
We’re now in an unremarkable pub and having lunch. He takes the cravat off and wraps it around my neck instead, so it sits over my jumper.
“Much better on you,” he says with a grin.
That grin. He thinks he is in here, he really does.
“If I have to take one for the team, fine, in order to make you look less of a twat…”
We laugh. It is so comfortable between us, I almost want to cry. I have waited for a friend like him my entire life. Why does he have to be someone I do not fancy yet seemingly still want to kiss? Huh?
I don’t understand.
In the jumper he’s wearing, I like the way he looks broad across the chest and shoulders. I don’t know why but I am gradually becoming more aware of his physique.
“What are we doing after lunch?” I ask between filling my mouth with teriyaki chicken and salad. I do get hungry after starving myself all week.
“Getting you your coat,” he replies.
“Oh, okay.”
“My treat, wench,” he soothes me, sitting opposite me in our booth, with his shoulders wide and hunched over. His hands are clasped together in front of him while he looks out of the window, over the bustling city street below. He’s lost in thought.
“A penny for them,” I urge him, hoping he might spill.
He smiles and turns his face back to me, giving me his full attention.
“I have lived here my whole life. Always thought I would go places, do things, you know. Just never did,” he shrugs, and I notice how his throat muscles jerk.
I want to reach out and stroke the curls off his forehead, then I want to kiss his ’tache. His neck. His mouth. A pang of heat boils in my groin. I snap myself from my reverie.
“Why not?”
“Guess I just like my home comforts. Home bird. If I were going to travel, or move about, or do something different, surely I would have done it by now?”
He scratches the table and stares into space again. I want to speak.
“When I came to this city from a small town across the water, I was nineteen. I was full of it. Ready for a challenge. I remember on my first day at university, I got chatted up.”
He looks up and smiles expectantly; my talk distracting
him from his own meandering thoughts.
“I remember feeling like it was all a novelty. You see, where I come from, you have to stay indoors or else everyone knows your business. It’s a town but it’s more a village. I worked in local cafés and pubs through Sixth Form to save up for uni. Couldn’t go anywhere without someone stopping me in the street and knowing me by name.”
I realise it feels so good talking. So good. Like the ghosts of the past are being revoked just by offloading to Warrick. I need not turn to lighting hundreds of candles (and risk fire) to rid myself of them.
“Keep going, I like hearing you talk,” he says, his eyes lit because I am opening up so freely.
“I didn’t feel the odd one out anymore when I came here. Not many of my schoolmates noticed me in that way, you know? Never asked me out. I recall… when I walked these streets, for the first time, I felt free. Like I didn’t stand out. There were people of all nationalities, all languages, all styles and fashions. Women with bright purple dreadlocks. Men wearing make-up or drag in broad daylight. Children wearing clothes as fashionably as their parents. Gangs of friends not stood on street corners with nothing to do, but holding community meetings or playing instruments. Street dancers. Goths. Emos. Punks. Hippies. All accepted. Nobody looked out of place.”
He smiles and strokes his chin, waiting for more. I recall how I felt about this place before Laurie ruined it for me.
I hold my hand over my chest and tell him, “My heart, felt light, for the first time in my life. The first time! I love it here, Warrick. I do. It’s not shameful to have never left. It’s only shameful to think so if leaving is what you actually wanna do.”
He squints and admits, “I live with many regrets. Sometimes it is hard to divide and conquer. I don’t know what is a true regret, and what is just a throwback to something I would rather never have had to face in the first place. Do you understand?”
“I really do.”
I stare out the window too and he grasps my hand to squeeze it. I can’t help but smile and wind my fingers through his.
“We should go get you that coat,” he suggests.
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