He opens one eye and looks at me, then quickly shuts it. “How can she still look so beautiful with make-up smeared everywhere, and on only three hours’ sleep?”
“Good genes… bad blood. I dunno.”
He tugs me tight into his chest and I purr into his warmth, nuzzling my face into his pecs.
I return to my previous train of thought. “He might be conventionally pretty but that’s all he is. You’re rugged and kind, gentle and tender, yet strong, very strong. I love your strength more than anything. The way you’ve handled your mother’s death, the way you’ve triumphed in so many things, the way you love me fearlessly.” He opens his eyes and looks straight at me. “You’ve made me see that love is so simple. It’s just love. It heals. It cures. It’s pure.”
His expression softens for a moment before he gets a cheeky look in his eyes. “That, last night… wasn’t love, that was some mad animalistic shit.”
I laugh loudly, throwing my head back. He laughs into my chest, clutching my back in his hands.
“Learn to take a compliment, Jones.”
“Nah, would rather compliment you any day of the week. You’re the special one, Het.”
I look directly into his eyes. “Keep saying it, maybe one day I’ll believe it. One day… maybe.”
He kisses me slowly, reaffirming his love. But there’s no way we’re shagging this morning.
“I better get showered. I’ve gotta be there in 45 minutes.”
“Mind if I go back to bed?” he asks.
“You live here now, remember?”
I’m standing before him, completely naked, when he shoots up to a sitting position.
“You meant that?”
“What? You thought I said it cause I was drunk?”
“Well…”
“Pack your bags and a rubber ring, Jones, you’re my 24/7 sex slave now.”
I can hear him still laughing downstairs, even as I’m starting the shower.
IT’S a rainy day but I rock up at the community centre in shades and a woolly hat. I can’t be doing the adulting thing today. This sucks ass. Trying to let myself in, I find the doors locked. Bloody hell, where is Warrick? All the lights inside are switched off. What the sod is this?
Fishing in my work bag I discover my set of keys and get the doors open, turn the security alarms off and start hunting in my other bag for my mobile phone. It hardly has any battery left and there are a ton of messages I’ve yet to check into.
In my office I put my phone on charge and use the landline to call Warrick and Jules’ house.
“Yeah?” he answers in a crackly voice.
“Are you in bed?”
“What?”
“You sound like you’re in bed.”
“SHIT!! SHIT!! Jules, we’ve slept in!! JULES! Oh my god, she’s comatose, what have you done to my wife? OH SHIT!!! The boys aren’t up yet either! They’re late for nursery school. SHIT!!!”
“Chill out granddad, take a chill pill. Why don’t you all have the day off? I’ll handle everything here. I’ll need to order in a gallon of coffee, but what the fuck, eh?”
“Oh god, I never sleep in, ever!”
I don’t think I want to know if Jules and Warrick endured a similar night to me and Joe last night. Maybe Jules has been throwing up all night or something.
“Why don’t you all drive out, have lunch somewhere? Treat yourselves. The boys aren’t in proper school yet are they? It doesn’t really matter.”
“I suppose… it is Jules’ afternoon off today.”
“Good. Now, please shut up so I can hang up and wallow in this smashing headache without your shouting.”
“Speak later, Hetty. I’ll have to come in later–”
“Yeah, yeah, what the fuck… BYE!”
I slam the phone down. God, I need caffeine.
Shuffling along the corridor I go to the break room and make a pot of coffee with an extra spoonful of coffee powder for good measure. The smell instantly revives me as I pour hot water in the cafetiere.
With my coffee now in tow, it occurs to me that people will have been here earlier trying to get in and would have found nobody here. Maybe Warrick can tell them he had a family emergency or something…
Anyway, I’m thankful of the quiet as I sit down and check through the messages on my phone. There’s one from Liza which makes me smile:
Had a talk with Gage when I got in last night, things are going to be different, I feel sure of it. Thank you so much for being here.
I don’t know what to reply except: I’m here whenever, wherever. Sisters, remember? x
One of the ladies who runs the playgroup walks in and finds me at my desk.
“Where the heck’s Warrick today?” she asks. “We’ve all been at the café over the road wondering when he was gonna show up.”
I leap up from my desk. “A family emergency I’m afraid, really sorry. Please don’t keep your group waiting any longer, make yourself at home.”
I’m not used to dealing with people like this. Warrick’s always here, like any other of our fixtures or fittings.
“Okay, no harm done,” she says, in a faintly Scottish accent.
I hear her troupe march in as I continue checking my messages. There’s one from Nate:
I hope the hangover’s not too bad this morning? x
What a swine. He knew exactly what he was doing last night when he cornered my boyfriend. So I reply:
Back’s sore from all the sex me and Joe had, apart from that I’m fine. Now could you please fuck off and die?
I snigger to myself as I send it. What an ass. I can be doing without people like him.
Kerry’s texted me a load of smiley faces and the words: Last night was so good!
And Babs has texted: Think I am onto a winner! How come our random nights are always the best?
I text them both back with various emoji symbols that mean I’m hungover but happy to hear from them.
Then I hear a pounding from down the corridor and Sherrie, the woman I just spoke to, pops her head into the office and asks in that Scottish accent again, “What was that?”
“I don’t know… let me check it out. Just stay where you are, I’m sure it’s absolutely nothing.”
I have an inkling it’s not nothing but I don’t want her to know that.
Raiding Warrick’s office, I find a key resembling the one he used the other day to open up the hall.
Thankfully it slides into the lock and opens the door. I gently close the door behind me and find a hall full of people desperate to get out of the building and into fresh air.
“Sorry, Warrick’s had an emergency… sorry!!”
I don’t know what I’m apologising for. Warrick’s letting these people have a safe place to sleep every night. As I’m striding across the expansive hall I find at least 20 people… and a dog.
Oh fuck… not a dog as well! Health and safety nightmare.
The door at the back only opens with a keypad entry code which I punch in. We have the same code for the entire building.
Warrick’s friends murmur their thanks. It’s a bit ripe in the hall and I wonder if Warrick lets them have showers on specific days. I catch the eye of the young man who seems to own the dog and he smiles shyly before scampering off with a huge backpack full of god knows what.
Within a few moments they’re all let out into the open air, going onto wherever they spend their days. I shut the door and race back across the hall, locking everything back up.
Sherrie pokes her head out when she sees me.
“Anything to worry about?” she asks.
“Just one of the bins out the back fell over.”
“Ooooh, well it is windy.”
Yeah, and you’re a nosey parker, I want to say. I’m going to have to warn Warrick that at least one other person has potentially heard ‘noises’, as well as us two.
“Nothing at all to worry about. Just this never-ending strong wind!”
She smiles politely and goes back to
the room which the playgroup always uses.
I shut my office door on the sounds of squealing children and call Warrick.
“Everything okay?” he asks, sounding worried.
“It’s fine but you weren’t here to let the playgroup in and that woman–”
“Ugh, not Sherrie?” I hear Charlie and Harry in the background, fighting over whose pancake is the biggest.
“Yeah, she said she heard a noise.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “I had to let them out, Warrick. Don’t you think this is getting a bit dangerous now? And one of ’em brought a sodding dog in with him.”
“Hetty, just… let me worry about that.”
“Yeah… whatever.”
“I’ll be round at four, okay? You can get off early then if you like. All you have to do between now and then is make sure the place doesn’t blow up or anything.”
“And try to forget that my boss could be putting us both out of jobs very soon, yeah…”
“Hetty…”
“It will not blow up, I assure you.”
I put the phone down and blow out a deep breath. My mobile pings with a message which I read as it lights up the screen:
JOE: Love you, girl.x
I can’t help but smile wide. I want to treat him tonight. Maybe we could go out and celebrate him moving in? Or I could treat him at home? I’ll think of something…
WHEN Warrick finally arrives to relieve me, I can’t even process the feeling of relief. I’ve survived on nothing but coffee and bourbon biscuits all day. I haven’t been able to muster the appetite for anything else. My head’s still pounding and I need to go to bed for an hour or two.
He shuts us inside my office and asks, “So what did you tell Sherrie?”
“That a bin fell over out back.”
“She buy it?”
“Reckon so. But any more noises and she’ll start putting two and two together.”
“I’m aware of her curious mind, shall we say.” He chews his lip, then his finger, roaming my office with a plan of action in mind, perhaps.
“Joe’s moving in, I think…”
He nods sharply. “He said. I’m happy if you’re both happy.”
“We’ll be round all the time, you know? Jules’ cooking will always bring us back.”
“I’m not worried about you two.”
“Here was me worrying all sorts…”
He shakes his head. “It’s not going to be so bad now it’s warmer weather. I mean around Christmas, I had fifty in there. The numbers dwindle with the warmer weather, so I won’t need to keep the place heated all the time and hopefully some of them might eventually find accommodation…”
“Fifty? Fuck, Warrick. Is it that bad out there?”
He shucks his shoulders. “They all have stories Hetty, some you won’t believe.”
“Well, I can’t believe you slept in…”
He eyes me. “I was up half the night with Jules being sick.”
I snicker. “That does not surprise me! Is she okay?”
“Oh, god. She was fine as soon as she had a cup of tea and some toast in her. We didn’t go out today though, just stayed home and watched films in our PJs all day.”
“I bet the boys loved that.”
“It makes me think, you know… about spending more time with my kids and not having half of myself always with one leg in the door here.”
“Well if Jules is going back full-time…”
I catch onto his meaning, also at what he’s hinting at…
“How would you feel about running this place?” he asks, his jaw ticking as he waits for my reply.
“I–I–”
“Have a think about it.”
“I don’t have to think, Warrick. I know.” He looks so hopeful and I’m about to dash his hopes… “You know how grateful I am, you know how much I enjoy working with you, but that’s where it ends here for me. I will leave eventually and do whatever else it is that I’m meant to do, you know that right?”
“It was presumptive of me, I know. I’m sorry.”
I stand and look him in the eye. “None of us knows what is right around the corner, right?”
He nods slowly.
“Thank you, but no thank you. I can’t take your place, Warrick. Nobody can. Nobody.”
He makes to leave the room, looking back over his shoulder just before he does. “Any other problems I should know of?”
“Blocked toilet in the ladies’ that I’ve told maintenance about. Oh, and there was a call from a man called Jack Warne. He wanted to talk to you about booking the hall.”
“Yeah… good. Thanks.”
“It’s a good idea, Warrick.”
“I know,” he says, so breezy, I almost believe he’s going to rent out that hall after all…
I’M home, finally, after trudging the long walk (short in reality). There’s a note on the fridge saying Joe’s taken the car and himself over to the Jones’s to pack some stuff.
I grab a bottle of water, some paracetamol and take myself upstairs to bed.
Putting my sleep mask on and my earplugs in, I decide I’ll sleep for a couple of hours.
I feel warmth wrap itself around me and I wake slightly, somehow aware it’s late evening.
“I didn’t want to wake you so I had dinner at theirs… Dad mentioned you were going home to sleep.”
“Hmm. I’ve slept all right.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better. I was going to cook for you, I thought we should celebrate…”
“I brought over a slice of lasagne to reheat, some salad and garlic dough balls, a portion of bread and butter pudding and a very large can of fizzy orange.”
My stomach immediately gurgles at the thought. “God I love the Joneses.”
I roll over and on top of him, still in his clothes.
Joe cuddles me entirely, kissing my head.
“Could we do something tonight?” I ask him.
“It’s getting on, what do you have in mind?”
“We could go bowling, or to the cinema?”
“Hmmm….” I hear the cogs ticking.
“Whatcha thinking, stud?”
“I’m thinking… maybe… we could go play that new laser quest thing!”
“Hell yeah! After I’ve stuffed myself first.”
I launch out of bed, stretch my limbs and shake myself down. I just need a brush through my hair and a change of clothes.
“Het?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“I left my stuff downstairs. Not sure where to put it.” He still looks unsure of himself, as if he can’t believe this is actually happening.
“We’ll deal with that later.”
I begin raiding my wardrobe for togs when he calls, “Het?”
“Yep.”
“Why did you tell my dad you’re not staying at the community centre forever?”
It’s a loaded question, to which I have a loaded answer. “It’s always been a stop gap for me, Warrick’s always known that.”
“I see. But what else are you planning to do.”
I face him as I’m pulling on some leggings and a short denim skirt. “Absolutely no idea, chuck. Moment I realise my destiny, you’ll be the first to know.”
He nods his head as I pick out a t-shirt with the words Yes, I do look good in this, written on the front.
“You might not have to work…” I turn and glare at him. He stares back, adding, “Hash tag, just saying.”
“So, what would I do all day? Darn your socks, prepare your dinner? Sit reading romance novels, aching for your return home at the end of every day?”
He chuckles. “I was just saying. Maybe you’d like to pursue some creative outlet you’ve got… you could do it on your on terms…”
“Don’t talk daft, Joseph.”
I yank a brush through my hair and realise my blonde roots are going to need dying blue again anytime soon. It grows like straw and it grows fast. Pulling it up in a ponytail
seems like the best solution right now.
“Are you going to let me look after you?” he asks, pleading.
“Emotionally, physically, maybe even horticulturally, yes, but monetarily, get on your bike buster.”
He guffaws.
“Why would I need looking after? It’s not as if we’re going to have kids. I want to work, end of.”
I turn and look into his eyes. He did say before that he just wanted me – that he was okay with not having kids – but I’ve caught the ghost of sorrow in his eye. I know he does want kids, really. I’ve always known it. He’s just that way. I’m not.
It’s too late though, now. We’re dependent on one another. We’re too far gone. There’s no before him anymore, there’ll be no after.
“Why don’t you want kids?” he asks after a few moments, his voice as soft and silken as delicate string music to my ears. He’s so gorgeous.
“I don’t know. I just don’t want them, no yearning or inclination whatsoever,” I state, as I put some earrings in.
When I’m done he follows me downstairs as I reheat the lasagne and start chewing through a garlic ball already. Joe runs himself a glass of water and says equally as softly as before, “Jules said she was the same once upon a time. But after a while, she changed her mind. She healed and my dad changed her mind.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“I won’t ever give up hope of seeing a baby in your arms, my baby, our baby. I’ll stick by you, always. Even if that means you never change your mind. But I’m going to love you so hard, you’ll never see any before.”
I turn and run to him, throwing my arms around him. “I already don’t see any before, don’t you get it? I am in love with you, get it into your thick head! But I won’t change my mind, Joe. I won’t! So if you want out, then this is the moment, make your decision.”
He pushes me away, then pulls me back by my wrists, forcefully.
“This isn’t a decision,” he admonishes, “this is us. Me and you, we’re not getting out now.”
He ploughs into my face, tearing into me with a dramatic, all-consuming kiss that makes me swoon and go weak at the knees.
“Joe…” I try to plead as he catches his breath, before delivering slower, deeper kisses, his tongue doing that thing which makes my stomach roll inwards.
Hetty: An Angel Avenue Spin-Off Page 17
