Pining & Loving

by Emma Sterner-Radley

  “Yeah. Just a smidge. Like this guy,” Aya indicated the screen, “his lateral deltoids are in the wrong place.”

  Gwen tilted her head to survey the burly bloke with a long ponytail. “Hm, maybe you’ve got a point. It never did look quite right.” She pointed to the shoulder area of the character. “Is this part here what you mean?”

  “Yep. The lateral, or middle, deltoid should sit more to the side and a little higher on the shoulder, not almost on top of his biceps like that.”

  Gwen made an unsure noise and then squinted up at her. “Ignore me if this is weird, but could you pull your top over your shoulder so I can see what you mean?”

  “Me?”

  “No, the pope,” Gwen said, rolling her eyes. “Yes, you. You’re muscular. If I check my shoulders in a mirror, all I’ll see is some flesh and a lot of bone. It’d be helpful to see exactly where that muscle sits in contrast to the bone structure and the other muscles surrounding it. And not on a screen or an anatomy book, but in the flesh. Pardon the pun.”

  Aya squirmed. “The material of this top doesn’t pull up like that. It would bunch and you wouldn’t see the shoulder.” Gwen kept looking at her. Wasn’t she getting the inference here? “I’d need to take my shirt off,” she clarified.

  Gwen smiled in a way that Aya could only interpret as cheeky or maybe naughty. “Right. Well, as much as I want to get this right, considering the deadline is this weekend, I don’t want to get you arrested for indecent exposure.”

  “Thanks,” Aya muttered. “That’s nice of you.”

  Gwen’s smile grew. “I know, right? My generosity knows no bounds.”

  The ice was broken. They kept chatting about the drawings. Gwen explained that while most of the characters came from existing TV shows, films, or books, some had been recently created and their authors wanted to see them drawn before they kept writing their stories. There was a whole culture here that Aya had no idea about. It was all new to her but certainly thought-provoking. Anything that expanded her world was valuable to Aya, and if she was honest, Gwen seemed to have a way to make anything interesting.

  Aya stopped scrolling. “Hang on. Here’s one I finally know. That’s Ann Walker from Gentleman Jack!”

  “Yes, that’s poor Ann,” Gwen said tenderly. “I relate to her so bloody much. Although, not to those puffy monstrosities.” She pointed to the huge sleeves that she’d drawn, exactly as they had looked on the TV show. “Thank goodness women’s fashion has changed. If I had to wear sleeves like that, I’d end up filling them with ridiculous stuff, like old sketches, spare change, and sweets. Can you imagine how many chewy toffees you could fit into those things?”

  Aya chuckled. “I don’t think the sleeves would stay puffy if you filled them with coins and toffees.”

  “No.” Gwen sat back. “Thank goodness I can stick to a regular top and some jeans.”

  “Yeah, but they don’t work as well as holders for toffees.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Gwen emptied her jeans pockets on the table, displaying a two-pound coin, a pencil stump, and at least eight chewy toffees in golden wrappers.

  Aya whistled low. “Impressive.”

  “I know. Want one?”

  “One? I thought you were meant to be generous. At least offer me two.”

  Gwen pouted theatrically. “Fine. But if I run out before we get to Chester, you’ll have to buy me some new ones.”

  “Deal,” Aya said and grabbed two toffees.

  They talked for more than half an hour about everything from favourite sweets to Gentleman Jack before Aya’s fitness watch buzzed to inform her of how long she’d sat still.

  “Ah, damn, time’s racing by. We should go.”

  “Yes,” Gwen agreed, packing things back into her pockets and her bag. “The way things are going, it’ll be lunch by the time we get to Chester.”

  “Nah, it won’t take that long,” Aya said while adjusting her ponytail.

  Gwen threw her a glance and muttered, “You really are an optimist, aren’t you?”

  * * *

  At twelve-thirty, when they’d been sitting in traffic outside of Chester for almost forty minutes, Aya remember those words. She hadn’t thought she was being optimistic, and she hadn’t been wrong per se. It was just because of a serious traffic accident on the A56 that they were now this late.

  Still, it meant three things.

  One neutral: Gwen had been right.

  One positive: they’d been given more time to chat and get to know each other.

  And one negative: Aya’s stomach was now growling with hunger, eating itself from the inside.

  She switched off the radio and its infuriating jingle. “How can a sixty-minute journey take all bloody morning?”

  “Was that a rhetorical question, or do you want me to answer?”

  Aya grunted long and hard as a reply.

  Gwen covered her mouth, but Aya still heard her half-stifled laugh. “I’ll take that as that you want an answer. Well, you had to stop to check on me and pick me up. Then people were driving like tossers on the M6. Then we had to break for petrol and a snack, which turned into a really long chat session with yours truly.” She bumped Aya’s shoulder with her own. “After that, we made good time until we turned onto this road, where we got stuck in traffic due to what the radio said was a grievous accident. Awful, right? Thank goodness no one was badly hurt.”

  Aya closed her eyes for a second. “I know all that. I was there. Do you always talk this much?”

  “No,” Gwen said. “I usually chat a lot more. The only reason I haven’t is because I don’t know you that well. Although I have gotten to know you quite a lot these past hours. Friendly as I am, it’s rare for me to make a such connection in a morning. Especially with some surly, quiet fitness freak.”

  “Hey! What does my fitness have to do with this?”

  Gwen bit her lip around a smile. “That was your only complaint about what I just said?”

  Aya shrugged.

  “Also, you shrug a lot,” Gwen added. “You should use your words instead.”

  “I’m afraid to. You’ve spouted out so many that I’m nervous we might use up the entire bloody language.”

  “Oh! Nice burn,” Gwen replied, laughter in her tone.

  “Shush. We’re moving again. I need to concentrate.”

  And that was what Aya did. She definitely wasn’t smiling inwardly at the other woman’s comments or how Gwen made her laugh. Nor was she marvelling at how easy it was to spend time with this chatty barista with her pretty hands and intense blue eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  Day Trip to Chester

  Gwen considered the city as they drove into it. Chester was beautiful with its Roman walls framing black and white buildings, some mock-Tudor and some really from the Tudor era. She remembered that her cousin Dafydd had told her the mock-Tudor ones were built by the Victorians.

  Missing him, and the rest of her family who still lived in Wales, unexpectedly jabbed her heart. Considering Chester was so near Wales, this was as close to her homeland as she’d been in years. She shook off the unwanted homesickness. “You know, my cousin studies here. At Chester University.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Aya said, reading signs to figure out where she was allowed to drive.

  “Mm. Dafydd told me all about The Rows last time I talked to him. They’re those buildings in the city centre with two floors of picturesque shops in old Tudor houses.”

  “Okay,” Aya replied distractedly.

  “Even the big brands have to change their signs to fit in with the architectural style. It’s like traveling back in time. We have to check that out while we’re here!”

  “Sure. If I can ever find a place to park,” Aya muttered.

  “Hm. What about over there?”

  Aya peered down the side street Gwen indicated. It only had one tiny free space. “No, I’d have to park all crooked.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “So, what if th
e person who owns the Mercedes next to the space comes back and sees my dusty, old Jeep wedged in like that? They’ll think I don’t know how to park.”

  “Does their opinion matter?” Gwen asked it without recrimination, instead sounding like she was truly baffled by the idea.

  “Look, I’ll park where I’m comfortable parking, okay?”

  “Of course.” Gwen peered around a corner. “Hm. I wonder where our Mocha is. Where would you be hiding if you were her?”

  “I doubt she’s hiding. She’s not the type to hide.”

  “That’s certainly true. It would be a shame if she did. She’s a role model with that confidence, sense of style, those people skills, and, of course, her career. Not to mention, you know…”

  “Being easy on the eyes?” Aya said as she turned into a side street.

  “‘Easy on the eyes?!’ More like being an absolute, goddamn delight for every eyeball that ever existed.”

  “Ha! True. Anyway, where am I heading?”

  “I don’t know,” Gwen said, chewing her lower lip. “She mentioned the name of her company one of the first times I met her. I’ve been trying to think of the exact name since yesterday, but all I can remember was that it had the word ‘growth’ in it.”

  Aya grimaced. “Growth?”

  “Yes, as in growing as a person, I assume. Not getting some sort of growth on your body.”

  “I should bleeding well hope not,” Aya muttered.

  Gwen picked up her phone. “I’m going to do a search for ‘growth’ and ‘head office Chester.’ Carry on driving around and keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Sure thing, Sherlock Holmes.”

  Gwen blew a raspberry at her, making Aya grin.

  The search brought up two results. “Okay, we have two possibilities,” Gwen said. “One of them is a marketing company in the centre of town, and the other is a human resources company pretty close to the train station.”

  “All right. Well, we’re circling the town centre right now. Why don’t we start with the marketing company?”

  “Agreed,” Gwen said, putting her phone back in her bag. “Should we wander around it or actually go in and ask for her in reception? No, wait, we can’t do that. We’d have to ask for Mocha and that’s clearly not her given name.”

  “No, it’s Susannah.”

  “What?”

  “Susannah,” Aya said, gaze still on the road.

  “I heard that, you numpty,” Gwen said with an incredulous chuckle. “I was inferring that I wondered how you knew that.”

  “Don’t infer stuff. Just say things straight out.”

  Gwen looked heavenward. “Okay. How the hell do you know her name, and more importantly, why haven’t you told me?”

  “It didn’t come up.”

  Gwen threw her hands out to the side, smacking her window and pretending it didn’t hurt. “Aya, we’ve talked about her on and off all morning!”

  “Yeah. I suppose I forgot that you didn’t know her name. I mean, it’s a pretty basic thing to know about someone, duck.”

  If Aya thought the term of endearment was going to smooth things over, she was seriously wrong. “Don’t sound so smug! I know plenty of other things about her. I’ve served her and talked to her pretty much every morning for months!”

  “But you never asked her name.”

  Gwen wasn’t sure how to counter that. “It, well, it never came up!”

  “Exactly my point,” Aya said with a smirk that revealed a dimple in her smooth cheek. “Names don’t always come up.”

  “What? That’s not the same! That’s… argh, never mind.” Gwen had to laugh. This woman really was something else. “Okay, I give up. We’ll leave it. Where did you learn her name, anyway?”

  Aya turned the jeep around as they were heading away from the city centre.

  “I asked the instructor of the self-defence class. She told me Susannah’s name and said that she was nice, very helpful to the others, and so on.”

  “Okay,” Gwen said shakily. This conversation, and the proximity to the woman of her dreams, was making her uneasy.

  “This is pointless. Could you Google where we can park?” Aya muttered.

  “Of course. Just a sec.” Gwen got her phone out again. “Hm. Apparently we can park in the shopping centre. Turn here.”

  Aya did, and after a moment, they saw signs for the car park.

  “Here we are. Grosvenor Shopping Centre,” Gwen read. “That must be connected to the Grosvenor Hotel. My cousin talked about that, too. Apparently, it’s really posh, gorgeous, and old. I mean, by normal standards. Not old like Chester’s Roman parts.”

  “Cool. You can treat me and all your friends to a stay there when you win the lottery, chatterbox,” Aya said with a cheeky grin.

  They parked, and Gwen’s nervousness ramped up. Soon they would check out the first company where Susannah, she had to get used to that name, might work.

  Gwen felt for her heartbeat. It drummed fast against her palm. They must be so close to Susannah now. What would she do and say if they did find the goddess? She knew that Aya wanted to have a successful —i.e., normal—chat with her and probably ask her out on a date. But what about herself? To be honest, she wondered if she might not be happy just watching Susannah from afar, maybe sometimes serving her coffee and making her laugh. She only wanted that quick buzz, that elusive spark of colour.

  “I haven’t thought this through,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “What was that?” Aya asked.

  “I said that I haven’t thought this through.” Gwen had to improvise. Quickly! “Um, meaning, that if we travel together, we’ll waste time. Better to part and cover more ground. But, how are we going to split up to search for Susannah without me losing my ride home if I can’t find you again?”

  Aya seemed sceptical of this sudden plan. Gwen couldn’t blame her. To distract her, Gwen kept talking. “We should exchange phone numbers. That way we can split up and still find each other when it’s time to drive home.”

  It worked. Aya got her phone out of her jeans pocket and started typing something in. “Okay. I have you down as Gwen the Chatterbox. What’s your number?”

  Gwen arched an eyebrow and deadpanned, “Oh, whoopsie, you must’ve misheard my surname. It’s Gwen Davies.” She reeled off her phone number and watched Aya type it all in before ringing Gwen so her own number would be in the call log.

  “Hello,” Gwen answered the call with fake cheer. “Is this the surly twit who didn’t think Mocha’s real name might be important in this quest of ours?”

  Aya put her phone to her ear. “Oh, hello, chatterbox. I’m so glad to have you on the line. It allows me to do this.” She lowered her phone so Gwen could see her tap the screen’s hang-up icon demonstratively.

  Gwen giggled before getting out of the car. Soon, Aya was next to her, and they were walking to the lifts that would take them into the shopping centre and out into Chester and The Rows. She found herself walking close to Aya, searching for shelter from the storm that brewed in her mind.

  “So,” Gwen said after a moment, “I’m glad I have your phone number. I have to admit, though,” she put her hands in her pockets, trying to hide her embarrassment, “I can be pretty rubbish at replying to texts. And terrible at picking up the phone. Especially when I’m not feeling great.”

  She was going to add that this was quite common with people with mental health issues but noticed that Aya was busy with something on her phone.

  She snapped her fingers for attention. “Hey, can you at least do me the favour of listening to me while I’m admitting my negative traits?”

  Aya faced her. “I was listening. Which is why I did this.” She showed Gwen her phone. The Facebook app was open and displayed a friend request to Gwen. “If you won’t pick up your phone, I’ll have to stalk you on Facebook to find out where the hell you are.”

  Her serious expression slowly melted into a cheeky smile, and Gwen couldn’t stop herself from lau
ghing. What Aya had just done was such a light-hearted and sweet way of dealing with her confession, even if she was being a smart arse.

  She picked up her own phone and accepted the friend request. “There. Friends on Facebook. Now you’re not getting rid of me.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Aya said, the lopsided smirk showing off that deep dimple again.

  Gwen’s heart skipped a beat. There was no doubt about it, Aya was attractive. And sweet. And despite her many irritating traits, she could be really funny and nice to be around. Still, she was no Mocha. Or rather, no Susannah. Gwen watched Aya as she pushed the lift button and stood back to wait. She was stoically silent and looked bored as she played with her ponytail.

  “I like your hair,” Gwen tried.

  “Thanks,” Aya said, not making eye contact.

  “Have you always worn it so long?”

  “Mm.” Aya crossed her arms over her chest.

  Gwen gave up. She wanted to distract herself with small talk, but she knew her prattling could annoy people. Aya didn’t want to talk; she’d respect that.

  Susannah would have chatted with me, though.

  That wasn’t the only difference between the women, of course. Susannah was so much more confident, intellectual, and worldly. Gwen knew from their small talk that she was fascinated by history and culture. She would probably have more in common with Susannah than she did with the sporty, quiet, logical Aya. She was convinced Susannah would understand her mental health issues, her art, and her general way of seeing the world better than Aya did.

  Gwen put her hand above her breast again. Her heart beat softer now, so she moved her hand around to feel it better. For a moment she worried that her soothing gesture looked like she was feeling herself up. It didn’t matter, though. Aya wasn’t watching her. She was too busy on her phone again, checking some game with bright colours and flashing lights.

  The slowest lift in the world finally arrived, and Aya motioned for Gwen to get in first. She did so, trying to convince herself that whatever she wanted to say to Susannah would come to her when they were face to face. If they were face to face. There was always the chance that this was just going to be a day trip to Chester.