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by Alam, Donna


  The sound of her laughter fills the car.

  * * *

  ‘Here we are.’

  The car slows to a stop outside the house indicated by the navigation system. I turn off the engine but don’t move my hands from the wheel. Despite her protestations, I know where this is going. Where I’m going.

  Inside the house. Inside her.

  I’m pretty sure she realises this, too. But it wouldn’t do to make it obvious, not because her nature is contrary. Rather she’s easily scared by the direction of things. It’s like fear drives her to the point she can’t trust her own instincts.

  I wonder if she realises this.

  ‘I’d invite you in for a coffee, but I think those kids hanging out in the park we just passed would probably have the wheels off your car before the kettle even begins to sing.’

  ‘I heard come in for a coffee. Stay the night because I won’t be able to get home.’

  ‘You have a driver.’ Her retort is playful rather than tart. ‘And one of those fancy black credit cards, I noticed in the restaurant. I expect cabs accept those.’

  ‘Well, it sounds like I’m coming in for a coffee, then.’ With the assertion, I grasp the handle of the door.

  ‘But only a coffee.’

  ‘What happens if I want tea?’ I turn back to her with a sly grin.

  ‘I’m about to rescind the invitation,’ she mutters as she turns to the passenger door herself.

  The metal gate creaks as I push it wide, then follow Miranda along the overgrown garden path. It’s not exactly St Johns Wood or Notting Hill, but it’s hardly some dystopian enclave of London. Even if the whole of the house smells of wet dog, according to her. A rouse, more than likely.

  I enjoy the sway of her backside as she climbs the stone steps, and I don’t hide that I’ve done so as she turns to face me. Our heads are practically at the same height. And though the nights are getting colder as autumn draws ever closer, I’m not sure the air is responsible for her shiver.

  ‘Was I coming in for a coffee, or did you change your mind?’ Again.

  Did that sound like I’m trying too hard? Pushing my luck? Hopefully not.

  ‘I’m not supposed to have people in. I mean over,’ she quickly amends.

  ‘You’re such a diligent employee.’ She leans into my touch as I push a lock of hair from her face. ‘But you could be a rebel. Break your rules. Just for me.’

  ‘I’m not normally much of a rule breaker.’

  ‘Yes, you’re such a good girl.’

  In the shade of a porch that’s little more than an overhang, I lean forward, her eyes in the streetlight a drop of black ink in a whisky glass. I trail the backs of my fingers along her jaw before I take hold of her chin and brush a glancing kiss against her tempting lips. I pull back a fraction before dipping my head again, these light kisses just a warmup before the main event. Light and soft turning to dark and hard, and as I kiss her a little deeper, she moans so sweetly, her fingers rising to clasp my lapels as we make out like a couple of lust-addled teenagers.

  ‘So kissing on the doorstep is allowed.’ Is it my kisses or my sultry taunt that makes her tremble?

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she rasps, tilting her head to the side as my lips travel along the column of her neck. In a sudden motion, she tugs me closer, perhaps hoping the darkness of the porch will shield us from view. The houses in this street are more suburban than city. The kind of place with nosy neighbours and kids hanging about on street corners. ‘But you’re not exactly in.’

  At this, I pull back, my gaze intent on hers.

  ‘Peel aside a layer or two, and I could be.’

  The way she looks at me, it’s as though I’m a guilty pleasure. Like the most indulgent chocolate morsel she’s just waiting for the right time to inhale.

  One can but hope that’s the case.

  ‘I didn’t say thank you for earlier. For standing up for me.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Mainly because he’s not worth it. I know what you want to do with the ring, but the truth is, as trite as it sounds, the best revenge is living well. It’s taking the love you poured into another and keeping it for yourself. To love yourself. Then someday, when you’re ready and when you least expect it, you’ll find someone you’ll entrust your love to. And he will love you in ways you’ve yet to imagine.’

  Her hand lifts between us, alabaster in the moonlight. ‘You have the soul of a poet,’ she whispers, cupping my cheek.

  ‘I know. Unfortunately, he wants it back.’

  ‘And you have a voice that should do audio books,’ she adds, ignoring my ridiculousness.

  ‘Really raunchy ones. Full of fucks.’ From ridiculousness to hard fricatives, her eyes widen, and my cock twitches. ‘But only for you.’

  Her answer is in the motion of her feeding her hand into her purse, pulling out a key before proceeding to fumble with the lock. Is she nervous? I wonder as metal slides against metal for the second time. Maybe I can help, cover her hand with mine. Or maybe I should take my lips from her neck, or my hands from her hips, or my cock from the crevasse of her delectable arse.

  A moment later, the metal connects, and the mechanism clicks.

  She steps into the darkened hallway, and I follow. I’d probably follow her anywhere. From there, the momentum of the moment takes over, whisking us through a door and up some stairs.

  ‘Dog?’ I murmur against her kiss swollen lips. It’s not that I care particularly, but I don’t want to find my leg in his mouth.

  ‘In his crate. Already fed.’

  ‘You lied to me,’ I growl playfully. ‘Maybe I should punish you.’

  ‘Do your worst.’ Her smile is pressed to my lips as we kiss, and we kiss, as we traverse a short landing. My shoulders bang off other bedroom doors as Miranda presses me there, fighting to strip me from my jacket. We change positions at the next door, clothes cast off like items blown from a washing line. Once in her designated room, my hands unclip her bra, the silhouette of her high breasts otherworldly, bathed in moonlight. I reach for the light, suddenly needing to see her in her entirety. To bask in her beauty and record each of her sighs for posterity, for the pleasure of playing them over and over again. Before light floods the room, her hand covers mine.

  ‘Leave it off,’ she whispers, but I twist it immediately, my hand on her wrist like a cuff.

  ‘The freedom of the dark exchanged for captivity?’ It isn’t a question I want an answer to as I press my mouth to hers and my finger to the light switch. ‘I want to love you in the light tonight.’

  The rest of our clothes fall, and we tumble to the bed, though I twist at the last minute to cushion her fall. Above me, her fingers are hot points of contact searing the skin of my chest, her gaze dark and complicit and searing my heart, branding her name over it.

  We roll, and she’s underneath me, my tongue tracing the underside of her breast, her heart a wild creature beneath her ribs and my hands. I work my way down her body, a graze, a lick, my lips pressed over our child, the tight spiral of our pleasure making our skins fit to burst.

  ‘I can’t wait to see you swollen with him.’ Her breath hits the air in a gravelly chuckle. ‘Does that sound wrong? Because that’s the truth of how I feel.’

  ‘Barefoot in the kitchen.’

  ‘No, bare and on your knees.’

  And just like magic she is, her slender fingers curled around the wooden headboard, her anticipation a shiver dancing down her spine. I gather the locks of her hair to one side, her body bowing as my cock nudges her eagerly.

  ‘You’re wearing nothing, bathed in the light. Guess what I’m wearing?’ I tighten my fist in those luscious locks, making it hard for her to turn.

  ‘Your socks?’

  ‘Just a smile, my darling.’

  Love. It’s such a head fuck, I think as I line myself up at her entrance. Yet as my hand curls around her hip, and she pushes back, accepting my body into hers, the confusion, hers and mine, our timing, the baby, our diff
erences in life. It all falls way because she and I make perfectly chaotic sense.

  26

  James

  Miranda’s parents’ house is a mid-century detached off Somerset Road in leafy suburban Wimbledon. I’ve barely pulled onto the driveway when she comes skipping out in a pair of painted on jeans and a white shirt knotted at the waist. Yanking open the passenger door, she almost throws herself into the seat.

  ‘Drive!’ she demands all flushed complexion and wide-eyed grin.

  ‘Is someone chasing you?’ I slide my hand along the back of her seat as I slide the Vanquish into reverse.

  ‘Not me, you. I’ve just told Mum I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Does your father own a shotgun?’ I ask mildly, manoeuvring the car onto the quiet street.

  ‘No, but my mum was brandishing a big brush. Anyway, it’d take more than a shotgun to persuade me to get married.’

  That’s a thread that doesn’t really need unpicking. It can’t be easy living in a house where the principal inhabitants seem to exist in a game of perpetual one-upmanship, just biding their time until they can go their separate ways.

  ‘I would’ve come with you, you know.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To tell your parents.’

  ‘Not on your life—no way. Mum would eat you alive. In fact, I left her ranting about the fecklessness of men when you pulled into the driveway.’

  ‘No doubt reinforced by the fact that you told her alone.’

  ‘James, I’m a big girl. I’m not your responsibility.’

  I clench my jaw against the reply I’d like to make. Whether she likes it or not, she’s at the top of my list of responsibilities and priorities. It’s only a matter of time before I bring her around to my manner of thinking. She and I? We’re not so very different at all. Small steps. And as my father would caution, In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity. While I’m sure he’d like to claim these words as his own, they are, in fact, the words of Sun-Tzu.

  ‘Besides, one look at her and you’d have headed for the hills. You know what they say about women turning into the mothers.’

  Despite her flippant delivery, I find there’s hope in her words. A mention of a future that almost included the implications of a mother-in-law. Almost.

  Have I turned into such a sap that I get a kick out of something said with such inconsequence? And if I have, do I give a fuck?

  ‘I’m sure it would’ve come as a shock to her.’

  ‘I think it came as a shock to us all,’ she mutters quietly. ‘Apparently, I’m throwing away my life.’

  I turn to look at her, and for the first time, I notice the tension around her eyes.

  ‘She’ll come around,’ I say, reaching out and taking her hand in mine. I don’t think I imagine the gloss in her eyes as I graze my lips across her knuckles. ‘It’s just a matter of time.’ I stop short of making a comment about women and babies, especially given my own excitement at the thoughts of holding my own child.

  ‘Yeah.’ The word is exhaled on a sigh. ‘That’s what I’m telling myself. Anyway, I imagine she’ll tell Dad, and who knows, this might even bring them together a little.’

  ‘The thought of being grandparents, you mean?’

  ‘No. Unite them in their disappointment. Temporarily.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine. And I’ll be even better when I move out. It’s getting to the point I can’t take the atmosphere anymore. What’s that saying? Something about marriage being the most advanced form of warfare?’

  ‘Surely, not all marriages are bad.’

  She shrugs stiffly. ‘I can only comment on the ones around me. And my parents have perfected the art of warfare.’

  ‘You must know more couples than your parents?’

  ‘I don’t have many marriage aged friends if that’s what you’re asking. Except one girl on my uni course who I’m barely even Facebook friends with anymore.

  Meanwhile, my contemporaries are navigating the choppy waters of parenthood second or third time around, second mortgages, divorces, and loomin midlife crises. All with the exception of my closest friends, Beckett and Griffin, though the former has recently joined the married ranks.

  The feathering nests has a certain appeal and I have high hopes of cementing the connection between us.

  In the midst of chaos is opportunity indeed.

  ‘You must know more couples than that. Families and so on.’

  Well, my dad’s parents seemed to live to annoy one another until Granny died, and my mother’s father died when I was young, so I don’t really remember what kind of marriage they had. Heather’s parents seem to get along, but then they have seven children and four of them still living at home. I imagine no one would want custody if they split up. Can you imagine?’ she adds, unconsciously rubbing her hand above the waistband of her jeans.

  ‘You’re saying they stay together because no one would want custody?’

  ‘Not really. Heather’s folks are as nutty as a fruit loaf but there’s no doubting they’re besotted. In fact, Heth would complain there’s too much evidence, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Seven children. They must be special people.’ I’ll leave the implications of their sex life there. But they must fuck like bunnies with those odds.

  ‘What about Olivia and Beckett?’ From the corner of my gaze, I watch her expression turn thoughtful. ‘They certainly like one another enough to get married twice.’

  ‘Oh, you know about their party?’

  ‘Beckett might’ve mentioned it.’ That’s about as effusive as the man gets. ‘I’m expecting my invitation any day.’

  ‘I might even deliver it personally.’

  ‘I do appreciate a personal service.’

  ‘Only you could make that sound sexual.’

  ‘What can I say? It’s a gift I was endowed with.’

  ‘You can’t help yourself, can you?’

  ‘Around you? Where would be the incentive?’

  ‘I bet Beckett doesn’t tease Olivia like this.’

  ‘No amount of provoking will bring me to consider what Beckett does or doesn’t do in the privacy of his own home.’ Some things are best left in the dark, especially where that man and his machinations are concerned.

  ‘It’s pretty romantic, isn’t it? That they would get married in secret and then be so happy they want to make a day just for their friends and family.’

  ‘Yes, it is quite romantic.’ And very un-Beckett like. ‘Do they strike you as desperately in love?’ I never thought he had love for anything but money, though I’d be more than happy to be corrected.

  Should I feel bad for prying? No, I decide. I’m just looking out for my friend.

  ‘Well, they argue plenty, but it never seems serious. In fact, Ols seems to get a perverse kind of pleasure out of it. And honestly, I think they only argue so much because they like making up. In fact, they like making up a lot.’ The latter she adds with a heavy emphasis.

  But something I could get behind. Get on top of. Let her ride it out on top of me. I’ve become ex obsessed where Miranda’s concerned. I could blame the scent of her floral perfume in such close confines this morning, or the way the sun makes her hair shimmer in a rainbow of blonde. Or the pale underside of her wrists where I long to press my thumbs.

  ‘This is something I really don’t need to hear.’

  ‘Me either, believe me. But the noise from her office just carries, and there are only so many times you can escape to the bakery.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ I mutter, slowing for a corner.

  The car fills with her peal of laughter.

  ‘Hypocrite much?’ I turn to her narrow-eyed smile as she twists in her seat to face me. Her shirt is open at the neck, a tiny gold pendant on a chain dipping out of sight beneath the fabric. I want to trace my tongue there. ‘They aren’t the only ones to get a little frisky on that desk. Do you know where you’re going, by the way?’

  ‘
To Crouch End? Give me some credit.’

  ‘I’ve got two apartments to see, but they’re both close together. You’re sure you don’t mind coming with me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ And just like that, we aren’t talking about relationships anymore, but the practicalities of housing. And I have some thoughts on this, though I’m unwilling to share these right now.

  The Saturday morning traffic isn’t too bad, providing you know where you’re going, and it isn’t long before we’re pulling onto a perfectly nice suburban street in Crouch End. There’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say. Narrow red brick terrace houses stand on both sides of the road like very proper sentinels, both sidesof the street filled with the kinds of cars that would indicate this is a street filled with families. Minivans, sedans, the odd car with L plates.

  ‘Wimbledon to Hoxton must be a terrible commute,’ I mutter, pulling in to an available parking spot on the street.

  ‘It’s not fun. But when I took the job, I wasn’t living at home.’

  ‘Ah.’ I think I’ll leave that line of questioning. She must’ve been living with her ex.

  ‘And it’s not like I’m travelling in from there every day, not while pet-sitting.’

  ‘But you’re giving that up soon.’ I don’t pose this as a question. Surely, this has to be inevitable.

  ‘Yeah. That’s the plan.’

  ‘You know, Miranda, I want to help—’

  ‘Number thirty-seven.’ She dips her head, peering under the overhanging leaves of a nearby tree, searching for the house, and act of avoidance. I take her cue.

  ‘Parking isn’t optimal.’

  Miranda makes a noncommittal noise in answer.

  The houses have no gardens to speak of, though each has a wrought iron fence and a garden gate to protect a small patch of greenery. No gardens and no place for a child to play, not that it matters because this is just a temporary measure, even if she’s unaware.

  As I follow the numbers on the odd side of the street and the brightly coloured doors, I spot the number she’s looking for. I should be happy, but I’m not. She’s going to be so disappointed that we’ve come to look at a shithole.

 

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