Hello Stranger

by West, Jade

  I knew I was blushing beetroot, and she laughed at that as well.

  She paused, and her eyes sparkled. “Let’s get you a bit more clued up on Logan Hall, then, shall we?”

  26

  Logan

  I couldn’t think about emails. I couldn’t think about anything other than the girl upstairs. I managed to drag my attention back hard enough to my laptop screen that I got the emails fired off, but I was desperate for her, being so close but so far.

  It was a while before I climbed the stairs to pull the sparrow from the clutches of my nosey mother, but clearly that didn’t matter. Those clutches were welcome.

  I’d known that would be the case.

  I could hear their laughter from out on the landing – mother’s amazing screech of a cackle seemed more energetic than ever, and Chloe’s sweet little giggle along to match.

  It was a beautiful thing, hearing them together. It was enough to slam me right through my gut, that lurch of such genuine affection inside.

  Mum wasn’t wrong, and I knew it. I was besotted with the girl in a way I hadn’t even contemplated since Evelyn all those years ago. I barely mentioned her name anymore, not even to myself, but I couldn’t avoid it with Chloe here, in my home. The similarities of how I felt about her were undeniable. I craved her with every part of me.

  Hearing her with my mother was a beautiful thing, but not nearly so beautiful as when I put my head around the bedroom door and saw them there, laughing together – sweet Chloe and my mum, both of them lost in each other and the humour in each other’s words.

  Mum was sitting up high in her bed, leaning towards the delightful ball of energy at her side as she giggled. Chloe was leaning right back at her, looking divine in her dress from the night before.

  Her eyes were jewels when they turned to face me, that shimmer of laughter still bright on her face. But then her eyes deepened, and held mine, and it was different. Unspoken knowing, and a whole load of emotions that went along with that knowing. I knew then that Mum had been speaking to her along particular topics.

  Now wasn’t the time to engage it.

  “Are you ready to let Chloe go for the day, yet?” I asked, and Mum held her hands up.

  “I’ll keep Chloe here as long as you’ll let me. She’s a superstar.” She shot Chloe another smile. “Was great to spend time with you, sweetheart.”

  “Was great to spend time with you too,” she said and got to her feet, some of Mum’s folded clothes in her hands.

  I put my hand on Chloe’s shoulder as she stepped out onto the landing, and this time I didn’t leave it. She was blustering out some words about how great my mum was again as she walked away, but I didn’t let her finish. I spun her towards me and pulled her close, and my mouth was waiting, hungry for hers.

  Fuck, she wasn’t expecting it. She dropped the clothes, tensed and then relaxed, breathing out a whole world of relief in my kiss. She murmured that perfect little moan as her tongue met mine, and she was hungry right back, arms reaching up to wrap around my neck. I pushed her backwards towards my bedroom, huge steps over the threshold, and the bed was waiting, messily unmade from the night before. We fell down onto the mattress, desperate and wild. Her kiss was delicious. Her touch was divine, and she was grinding up at me, straining for more.

  I tore her out of that dress again in seconds. She was naked underneath, smelling of body wash and shampoo. My kisses moved from her mouth down her neck, and kept on going, and this time she wasn’t jittery and self-conscious, not like the night before. Her thighs were spread wide, and her hands were urging me down, hips pressing up at me as my tongue lapped its way between her pussy lips.

  “Yes…” she whispered. “Please, yes… I need it…”

  So did I. I needed it more than I could even begin to say.

  I needed her pussy in my mouth. I needed to squirm at her clit until she was a squirming little wreck to match. I needed her to take my fingers until they made her pant and beg and hiss that she was going to come for me.

  I needed her to lose herself until her heart was pounding in her ears, breath hitching as she struggled not to burst, and then to feel lost to it. Lost to everything but my body and hers.

  She delivered it all.

  Her bucks were lost to rhythm, her whimpers were out of control. Her hands were strong on the back of my head, holding tight. Her pussy was a beautiful vice around my fingers as she drenched me with that gorgeous little stream of her as it dribbled from her slit.

  She came hard.

  Deep.

  My fingers claimed her, my tongue made her bite back a squeal, and she came for me.

  My heart was pounding in my ears, my breaths fierce along with hers.

  She didn’t waste a second once she’d finished. She wasted no time in tearing my t-shirt over my head with feral grasps. I dropped my pants, and she was ready, wriggling down the bed to wrap her pretty little mouth around my cock.

  I couldn’t stop the thrusts. I couldn’t stop craving the gurgles and the splutters and the moans as she gave me her mouth.

  I dropped her onto her back, and her eyes were wide on mine as I knelt over her, dominant and desperate.

  She wanted me to take her, I could see it in her eyes. Eyes desperate for more.

  It was enough to make me primitive as I thrust my cock into her open mouth. I cursed under my breath as I fucked her face, staring down at her watering eyes as she strained to take me, and it only made me take her harder. Deeper. Choking her with thrusts that stretched her throat.

  Beautiful.

  She was absolutely fucking beautiful.

  I pulled my dick free before I came, working my cock with my fingers.

  “Tell me you want my cum,” I said, and she nodded.

  “Please, please come in my mouth. Please…” she opened wide.

  My cock was pulsing, balls tensing hard, and I needed this. I needed her.

  My first spurt streaked her face, the second streaked her tongue, and then she sucked me. She sucked me as I spurted, a needy little kitten mewling for the cream.

  I held her cheeks as she swallowed, and her breaths were as ragged as mine as she opened wide to show me she’d drunk me down.

  “Good girl,” I said, and she liked that. Sweet little Chloe liked to be a good girl in the bedroom as well as on the ward.

  I was still breathing heavily as I dropped onto the mattress and pulled her close. She was still breathing heavily right back as she snaked her arm around my waist and rested her cheek on my chest.

  I held her tight, and we collected ourselves together. Flesh to flesh. Wrapped up in limbs and needs and wants, and so much still unsaid.

  She was the one to open the door to the unspoken and set the wheels in motion.

  “Your mum told me a lot about you,” she said.

  27

  Logan

  My mum always starts with the happy parts. She tells the stories of how I obsessed with medical books as soon as I was able to read them, or how I’d wanted to be a doctor since I was old enough to understand what a doctor really was. She calls it vocation. Life purpose. Fate.

  It was none of those things.

  It was being a tiny child in hospital relying on doctors to save my life. Relying on doctors to give me the strength I needed when I was scared and small and trying to manage the pain and fear of Childhood Leukaemia. It still gives me shivers thinking about it now. The nights when Mum had fallen asleep exhausted beside me and I was still awake, my young mind churning with what-ifs you should never have to contemplate at five years old.

  What if I die? Will it hurt? Will an angel come for me?

  Tossing and turning and watching Mum sleep.

  What will Mummy do if I leave her? How sad will she be? How much will she cry then, when I’m in heaven? Who will hug me like she does when I’m not alive anymore?

  She tried to be strong for me, and did excellently, but it was an arduous task. I’d catch her crying when she thought I was sleeping. I
’d stare at her trying to hold back her sobs when she saw me in pain. I saw the fear in her eyes, mirroring mine, even though she held me tight and told me everything would be ok.

  She told me over and over and over again that I’d get better, and most of the time I believed her, or I tried. Other times I felt like I was an unlucky boy who wouldn’t ever get to live the life most little boys did. I wouldn’t get years ahead of Santa Claus, or sports games, or friends’ birthday parties with cake and games in the backyard. I wouldn’t get to meet animals at the safari park, or go on holidays to the beach and build sandcastles.

  As it turns out, I did. Mum was right and I was lucky, but even at that age, I knew others wouldn’t be.

  My mother likes to tell everyone how brave I was. How well I dealt with the treatment – the chemotherapy and the pain and the fear, and how I was such a strong little soul, always such a strong little soul. Still, you can see it in their eyes, when they register the sadness of the condition I went through. The sympathy, the sorrow, that poor Logan face.

  That look that only grows sadder when she gets out the pictures of me as a tiny little body with no hair, holding on to her as tight as I could.

  People think my alopecia might cause me some kind of self-consciousness problems and they avoid ever mentioning it. It’s almost funny to see their expressions as they first register the patches on my scalp and pretend they haven’t noticed. They couldn’t be more wrong.

  I addressed any worries I had about losing my hair long ago. I still remember it falling out around me in bed at night, and trying to put it back on my head in the morning before anyone noticed. I remember looking in the mirror and seeing my sad eyes underneath my rapidly balding scalp and hoping it would grow back one day.

  It was hard.

  The whole experience of the treatment, and the hospital stays, and the pain was intense. Petrifying.

  It took over eight hundred days until I was given the all clear. I still remember that rush of utter relief when they told me it was done. No more drips, no more consultations, no more days wandering around hospital wards with other kids trying to smile like me.

  I knew other people wouldn’t be so lucky – that’s why I gave my attention to them. That’s why I wanted to be the doctor who took people in their lowest moments, when there was no hope left, and made the end of their life as easy as possible for both them and their families.

  It’s never easy, not even close, but I try my damn hardest.

  I will never forget my mother’s fear in her lowest moments, etched so deep onto her face that I could read it in the lines, even though she never stopped smiling on the surface.

  I will never forget my fear in return when she was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was twelve years old, and then bowel cancer when I was barely out of university.

  I was pretty damn convinced I would lose her through the years. My experiences of things coming good weren’t all that many to ease the pessimism. We lost my grandparents early. My grandfather had lung cancer, and it was slow. Really slow. Saying goodbye to him was so damn hard.

  I was only nine years old.

  I saw Mum’s pain at that too.

  My grandmother fell down in the street one day when out with some friends – a heart attack she never woke up from.

  I was ten.

  I’ve seen grief. I’ve seen the devastation of those left behind. I’ve seen people wailing, rocking on the floor when they realise the person they love most in the world has gone.

  I never wanted to put anyone through that when I said my final goodbye to the world. It was a decision I made early on, and was resolute on, even after college when there was a whole host of gorgeous young women seeking their true love for a lifetime.

  No. I focused on the ones who just wanted a fuck for the night instead.

  That changed when I met Evelyn.

  She was a vet. Probably still is.

  She spent her time helping animals – she’d say it was her vocation, or destiny or whatever. Mum had this cute little Jack Russell terrier at the time with some fucked up stomach problems – probably ate some festering piece of crap from under the hedge in the park or something, who knows. Anyway, Scamp he was called. We took him to Evelyn for an emergency appointment.

  We walked into the consultation room and she knocked me sideways. She was auburn, this cherry red that shimmered under the lights in there. She had this cute little nose and this sweet smile, and a way she pitted her eyebrows when she concentrated. But it wasn’t just that. She had so much compassion in her eyes when she sorted out Scamp’s meds that I couldn’t forget it, it blew me away.

  I tried. I really did. I tried to forget I’d ever gone to that place and wipe her from my mind forever. But no. As it turns out, Evelyn came into the local hospital with her uncle a few weeks later, assigned to the ward I was working on.

  The rest, as they say, is history.

  We were happy. She was ever the eternal optimist against my eternal realism, but that worked for us. We had virtually nothing in common, but again, that worked for us. We were two strange jigsaw pieces that fit together like a dream, and I pushed it aside – that utter determination not to let anyone get close enough to hurt at my loss.

  Then I was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. Again, the rest, as they say, is history.

  I pushed her away, she left me, whatever. It wasn’t pretty.

  Last I heard, she got married to some lecturer guy up in Lancashire and they have a couple of kids and a springer spaniel. I’m happy for them. Genuinely.

  When I’d lain there in bed, with Chloe in my arms that Saturday afternoon, I knew she’d heard all this from my mother. Condensed, and interspersed with great memories of me graduating as a doctor, and sweet little snapshots of me being a bookworm, or once winning a football trophy, or the first time I went hiking up Ben Nevis. Whatever.

  Mum always told people the shitty times as well. She’d say it made me who I am. Brave and strong, and wanting to help people. I appreciated her kind words, but in truth it made me a realist who doesn’t do closeness anymore. I just help people deal with losing theirs.

  “I saw some pictures,” Chloe said, and she held me tighter.

  “Mum has a habit of that.” I sighed, and held her tighter back. “Please don’t let it influence you. It was a long time ago.”

  She looked up at me. “How would it influence me?”

  I met her eyes, and I knew my stare would be heavy. “Because I’m not leukaemia, or kidney loss, or grief, or losing my hair. I’m a doctor living his life, who happens to like the gym, and walking up hills, and reading too many books for any regular person, and who works far too many hours to be sane.”

  She smiled at me, that big grin on her face that made her so unique. “I didn’t know you liked the gym and climbing hills. Not until your mum said.”

  And that’s when she had me.

  It was her absolute focus on the positives, genuinely. That absolute love and joy in her face when she focused on my Ben Nevis climb and not my chemotherapy, and it wasn’t a gloss over it, don’t make him sad by talking about his bodily failures and the shit that goes along with them – it was the plain truth in her seeing me as the same man she dashed across Harrow for on a Friday night.

  I relaxed.

  She relaxed.

  We lay together and breathed, and I wondered where the hell this was going, for both of us.

  But it didn’t matter.

  I didn’t care.

  Not in that moment.

  All that mattered to me was having her there in my arms.

  She was the one who broke the silence with another bout of positive thinking.

  “I saw your mum’s bucket list,” she said. “I heard about Wellington, the elephant. That’s super cool you got to touch him.”

  I smiled back at her. “Mum loved it. Yes, it was pretty cool.”

  She laughed. “Super cool?”

  I couldn’t stop myself laughing to match. “Ye
s, Chloe. Super cool.”

  She rolled onto her front and rested her chin on her hands. “You know what else would be super cool?”

  “Please tell me.”

  Her eyes lit up like glitter on sunbeams.

  “Doing the others. The other things on her list.”

  I brushed some stray hair from her forehead. “We’ve barely had time to plan them. They would take some organising. Some of them might not even be possible.”

  The little sparrow shrugged at me, “Won’t know until we try.” And she laughed again, and that’s when I knew it for certain.

  I was in love with her.

  I was in love with everything about her, even the things I didn’t know.

  28

  Chloe

  If I didn’t know I was in love with him before spending some time with his mum, I sure as hell knew it after.

  He was right.

  He wasn’t leukaemia or chemotherapy or one kidney or missing hair.

  He was him.

  He was Logan.

  I was in love with Logan Hall.

  His warmth at my side was more warmth than I’d ever known. The way he looked at me was nothing I’d ever felt from Liam – not even when he said I was the love of his life. And it wasn’t just him I was addicted to. Not anymore. I loved Jackie, too – even though I’d only just met her.

  “Honestly,” I said, “there’s no time like the present. My gran always used to say to me, if you want anything done, my girl, you get up and do it now.”

  Logan laughed. “You want to climb a mountain right here and now, do you? Push a wheelchair up a hillside and get Mum singing hallelujah at the top?”

  He wasn’t expecting it at all when I stared back at him, cool as a cucumber. “Why not?”

  I kept my smile as my words registered, and he was thinking. I could see him thinking.

  “Seriously, Chloe, there is no way we’ll get a wheelchair up a mountain. Not without hiring one for crazy terrain, and working on training to get her up there.”