Hello Stranger

by West, Jade

  His mouth didn’t argue, but his eyes did. His stare didn’t believe me, and I really couldn’t work out why that was – what the hell made him so sure he’d kill my sunny outlook.

  So, I asked him.

  “Why are you so sure you’d make me miserable?”

  Once again, he skipped the topic and took my hand back up. “Let’s just enjoy one day at a time, shall we? The shadows will always be waiting in the shadows.”

  I didn’t argue with him. Granny Weobley had taught me a lesson just as soon as I could understand her words.

  The moment is now, Chloe. It’s always now. Not about reliving the past or dreaming up the future, it’s in the here and now. Enjoy as many of those moments as you can, because they never come twice, my love.

  But still, I wondered what could be waiting in his shadows.

  We arrived at the station and it was bustling with commuters. The seats were all taken when we boarded the train, so we stood at the end of a carriage, pressed up close.

  It was a whole load more tense as we walked through Redwood. I tried to make general conversation and tick boxes on my virtual Dr Hall knowledge chart, but that conversation just wasn’t flowing. I was aching too much for his flesh.

  The carer lady was upstairs in Jackie’s room when we arrived at his place. We said hello, and she gave a goodbye, but Jackie was still sleeping, head lolling onto her shoulder like she’d just run a mile and flaked exhausted at the finish.

  Logan was finishing up work emails on the dining table downstairs when her eyes finally flickered open and fixed on mine. She grabbed my hand in a vice the moment she saw me.

  “Chloe, sweetheart.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m so fucking glad you’re here. Was worried you’d got fed up with us after climbing the damn mountain last weekend.”

  “Hardly,” I said, and leaned in close. “How are you feeling?”

  Her eyes were sparkling much less brightly than the week before. “Shit,” she told me. “I’ve been either retching, wheezing, or sleeping all week.”

  Seeing how weak she looked in bed that night, I fully believed her.

  “Hey,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll be a biking queen, racing around the bends. So glad you’ll be here for it.”

  “So am I,” I told her, wondering if she was really up to it.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but believe me, I’m going to do it. Whatever it takes to get me on that bike. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Good,” I said, “whatever it takes.”

  “Let’s get on with some other shit in the meantime,” she laughed, and pointed to the newspaper on her bedside table.

  I helped her with her crossword while I waited for Logan, and it only took a few minutes of chatter and question solving before I was well and truly caught up in the laughter of Jackie Hall. I wasn’t expecting the conversation to take a deeper turn when it did. My laughing stopped, muted the very second she turned serious.

  “Thank you for making him so happy,” she told me. “Believe me, Chloe, I haven’t seen him anything like this happy in years. I thought I’d take my last breath before I ever saw him smile like that again.”

  I don’t think you can reply with a you’re welcome to that kind of thanks, so I didn’t say anything, just smiled and twiddled my fingers around the crossword pen.

  “You can talk about it, you know,” she told me. “About you and him, I mean. I’ve still got a good pair of ears on me, even if the rest of me is bloody useless.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what to say, really I don’t. I hope I get to make him a load happier. I will try if he lets me, just not so sure he will.”

  “He’d best bloody well had do,” she said.

  She pointed to the last line on her bucket list, and I felt the flush burning me up.

  Get a daughter-in-law.

  “I know my time is running low,” she said, “so I’m sure I’ll never get to see him say his vows with a pretty little thing like you. But to know he’s happy when I say my goodbyes… that would be worth more than a hundred more years of life in me, I promise.”

  I don’t know why the default social politeness kicked in, but it did. A fake smile bloomed, and I started speaking it, the usual waffle that people say to brush the serious stuff away.

  “You might still have ages left yet! You’re so lively!”

  She shook her head. “Oh, poppet. Thanks for trying the nice crap, but that’s bullshit and you know it. I’ve got weeks left at best.”

  My words stuck useless in my throat, but I didn’t need them. She kept on talking.

  “I’m not scared of dying,” she said. “Haven’t been for years. I had years of dark nights, crapping myself I wouldn’t make it through to see Logan grow up. But I did. I made it through. Death doesn’t scare me now.” She gave a middle finger to the sky. “It can get fucked.”

  Her words brought a tear to my eye. I imagined her struggles, just from the bits of her past I’d heard. Cancer. Grief. Pain.

  “I mean it,” she told me. “Plenty of things about life scare me, but death doesn’t do shit to me now.” She patted my hand. “Leaving Logan is what scares me. Leaving him in the darkness with no light at the end of the tunnel. With no one to love him.”

  There was a shiver in my tummy, one of those weird tickles that hints at something unconscious.

  Logan’s ocean was dark and I knew it. Whether I was a happy enough soul to light up the surface of his world, I didn’t have a clue, but his mum did. His mum believed I was happy enough to light up his whole universe, it was beaming out through her smile.

  “I can see perfectly well the way he looks at you,” she told me. “If I was around a bit longer I’d damn well stand a chance of ticking off that last box on my wall. You’d make a great daughter-in-law too, sweetheart. I just know it.”

  I was still tickly in my belly when Logan joined us upstairs, sitting himself down next to me.

  He loosened his tie. “Emails sent, working week done,” he said, and leant back in his chair.

  His mum chuckled. “Can’t say I ever remember you leaving the work week behind. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  Yet somehow, this time, I knew she’d see it.

  “You’d better get rested up,” he told her with a smirk. “Can’t have you snoozing on the back of the bike tomorrow and missing the bend.”

  She was laughing as he changed over her oxygen mask for the night.

  “I won’t be snoozing on the back of that thing, Logan. I’ll be more bloody awake than you are.”

  32

  Logan

  Life was shifting around me. Lost to all recognition.

  I woke with that beautiful girl at my side, her freckled face resting on her arm, deep in slumber. For the first time in memory, I settled back down under the covers, pressing up tight to the creature who was stirring my heart. She snuggled up tight right back, loving even in unconsciousness, wrapping her limbs around me like a limpet as I held her.

  I could’ve stayed there for an eternity, the world waking through the windows, but no. We had one hell of a day ahead of us.

  Her eyes flickered as she woke, a smile on her face as she stretched.

  “Was I snoring?”

  I laughed. “No. You were quiet in your snoozing.”

  She giggled back at me, resting her head against my chest. “Hopefully I wasn’t drooling either.”

  “You were, but I mopped it up.”

  Her eyes shot wide. “You didn’t? I wasn’t?”

  I laughed at her shocked face. “No, Chloe, I’m just kidding.”

  She slapped my chest and then she kissed me.

  My body was still alive with hers, the night a blur of skin and flesh and closeness. I couldn’t get enough of her, and her want was equally as demanding as mine.

  Her pussy had been a beautiful haven, her mouth a hungry seeker. Her hair a cascade against the pillow, rippling as I’d claimed her.

  “Th
ank you for another brilliant night,” she said, her mind clearly caught up in the same memories.

  “Once again, the thanks are reciprocated,” I told her, sliding my fingers up her spine.

  I was ready to start over again, but she was up in a jolt, eyes wide awake as she propped herself up on her elbow.

  “It’s motorbike day!” she said, and did a little boogie under the covers. “Can’t wait to see your Mum’s face!”

  It was incredible, just how excited the girl was for my mother’s pleasure – a woman she barely knew. She’d virtually skipped up her parents’ front lawn when we’d made the trip to get her things for her weekend stay after dinner last night, dancing in the passenger seat as we’d headed back to mine.

  She was extraordinary, and addictive.

  So addictive that I’d been out every night on the bike. Turns out I was still good at it – just like riding a bike, you never forget. I was taking that bend three or four times a night, imagining Mum whooping on the back. I was grinning like a loon every time, all to myself.

  Yes, my regular practicalities were flying out the window, one step at a time. I barely recognised myself as we prepared Mum for her bike ride, settling her on the back of the bike with her oxygen tight around her waist, literally bound to me with multiple bungee cords to keep her held steady.

  It was plainly ridiculous. Unsafe in every perceivable way, but still, her insistence and her laughter kept me moving. The thrill in her cackle was too strong to ignore.

  As was Chloe’s. Ridiculous or not, this was happening.

  My little jitterbug was a gemstone at the side of us, staring on at the bike like it was a mine of gold, eyes glittering as brightly as if it was her going for the ride and not my mother. She was a flurry with the pictures, capturing every movement and every second as we prepared to leave, finally stepping up in front of us to take one last picture of us together, Mum with her thumbs up as I fired up the motorbike.

  “AMAZING!” Chloe squealed. “You look AMAZING! WAIT! Wait while I set to record.”

  I waited until she was ready to film us pulling away and I couldn’t remember a time I’d done anything so wild, and so meaningful, both rolled into one. My pulse was alive, energy pounding deep and, with a thumbs-up from Chloe and a “Yee-ha!” from Mum, I set off from my driveway, a man on a mission, determined to give my mum the experience a bucket list deserves.

  Mum squeezed as tightly as she could as we left our street, body pressed up to mine, noticeably tiny and frail, even through the leather jackets and the cords binding us together. Our helmets would have stopped our speech even if the wind hadn’t, but that mattered not. Speech had no place here, I could feel her excitement in the air, all around us, lighting up my heart along with hers.

  I only wished Chloe could have been on the bike with us. I’d have loved to have felt her thrill at the ride along with my mum’s.

  The country roads were winding, views intense. The bike zoomed up the crest of our nearest hillside, engine screaming loud. I was at one with the machine beneath me, soaking up every turn like I’d never let it go.

  I knew the bend in the road we were heading to so well now after practising every night – a long straight road between Redwood and Harrow, sloping downhill only to veer in a sharp curve at the bottom. The fields were plains on either side, huge oaks sprawling in the distance, and Mum loved it there. She’d commented on just how amazing it would be to sail around that bend on the back of a motorcycle, without fail, every single time we’d driven past there.

  Now was her time to test out her theory.

  The hill peaked under the tyres, and the road fell away. The land was a blanket underneath us, chequered with greens, and the road opened up, beckoning our acceleration with open arms.

  I should never have done it – cranked our speed up to gone 100 mph – but I couldn’t stop. If I’d have believed in a soul, I’d have believed mine was sailing as high as a kite, enjoying the moments nearly as much as my whooping mother. My chest was fluttering, and my senses roared free, and I took it. I took that bend at a speed that should never have been.

  The tyres gripped the tarmac, and the motorcycle growled, and we swept around that bend, the bike tilting so perfectly, my dear mum yelling and screeching every second of the way.

  Fuck yes. I was grinning like a fool. My recklessness had been worth it.

  We were nearly done with the bend when I registered Mum freeing her arms from my waist. I daren’t look, but my intuition said it all. My mother’s hands were in the fucking air.

  I’d have called her crazy if I hadn’t already been in the crazy category myself, heart racing as I glanced in the rearview mirrors to find Mum’s hands pointing up the sky.

  Yes, she was batshit crazy on a batshit crazy morning and so was I.

  I was smiling just as brightly as her when I pulled up in a lane, making sure to check her out for wellness before we went any further.

  Her fingers fumbled in a flash, raising her visor enough to speak.

  “YESSS! Fucking hell, yes!!!”

  She grabbed my shoulders and crushed me in her arms as hard as she could manage.

  “FUCK. Thank you, Logan. Thanks for being such a fucking star. You’re a star, Logan Hall! A fucking star!”

  Oh, how my heart melted for her. But I couldn’t hold back from the truth. My words came out easily.

  “It’s Chloe you have to thank for being a star,” I said.

  “Yes, she is,” she replied. “So don’t you dare let her go, boy. Don’t you fucking dare.”

  I twisted in my seat, and we sat there, visors raised as we smiled, and it was one of those moments you know is burying itself in your memories for all time. That shared connection between me and the woman who’d created me. The woman whose fragility didn’t ever hold her back. Whose fire was still alive in the ashes.

  Unfortunately, that fire was fading, day by day.

  As my eyes held hers, both of us fixed in that moment, I felt the little boy in me crying. Breaking at the knowledge that the woman who’d always been my light in the dark would be leaving me soon. It meant shit that I was a man now, strong in a world of cold hard rationale – my mum was dying in front of me, slowly, one precious day at a time.

  My smile was tinged with pain, breaths choking up with hers as she nodded.

  “I’ll be dying happy, Logan. So fucking happy.”

  Jesus Christ, I didn’t want her to go.

  I couldn’t speak, because my words would break in my throat. She didn’t push me, just rested her helmet against mine and held me tighter.

  “I’m so glad I’m leaving you with a smile on your face, boy. So damn glad.”

  I forced down the pain with a nod. “Stay as long as you can, Mum.”

  She was exhausted as I rode us back home at a steady pace, arms weak as she held me. Her head was lolling against my shoulder as I pulled up on the driveway, barely stirring as Chloe shot out of the front door, beaming bright, camera already positioned for another shot.

  Mum managed a thumbs-up as we helped her from the bike. She gave Chloe a thanks for being such a star with shallow breaths as we helped her upstairs and changed her back into her bed clothes.

  We watched her sleep awhile, Chloe’s hand in mine, both of us gazing at Mum’s happy face as she sank into dreams.

  “Your mum really is amazing,” Chloe told me, and I nodded.

  “Yes, she is.”

  She looked up at me. “Figures, since she produced such an amazing son.”

  “I do love your compliments,” I laughed. “You’re an amazing creature yourself, Chloe.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and even now her shyness showed, cheeks flushing pink.

  I loved her like that.

  Still, figures, as the girl would have said.

  I loved her like her.

  33

  Chloe

  I couldn’t get enough.

  By the time we left his mum sleeping my body was thrumming. It was abo
ut more than the darkness in his eyes, or the strength of his hands, or the way his mouth consumed mine so completely.

  It was about him, as him. As Logan Hall.

  It was about the passion in his smile, catching himself unawares at just how happy he was.

  It was seeing the joy between him and his mum, both of them flying high as they pulled away from the drive that morning.

  It was from feeling the want in his arms. In his touch. In his breaths.

  It was from knowing this was the very best of how I could possibly feel for another human being. Because it was. There was no way my soul could be dancing through the clouds higher than it was that night.

  We went for coffee downstairs, but we didn’t make it to the kitchen. We were pressed up tight in the hallway, my back against the wall as he slammed his body into mine.

  My kiss was ready, his was rough and deep.

  I loved it like that.

  That’s I guess what led to that first tickle of knowing. That sneaky little dance inside that wanted more.

  I wanted rough and deep. I wanted to lose myself to his touch. And he felt it. Holy fuck, he felt it.

  He was ferocious as he tore me from the wall and marched me through to the living room. His hands were fierce as he ripped my t-shirt from my chest and yanked my bra down from my tits.

  He pushed me down into the armchair and dropped on top and I was his, lost to everything on earth but the way he wanted to use me.

  My nipples were hard, chest heaving. His mouth was brutal, nipping at my skin as he tugged my jeans off and spread my thighs.

  I was wet but tight as he pushed three fingers in at once, yelping like a dirty little girl as his thumb brushed my clit.

  “More please,” I whispered. “Please.”

  I don’t know exactly what I was asking for more of, but he gave it. He knew my body better than I did.

  “Are you ready to be a dirty girl for me, Chloe?”

  It set me on fire to hear his voice so filthy. I was nodding like a fool as his dark eyes glinted up at mine.