by Lesley Jones
My heart was hitting my ribs. It was pounding so hard I could feel my pulse in my ears. I was scared of what she would tell me. Just the thought of Ashley crying in the school toilets made me want to break something, or someone. I’d really like to know who, or what, made her cry that day, but at the same time, I was worried what my reaction might be. I’m not a violent person by nature. Bailey and George are the fiery pair of our family, but just the idea of someone hurting or upsetting Ash had me feeling a little bit out of control.
“Luckily, her brother had just come out of prison so she was able to go and live with him,” Jim continued.
“You sent her to live with her brother? What was he banged up for?” My voice sounded too high, giving away my panic.
“Her brother’s Ryan Morrison. You remember him from school, don’t you Marls?”
Fuck!
“The dealer? Her brother’s Ryan Morrison, who we used to get our gear from?”
Jimmie nodded.
“I thought you knew that. I can’t believe you don’t remember Ash from school.”
I couldn’t fucking believe it either.
“So, what about now? She still live with her brother?” My voice was once again rising with panic.
“Na. She lives on her own somewhere now. I’m not sure where, though. Can’t be too far from the shop, as I think she walks to work.”
A thousand and one thoughts rushed through my brain. I needed to find out where she lived. I needed to make sure it was safe. I needed to find out what went on with her family, and I needed to keep her brother the fuck away from her.
“All I’m trying to say here, Marls, is that that girl has been through a lot of shit so please, please don’t mess her around. Did you shag her?”
Fuck this cloak and dagger shit. I was just gonna put it out there. “No, I didn’t, Jim, and ya know what? It was one of the best times I’ve had with a girl in like, forever. I really like her, Jim. I wanna see her again, but she wouldn’t give me a number. She told me to call the shop if I was serious about seeing her again.”
Jimmie had stopped tapping her pen and was just staring at me with her mouth slightly opened.
“Say something, Jim.” My cheeks burned.
I don’t blush, ever. At least, not since yesterday.
“I don’t … Marley, I can’t.”
The door adjoining Len’s office opened and he walked in.
“Little brother Marley, how’s it hanging?” Len asked. He moved to kiss Jimmie on the cheek but stopped, looked at her, then at me.
“What’d ya do?” He asked.
Jimmie and I remained silent.
“Marls? What the fuck have you done?”
“Nothing. He’s done nothing,” Jimmie assured him.
He leaned on her desk beside her, facing me, wearing a frown and a look of concern.
“What’s going on then?” he asked.
“We were just discussing Georgia and Maca, and I was asking how things went with Ashley,” Jim stated, giving me a wink that my brother missed.
“Ah, yeah. How did that all work out in the end? Heard she was still at your place last night, didn’t leave till after midnight.”
Jimmie’s mouth dropped open at Len’s revelation. My mouth dropped open, in fact.
“How the fuck d’ya know that?” I asked.
“I just spoke to Maca. The doorman at your building told him this morning. Maca was checking you were alone before he took G up. Ya know, didn’t wanna catch you in the act.”
Unbelievable. Every fucker now knew my business. “I, uh, yeah, it went good. I-I really like her,” I admitted, sorta.
“D’ya bang her?”
“Lennon,” Jimmie admonished him. I gave Jim a frown and a ‘what the fuck’ face. Didn’t she just ask me the exact same question? In return, I get an affronted glare, meaning, ‘Yeah, but I’m Jimmie. I’m allowed to ask those kinds of questions.’
Len looked between the two of us and started to laugh. “Seriously? You didn’t bang her?” he asked again.
“I never said that. I never said anything, dickwad.” I folded my arms across my chest and shot my brother a death stare.
“Oh my God, you like her. You actually like her.” The fucker threw his head back and laughed. “You actually care about this girl.”
I stood up to leave.
“Ya know what, Len? If you ever actually took the time to get to know me, you’d realise that I care about all the birds I take home. I’m always respectful and I always make it clear that it’ll mean nothing more than a shag to me, so that their feelings don’t get hurt when I don’t remember their name, or that we’ve even met the next time I might bump into them.”
My face was burning and my neck, back, and palms felt sweaty. I don’t know why his comments pissed me off, but they did, big time.
“Marls, he didn’t mean…” Jimmie started to speak, but I shut her down.
“Na, it’s all right, Jim. I’m aware of what you all think. Len’s the brains, Bailey’s the brawn, and then there’s good ol’ Marley, merrily shagging his way through life without a care in the world. Not too sharp, but the girls, they just can’t get enough.” I licked my lips and nodded my head as I looked between the pair of them. “Well, just so we’re clear, I care. I care a lot more than any of you give me credit for.”
I turned and left. They didn’t call out, they didn’t attempt to follow me, and I was glad. I’d no idea why I was struggling to keep my emotions under control today, but right at that moment, I actually felt like I could cry.
Chapter Nineteen
1989
I didn’t want to park right outside my sister’s shop and draw attention to myself. Maca was holed up in the flat above with Georgia, so I parked in a car park up the road and pulled my hat down low as I walked along Brentwood High Street. I was planning on going around the back and through the tradesman’s entrance, but as soon as I turned into the alleyway at the rear of the shops, I could see a couple of photographers lurking.
The press had no hard evidence at that point that Maca and G were back together, but the rumour mill was undoubtedly in full flow.
I ducked between some vans and then through a narrow walkway that led me back to the front of the shops and headed straight through the door of ‘Posh Frocks,’ my mum and sister’s little empire.
Everything about the place screamed high-end, and I felt a surge of pride at what Georgia and my mum had managed to achieve in our little corner of Essex. Their shop would have looked good on 5th Avenue, Knightsbridge, or Rodeo Drive.
The place was all creams and golds. A couple of French looking sofa things sat facing each other with a marble coffee table in between. On that sat a huge vase of cream coloured roses and some other flower—lily’s I think, the type George liked. Above that hung a large crystal chandelier, and against the wall, a huge gold framed mirror rested. It wasn’t hanging, just leaning back against the wall. ‘Cool’ I’d thought and nodded to myself. Again, feeling impressed with what my mum and sister had done with the place.
“Can I help you, sir?” I jumped as a woman of about thirty asked me.
As I looked up to meet her gaze, I spotted Ash over her shoulder. She was standing with another woman in front of a full-length mirror and was helping her try on hats.
Looking at her made both my heart, and my belly, feel weird, but not in a good way. In a way, that made me feel panicky. I didn’t like it.
The girls who worked here were obviously expected to dress in a certain way. Everything about their outfits screamed money and class. Ashley was wearing a pair of navy, wide legged trousers, a silky cream top type of thing, and a pair heels. Her hair was pulled back off her face and as she turned to adjust the hat on the woman’s head. I could see that it was sort of folded in on itself at the back of her head. Her make-up was a bit too heavy for my liking. She looked stunning when she woke up at my place Sunday morning, and she wasn’t wearing any then.
I’d been staring
at Ash for just a few seconds, but was acutely aware of the fact that I’d taken in everything about her.
I was either about to grow a vagina, or I was getting twisted up in knots by the girl. Neither option really appealed to me. I’d never considered myself a control freak, that was Len’s job, but I was hating how out of control of my feelings were around Ashley.
“Sir?” The woman asked me again.
“Oh, yeah. No, no. I’m good, thanks.” I stumbled over my words.
She stared at me with big brown eyes, as if I were a little odd, and then I caught sight of myself in the huge mirror. I was wearing jeans, a pair of high top Chucks, and a Rolling Stones T-shirt, the one with the tongue. Also, a Boston Red Sox cap and a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. I probably wasn’t their usual kind of customer.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, sorry. I mean, I’m just waiting to have a word with Ashley.”
She looked over to where Ash was at the till, ringing up her customer’s purchase.
“I’ll let her know you’re here,” she said and went to step away.
“No, no, that’s fine. I’ll just wait till she’s free.”
I liked watching her. Was that creepy? Oh well, fuck it. Creepy, not creepy. I was still watching her.
“Can I get you anything while you wait, sir? Tea, coffee, water?” The woman interrupted my creepy watching.
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
I looked back to Ash as she closed the sale and said goodbye to her customer. As she held the door open for her, her eyes swung across to look over my face. Her mouth dropped open as recognition hit. Even through all that make-up, I could see first her cheeks, then her chest turn pink. And then she was there, my Ash, with her sexy smile and that sparkle in her eyes, which were definitely blue that day.
She moved from the door and walked towards me. I couldn’t move. My entire blood supply had left my brain and diverted its way down to my dick, causing the signal to move one leg in front of the other and towards the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, to get lost somewhere in my chest cavity and instead, caused my heart to feel like it was pogoing around.
“Rock Star, you came,” she said with a smile on her face.
“Not yet I didn’t, baby, but I think there’s still hope for us.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds, as if that thought turned her on as much as it did me.
“What can I do for you?” she asked before realising the many comebacks her question could present. Se blushed, licked her lips, and again closed her eyes for a second, but this time it was because she was waiting on, possibly dreading the response she would receive.
I think I came in my boxers a little bit and had to actually control the shudder that rocked my body at her words.
“So much, baby. Where should we start?” I couldn’t resist.
She tilted her head, still smiling. “What do you want, Marley?”
“You, Ashley. I want you,” I told her honestly.
“Well, I’m working right now. It’s this thing that poor people have to do so that they have a bed to sleep in at night and don’t starve to death.”
That pissed me off a little bit. Was she implying that what I did wasn’t work?
“Oh, I know what work is. I’ve done plenty of it in my time.”
She studied my face for a few seconds, but because I was still wearing sunglasses, she obviously couldn’t see my eyes. She seemed a little unsure of what to say next, which was most unlike her.
“I didn’t mean … I meant …” She trailed off and looked down at her feet. I felt like an arsehole.
I lifted her chin with two of my fingers and took off my glasses with my free hand. “I came to see if I could take you for lunch today.”
“Me?” Her eyes widened as she asked.
“No, the bird that works in the hairdresser’s next door. Yes, you. Are you free?”
She looked around to where the other woman was unpacking scarves and hanging them up and called out, “Hey Lorna, mind if I take first lunch and go now?”
“Go for it,” Lorna called out without looking up.
“Give me a minute to grab my bag,” Ashley said before dashing off towards a door.
I met Ash for lunch on Tuesday, and Wednesday too. I also took her for dinner each of those nights. Each time she insisted that I pick her up from the shop and that she got a taxi home, alone. I’d had a few theories as to why that was, but I didn’t want to embarrass her by bringing them up.
When I took her out on Wednesday night, she complained of a headache and sore throat, so she left early. I turned up at the shop to meet her for lunch on Thursday anyway, but Lorna told me that she called in sick and left a message for me to say she’d be in touch.
I didn’t think she was blowing me off, at least I’d hoped not. We’d been having a good time. I’d done something I’d never done before—I was dating a girl. Every time I’d tried to convince her to come back to my place, she’d refused, so we’d had dinner and done a lot of talking. Well, I’d done most of the talking, she asked a lot of questions.
She had admitted to having no contact with her parents, but not the reasons why. And she also told me that her brother was a drug addict and was constantly in and out of prison. She told me that she lived with him while she was at college, but he was always stealing from her, so as soon as she was able to get a full-time job, she’d found her own place to stay.
I wasn’t sure what kind of wages my family paid her, but I knew how expensive rent was in the area we grew up in, and if she was living near the shop, she wouldn’t have been leaving herself a lot to live on once she’d paid out rent money.
This worried me. I hated the thought that she might have so little when I had so much, and I was only too happy to share it with her. She didn’t have a car either, and I wanted to change that. I’d known Ash less than a week, but I knew for a fact that if I was to turn up with a car for her one day, she’d probably run me over with it.
I slipped out the back doors of the shop and up the stairs to Georgia’s flat. I’ve not seen Maca since last Saturday night, and had only spoken briefly to either of them on the phone.
I pressed the intercom and stood and waited like a lemon for someone to answer.
It was George. “Yeah?”
“It’s Marls, let me in,” I replied self-consciously into the machine. I hadn’t noticed any photographers outside, but you never knew where those slippery little fuckers could be lurking.
The door opened and I walked along a short corridor. As the front door opened, Maca was standing there, grinning at me. He was shirtless and wearing a pair of jeans that were undone. His hair was a long, ratty mess, and his beard needed a sort out, but it was the happiest I’d seen him looking in years. I couldn’t help but smile back at the wanker.
“Dude.” He pulled me in as I held my hand out to shake his and slapped me on the back.
“How’s it going, bro? You moving in here permanent or what?”
He sat himself down on the sofa, still smiling. “Na. We’ve been out looking for a new place of our own, but haven’t found anything yet.”
“What, you’re leaving me? I’m heartbroken, seriously heartbroken,” I told him.
“Yeah, well, it had to happen one day, mate. I hear you’re gonna be moving Ash in soon anyway.” He winked.
I took off my cap and raked my hand through my hair. “Chance’d be a fine fucking thing right now. I can’t even get her to come back for a coffee,” I admitted. “Where’s George?” I wasn’t sure of how much I should confess to in front of my sister. I know I can tell Jimmie anything, but I’m not sure about Georgia. She and Ashley were pretty close, and I didn’t want her running back with all my secrets, yet.
“She just jumped in the shower. We were still in bed when you buzzed,” Maca explained.
“Yeah, I didn’t really need to know that, dude, like ever.” I shuddered to express my point.
“Get used to it, Marls. The Georgia and Sean show is back on i
n full blown colour.” He was smiling his big, cheesy smile again.
“I’m pleased for you, mate, really pleased, but I don’t need to hear about the sleeping arrangements.”
“You want a drink? Tea, coffee, beer?” he asked as he moved over to the kitchen area. The place wasn’t huge, but because the kitchen, dining, and living area were all one big space, it felt bigger than it was. I followed Maca and sat myself down on a stool at the work top.
“I’ll have a beer if there’s one going.”
He leaned against the kitchen work top, sipping on his beer before asking, “So, Ashley. What’s the go there?”
I took a long swig of my own beer before letting out a long sigh. “I like her, Mac. She’s a great girl. We’ve had lunch every day this week, and dinner every night.”
“So what, you’ve been going back to hers?”
“No, mate. I’ve been going back to mine … Alone.”
His shoulders moved as he gave a little laugh. He studied my face for a few seconds before he worked out that I was serious.
“Seriously? You’ve been … you’ve not?” He just stood there with his bottle raised to his mouth, but neither took a swig, nor said any more, just stared.
“Just lunch and dinner, dude, nothing else,” I admitted.
He finally took a mouthful of his beer and leaned his elbows down on the work top.
“I actually don’t know what to say. I mean…” He shrugs and looks around, then runs his fingers through his hair.
“Well shit, I’m really pleased for ya, mate. Really pleased,” he told me and I knew that he meant every word. One of the reasons I loved that bloke so much was because he was straight up. He didn’t lie or bullshit about anything. He was lost and heartbroken when he was away from my sister, and he didn’t care who knew it. He wore his heart on his sleeve and told the world. Now that they were back together, I was sure he would be shouting it from the rooftops about how in love they were.