by J. M. Newlin
Ben took off his own rig and threw it quickly into the trunk of the car before helping Jamie remove Mike’s rig.
‘3, 2, 1 heave!’ they lifted Mike up onto his good leg and helped him hop to the car, supporting his arms over their shoulders.
The front passenger door was already open and they gingerly put Mike into the passenger seat.
Ben turned around to pick up Mikes rig when he saw the police car pull up in front of him.
Shit.
They’d obviously been called by the bar staff that had watched them as they jumped from the balcony, though they couldn’t have been far away to have reached them so quickly.
The car’s doors opened and two fat coppers stepped out from their respective sides.
‘Stay where you are!’ the one on the driver’s side commanded.
Ben looked at them. Normally he would have run for it, but he wasn’t about to leave Mike. Jamie clearly had the same thoughts as he stood where he was looking at the two policemen advancing towards them.
Ben spoke up.
‘He’s injured, we need to get him to a hospital.’
The coppers reached them and looked down at Mike, lying on the floor holding his injured leg.
The driver stepped away and started talking into the radio, calling for an ambulance.
The other stepped a bit closer.
‘I take it you were the jumpers from the bar?’
There was no use denying it, Ben still had his protective gear on and Mike’s rig was lying on the floor beside the copper.
Ben nodded.
‘Right, we’ll get him to hospital and we’re placing you all under arrest’
Ben sighed. ‘Of course you are’
They’d put Mike in the ambulance with a police officer and sent him off to hospital. Jamie and Ben were put in the back of the police car and their car was impounded.
At the police station they were locked in a cell until morning before being released with a fine and their gear confiscated.
Mike was released from hospital a few weeks later with a plate in his leg. He would heal but that was his last BASE jump.
‘Oi Ben, fucking hurry up!’
Ben was awakened from his daydream by Jeff, the foreman, who was beckoning him over.
Focusing his mind on work and not his ill-fated jump from the city bar, he pushed the wheelbarrow the remaining 50 meters and set it down beside the concrete mixer.
They were pouring the last remaining foundations for the structure and the day had been filled with many back and forth trips from the concrete powder storage and the mixer.
‘Wake up dickhead!’ Jeff smirked, lighting a cigarette and taking a deep draw on it.
‘We’ve still got lots to do, can’t have you faffing about thinking of the last time you saw pussy’
Jeff was the archetypal construction worker. Pushing 40 years old, he had a protruding belly that pushed its way out over his jeans exposing his the lower half that was matted with hair, dirt and sweat.
His forearms were covered in home-made tattoos, a woman’s face here, a ‘poignant’ phrase there, all layered with thick black hair.
Ben bent down and started lifting the concrete powder packs out of the wheelbarrow, stacking them beside Jeff’s feet and the concrete mixer.
‘Me and the lads are going out for drinks tonight’ Jeff said ‘You should come with. You look like you could do with some beers’
‘I dunno, I’m kinda beat’
‘Come on man, a few beers’ Jeff smiled’…..a few girls! What do ya say?’
‘I’ll think about it’ Ben replied as he dumped the last of the sacks on the floor, a cloud of grey powder jumping up from the paper wrap as it hit the concrete floor.
Ben turned on his heel and pushed the barrow back over the wooden walkway towards the diminishing pile of concrete powder.
He wasn’t really in the mood to be going out, especially not for meeting girls.
Truth be told, he’d been thinking about Sarah all day. Ever since the other night he couldn’t get it out of his head – why had she acted all weird when he had got that text?
Did she like him……in a sexual way?
Ben shook his head at the thought. It couldn’t be, she was still absolutely devastated by the death of Alex, surely she wouldn’t be thinking of moving on….especially not with him.
So what was all that weird behavior the night before?
The question bounced around his head as he continued to push barrows of concrete mix across the building site.
He wasn’t even sure why he cared. Sure he found her attractive, in fact she was absolutely gorgeous but he had repressed all sexual feelings towards her, especially after Alex had died. What kind of man lusted after his best friend’s wife? Especially one that had died only a year ago and who had begged him to protect her as he lay dying in his arms.
‘Pull yourself together’ Ben muttered to himself.
‘Talking to yourself again’ Jeff quipped as he walked past. ‘First sign of madness that!’
Jeff lifted up his rolled up cigarette to his lips and took a long, slow draw, sucking the smoke into his mouth before drawing it sharply into his lungs with a quick sip of air.
‘So, you gonna come out tonight or what?’ Jeff blew the smoke out in a long, thin trail towards the sky over Ben’s head.
Ben squinted, thinking over whether he could be bothered to drag himself out for the evening.
Fuck it he thought, could do with taking my mind off this bullshit with Sarah
‘Yeah, fuck it. Why not’ Ben replied.
Jeff grinned, placing his cigarette between his lips and cracking his hands together in glee.
‘Good man! Now back to work!’
Chapter 7 – Troubled Waters
Sarah lay on the sofa, her legs curled up as she lay on her side like a baby sleeping, her hands resting under her head as she watched Gone with the Wind on the television.
After getting out of her bath, she’d slipped into her jogging pants and a hoodie and gone downstairs to slob out in front of the television.
She felt happy for the first time in months. It was as if the weight of a thousand stones had lifted from her shoulders. The guilt was gone and she could move on with her life like Alex would have wanted her to do.
Twirling her hair around her middle finger, she thought about Ben and wondered what he was up to. She hoped he wasn’t BASE jumping tonight, her stomach twisted in a little knot just thinking about it.
She didn’t know how she was going to even broach the subject with him, hell she didn’t even know if he liked her as well.
Just thinking about it made her realize how bizarre her situation was right now. She crinkled her nose as she ran through the scenario in her head. She had fallen in love with the best friend of her dead husband who had sworn to protect her as he cradled her dying husband in his arms.
It’d had been a long time since she’d even dated another man. She and Alex had met just after she had finished college, he was the second man she’d ever been with and she’d never been the one to make moves in either case.
Quite a time to learn how to seduce a man she thought! One wrong move and she could end up pushing away a great friend and a good man. If he didn’t feel the same way he might not ever look at her the same way.
What if he thinks I’m a horrible traitor to Alex’s memory she thought. That was what worried her, the thought that Ben might push her away and lose his respect for her.
She shook her head, she couldn’t worry about that now. She decided that the best course of action was to very subtly make hints to him and to place Ben in a situation where he could make a move on her. That way she had plausible deniability.
Sarah leant forward and picked up her phone from the wooden coffee table in front of the couch. Swiping her finger across the screen she found Ben’s name in her contacts and started writing a message.
It took her 10 minutes of writing and deleting before she f
elt comfortable enough sending it.
Hey Ben, you want to grab a movie this weekend?
Before she wouldn’t have thought twice about such a message, but every little thing that she did now with Ben she felt self-conscious and doubting. She had added a kiss, then two, then deleted them all before adding one more then finally deleting that one as well.
It now felt as if Ben would know that she had feelings for him, and she was terrified that he would see the truth.
She knew how stupid that was, her entire goal was for him to work out that she had feelings for him and to make him comfortable in making a move if he had feelings for her, but she couldn’t help the irrational fear bubbling up in her stomach as she thought about it.
She lay on the sofa and waited for Ben’s response.
Ben was sitting on a bar stool nursing a beer when he felt his pocket vibrate.
Reaching down from his beer, he squeezed his hand into his jeans, his pocket difficult to get into as his position compressed the pocket tightly shut.
He pulled out his phone, the screen already illuminated with the green box of the text message. It was from Sarah, asking him if he was free for a movie this week.
Shit he thought, he was supposed to be getting Sarah out of his head. He’d been feeling guilty enough as he was thinking about her all day.
They got on so well, he felt so comfortable around her but how could he even consider doing anything. If Alex were alive and they were no longer together he still wouldn’t go near her, let alone now when Alex was dead and his dying words were to look after her.
Surely looking after her didn’t mean fucking her!
His thumb hovered over the text box, unsure as to whether he wanted to reply.
Not tonight he thought, placing the phone back into his pocket. He just needed to forget and enjoy his night out.
Ben picked up his beer and slugged back the remaining liquid in the glass, some of it spilling out around the corner of his mouth as he drained the pint.
He lifted his hand and called the bartender over.
‘Another round of beers for us please mate’ he asked.
‘Coming up buddy’ said the bartender, deftly picking up a pint glass in one hand and operating the beer tap with the other.
Ben turned around to start passing the beers to his colleagues behind him. They’d already jumped into the spirit of the night by grabbing the first group of girls that walked past them and were now ham-fistedly flirting with them.
The girls stood there, half amused and half perplexed by the group of rowdy builders attempting to charm them through slurs and spilled drinks.
As Ben passed the beers around, the three girls locked onto him, their eyes widening with excitement.
Ben pretended not to notice as the three girls blatantly stared at him, looking him up and down. He didn’t come out tonight to meet girls, in fact his express desire was to avoid girls. He needed to get any thoughts of sex off his mind.
He finished passing around his round of drinks and turned back to the bar, picking up his pint and starting to drink from it.
He felt someone standing beside him to his right and felt their eyes burn into him. Turning in the middle of sipping his beer, he found himself looking into the blue eyes of one of the girls that had been cornered by his colleagues.
‘I came to cheer you up – you look sad all alone’ she smiled with a cheeky look in her eye.
Clearly the most confident of the three thought Ben. She was the prettiest too. Dressed in a sparky dress with high heels and blonde hair, she could easily be a model of some kind.
‘How old are you?’ Ben asked, hoping his abrasive question would send her scurrying back to her friends.
‘One should never ask a lady that’ she feigned a haughty accent, still smiling.
‘But I’m not a lady’ she laughed, dropping her fake accent for a normal working class voice. ‘So I’m 20’.
Ben didn’t reply. He wasn’t normally this rude but he couldn’t be dealing with this tonight. She seemed sweet enough and in a different time or place he would probably be very interested in this girl, but this wasn’t the right time or place.
‘I’m sorry’ Ben said. ’I’m not really in the right headspace for all this right now’.
‘Don’t worry’ said the girl ‘I’m not trying to hit on you, I just wanted to chat. You seem so sad. What’s wrong?’
‘It’s a long, boring story and I don’t really want to talk about it, I’m sorry.’
‘That’s cool, I’m Kirsty’ she said, extending her hand for a handshake. ‘What’s your name?’
Ben took her hand and shook it ‘Ben’.
‘Nice to meet you Ben, I’m going to get a shot of Jägermeister, let me get you one too’
Ben shook his head. ‘Thanks but no thanks. I’ll just stick with beer’
‘Come on! It’s Friday night! Live it up!’
Ben started to speak again but Kirsty cut him off. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer! Let’s see if we can get a smile on your handsome face!’
‘Fine, you’ve twisted my arm’ he replied grudging.
Kirsty giggled as she ordered two large shots of Jaeger.
‘See, we’re having fun already’ she smiled brightly as she handed Ben the shot glass.
Ben looked at the dark liquid spilling out from over the thick glass onto his hands, what had he got himself into. He raised the shot glass up to his lips.
‘Wait wait wait ‘Kirsty grabbed his arm, holding his forearm down and pushing the glass away from his lips. ‘Not like that, like this’ she said, linking her arm around his so that they were interlinked as they drank.
‘3, 2, 1 go’, Kirsty counted down and they both raised their glasses to their lips, throwing down the Jägermeister as quick as they could. The movement brought Ben’s elbow against Kirsty’s chest where he could feel her heart pounding fast.
‘Wooo!’ she cried, slamming her glass onto the bar, raising her arms above her head in celebration.
She looked at the bartender –’Two more please!’
Ben took a swig of beer to wash out the Jaeger taste, he hated the stuff and now he was going to drink a second one.
He picked up the second one and slugged it back before Kirsty had the time to link her arms in his. He didn’t want to give her the wrong idea and pressing his arm against her breasts was sending his brain in directions he didn’t want to go.
‘Thanks for the shots’ he said, standing up from his stool with his beer. ‘I’d better be going back to my friends’, nodding his head in the direction of his colleagues who were now standing on the other side of the bar.
‘Okay’ said Kirsty, the disappointment clear on her face. ‘Maybe I’ll speak to you a bit later?’
‘Sure’ said Ben as he walked around her and to his colleagues, now finishing their beers and ordering another round from the barman.
‘Ben!!’ the collective drunken cry went up from the group as they greeted his return, thrusting another beer into his free hand.
‘Bloody hell, you trying to get me drunk?’ Ben asked Stuart, his Australian colleague who’d bought the round and had put the beer into his hand.
‘Fucking right you dick licking wanker’ replied Stuart. ‘Get it down ya neck ya cunt’.
Auzzies, Ben thought, can’t get through a single sentence without using the word ‘cunt’!
Ben dutifully downed his remaining pint and started drinking the second one. Christ, the bar was already spinning, he hadn’t drunk this much for some time.
‘So, what happened to that hot girl you were talking to?’ Stuart lightly punched him in the shoulder.
‘Sent her back to her friends’
‘What’d do that for mate? You fucking gay or something, she wants your cock!’
‘Yeah maybe’ Ben shrugged, ‘But I’m not really looking for that right now. I’ve got too much going on’.
‘For what! You don’t have to fucking marry her mate! Just shag
her! I’d take her for a ride if I had the chance!’ said Stuart, eyeing Kirsty up and down as she stood with her back to them, chatting with her two friends.
‘Look at that arse!’ Stuart necked half his pint in one swift motion. He was a good bloke although he could barely make it through a sentence without cursing. Not that it bothered Ben, life in the Army wasn’t exactly all cuddles and flowery talk.
Stuart looked like he’d escaped out of prison – he had tattoos up both of his arms and a skull tattoo etched into the left side of his neck. He used to work in Oil and Gas back in Australia but had left after some ‘problems’. He never said what problems he had, but it didn’t really take a genius to guess, Ben had seen him in a fair few drunken brawls and he could handle himself to say the least.
‘They’re all hot’ Stuart reflected, ‘you can have blondey and I’ll take whichever of the others wants it’. Stuart laughed, finishing off his beer and strolling over to the group before Ben could even say a word.
‘Hello again ladies!’ Stuart boomed as he approached the three girls, wrapping his huge arms around their shoulders.
‘Hiya!’ they replied, happy to see him again – one of the only two attractive men in the group of men that had talked to them earlier.
‘Where’s your friend Ben?’ asked Kirsty.
Stuart turned around and beckoned Ben over. ‘Ben, come on over you little fucker, this one wants to see you’ he shouted, pointing at Kirsty.
‘Yay, come over Ben!’ Kirsty cried, a big smile on her face.
Ben made his way over to where they were standing. Kirsty flung her arms open and around Ben’s neck as he reached the group.
‘There you are! I missed you!’ said Kirsty as he let go of Ben’s neck.
Stuart leaned in to whisper in his ear. ‘Dude, these girls are gagging for cock!’
‘No shit’ replied Ben as Kirsty stood there flirtatiously looking at him as she drank slowly through a straw.
‘Shots!’ cried Stuart as he turned around with one of the other girls under his arm. He’d quickly worked out which of the two other girls was single and then latched onto her. He was a quick mover Stuart.