Brian
I’m hanging out with Clive and Eugene at Playback while Jane spends the evening with her daughter. These forced separations irk me more than I give on, even to myself. Jane’s place is here, with me, or mine there, with her. I don’t want to drink and joke with my buddies alone. I want my woman by my side. I want to have fun with her as much as I want to play the serious games of fucking and getting to know her. The real Jane. The one she revealed to me in the bright lights of her car. The one she shows me when I tie her up in bed.
“What’s crawled up your ass?” Eugene asks. “You’ve been brooding and nursing that beer for the last hour.”
“Keep the last Saturday of the month free.”
“Where are we partying?” Clive asks.
“We’re moving.”
Clive squints at me. “We?”
“We. Us.”
“We’re moving?” Eugene props his elbow on the counter. “How many we’s are there in your us? Because I see only one, and that’s you.”
“We’re helping someone move.”
Clive puts down his beer. “Where the fuck to?”
“Leeuwfontein.”
“Ah.” Eugene laughs. “It’s for your friend, the uptown chic.”
“What uptown chic?”
“My dad says he got the place for her like a man does for a mistress.”
“Fuck your dad, Eugene. No disrespect intended.”
“What uptown chic?” Clive repeats.
“Are you in or not?”
“Yeah, hell.” Eugene laughs again. “I want to see this with my own eyes.”
“Cut it out or you can mingle with the losers back there in the corner.”
“Chill, man.” Eugene lifts his palms. “I was just saying.”
“No more saying. Are you in, Clive? Yes or no? I need to know if I must ask Mike.”
“Yes,” he bites out. “I’m in.”
I down the last of my beer. “Thank you. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Fuck you, Brian. I’m getting tired of you sneaking behind our backs.” With that, he sneaks off himself, disappearing into the crowd.
Eugene regards me with guarded eyes. “I don’t know what you’re brewing, bro, but my dad says you’re into this bird.”
“What I am is none of your dad’s business.”
“I’m just saying, because Lindy, you know.”
“No need to rub it in. I’m already knee-deep, thanks.”
He looks over to where Lindy’s blonde hair stands out in the crowd. “Monkey is no one to be messed with.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing. Lindy will come around when she sees I’m not into her. They always do.” She’s ignoring me tonight. That’s always a good sign.
“If you say so.”
Fishing my phone from my pocket, I send Jane a text.
Wish you were here. With me.
She sends back a kiss and a heart with, I miss you, too.
I’m done drinking for the night. I’m about to go back to brooding when my phone pings with another message. Expecting it to be Jane, I’m more than a little surprised to see Lindy’s face on my screen. She’s sent me a pouty-lip selfie. Closing it, I swivel on my barstool, being the bastard who shows her his back I didn’t want to be.
It takes all my self-control not to drive to Jane’s house and climb through her window while her daughter sleeps in the room next door. I’m suffering from a pussy hangover that’s way beyond obsession. There’s only one woman for me, and she can’t be here. And the one who is, has the power to destroy the only thing I want more than life.
Jane
The funfair comes to town once a year. We never miss it. This year, I bring Jordan with to keep Abby’s mind off the fact that her father isn’t with us. Abby misses Francois, and it’s making her sad. Jordan is Loretta’s daughter and Abby’s best friend. Loretta and I gave birth one month apart. The girls grew up together. They’ve been inseparable since kindergarten.
I watch them scream on all the rides from the rollercoaster to the drop tower. By the time there’s nothing they haven’t done, we get cotton candy and make our way toward the exit.
Abby stops me with a hand on my arm. “Look!” She points at the fortuneteller’s tent. “Can we go?”
“Cool,” Jordan says. “I’ve never been.”
My legs are killing me after spending hours in queues, and it’s getting dark. I check my watch. I promised Loretta I’d have Jordan back before dinner.
“Please, Mom,” Abby insists. “I want to know what’s going to happen in my future.”
“It’s just a show,” I say.
Abby is not to be deterred. “It’ll be fun.”
“All right, but after that we have to go. If we’re late, your mom won’t let you come with us next time, Jordan.”
The girls squeal and jump up and down like toddlers while I go back to the ticket booth to buy another two entries. Unlike with the rides, there is no queue outside the tent. I move the flap aside for the girls to enter and follow. A middle-aged woman sits by a table. The decoration is cliché from the velvet drapes to the crystal ball, and so is the woman’s embroidered headband and gypsy-style dress. She looks up from reading something on her smartphone.
“Sit,” she tells me.
“It’s not for me. It’s the girls who’d like a séance.”
Her gaze doesn’t move from mine. “Eighteen and older.”
Abby and Jordan’s shoulders slump. She may as well put on a show for them. What difference will it make?
“There’s no sign about age,” I say.
“It’s your fortune or nothing.”
I turn to the girls with an apology on my lips, but Abby grabs my hand. “You do it, Mom.”
“Why don’t we grab a drink before we go instead?”
“You may as well go for it,” Abby says. “We’re here, anyway, plus you’ve already paid.”
“Sit,” the woman says again, already spreading a deck of cards out on the table.
I suppose I could play along for the sake of the girls. I take the chair while Abby and Jordan peer over my shoulders.
The woman spaces the semi-circle of cards. “Pick four.”
When I’ve complied, she turns the cards face-up and places them in a square. I’m expecting some hocus pocus forecasts about my wonderful health and wealth, but not the words she utters.
“Unlucky in love.”
I blink at her. “Excuse me?”
She pins me with an unsettling stare. “You’re unlucky in love.”
The words jar me, because they’re not entirely untrue, but she can’t know that. Not from four cards. She could’ve deduced that from my bare fingers. No rings mean no fiancé or husband. I settle back in the chair, a bit more at ease with the knowledge.
“Death,” she says melancholically, tracing the design of the first card. “Your great love died.”
My heart goes still. My breathing stops. Thank God Abby can’t see my face. She doesn’t know about that part of my past, and I have no idea how this stranger could’ve guessed.
“Deceit,” the woman continues, pointing at the second card. “The one you replaced him with cheated on you.”
Everything inside me goes cold. I want to tell her to stop, but I don’t want to make a scene in front of the girls.
The fortuneteller taps the third card. “Soulmates. You met your soulmate.”
I stare at the card. It depicts a devil with a spiked fork.
Her brow furrows. “He’s a dark one. Powerful where it matters–in spirit. Everything on the outside reflects the inside. He’s very tall, yes? Very beautiful. Very young in years, but his soul is old. Very unlucky in love indeed.”
My unease grows.
She flicks a nail on the fourth card. “Heartache.”
“What?”
“You’ve suffered death, deceit, and the pinnacle of love.
The worst is yet to come. Betrayal.” She meets my eyes. “The betrayal of a lover.”
The air in the tent is suddenly suffocating. I need to get out. Pushing back the chair, I jump to my feet. “Thank you for the session.”
“The devil wears many disguises. His favorite is the one of lover, because it’s so effective.”
Grabbing Abby and Jordan’s hands, I pull them to the exit.
“Be careful who you trust,” she calls after me.
I’m not listening any longer. I’m dragging in the dusty night air, moving toward the reassuring reality of fairground music and bright lights.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
I force a smile. “Of course. See? I told you. It’s just a show.”
The woman spooked me, that’s all. I’ve been stupid. I’ve been silly to let her get to me. It’s a bogus story. She doesn’t know a thing about me. Evan may have died, and Francois cheated on me, but there’s no way in hell Brian is a devil in a lover’s disguise set on betraying me. I almost laugh out loud at that thought. We’re set on our path, Brian and I. He’s my secret, and I trust him. It’s not going to change. Yet, as I make my way to the exit, the woman’s warning keeps on turning in my head.
The worst is yet to come.
Afterword
Dear Reader,
Thank you very much for joining me on Jane and Brian’s journey. If you enjoyed the story, please consider leaving a short review (just a line or two will do) on your favorite review or vendor site to help other readers discover the book. Every review makes a huge difference!
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Can’t wait for the conclusion of the story in Young Enough (Book 2, The Age Between Us)? Read the first chapter in the Sneak Preview that follows after this section.
I look forward to staying in touch. You’ll find my newsletter signup and social media links in About the Author at the end. :-)
Hugs,
Charmaine
Sneak Preview of Young Enough
Book 2, The Age Between Us
Coming on 28 August 2018
Pre-Order Young Enough
Chapter One
Jane
Life is never just good or just bad. Mostly, it’s a mix. My life is many kinds of wrongs, but it also has rights. A short while ago, my husband left me for his pregnant mistress. I lost my home in the process. I lost my stability and direction. I thought I’d lost everything, until a stranger broke into my property and ended up in my bed. He’s not like any man I’ve met. When it comes to passion, he demands nothing less than the most extreme and forbidden corners of my fantasies. He gives light and awakens darkness. He gives darkness, and my light can’t exist without it. It’s the most explosive sex of my life, the most depraved and serenely beautiful acts I’ve committed.
Brian is everything I’ve ever wanted, the closest to happy I’ve been since my first love, Evan, died, which is why I’m ignoring that Brian is half my age. What we share is taboo. Which is why we’re each other’s secret. You could say I’m unlucky in love, like a fortuneteller recently told me when she gave a hair-raisingly accurate account of my life, but Brian makes me feel alive. He makes me feel desired. I’ve mourned a love I lost to death. I’ve been left for another woman. But right now, I’m being coveted by a beautiful, sexually skilled man. I’m too weak to walk away from an affair that has no future. I want him too much. I need to breathe him like air and drown in him like water. I trust him with the darker side of my lust like I trust him with my body, because he earned it. He proved to me he’s worthy of both, so I continue with my perfect, imperfect life, playing our game of secret love affair.
While Abby is with Francois, Brian and I spend the weekend together. We have sex as often as we can, anywhere we can. We’re both shameless, but there is no shame in honest lust. The days we work together make up for the nights we can’t sleep next to each other. Sometimes, we sneak off during our lunch break to make love in his truck at the dead-end road in Midrand with our clothes on, or naked, lying amongst the grass that grows taller as summer advances. We’re careful. We don’t slip away together too frequently or raise suspicion with our behavior.
Toby likes Brian’s Bakers idea, and Bakers likes it even more. By the end of the month, we’re running their collectable card campaign. It’s a major hit. Sales fly. They have to increase production for Christmas, resulting in an unexpected bonus for Brian and myself.
Abby is caught up in her studies for the year-end exams. The move from the only house I’ve considered my home, soon to become home to my ex-husband’s mistress, doesn’t come at the best time, right before the grade eight finals, but if we want to secure the cottage Brian found for me, we don’t have a choice. If I weren’t so worn-out from the last sprint before the end of the year at the office, I would’ve said tough luck and looked for something else after Abby finished her exams, but places like those don’t become available every day. I’m not happy that Abby doesn’t like the cottage, but as my good friend, Dorothy, said, she’ll come around.
We arranged for Abby to be with Francois on the weekend I move. Brian assured me he’d take care of the furniture. I can count on him for something other than sex, and it warms my heart.
I’m offloading kitchen appliances at the cottage when his truck pulls up. A guy jumps from the passenger side and another from the back. Walking toward them with a greeting on my lips, I stop in my tracks. They’re Brian’s buddies from the pool.
“This is Jane Logan.” Brian points at the slender one. “This is Eugene Prinsloo.” He slaps the chubby one on the shoulder. “And this is Clive Claassen.”
They both stare at me as if my clothes are on fire.
I’m the first to recover. “I think we got off on the wrong foot the first-time round. Shall we start over?”
Eugene gives me a lukewarm handshake. “Uh, nice to meet you?”
Clive keeps his arms at his sides. “Hi.”
“I appreciate your help. I hope Brian didn’t bully you into it.”
Clive snorts.
“No worries, Ms. Logan,” Eugene says.
“Jane, please.”
It takes us the whole morning and three truckloads to move Abby’s belongings and mine. Brian transfers the security equipment from the house to the cottage while I put the smaller pieces of furniture in place. With the big furniture arranged, Brian connects the dishwasher and washing machine, and test both to make sure they work. There’s no space for a tumble dryer, but we have enough sun–even in winter–and a line outside to dry our clothes.
I’m knackered by the time we’re done, but eager to tackle the boxes. I want to have everything unpacked before I fetch Abby on Sunday. A tidy environment will go a long way in easing the change.
Thanks to Brian’s thoughtfulness, we have a cold six-pack to swallow my picnic food down with. I offer to pay Brian’s friends, but he refuses profusely on their behalf. He returns after dropping them off to help me unpack.
“I really appreciate your help.” I hug him from behind, placing a kiss on his broad back.
“You didn’t think I’d let you go through this alone, did you?” He turns to face me, his arms coming around me.
The hug is soft, but it’s not tender. It’s possessive and demanding.
One touch is all it takes. I gasp, burying my face in his chest.
“I want you, Jane.” His tone turns desperate. “What are you doing to me? I want you all the fucking time.”
“Then take me.”
“That’s the plan. On my terms.”
My insides flutter in anticipation and with that pinch of wild fear his promises always evoke. “I can handle you, Brian Michaels. Take what you want.”
His eyes darken. His whole body hardens against mine, every muscle drawing tight.
Lifting me, he carries me to the unmade bed and throws me on the mattress. Before my squeal has escaped, he’s already covering my lips with his, swallowing my sounds
as his hand moves between our bodies.
Brian
It’s becoming harder to leave Jane. I’m torn in two, wanting to spend the first night in her new place with her, but I can’t ask Clive to sleep over at my place after he’s sacrificed his day to help with Jane’s move. Finally, my responsibility wins over my desire. The result is a lingering ache in the hollow of my chest as I walk away from my woman at sunset with a bittersweet goodbye kiss.
After a hot day of strenuous work and fucking Jane twice, I need a shower. I head straight for the bathroom when I get home, but as I pass Sam’s room, I stop. She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at her toes. With a soft knock, I enter.
“Hey, piglet. What’s up?”
She wiggles her toes on the worn thread of the carpet–I need to replace it sooner than later–but doesn’t look at me. “Don’t call me that.”
“What?” I ask, baffled. “Piglet?”
She crosses her arms. “I’m not a pig.”
Whoa. I’ve been calling her piglet since I can remember. It’s because she loved Whinny the Poo so much.
I cross the floor and sit down next to her. “It’s my way of expressing affection.”
“It implies I’m fat.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
She turns her head to the side.
“Look at me, Sam.”
Only her eyes turn toward me.
“Is it because I put you on a diet?” The last thing I want is to damage her self-esteem.
“It’s the other girls,” she admits meekly. “They say I’m fat.”
My blood starts to heat. “The girls in your class?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you listen to them? You know better than to let someone whose opinion shouldn’t matter upset you.”
Old Enough Page 27