Love You Better

by Martin, Natalie K

  ‘Lou not around?’ he asked.

  Effie cleared her throat and opened the fridge to pull out a carton of juice. ‘No. She’s facilitating some kind of event up in Newcastle. She won’t be back till tomorrow.’

  Would she have invited him up here if Lou had been around? The honest answer was probably not. Lou’s flat didn’t have much room for privacy. The last thing she needed was an audience to watch the ‘will they, won’t they?’ drama between them. She filled two glasses and walked the two paces from the kitchen to the living room.

  ‘I hope it’s cold enough.’

  He took the glass and drank a sip. ‘It’s perfect, thanks.’

  She hovered next to the sofa for a second before sitting on the other end, and they drank in silence. Their swallowing seemed to echo its way all around the flat, and she felt every bit as awkward as she had when he’d dropped her off the day she’d got back from Ibiza.

  ‘So what are you up to this evening?’ Smith asked a little too loudly.

  ‘I don’t know. Flat hunting online, probably. I might Skype with Mum too.’

  He put his glass on the table. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Good.’ Effie smiled. ‘Really good. She’s getting ready for her annual trip to India.’

  ‘Lucky her. I’ve always wanted to go there.’

  She looked down into her empty glass before putting it next to his. ‘Do you want some music or something?’

  Before he could reply, she dove into her handbag, looking for her phone, grateful to have something to do other than wonder about what was going on. She wasn’t imagining it – something had changed. She connected her phone to the Bluetooth speakers and looked back at Smith.

  ‘Okay. I’ve got a question for you.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  She sat facing him with her back against the arm of the sofa and put her legs up in front of her. ‘If I were to put your music on shuffle, which three songs would you be most embarrassed about playing?’

  ‘That’s easy.’ He shrugged. ‘None.’

  ‘Bull. We all have guilty pleasures when it comes to music.’ She grinned, feeling much more at ease. As long as they kept talking, there wouldn’t be any awkward silences to be filled. ‘We could just put your music on now and find out?’

  ‘Oh, you’re good.’ He grinned back and crossed his arms, fixing his face with a look of concentration. ‘I’ve got some ABBA on there.’

  Effie stifled a laugh.

  ‘Come on, it’s not fair if you’re going to laugh. Besides, ABBA was pretty cool. What else?’ He frowned and thought for a few minutes. ‘Destiny’s Child, Survivor. And . . . I dunno. Cutting Crew, probably.’

  ‘I don’t know them,’ she replied, putting her glass on the table.

  ‘Sure you do. “I just died in your arms tonight”? It’s an oldie.’

  Effie burst out laughing as the bars of the song came into her head. ‘In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never had you pegged as a power-ballad type.’

  ‘What?’ he said, grabbing the small cushion and resting his hands on it as he pretended to sulk. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it now and again. It’s a guilty pleasure, like you said.’

  She tried to catch her breath, but when she looked at him, she fell back into a fit of giggles. He always seemed to surprise her.

  ‘You’re so mean.’ He laughed and moved towards her on the sofa with the cushion in his hand, and for a split second, his beautiful face morphed until she saw Oliver in front of her, not Smith.

  Effie instinctively turned, curling herself up into a little ball, just as she had that night in the hallway in her house, but instead of Oliver’s foot connecting with her stomach, the cushion Smith was holding whacked against her arm. The sound of her glass clunking against the carpet as the cushion knocked it off the coffee table rang in her ears, and a shot of cold fear ran down her back as she froze. She didn’t move when Smith stopped hitting her with the cushion.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Smith said, but she stayed where she was, not daring to look up. ‘If anyone’s going to start sulking, it should be me.’

  She flinched as his hand touched her back, but it was tender, not angry.

  ‘What’s wrong? You’re shaking like a leaf.’

  The tender care in Smith’s voice made her slowly turn her head.

  ‘Effie?’

  He was crouched on the floor, right by her side, and he kept his hand on her back as she slowly looked back at him. Tears were already streaking down her face. There was no way she could disguise them.

  ‘Jesus. Are you alright? Do you want some water or something?’

  Her heart was thumping in her chest, and her body was trembling with misplaced fear, but she still caught the irony of him echoing the words she’d said earlier.

  ‘I’ll be right back. Don’t move.’

  He crossed the living room in three strides, and Effie put her head in her hands. It wasn’t like she had anywhere to move to anyway. What the hell? Why had she freaked out like that? She hadn’t thought about Oliver for what felt like ages – why had that memory come at her like a sledgehammer? She heard the tap running in the kitchen, and what seemed like less than a second later, Smith was crouching in front of her again.

  ‘Here.’

  Her hands trembled as she drank, and he held the bottom of the glass, just as he had after she’d fainted at work. God, she was ridiculous. How many times was he going to have to take care of her? His eyebrows were strung tightly together as he looked at her, his face full of concern. How could he have triggered a memory like that? She’d never once felt unsafe with Smith.

  ‘Fuck.’ He shook his head and looked at the cushion on the floor. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, I—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Effie replied, holding the glass in her hands. She didn’t want him to talk about it. She wanted to rewind and erase it from history.

  ‘What happened? Look at you, you’re shaking.’

  ‘Nothing. Honestly, I’m fine. I just freaked out.’

  ‘About what?’ He shook his head again and looked back at the cushion.

  Don’t. Please don’t.

  She could see his mind working. She could almost hear the cogs of his thoughts clicking into place, and when he looked back at her, she avoided his eyes.

  ‘You were scared.’ He kept his stare fixed on her. ‘Why?’

  His eyes scorched her skin like laser beams. She couldn’t tell him the truth. It would go from being a manageable situation to a catastrophic one. Smith wasn’t the violent type, but she knew there was no way she could tell him the truth without things escalating.

  ‘Effie.’ His voice was firm, and he took her chin in his hand, turning her head to face him.

  Don’t cry.

  She had to hold the tears in. Her body shook with the sheer effort it took not to let it betray her need to keep quiet.

  ‘Did he . . . ?’ He looked down at the floor, and she saw the muscles in his jaw twitching. He looked back up at her and frowned. ‘Did Oliver . . . ?’

  She shook her head and mentally clenched every muscle in her body to stop the shaking. There was too much at stake. If Smith got involved and things got messy, he’d end up in prison, or worse. There was no way he could go up against Oliver any more than she could.

  ‘No.’ The lie fell from her mouth, and she held her breath.

  ‘Tell me the truth, Effie.’ He sat next to her on the sofa and put an arm around her shoulder. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  His voice faltered under the weight of his question, and the fear that had shaken her quickly ebbed away as she looked at him. His hand was warm and soft on her shoulder, and she could feel the racing of his heart against her arm. It almost matched her own, and she knew then, as she felt the rapid pulsation of his heartbeat, that Penny and Lou had been ri
ght. His reaction said it all.

  ‘Do you love me?’ she asked.

  He frowned and shook his head a little, blindsided by her question. ‘What? Effie, you just shrank into the sofa because I hit you with a cushion. This isn’t the time to—’

  ‘When we were in Ireland, you said you were glad I stopped you from kissing me.’

  ‘I was. Because I didn’t want you to do something you didn’t want to do.’

  ‘So you did want to then?’ She looked him in the eye as he nodded. ‘I need to know how you really feel. Do you love me?’

  His heart raced even quicker. It wasn’t fair on him to switch the subject like that, but she needed to know. He looked back at her for a few seconds, seconds that felt like hours.

  ‘You know I do.’

  His voice was low, quiet and unsure, and Effie’s heart swelled at the four words he’d just said. He loved her. Never in all their time together had he said it, or even anything close. She looked at his beautiful, confused face and took her index finger, tracing it along his eyebrow and cheekbone, down to his lips. Had he stopped breathing too? His pupils were fully dilated, and he was so utterly still. Her finger grazed against his lip, and the cotton of his T-shirt quivered as he sucked in a short breath. She leaned forward, and his eyes flicked down to her mouth.

  Every cell in her body came alive as their lips connected. Her heart fluttered, her skin flushed with heat and desire coursed right down to the depths of her belly. What started as a tentative kiss intensified as he parted her lips with his tongue and put his hands either side of her head, cupping her face. She melted as he pulled her closer, kissing her with complete confidence in a way that had always made her knees weak. Memories raced through her head as he moved his hands to her hair, and her scalp tingled with pleasure as he grabbed a handful of it, holding it in his fist. It was the one thing he would do that was guaranteed to heat things up between them, any time, any place. She remembered the way he’d done it when they’d kissed for the first time at Notting Hill Carnival. He’d pinned her to the wall, her hands roaming across his back as crowds of revellers partied around them.

  She slipped her hands under his T-shirt, eager to do more than just remember. His skin was hot as she ran her palms up the length of his back, feeling the curves of the muscles either side of his spine. Her hands found their way to his chest, rising and falling quicker with every breath he took as he kissed her even harder. He flinched as her fingers trailed down his chest and over his abs, finding the fly on his jeans. He was kissing her so hard, her lips burned, but she didn’t break away as she leaned back on the sofa, pulling him down on top of her by his jeans. She opened her eyes just as he did the same.

  ‘Effie,’ he mumbled between kisses, but her fervent kisses silenced him.

  He was there, kissing her, with his hands scorching her skin as they trailed across her body. He’d said all he’d needed to say and all Effie had needed to hear.

  She was done talking.

  35.

  This is driving me nuts.’ Smith nipped Effie’s earlobe and dropped more kisses into the crook of her neck.

  It had been five days since they’d kissed in Lou’s flat, and as he ran a finger down the length of her spine, she stifled a moan, remembering how it had felt to finally have him after so long. She hadn’t fully realised until then just how much she’d wanted him, and as they’d lain on the floor, naked, with their limbs entwined, she’d fallen asleep with a smile on her face.

  ‘Tell me again why we have to keep this quiet?’ he asked.

  ‘Because it wouldn’t be fair on Lou and Mickey to steal their thunder.’ She looked up at him as he sighed and put a hand on the wall behind her. ‘And we’re supposed to be chaperoning.’

  ‘I’d rather take you home and skip it altogether.’

  She hooked her fingers into the front of his jeans and pulled him closer. ‘It’s only for a few hours.’

  He sighed again and looked down at her. ‘And then we can go public? I can’t handle being around you and not being able to touch you. Not now.’

  He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, and she grinned.

  ‘I promise.’

  The open-air cinema screening was later that evening, and Lou and Mickey would be on their first official date. Or, to be more accurate, their second first date. Lou had spent all of last night pulling clothes from her wardrobe, wailing that she had nothing to wear. Effie had never seen her so panicked, but Lou’s nerves about their double date provided a great distraction, and she hadn’t picked up on the goofy grin Effie had been wearing for days. The only thing that seemed to be keeping her from having a breakdown altogether was knowing that Effie and Smith would be there to act as buffers. It wouldn’t be fair to turn up and announce that they’d finally got together and have Lou and Mickey end up as gooseberries.

  He kissed her again, and she had to stop herself from giving in to what he wanted. Since they’d woken up on Lou’s living room floor, they hadn’t spent more than a few snatched moments together. Mickey was living at Smith’s, and she was living with Lou. Until they got back together, there was nowhere for them to go, and it was killing her just as much as him. He’d covered her body in kisses that went from being heart-stoppingly tender to downright filthy in turns, and when he’d lain on top of her, she’d realised that nobody else would ever have really stood a chance, whether she married the person or not. Nobody else was like Smith, or even close, and she wondered why she’d stayed away from him for so long. Even when things were at their best with Oliver, there was simply no comparison. Nobody else could hold her in a way that was so gentle and fierce all at the same time. She’d had a taste of him after far too long, and she was impatient for more. They only had five minutes of their lunch break left, and neither one of them had so much as mentioned the idea of eating. She grazed his bottom lip with her teeth as they kissed, and he stopped.

  ‘You are . . .’ He shook his head and exhaled loudly.

  Effie smiled up at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Fucking Amazing. With a capital A.’

  It was a surprise her lips hadn’t fallen off with the sheer amount of kissing she’d indulged in. They felt raw, and she was steadily working her way through her tub of lip balm, but it was so worth it.

  ‘I reckon we can spare ten minutes,’ he said, tearing his lips away from hers as they stood on the pavement outside Lou’s flat after work.

  Effie shook her head and laughed. ‘No, we can’t. Lou’s going straight from work, and I promised I’d meet her for a quick drink for some Dutch courage first. You need to take the bike home anyway.’

  ‘Screw the bike. I’ll leave it here, or I just won’t drink tonight.’ He leaned in to kiss her again, but she ducked away, grinning.

  ‘Behave.’

  ‘I would, but you make it so damn hard.’ He crossed his arms and leaned against the bike, grinning back at her. ‘Fine, have it your way.’

  ‘Go take your baby home.’

  He grabbed her and pulled her in for another kiss, unbothered by the people walking past.

  ‘I’ll see you there.’ He pulled on a curl before tucking it behind her ear.

  Effie nodded. ‘With bells on.’

  Her cheeks hurt with the permanent grin that had fixed itself onto her face, and she pulled at them as she walked away from Smith to head upstairs. When she opened the front door, she heard the distinctive roar of his engine as he left to take the bike home, and she looked up at the clock. Thanks to their pavement kissing, she was running late, but she simply smiled. She was certain that tonight would go the way Lou wanted it to, and she couldn’t wait to see her face when she told her about Smith. The night ahead held possibilities, and all of them were good.

  She threw her bag on the sofa and took her shoes off before pulling a pair of jeans and a vest top from her suitcase and laying them out. She grabbed a butterf
ly clip and twisted her hair up, pinning it back from her face as she hurried to the shower. There’d be no time to wash it now – not unless she wanted to leave the house with a full-on Afro.

  Effie hummed as she showered. She felt giddy, almost bordering on hyperactive. When she thought about everything that had happened between Smith and her, and Oliver and her, it seemed impossible that she’d ended up happy at all. But she was. Deliriously so. She was aching for him already, and he’d only just left. She turned the shower off and shook her head, the grin still fixed to her face. She felt like a lovesick teenager.

  In less than twenty minutes, she’d showered, dressed and applied the least amount of makeup she could get away with. Considering they’d be sat outside in the heat, she didn’t want to end up sweating and leaving with half of it down her face. And besides, there was little point in wearing anything beyond eye makeup these days. The constant kissing meant lipstick was definitely out of the question. A quick glance at her watch made her relax a little. She’d made the time up and wouldn’t be more than ten minutes late at most. Considering that Lou was often late herself, she could probably afford to move a bit slower. She smiled as she checked her reflection one last time. She couldn’t move any quicker if she tried. She had way too much energy to burn.

  She pulled the front door to the flat open and stepped out into the hallway, bumping straight into someone coming up the stairs. Her bag dropped from her hands, and the contents scattered across the carpeted floor.

  ‘Oh, god. Sorry,’ she said, closing the door behind her and crouching down to pick up her things. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

  The embarrassed smile slowly fell from her face as she looked at the hand holding her purse out towards her. She looked at the fingernails, pale pink with perfect half crescents by the cuticle, and the long fingers on the end of a strong, male hand. The platinum band across the third finger made her breath catch in her throat. It matched the one she used to wear. Her eyes flicked down to the shiny brogues on his feet and the smart, tailored navy trousers on his legs. He stood up slowly, taking her purse with him.