‘Hey, drooling girl, wake up,’ he laughed, gently shaking my shoulder.
‘Huh?’ I moaned, slowly opening my eyes and wiping my mouth. How unsexy of me, I’d dribbled all down my chin. I quickly pulled a tissue out of my denim shorts, licked it, and pulled the sun visor down to wipe the offending marks off my face as TJ clicked a button to put his roof back up. ‘Please don’t tell me I snored as well?’
‘No, just the odd contented sigh now and then. You must have been tired.’
‘I am, I’ve been overdoing it for the last few years with working, events, and appearances. I’m exhausted and in desperate need of a holiday,’ I confirmed. I let him help me out of the car, and saw we’d pulled up in the entrance to a field with a stile next to it and a public footpath sign. ‘Where are we?’
‘It’s a short walk along here to the most amazing lake surrounded by trees. It’s a great spot for a picnic.’
‘I’m glad you told me to dress casually,’ I smiled, quickly crouching down to tie the laces of my Converses, which I’d left undone in my rush to get out on time this morning.
I’d put on a long-sleeved t-shirt and rolled up the sleeves. It was turning into a gorgeous day. TJ grabbed the picnic basket while I draped the blanket over my arm, and we headed up the path hand in hand as he filled me in on his day in the exciting world of estate agency. I started grilling him about the best neighbourhoods for me to buy in. Poppie had just set her date to get married, so she’d be moving on soon, and it wasn’t like I didn’t have enough money to buy my own house, here and abroad if I wanted to. Alec had been good, letting us redecorate to suit us, but I was nearly thirty, I ought to think about putting down roots of my own.
TJ was right about the picnic spot. It was so secluded that I had a feeling I was only one of many women he’d brought here to impress. The silence, other than the chirping of the odd bird and a distant moo of a cow, was a stark contrast to London. It reminded me of my parents’ house. I missed them and weirdly, lately I’d found myself starting to miss the peace and quiet of the countryside. I decided it must be an age thing. We ate and I had one glass of wine, which was still pretty much my limit. Poppie found it hilarious that when we went to a swanky club and bottles of champagne were sent over for us, I stuck to water. I found my mind drifting to her wedding arrangements. Someone had cancelled their wedding date in Shrewsbury Abbey, so Poppie had snatched the opportunity to take it with both hands, meaning we didn’t have much time at all to get organised. I’d therefore hired her the best wedding planner in London as one of her presents, as we needed all the help we could get to pull this off.
Her parents owned a large detached house in Shrewsbury, so they’d decided to have a marquee in the substantial grounds. I was taking her to ModOne next week, where I’d arranged for one of the hottest wedding dress designers out there right now to measure her and make her the dress she really wanted. She had no idea, she thought we were going shopping for off-the-rack dresses and I couldn’t wait to see her face when I surprised her. If I was never going to get married, I was going to make damn sure my best friend had the wedding of her dreams.
‘Owwww,’ I moaned, when I was suddenly shoved onto my back on the blanket and TJ’s teeth clashed with mine as he lunged at my mouth.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled between kisses. ‘I couldn’t wait. I want you so badly, Paige.’
‘We’re outside,’ I reminded him, trying to catch his rhythm and cringing as his tongue slathered all over my chin and top lip. Given my lack of partners, I hadn’t exactly been all that adventurous. Getting arrested for public fornication in the country wasn’t on my list of to-do items.
‘So, I came prepared,’ he replied as he continued to lick my face in a style not dissimilar to the giant rollers in a car wash, before he brandished a condom triumphantly. I silently cursed. If this was the extent of his kissing prowess, it didn’t inspire confidence in his abilities in the sack. I wasn’t sure I was willing to risk taking it any further. I’d end up in a neck brace again, or worse.
‘Stop, stop,’ I cried, when he decided to ramp up his idea of sexiness by sucking on my chin so hard it was actually quite painful.
‘Aren’t you enjoying that?’ he asked, breaking away and looking at me puzzled.
‘As a matter of fact, no. You’re telling me other women did?’
‘My ex loved it,’ he muttered, looking like a petulant child. ‘Cow.’
‘I’m sorry, are you calling me a cow, or your ex?’ I asked. Either way, I wasn’t impressed. How was I going to tell him this relationship had run its course and not end up stranded in the countryside without a ride home?
‘Cow. Really big and angry-looking cow heading right for us,’ he shrieked in an unattractive girlish fashion. Seconds later, he was on his feet, running away from me as if his life depended on it. I propped myself up on my elbows, astounded, and looked over my shoulder.
‘O crap, that’s no cow,’ I exclaimed as I saw the bull charging straight at me, his nostrils flared, head down, and horns looking ready armed and extremely dangerous. I leapt up and started running after TJ, assuming he knew his way back to the car, all of the picnic items forgotten. It was a good thing I had long legs and kept myself in shape, I could see TJ already panting and clutching his side. Some man he was, abandoning me and putting his own life first. I could hear the bull charging behind us, but didn’t look back. I was gaining on TJ and quite frankly, right now, I’d be happy to overtake him and let him get pronged in the arse for leaving me behind. ‘Run faster,’ I gasped as I caught up with him.
‘I’m trying,’ he moaned. ‘Why’s that cow so annoyed? I thought they were friendly and docile.’
‘It’s a bull, not a cow.’
‘Seriously?’ His eyes went wide as he rubbed the sweat off his forehead. I shook my head, thankful my time in the country had taught me something. I pushed on, passing him as we were yards away from the stile and safety. For a moment, I felt bad for thinking of vaulting over it before him, even though he’d spared no thought for my welfare when he charged off without me, so I turned to see how much time we had.
‘It’s nearly on us,’ I cried. I yelped as I tripped on a clump of grass and my ankle rolled on itself, causing me to stumble. It took me a few seconds to right myself, and TJ shot past me, screaming as if he was about to be murdered.
He botched trying to climb over the stile the first time as he was so nervous, and he fell back onto the floor, then lunged at it again. I grimaced as I put my weight on my ankle and forced myself to make the few steps to safety. If I made it out of this alive, he was so dumped. By the time I got to the stile, he was straddling it, forcing me to step up and virtually sit on the rough bramble hedge to the side. I hissed as the thorns and branches scratched at my bare legs. I caught a glimpse of the bull out of the corner of my eye, digging his hooves into the soil and trying to slow himself down when he realised he’d reached a dead end, but he crashed into the hedge, barely missing my leg. The force of it knocked me off my perch and I screamed as I fell backwards, feeling something sharp and very painful tearing at my backside and catching in my shorts.
‘Hurry up, Paige,’ TJ yelled. I tried to look around to find him, wondering why I could see his feet and the wheels of the car first. It took a moment to realise that I was upside down, my bottom and legs suspended in the air.
‘Hurry up?’ I hissed. ‘How the hell am I supposed to hurry up, I’m stuck in the damn hedge. Come and help me.’
‘What if it breaks through,’ he called from a safe distance. ‘It’s vicious, it could kill us.’
‘It’s not getting through, but if you don’t come and help me, I might just kill you when I next see you,’ I warned. I struggled as I tried to get myself down, but winced as I felt a sharp pain in my backside again.
‘O my God,’ TJ uttered as he gingerly approached me. ‘You have a barbed wire fence stuck to your backside. Does it hurt?’
‘No, of course it doesn’t. Honestly, I don
’t know why I bother going to a luxury spa when I could hang upside down on a barbed wire fence, with good old Hertfordshire thorns in my skin and mud in my hair,’ I retorted, giving him a glare. He managed to help me get down and upright, and winced when he checked me out from behind.
‘I think I’d better take you to the hospital, you have blood running down the back of your legs and that barbed wire looks pretty rusty. You’re limping, too,’ he observed, leaping a few feet in the air as the bull on the other side of the fence snorted his disapproval at our escape.
‘Bit late for chivalry,’ I muttered under my breath as he opened the passenger door.
‘Right, my car’s new and I really don’t want blood on the upholstery. As I was forced to leave the picnic blanket behind, there’s nothing for you to sit on. I’ll lower the front seat and you’ll have to lie on your stomach, ok?’
It was nearly one a.m. by the time I was called through at A&E. As if having to lie on my front on a metal trolley in the crowded London waiting room, with my butt cheeks virtually on display through my shredded shorts and knickers, wasn’t degrading enough, I could see everyone sniggering as they looked at me. I’d begged TJ to leave me, saying I could ring Poppie or Jean-Claude to come and pick me up when I’d been seen, but it seemed he needed to regain his manhood for his earlier display of cowardice and he insisted on staying with me. I was surrounded by mainly drunks at this time of night, who were so rowdy I think they were prioritised ahead of me just to clear them out.
‘What happened to you?’ asked the nurse as I was finally taken to a private cubicle to be examined.
‘I twisted my ankle trying to run from a bull, then fell off the top of the hedge and ripped my backside on a barbed wire fence,’ I sighed.
‘Hmmm,’ she nodded. ‘We’ll need to x-ray that ankle, it’s quite swollen and bruised, and I’ll need to remove your shorts and underwear, I think you might need a few butterfly stitches there. What about your chin?’
‘My chin?’ I twisted my head from my flat-on-my-stomach position to look at her.
‘You have a huge bruise on it. Did you hit your face as you fell?’ she asked, handing me a small mirror to have a look.
‘No,’ I groaned. ‘That would be my date’s idea of sexy foreplay.’
‘Seriously?’ She tried to keep her laughter under control as I nodded and rolled my eyes, then looked back at the red and purple bruise developing where he’d sucked it.
‘I wouldn’t be seeing him again if that was me.’
‘Trust me, I won’t be,’ I confirmed.
I hobbled out at three a.m. with my bandaged and sprained ankle raised as I tried to work out how to balance on a pair of crutches. I also had eight stitches in my bottom. I just hoped if they scarred, that Vivian had some decent concealer, or I was going to have to be airbrushed on any shoots from now on. I was seriously tired and irritable.
‘Come on, I’ll take you home to mine as it’s closer. You need some rest,’ TJ stated when he saw the state of me. ‘What happened to your chin?’
I gritted my teeth and shot him a look, so he just grabbed my bag and walked ahead of me back to the car. I wanted to go home, to my own bed, but I was too tired and sore to argue. It took all of my strength not to pass comment when I saw he’d managed to secure a large incontinence pad to put on his car seat to protect his precious upholstery. Not that sitting on my tender backside was an option right now. I had to shuffle onto my side as he put my crutches on the rear seat. We made it into his one bedroomed apartment and he fetched me a glass of water to wash down two of the painkillers I’d been prescribed.
‘So, I suppose sex is out of the question?’ he asked, a hopeful look on his face.
‘It is with me,’ I quickly replied, astounded at his nerve. I was even more astonished that instead of offering me his bed, he set me up on his sofa with a spare pillow and blanket. I made a mental note to block his number and email when I got home tomorrow.
I woke up a few hours later, desperate for the toilet and ready for another set of painkillers, and struggled over to his bedroom by hopping. His en-suite was the only bathroom in his small apartment. He was snoring like an express train and I thanked my lucky stars that I’d seen what kind of man I was dating before I’d actually spent a night in his bed. I headed into his en-suite and closed the door, searching for the light, then squinting as it dazzled me. I took a shocked gasp to be confronted with a glass of water on the sink unit with a set of teeth floating in it, a set of brilliant white, instantly recognisable as TJ’s, teeth. He was in his thirties and he had no teeth? I’d just known they were too white the moment I’d set eyes on them. I couldn’t help laughing to myself. How the hell did I keep ending up with men like this? If this was the damage he could do sucking on my chin with them in, I hated the idea of what he could do if he was to gum me without them. I decided it was time to call it a day on dating. There was only so much I could take and I was well past my limit. I sneaked out and rang for a taxi, eager to get out of here and home.
I made it into my apartment and knocked over a vase as I bumped the table with one of my crutches, shrieking in surprise as Justin came charging out of Poppie’s bedroom wearing a pair of boxers and brandishing a hairbrush.
‘Paige, it’s you,’ he sighed with relief. ‘We weren’t expecting you home, I thought it was a burglar.’
‘And you were going to brush him into submission?’ I chuckled.
‘Only thing I could find that might inflict some pain,’ he grinned, jabbing it to prove his point. ‘Poppie, it’s only Paige, and I think she might need your shoulder right now,’ he called over his. ‘Are you ok?’
‘Just peachy, another dating disaster to add to the list.’
‘O my God,’ Poppie exclaimed as she came out wrapping her dressing gown around herself. ‘What happened?’
‘Chin suction, a bull, and a barbed wire fence,’ I replied, spinning on one foot to show her my patched-up bottom.
‘Seeing him again then?’ she asked, trying to keep a straight face.
‘I’m never seeing anyone again. I can’t even sit down, my bottom’s so sore,’ I pouted.
‘I’ll get dressed and go and get you a rubber ring to sit on,’ offered Justin. ‘The shops will be opening soon, I can grab us a takeout coffee and breakfast while I’m out.’
‘Thanks, babe, you’re the best,’ Poppie smiled and pursed her lips, and he dipped his head to kiss her tenderly. I sighed as I watched them. Was I ever going to have that? A kind, caring, and considerate boyfriend, with all of his own teeth, no hairy back, parents with fetishes, or cheating tendencies? Surely that wasn’t too much to ask? Right now though, it was looking seriously doubtful. ‘Come on, you look exhausted, let’s get you to bed. You can lie on your side and I’ll prop your ankle up and you can tell me all about it.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, feeling really dejected. As usual, she couldn’t help herself and laughed as I filled her in on my disaster.
‘O, Paige, I’m so sorry. You really don’t have much luck, do you?’
‘Is it me? Is there something wrong with me?’
‘Of course there isn’t. You’re as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside. Some people just don’t find their Prince Charming straight away, they have to search for him.’
‘I’ve had enough searching,’ I sighed. ‘I think I’m better off on my own. I can look into sperm donors or adoption and have a baby that way, without all of this drama.’
‘Don’t say that. Try again. Justin has a friend at work who’s really nice. I’ve met him and I think he’s perfect for you. He’s attractive, intelligent, and I’m pretty sure he has all of his own teeth. The only downside is he’s got a rather old-fashioned name.’
‘Is he called Archibald and lives up to his name with no hair?’
‘He has his own hair,’ she smiled. ‘At least I think it’s his own, some wigs now are so good you’d never know and I haven’t checked out his back for fur, but he’s
so nice. He’s a year or two younger than us and he’s single. His girlfriend moved out about eight months ago to take a job abroad and it’s taken him a while to get over her. Let us set you up on one date, see if you get on with him. Your bad luck has to run out at some point, right?’
‘If it goes wrong, that’s it, I’m never dating again,’ I warned. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Gordon,’ she grimaced.
‘Gordon?’ I groaned.
‘He’s super buff, he was a champion sprinter, nearly made it to the Olympics a few years ago. They call him Flash Gordon. Please say yes, I can’t bear to see you so miserable.’
‘Fine, I’ll go on a date with Flash, but only when my bottom’s healed enough to sit on. I can’t take the humiliation of going on a date carrying a giant inflatable rubber ring.’
‘Yay!’ she clapped, beaming.
‘Ok, I need to take my painkillers and have a quick nap before Justin gets back.’ I knocked them back with the glass of water Poppie handed to me.
‘Chin, chin,’ she giggled. I smacked her with a pillow and ordered her out of my room.
Flash Gordon
July
Giorgio walked around Poppie, frowning as he inspected the first draft of her wedding dress, then shouted something at his assistant in Italian as Jean-Claude and I sat sipping a glass of champagne as we watched. It was my thirtieth birthday weekend celebrations. Today we were dress fitting, then going out for a late lunch, followed by cocktails. Later we were meeting up with Justin, Vivian, Shauna, and a few models, including Dominic and his boyfriend Calvin, to head to the hippest new club in London to dance the night away. I smiled as I popped a chocolate truffle into my mouth. Flash was going to meet us later as well. We’d been seeing each other for five weeks, and so far I had to admit that Poppie was right. He was perfect. On one of our dates, I’d even suggested going swimming so I could check out his body hair situation, or hopefully lack of it. He’d passed inspection with flying colours, earning additional points for a well-toned six pack and defined pecs that I couldn’t wait to run my hands over.
Until We Collide Page 18