"Aren't you going to let me see?"
"Not yet."
"Oh come on, that's just --- "
"You'll just have to wait and see the assignment I've given you." He grinned and, with a whispered "I'll tell you in the morning," he reached, with one hand, under the covers.
Chapter Seven
James's bathroom was small, little more than a matchbox in fact, so there was very little chance two men would have fit in his over-bath shower, but it still would have been nice to try. The shower curtain would have ended up torn, we'd have splashed water everywhere and possibly cracked a few tiles slipping all over the place, but...
I sighed, the rush of water over my head masking the sound.
So I was in a stranger's shower and he was in the bedroom pulling on his jeans, or in the kitchen making breakfast. On occasions such as this I rarely stayed to chat over pancakes and waffles. Hell, I rarely stayed to shower, preferring to do the walk of shame by sunrise. I liked to shower at home, dress in clean clothes, cram my gear in the machine, drink enough coffee to refloat the Titanic. Just get on with things. Move on.
James was so hospitable though. His offer of "Shower?" was grate-fully received. The additional "Sorry, if I tried to fit in there too it would be like the world's gayest game of sardines. We'd end up elbowing each other in the pink parts, probably," made my heart sink.
Huh. So that's it, Austin. You're glum because you wanted a rematch.
I didn't know where I got the energy from. I didn't know where he did.
Faint bruises in the shape of his fingers curved over my hips like shadows.
Shadows that made me smirk all the same. Water running over my back highlighted the tracks of what were likely deep scratches. My scalp itched even under the shower, reminding me of James's tendency to grab my hair and pull when he was desperately trying not to come. Not yet.
Another heavy sigh morphed into a groan and instantly I bit my lip, not wanting James to hear and think I was beating off without him. He was the sort of guy to say "Shame to waste it," and offer to lend a hand.
Burn Idiot. Why the hell wouldn't you want him to join in? You've just been whining to yourself about how much of a shame it is he couldn't join you in such a tiny shower without risking life and limb.
I cut the water off and grabbed a towel from the rack on the wall. If it had been dark and I'd just walked into the room, I could have pulled the cord and been under the water before the light came on, the shower was that cramped.
Any financial straits he might be in weren't his fault, though. He'd practically jacked in his entire life for an ex and ended up in a kinda foreign country alone when the relationship had gone wrong. Now instead of splitting the expense he was left to support himself in a country he hadn't truly volunteered to live in, in the first place.
"There you are," James commented, when I appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing yesterday's clothes and a tentative smile. "Thought you'd got lost."
"In a bathroom that size? Little chance of that."
"And I bet you've used up all the hot water."
"Probably." I might have looked sheepish, but inside felt awkward.
How to play it, I didn't know.
"Coffee?"
Heaving in a deep breath, I gave it some thought. It was probably best to get going, but there was that reluctance rippling in the pit of my stomach like adrenaline gone wrong. "Yeah, why not?" I heard myself say and James nodded, murmured something approving.
But there was only so much time I could kill with one mug of (instant) coffee. We ended up by his front door, with me shrugging on a jacket that felt like regret weighing heavily on my shoulders.
"Well." And that was all he said. One word, one syllable. And I felt like I had to fill the silence.
"Guess I'll see you around." Fucking hell, Lombard; that sounds like a brush-off. "I mean..."
"I know what you mean."
We stared at each other for a few seconds as I tried to tell my feet to move, but nothing happened until the moment James broke the spell by moving. Only to reach into his pocket, though. He pulled out a piece of paper. "I meant to give you this."
"What is it?" I started to unfold it, but his hand shot out and covered mine.
"No; don't read it here. Wait till you get home."
"Ah." I nodded in understanding, and shoved the paper deep into my jeans pocket. "The fuck-it list." It'd make for interesting reading when I got home.
"Just make sure you don't forget, and put your jeans through the wash."
"I'm not that careless," I assured him. "Hey, I just thought...Will you tell me your real name now?"
"You already know it."
"Huh?"
He opened his front door, still smiling. "Goodbye, Austin."
Ugh. I hated those words. They sounded so final. Well, good. That was what I'd wanted all along. Who cared about final, right?
Once I got to the top of the flight of steps, I looked back and raised my hand in a half-hearted farewell at James, catching sight of a scratch above one of his hips. I smiled at the thought of him bearing a mark (or five) I'd put on him and thanked God he'd seen me off shirtless. Nice view.
Then I turned to descend, and the action made the fabric of my tee-shirt rub against a patch of sensitive skin on my back. Funny that. We must have marked each other.
Sure, I'd showered at James's but once I got home, I felt the need to do so again. At my place, without the need to put on clothes from the day before again. It didn't take long because I was clean in body if not in mind, but just wanted to reset the world. Showering at home was routine.
It made everything all right again.
I pulled on some shorts and a pair of jeans before taking the old clothes through to the machine in the kitchen.
Don't put your jeans through the wash just yet. Rifling through my pockets, I emptied them of loose change and that single piece of paper, wondering what the hell kind of assignment James had given me. If it involved donkeys, baboons, or llamas, I'd call him up and fucking ---
Actually, no, of course I wouldn't. No way of contacting him again.
Holding the folded piece of paper between finger and thumb nearly at eye-level, I stared at it for a full minute, noting a challenge in its every atom.
"You fucker," I muttered, and opened a kitchen drawer. I had a lighter there somewhere. It took some rummaging but I unearthed it eventually, this remnant of Sean, who'd smoked, even though I'd asked him not to.
It was his last act of rebellion against the anti-tobacco Nazis, he'd said.
Towards the end of "us," I'd put it down to him being a selfish jerk and still believed that today. God knew why I hadn't thrown the lighter out; I should have, but occasionally it came in useful for...well, something.
Like, now. I was going to burn that defiant piece of paper. Sure I was.
It deserved it. Being all distracting and making me think perhaps I should read whatever was on it. Bastard.
I flicked the lighter on and off a few times, standing by the sink in case I did something stupid like setting myself on fire. Didn't want to get burned, so it was safer to be near the faucet.
"God fucking damn it." I threw the lighter onto the countertop and unfolded the note even though I didn't really want to. Except I did.
James Alexander Gordon, just so you know.
And my heart did something funny, like drop into my stomach. Jesus.
Never trust a man with two first names, my gran had always said. What the hell she would have made of a man with three, I didn't know.
And one of those names was James. I'd guessed correctly without even trying. Without even knowing.
The bunch of numbers underneath his name made it clear: this was a list of things he wanted me to do, and there was only one item on it. Him.
"Oh man, I really don't want to do this," I whispered. I whispered, like I was scared of him hearing me from this distance.
Which would only be possible from this dist
ance if I were to phone him, and that wasn't going to happen, because we both went into this agreeing that it would be a one night stand and neither of us wanted anything else, and we'd both had recent break-ups and...
"And you're a fucking coward, Lombard." Usually I spoke to myself internally, but I had to give myself a telling-off out loud. No, I was a tough guy. I could forget this ever happened and not bother.
To prove it, I picked up the lighter and flicked it on and off a few times, trying to tell myself to get on with it, but I just couldn't.
"God." I screwed my eyes shut. "I am so going to regret this." Opened them. And dropped the lighter in the trashcan, instead of washing the burned remnants of the paper down the drain.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." My hand shook as I copied the number, tapped it into my phone.
And slid it shut before hitting the call button.
A process which only happened three or four times before I swallowed the bile back far enough to go through with it.
"Hello?"
I gulped. Said nothing. But I knew he knew it was me. And he was waiting for me to speak. "James?"
"That's me." He cleared his throat. "I was hoping you'd call, but didn't expect it to be quite this soon."
I mouthed the words shit, fuck, shit to myself, wondering if I'd fucked up already. It was a habit of mine to stress out over this sort of thing, to take that stress to insane levels, but too late now. I'd already called him and the fucking lighter was in the trashcan. Nothing was going to get burned today.
"Can't believe out of all the names possible, I guessed correctly. Is that definitely your name?"
"Definitely definitely my name."
"I must be psychic. Or lucky."
The pause before he spoke again lasted for hours, somehow crammed into a matter of seconds and I prayed I hadn't said something stupid, or made myself sound like an idiot.
"Yeah," he said, with a light laugh that set my adrenaline to rest. Maybe this hadn't been a big mistake after all. "It's like you knew me all along."
About the Author
Scarlett Parrish is allegedly human and lives somewhere in this dimension. In between feeding her insatiable appetite for James Purefoy DVDs, smut-reading and chocolate biscuits, she wonders if she'll ever get a good night's sleep.
At the moment, she's probably writing another dirty book. Or thinking about Michael Fassbender. Or both.
Blog: http://scarlettparrish.blogspot.com/
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