by Smith, L. T.
I dragged my feet on my way to the house. If I walked slowly, maybe I could think up an excuse before I got there. Unfortunately, the thinking part of my brain was elsewhere—probably at a party with other parts of my brain, discussing what a knob I am over cocktails and sausages on sticks. If I’d been invited, I would have agreed with my brain’s assessment.
Looking towards the house, I could see Emily at the window watching me. Her hands were resting on the sill, and she was staring intently in my direction.
A butterfly took off somewhere in the region of my gut and started to tippy-toe its way through my insides. I saw her body straighten and turn away quickly, as if she didn’t want me to see her. A grin split my face. “Too late, lady.” For a split second I felt in control, until I remembered that I was still a back fence hiding twat.
All the way to B&Q, I tried to think of excuses, but I came up with nothing. Emily was checking her list and rattling on about hoping everything was ready so she didn’t have to keep me waiting. I was beginning to pale. Why hadn’t I just answered her with “Oh yeah. I picked them up yesterday and took them home. That’s why I missed your call.” Because, as my brain cells had all agreed, I am a knob.
As we got out of the truck, I turned to Emily and said, “I’ll be over at Trade. Shall we meet back here?”
She shook her head and smiled that adorable smile of hers. “I’m going to Trade, too.”
Shhhhhhiiit.
“Oh, wait. I need to go and check out the flooring tiles,” she said.
Thank you, God!
“Meet you in a few.”
I raced over to the trade counter and had to wait behind a bloke who thought displaying the crack of his arse to everyone in the vicinity was standard behaviour and perfectly acceptable. In my head I was repeating the mantra “hurry up,” before I realised I didn’t actually have to queue, as I had nothing to collect. I stepped back, turned, and started away from the counter.
“There you are. Finished already?”
I nodded enthusiastically.
Emily looked behind me and pulled a face. “So…where is the fencing?”
I laughed, a little bit hysterically if you ask me, and shook my head. “You won’t believe this.” Because it’s a lie. “They’ve delivered it to my place already.”
Emily cocked her head, her brow furrowed. “Really?”
I nodded again.
“Do they do that without you asking?’”
I opened my mouth to tell more lies, but was stopped by the voice of the builder behind me.
“Sorry about keeping you waiting, love. These lot couldn’t find their dicks with both hands.” And then he scuttled off, hoisting his jeans to crack height as he went.
“Pfft. I’ve always found them to be efficient.” Was my voice always that high? By the amused look on Emily’s face, I took that as a “no.”
“Do you need me to help you collect your stuff?”
Emily grinned that half grin of hers before shaking her head.
“Okay. I’ll meet you at the truck.” I was almost running as I left her, but I still heard her laughing as I went.
Fifteen minutes later, Emily appeared with a trolley full of supplies. Well, I say she appeared with it, but that isn’t quite right. She was being helped by a very attractive young woman who was wearing the B&Q uniform.
A spark of jealousy shot through me, and I jumped out of the cab and took over the pushing of the trolley. “Here, let me.” It is amazing I didn’t cock my leg and piss all over her.
Emily nodded and smiled, then turned back to the woman to continue their conversation while I ended up loading the truck on my own. With each item, the thudding as it hit the inside of my truck became louder. But neither of them gave any indication that they were listening.
“Okay, Cathy. Lovely to see you again.”
I gritted my teeth.
“We’ll get together soon, yes?”
My jaw cracked with the pressure of my grimace.
“Hey. You’ve loaded it all. Aren’t you a star?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Emily turned to wave at the retreating blonde. “She’s such a lovely girl.”
I mouthed the same and mimed sticking my fingers down my throat.
“Bye, Cathy!”
I did the same thing again. Funnily enough, it didn’t surprise me how petty and childish I could become. Actually, I enjoyed it.
“All set?” Emily looked animated. “Back to yours?”
Huh?
“To get the back fence.”
“Oh, yeah. The back fence,” I mumbled.
Emily grinned knowingly.
It wasn’t until I had collected the fence from my garden, much to the amusement of Ms Carson, that the topic of Cathy was brought up. Like vomit. Why did Emily find it necessary to list the positive qualities about the bimbo at B&Q? Just because she had qualifications growing out of her arse, a fantastic eye for property development, and was knockout gorgeous didn’t mean Cathy had it all. She worked at B&Q. B AND Q. And she wasn’t so fucking gorgeous, truth be told. I’d seen better, although I wasn’t quite so bitter about it then.
It was when Emily said why “Cathy the Perfect One” worked at B&Q, that I rejoined the conversation. Her husband was the manager of the timber department. Cathy was helping him out. Did you get that? Hus-band. Hus-b-and. And this husband was a friend of Emily’s from years back, as he’d worked for her on occasion. Yes. Little Miss Fancy Prancy Total Knockout was a Breeder, not a lezza like me. I felt some sense of control returning.
“Why did you lie to me about the fence?”
And…there went the sense of control. Maybe the previous thought was a classic case of pride going before a fall.
“And why didn’t you return my call last night?”
Double whammy. What could I tell her? “Oh, sorry, Emily, I was having a relationship crisis and rediscovered my mother hates me more than ever.”
“Was it the visit from your mum?”
Bloody Abbie. She’d better not have said anything else.
“I heard you went for another carvery.”
This wasn’t panning out the way I wanted it to. “Sorry. I…well, I was upset.” Might as well be honest. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.” Just because I was feeling honest, didn’t mean I had to tell her anything. My philosophy in life—if you can, keep your mouth shut.
Twenty minutes later, we were with the ball of fluff himself. I watched him with Emily. They looked good together—playing, chasing each other, chasing the ball. I felt tearful for some reason and had to pretend I had a bit of dust in my eye to cover myself.
It didn’t seem two minutes until we were back in the truck and on our way back to Emily’s. Time with Charlie seemed to get shorter and shorter, although we were there for exactly the same time as usual. It seemed as if the closer D-Day came, the more quickly time was moving. It was usually the other way around, but not on this occasion. I should’ve been looking forward to the Day of Decision, but I wasn’t. The only upside was that Charlie wouldn’t have to climb back into his cage and be left again. He would either have the run of Emily’s house or mine.
For the rest of the day I kept catching myself looking over at Emily, well, more like daydreaming. Every time I looked at her, I felt a deep yearning. It wasn’t sexual; it was so much more. It was as if I needed to be near her, needed to touch her in some capacity to feel right. I was getting the same about leaving her at night as I was when I left Charlie. The only difference was that she knew why I was leaving, and Charlie didn’t. That didn’t stop me from aching for her.
I felt myself moving towards her on more than one occasion, the words, “Would you come on a date with me?” balancing on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to be
with her, see where this could take us. I wanted what we’d had after Rob’s party and more…so much more. I wanted the picket fence and the fish pond life, and I wanted them with Emily Carson.
You may have gathered, I didn’t ask Emily for a date that day. Or the next day, or the day after that. It actually happened the night before we were to collect Charlie from the Trust, the night before we were going to decide who he would be living with when we picked him up in the morning. Initially, the suggestion was going to be me asking her to come out for a meal so that we could discuss what was going to happen, but when it came down to it, it all changed.
I’d finished making her garden secure—the thing she had employed me to do from the outset. I could’ve finished it a few days previous, but I kept on dragging things out just so I could spend more time with her. I didn’t want to stop going to her house every day, and it wasn’t because I enjoyed building fences or levelling her back garden. It was her. Seeing her. Watching her, talking and laughing with her. Each and every day we went to see Charlie, and I felt the pull of both of them, the desire to keep this going for as long as I could.
But it was over. Work was done and Charlie would be with one of us the next day, making the need to see her redundant, making my presence redundant, whether he came home with me or not. I was out of time. I had to make a decision: Walk away and never look back, or push my spine back into place and ask her out on a date.
I would like to say I loaded up my truck, marched into her house, and floored her with my charm. But no. I did load my truck, farted about in the back for an age, scouted around her garden pretending to check if it was safe and then check it all over again, all the time willing myself to ask her out.
“Come on, Anderson. Do it!” I hissed under my breath as I stood dancing from foot to foot at the door of my truck.
The front door to her house opened, and Emily just stood in the doorway and looked at me, a half-smile on her face. Dirt streaked her brow, and some strands of hair had come loose from her ponytail to dance about in the breeze.
“I think I need to pay you, don’t you?” she called.
I’d forgotten she still owed me for the work. Shows how love struck I was.
“Come in. Have a coffee and I’ll settle up.”
This was my moment. This was when the charm would come out, wasn’t it? This was when I would ask her, poke out that tongue of mine with the words sitting on the edge. Maybe not. I would just ask her. Ask her. Ask her for a date.
“There you are.” She hadn’t even looked around, but she knew when I stepped into her kitchen. “Do you want a—”
“Would you like to come out with me tonight?”
“Biscuit?” She stiffened, and I wanted to run. Slowly, too slowly, she turned to look into my eyes. “Why?”
Why? Why? What did she mean by asking why?
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
I couldn’t read her expression. It seemed guarded. I wanted to say “to discuss Charlie’s future,” but that would have been going back on what I’d set out to do. It was shit or bust.
“Erm…” I don’t think I’d ever felt so vulnerable. “Would you say ‘yes’ if I said it was?”
“Yes.”
“Because you don’t have to say ‘yes’ if you don’t want to.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” A smile lit her face as she turned back to making the coffee.
I pumped my fist in the air whilst mouthing “Yes” again. By the time she turned back, I had composed myself. “Go on, then. I’ll have a biscuit.”
Chapter Nine
I was to pick her up at seven-thirty. The time between me leaving her and me picking her up seemed to last a lifetime. God only knew how I was going to cope with not seeing her on a daily basis.
Unlike every other time I’d arrived at her house, Emily wasn’t waiting by the gate. I parked and walked over to her door. It opened just as I got there, and I found I couldn’t move. Standing in front of me was a vision. I always knew Emily was beautiful, always knew my heart raced when she was near, or even at the mere thought of her. But at this precise moment, I think my heart actually froze inside my chest. Emily was beauty personified, and I was totally gone.
She was wearing a crisp, white, long sleeved shirt with a glimpse of a pendant around her throat. Her hair was down and wisping around her perfect face. Her lips seemed darker, fuller, even more kissable than they usually did, but it was her eyes that had me. Her eyes, those eyes, the dark brown orbs that seemed to swallow me whole in one glance. I knew I could never tire of looking into those depths, because when I looked into them I could see my own happiness looking back at me. In that one look, it seemed as if I had been set free from the past, set free from the manacles I’d bound myself with.
“You ready?” I couldn’t believe I could actually utter two words.
She nodded and stepped forward, but I was blocking her path. A hint of her scent reached my nostrils, and I moved closer to her as if I was under her spell. I had to tilt my head back so I could keep looking into her eyes. I didn’t want to break eye contact, even though I knew I should.
Emily dipped her face to mine, her breath hitting my skin, those eyes becoming even more alluring, mesmerising. It seemed as if she was reading my expression, soaking up my whole being in one look. Closer. It was her or me, or both of us, but we were getting closer, our mouths parting as we closed the distance between us.
The kiss was inevitable, but that still didn’t prepare me for how I would feel when those lips touched mine. We had kissed before, but it still came as a wonderful revelation when softness met softness. I felt a click, a lock, a fusion of one soul with another. The kiss was soft, gentle, tender, passionate, and all-consuming. The shock of it raced through my body, claiming every molecule it excited in its passing. Never in my life had I experienced a kiss that made me feel the way her kiss made me feel, and I knew no one else could ever make me feel that way. It was her. Only her. Could only ever be her. My woman. My Emily.
Cold air stung my face as we separated, and I immediately felt the loss of her closeness. Brown eyes widened, as if in realization, and I knew my eyes held the same look.
“I…” She cleared her throat. “I thought I would get that out of the way, or else I would be thinking of kissing you all evening.”
I didn’t know about her, but I definitely knew I would be thinking about repeating that kiss for the rest of my life.
“Good thinking.” Why couldn’t I say something as smooth as she had instead of “Good thinking?” Even if I hadn’t been a romantic retard in the first place, the kiss would have pushed everything out of my head.
“Shall we?” Emily was still leaning over me, her head tipped as if to kiss me again. She was magnetic, magical, mesmerizing, and I felt the pull of her. Another kiss, comparatively chaste but full of promise. Apart from our lips, we hadn’t even touched one another. Our hands had not made contact, although mine kept drifting towards her.
As she drew away, it was a few moments before I could open my eyes and look at her. I wanted to prolong the moment, commit it to memory. I heard her chuckle, and my eyes fluttered open.
“You look adorable.”
Adorable? I was going for irresistible.
“Come.” Her hand slipped down and captured my own, and she led me to my waiting truck.
All evening, I kept staring at her lips. Well, staring at her lips, her eyes, her hands, and then becoming flustered and talking shite to cover myself. It was amazing to think I had tried to stop from feeling this way about her, but it had been inevitable since the very first moment I met her. I had felt a click, a connection, even when she had me pinned to the floor at the Dogs Trust, but I had pushed away all thoughts of ever being with her because I was too afraid of being rejected or left
once again.
Now it was too late for that. It had been too late from the moment I had seen her, seen Charlie. I had let them both in, but believed I couldn’t have one without losing the other. That wasn’t so. I could have ice cream and nuts, as my sister had said. Although she had coded it to fit with that occasion, she knew I would realise she meant Emily and Charlie. Maybe I couldn’t have them with me straight away, but that would come. There would be a place in the near future where I would be with Emily full time and Charlie would be ours—not hers, not mine, ours.
I think I surprised myself by the next thing I said. “I think Charlie should live with you.”
Her fork was halfway to her mouth, the food dangling precariously.
“You’re his mum.”
Clank. The fork hit her plate.
“Elles.”
Had she ever called me Elles before? She should have. Her voiced was gentle, reassuring.
“I realised weeks ago that Charlie belongs with you,” Emily’s voice was so gentle.
“No, I—”
“Yes. He is definitely your boy.”
“But—”
“But why did I keep going to see him every day?” A gentle laugh escaped her. “Simple. So I could be with you, be with you both.”
My jaw dropped open. To be with me? To be with us both? Apart from the scene on the sofa, had she ever shown me anything beyond friendship? Images flooded my mind of the way she looked at me, the way she spoke to me, the way she cared how I was feeling. Yes. She had. Never had she made me feel less than special, even though I hadn’t realised it at the time. I was too busy being a moron.
“Now I feel foolish.” She blushed.
“Why foolish?”
She chuckled self-consciously as she fiddled with her napkin. “Because I’ve just told you I’m falling for you…can’t bear to be without you.”