Something Like Happy

by Sasha Greene

  ‘Look.’ She nudged Nick, one hand tightly grasping the rough metal railing. ‘You can see the red table in our back yard. And the grey roof.’

  Nick followed the line of her finger and nodded. ‘And Sunnyside.’

  ‘Yeah. They’ll all be having their lunch right about now.’

  Ruaridh had been readying the equipment, but he saw where they were pointing and smiled at them. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? I never get tired of looking.’

  Jade had never really thought of calling Glasgow beautiful, really. Majestic, maybe. Impressive, definitely. But beautiful? She took another look at the view. The river wound away into the distance, like a carpet of grey specifically chosen to match the colour of the sky. Green parks mingled in a patchwork with red roofs and the black lines of the roads criss-crossed like braiding on the city tapestry. And further away the hills framed the whole scene in purple and brown. Up here the sound of the cars were muted, and all that reached them was a gentle rumble which could have been the city snoring in slumber. There was a faint tang of salt in the air blowing in from the coast. Yeah. She would give it beautiful.

  She saw the other two looking at her expectantly, and suddenly remembered why they were here.

  ‘Right. Who wants to go first?’ Ruaridh held out a hand.

  ‘Me,’ Jade found herself saying. ‘I want to go first.’

  Ruaridh clipped her into all the ropes and then pointed towards the edge. ‘Off you go.’

  She inched towards the edge, not daring to look down.

  ‘Me. Look at me.’ Nick said.

  ‘Can’t I just close my eyes?’ Her legs were shaking now.

  ‘You could, but then you’d miss that amazing view you were just admiring a few moments ago.’ She knew Ruaridh was just trying to put her at her ease, but it didn’t make her feel any better. As she swung out over the opening, she suddenly panicked, gripping the rope with both hands and closing her eyes. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘Jade. Look at me.’ Nick’s voice was right next to her ear, and surprise startled her into opening her eyes. He was crouched down behind the barrier so his face was right next to hers.

  ‘You can do this. Find the free end of the rope with your hands.’

  She reached down until she grasped the rope in her hand. It felt comforting somehow, as if by grasping it she had control over her own destiny.

  ‘OK. You got this. I’ll see you at the bottom.’ Jade nodded, unable to speak. ‘Push the rope slowly through the ring.’

  She gasped as the movement made her go down a couple of inches, but she could feel the strength of the harness around her body and mustered the courage to touch the rope again. Once she got it working, she started to move more quickly. The two men waved as she dropped away from them.

  It was definitely a bonus to have something to do with her hands. It kept her mind off the drop to the ground below. Although it was kind of cool how everything just got magnified as she got closer. Little toy cars became bigger toy cars. Tiny scurrying ants became stick people with proper arms and legs.

  When she felt as if she wouldn’t be scared by it, she dared to look straight below her. A crowd of people had gathered around the barriers. She groaned. The last thing she wanted was a group of strangers witnessing her ungainly descent. But as she got closer, she realised that it wasn’t a group of strangers at all. There was Lily, leaning against the barrier, looking straight up at her, and beside her was Archie in his wheelchair. In fact, it looked as if the whole Sunnyside crew were there. Even Sandra, still clad in her pink scrubs. And as she touched down on the platform and everyone clapped and cheered, she noticed her parents leaning on the barrier too. Her dad gave her a big thumbs up.

  ‘I’m going to kill him.’ Jade turned her face upwards and shook a fist towards where Nick would be standing, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to see her, but not caring. Everyone laughed.

  When she was finally unhooked from the harness she ran over to her parents and gave them a big hug, then did the same for Lily. ‘I’m going to kill him,’ she repeated.

  ‘Don’t be too harsh on him.’ Lily had a wicked look in her eyes. ‘I worked out something was up when he came to see Archie last week and squeezed it out of him.’

  Jade clambered over the barrier. ‘I’m still going to kill him.’ But her eyes were sparkling now.

  Nick saw Jade reach the bottom and disappear into the crowd and crossed his fingers for just a second. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too mad at him. Ruaridh nodded at him. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He waited until he was clipped in, and then looked at the other man. ‘Thanks for doing this for us. Really appreciated.’

  The older man shrugged. ‘Happy to. I’d do anything for Sean. He rescued me out of a bad patch. Ask him to tell you the story sometime.’

  Nick took a deep breath as he steadied himself against the platform. Sure, he had abseiled before, but not from such a great height. And usually, there was rock to plant his feet on. None of this crazy swinging out into open space.

  He gritted his teeth. If Jade had done it, then so could he.

  Ruaridh gave him a salute as he started to descend. Nick waved back with his free hand.

  Working the mechanism was surprisingly simple. Being out in open space he had expected he would start swinging round and round, but the safety rope kept him anchored. He was facing the centre of town, but by the time he had thought to look for his building, he had already dropped below the height of the roofs. As he touched down there was clapping and cheering from the crowd.

  It took only a couple of moments to get rid of the harness, and then he was searching the crowd for Jade. She was standing next to her parents. He reached across the barrier to give her a big hug.

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ she murmured in his ear.

  He swung himself over the barrier and gave her a quick kiss on the top of the head. ‘Can you kill me after lunch? Because that’s the next thing on the plan. We’re all having lunch back at Sunnyside. And I think Sandra’s even made cake.’

  He held his breath, waiting to see her reaction. And then she laughed, brown eyes sparkling, and slid an arm around his waist. ‘I think we can defer the killing until after some cake. Or maybe it can wait until tomorrow. I’ll probably be too lazy after a big lunch.’

  It was only a short walk back to Sunnyside, where a massive spread of sandwiches waited for them, and indeed, the promised cake.

  ‘We all made it, really. Sandra supervised, but three of us mixed up the mixture, and everyone iced a bit of the top.’ Lily was back in her favourite chair in the bay window, looking out over the garden. Jade was sat in the window seat just by her left elbow.

  Jade looked over to where the big cake lay in pride of place in the middle of the table. ‘I’m guessing that’s supposed to be a crane.’

  Lily laughed. ‘It was, but then Jim got his hands on the icing bag.’

  Jade munched through her third sandwich. Nick was over in another corner of the room, having an animated conversation with Archie. From the gestures he was making she could tell he was explaining just how the abseil mechanism had worked.

  Now that it was all over it seemed a bit of an anti-climax. It hadn’t been that scary at all. She would do it again without a second thought. Still, that was the same with many things. Do them once, they were scary. After that they just became familiar.

  ‘I thought Nick said that there wasn’t going to be a trip today, because of the minibus? Or was that all a lie?’

  Lily nodded. ‘It’s true, the minibus is out of action. They’re waiting for a spare part apparently. But then Sandra worked out that we could all just walk down to the crane. And that was when we came up with the plan.’

  By the time the cake was finished and the plates had been cleared away, the adrenaline rush had drained and Jade felt pretty tired.

  ‘Fancy getting away from this crowd?’ She slid an arm around Nick’s waist and reached up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss.
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  ‘Yeah.’ He looked down at her fondly, his hand reaching around her to pull her closer to him and squeeze her bum. ‘You still coming back to mine?’

  Something curled in her stomach at such a blatant invitation. ‘Sure. Let me just say goodbye to everyone and then we can scarper. Let’s say fifteen minutes?’

  He nodded and kissed her one more time before letting her go.

  It took her a while to go around everyone, to thank them all for coming to see her. She gave Lily a long hug.

  ‘Not angry at us, are you?’ The older woman smoothed a hand over Jade’s hair as she kneeled by the side of her chair.

  Jade shook her head. ‘Not at all. Thanks for making it special.’ She gave Lily a fond kiss on the cheek as she stood up.

  The last ones she went to were her parents, who sat on one of the comfy sofas, listening to Archie talk about his childhood. ‘I’ll see you later. Don’t wait up.’

  Her mum squeezed her hand, then pulled her in for a quick hug. ‘Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

  Jade just laughed, disentangling herself from the sofa and going to rescue Nick from Jim, who was explaining the rules of croquet to him in minute detail.

  As they walked away from the building Jade placed her hand in Nick’s larger one, feeling the warmth of his fingers seeping through to her own. ‘Train?’ She looked up at him. ‘It’s quicker than the bus.’

  All he did was rest his hand on her thigh while they sat on the train, but even that simple contact made her hairs feel like they were standing on end. The twenty minutes it took to get back into town felt both incredibly short and horrendously long.

  Chapter 15

  The apartment door made a soft click as it closed.

  ‘I can’t believe we just did that. I mean, abseil off a crane? We must be crazy.’ Jade looked at Nick with a massive grin on her face.

  ‘Yeah. Feels kind of surreal, doesn’t it?’ Nick’s face sported a similar expression to her own.

  They stood there looking at each other for a couple of seconds, and then Jade couldn’t help it; she jumped into his arms. Her bag fell forgotten to the floor.

  He carried her easily to the bed, and they both tumbled onto it. She reached for Nick’s belt, but he stopped her. ‘Wait. That comes later. I want to do some stuff first.’

  He took his time, kissing her slowly, legs wrapped around hers. One hand moved through her hair, massaging her scalp, and the other held her tightly to him. It already felt amazing, and they had barely done anything.

  Her fleece and t-shirt came off, and he kissed his way down her neck. Jade closed her eyes. If she was a cat she would be purring right now. She gasped as his mouth closed around one of her nipples, and opened her eyes.

  Nick raised his head. ‘OK?’ His eyebrows had drawn together, as if he was worried.

  She shook her head. ‘Yes. It’s very OK. Just a bit of a surprise.’

  He laughed, and bent his head again, undoing her bra with his hands and casting it to one side.

  Jade had never known that such pleasure was there for the taking in that part of her body. Just when she felt it might be getting too much, he moved to her other nipple and did exactly the same. It was pleasure, but it almost felt like a sort of torture, for it made her want so much more from him.

  She tugged at his t-shirt, wanting to feel his skin under her hands, and they both pulled it off over his head. She ran her hands over the muscles of his back, and up his arms. ‘You’re pretty ripped.’

  Nick laughed. ‘Not compared with what I used to be. I’ve let myself go a bit since I’ve been working in an office.’

  She ran a hand over his back again, feeling the soft skin where it met the line of his trousers. ‘Feels just perfect to me.’

  He propped himself up on one elbow, tracing a pattern around her breasts with one finger. ‘You’re very beautiful, you know.’

  ‘Me?’ Jade was surprised. ‘I’ve always been too short, or too skinny, or too pale.’ She cupped a breast with one hand. ‘And my boobs aren’t big enough.’

  He cupped the other one gently, and lightly kissed the tip. ‘Feels just perfect to me.’

  ‘There’s something else I’ve been wanting to touch as well.’ He reached for the button on her jeans. It took some un-sexy wiggling before they came off, but soon she was free.

  Nick trailed a hand down across her stomach and down between her legs. One of his legs was still flung over one of hers, and she tried to reach for his belt again, but he gently pulled her hand away and winked at her. ‘Don’t be so impatient. I want to make sure you have a good time first.’ He kissed her again, and while he was kissing his fingers slipped gently under her underwear. And for the second time Jade found herself surprised. That the touch of his hand could do such things to her. And the fact that he took the time, experimenting to see what gave her pleasure.

  When he finally took his hand away she felt almost bereft. But he was kissing his way down her body, and down to her stomach. She arched her back in pleasure at the touch of his lips on her skin. But he kept on going, moving her legs apart and bending his mouth down to reach for the place between her thighs. She gasped as he gently licked, then took her into his mouth just has he had with her nipples. When had her underwear disappeared? She didn’t even know.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ Somehow even through the pleasure she couldn’t quite relax. ‘I mean, I haven’t had a shower since this morning.’

  He laughed, his mouth still touching her, and she felt the vibrations give her another wave of pleasure. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be squeaky clean by the time I’ve finished.’

  She was about to ask when Nick started moving his tongue in a way that threw all thoughts out of her head, and she twisted a hand in his hair, abandoning herself to the waves of pleasure that flooded through her.

  He seemed to know when she had had enough, and lifted his head and kissed his way slowly back up, finishing with a light kiss on her nose that made her laugh. He propped himself up on one elbow again while his hand trailed lightly across her body.

  Jade felt like she had just walked a hundred miles, or ran a marathon, or danced all night. Her body refused to do anything she told it to, so she just lay there for a while, enjoying the feel of his touch.

  ‘That was pretty amazing.’ She finally looked up at him, studying his face. ‘I never – I mean, I read about that sort of thing, but …’ She found herself lost for words.

  Nick frowned slightly. ‘Don’t tell me – I mean, you’re not …’ He trailed off.

  ‘A virgin, no.’ She supplied the word he was too embarrassed to say. ‘But it wasn’t like that. Anyway. I definitely think it’s your turn now.’ She reached for his belt and gave him a theatrical wiggle of her eyebrows as she pulled down his jeans.

  Jade took her time as well, experimenting to find out what Nick found good. She had read a lot of magazines, but it was so different in real life. To really take the time, and to have someone who had the patience to bear with her inexperienced touch, was really a new experience for her. And she wanted to make the most of it.

  She found things that were unexpected for both of them. Most unexpected for her was the realisation that it turned her on to watch what she was capable of doing to him. Maybe it was the same for him. She would have to remember to ask him afterwards. She was so engrossed in what she was doing that it surprised her when he came, sticky warmth flooding out over her hand. She scrambled across the room for the kitchen roll, anxious to mop up before it made a proper mess.

  Afterwards they snuggled under the duvet together. Nick yawned, then apologised, then laughed as Jade’s mouth split in a huge yawn of her own.

  ‘Guess it might be time for a little nap.’ He kissed her on the top of her head. ‘That was pretty amazing.’

  ‘But we didn’t actually do anything.’ It didn’t really count as real sex, was what she really meant.

  Nick shrugged. ‘There’s no rush. As long as it’s
good, that’s what counts.’ He yawned again and wrapped his arms tighter. ‘Just don’t go anywhere.’

  Jade listened to the soft sound of his breathing, and after a while heard it deepen as he fell asleep. She didn’t really feel sleepy. Maybe she would just close her eyes …

  She woke some time later when Nick stirred beside her. It felt good to have him lying next to her with nothing but skin to separate them.

  ‘Mmm.’ His breath tickled her ear. ‘I’ll have to remember that spooning puts my hands in all the right places.’ He reached up to gently roll a nipple between his fingers, while the other one dipped down between her legs. ‘Are you up for another round?’

  Jade suddenly found that yes, she was definitely in the mood for wherever he wanted to take her. And, leaning back against him, she could feel that he was pretty ready for it too.

  Still, he took his time again, making sure she was thoroughly wet before he took a condom out of the bedside table and rolled it on. Jade braced herself for it to hurt as he went in, but somehow it didn’t, and she felt a rush of something she couldn’t quite describe. It was like he filled her up not just physically, but mentally too. As if he filled a place in her mind that had somehow been empty. But then there was no time for thoughts, because they were moving together, and he took her away again to the place of pleasure that she hadn’t known existed until such a short time ago.

  ‘Wow.’ She didn’t have any other words to describe what had happened, as they lay in each other’s arms afterwards. ‘I mean, just, wow.’

  Nick drew the bedcover up to make sure they didn’t get cold. ‘Now that’s a word that every guy wants to hear.’ He kissed her on the forehead.