The Price Of Success (Fighting For Fireworks)

by Lee, Corri

  “Do you think love at first sight is mutual for both parties?” I frowned as his eyes darkened and clouded with remorse.

  “I don’t know, yes- maybe. I don’t-… Is this the significant woman?” He nodded unusually shyly and my heart skipped over how adorably vulnerable he looked. “I think…” I looked skywards for answers- or at very least a way to verbalise my disorganised thoughts. “I would like to think that when those fireworks soar, they douse you both in the embers. There has to be a fairly amazing connection for you to fall so hard and so fast. If the air shifts, the ground moves and the light fades…” I began to trail off into a fantasy of falling that deeply in love. My own damn words made me look at the world with rose tinted glasses. My god, what I’d do to feel that way.

  “Cecelia?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Sorry, my mind wandered.” I picked a speck of fluff from Nathaniel’s lapel and folded my arms across my body. “Nathaniel, you’re a wonderful man and she is extremely lucky to have your love. But I can’t offer you answers, only opinions. If you think she’s your yin, you’ll make her feel those embers falling down on her skin. Que sera sera, carpe diem, and all those other romantic clichés.” He sighed at me, looking visibly happier and pulled me into a brief embrace.

  “Thank you for the cufflinks, Cecelia.” I stepped up on my tiptoes and planted an intentionally wet smacking kiss on his cheek.

  “Thank you for the Gucci. And the Chanel. And the Vuitton…” I turned away and head down the street, waving a finger in the air as I walked. “I’m missing Prada!” I called behind me and heard him laugh warmly.

  I was greeted by a mountain of bags, shoe boxes, Bethany, Adam and a bottle of pinot gricio when I stepped through my front door. The house smelled of rich herbs, roast chicken and freshly ground coffee. I had to pinch myself to ensure I hadn’t died and been transported to my own little slice of heaven.

  “Have you been cooking, Bethy?” She raised a glass of wine above her head for me to take and cast an adoring eye to Adam.

  “Not guilty. That’s all Adam. We were waiting for you to arrive before we plate up.” I hummed a note of approval and threw myself down into an armchair. The relief of sitting down in the plush cushioned fabric after a day of trawling the streets and sitting in the rigid office chair was instantaneous.

  “Bloody hell, I think we’ll keep you.” I slung my legs over the arm of the chair and found myself uncontrollably dozing as Adam and Bethany set to serving dinner. It was astonishing how drastically my life had changed pace since I’d finished writing my novel- how much life had changed in general. My heavy eyes passed over my Bond Street haul and I groaned inwardly at the prospect of what would no doubt be a mammoth task of packing them all away as permanent additions to my wardrobe. With a hefty selection of my own already residing in a large chest of drawers and armoire, I was at a loss for any clever tricks or organisational systems to fit everything together into such a small space. It was times like these when I could have done with my mum being around.

  Adam held my plate above my head and gestured towards the threat of dropping dinner on my face- this served as an efficient wake-up call to deter me from my will to sleep. I curled my feet up underneath me and rested the plate on a cushion upon my legs, and let the aroma of thyme and coriander taunt my senses. He was a magnificent cook and a worthy adversary when locked in a battle of word conundrums and wars of insightful literary quotes. He kept a possessive hand locked on Bethany’s person at all times, like touching her was imperative to living, and their stolen glances at each other warmed my heart to no end.

  My requests for a dose of Mr Depp were realised in the form of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas- his receding hairline did little to satisfy my lust for his image but thankfully did nothing to increase my lust for a strong full bodied… lager. If I didn’t think about it, I didn’t have to relive my Saturday night rejection.

  We all growled in frustration as Adam’s phone rang and disturbed our pleasant drinking and easy viewing. He rolled his eyes at the screen and he answered with a snap. “Where the hell have you been, Fiore? What?” He waved a hand at me and indicated for me to look at my phone. I pulled it from my pocket and stared, horrified.

  There had been no less than fifteen text messages and thirty five missed calls, with around twenty voice mail messages. The texts varied from a mildly apologetic ‘whatever I did I’m sorry’ to a downright sociopathic string of expletives inferring that I should engage in fornication with my ‘best friend Nathaniel and the iron rod firmly rammed up his arse and choke on it’. I passed Adam my phone in disgust and thanked my lucky stars that we hadn’t engaged in any sexual activities after all.

  Bethany snatched my phone from his hand and began to swear up a storm in fury. “Why the fuck didn’t you show me these, Cici? I’ll rip his fucking dick off!”

  “I haven’t looked at my phone since I called Nathaniel this morning about those fucking price tags!” I was stumped as to why I was the one comforting her and not the other way around.

  Adam flicked through the messages with a wince and shook his head in resignation, his deep blue eyes showing how sorely disappointed he was in his best friend’s behaviour. “Cole, I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you lately but this is just- ‘I hope he breaks you like the naïve slut in your fairy tale’, are you serious? I’m ashamed to know you right now. Like hell is she going to give you another chance to apologise.”

  For some unfathomable reason, I began to feel an incredible pity for Cole. I should have kept a closer eye on my phone and I shouldn’t have maintained radio silence between us. I’d provoked his concern. “Adam, it’s okay. I’ll talk to him.”

  Bethany’s eyes burned into me like flaming comets- her face contorted and implored me not to ignore her warning. “Don’t you dare let him get away with this.”

  “I won’t. This is only strike two, Bethy.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me and leaned in closer. “It’s strike three. Saturday night?” Her voice was low enough for Adam to not hear and I immediately understood and appreciated that she hadn’t told him the finer details. Strictly girl talk apparently.

  “It’s his last chance” I promised.

  Adam looked at me from the corner of his eye with the same don’t-forgive-him stare as Bethany. “Lunch tomorrow?” I nodded and smiled weakly, knowing that I was motivated only by my desperate need for love and fireworks. I was soul-consumingly determined to stick a fire under the ass of our relationship and kick start it into motion. “Cole, you don’t know how lucky you are.”

  I drifted away from impending line of questioning hastily and set to transferring my new abundance of designer clothing out of their bags and into my bedroom. Seeing everything together in one place burdened me with guilt- I really had taken an obscene amount from the available selections, and while I loved every piece, I really could have curbed my frivolity. I reached behind me to open the armoire door as I gathered a handful of hangers, and stopped in my tracks when I turned around. Calmly, I reached over to my drawers and opened each one. Less calmly, I placed the clothing back on my bed and inhaled slowly.

  “BETHANY, WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY CLOTHES?!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Bethany poked her head around the doorframe sheepishly as I stared so deeply into the back of my bare armoire that I was locked in a fierce staring competition with Aslan.

  “What the fuck have you done with my clothes, Bethany?” She grinned at me puckishly and pointed out of my window. I looked at her, temporarily paralysed by rage, and slowly moved across the room to look out of the curtains. “Okay.” I nodded slowly as I spotted a large metal barrel full of soot and cinders. “You burned my clothes.” I closed my eyes for a moment before launching myself across the room and slapping at her arms in a childish tantrum. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Boss’ orders, Cici!” She laughed and placed a hand on my crown to keep me at arm’s length. “It’s so you stop wearin
g the god awful jeans and crap trainers, and only wear the fine threads you should be dressing in.” I slumped to the floor and wrapped my arms around my knees, rocking to and fro. I felt raped- betrayed and stripped of my identity just to please a man for the sake of a published novel. Bethany stooped down next to me and brushed my hair from my face. “He didn’t ask me to do it maliciously, Cici- we both just want you to leave this house with your head held high every day. You deserve nice things- nice clothes. You can’t honestly tell me that you don’t walk a little taller for borrowing my Versace dresses.” I was loathed to admit that she was right- it felt amazing to walk around feeling polished and high class, but nothing really compared to the comfort of the old worn out pumps that I’d worn for every shift at the bar for the past six years.

  I picked up a skyscraper heeled boot from a Jimmy Choo box and pulled a face. “How do you expect me to work in these?”

  “Wedges.” She winked and pulled me up from the floor with a swift tug. “Seriously, wedges- better arch support. You’re too good for charity shops and catalogue seconds, Cici, and you really need to start believing that. Your folks should have told you not to compromise on style either.”

  “Hah.” I cast a dubious eye over what was now my entire wardrobe and miserably set to making them a permanent addition to my home. I still felt like Vivian Ward- or at least like a little piece of me had died. “You’d tell me if I’d sold my soul, wouldn’t you, Bethy?”

  Bethany rolled her eyes at me and stared lustfully into a bag packed full of Gucci accessories. “In that highly unlikely situation, yes I would. But you know as well as I do that you’d never sell your soul- not for all the love in the world.”

  I pushed my oversized sunglasses up into my hair and gave a wave and a sly smile to surprise the poorly hidden photographers who were blatantly trying to fabricate another rumour from my lunch date with Cole. Their eyes widened before they made a rapid retreat to a safer distance to resume their conspicuous snapping. I rolled my eyes and picked up a menu from the table. “Idiots.”

  Cole shot me a look that spoke a mass of contradictions- that he agreed, that he was sympathetic, that it was my own fault, that I should be used to it, that he loved being seen out with a new public figure, that he hated being photographed with me, that he was angry but he was scared to enrage me with his reasons why. I wondered if he realised just how easy he was to analyse, and was glad that it wasn’t just me who suffered from chronic opacity dysfunction. “You didn’t answer your phone yesterday.”

  I kept my eyes fixed on the menu, determined not to lower myself to another public display of violence over his ridiculous text messages. “I was busy stripping and shitting creativity.” I met his stare with a narrowed eye. “I was shopping with Bethany then sat with Nathaniel in his office working on the novel. My phone was on silent- I’m sorry that I didn’t check it through the day, but until two weeks ago, Bethany was the only person who ever called me.”

  “You were photographed kissing him.” I slammed the menu down on the table with a curse.

  “On the cheek, Cole. We hardly started going at it on the pavement.” I pulled my sunglasses back down over my eyes and sighed. I dared to believe that from the view of any observer, I looked like one seriously unimpressed hot shot, spread out across my seat in my designer leather jacket with my infuriating but gorgeous boyfriend, brooding. “He was asking me for a female perspective. He’s fallen in love with some hopelessly oblivious broad and it’s eating him up.”

  Cole looked at me guiltily and fiddled with the stem of his glass. “He has a girlfriend?”

  “Yes,” I snapped, “and he knows that I’m with you. He reveres love as much as I do and he’s not about to screw that up over a bar maid.” I ran my finger over my lips sullenly and raised my glass of rose to my face, pausing to search for answers in the reflective surface of the liquid. It made me sick that I was persistently being pulled into this conversation over and over again- that my loyalty was being brought into question with increasing frequency. “Your paranoia is tedious and frankly insulting,” I said, with my voice low and heartless, “if I’d known you were so territorial and unhinged, I never would have agreed to date you.” I shrugged slightly, feeling absolutely no shame for my brutal honesty, and stared out at the hurried shoppers and lunching business men and women who, I noticed only then, would crane their necks to look at me as they passed. Yes, I thought to myself, I am that woman you keep seeing trapped in ridiculous arguments with moronic men.

  The darkened lenses over my eyes dulled the rueful contrition in Cole’s eyes. I didn’t want to spare any empathy for him- not today. Every time he was given the opportunity to repent, he somehow worked to twist the blame back on to me. I knew that every situation was being distorted so he could somehow absolve his guilt, but I just couldn’t dismiss the pity I felt as a warm, compassionate human being. I wasn’t a monster, and that’s why I stayed- because when he looked so wretched, I was morally obliged to remedy his self-inflicted misery.

  “I’m so sorry I keep acting like this, Cecelia. It’s just-…” He stared at me, looking as lost as an abandoned child, “… I think I’m going crazy. You make me crazy.”

  I bit down on my bottom lip and shook my head. “I’m not going to take the blame for you acting like a nut-job, Cole.”

  “I don’t want you to.” He reached over to take my hand and I surrendered it willingly. Anything to wipe that little-boy-lost look from his face. “I don’t feel right when you’re not around and every time I open a newspaper or magazine I see pictures of you with Nathaniel Alexander.” We’d been dating how long and he was becoming co-dependent? Why did men insist on falling for me so dramatically? I had been here before, and I was ready to break into an Olympian sprint at the first sign of the L word.

  “I keep telling you that we’re just friends.”

  “I know.” Cole pulled my hand up to his mouth and kissed across my knuckles profusely. “I just wish I got as much time with you as he does. Unless we’re eating, we hardly speak. You don’t call, you don’t text- I’m sick with jealousy, Cecelia. But you keep forgiving me for acting like a prat, and every time I see you…” He paused with my hand in both of his and pressed it to his forehead, his torturous emotions written over his face, telling me how exquisitely painfully his insides burned. He was undeniably and devastatingly in love with me and too terrified to speak the words his eyes announced- that was probably best. “I wish I could express in words what I feel when I see you.”

  My teeth released my lip and a gargantuan wave of anxiety flooded every nerve in my body. I was his fireworks. The words of encouragement I had offered Nathaniel didn’t work in practice- Cole had fallen hard and fast, and as much as those embers singed my skin, I didn’t release any rockets of my own. I didn’t know if I felt worse for offering false hope or failing to heed my own words. “Show me.”

  “What?” Cole’s pensive eyes stared at me, eluded.

  “Show me what you feel. Make me understand.” I leaped to my feet and tugged at his hand. “Show me now.”

  Cole’s Richmond Mews loft was as savagely masculine as the man himself- solid wooden flooring hinged with warm cream walls, heavily burdened with top range gadgetry and mismatched canvases of still-life fruit and Audrey Hepburn. We didn’t burst through the doors in the fit of passion I had hoped for, instead he led me into his open plan kitchen and lounge area with an illicit I’ve-got-a-dirty-little-secret glaze over his eyes and permitted me to help myself to a drink while he slunk off to the bedroom. I felt less like a cherished lover laying in eager anticipation to be swept into a whirlwind of desperate and vital lovemaking, and more like a cheap whore waiting for my customer to tend to matters of personal hygiene before I initiated my services.

  Cole crept towards me, top two buttons of his crisp white shirt open to expose a sliver of smooth olive skin and not a single wisp of hair. He silently slipped my coat off over my shoulders and draped it over the back of a leather recliner
, his eyes blazing with excitement and pure carnal lust. That animalistic glint was the kind of encouragement I needed- I pulled his face towards mine and kissed him. I kissed him hard, aching to feel that flame he held.

  “Come on,” he whispered against my lips, “I want to show you why I wanted you to come here on Saturday night.” My curiosity swelled and chased after us with a spritely gallop as he led me through the loft to the master bedroom.

  I was quietly disheartened when the door swung open to the dim light of candles and the scent of orchids wafting from the flowers laid daintily across soft white linen sheets. Anyone would have been glad for the break from the generic satin sheets and rose petal scenario, but I wasn’t. The gentle collective glow of the flames and soft love ballads humming gently in the background would have been wildly seductive if I hadn’t written this image myself as the first and most intense love scene in my novel. I knew what this was- it was Cole’s way of showing me that he could recreate my fantasies just as Nathaniel could. It was no carefully planned out display of romanticism, it was proof that he could read. This was his submission to the pissing contest.

  “Do you like it?” I plastered on a smile and bit through my disappointment as the zip on the back of my dress slid open and the fabric tumbled down around my ankles.

  “Of course. It’s exactly what I imagined.” Exactly what I had imagined. The room lacked any hint of spontaneity, personality or imagination. I knew this scene too well to find it endearing anymore- I knew every step, every word, every kiss and every touch like the back of my hand.

  And so did he. Cole undressed me with the same bold grace as my antagonist- directing me to the edge of the bed to pull my boots from my feet and stretching out my leg to kiss and graze the length of my thigh with his teeth. I squirmed- but not for needing more. I squirmed because I was impatient and frustrated, and my scripted seduction was not setting me in the mood for sex.