by Jane Linfoot
Occasionally he asked himself if he’d ever get his life together again, but if his life was still this upside down, eight years down the line, he doubted he ever would. The extreme working habits he’d thrown himself into after the break-up had become a way of life. No way would he think of changing them now, and they simply didn’t allow for the kind of normal existence other people enjoyed. It was as if dysfunctional was the only thing he knew now, but the point was he was happy this way. Somewhere along the line, he’d become content to be like this.
One floor up, he chose the bedroom with the best view of the street, then automatically checked his watch again, unnerved by the spring-loaded sensation in his gut. He still wasn’t exactly sure why he’d asked Izzy along today. Asking her because he didn’t want to wait all day to see her again was totally illogical, and it wasn’t how he operated.
‘Hello…Xander?’
Xander’s heart knocked against his chest wall as he heard Izzy’s voice. All that hanging round the window, and she’d slipped in under the radar. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he headed out of the bedroom, he shocked himself with the width of his smile.
‘Xander…the door was open…are you there?’
He dashed onto the landing, peered down through the galaxy of lights that twinkled across the huge void, and saw her, way below, squinting upwards, shading her eyes with her hand, against the glare of the bulbs. If ever he needed confirmation that the services engineer had gone over the top with the lighting scheme, he had it now. And he had to be imagining that sweet scent, wafting upwards on the air, didn’t he?
‘Come on up…I’m checking the bathroom cabinets.’
‘I see you’ve gone for shopping centre style. If you had a glass lift, I might have thought I’d arrived at Meadowhall.’ She was climbing the stairs, and the lilt of her lips told him she was enjoying the jibes. ‘You’ve really done a great job of emptying this place haven’t you? Bloody hell, this platform is hanging on nothing, is it even safe?’ Her voice echoed as she eased off the top step, still hanging onto the stainless steel handrail as she slid along the landing.
‘It’s fine, it’s cantilevered. Designed by experts.’ Throwing in the technical bits here, to hide that he was suddenly breathless.
Xander blinked as he saw her full length for the first time, and dammit that he’d missed the details before. So much for the blinding lights.
‘Well it looks like it’s almost done.’ She was wandering towards him now, hands deep in the pockets of her denim jacket. Perusing, inspecting, commenting. ‘Completely insensitive, you must admit, but totally amazing all the same. So long as you appreciate empty space, that is.’
He shut his eyes, then opened them again, and something was jamming the words in his throat. She was still there, and she was wearing shorts with a liberal splattering of paint, and tights underneath. Thank god for the tights – how much worse would it have been if her legs had been bare? But still, there were the shorts. And she looked as if she owned the place.
‘Wow, who’d have thought…’ She flashed him a hundred watt smile he assumed was meant to go with the compliments. At least he assumed they were compliments – with Izzy it was very hard to know.
He shrugged. ‘I can’t take any credit, with this one I left it all to the architects.’
Xander rubbed the stubble on the side of his chin with his thumb, shaking his head to get rid of the blurriness, as she sauntered towards him.
‘I pretty much feel like I’ve got vertigo though. Glass stair treads, then this hanging landing, punched with tiny holes, it’s kind of dizzying.’ She put out a hand sideways, narrowly missed his bare arm, diverting to the door frame at the last moment. ‘Go ahead if you’re working in the bathroom, anywhere less giddy than here would be good.’
Whereas his swimming head had less to do with heights, and more to do with sudden lack of oxygen.
‘This is one of the smaller bathrooms.’ He turned, and padded across the bedroom to the en suite he was supposed to be inspecting, his deck shoes squeaking on the polished boards. ‘I’m just checking there’s enough room in there, now they’ve put the fitted cupboards in.’
Her reflection appeared in the bathroom mirror behind his own, softened by the LED lights, as she followed him in. Damn, two of her only made things worse, and filling the air with sweetness too. He backed up against the basin unit, trying to pull out of the danger zone.
‘Do you want me to shut the door, so you can see if the cupboards open okay?’
He wasn’t sure being closed in was advisable at all, given that the closer she got, the harder he was finding it to keep his hands off her. ‘Great idea, thanks.’
As the door handle clicked, he bobbed to try the cupboard door. Playing along with the charade kept his mind off the whole softness of her, made it possible to think he could make it out of here without an incident. He was just standing up again, when the lights gave a single flicker.
Oh shit.
And then they went out entirely.
Shit, shit, shit.
The sudden blackness engulfed them.
‘Don’t worry…it’s probably just a power cut.’ He made a lunge for the door in the dark.
His torso banged into something soft, and warm, and squirming. Izzy. Right in his face. No surprise there. Shit. Close enough for hair to be tangling in his stubble. He found her shoulders, tried to navigate past her. He had approximately two seconds to make a run for it. He bent his head, and then he was inadvertently rubbing his chin against her cheek, and breathing in her perfume which smelled of burning roses. Too sweet. Too late. Way too late to run now. He heard her drag in a breath as he felt his cheek bump against her face, but he didn’t move it away. What the hell was he doing here, and more to the point why wasn’t she knocking him out with that flaming right hook of hers? He waited for resistance, but it didn’t come. Instead he felt her fingers close around the back of his head. She was pulling him in closer. Slowly, he let his lips meander across her skin, past her nose. When he found her mouth, it was hot and soft and open, and she let out a low groan as he feathered his tongue along the inside of her upper lip. He felt his own lips twitch. Ridiculous that he should be bloody smiling now. As he tasted the velvety depths of her mouth, she was kissing him back, hot and lethal, ramming her body hard against his, and sending thrusts of desire right through him. Not sure who was the hungriest here, he clamped his arms around her back, buried his fingers deep in the chaos of her hair, tugging, rubbing the softness of her neck. Her hands were digging into the muscles of his back, her finger nails scraping delicious arcs across his skin under his shirt, winding around his ribs, sending spiralling shivers straight to his groin. Tasting like heaven, and that would be urgent, desperate, lustful, dizzy heaven, and grinding against him with a need…
A clatter somewhere down below in the house pulled Xander up. Then another. One more bang broke the kiss. As the lights gave a momentary flicker, their bodies parted. A second later, by the time the lights had blinked, then blazed, Izzy had her hand on her mouth, and her back pressed against the door. Xander, wobbling against the shower screen, let his gaze run up her body, as far as the paint smear across her left cheek. He had no idea what the hell happened there, but now it was over, it left him feeling like he had a gaping hole in his chest.
When he finally dared to meet her gaze, their eyes locked in one trembling flash of incomprehension and horror, then a shout from downstairs smashed the silence. ‘Sorry mate, just knocked the power off, it’s on again now…’
One absent electrician, making a timely appearance.
They both made a grab for the door handle, but Izzy got there first, hurled open the door, bolted across the bedroom, and was out on the landing before Xander could say bubble gum. Getting the hell out of here then.
She was calling out as she picked her way gingerly down the staircase. ‘Thanks for letting me see the house, anyway.’
Obviously remembering her manners, des
pite the hurry. Xander couldn’t fault her on her customer relations today, even if that kiss was the last thing in the world he’d needed. And pinning his hopes on her needing the cash so much that she’d come back to finish at The Pink House later. He’d get his head straight, and get the job done. End of.
‘The mattress and bedding arrived this morning…’ He leaned over the balustrade, and shouted after her. What kind of fool would think that by shouting domestic inanities, he might catch her interest, and hook her back? Only a no hope guy, who had no idea.
She did slow her run across the hall for long enough to give him one wild eyed, backwards glance.
‘See you at The Pink House at seven then.’ He was shouting louder now, just to be sure she’d heard him.
As for this house, having Izzy round, even briefly, had simply reinforced why he was a thousand miles away from wanting to keep it. This was no place for someone like him, someone with no hope of ever pulling his life back together. As soon as the summer was over, and the outside was straightened up, he’d be selling, for sure.
28
Thursday Evening, 12th June
IZZY & XANDER
The Pink House
Flowers, spots, and generous euphemisms
Pretend it never happened.
Izzy stabbed the last stray cushions into plastic bags, and tried her new mantra out for size, now she was actually here at The Pink House.
Pretend it never happened?
Easy advice for Luce to dish out, but quite another thing to pull off, when Izzy’s whole world was imploding after this afternoon’s blunder. She hadn’t even managed to get back home to make the chilli for dinner, and she’d had to text the boys to say she’d cook for them later. Her whole day had already been tipped upside down by bloody Xander, and his stupid suggestion of looking round his house, and that was before she’d even got into the sodding en suite.
She grabbed four bulging packs of sheets and cushions, and headed for the house. If she’d had the nerve to get this far, maybe she was managing to block out reality better than she thought.
As for what happened in the bathroom, she preferred not to go there. She suspected she was suffering from what Luce always termed “the post-snog washing-machine effect”, because despite the fact that she hadn’t been able to face eating anything, from the way her stomach was churning, she might well chuck up at any moment. She reminded herself not to be sick on the cushions. Or on the brand new carpets. Or on the new bed. She simply had to hide behind her bin bags, get in, get out, and away. Easy as.
So. She was here.
And so was he. The hot guy she’d failed to keep her hands off in the dark was standing by the open door as she approached, and giving nothing more away. Damn him, and his slightly raised left eyebrow.
‘Hi there…’ His voice even more gravelly than usual though.
He stepped back, widening his narrowed eyes slightly, as she barged past him. She couldn’t risk lingering, because even though she was cringing inside, and mortified about what happened earlier, she couldn’t be entirely sure her inner tramp wasn’t going to go out on a limb, and make another grab for a repeat performance. Two of the bags she was carrying hit the polished floorboards, as she dropped them by the bannister post.
‘I’d say help yourself, but I see you have anyway.’ His slow, snarly comment followed her as she skittered up the stairs. ‘The electrician has been to install the chandelier, by the way…’
Izzy made a dash for the sanctuary of the bedroom. So far, so good. It was uncanny the way this house reminded Izzy of the place where she had spent most of her childhood. Even though it had been recently done up, there was still the same quality to the creak of the floorboards. Something about looking through the sash windows catapulted her back in time. She’d been a happy, privileged child, living in a cosy family, with her mum, and her brothers, and the dad she now knew to be a disgusting excuse for a waste of space.
When her family had broken up, the sudden downwards trajectory for Izzy’s mum and the children had been like sliding down a snake on the snakes and ladders board. And not just any snake. This was the huge one that caught you out when you got to the ninety ninth square, and whisked you all the way down the board, and deposited you unceremoniously right back at the start. There was nothing to compare with the whole numb shock of it.
Izzy guessed her mum had faced this before, working for clients who lived in the kind of large and affluent home she’d lost. Izzy wasn’t sure how she felt about revisiting a house like this, in the guise of hired help rather than occupant. There were some memories which were better left to lie, simply because once you disturbed them they became just that: disturbing.
Upstairs in the bedroom the chandelier was twinkling above the bed, which now had a new mattress, quilt and pillows added. The chandelier was a simple one with a few, tear-drop crystals. Why the hell Xander had made such a song and dance about dusting it yesterday she had no idea. But then he seemed to have a gift for making everything more complicated than it needed to be, didn’t he?
She switched her thoughts back to her old home, which usually she tried not to think about at all. They had been train wreck divorce years, when their dad had gone, and the rest of the family had been crammed into a small flat, struggling at new schools, with her mum desperately trying to keep her head above water from day to day, and fight her dad through the courts. It was Luce who had really helped Izzy to settle in, and assimilate into the completely different social structure at school. For Izzy who’d been used to an all girls education, negotiating corridors full of testosterone challenged fifteen year old lads had been a minefield, despite having a house full of boys at home. With a whole new social etiquette of the co-ed school to negotiate, having Luce as her wing girl had been a godsend.
The quilt cover she’d bought for Christina’s bed was a similar print to her own at home, and she unpacked it now, slipped the new duvet in, and flung it into place over the bed. She spread a couple of folded silk quilts across the bottom of the bed, and the array of cushions she threw into place against the bed head completed the effect. As a final finishing touch, she arranged the letters that spelled LOVE along the top of one of the large chests. She ground her teeth as she looked back on the room from the door – all good, but if anything merited a vomit emoticon, those “love” letters did.
‘All done up there.’ She thundered down to the bottom of the stairs, and grabbed the bags she had deposited in the hall earlier, catching a view of Xander’s back, as she sped past the kitchen, and out towards the sanctuary of the summer house.
Once there she began to tie the cushions onto the chairs. Finally, she grabbed a chair and got out her tools, to fix the bunting in place. Twenty minutes later, she was just stretching to attach the last flag when she heard the clunk of feet on the wooden steps outside.
‘Anything I can do?’
Izzy lurched at the low burr of Xander’s voice behind her, dropped the bunting end, and flashed round on the chair she was standing on. And damn him for arriving when she was so close to being finished.
‘You can stop creeping up on people, for a start.’ And making them wobble on their chairs. She knew she sounded snappy, but cross was good, because at least when she was angry it made her feel in control.
He crossed the summerhouse in three strides, taking in the new additions.
‘Nice.’ He nodded, with an air of satisfaction, which would have come across more convincingly, if his eyes had been on the cushions, and not apparently stuck on her legs.
Thank Thursday she’d swapped her shorts for a dress she’d nabbed from Luce’s rail before she set off, especially since she was wobbling up here on a chair. Not so good that she’d lost the tights. If she’d given a damn at all, she’d have been damned happy she’d shaved her legs though.
Izzy gave a snort. ‘You don’t even like flowers and spots.’ Here he was, being patronising, and looking down his nose at the world again.
‘Dots
and flowers aren’t my favourite, but I can see they might look good in this context.’
Still talking in that same drawly way then. How could he be so bloody superior and unsmiling about cushions?
‘Well, thank you to our very own Gracious Living Interiors Expert.’ The way he was sauntering round prodding and poking things she was ready to throw something at him.
‘Health and Safety says you should stand on steps, not chairs.’ He sidled in her direction, with what she took for a mocking swagger. ‘You don’t look particularly stable up there.’
He was in front of her now, and looking down into the dark pools of his eyes, she shivered. Close enough for her to make out the individual prickles of his stubble, was way too close in her book. What was the health and safety advice on guys making your blood pump fast enough to give you a heart attack then?
‘I’m fine.’ She was talking through gritted teeth, again, and given that she was inadvertently swishing her skirt, she was probably sounding like a spoiled child too. ‘At least, I was all good until you came along.’ There, she hoped that told him.
‘You haven’t got a brilliant track record on the safety thing, getting stuck in skips, cutting your foot, tripping up in bathrooms…’ His lazy drawl slid to a halt.
Tripping up? That was a generous euphemism, considering the way she’d launched herself at him earlier. And he sounded almost expectant. Bloody hell, he surely couldn’t think she’d make the same mistake again.
‘I’m not going to throw myself at you now if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Important to make herself totally clear here, so she sent him her best scowl too.