by Stone, Holly
“Yeah, a duvet, I think?”
“Okay. I’ll get you a sheet and you can make up the sofa. The bathroom’s through the bedroom. I’m gonna grab a shower to wash off the grease. You can have one after if you want, okay?”
“Okay.”
She smiled so warmly I felt it in my bones. “You can sit down, you know, Jack.”
I nodded and moved to sit on one end of the sofa as Amy headed towards the closed door. I realised as she walked away that my manners had been buried under a whole heap of emotions and I should really say something to show how grateful I was.
“Amy.” She turned, her grey eyes warmed by the yellow lighting. “Thanks, yeah?” I said, half to her and half to my feet.
“You’re welcome, Jack.”
The door closed gently behind her and then I was alone. I looked down at the carpet and felt bad for keeping my big black boots on, but taking them off felt weird too. My socks had holes in them and it felt too much like I was making myself at home in a stranger’s house. I was going to have to take them off at some point though if I was really doing this – staying over at Amy’s flat – so I started to unlace and remove them, shrugging off my jacket and looking around a bit more.
Amy was neat and house-proud. I don’t think I expected anything different. She always had a cloth in her hand at the chip shop, and I could practically see my face in the stainless steel there. She had a kind of nervous energy about her, as if she didn’t like to be still. She’d said that she only stayed at the flat sometimes but everything was in its place and it felt homey too. There was a narrow white bookshelf that looked full of the kind of books that girls read with a set of speakers for her MP3 player on the top. I wondered what music she liked; there were no CDs around for me to snoop. On the low coffee table there were a couple of recipe books on baking your own bread and cupcakes. It was so warm and comfortable, nothing like the place I’d called my home.
I grabbed my beer and necked the rest, feeling better now the alcohol was working its way into my system. My body was restless though, my right leg in perpetual motion. I settled back against the sofa and ran my fingers through my hair. It needed a cut but I hadn’t had time. The top was so long I needed to put product in it to keep it from flopping over the sides. I probably wasn’t looking my best which shouldn’t have crossed my mind under the circumstances, but it did. Amy was a gorgeous girl and she must already be thinking I was pretty pathetic. I didn’t want her thinking I was a mess as well. My phone buzzed in my pocket. When I checked the screen I saw it was from my mum and I gripped the phone so tight with the wave of anger I felt, it was a wonder it didn’t shatter. One word. Sorry.
What a load of shit.
I put it back in my pocket and rubbed my hands across my face. My fingers itched for my plectrum and the bite of guitar strings under my rough fingertips. I wanted that cup of tea but there was no way I was going to help myself. Amy was already doing more for me than I could have hoped for. I heard the rumble of pipes as the shower turned off and movements behind the door, drawers opening and shutting, and footsteps. Then she was back in the room dressed in grey sweats and a bobbly cardigan, her hair knotted in a wet bundle on top of her head. She looked well-scrubbed, pink and fresh, and so much more alive than she had moments earlier. A drip of water escaped her hair and trickled down her neck and I watched it disappear into the seam of her top.
“You want to grab a shower? I put a towel in there for you. Just use my stuff if you want.”
I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, walk through her bedroom, get naked in her bathroom, cover myself in shower stuff that she used so I would know what her skin smelt like and then have to walk out in something I could sleep in. It was intimate. “Amy…”
“Yeah?”
“Look, I’m grateful for what you’re doing…so grateful, but this…is it too much?”
She looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, Jack. Maybe it is but you still gotta shower, eat and sleep, haven’t you? I’m going to chill in here and watch some TV so you won’t have to worry about me bursting in and seeing things I shouldn’t.” She grinned and I must have blushed because she laughed, flopping into a worn beige armchair with a giant fluffy green cushion on it. She put her tiny feet up on the coffee table and I noticed her toes were painted bubble-gum pink. Fuck. Even her pretty feet were getting me flustered.
I got up and started searching through my stuff for something I could change into. Boxers weren’t going to cut it. She smirked at me as I passed.
“Lighten up, Jack,” Amy called after me as I disappeared through the door to her bedroom. The air smelled of girl; layers of perfume and deodorant infused into the soft furnishings. Her double bed was rumpled where she’d sat, but nothing else was out of place. The walls were plain white but she’d made it bright by hanging a big piece of swirly-patterned green material above her bed like a giant mural; a huge splash of colour that reflected what she had done in the lounge. There was a pin board over her dressing table filled with photos and ticket stubs, like a framed scrapbook. I wanted to look it all over carefully but didn’t want her to walk in and see me being nosy.
The bathroom door was ajar so I headed in. It was pretty basic with old fashioned white fixtures and plain white square tiles, but it was clean. The mirror was still fogged up except for a little smiley face she’d drawn with her finger, dragging another weary smile to my face. On the edge of the basin perched the fluffiest green towel I’d ever seen. She really had a thing about green.
I stripped, pulling my long-sleeved shirt over my head then dropping the rest onto the floor. I put my clean clothes on the cistern and started up the shower. I could hear the canned laughter from the TV in the other room. I needed to piss and as I was relieving myself it dawned on me I was going to have to walk through her bedroom any time I needed go. I couldn’t see how this could be anything more than a one night emergency arrangement. I showered quickly, getting semi-hard at the sight of the shower-puff Amy used to wash herself and then felt like some kind of ungrateful degenerate for imagining her naked. When I was ready in my old grey t-shirt and football shorts I made my way back to the lounge.
Amy had covered the sofa in a sheet while I’d been away, and there was a plump pillow at one end. My coat was hanging behind the door to the stairs and my boots were on the shoe rack next to her little pumps and worn Converses. Amy was curled up in the armchair fast asleep. Her light brown hair was loose and mostly dry, hanging in a long tangle down her back and her lips were slightly parted. She looked almost childlike and so innocent it hurt to look at her.
I folded my dirty clothes and put them on top of my holdall, then got my duvet out of the dustbin liner she had carried up the stairs, as quietly as I could. She didn’t stir as I turned off the TV and light, then sat on the edge of the sofa wondering if I should wake her, cover her, or leave her be. Nothing felt like the right thing to do but I pulled a throw off the back of the chair and rested it over her as gently as I could. For the first time that night I felt useful, a little less like the lost kid I’d been before Amy stumbled across me in the cold darkness.
The sofa was short so when I lay down my feet were poking out the end of my duvet, but I was warm and comfortable. I lay listening to the soft sounds of Amy breathing and the creaks of an unfamiliar place, unable to think past the moment I was in. The morning was going to bring a whole heap of issues and they were not going to be easy ones to deal with. I wondered if the light of a new day would make Amy see things differently. With a clear head she might regret her impulsiveness and I needed to sort myself out before it became awkward. When I was close to drifting off I heard her shifting in the chair. I opened my eyes to see her folding the throw and putting it back where I’d found it. As she padded quietly towards her bedroom she whispered, “Night, Jack,” before closing the door.
Chapter 4
AMY
I woke up feeling as though something was different but it took me a while to remember what it was.
I’d invited Jack to stay the night before and he’d slept on my sofa. The memory of him sitting on the steps in the cold made me shudder.
The flat was chilled when I slid out of bed so I pulled on my favourite green cardigan in place of a dressing gown. I used the toilet and made sure I looked presentable before opening the door a crack and peeking through. It was dark in the lounge but the thick corduroy curtains let in just enough light for me to make out Jack’s shape. When I sleep I’m always curled up tight with the covers tucked in around my neck, a shield against vulnerability. Jack slept like an infant, arm back above his head, leg bent up against the sofa back, feet out in the chill of the room and his face a mask of peace. I liked looking at him without the usual worry that scored his brow, or the fidgeting his body engaged in as though it was fighting to expel the feelings generated by his brain and heart. He’d changed so much in the years I’d known him, going from boy to man almost before my eyes, losing the teenage scrawniness and developing the muscles of male adulthood. He always had something that drew my gaze, a quiet seriousness in those midnight eyes and a hard-edged prettiness in the straight line of his nose and thick eyelashes. I’d studied him from afar, the distance and age difference making me an objective observer, like an art critic in front of a new painting or an astronomer faced with a rare comet.
But now I’d seen his bare feet, moved his still warm boots to my shoe rack and breathed in the scent of him left on his jacket, he no longer seemed so remote. And what I’d noticed of him from afar now felt like a warm bubble of something building just behind my breast bone.
As I stood watching him sleep, he turned a little and exhaled a deep breath through slightly parted lips. I drew back into my room and stood with my back to the wall, realising my heart rate had kicked up a notch. Through the crack in the door I could hear him stirring enough to know he was waking up. When I took a deep breath and opened the door his eyes flicked to me, still hazy with sleep.
“Hey,” I said, and he started to sit up, swinging his long legs until his feet rested on the carpet, rubbing at his eyes. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah.” He looked adorably bleary-eyed and ruffled. As if he was aware of his bed-hair, he pushed his fingers through his floppy Mohawk until it rested in a soft, dark wave. “Thanks.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking me, Jack. I told you it’s no trouble. Look, I’m going to make some coffee. Do you want some, or tea?”
“Coffee’s good. Is it okay if I use the bathroom?”
“Course.”
I walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle, my normal routines feeling strange knowing Jack was in the other room.
When he came back his hair was damp around his hairline where he must have splashed his face and he leaned up against the worktop at the end of the kitchen.
“I’ll have a coffee and then get my stuff together so I can get out from under your feet.”
I looked at him over my shoulder, empty mugs in my hand. Somehow, between his walk to the bathroom and back he’d picked up the weight of the world again. Sleep's peace was long gone.
“Bloody hell, Jack…will you just chill out? You’re not under my feet and I’m not expecting you to leave if you’ve got nowhere to go. Let’s have some breakfast and talk. Tell me what you think you might do…is there a chance your mum will change her mind?”
He sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know…I don’t think so and I’m not really sure I want to go back there. It was getting pretty bad towards the end.”
I stirred our coffee. “Sugar?”
Jack nodded. “Two, please.”
“Has she been with the boyfriend for long?”
“About six months. He’s just one in a long line of losers. They’re all the same except now that I’m not a kid anymore, I’ve become more of a threat, or something.”
“Yeah, but it’s your house…you’ve got a right to be there.”
“Maybe,” he said, not sounding like he believed what I was saying, and it was strange to hear that he doubted his place in his family. My place in mine was so firm sometimes I felt like I’d grown thick, brown tree roots that were always going to hold me exactly where I was.
“Are you still at college?”
“I finished in the summer and I couldn’t figure out what to do next. Higher education is so expensive, and I didn’t want to get myself in so much debt I’d never be able to pay it off. I’m working late shifts at Asda, trying to save while I decide, but I’m not getting very far.”
“Neither of us has gotten very far, have we?”
Jack smiled and shrugged his shoulders, and I handed him his coffee. “You want toast or cereal?”
“Toast, if that’s okay?”
“No, it’s not. Two slices of bread is going to bankrupt me.”
“Better make it just the one then.”
His eyes were sparkling and I shook my head, surprised at how different he was in real life to the one dimensional Jack I’d formed in my own mind.
“You’re funny.” I put the bread in the toaster and searched out the margarine and jam, and as I rested everything on the worktop I heard my phone starting to ring from my bedroom where it had been charging. “Sorry…gotta get that.” I skipped past him, knowing any phone call this early was bound to be my dad and likely to be an errand of some sort. My heart sank a little as I answered, knowing my morning off was likely not going to be my own.
“Dad,” I said, sounding a little out of breath.
“Amy…you sound like you’ve been running.” His tone was suspicious, as if his mind was whirring to gather signs that I might be up to something that would affect the status quo.
“Just to get the phone. Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine. I need you to do something for me today, before you open up.”
“What is it?”
“Can you come by and sort out some of the house bills? I’ve left a pile of stuff on the kitchen table, the cheque book as well. You’ll need some stamps. And I’m going to leave some trousers for dry-cleaning too. Can you take them in and pick up the stuff from last week?”
“Yeah, okay, Dad.”
“Okay, good. Thanks. Everything okay yesterday? How were takings?”
“Same as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Okay, you going to bank it?” He knew I would. It was the same routine every week. Bank on Monday for the weekend’s takings and Saturday for the week's.
“Yeah, it’s in the safe. I’ll go later.”
“Okay. If you get a chance, come by the shop and see me.”
“If I get time,” I said, knowing that what he was asking me to do was going to take all the time I had before I needed to open up.
“You’ll find time for your old dad,” he said firmly and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out of it.
“Okay, see you later.”
We said our goodbyes and I felt horrible inside, resenting my dad for taking over my life with errands and responsibilities so I had no time for myself, and feeling vile that I could be so ungrateful. I chucked my phone on the bed and went back to the kitchen. Jack was looking out of the window at the nothing-view of garages and dustbins covered in frost. I didn’t know what he was thinking but I wished I did.
“Everything okay?” he asked as I brushed past him to finish making our breakfast.
“Not really, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“There’s always something, Amy.” He was still looking out the window but he turned when I didn’t say anything in return. I couldn’t hold his gaze for long. There was too much warmth in it and too much challenge. I didn’t want him thinking he could get under my skin.
“You want to butter your own toast?” I asked.
He just shrugged and I could still feel his eyes on me, just like when he ordered his dinner downstairs. My kitchen felt tiny and he felt big and intense. And although he was familiar, there was so much of him that was unknown. I couldn’t st
op noticing his bare feet and knees and soft places like the insides of his elbows; all the things that made him vulnerable and human.
“It’s my dad. He needs me to run some errand for him this morning. I’m not going to be able to hang out here.”
“That’s okay. You do what you gotta do. Is it okay if I leave my stuff here until later? I’m going to run a few errands myself today. See if I can sort something out.”
“Course…and I’ll be downstairs from 11am. You can come and grab something to eat. I’ll be on until closing.”
“Maybe,” Jack said, sounding like he was worried he was being too much of a burden again.
Just as I took a bite of my tepid toast the door buzzer sounded. I pushed the button on the intercom.
“Amy, it’s me. Can I come up?” It was my friend Jess, not a regular visitor so early in the morning, which made me wonder what was going on. The problem was that her arrival, while Jack and I were having breakfast together in our PJs, was not exactly ideal timing. Jack raised his eyebrows at me, looking faintly worried.
“I can hide out in your bedroom if you like,” he whispered.
I pressed the door release deciding that I could deal with the fallout. I was twenty-three years old after all, not a kid anymore, and perfectly entitled to have house guests if I wanted to.
Jess galloped up the stairs and burst through the door to the lounge, mouth open and about to launch into conversation, when she stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of us.
“Hey…am I interrupting something?” She waved her finger back and forth, pointing at each of us.
“Breakfast, Jess,” I said, trying to appear nonchalant. “What are you doing here so early?” She was wearing her work uniform, her dark hair scraped back, so I was assuming she was on her way there.
“I was going to pop over for a chat, but I see you have some news of your own. He’s a bit young, isn’t he?” she said with a giant grin on her face, looking Jack up and down. “But big enough,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows.