Daring to Date Her Ex

by Annie Claydon

  ‘Not good enough.’ She stood on her toes to murmur in his ear.

  ‘I’ll admit I’m a bit rusty.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ She brushed her lips against his again, and he felt a shudder run through him. ‘But it would be so much better if you used your hands. And if you didn’t treat me as if I’m made of glass.’

  He chuckled, resting his fingers lightly on her waist. She planted a kiss on his cheek and Lucas pulled her in hard, stifling her gasp with his mouth. Sliding one hand up her back, he hooked it over her shoulder, pinning her against him. He’d wanted this for so long.

  Then the synchronicity. It was so startling it almost knocked him off his feet. As if she’d suddenly given up any pretence of being separate from him, and her heart was beating in time with his. Every breath he took was matched by one of hers. Every touch had an equal and opposite reaction. He had to let her go now, before he lost control and pulled her down into the water.

  He let her down slowly so that she was in no doubt about the fact that he really didn’t want to. Gently pulled his aching body away from hers, knowing that he’d left a part of him behind. The part that had always belonged to Thea.

  ‘What shall we toast this time?’ She brushed her lips against his in an action that affirmed everything that was good in his life.

  ‘Things we’ve lost. Things we’ve found.’

  She smiled. ‘Yeah. Things we’ve lost. And found.’

  Their kiss was tender this time. No more desperately trying to forget the past and not think about the future. Just this moment.

  They both knew the exact time to end it, and she nestled against him, her fingers resting lightly on his hips. No trying to claw it back, no trying to repeat it. It had been perfect, just as it was.

  Finally, she took a step backwards, yelping suddenly as she trod on something in the water. Standing on one foot, she tried to inspect the sole of the other, laughing as she swayed precariously. Lucas reached out to steady her, but she’d already lost her balance and she fell backwards.

  ‘Ow-w-w.’ She obviously wasn’t hurt as she was still laughing and Lucas held out his hand, helping her to her feet. Turning around, she inspected the back of her trousers, caked now with sand and mud. ‘D’you reckon I could be any dirtier?’

  He inspected the back of her trousers. ‘Nope. You could be a bit wetter, though. Look, you’ve missed a bit, just there.’

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ She threw him a menacing look, and Lucas resisted the temptation to splash water on her blouse. ‘We’ll walk a bit. It’ll dry off.’

  They’d have to walk a long way—she was soaked. ‘I have a towel in the car.’

  * * *

  Thankfully, it was a large one. Standing next to the car, Thea wound the towel around her waist, tucking it in firmly, and slipped her trousers off. They were soaking, and when she wrung them out a puddle of dirty water formed on the pavement.

  ‘Time to go home?’ He was leaning against the bonnet of the car, watching her.

  ‘Guess so.’ Thea slid into the front seat and arranged the towel over her legs.

  The soundtrack for the way back was slower, moody late-night songs. The headlights of the oncoming cars were almost mesmeric, and Thea began to doze.

  Her eyes snapped open. The heat in the car was suddenly unbearable and when she found the button to wind down the window, the wind that hit her in the face was worse. ‘Pull over… Going to be sick…’

  She had no idea where they were, but the sudden deceleration told her that they must be on the motorway. Hard shoulder. Blurred light flashing in her eyes. She had to get out…

  As she instinctively reached for the door release, she heard the central locking click. Her stomach cramped suddenly and she doubled over. Not yet. Can’t be sick in the car. She clamped her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Let it go, Thea. You’ll choke yourself.’ Lucas’s voice, cool and steady.

  ‘Stop the damn car,’ She groaned as her stomach lurched again. The car finally came to a halt, and she heard the locks release.

  By the time Lucas made it around to her door, she’d managed to get it open and had almost fallen out of the car and onto the tarmac. He half carried her onto the grass by the side of the hard shoulder and she fell to her knees, throwing up almost immediately.

  ‘Okay. That all of it?’

  Thea was shaking too much to answer. Her stomach started to twist into knots again and she felt her back spasm painfully as she retched violently.

  The sharp smell of her own vomit hit her. Sweat and tears were trickling down her face, and she was suddenly cold. She felt Lucas move her, sitting her down on something, and she sagged to one side, leaning against a fence.

  ‘Stay there…just for a minute while I get you some water.’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry.’ The indignity of it all was sinking in fast. On her hands and knees, wearing a towel, being sick by the side of the road. Things rarely got much more humiliating than that.

  ‘Here.’ He handed her a bottle of water, steadying her hand as she almost sploshed it all over her. ‘Wash your mouth out and then drink some.’

  She obeyed him automatically. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Be quiet.’

  ‘But I am,’ Thea protested weakly, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Stop it. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Better. I just want to lie down for a while.’ Suddenly curling up on the grass and sleeping didn’t seem like such a terrible idea.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Sit in the car for a moment and rest. Then we’ll get you home.’

  * * *

  He had to stop again so that her aching stomach could reject the water she’d drunk. When the car finally drew to a halt for the third time she neither knew nor cared where she was, just that he’d carried her out of the car and laid her down on cool sheets. She slept for what seemed like five minutes and then the convulsive retching started again, this time all the more painful because of the stretched and aching muscles in her back and stomach.

  * * *

  Lucas was there when she woke. The curtains were closed and blowing slightly in the breeze, and she was in her own bed. She was very thirsty.

  ‘Hey, there.’ He’d carried a chair from the living room into her bedroom and was sitting in the corner of the room. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Terrible. She felt awful. Memories of last night started to filter back into her consciousness, fitting themselves back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

  ‘Can I have some water, please?’ Anything to get him out of the room for a moment while she gathered her scattered wits.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She heard the sound of his footsteps on the stairs and looked around. From the violence with which she’d been sick last night, she expected to see the room in complete disarray, but everything was just as it always was. The fresh smell of clean sheets drifted into her consciousness, and she remembered that Lucas had changed them at some point last night.

  ‘Here.’ He sat down on the edge of the bed and Thea slowly pulled herself up on the pillows and took the glass from his hand, drinking greedily. ‘Slowly now. Not too much.’

  ‘That’s better. Thanks.’ She handed the glass back to him.

  Something wasn’t right. Last night should have been one of the most humiliating of her life, but somehow it hadn’t been. She could remember waking up, trying to get out of bed and falling flat on her face, then Lucas scooping her up and taking her to the bathroom. When it was all over he’d been as businesslike as the most practised of nurses, stripping off her soiled nightie, washing her and re-dressing her and putting her back to bed.

  She felt herself redden a little at the thought. ‘Ohh. I’m so sorry, Lucas.’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing to apologise for.’

  ‘There must be.’ She couldn’t remember quite what it was but she’d think of something. ‘What’s the matter with me? The oysters?’

  ‘I ate the oysters too. Anyway,
they’re all irradiated these days. What did you have to eat yesterday morning?’

  ‘Black coffee. Toast.’ Not the most obvious candidates for food poisoning. Thea concentrated on remembering everything she’d eaten yesterday, her stomach growling in protest at even the thought of food. ‘Mayonnaise. You didn’t have any of that, and it was home-made.’

  He nodded. ‘Sounds as if that’s what it is, then.’

  ‘Or a bug of some sort.’ Even thinking was tiring her out. Thea slumped against the pillows.

  ‘I don’t think so. I called the hospital this morning to see if there had been any reports of sickness amongst the staff or patients, and there’s nothing. And you had no fever or any other symptoms.’

  That was good to know. ‘Apart from feeling as if I wanted to die, that is.’

  He chuckled. ‘Yeah. Apart from that.’

  Then she remembered. The feel of his body next to her, lying on top of the bed. Holding her. Comforting her. How his being there had made all the difference.

  ‘Thanks for sticking with me. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for.’ His gaze dropped from her face, and he seemed to be examining a spot in the far corner of the room.

  She’d said something but she couldn’t remember what. She could see it in his face. ‘What did I say, Lucas?’

  ‘You said you felt terrible.’ He shot her a grin. ‘To someone with my medical training, that was relatively obvious.’

  He was deflecting the question. There was something. Then she remembered. ‘Oh, no. Lucas, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it, I was sick.’

  His gaze met hers. ‘You were right.’

  ‘You couldn’t have known. How could you have been there?’ She’d woken in the night, after dreaming of the darkness of the Bangladeshi police cell. And she’d cried, asking Lucas why he hadn’t come to fetch her. Why he hadn’t been there.

  ‘I just wish I had been.’ He reached forward, brushing her hair from her brow in a motion of exquisite tenderness. ‘You need to rest. I’ll bring you some more water.’

  ‘Wait.’ She caught hold of his arm. ‘I’m so sorry, Lucas.’

  ‘Hey, stop that.’

  ‘No, really. You’ve looked after me and all I did was give you a hard time.’

  A grin crept over his face. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What?’ She knew that look. ‘What else did I say?’

  ‘When I got you into the shower and switched the water on, you must have thought we were still on our way home because you gave a great big sigh and told me it was raining now, and that was all you needed.’

  That wasn’t so bad. She remembered him putting her back into bed, and that she’d felt clean and cared for. Safe…

  Oh, no. Had she dreamed it, or had she actually said it?

  ‘Nothing else?’ I love you? Maybe she had just thought the words and never managed to say them.

  He shook his head slowly. ‘No.’ He picked up the empty glass from the bedside. ‘You were muttering a bit but I didn’t catch any of it. I’ll get you some more water.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She wasn’t going to admit to saying it, and Lucas wouldn’t admit to hearing it. Thea wondered whether that meant that it really had never been said. She leaned back against the pillows, too tired to think about anything any more. Just that Lucas had got her through the night.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Week Nine

  LUCAS’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION was delayed by a week so that Safiya and her family could come. Thea arrived half an hour early, wearing a powder-blue dress, which complemented her hair and skin perfectly.

  ‘You’re early.’ She looked gorgeous.

  She smiled, and his heart started to beat faster. ‘I have something for you.’

  ‘Come in.’ He stepped back from the doorway. Ava had already gone over to her grandparents’ to help prepare lunch, and he was alone in the house.

  She was holding a package, wrapped up in bright paper. Whatever it was paled into insignificance in comparison to thirty minutes alone with her before they were expected at his parents’ house.

  ‘Would you like something to drink? Ava’s been experimenting with fruit punch.’ He walked through to the kitchen and opened the fridge door and she giggled delightedly. ‘Yeah, okay. She did quite a lot of experimenting.’

  ‘And which ones of these are yours?’ She surveyed the line of glasses, each topped with foil and each of them containing a different combination of fruit juices.

  ‘Since Ava’s not here, I’m blaming her for all of them. Although I’m quite pleased with that one.’

  ‘It’s separating out.’

  ‘Yeah. Rather a nice rainbow effect, I thought.’ He grinned at her and she chose a glass of green juice. ‘That’s one of Ava’s.’

  She sniffed at it delicately. ‘Smells interesting.’

  ‘You’re quite sure?’ Clearly Thea was braver than he was.

  She took a sip and nodded. ‘Yeah. Not bad. Tastes as if it’s probably quite good for you.’

  ‘I’ll give it a miss, then.’ Lucas reached for a yellowish concoction that he knew to be mainly orange juice. ‘Here.’ He produced a red and white striped drinking straw from the cupboard, along with a yellow cocktail umbrella, and arranged them in her glass. If that combination of colours didn’t put her off, nothing would.

  ‘Thank you. Got any cherries?’

  ‘No. Good grief, you’re worse than Ava.’

  She grinned at him. ‘You say the nicest things.’

  Turning, she walked into the sitting room. Lucas followed her. Three minutes in to the thirty and he was already entranced.

  ‘So.’ She sat down on the sofa next to him, putting the package down on the coffee table. ‘Are you going to open it now or do you want to guess what’s inside?’

  ‘Hmm. Round and flat.’ Lucas tried to think of something that was that approximate shape. ‘Can I pick it up?’

  ‘No.’

  Lucas stared at the package. ‘Could you pick it up and shake it? Just so I can hear whether it rattles or not.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s…’ He shrugged. ‘A collapsible top hat.’

  She laughed, and he felt a little thrill of pleasure. ‘No. It might have been if I’d thought of that, though.’

  ‘A…’ Lucas gave up the unequal struggle and leaned back in his chair. ‘Okay, you’ve got me. I don’t know what it is.’

  She gave a little nod, as if to accept his surrender. ‘In that case, you can open it.’

  She sat watching him, grinning when he got to the circular gift box, which contained another, square package. Smiling with delight when he smiled. ‘That’s… Thea, that’s fantastic.’

  She hadn’t spent a lot of money, but it must have taken her a great deal of time and effort to find this. A beautifully tooled Victorian volume, the name of the former owner inscribed carefully inside the front cover and Thea’s own inscription below that, as if it were part of an ongoing record of the book’s travels. It was one of his favourite authors, and the book itself was in beautiful condition.

  ‘I’m glad you like it.’

  Lucas chuckled. ‘You knew I’d love it.’

  She laughed happily. ‘It’s good to keep an element of doubt. It makes giving presents more fun.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He leaned towards her, kissing her cheek. Just a brush of the lips, but he heard her catch her breath. Felt his own senses lurch into overdrive, revelling in her scent and the soft touch of her skin.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ A slight flush rose in her cheeks.

  ‘I suppose we should go over for lunch now.’ He didn’t want to. But twenty more minutes might be more of a temptation than he could bear.

  ‘Yeah. Suppose we should.’

  Neither of them moved. The warmth of the shared silence was intoxicating. Even if he couldn’t touch her, he and Thea had always done silence well. Sitting, sharing random thoughts and observations. Watching the world go by i
n the undemanding security of each other’s company.

  * * *

  When the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour, they hurried together across the lawn, arriving at the back of his parents’ house at approximately the same time as Safiya and her parents arrived at the front. Ava greeted Safiya with a hug, and his mother served lunch in the large conservatory.

  The initial polite conversation quickly gave way to genuine warmth between the families. When Safiya began to tire, she was despatched upstairs to lie down in the spare room, and coffee was served on the lawn.

  ‘How is Mariam?’ Thea asked Amina.

  ‘She is improving. She has been very upset that she was falling behind with her studies.’ Amina smiled. ‘Safiya does not have this problem. But keeping Mariam away from the library is difficult. She spends a great deal of time there.’

  Thea shot him a look, one eyebrow arched in query. Lucas nodded. He knew about this already, and was in the process of liaising with the local hospital.

  ‘Safiya tells me that you are going to France for three weeks.’ Amina turned to Ava. ‘You must be looking forward to it.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll be able to message Safiya. When we get back, Lucas and Thea are going to Mumbai, but that’s for work. Thea’s giving a talk at a conference.’

  ‘My first. I’m dreading it.’ Thea gave a little smile, as if the dread wasn’t all that bad. Lucas knew that wasn’t true, but at least she was talking about it. He hadn’t heard her mention it to anyone else before now.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be wonderful.’ Amina looked at her husband and he nodded in agreement. ‘It won’t be too hot in September. Maybe a little wet.’

  ‘I used to love staying inside and drinking tea at monsoon time. Watching the rain.’

  Lucas caught his breath. It was just a memory. But it had broken through the barrier of misery that seemed to separate Thea from the world. Maybe, in time, there would be more like this.

  ‘This isn’t your first time in Asia?’ His father looked puzzled and Lucas glared at him, willing him to leave well alone.

  ‘I lived in Bangladesh for two years. I was working at a TB clinic.’