Winter Blues
Page 26
I’d love to thank each of my book bitches individually but seriously, there are so bloody many of you and you’re all fantastic! Your support has been immense! Everyone from SMI Book Club especially.
Special thanks need to go to the blogs. I never realized just how important bloggers were until writing Winter Blues and your support and love has been beyond anything I could have expected. You ladies go a long way to helping indie authors and I just hope you are thanked enough!
And last, but not least. Amy Miller AKA my SAL. Your friendship is so incredibly important to me. I thank you for putting up with my ranting, book related and otherwise. I thank you for being my ultimate book bestie and my screenshot slut. I thank you for the sprouts and the Shakespeare. Live you to the stars. And happy birthday Tim! (hehe!).
Please read on for a look at an unedited chapter of Life Of Fine, due for release Spring 2014
LIFE OF FINE
HIM
Today is going to be a bad day.
I step out of the glass dome of Canary Wharf Station and into harsh morning light that singes my eyes and highlights my hangover. I negated to wear my sunglasses this morning for fear of looking like a grade A tosser, and while I’d have been right – it’s January and classically so – I now wish I’d taken the risk.
It’s typical of this early hour, the streets already teaming with life. Through silver buildings, tall and proud, busy commuters rush to work, shoppers race to shop, and cars fight through thick traffic. It’s a comfort despite how crap I feel. I’ve lived here for almost two years now after moving from Ireland with just me, myself and I for support and I love it. I fit in fast and won more friends than I can count. Not real friends, but drinking friends, partying friends. Weekend friends, I guess. Which is fine by me. I couldn’t cope with this feeling through the working week.
As I walk towards work each step is a conscious effort and the very action is an ongoing punishment. However, I can only blame myself. A weekend on the town was my idea. Consider this hangover the cruellest form of karma.
Desperate for a cure, I find myself in my usual Starbucks. I come here almost every day having been brainwashed into believing that I need caffeine to survive, along with the rest of London. Sarah’s face lights up behind the counter as I walk in and I watch with a little too much ego as she straightens out her hair. She’s cute. No, she’s adorable. And she’s made it no secret that she wants me. If she was a few years older and a little less breakable then I’d be coming here for more than just coffee. Until then...
“Morning, gorgeous,” I say, laying my Irish accent on thick because she’s told me so often how much she likes it.
She beams in response. “Alright.”
“Good weekend?”
“Yeah, it was okay. You?”
“Too good. I’m dying here,” I admit, running a hand over my crazy hair.
“You still look good,” Sarah says with a soft blush.
I tap my heart with my fist as if her words have deeply touched me. “Stop it, you tease.”
There’s an exaggerated huff beside me, someone with too little time and far too much attitude. I turn, expecting to see your standard busy business man, but I’m proven wrong.
And happily so.
The culprit is a pint-sized blonde with dark, dark eyes. Unfortunately, she permits me only a split second to look before sighing and cruelly turning away. I don’t know what it is that bothers me so much about her dismissal but I find myself unusually apologetic.
“Sorry,” I mutter and turn back to Sarah. “I’ll take a...”
“Venti latte, two pumps of vanilla with extra foam to go.”
I smile, impressed, although my order hasn’t changed in the two years I’ve been coming here so I shouldn’t be. “Thanks. Maybe an extra espresso shot today, yeah?” I turn to my new best friend and mouth ‘rough night’ by way of explanation. She raises her eyebrows and smiles a tight-lipped, fake smile.
If that’s her fake smile I bet her real one is killer.
Sarah silently takes my money before moving her attention to Huffer.
“Two grande chamomile teas and a signature hot chocolate, please. Oh, and a blueberry muffin. To go.” Her voice is soft, local. Nice.
Sarah bites, “Name?”
She’s shuffling around in her purse for shrapnel when she answers, “Maggie.”
Maggie.
Even in my head her name is spoken as a sigh. As she pays I look up and down her petite body, probably no more than five-three, five-four tops. She’s wrapped up for predictably cold weather, wearing a long coat and a thick red scarf. Beneath her coat is what is clearly a nurse’s uniform and you can imagine, as a guy, that’s pretty bloody hot.
Together we shift over to the side to wait for our drinks as Sarah continues to serve the sudden line of people. “You know, that’s my favourite name,” I blurt, still checking out the uniform, which just so happens to finish at her knees.
I quickly shift my gaze when I hear her snap, “Excuse me?”
I think back to what I said. Shit. “I mean song, that’s my favourite song. M-Maggie May is my favourite song.”
Get a grip, dickhead.
“Oh right. Hmm, never heard of it.”
“Seriously?” Seriously?
Before my better judgement has kicked in I start singing. Like, actually singing. She is not the only customer watching me with equal measures of embarrassment and amusement, but I’m unable to stop. Not until she physically touches me on the shoulder and nudges me from my ridiculousness.
“Stop! I was kidding!” She’s fighting a smile. She’s amused. That’s something at least. “Kudos on the vocals though,” she adds, moving past me to grab a couple of napkins.
“Ha!” Check. Yourself. Man. “Thanks. You know, I actually...”
“Drinks up.”
Sarah pushes our drinks to the very edge of the counter with a little more force than necessary. I offer her a wink but she gives nothing in return.
Maggie cups her drinks together in the holder and balances the muffin on the top before smiling weakly and turning to walk away. I all but race ahead of her so that I can open the door like a true gent. I bow gallantly...ridiculously, but she chuckles in response and I vow to push this.
“So, you’re local?” I ask when she immediately turns to walk in the opposite direction I need to go. I follow, naturally. I’m drawn to her and I can’t place why. She’s nothing like my usual type. Not that I have a type, per se, unless ‘easy’ is a type. But she’s not interested, clearly, and that is normally enough to disinterest me. Something keeps me going though. Maybe the fact that I’m suddenly awake, suddenly hangover-free, suddenly wishing I didn’t look like a tramp.
“Mmm hmm,” she replies half-heartedly. Whether purposely blasé or forced, I don’t know.
“A nurse?”
“Mmm hmm.”
I match her stride and bump shoulders with her. “A conversationalist?”
She hides a smile. If she isn’t interested she really shouldn’t tease me like this. I won’t be happy until I see her true smile. And get her phone number.
We’re walking towards the pedestrian crossing and I’m probably already late for work. I need to wrap this up. “Maybe we could converse more over a coffee tomorrow? Same place, same time? Or dinner, if you want? Drinks, perhaps?”
I promise, I’m normally so much cooler than this.
“No, I’m sorry. No.”
“Really?” The disappointment in my voice is a tad embarrassing.
I’m crossing the road with her. I can’t turn back.
“Really. I can’t.”
“You can, you just want me to serenade you again,” I kid.
She smiles. Fully. Finally.
It’s breathtaking. I stop walking, cemented by wonderment.
When she turns to see where I’m at her eyes widen to my right and I follow her gaze to see a car speeding towards me. As if on fast forward it reaches me before I can eve
n attempt to react and I’m struck hard and tossed over the bonnet like litter. Pain consumes me but I’m still aware that I’m falling with gravity-defying heaviness towards the hard floor. My head hits the ground and sends me into immediate blackness.
The last thing I hear is Maggie’s haunting scream.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jade Goodmore is a total fangirl living in Shropshire, UK. She’s a book-pushing mother of two and a terrible housewife. What she is good at is reading, and writing. (Dependant on what you thought of this!).
Jade would seriously love to hear your thoughts – good or bad – and you can tell her a number of ways.
www.facebook.com/jadegoodmore
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zjaded1.wordpress.com
jgoodmore86@gmail.com
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Table of Contents
Copyright
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Excerpt from Author "Life Of Fine"
About the author