“Doing my best.”
So, with Cal in front and Jazz following, we drove slowly and carefully through the streets towards the hospital, both of them with their noses nearly touching the windscreens, shuffling the wheels through their hands and checking the rearview mirrors every ten seconds, even though the roads were almost deserted. It was like a Mr. Magoo procession. On the backseat, still gripping my hand, arm, and anything else she could reach, OC huffed and puffed and groaned like an airlocked boiler.
“Every two minutes,” I said, from the back, in a slightly high-pitched voice since OC had her nails currently embedded in my thigh.
“What?” Cal glanced at me in the mirror.
“Her contractions. Every two minutes.”
“Is that bad?”
“Not for the baby, no, but it might be for us. Can you go any faster?”
“I can do my best.”
We arrived at the hospital and, in something of an anticlimax, OC was wheeled away out of sight. Bree joined us, and I and the five men sat along the maternity ward corridor listening to the shrieks. We were lined up like students waiting to see a particularly punitive Head.
A midwife popped her head out of a room farther down. “Are you with Oceana?” she asked, and when we all nodded, went on, “So which one of you is the father?”
The lads all exchanged looks.
“Oh, come on. I need someone in here to hold her hand and give some encouragement. I’m not asking you to deliver the baby.”
“Um, none of us are the father,” Clay said hesitantly.
“What, five men and not one of you the expectant dad?”
There was much shaking of heads among the boys and muttering like a Greek chorus. “I’ll do it.” Jazz eventually stood up. “As long as it really is just holding her hand. I don’t want to have to look at anything nasty.”
“Don’t worry, that’s my job.” The thankful midwife whisked Jazz in through the doorway. I hoped that OC was too far gone in labour to protest. Jazz had never even so much as seen her in a bikini.
Cal sidled over to me and held out a coffee. “Peace offering. Although I’m not quite sure why, but I got the feeling back at the house that maybe we’d declared hostilities?”
I swallowed a scalding mouthful. “I’ve seen the condom.”
“As far as statements go, I usually prefer ‘I’ve seen the light’. But, anyway, go on, tell me about this”—he lowered his voice, conscious of the fact that, in a maternity ward the word condom is probably not to be spoken—“item. Where have you seen it and what is it to do with me?”
“Backseat of your car. Which, unless you’re in the habit of picking up ladies who charge by the hour, puts you firmly in Infidelity Land.”
Cal stared at me. “Just a minute. You’re accusing me of shagging some girl, then leaving a used Durex on the backseat of my car? How big a slut do you think I am? No, don’t answer that. I already know I’m not exactly Good Housekeeping’s Bachelor of the Year, but, urrrggghh, Willow.”
I dropped my eyes and drank more coffee to cover my confusion. “Well, what was I supposed to think? I mean, it looks used and everything.”
“It is used, you bloody stupid woman.” But his voice was softly amused. “I put components into condoms to transport them. Water can wreak havoc with computer bits, and the small ones get lost so easily. I tuck them inside a Durex and they’re waterproof, easy to find and”—confidentially—“they can’t get you pregnant. Right, you finish your coffee. I must have a word with Ash. I think we might have a bit of ground to make up, him and me.”
And he left me standing, plastic cup melting into my fingers, feeling a complete tit.
Chapter Twenty
“A little girl, six-pounds-ten,” I announced to Katie on my slightly late arrival at work next morning. “Born at twenty to two, six weeks early, but mother and baby doing well, although Jazz has got a big bruise on his forehead from where he fainted onto the gas-and-air machine.”
“Jazz?” Katie hesitated her fingers over her keyboard like a stop-frame animation. “What was Jazz doing there?”
“Long story.” I threw my coat at the back of the chair. Today, I was determined to be bright and breezy, to push any thoughts of those mobile messages to the back of my mind. To concentrate not on possibilities, but on actualities. “Have you still got that furniture catalogue you brought in when you were buying a new wardrobe?”
“I think I filed it.”
“Good. I want to start choosing stuff for the flat.”
“Yes.” Katie grinned at me. “Nice big bed with handcuff-compliant headboard, two-seater sofa and a champagne bucket. What more do you need?”
“It’ll do for now.” Besides, with those few necessary items installed, perhaps Luke and I could think of moving in. Together.
“So, give me all the details about last night.” Katie tapped a final key and swivelled her chair around to face me. “Was it fantastic?”
“I don’t know about fantastic.” I thought back to last night. To the lightness of the Cal’s touch on my face, the intense, breath-holding elasticity of the kiss. “It was a bit confusing. I mean, half the time he treats me as if I’m a slightly amusing diversion, and the other half, he makes me feel like I’m the sexiest woman alive.”
“What?”
“Cal. He…oh. You meant OC’s baby. That was…um…yes, very Madonna. I mean, mother-and-baby Madonna, not pointy-bra and ‘Like a Virgin’. Well, obviously not like a virgin. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been there and…”
“Willow. Shut up. Now, tell me about this making you feel like the sexiest woman alive, and what Cal has got to do with it.”
A quick check to make sure that Neil and Clive weren’t knuckling their way around the outer office picking fleas off each other, and then I gave Katie the whole story, or at least the edited highlights thereof. I cut out the misunderstanding about the condom, obviously, and any mention of odd messages on Luke’s mobile. I’d just got to the bit about getting home to find OC in labour, when the phone, on what is laughingly described as my desk, rang.
“Willow?” It was Luke, sounding breathless and disturbed. “I’ve been trying to get you all morning.”
“I was out with the dogs, then I dropped in at the hospital. Sorry.” Then I wondered why I was apologising. After all, wasn’t this man two-timing me? “My sister was having a baby.”
“Only it occurred to me that you might ummmm…” Still disturbed, very nervous. Not at all Luke-like, in fact. “Is there any chance that you…yesterday, might you have borrowed my phone?”
My mouth opened and closed a few times like a guppy feeding-frenzy. “Ummm.”
“Only I noticed some messages had been accessed, and I was worried that you might have, that you could have got a wrong impression.”
My heart entered freefall. “Mmmm?”
“It, oh, this is all very difficult. I’m afraid that I have to tell you something. I…God this is hard. I lied to you. Please forgive me.”
Shit. In fact, shitty shit. This was precisely what I did not want to hear. Tell me it’s a mistake, Luke. Tell me it’s all a misunderstanding. But please, oh God, please don’t tell me you lied. Tell me you love me. I almost spoke across him. “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter. I don’t mind, whatever it is. Please, I don’t mind.”
“No, Willow, I want, no, I need to explain. You see, I lied when I told you my mother was dead. In reality, she left my father. It was, everything was confused. But she…she and I have been in contact. She’s the one who sent me the messages, you see. But I didn’t tell you because, well, I didn’t, and I’m sorry, and when I realised that you might have misinterpreted what you saw, then, forgive me, Willow.”
Katie raised her eyebrows at the way I kissed the receiver. “Nothing to apologise for. Luke, honestly, I quite understand.”
“Oh, but.”
“No. It’s fine. Everything is fine.” And it was. The sun, which had probably been shining si
nce about five o’clock this morning, had just broken through the cloud in my own personal sunrise. The erstwhile grey, sunken mass which had been my hope for the future was now leaping about in a pink tutu, singing a million Broadway songs, tap-dancing like a pro. “You don’t need to explain any more, Luke. I’ll see you tonight.” Oh, and prepare for the shagging of your life, I didn’t add, but only because Katie was listening.
“You really are the most fantastic woman I’ve ever known.” Luke’s voice was quiet now, the relief in it almost oozing down the line. “Have you ever thought about entering the Church, because you make confession soooooooo sexy.”
I giggled. I couldn’t help myself. “Luke, you are shocking.”
“Yeah. And that’s not all I am right now. God, woman, you make me horny. Any chance of getting away at lunchtime and meeting me in the flat?”
I was supposed to be going to the hospital to see OC and the baby, but, “I’ll see what I can do.” The release of the tension that I’d been holding since I’d turned his phone on was bubbling through my blood. That and Cal’s incredibly sexy kiss, which had revved my whole system and left it ticking on standby all night.
“Luke?” Katie was waiting when I put the phone down, her scandalometer clearly reading into the red. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing, nothing,” I trilled. “Well, not exactly, we just had a bit of a misunderstanding, that’s all.”
“Oh, right, about him moving out of the hotel and stopping at the showroom instead?”
“Ah, no. This was another misunderstanding. A different one.” Buoyed up and riding on the tide of goodwill that Luke’s admission had brought, I told Katie the full background to last night’s little, ahem, indiscretion on the lip frontage. When I’d finished, she frowned.
“Do you and Luke ever actually, y’know, talk, Wills? Or do you spend all your off-duty time shagging and communicating in mime?”
“What?”
“You do seem to have an extraordinary number of misunderstandings, don’t you? For a couple who are supposed to be so deeply in love that they’re planning to get married, there’s a lot he doesn’t seem to tell you about. And, please God, if you’re going around kissing strange men, the reverse is also true.”
“Cal…it wasn’t…it wasn’t that sort of kiss.” I said indignantly. “And of course Luke and I talk, don’t be stupid. It’s just, you know how prone I am to grabbing the wrong end of the stick and using it to beat myself.”
“Yes, but the stick does have to be held out for you to grasp in the first place.” Katie put her hands on my shoulders and looked me deep in the eyes. “I’m worried about you, Will. Okay, so Luke might have good reasons for all the misconstructions that have gone on, but it’s more that they’ve happened than what they’ve been about that worries me.”
“Well, my dear, worry no more.” I twirled around on my chair. “I’m going to suggest to Luke that we move into the flat next week and start living together properly. It can’t be comfortable for him camped out in the showroom, and we might as well start getting it all together. How do you feel about wearing peach for the wedding?”
“Will, if it makes you happy I shall wear a whole fruit salad,” she said solemnly.
“Willow.” The door opened and Neil came in. “Bloke for you in the front.”
“Good Lord, it speaks. Evolution in action.”
“Shut it, frosty knickers.”
“What, Clive not with you? Was the separation a success?”
“And you can shut up an’ all.” Neil grinned. “Dunno ’oo he is. Some weirdo. Bit of luck, he’s a mad axe murderer.”
He wasn’t. It was Cal, loitering about in the front office, looking at the photographs on the walls. (Man Rescues Tortoise—Pictures Inside.) “Hi.”
“Hello.” Katie was hanging around by my left shoulder like a conscience-devil. “How are you?”
“Fine. I came to…” Cal clocked Katie and began to stammer. “I…I…you, yesterday…quite…upset.”
“Everything’s sorted now, just another misunderstanding,” I said smoothly. Well, I could have belched every word and next to Cal’s delivery it would have sounded smooth. “Cal, Katie.”
“Oh, so this is the guy with the lip action. Pleased to meet you, Cal.” And Katie turned round to face me and half-whispered, “Fuck me, Willow, you didn’t tell me he was such a ride. I mean, look at him.”
“Forgive my friend, Cal, she has a form of Tourette’s. We normally keep her locked up for her own good.”
Cal smiled broadly and Katie went “phwooooarrrr” in my ear. “Chuffin’ hell, will you look at the eyes on your man?”
“And she’s Irish. Happily married. Quite respectable.”
Katie leaned over the desk towards Cal. “But prepared to be unrespectable, if the offer’s right.” She pursed her lips and Cal’s smile grew slightly broader.
“Are you any good with goats?”
“Um.”
“So, that’s a ‘no’ then.” I hustled Katie to one side with my elbows. “It’s fine, Cal. I’ve spoken to Luke, he’s explained. It was something personal.”
“Anyway. The brother in Boston? I’ve got the phone number, if you wanted to ring and introduce yourself.”
“What a great idea.” Katie derailed the nearest elbow and slotted herself in beside me again.
“Have you got something in your eye?” I asked her suspiciously.
“No, I’m fluttering my eyelashes, can’t you tell?”
“I don’t think Cal’s impressed by fluttering eyelashes, Katie.”
“No, but I’m mightily impressed by anyone who can move my goat.”
Katie’s appraising stare narrowed. “Is that some sort of code, Willow? Is he chatting you up in code? Because if he is, that’s really unfair. No one chats me up in code, not even Dan—not that he chats me up anymore. Doesn’t even chat much, if you want to know the truth. He sort of grunts and points. I think he learned it off the twins.”
Cal and I shared a baffled shrug. “So, do you want to call him now? You can borrow my mobile.”
“Well, not right this second. I mean, I’m at work and everything and it’ll be the middle of the night in Boston, won’t it? Tonight. I’ll do it tonight.”
“Why are you putting it off?” He tipped his head on one side. “Are you worried about what he might say?”
“No! I told you, Luke and I have sorted everything out. If I ring James and he tells Luke that I called, then it looks as if I’ve gone behind his back and don’t trust him.”
“But you don’t, do you?” The words dropped into a clanging silence. I stared at Katie who didn’t even look ashamed of herself. “Come on, Willow. If you trusted him, he wouldn’t need to explain himself to you because the situations would never arise in the first place. I mean”—her voice became gentler—“you know I love you, Wills, but you can be a complete and utter zombo where men are concerned.”
“Is that a real word?” Cal asked.
“It is on Planet Katie,” I answered, a little bitterly. “Kate, you’re warping things again. Luke and I are fine. We…oh, sod the pair of you. Give me the number, Cal. I’ll call after lunch when it’s a civilised time in Boston. Katie can earwig all she likes to make sure I ask the right questions. There. Are you both happy now?”
The two of them agreed that, yes, in this instance they were fairly satisfied with my reply, and Cal left the office, Katie watching his every move. When she noticed his limp, her eyebrows almost twanged.
“Christ Jesus, he even manages to make that look sexy. Aw, do an old married woman a favour. Before you marry Luke, shag Cal just the once”—a libidinous look—“and tell me all about it.”
“Katie! I will do no such thing. Anyway, Luke’s sexy too, isn’t he?”
She stopped boiling over and switched down to simmer. “Yeah, he’s sexy, too. But it’s different with Luke. He’s macho sexy, all swagger and cock-first into a room. Your man there, you can tell he’s the kind w
ho’ll make you wait, then lick you till you’re screaming.”
A pause while we thought about this.
“You really do need to get out more, don’t you?”
“Tell me about it,” she sighed.
At lunchtime, I paid a quick visit to OC, delivered a pile of magazines, and had a trepidatious first cuddle with my new niece. (“I’m thinking of calling her Grace. What do you think?” Actually that’s the quickest way to ensure you have the clumsiest child in the county, but never argue with a post-natal woman.) Then I tied up with Luke (and I use the term advisedly) in our new flat.
“Why don’t we move in? Properly? I mean, this would all be far more comfortable if we had, say, a bed,” I suggested from a section of floor by the balcony doors, a moisturising film of sweat being all that was between me and the beech laminate.
Luke was outside, on the balcony. His shirt was unbuttoned and hanging loose over his tan, trousers undone. He didn’t seem to mind that he was giving all of York a prime opportunity to ogle the contents of his underpants. (Lycra shorts, if you must know. Those ones that hug it all close to the body.) “Sorry? Wasn’t listening there.” I repeated my question and he turned slowly away from the view to face me. “Well, yes, obviously that would be great. Unfortunately”—and he stepped through the double doors to stand in front of me, a wayward breeze lifting his hair and tugging at his shirt—“although the sale has gone through, we can’t actually move in for a few more weeks.”
“But why not? We own the place. Surely we can move in when we like?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Don’t ask me.” He crouched down beside me and rubbed a finger over my bare shoulder. “Some kind of estate-agent thing. But, I was going to tell you, I’ve met a bloke. He’s something to do with custom-built furniture. If you like, and if we can shell out a few grand upfront, he’ll come and measure the place, and start making some bits and pieces for us ready for when we can move in. How does that sound?”
“What ‘bits and pieces’?” I rolled beneath the pressure of his hand, like a puppy wanting its tummy tickled.
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