If We Were Young: A Romance
Page 11
I craved it. Like I needed ice-cream, wine, and chips.
“Thanks for the lift home last night.” I flushed. Drunk Ronnie wasn’t a great sight. My small size left me with limited capacity for alcoholic beverages. Something Natalie didn’t understand because she was five foot nine and had the metabolism of a mountain lion.
“I’m glad we talked.” He nodded, his gaze distant.
“I’m still mad you thought I did that.”
He shrugged. “Irrational, maybe. Guess the pressure of uni ending frayed my nerves.”
“It seems so long ago now.”
“Aye, it does.”
“Why did you come all this way?” Please tell me it’s because you were desperate to see me.
“I wanted to say sorry face-to-face. I figured a coffee would help.”
My heart pinged. “Thank you. The flowers suffice though.”
The barista waited for us to place an order, but Matthew’s attention focused on my face while the woman behind us in the queue tutted.
“I find it hard to admit when I’m wrong, Ronnie.” It sounded like he wanted to say something else. I opened my mouth to ask what, but he leant close and brushed a kiss across my cheek. I held in a gasped breath. “I have to go.”
“O-okay.”
He turned and left without a backwards glance, leaving me wondering if I’d dreamt it all again. This time there were no eyeliner messages to tell me otherwise.
I glanced at the reception area. Natalie had managed to tell everyone about the roses which now stood on her desk. I’d moved them from my office because I couldn’t concentrate on anything with the splash of sunshine yellow staring me in the face.
What happened this morning? What was the near-miss coffee about?
When my phone vibrated, I glanced down at it in near despair. My chest ached, the band tightened back around my ribs. Matthew was on the train to Scotland.
Matthew Carling: Dinner?
I couldn’t take more of this. Back and forth, back and forth. I’d never been that good on the swings at the park, my legs were too short.
Ronnie Childs: To discuss the rebrand?
There was a pause and I didn’t breathe while I waited for the dots to reappear.
Matthew Carling: Yes.
Ronnie Childs: I shall check to see if my dance card is free.
I didn’t know why I typed it. Once it was sent, I held my finger down to try to remove it before he saw it, but it was too late. His little round picture flicked up next to my stupid words.
Matthew Carling: I shall await your response with bated breath. But don’t make me wait too long. I have a twenty-five second memory—it’s a flaw.
He remembered.
It made my insides tangle and knot.
I hated the fact I could imagine his smile. I detested the fact it was the smile of the person I used to know that I was thinking about.
Ronnie Childs: Tomorrow? I can see if Fred is free and we will come up with some new ideas for you by then.
There was another pause in which the clip and clop of my heartbeat was the only sound.
Matthew Carling: Fine.
Ronnie Childs: Are you going to run away again?
Messenger showed him as no longer active. That was weird. And dinner… I shouldn’t. It had stupidity written all over it. He’d be there all suited and booted, with that pissed off look on his face and I’d be… Well, I’d be staring at him, in totally inappropriate ways like I always had.
I looked at the yellow roses through the glass wall of the office like I expected them to disappear.
Why did he send them anyway? What exactly was he saying sorry for?
I had a feeling the only way of finding out would be to see him and try to talk.
Talk.
That nemesis of mine.
At five to eight the following night I was stood by the front door. My wardrobe had malfunctioned and the balance between work and ‘at home Ronnie’ resulted in me standing and waiting for the beep of his horn looking like my mother.
I’d replaced my chunky cardigan with the big pockets (Ange would be proud) for a thinner more fitted style, but I’d buttoned it over a blouse. I rocked a librarian vibe that shouldn’t be seen on anyone under sixty.
I’d gone for red shoes though. My other black ones had gone missing, and I had buried the navy, sensible but seriously painful, ones at the back of my wardrobe where I could forget about them.
“I don’t even know why you are so worked up,” Ange drawled down the phone.
“Angela! He saw you eating the face off another man and hasn’t spoken to me in fifteen years.” I cocked my head towards the door listening for the sound of a car in the quiet cul-de-sac.
“Well, darling, that’s his problem not yours.” She tutted like this was the most obvious thing in the universe. “You see, the problem with Matthew and you, is the fact that for alllll that time you both confused your feelings of friendship with something else. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you didn’t go to the next level is because there wasn’t another level to go to? Some people are just meant to be friends and others are meant to fuck.”
“Angela!”
“What? I’m not on loudspeaker, am I?” She chuckled, and I winced at Ma who threw me one of her deadliest stares from the kitchen table.
Ange wasn’t going to give me the pep talk I needed. “Got to go.”
I hung up and turned, leaning my back against the door. Angela had put a dangerous visual image in my head, and it played in high definition with Dolby surround sound.
Matthew… and me… next levelling.
“And who are you going out with again?” Ma asked, her eyebrow doing half the talking for her.
“Mr Carling. He’s our client; the one who will hopefully keep us in business.”
Hannah sloped past the hallway and then stopped, her spoon paused midway between her cereal bowl and mouth. “What on earth are you wearing?”
“What?” I pulled at the neckline of the blouse. God. Was it hot or just me?
“Have you run out of clean clothes and borrowed Nonna’s? Although at least you’ve taken off that stinky black thing.”
“Huh, that’s rude.” And sooo very true.
“Where are you going, anyway?”
Ma smirked as Hannah leant against the wall opposite where I was guardian of the front door. “I’ve got a business dinner.”
“And you’re dressed like an old lady because?” She waved the spoon at me.
“Because it’s a professional evening out.”
“Red shoes.” Hannah utilised her inherited eyebrow skill. Saying that she waggled that spoon with the same dexterity that Ma used her index finger.
The knocker on the door vibrated against my back and I gave a shriek.
That wasn’t beeping from the car. I did specifically ask him to beep, during one of my unanswered messages.
I grimaced at Hannah and Ma; a lip curling sneer of warning, accompanied by a deep growl.
Then I smiled and opened the door, emitting a low breathy gasp as I clocked a view of the apparition on the other side of the front door.
Matthew did not look like a middle-aged librarian.
Nowhere even close.
“Oooh.” The air whooshed from me like a balloon that’d been slowly deflated three weeks after a party and had become nothing more than a misshapen wrinkled sponge of its former self.
Dark shirt, dark jeans. Midnight eyes and half a smile.
And all I could think was what Angela just said about… Oh God.
“Hi.”
My chest eased but then tightened again as he swept his gaze over me, his lips curving at the edges.
“Hi.” Breathless.
He smelled beautiful, of soap and fabric softener. Warmth and rain, secrets and wishes.
“I’m ready, I’m ready.” I launched myself out of the house, narrowly missing tackling him to the ground.
“You okay?”
He shot me a glance, cryptic, maybe something code breakers from World War Two had to deal with. When he pressed his key fob toward his car, my stomach dipped down to my toes.
“I’m sorry Fred couldn’t come.” I tried to fill the silence.
In the reflection of the car window I caught him pulling a face.
“He’s highly qualified, you know? I wouldn’t have hired him otherwise. I had to fight for him, in fact.”
Matthew turned and pushed a hand through his hair. “I’m sure he’s very talented.”
“And Amanda?” I needed someone else on this dinner. Anyone.
I squirmed under his gaze. “Just us.”
My lips pursed, and I breathed slow. “Okay.”
“I don’t bite, Ronnie.” His slow smile slipped along his face and the dark, cold street warmed.
The car ride seemed short, just long enough for me to get high on the smell of his car. My stomach cramped tight and by the time he cut the engine I’d grown so hot the cardigan was the first thing I planned on taking off.
I glanced out the window and then swizzled back to stare at him, meeting a questioning depth in his gaze. “Why here?” I barely whispered. My heart beat louder than the passing traffic on the road.
“You used to like it, didn’t you?”
I turned, unable to look at him. I didn’t want him to see all the words I had on my face. The whys and hows.
He got out of the car without speaking and stepped around to open the door for me.
I got out, my legs quivering, and I pulled my coat tighter around me. For some reason he smiled. I wished I knew all the reasons. Forget understanding the universe; I’d settle for understanding Matthew Carling’s smile. It hinted at secrets and thoughts I knew I shouldn’t want to know.
As we walked along the pavement, my red towers clacking and forewarning everyone of our arrival, our fingers brushed. I gasped a breath. Like I was a teenage movie montage.
His fingers snatched mine tight and squeezed. His touch warm with a delicate roughness to the edges, like the chill March weather had dried his skin. I shivered. Ange’s comment came back to mind, bringing back forbidden fantasies. Two bodies that slipped and slid, gasps and moans. Dark hair, blonde strands, long legs, and arms that caged.
I shot him a glance, but he focused on the door.
Our hands didn’t fit together like two mutual friends’. There was no sideways clasp. Our fingers glided between one another’s, a slow stroke which ended with the flat of our palms wedged like a sandwich, not a sliver of space between them.
I was blinded as we stepped into the low-lit restaurant, the same red lanterns I remembered hanging over my head. The walls dark with patterned wallpaper.
Nothing in there had changed. Not the tables or chairs. The same old woman sat in a chair beside the bar that also doubled up purpose as a counter for the till. The air still cloyed with the same tang of fat and spice, sweet and sharp.
Despite it being only three roads from home, I’d never once walked through the doors in all those years. Sometimes I’d taken longer routes on foot just so I didn’t have to walk past.
The smells in there. The whisper of voices. The cool rush of the air conditioning as it hit my skin; they all belonged in a time other than the one in which we stood.
I turned to stare at him. My throat blocked with a tangle of questions. As I glanced at his face, the pink sting of cold on his cheeks, his hair pushed back and away from his forehead, his lips pressed together like maybe he’d made a mistake. I saw myself in the mirror behind. The reflection showed me the broad sweep of his shoulders, the navy coat and grey scarf, the long curve of his neck reaching towards the dark hair above his collar. And my face. Open mouthed, my eyes bright and wide. Lines on my skin, my hair an ash not from a bottle.
“Matthew.” I sighed his name.
His fingers still held mine and his thumb pressed between our palms, pushing at my skin. A waiter bustled out through the door. Behind where he’d come from came shouts and the clang of saucepans.
I held in a whimper of dismay as Matthew let go of my hand, but it swiftly turned to joy as it settled back into that place at the base of my spine; like he knew I needed the touch to keep me moving forward.
He’d done it every lecture we’d ever walked into together. A gentle hand, fit against my skin, gesturing me to keep going.
“Mr Carling.” Oh sweet Jesus, it was the same waiter. I peered at him closer almost entirely sure it was the same man. He was balder, but then I was greyer, so I couldn’t judge.
He gestured us over to the round table in the window, making a motion with his hands that I should give him my jacket.
I didn’t want to take it off. Underneath I modelled old lady clothes.
What had I been thinking?
The waiter gestured again, so I unbuttoned it and handed it over before slipping into the seat and straightening up the napkin.
Matthew handed over his button-up wool coat and scarf, leaving just the dark shirt. I wanted to be that cotton, cradled around his body. I remembered once putting on his hoodie and being overwhelmed by the thought it had touched his skin and was now next to mine. I’d burned bright at Bonfire night, my skin glowing under an oversized jumper.
When he’d sat, his fingers spreading along the tablecloth, I opened my mouth. Prepared. I’d been rehearsing all day.
“So, I’ve been thinking about the name change and how we can get around that.”
He lifted his hands and held a finger up at me. “Drinks first?”
“Oh, uh sure.”
“I’m not staying far away. I thought maybe, if you don’t mind, I could leave the car and walk you home?”
My mouth flapped.
Two things. Walk me home? And… no I couldn’t even think it… “I’m sorry, staying where?”
“I’m only down south to liaise with your office, so I thought it best to hire an apartment.”
“You hired an apartment just for two weeks?”
He shrugged, and I admired how the shirt he wore loved the slope of his arms.
His gaze remained bold as it drifted along my face. “It made sense.”
How did it?
I wanted to crack open his skull and see what it held inside.
“I guess commuting to Scotland would be exhausting.”
His gorgeous face flickered with a frown.
“You must miss your children though?”
I thought of Hannah at home. I would miss her if I went away. Sure, it would be nice to be able to breathe without expecting an angry monster to storm down the stairs at any moment, but to not be with her for a couple of weeks would be hard. Even before Paul died, we never left. We never went away as just a couple.
“I do.”
“How old are they?” I leant across the table. Same seat, same table, same position. Always leaning forward, ready to catch any word that came out of his mouth.
“Eight and six.” The left edge of his lip turned up a little.
“Oh. I thought you said your marriage ended five years ago?”
The smile vanished as quick as it arrived. “It did.”
I wanted the smile back, so I ignored the little titbits of information and stored them safely away for later. “Hannah was lovely at that age; it’s now that I don’t understand her.”
“Is she like you?” The waiter came over with a bottle of Sake and my gaze flashed to Matthew’s face.
“Uh. Yes. A little too much.”
“Does she struggle with your problems talking?”
I narrowed my gaze. “Don’t be rude.”
Laughing, he held his hands up. My brain emptied. His laugh was nothing short of extraordinary. I’d heard it before, in this same place. “I’m jus
t stating facts here.”
“I’m not that bad anymore.” So long as I’m not thinking about you.
I was sure he could read my thoughts. “That’s true. I was going to ask how that is? You seem different at work. I was a little scared of you the other day.” Another laugh. My heart. Boom.
“You? Scared of me? You looked like you wanted us all to die.”
He nodded, a slow and delicious smile spreading. “I did. You especially.”
“So why did you hire us?”
When the midnight blues held mine, I could feel the moment coming. I knew it would bowl us over and keep on rolling until neither of us existed.
“Because of you. Especially.”
Noodles
I shoved a prawn cracker in my mouth and stared at him.
While I distracted myself from the intense need to freak out, he poured some Sake and pushed one of the small glasses towards me.
My cheeks flamed hot.
Still chewing.
The waiter hovered, his desperation to cut in and pour drinks making his hands twitch with the white apron around his waist.
I swallowed, little scratchy grains of deep-fried prawn pulp shifting down my throat.
The restaurant seemed unnecessarily hot.
Picking up the glass I threw the Sake down my neck. Whoosh. Even hotter.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Not okay. Definitely an out-of-body experience.
My heart, it hurt, my breath coming too quick. I couldn’t stop staring at him, all of him. The small mole on his left cheek. The stubble I could almost feel against my fingertips without even touching him.
“I’ve missed you.” The words spurted like the mouth of a waterfall.
For a moment he dropped his head, studying the tablecloth. “I never expected you not to be in my life.” His declaration rumbled low and when he looked up, the dark liquid intensity of his gaze burned my insides.
“I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you at the reunion. I never wanted to go. Angela told me it would do me good.”
It sounded like he mumbled, “Course she did,” but he took a sip from his glass which distorted his words. Then his voice drifted louder, majors and minors rumbling through me.