by Bloom, Anna
I grabbed my phone and checked the time. The sleeper train would leave in an hour.
Opening Facebook Messenger I sent him a message:
Please don’t get on the train.
I wasted precious moments waiting to see if he’d read it, but when nothing happened, I shoved it back in my pocket and started to run back to the main road.
A cab could get me there in time.
“Please, any ticket. I just need to get on the train.”
The train attendant sucked air through his teeth. “There’s only first class left.”
“First class, really? How much?”
“Two hundred and twenty-five.”
“What the shit?” I held myself together. I was close to exploding. “Okay. I’ll take it. And you’re sure this is the only train to Edinburgh this evening?” I couldn’t even think about if he might not be on there or not. I slid over my card and tapped my toe as the man in the navy and red striped tie within the Perspex ticket office nodded and then spent about a decade plugging in the numbers into the handheld card reader.
I tsk’d in a way Ma would have found gratifying until he handed me the small rectangle of a ticket and my card. I ran for the gate, pushing old grannies and children out of my way.
Please let him be on the train. Please let him be on the train.
What are you going to say, Ronnie?
I shook away the niggling doubts. I couldn’t think, didn’t have the luxury of that. I just had to run. Had to catch him.
People were in their seats. The guy wasn’t lying, the train was packed, with only ten minutes until departure.
Right. Ronnie. Let’s be methodical about this.
Oh bollocks, let’s just run.
I panted as I ran up the first carriage scanning all the people in the seats. There were so many tall men in business suits, but no Matthew.
Next carriage. The carriages were unnecessarily long. The Hogwarts Express had nothing on these bad boys. More scanning, more returning glances from people wondering why I was almost crawling into their laps.
“So sorry,” I gushed to one guy, who from the back had black hair swept over the edge of his collar just like Matthew did.
“It’s okay. Are you looking for someone?” He crinkled a smile. Oooh, what lovely eyes.
Mental bitch slap. “Yes. Six foot four, face like beautiful thunder.”
The other guy laughed. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I launched into the next carriage. God, this train was long. How many carriages did they need to go to Scotland every evening?
Too many.
Once I’d run the seated carriages I was left only with the cabins and their snuggly bunks for two.
First class was first and my own cabin was there.
I knocked on the door opposite it. No answer.
I tapped again just to make sure and then moved on.
“Hi.” I smiled big at the woman with the tight perm. She clutched a child who looked like it would howl the whole journey. Its cheeks were red and blotchy, the mother’s eyes wide. Not-enough-sleep eyes.
“Sorry. Wrong door.”
She swung it shut without a word.
Next door. Old couple.
Next door. Young couple.
Next door. Well I don’t know what that was.
On and on and on until I was at the end of the whole flipping train.
Oh God. He wasn’t here. The realisation made my ligaments pull and twist. My legs wobbled and my chest caved.
A dark shape moved just at the other end of the final carriage and my heart lifted into my throat. “Oh, it’s you.” I sighed in dismay. In my grasp was my crumpled ticket. The man from the seat right near the beginning of my epic search smiled. He did have pretty eyes. “I’m looking for the bathroom.”
“Oh that’s in the carriage before, third door on the right. There was a guy heading in there with a newspaper, I’d give it a while.”
He laughed and it was hard not to appreciate how handsome he was. Not enough though, not my type of handsome. I’d been blinded by Matthew for so long. So long, I’d become weary down to my bones.
“I don’t suppose you want a first-class cabin, do you?” I offered him the ticket. “I’m going to be getting off now.”
“Are you planning to climb out of the window? Next stop is Crewe.”
“What?” I pressed my face against the back door. Shitting hell. The train bumbled along, nice and leisurely as it crawled out of London. “Oh crap.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t find the guy with the face like thunder?”
“Beautiful thunder,” I corrected.
“I’m Ben.”
“Ben?” I leant against the wall of the carriage. It rocked gently underneath my feet, like a baby being lulled to sleep.
“Benjamin Chambers.”
“Ben, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” His blue eyes were too bright though, not dark and deep like pools of water under midnight. Heaven and slate.
“Have you ever wished you’d told someone something before it was too late? Like a fleeting moment that didn’t quite turn out the way you wanted. The way you thought it would?”
“Funny you should ask, but yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I’ve been searching for her ever since.”
I slumped a little. “That’s really romantic.”
He shrugged. “If it’s a connection, then it’s a connection. That doesn’t go away, I don’t think.”
“Thanks, Ben, oh and you are beautiful to look at.”
I was officially delirious. He chuckled and shook his head. “Good luck.” I moved off. My chin almost trailed the floor in exhaustion.
“You too.”
I made it back to first class and my cabin. I’d have to ring Ma and say I was stuck on a train. That should go well.
I wonder what she meant about flats? There was no way she’d leave that house. It was Dad’s and hers. Now I knew it was her safe zone.
I banged against the door opposite to mine as I tried to get my phone out of my bag. My heart sank when I saw that Matthew still hadn’t read my message.
I shot one to Hannah: Long story. I’m going to be late home.
The dots showed she typed straight back: I don’t want to know if it will make me cringe or want to pull my ears off.
I laughed. It was a strange situation to be in; my daughter was making me laugh and not want to bury myself in an early grave.
I dropped my bag and bent down to pick it up, banging my elbow on the cabin door. “Shit.”
The door behind me opened and a familiar shape leant against the doorway.
The moment rewound, took me back. Through the heartbreak of the last couple of days, through the five years of anger and obsession, the wilderness before. It took me to a dingy dorm hallway and a door being cracked open wide.
What would you do differently if we were young again?
“Oh, you’re a boy.” I waited for the panic to arrive. This was a big moment. He might not remember the conversation from years ago, or the whispered one we had the other night.
“Yep, last I checked I had a fully working penis and two rather full ball bags.”
He did remember. He did. Of course, he did.
I grinned like a contagious disease spread across my face.
“Do you need proof?” The man with the lanky shock of dark hair grinned as he reached for the shiny buttons on his jeans. My eyes travelled down there, unable to stay up top.
“No, no, no.” I couldn’t lift my eyes; they were superglued on his crotch. “I was going to have a drink though. If you want to join me?”
“Where?”
“I’m in the opposite cabin.” My cheeks warmed.
“With you? I can’t have a drink with someone when I don’t know their name.”
“Veronica.” My heart surged in my chest. Boom, boom, boom.
“Veronica? That’s a very grown up name you
have there.”
I nodded, speechless. His voice was the melodic strum of a guitar in perfect tune.
“Veronica, I’m Matthew.”
“Hi, Matthew.”
His hand shot out and caught hold of my arm, pulling me tight against his chest.
When his lips crushed mine, I wanted to quit breathing as a bad habit.
Eventually I pulled our lips apart, gasping at precious oxygen. “I didn’t get a chance to say yes earlier. Well, I had the chance, but it didn’t come out right.”
The glint in his eye darted with wickedness. “Yes to what? I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are apart from some girl called Veronica. Although, I might call you Ronnie Roo and love you forever.”
“Oh that’s a relief.” I simmered close to explosion. “I might stalk you everywhere and think about you endlessly until the day I die.”
The air crushed out of my lungs.
His lips touched mine again, so sweet and searingly heartfelt. When he pulled back, his gaze held questions. “Did you open the envelope? Do you understand?”
It took a minute, what with the crazy head spinning, the pounding of my heart and the all-out insanity of the moment. I put my hand into my pocket and pulled out the white rectangle.
“Wait.” He wrapped his fingers around mine. “I want to tell you what I came to London that day to say.”
I swallowed hard and nodded.
“It was quite fucking simple really. I wanted you to know that I could never forget. Never would forget.”
“And when you came after Paul died?” I asked, my heart hardly beating.
“Because I couldn’t forget, and I didn’t care a man had just died. I needed to see you, needed to know that the dream I’d clung onto for ten miserable years wasn’t some stupid fairy tale a greengrocer’s son from Scotland shouldn’t have.”
“Ange sent you away.”
His gaze deepened until it twisted my stomach. “Not for long. Even this time I would have come back. Would have stood on your doorstep over and over again until you finally understood.”
He watched as I slid my finger under the flap and opened it. My gasp breathed between us and I stared at the picture. It was us at the second year Freshers Ball. He was bent over, his chin was resting on my shoulder; we were both grinning at the camera, our smiles distorted by a bad camera phone circa 2004. On my lips stamped half a promise, pressed against them in the dead of night. His arms were wrapped tight around my body, cuddling me tight, the white of his shirt pressed against the lavender of my dress, the lavender of his entire house.
Half a promise.
“Do you get it now, Ronnie Roo?”
I met his gaze. “You’ve loved me forever?”
“No.” I melted under the burning heat of his hands as they reached around my stomach and lifted me up. “I will love you forever.”
“Even when we are old?” My words whispered against his skin.
“Aye. Even when we are old.”
The End
Please Cont…
Continue the story…
Coming May 2020
Ronnie Childs has questions.
What happens now she and Matthew Carling have crossed the line into love?
Can they survive the enormous pressure turning a life long dream into reality entails?
And what happens when fate sends them a curveball neither of them expect?
Matthew Carling has questions of his own.
How can he battle his ex and still maintain his integrity as a dad?
What happens now he’s become his father and given everything up for a greengrocer shop and love?
How can Ronnie and he make it work when life keeps throwing all it has at them?
When things get real and playing grown ups loses it’s charm, facing up to reality will make them both ache for the past. Suddenly their promise to love one another even when they are old becomes one of the most difficult promises they’ve ever tried to keep.
The prize of forever has never seemed further away.
Available May 2020
PRE ORDER NOW
When We Were Young
Preface
Once I lived for my dreams; for the hours when my eyelashes would blot out reality, a curtain on the world, and I could be with you again.
To touch you.
Hold you.
Own you.
Now I live for the moments in between, the laughs, the jokes, those glances that pass in a language without words.
The short, sharp intake of breath my lungs inhale when you plant a kiss on my neck. That shiver so dark and so deep that my heart and soul merge and I want to sing your name.
Now I watch you breathe, your chest rising and falling, every exhalation an imprint on my skin.
The books by your bed are for the two of us to share, pages folded when the lights switch off.
But when it’s dark and late and I’m listening to the symphony of your lungs I fear what’s to come. I fear the future that we’ve left too late. No time with you will ever be enough; the time will always pass too quick, the sand slipping through the hour glass of life.
For when we are old our days will become moments until we part again, each one snatched and shorter than the last.
Where will we leave our mark of this lifetime of love that we’ve shared? Where will people know that we have loved and lived in a land when we are old and gone?
Order Now
Thank You
Thank you so much for reading! Authors love to hear from their readers, and reviews are as valuable as fairy dust. Your time and review are always gratefully received.
You can join Anna’s Facebook group where she normally pops in most days and to share her new releases, teasers and what she’s eaten for lunch.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/295002200840504/
If you follow Anna’s Amazon page you will be alerted to every new release.
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00FF5DW6Y
Newsletter sign-up
https://www.subscribepage.com/TearsofInk
Acknowledgments
This is always the trickiest bit. The list is long, time is short. Those who have been reading all night want to go to bed. I get it—I’m a late-night reader too.
So, I shall keep this brief.
Thank you to Nikki Ashton, for telling me to keep going. To Nikki Groom for being my partner in constant moaning and procrastination.
For Andrea. I love you. There isn’t much else I can add to that.
Thank you to Wendy and Claire at BNW and Jo and team at GMB. Being a shy and anxiety ridden wall flower isn’t the best way to sell books, I thank you for helping me make that happen.
For my loyal readers, you guys help me build my dream every day, and I hope you know how hard I try to give you something new and different every time I release one of these things.
For my betas, Ann, Janice, Nikki A (again) and Ellie, thank you for reading my nonsense.
To Wes, Lana, Jake and Thea. I love you with all my heart.
Anna xxx