Love is a Four Letter Word

by Zara Stoneley

  “It’s not that, we—”

  “You.”

  Carol sighed. “It isn’t that I don’t want you here.”

  “Then why send me to boarding school? You didn’t miss me then, did you?” Georgie slumped deeper into the chair, and half expected to be told to sit up straight. She was saying the things she’d always said, but somehow it didn’t seem that important now. It was too long ago. And even if Carol had wanted her out of her hair back then, these days she offered enough olive branches to start up an oil bottling business. She wanted to be friends, and it was Carol, not anyone else who persistently texted to check she was okay. At one time she’d thought she was an interfering nosey old bat, but lately she hadn’t been so sure. Lately it had been a comfort, knowing someone cared at least a tiny bit. Whatever her motives.

  “We did miss you. I did. But we thought it was best for you. To have stability, something reliable. I mean we’d only just met, your father and I, and what if we’d split up and you’d been here? It would have been the same thing all over again. I would never have forgiven myself.”

  “Oh.” She’d never thought of it that way.

  “And we do want you back here now.” Carol took a ladylike sip of her drink. “I don’t think you’re a bad influence on the children, but you’re so much older than them, you want to do different things. I’ve always thought you must be completely bored out of your skull living with The Walton’s.”

  Which was quite humorous for Carol. It deserved a bit of leeway. “Yeah, well, I guess you don’t want them growing up like their big bad step-sister.”

  “I’d be very proud of them if they turned out like you have Georgina, but…”

  Why do people always have to spoil it with a ‘but’? She’d been doing so well.

  “We, I, just sometimes worry that you’re not happy, not very settled.” She sat down on the chair next to Georgie, which was even more ominous. Sitting down meant they were there for the long haul.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be settled.” We don’t all see a mortgage, a man and a pile of nappies as worthy of a lifetime achievement award.

  “Is this one serious?” She was watching Jake and Alfie across the room, deep in conversation, and Georgie cringed again, and put the half-drunk glass of champagne down on the floor. Partly to hide the fact that for some unidentifiable reason her hand was shaking, and partly because the bubbles were mixing very badly with the somersaulting of her stomach.

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Your father seems to like him.”

  Georgie shrugged. “He’s nice enough.”

  “And you do like him, don’t you? He’s a good lad really, considering…”

  “Considering what?” This evening was turning out a bit surreal. Carol trying to corner her and suffocate her into submission was fairly standard form, being nice about whoever was with her was weird, sounding almost like she understood was just plain spooky. And she still felt off, and even the half a glass of bubbly had been hard to swallow.

  She stared at Carol. “Considering what?”

  “Well, I just meant it must have been difficult with his father.”

  “His father?”

  “In prison, and well his mother was never quite the same….” Her voice drifted and she looked awkward. Carol didn’t like talking about ‘unpleasant things’. “You did know?”

  “Maybe.” Maybe not.

  “We would like to see you happy and settled dear.” She brushed Georgie’s hair back over her shoulder, and she tried not to dodge away.

  “I am happy.”

  “With someone who can look after you.”

  “I’m looking after myself fine, thanks.”

  “You like your new job?”

  “I’m doing fine.” She glanced up, her gaze clashing with Jake’s.

  “You look a bit tired, I just wondered about the late nights.”

  “There aren’t many.” And tonight was definitely not going to be one.

  Carol was studying her, and uneasiness filtered through her body. It was a scrutiny, and for some reason she felt like wrapping her arms round her body and hiding. “You would tell us if there was something wrong? We are always here for you, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, I think I need to check Jake is all right, it’s not fair to leave him.” Georgie felt like her legs were going to give way beneath her as she clambered to her feet and headed for safety. Carol might be well meaning, but she was stifling, suffocating and Jake was a safe haven of neither. But she could still feel her step-mothers eyes on her as she reached the other side of the room, slipped her hand through his arm. “Do you mind if we go? I don’t feel well.”

  “Your call, darling.”

  “Well, well if the bad penny hasn’t turned up again. You always did like a bit of rough to entertain you, didn’t you?” The upper class drawl swarmed over her like a nasty rash and Georgie felt her fingers tighten on Jake’s arm.

  “And you always did know how to sound a dick, Ashley.”

  She turned on the smile that was close to an automatic response when people like Ashley Grant came within spitting distance. All authority and no backbone.

  “Ah, but I heard you liked dicks.”

  “Not your kind. Did you want something?”

  He was staring at her tits as though any second now he was going to bury his face in them, and the shiver of disdain ran straight down Georgie’s spine and back up again.

  “Yes.” He smiled a dirty smile that did nothing for her at all. Well, it did make her feel slightly more bilious. “You, for old time’s sakes.”

  “There are no old times, Ashley.” She could have added ‘and you never had me’ but she didn’t. Getting away was more of a priority than fielding his stupid comments.

  “We were good together. Worth another try I’d say.”

  “You’re either drunk or mixing me up with someone else.” She’d had to put up with the groping Ashley on more than one occasion, during those years when she’d objected less to her family’s misguided attempts to pair her off. On paper, Ashley was perfect. In the flesh he was a leering, pawing, bad imitation of his father. The first time his clammy hand had shot up her skirt was also the last time. But the arrogance of his upbringing had convinced him he’d been close to scoring. And now three sheets to the wind he’d decided the time had come.

  “Come on, be honest, stop wasting time with losers like him and admit you want a bit more of the Grant glamour inside you, that slutty side of you is such a turn on.” He’d moved closer, so that she felt like the filling in a sandwich. Backed up against a silent Jake, her exit blocked off by the halitosis bloom that preceded Ashley. Bad breath and expensive aftershave were not mingling well with the half a glass of champagne that was planning a revolt of its own from the depths of her churning stomach. His hand was aiming for her boob like some wobbly undecided Exocet missile.

  “Keep your hands to yourself.”

  Ashley was too pissed to take in the warning, and it wasn’t just his hands he had plans for. His mouth already on its way to hers, wide open, tongue flopping like a beached whale. She closed her eyes, wondering if she could get away with a knee in his engorged groin, when she realised he’d not got to his target. Jake had. Large tanned hands wrapped around the lapels of the other man’s jacket in a gesture that looked casual, but she just knew wasn’t. “The lady said let go.” His voice was mild, like he was talking to a backwards child. Which wasn’t far off the mark.

  Ashley stared back, weighing up his opponent. “Lady? You must be fucking—”

  “Yes, I am actually. And you’re not. Now you can walk away or I’m quite happy to discuss it… somewhere quieter.” He brushed a finger slowly down the man’s lapel, flicked away an imaginary speck of dust. And it was as though Georgie could actually see Ashley’s lust turn tail and run.

  “I’d heard you were back with your old faggot of a painter actually.” Better than a city wanker. She muttered it under her breath, but fr
om the look Jake sent her she had a horrible feeling he’d heard. “Still modelling for him, are you? I bet your pa isn’t too happy that you’ve gone into a partnership with him, is he? From what I heard—”

  What he’d heard, Georgie never found out because Jake’s fingers had tightened on his jacket in a way he didn’t seem comfortable with at all. He dried up, the thin ungenerous lips pressed firmly together. And Georgie found herself being none too gently steered towards the door.

  ***

  The air outside was cold, icy fingers that shot straight to her lungs and made her draw a sharp breath, but it still felt better than being inside.

  “Friend of yours?”

  “A family acquaintance.” She tried to stop the shivering that seemed to have invaded her body. “The type they’d love to see me hitched to.”

  “Ah, yes, the old time’s sake.”

  “We never—”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “But.”

  He draped his jacket around her shoulders, stopped her protestation dead. He didn’t want to know. He’d rescued her, like he had before. But, he probably believed every word. Or he didn’t care.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes, I am now.” She forced the jitters down, along with the brief pang of reality. He’d saved her again, but just because it was what he did. He would have done it for anyone. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Jake?” Her heels crunched on the driveway, the sound of clinking glasses and laughter echoing behind them.

  He opened the car door for her, slammed it shut and made his way round to the passenger side. Settled himself into her small car, put the seatbelt on before he half turned to look at her. “That sounds ominous.”

  “It’s not.” She turned the key in the ignition, waited for the windscreen to start to clear. She hadn’t realised until now that she knew practically nothing about him. He’d been the bad boy at school, the one who wagged off, who smoked behind the bike sheds. She hadn’t even realised he liked horses. All she’d done was have wild sex with him and drag him to that awful party. And threaten to pull the rug from under his feet, his land. Even Carol and Alfie seemed to know more about him than she did. “It’s just Carol said … ” She was everything he’d accused her of. Shallow, spoiled, ungrateful.

  He folded his arms and his face hardened, just that tiny bit that made him look forbidding rather than easy going.

  “She said your father was in prison.”

  “And?”

  “It’s true then?”

  He sighed, shook his head slightly, and then turned to stare out of the windscreen. “Let’s drive shall we? Then maybe we can talk later.”

  ***

  He didn’t say another single word on the drive back, and it should have felt awkward, but it didn’t. Georgie concentrated on the road and all she could think of was the few words Carol had said. They spun round in her head, growing multiplying until the uneasy feeling started to harden into a conviction that things were going very wrong.

  She pulled up in front of the apartment and he got out wordlessly. Followed her in, sat down, elbows on his knees, chin on his knuckles before finally giving her the long stare.

  “He burned our home down, well he switched on the gas and threw a match to be more precise. Boom. Asshole.” The first words he’d said since they’d set off back cut through the silence. “He turned out to be a complete loser who just took the easy route out.”

  “Oh.” Wasn’t expecting that. “Erm, why did he need a way out?”

  He stared straight through her. “Money. Isn’t that the root of all evil?” For a brief moment he focussed on her, his mouth curled into something that wasn’t humour. “He was a gambler who thought he could play the system, thought that if he bet long and hard enough he could climb out of the hole he was in. He lost his job and because of who he was he couldn’t get another one, so every penny Mum earned he took to the pub or the betting shop. And she let him, the idiot.”

  “Maybe she loved him?”

  “Oh yeah, she loved him. What was it you said, just another four letter word?” The short croak of a laugh cut into her. “Too fucking right. Once he was in the slammer that was it, I hardly saw her. Spent all her time visiting him or thinking about visiting him.” He put his feet up on the table, settled back, one arm across his body, and then reached out with his other, pulled her close so she couldn’t look at him.

  “But he’s out now? You’ve seen him?” She rested her head against the broad familiar shoulder. Drank in the unfamiliar smell of his aftershave.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t give a fuck.” His fingers briefly curled into her shoulder. “I don’t want to be with a loser like that.”

  Which explained why Rowena wanted him to commit, to do something. But she hadn’t thought his dad was a loser, she’d said he was good. And so had Georgie’s dad.

  “I was doing my own thing, scraping by then I got talking to Rowena at a horse auction. There was this horse going for meat money because it was wild and I’d offered the guy fifty quid just to stop him bloody trotting the poor lame thing up and down, it was scared shitless and I could just see it taking off or breaking down. He hadn’t even entered it in the sale, was just out to make a quick buck. She saw him hand the lead rope over and she must have seen the look on my face. She offered to pay for a trailer to shift it and told me I could keep it at her place, said she trusted me to do the right thing by it.”

  “Why? Because it’s in your blood?”

  He paused, the wait lengthened. She’d thrown his words back at him. All she could think of was those words from Carol, the comments she’d half missed, his throw away ‘in my blood’. Just who the hell was he? She wanted to know, she needed to know. Before she told him.

  She’d stepped back into her past and expected it to be like it was then, simple. Him the bad boy, her the good girl.

  Except she wasn’t quite sure how it worked now, now that she wasn’t the innocent she used to be, and Jake, well in Jake she’d seen a glimpse of something that was as reliable and moral as it could get. Confused just didn’t cover it.

  “It’s the blood I don’t want, but you can’t choose can you? My dad was a pikey, a gypsy, who married a settler. So lose-lose eh? Her family hated him, his lot hated her. And he tried to settle, buy a place but cocked it up. Not easy to make it where you’re not wanted.”

  “But he tried.”

  He ignored her. “There was always a horse around, he couldn’t not have one, it was the one thing he knew how to do, so he groomed and when I wasn’t fixing bikes I was fixing horses. Not like you mind you, no hoity toity horse shows, we were for sorting and selling.”

  “How do you know my dad so well then?”

  “He bought that black mare of yours from my dad, I rode to show him what she could do.”

  “He bought Salsa from you?” She could hear the trace of disbelief in her own voice. He half grinned, that cocky look that grabbed her somewhere inside.

  “Salsa? What kind of a name is that?”

  She decided to ignore that. “So I can blame all those bloody bruises on you, you bugger.”

  “I used to come and watch you ride.” His fingers stroked down her arm, gentle, mesmerising, circles that touched something deep under her skin. “Hide under the hedge.”

  “Why?”

  “Wanted to see what you were made of.” He stopped abruptly, pulled back, sat up straighter. “I better go.”

  “Stay.”

  “I thought you felt ill?”

  “Not that ill.”

  He grinned. “I’m not bringing the motorbike in if that’s what’s on your mind.”

  “We can manage without.” She traced her finger slowly down the front of his shirt. His hand covered hers, stopped her progress.

  “Why were you in such a hurry to get out of there?”

  “Oh, she started talking the whole happy ever after crap, bawling babies included. Lo
ve and romance isn’t my bag.”

  “You might want that one day.” He was looking at her lazily now.

  “No.” It came out too sharp. “I’ve never wanted kids.”

  “Sounds a bit final.”

  “It is.” Or it had been. Bugger.

  “No maternal instinct in there then.” He raised an eyebrow, put a large, capable hand over her heart.

  Nope, she hadn’t thought a single maternal instinct existed in her at all. Babies were bad news. If it hadn’t been for her mum getting pregnant she might never have left them, well there was no might about it. She wouldn’t. And if Carol and Alfie hadn’t got so cosy and started breeding then she wouldn’t have been uprooted and sent away to that god-awful school. Which left her with a major problem she was trying to ignore for the time being.

  She fought for a light tone because the look he was giving her was far too intense. “Nope. Give me a puppy any day.” A wave of something that had to be tiredness flooded her body, it was all too hard, all too complicated. “Why? Do you want to go forth and multiply?”

  “Spread my wonderful genes?” He laughed, his hand drifting down to her breast. “Nope, but I’d quite like to get some practice in.”

  Oh God, right now she wanted him, needed him, but it wasn’t right. It was all going wrong. She’d had stupid daydreams about going back, and she couldn’t. She had no right to cock up his life, when it wouldn’t make any difference to hers anyway. Which appeared to be well and truly fucked up right now.

  “Will you just hold me?”

  He did. Wrapping his arms round her, pulling her in tight. And it felt good, too good to spoil. “Are you okay?” His words were muffled against her hair and she didn’t quite know what to say, whether she was all right or all wrong. She just wanted to stay here though. Held. For the first time in years she felt safe, but she also felt scared stiff.

  “I’m fine.” Why couldn’t she just stop right there? Leave it at that, all cosy and nice? “Jake, have you ever thought about settling down, is it just me that’s strange?” Okay Georgie, shoot that safe feeling to shreds.