by Carrie Elks
Callum smirks. I resist the urge to wipe it clean off his face.
“You drink coffee before nine?” I ask. “Seriously?”
Callum does a double take at my furious expression. “Hey, I was just trying to show you who was boss.”
“But I was being nice,” I protest. “I bought that cup of coffee as a peace offering.”
“After calling me an elitist arsehole,” he reminds me.
“If the cap fits,” I goad. “It's not my fault you looked down on me because I didn't go to Oxbridge.”
He puts a finger beneath my chin, tipping my head up so I'm looking straight at him. “Apart from the obvious physical aspect, I'd never look down on you, sweetheart. You've achieved so bloody much and all under your own steam. I'm in awe of you.”
Oh, this man knows how to sweet talk. I'm so overcome by the vehemence of his words that I can't help but press my lips to his.
Then he's kissing me hard and fast, his hand cupping the back of my head. I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, needing to feel every part of him against me.
Margaret clears her throat, reminding us where we are. Though heat floods my cheeks, I'm relieved to see she's smiling, looking at us both with a fond expression.
“Sorry, Mum.” Callum's grin is far from regretful. “I can't help it, she's always leading me astray.”
Margaret shakes her head, “Callum Ferguson, it's one thing kissing a girl in front of your mother, another thing to be disrespectful about it. Now tell her you're sorry.”
It's my turn to smirk. Callum frowns at my glee, rolling his eyes. “I'm very sorry for disrespecting you, Amy.”
“I forgive you,” I reply, my tone echoing his. “But I'm expecting a cup of coffee on my desk every single morning to make up for it.
“Babe, I'll buy you the bloody coffee shop if you like.”
He gives me a quick kiss on the tip of my nose, then mouths “I love you.”
I mouth it right back.
* * *
When we leave London City Airport and clamber into a black cab, a sense of sadness comes over me. The flight home was uneventful and sleepy, but as a consequence it passed way too quickly. As the weekend comes to a close, I can’t help but think of work tomorrow.
I bury my head against Callum's chest, trying to block out the dark thoughts. But even his warm protection isn't enough to reassure me.
“I don't want this to end,” I whisper into the wool of his sweater. His arms tighten around me, and I feel his lips press against the top of my head.
“It's not over,” he says. “We're only just beginning, babe.”
“But everything's so complicated. I'm going to have to walk past you in the corridor and pretend I don't want to wrap myself around you. I don't think I can do it.”
There’s a smile in his voice. “I'm confident you can restrain yourself. It's only a few months, then you'll finish your placement, get your degree and we can come out into the open.”
He makes it sound so easy. Maybe it is to him, but all I can see ahead is darkness and difficulties. I can't even sit in a cab without wanting to hold him, how am I going to get through a day without touching or being touched? He's a drug and a comfort blanket combined, and I find myself craving his proximity.
“It's not me I'm worried about,” I say in an attempt to lighten the situation. “I'm pretty sure you're the one who can't keep his hands to himself.”
“Is that a fact?” He proves my point by pulling me closer, running his lips across my forehead, my eyelids, my cheeks. “You think I'll cave first?”
“I know you will.” My heart flutters as his lips press at the corner of my mouth. “You haven't got an ounce of self-control.”
“Not around you, sweetheart,” he agrees readily. Then all words are silence as he kisses the hell out of me.
Twenty minutes later, we pull up outside my mum's house in Plaistow.
“Am I coming in?” he asks, putting my suitcase down on the pavement. His question isn't demanding or petulant, it's just a few words in a throwaway tone, but they still send me into a panic.
“Tonight?” I ask, wide-eyed. “Um, I don't know. Do you want to?”
“Don't panic,” he whispers. “I won't come in if you're not ready. We've got all the time in the world.” His lack of offense calms my anxiety.
“I want to introduce you to them,” I tell him. “But not until I've prepared them all. I've only really told Lara—my sister-in-law—about you. I want them to treat you properly when you finally meet.”
“Okay.”
“Come over for lunch next Sunday, you can face the whole bunch. It will be like a swift sharp shock.”
“You make them sound delightful.”
“They're one of a kind. Noisy, opinionated, and they won't stop asking you questions. As long as you're prepared for that.”
He cups my face with his hands, pressing a soft kiss to my mouth. “Babe, it’ll be fine. I want to meet them.”
“If you're sure?”
“I'm sure.”
I'm still smiling when I put the key into the lock of the front door, waving as the cab pulls away. Though I can't see Callum through the tinted glass, I blow a kiss anyway. When it disappears around a corner, I walk into the hallway, and call out loudly.
“Hello?”
A scuffle comes from the living room, and a low, uttered 'shit.” Half-intrigued, half-worried, I open the door, my eyes seeking out movement in the low, ambient light.
My mum is the first to sit up. She clutches a piece of fabric to cover her naked chest, and it takes me a moment to realise it's her blouse. Then Digger jumps up, pulling his jeans up hastily, and I realise I've walked in on something extremely embarrassing.
It’s something no child should have to see.
“Oh my God!” I spin on my heels and run out of the room, wishing I could erase the image from my memory. She's done some stupid things before—had relationships with losers and married men—but I can't help but feel she's hit a new low.
My mum and my dad? The thought not only nauseates me, but it also sends me into a tailspin. If Alex ever finds out, he'll never forgive her, and I'm not sure if I can cope with that.
Leaving my suitcase in the hall, I clamber up the stairs, ignoring Mum as she calls my name. I don't want to talk to her, I don't even want to see her, and to make the point I slide the bolt through its cage.
Later, after I've climbed into bed, I hear the front door shut quietly, then the tap-tap of Mum walking up the stairs. She knocks softly on my door, and I bury my head under my pillow, not ready to talk to her about what happened down there.
When I fall asleep that night—after a text conversation with Callum that tells him everything—my mind is racing with thoughts of all that's happened, and I start to worry that Edinburgh was simply the calm before the storm.
As it turns out, I'm right.
25
Monday is taken up with a series of meetings, each one more tedious than the last. I’m not sure if it’s boredom that makes me check my watch every five minutes, or the incessant need to see Callum that’s nagging at my chest. I can’t even message him on my phone—we have clients in and if they saw me tapping away at the screen it would look disrespectful.
It doesn’t stop my fingers from itching to type, though.
By the time my final meeting ends at 6:45pm, I’m flagging. My stomach is rumbling from being ignored since breakfast, and my limbs ache as though I’ve been through five rounds with Floyd Mayweather. In short, I’m a mess.
That’s exactly how I feel when I bump into Callum just outside the second floor bathrooms. He’s wearing his suit jacket and carrying a satchel slung across his shoulder, and though I hate to admit it, he looks ten times better than I do.
“Hey.” He stops in front of me, leaning his shoulder against the wall. I loosen my grip on the handle to the bathroom.
“Hi.”
“Good day?” He raises an eyebrow and cocks
his head to the side. A lock of hair falls across his brow, and I lift my hand up to brush it away before remembering where we are and just how inappropriate that would look.
“Busy. Long, tiring. But I think we slayed some dragons.”
His other eyebrow lifts up, joining the first. “Dragons?”
“It’s what Jonathan says to us before we meet with a client,” I tell him. “‘Let’s ride in on our white horses and slay some fucking dragons’.”
Callum laughs at my pitiful attempt to take on a posh accent. “Jonathan’s full of shit.” The fondness in his tone belies his words. “Sounds as though the pigs are sleeping in the beds. What happened to the girl who was railing at me about elitism and chauvinist crap?”
“Where did the pigs come from?”
“George Orwell. In Animal Farm, when the pigs start sleeping in the house…” He trails off when he notices my confused expression. “You didn’t study it at school?”
This time I take on a London accent, over-egging it until I sound like Dick Van Dyke on speed. “Nah, guvnor. We didn’t have them new-fangled fancy book things when I was at school.”
His lips twitch, but somehow he manages to swallow down a smile. “Explains a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Like why you’re a stubborn, hot-headed, gorgeous siren of a woman,” he says, pushing me against the wall. “And why every time I think I have you figured out, you end up surprising me.”
He lowers his head, brushing his lips against mine. Though we’re in the middle of the corridor, I find myself kissing him back, frantically bunching his shirt in my hands, needing to feel his skin against my fingertips.
Next to us, the bathroom door bangs and we jump apart. We both turn to look at the door. Callum tucks his shirt back in while I smooth down the hair he’s messed up with his roving hands. Neither of us sees anybody there.
“Close call.” Callum whistles, running his hands down his jacket to get rid of the wrinkles. “I’d have to tell HR it was all your fault for being so goddamn sexy.” His voice lowers at the last bit, his accent turning gritty.
“Good to see all that chauvinistic crap hasn’t gone completely.” Though I’m joking, I still feel a bit shocked. Anybody could have walked down that corridor—anybody—and I can’t believe we came so close to being caught. My mind skips back to that HR meeting we had a few months ago, after Charlie’s spectacular fall from grace, and I realise how near I’ve just come to messing everything up.
Whatever happened to degree, job and getting the hell out of Plaistow?
I know exactly what happened. Callum happened. Callum and his soft, sexy voice and his hard, greedy hands. The man who can make me forget about every single bit of ambition I have with one toe-curling kiss.
“Are you ready to leave?” he asks. “I’ll wait for you if you want to go in there.” He gestures at the bathroom door. Somehow, in the mayhem of seeing Callum, the urge to use the bathroom has disappeared.
“Let’s go,” I say, trying to keep my voice light. “I just need to drop a couple of letters into the post room then I’m good to go.”
“You want to come back to mine?”
The offer is enticing. So attractive, in fact, that I’m about to agree when I remember last night and that I’m supposed to be going to my brother’s flat to discuss my situation. A sense of disappointment washes over me from head to toe.
“I can’t, I have to go and see Alex and Lara. I need to tell them about Mum and Dad.” That phrase sounds so stupid when it should be natural. Mum and Dad. It slips off the tongues of kids the world over, yet for me it’s stilted and thick.
“Afterwards, then?” His voice holds a promise which makes me shiver.
“Afterwards.”
* * *
A wall of noise hits me as soon as I step inside Alex’s flat. Max is screaming loudly, while Lara is trying to calm him down and switch the oven off at the same time. Alex runs back into the kitchen to help, and I hang up my jacket, rolling my eyes at the scene unfolding before me.
It’s all too familiar, and immediately transports me back to my school days. There was always somebody yelling—usually Alex or Mum—and the noise makes me feel almost wistful. Now that it’s just the two of us in the house, things are so much quieter.
I wonder how much longer the relative silence will last, now that Mum has something going with Digger. Will she move him in with us? How will I feel about that? Am I even going to want to spend the night under the same roof as a man who once broke my bones?
I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual.
Ignoring my runaway thoughts, I walk into the kitchen. “Can I do anything to help?”
Before Lara can respond, I scoop Max out of her arms, leaving her free to sort out the oven. Alex is banging a wrench against the pipes under the sink, muttering away about something, so I decide to take Max into the living area to play with his toys.
“Car” He points at the luminous-yellow jeep that seems to take up half the floor space of the flat. “Wan car.”
“You want the car?” I repeat. Lara prefers that we repeat his words back, but saying them like adults. Apparently it will lead to him having better vocabulary or something.
All I know is it makes me sound as if I’m going mad, talking normally to a kid who hasn’t even reached the age of two.
Max stares at me, his face serious, as if he thinks I’m weird, too. Poor kid, he must get sick and tired of having everybody throw his own words back in his face. I start to imagine him turning around one day and telling everybody to stop bloody repeating him, and the picture that paints in my mind is enough to start me giggling, which only makes Max look even more appalled.
He must think his Auntie Amy is a nutcase. Maybe he’s right.
“What’s so funny?” Lara passes me a glass of white wine and lifts Max up in the same, smooth movement. Her ability to do more than one thing at once while surrounded by Cartwright men impresses me. Do they teach that at antenatal classes?
“Nothing,” I shake my head, unable to suppress my grin. “I was just imagining what it’s going to be like when Max can talk properly.”
“I’m dreading the day,” she whispers, conspiratorially. “Considering how much he looks like his dad, I’m pretty sure he’ll have the same loud mouth.”
“I heard that,” Alex calls out from the kitchen. “You don’t usually complain about my mouth, sweetheart.”
I wait until Lara has taken Max into their glitzy bathroom before I say anything to Alex, mainly because I want to shield them from his reaction.
“So, um, I walked in on Mum with another bloke last night.”
Alex wrinkles his nose, sending me a ‘why-the-hell-are-you-telling-me-this’ kind of look. “Again?”
I grimace, remembering all the other times we’ve found her ‘entertaining’ a man. Nothing too lurid, but when you’re fourteen and coming home from a night with your mates, the last thing you want to see is your mum lip-locked with some strange guy.
“Again,” I confirm. “Except this time I knew him.”
Alex comes closer, as if I’m about to share a juicy morsel of gossip. For a moment, I wish that I could say it was someone other than my dad, and then we could have a good laugh. His wide-eyed, interested look is going to last approximately two seconds as soon as I tell him the truth.
“It-was-Digger,” I blurt out, as if saying it quickly will somehow shield us both from the consequences. “I saw Mum kissing my dad.”
Alex is silent. Long enough to make me shiver, because Alex without words is a dangerous thing. It means he’s about to explode.
The fallout comes less than a minute later.
“What the hell? She kissed that douchebag? How could she? Doesn’t she remember what he did to us, what he did to you? For fuck’s sake, I’ve seen her sink bloody low, but this really takes the biscuit. I’m going to kill her.”
He starts to pace the room. Walking back and forth, he tugs at his hair with hi
s hands. Lara’s head pops around the bathroom door, and she catches my gaze, her eyes wide. I try to send her a look that conveys I have this all under control, but I think it just ends up looking as though I’m eating a lemon.
“How long’s it been going on?” He stops his pacing to look at me.
“I don’t know. It could have just been a one-off, I didn’t stay around to ask them about their relationship.”
“Good girl.” He squats in front of me, taking my shoulders in his hands. His grip is firm and reassuring. I’ve always felt safe in the arms of my big brother. “I don’t want him anywhere near you, not after everything that’s happened, and I can’t believe Mum would either.”
I say nothing because Mum’s actions say it all. Even if I don’t hate my dad in the way that Alex does, I’m still wary enough not to want him in my house. Again I start to wonder what her plans are, whether she’s thought this through. What if they decide to give it another go?
It’s going to tear our family apart.
Ten minutes later, Lara joins us, fresh-faced from Max’s bath and bedtime routine. Though she’s put Max in his cot, we can hear him softly singing to himself, and I’m half inclined to make a joke about him and Alex forming a band. Only this doesn’t seem like the right time for jokes.
“Here’s what we know,” Lara says, pouring a fresh glass of wine. “He and your mum were kissing in your house, but you don’t know if they’d just started, or if it was more than a friendly thing. It could be nothing.”
I take a huge gulp of wine before speaking. “Um, she had no top on.”
Lara coughs, spluttering Chardonnay everywhere. When she catches my eye, I feel my mouth twitch, and before I know it I’m collapsing in a heap of giggles. She joins in, laughing hard, and it takes a full minute before we can get ourselves under control. By the time I finish, my stomach is aching from the exertion.
“I can’t believe you saw that,” she says, trying to stifle her laughter. “Oh my God, it must have hurt your eyes.”