Stuck On You

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘Hey, I get it,’ I reply. ‘I’m from Yorkshire, remember? Up there I have one of the gentlest accents but plonk me in London in a room full of art gallery employees and I sound like a farmer, unless I try really hard to keep it at bay. There’s a little voice in my head telling me to strip it back, play it down even more, if I want to get hired over someone who has that same accent everyone else has – that you have.’

  ‘Is that what you did? To get the job?’ Damian asks.

  Oh, God, how much have I said? I’m so comfortable around him I’m just chatting away.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Did you do an accent in the interview to get the job with me?’ he asks.

  ‘Oh, yeah, I guess I did,’ I reply, relieved I haven’t put my foot in it. ‘I didn’t think you’d hire a bumpkin.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t think you were a bumpkin,’ Damian says. ‘To be honest, I thought you were pretty hot. An industrial tribunal waiting to happen, that’s what Henrietta said. I guess she knew you were my type.’

  Henrietta is Damian’s agent-type person. When he interviewed me, she and Karen sat in and the three of them grilled me together. That’s not what’s important in that sentence though; what’s important is, well, basically every other part of it. He thought I was hot? I was his type? The only thing making my mind race faster than what he just said is me obsessing over the fact he used the past tense.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m just wondering if I want my pay-out in cash or a cheque,’ I joke. ‘I could take you to the cleaners for that.’

  ‘Hey, I never acted on it, did I?’ he says. ‘I might be an arsehole at times but I’m a professional arsehole.’

  I can’t help but laugh.

  ‘That came out wrong,’ he says. ‘How’s the sausage roll? I’m too petty to try one.’

  ‘Really bloody good,’ I say through a mouthful. ‘But not as good as your photos.’

  ‘Well, at least there’s that,’ he says with a smile, but then he sighs.

  I don’t know where we are exactly but we’re walking through a park. It’s starting to get a bit chilly now but there are plenty of people around, walking with their families, playing with their dogs.

  ‘I actually had a bit of a crush on you when I started working for you,’ I confess, not wanting to leave him out on a limb on his own.

  ‘You did not,’ he says.

  ‘I really did,’ I reply. ‘So if you hadn’t been professional then, I guess I wouldn’t have either… but that probably would have ruined everything and we wouldn’t be here.’

  Damian stops in his tracks.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ he says. ‘Really interesting.’

  I probably shouldn’t have said that, should I? I’ve probably just made things incredibly awkward.

  ‘It’s just one of those things,’ I say with a bat of my hand before wiping my lips with the back of it, because I’m suddenly paranoid I have pastry flakes all over my face. ‘We know better now.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Damian says, before he places one hand on the small of my back and his lips on mine. As he pulls my body up close to his, he runs the other hand through my hair, up the back of my head. We kiss for a few seconds before our lips part again, but he only pulls away far enough to whisper to me.

  ‘Take me to a tribunal – that was worth every penny,’ he jokes.

  I can still feel his warm breath on my cold cheeks. I’m about to move in for more when a dog barking causes me to jump out of my skin. I’d kind of forgotten about all the other people in the park. We instinctively put a bit of distance between us, to try and cool off. But, honestly, I just want to do it again.

  ‘Ah, crap,’ he says.

  Oh, God, he regrets it already. What was that, twenty seconds?

  ‘I… erm…’ I don’t know what to say.

  ‘I technically just tasted one of those bloody sausage rolls,’ he says. ‘They’re pretty good.’

  He really had me going for a second then. I thought he was going to say it was a mistake.

  I laugh but reality is nipping at my heels.

  ‘Do, erm… do we need to talk about that?’ I ask.

  ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘It’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow. Let’s finish this year off before we start worrying about the next one.’

  ‘OK, sure,’ I say with a smile.

  ‘Let’s head back to my parents’ place,’ he says. ‘I’m sure my mum will be waiting with baby pictures to show you – all of them will be of Si.’

  I laugh.

  ‘Can’t wait,’ I reply.

  Damian takes hold of my hand and holds it as we walk through the park. As soon as we reach a bin, I throw the rest of my pastry away. For some reason my appetite has completely changed and, no, that’s not me being saucy, I’m just not hungry now. If there’s one thing worse than kissing your boss, it’s kissing the boss who doesn’t know you’re leaving him…

  32

  Damian wasn’t wrong when he said that his mum would be waiting for me when we got back. She really was, and with a box full of embarrassing childhood photos that make me feel a bit better about Damian seeing every embarrassing haircut I ever had as a child and every ill-advised fashion phase I went through as a teen chronicled through the family Christmas photos on the walls.

  Damian was a seriously cute baby – way cuter than his brother, which I only point out because everything seems to be a competition between them. Despite what Damian said, there are a fairly equal number of photos of him and Si. I suppose it’s as they grew up that Si became the firm favourite.

  Damian didn’t look how I expected him to when he was a kid, or a teenager for that matter. He was quite chubby and he had a big gap between his two front teeth – which his mum and his brother have, so he must have had some cosmetic intervention there.

  ‘He managed to get a prom date, at least,’ Gloria tells me, showing me a photo of a young Damian in a seriously ugly tux. He’s standing so far from his date – who is also wearing an ugly but completely of its time prom dress – that you’d think they were practising social distancing. ‘I think it was more of a friends thing, or she was making someone jealous or something.’

  ‘He looks so cute,’ I say. ‘And he’s certainly got better at wearing suits as he’s got older.’

  ‘I almost wouldn’t know,’ Gloria says. ‘Si’s wedding was the last time I saw him in a suit, if you don’t count the cuttings.’

  ‘The cuttings?’

  ‘Yeah, just a sec,’ she says.

  Damian actively didn’t want to see his childhood pictures so we left him in the kitchen to go upstairs and look. I didn’t realise I’d be climbing a stepladder into the loft but here we are.

  Gloria pulls out a different plastic box and undoes the lid.

  ‘Pictures from newspapers, things Ray printed out off the Internet, some postcards and bits of his work – they’re a bit too weird to put on the walls, but we like to keep a box,’ she says.

  ‘Can I have a look?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she says.

  I have a quick peep through the box that is absolutely full to the brim of all things Damian Banks.

  ‘He’s a big deal, isn’t he?’ Gloria says.

  ‘He really is,’ I reply. ‘Does he know you have this box?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she says quickly. ‘You know what he’s like. He doesn’t like a fuss from us.’

  To anyone outside the family it’s widely obvious what is going on here. Damian doesn’t think his family are proud of him, and his family think that Damian has risen up through the classes to something beyond them. Neither statement is true.

  ‘You should show him,’ I tell her. ‘I think he worries he’s letting you down.’

  ‘Letting us down? He’s Damian Banks,’ she says. ‘Why would he think that?’

  ‘I think he feels bad about not joining the family business, not having a family of his own…’

  I wonder if I should be sticking my
nose in like this…

  ‘Can you imagine Damian covered in offal?’ she says. ‘Not a chance. He’s always been too squeamish. He doesn’t even like cooking meat, never mind hacking up a carcass. He’s exactly where he should be.’

  Too much information about the meat industry always makes me want to eat less of it.

  ‘And as for him not having a family, well, Damian has always done everything in his own time. I’m sure he’ll do this in his own time too. Still, I had high hopes when I saw him turn up at the door with you…’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ she replies. ‘Not that you wouldn’t make a lovely couple. It just surprises me that he’d bring you here if you’re just someone from work. That doesn’t sound like him at all.’

  I feel as if Gloria is tapping into some sort of mother’s intuition, or that my face is giving away more than I would like.

  She shows me the prom picture again.

  ‘Debbie Hall never got to sleep in his bunk bed,’ she tells me. ‘He always kept girls at arm’s length. But that’s my Damian – he doesn’t do anything until it’s worth doing, and when he does do it, he does it right.’

  She’s not wrong about that. That kiss earlier, oh my God. I’ve never been kissed like it. He certainly doesn’t kiss by halves. I almost wish he did because that would mean he owed me the same again.

  ‘I’ll show him the box tomorrow,’ Gloria says, snapping me from my thoughts. ‘Maybe it will help us go into the new year with… I don’t know, something better. You should always try and start the new year on a high, or it’s all downhill from there.’

  I would love for me and Damian to go into the new year with something better, although for us I’m not sure what that looks like. I want to kiss him again, I really do, but I can’t, not until I’m honest with him. Perhaps tomorrow is the day I have to tell him that I’m giving my notice. I can’t keep it from him any longer – I just really hope that after I do tell him, he still wants to kiss me again.

  33

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about that kiss,’ Damian says from above me.

  It’s 1 a.m. and we’re both tucked up in our bunk beds. The room is pitch black, and it must be twenty minutes since we politely said goodnight and turned the lights off, and yet here we are, both thinking the same thing.

  ‘Me too,’ I whisper back.

  ‘You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that,’ he continues, still in hushed tones. ‘And now that I have…’

  The sound of Ray coughing through the paper-thin walls stops him in his tracks.

  ‘Now that I have…’

  More coughing.

  ‘Shh,’ I say softly with a giggle. ‘They can probably hear you.’

  ‘Can I come down?’

  I take a sharp breath. I wasn't expecting him to say that.

  ‘Sure,’ I reply. I want him to but I’m scared.

  I can just about make out Damian’s silhouette as he climbs down from the top bunk. I don’t really know what he’s intending to do but I scoot up closer to the wall and whip the covers back.

  It’s an old, soft mattress so as Damian gets on the bed next to me he causes it to sink, which pulls me towards him. As my bare shoulder brushes against his bare chest I feel a shiver run through my body.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Shall I…?’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ I assure him.

  Damian relaxes in place with his arm around me.

  Single beds sure are small, aren’t they? We sleep in them when we’re kids but as soon as we’re adults, even if we’re single, we never look back. It’s at least a double from there on out, home or away. It’s been a long time since I was in a single bed. I don’t think I’ve ever been in one with another person.

  Damian and I are close. So close our bodies are touching from our toes right up to our shoulders. So far we’ve managed to keep our lips apart.

  ‘You were saying,’ I prompt him, still whispering. ‘Before…’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he says. It takes him a few seconds to recall. ‘I was saying, I’ve waited so long to kiss you and now that I have… I can’t believe it’s taking me so long to do it again.’

  This time it’s me who makes the first move. I still can’t really see him in this dark room but my lips find his and that’s it, the gentle kiss from the park is long behind us now. Things have kicked up a notch and it’s all happening so quickly. In a few seconds, with some fancy manoeuvring, Damian is on top of me, but as we continue to kiss the bed frame knocks against the wall. And then there’s that coughing from next door…

  ‘Can you… do anything in a bunk bed without making a noise?’ I ask, although I don’t know why I’m being so subtle. Maybe it’s because he’s my boss, but he is on top of me, and my legs are locked around his waist. I don’t think anyone is under any illusion what is happening right now.

  ‘You definitely can’t,’ he says. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘You’d know, would you?’ I tease.

  ‘Only because I tested it, for logistical reasons, when I was a teen, just in case I ever needed to know,’ he jokes. I think he’s joking.

  I grab him and kiss him again. I can’t stop myself. I don’t know what’s happened. It’s as if all this time I’ve had this lurking deep down inside me and now that the genie is out of the bottle, there’s nothing I can do to get it back in. So to speak.

  ‘Right, that’s it,’ he says before jumping out of bed. ‘Grab your coat, you’ve pulled.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I ask.

  ‘Grab your shoes too,’ he says. ‘Come on.’

  I think he’s serious… Whatever he is, I’m here for it. I am on the hook.

  ‘OK…’

  I grab my shoes and throw my coat on over the vest top and knickers I was going to sleep in. I am so, so grateful I decided to leave my elf PJs at my mum and dad’s or I am sure I’d be wearing them right now.

  Damian takes me by the hand, leading me downstairs, into the dining room and then…

  ‘Are we going outside?’ I ask him as he messes with the patio doors.

  ‘Yep,’ he replies.

  ‘To where?’ I whisper.

  ‘You know your boat?’ he asks me. ‘The one you and big Brian used to sneak off to?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, somehow managing to make my voice even quieter now that we’re outside in the moonlight.

  ‘I had this…’

  He nods towards a shed at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘A shed?’ I say in disbelief.

  ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds,’ he whispers back.

  We creep across the lawn and down the path to where the shed is. Damian quietly finds the right key on the set and opens the door.

  Once we’re inside with the door closed behind us Damian twiddles the blinds closed before switching on the light.

  ‘Oh, OK, this isn’t a shed at all,’ I say. ‘This is…’

  ‘My dad’s man cave,’ he replies.

  ‘Your dad really likes The Beatles,’ I point out pointlessly – I’m sure he already knows that his dad loves The Beatles and, if he didn’t, the man cave full of Beatles memorabilia would be tipping him off too.

  ‘He does,’ he replies. ‘He also likes sofa beds.’

  I can’t help but laugh as Damian pulls a handle that turns the sofa into a bed.

  ‘Wait, you knew this was here?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘So I didn’t have to sleep in your bunk beds with you.’

  ‘No…’

  Now that we’re in here, with the light on, staring at each other in nothing but our underwear, coats and boots, it’s as if we’re being given the chance to put the brakes on again. He isn’t just a sexy voice in the dark any more, he’s my boss. I can see him, clear as day, and I do still need to tell him everything…

  Damian kicks off his shoes and flings his coat into an armchair.

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ I ask as I ap
proach him cautiously. There’s a voice in my head telling me that it isn’t and yet here I am, getting closer and closer.

  ‘I’m not wild about that massive poster of John Lennon watching but I guess it beats Lee from Blue,’ he jokes.

  Oh, there’s that cheeky smile. I can’t resist that smile.

  Screw it.

  I whip off my coat and practically leap into his arms. Damian falls back onto the sofa bed. It lets out a big, creaking noise but it holds steady beneath us. The whole reason we’re in here is to be sneaky – breaking a sofa bed would be a huge giveaway.

  Any worries I had about whether finally getting together with Damian would be awkward fly out of the shed window because this just feels right. It’s as if the whole year of working together, hanging out together, teasing each other, was all foreplay for this moment right now. Suddenly every moment of it seems worth it.

  ‘Phew,’ Damian says as he lies back on the sofa bed.

  He scoops me up with one of his arms. I lie with my head on his chest.

  That… was… amazing.

  Damian pulls the covers over us to keep us warm.

  ‘How long do you think we’ve been out here?’ I ask him.

  Damian glances around the room.

  ‘I’m looking for a Beatles clock,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I can’t believe there isn’t one. At least we know what to get my dad next Christmas.’

  The briefest mention of next Christmas sends me crashing back down to earth.

  I need to talk to him. Now more than ever, but every single time it always feels like the absolute worst time to say anything.

  Before I have chance to say anything the shed door opens.

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, it’s just you two,’ Ray says.

  He’s standing in the doorway brandishing a fire poker.

  I feel so lucky Damian had already pulled the covers over us. Still, I pull them up higher.

  ‘What are you doing up?’ Damian asks him.

  It’s so funny, Damian asking his dad what he’s doing when we’re the ones up to no good.