“Hmmm.” His eyes are struck with surprise and happiness.
“Here,” I add, giving him a key to my car, “I thought I may as well add you to the insurance. It’s done already. Pick me up and we’ll be straight on the road to your mum and dad’s.”
I realise what I’ve said before I can reverse it. I slap a hand over my mouth and begin to retract it but he’s not upset and doesn’t mind that I let go a slip of the tongue.
“You’re right,” he coerces, squeezing my hand, “Jules… she’s been a mum to me in so many ways.”
He leaves the building with a big bright smile on his face.
WE arrive at the Jones household to be greeted by the familiar sounds of boys arguing over who’s going to beat who at eating their dinner first.
“I’ll be with you in a bit, people,” Jules shouts through, “Ricky, get them some drinks baby.”
Me and Joe snigger, sitting ourselves down on the sofa in the living room.
I can tell he’s on tenterhooks, waiting to hear from Keith with a phone call… or something.
On the sofa I hook my leg over his and snuggle into him. It’s been a tiring day.
All the lights went out at the community centre… again! And we had an inspector in on the same day, checking our health and safety regs are up to scratch. Thankfully they were but the electrical problems didn’t go unnoticed. I think we’ll have to have the whole building rewired before long if this continues. I really have no idea what’s going on, only that Warrick says he will eventually sort it out.
“Did you go to uni today?” I ask him.
“Sat through a lecture and didn’t hear a word. Went for a drink with some buds after, not my scene so I didn’t stay long.”
He doesn’t seem to have even the slightest inclination to ingratiate himself with university life. If that isn’t a sign…
Before long Jules and Warrick appear with plates, placing them on the posh dining table in the adjoining dining room.
“The monsters are playing upstairs now,” Warrick tells us, “we hope you like moussaka, Hetty?”
“Love it.”
We sit down around a table covered in beautiful silverware, napkins, a few bowls of salad and garlic bread. Jules can really pack it away and she seems happy to see me also grabbing a truckload of food.
“It’s delicious,” Joe says, and I agree at once with the words, “Really good, Jules.”
We tuck in and Jules leans over the table with a bottle of red wine poised at my glass. “Hetty?”
“Just half, thanks,” I reply, and she pours me half. After she’s poured some for me, she pours half for Warrick too.
“Some wine, Joe?” she asks him.
“No, I don’t drink,” he tells her, and she shrugs.
“More for me, then.”
“Why don’t you drink, son?” Warrick eventually musters, eyeing his son closely as he awaits an answer.
I nudge Joe with my elbow and he replies, “My mother was an ugly drunk, we all know that. Having grown up with it, it doesn’t appeal to me whatsoever. Besides if I do start training intensively, I’m not going to be drinking then anyway, am I?”
“Very wise, Joe,” Jules says, but I can tell Joe’s words have upset Warrick, who was too busy with his own life to notice what his son was coping with alone. I can almost feel the guilt radiating off him and I notice Jules’ hand subtly stroke Warrick’s knee beneath the table.
Joe is ripping through his food like he always does if he’s feeling angry or upset. I think he feels like he’ll always have to cope with a lot of stuff on his own.
I sense Warrick’s tried to get Joe to open up to him about his mother but Joe being Joe, I reckon he wants to protect his father from the reality of what his mother Anna was really like. Perhaps Joe will talk to me about it, though. I give Warrick a look and hopefully he sees it in my eyes that I will tackle this thing with Joe at a later date.
“Ruby’s expecting again,” Jules says with glee. “Vern’s so happy. I think he thought his swimmers were broken.”
“Jules!” Warrick gently chastises.
“Well he is quite a bit older than Ruby, although it doesn’t seem to bother either of them.”
“Tell her congrats from me,” I offer, because it’s the done thing to offer congrats, but really I can’t get enthusiastic about babies. I wouldn’t know the first thing about them. I’ve never wanted one. I don’t think I ever will.
“I’ll tell her,” Jules says with a quiet smile.
“Liza isn’t doing so well,” I say, and all eyes look at me for explanation. “Her bloke doesn’t seem to have taken much responsibility.”
“What?” Jules asks, aghast.
“He comes in with mates after practice, leaves beer cans around, and one of them even walked in on her breastfeeding. I didn’t know what to say. I told her I’m not in the position to give her advice. Maybe you could just… pop in?” I say to Jules.
“Wow, when you think someone’s got it all sorted out…” She looks shocked.
“I know, right?”
“I’ll pop in on her one morning this week,” Jules agrees, “when I’m doing my shopping and running errands, so it doesn’t seem like I’m going out of my way. I’ll say–”
“Why do women always have to interfere?” Warrick almost growls, shaking his head.
“Shut up, Rick,” Jules says, “you men don’t have weeping breasts or a mountain of hormones to deal with. These things can make a woman go mad at the best of times, let alone when you’re very young, with two small children and a beer-swilling ape for a husband.”
Jules doesn’t realise her humorous take on it is lost on Warrick… until it’s too late…
Warrick gets up and tosses back his chair in anger, throwing down his napkin. “I get it, all right? I was a useless father once upon a time, too. Confused. Too young. I fucked up big style. That he’s even in one piece is a fucking marvel.”
“Warrick!” She tries to stop him, but he’s leaving the room before we can console him that it’s all in the past.
When he’s gone from the room, Joe touches my hand and shakes his head, as if to say it’s best not to get involved.
We finish our food in silence while Jules apologises over and over. I tell her it’s not her fault but she says that sometimes, she can’t help but put her foot in it.
“Maybe being blunt with him is what he needs, though,” I tell her, because we know Warrick would bury it all deep down otherwise. It’s what he does. He still carries all this guilt and he won’t admit it.
The air clears a bit and Warrick returns to the room once he’s calmed down.
He eats what’s left on his plate while we’re going for seconds. Thirds in Joe’s case.
“I’ve been thinking…” Joe starts.
Everyone waits to hear what he has to say.
He looks at Jules when he says, “I want to start calling you mum, if that’s okay? Then the boys won’t get confused anymore.”
Jules sits with her fork in midair, as if she’s been shot and can’t react.
“What?” she barely whispers.
“I just… I just want to call you mum. You’ve been here for me in ways I can’t even express… it feels right, yeah?”
Jules rounds the table and in an uncharacteristic show of affection, she hugs him as he remains seated.
“I would love that so much, Joe. So much.”
A lump forms in my throat as I watch a tear slide down her cheek. She takes a deep breath and kisses the top of his head.
She shakes herself right and wipes her tears, then begins clearing the table as if nothing happened.
“Dessert? Anyone?”
“Why bother even asking, mate,” I say, and she winks. “Course we’re here for dessert.”
Jules snickers. “Of course.”
“I’ll help,” Joe offers, leaving the table.
When it’s just me and Warrick, I stab a fork at the air and lean over to tell him
slowly, “You won the fucking lottery with that woman, you stupid twat.”
I make him smile so that he can’t help but laugh as well. “And I’m just the one who gets to love her.”
“Yes. And she loves you in spite of all your unnecessary bloody baggage.”
I hush when Jules and Joe return to the room with a huge, homemade black forest trifle.
Joe hands around bowls and spoons and we all dig in, defiling the perfect dessert Jules has so lovingly crafted for us all.
“So as I was saying,” Jules begins, off the cuff, “Rubes is having another baby which means I’ll have to go full time again in her absence.”
“Can’t you get another part-timer?” Warrick mumbles.
“Could do, but I sort of want to go back to full time.”
“It’ll be a scheduling nightmare.”
“No it won’t,” she says without bluster, unlike him, “by the time she has the bairn, our boys will be in proper school themselves.”
“Oh yeah…” Somehow I don’t think Warrick quite believes his babies are growing up so fast. I see much of Warrick in my boyfriend and vice versa. Somehow I know these sensitive men just don’t do very well in the cutthroat world that sits right outside the front door.
When Joe’s phone yells at us from his pocket, we all jump up in shock.
“Sorry, better take this…”
He leaves the room quickly and Warrick whispers to me, “How loud?”
“He’s been checking it all night, afraid he’ll miss a call.”
“I see.”
We all stare at one another in anxious silence, trying but failing to overhear the conversation that’s going on outside in the back garden, where Joe’s stood with his phone.
After five minutes Joe returns to the table, his phone firmly pocketed. I wonder if that means bad news.
He slumps at the table, hunched over his pudding. He stuffs a spoonful in his mouth before swallowing it, revealing, “Wasn’t meant to be. If I was meant to do it, I would’ve done it months, even years ago. It’s a sign.”
“What did he say?” Jules asks gently.
“Just that I’ve had too much time out. I said I’d been playing still, didn’t seem to make a difference. He says I wasted their time before, how do they know I won’t do it again. I mean, how can they ask so much of you when you’re so young.”
Jules and Warrick nod along. For me, his words strike home.
Was me not getting into the police a sign, or a chance to think everything through before I take the plunge?
“I know one thing,” Joe says, sounding sure, “university isn’t for me or I wouldn’t be thinking like this.”
“We all felt like that at one time or another, Joe,” Jules says gently, “but at the end of it, you feel such a sense of achievement. Look at your father, one of the few to get an MA in his field. To look at him you wouldn’t think he was capable.”
“Oi, you,” Warrick berates, then grabs her waist, pulling her closer so he can kiss her cheek.
“It’s true, Joe. Once you’ve got your degree, nobody can take it away from you,” I tell him in a sure and certain tone of voice.
He turns to me. “I know that. But there isn’t just one football team out there, is there?”
“How could you play for another team?”
“I could play a bit more for North Ferriby. Currently I fill in on the bench, but… I could see if they have something more. Then I might get spotted and get an agent.”
“Just promise us no sudden moves,” Jules asks, “and before you tell the university anything, consult with us first.”
“Yes, Mum,” he says, and nobody even bats an eyelid when he says it.
April
THE SUN’S STARTING to go down and the few sunbathers who were here with us have all gone. We’re all alone and nobody’s here to spoil our quiet solitude. It’s April so there’s sun but it doesn’t last as long as the sun of say July or August and the sun’s setting on us before we’ve even had dinner. Not that we’re rushing to have dinner. We had a late lunch around three, following a late breakfast we had at about eleven! We’ve not been in any sort of rush since we got here three days ago. Only four days to go as well… until we have to get back to the real world.
“It’s so beautiful here,” he says, his shades lazily resting in the middle of his nose.
“It is.”
“I’m so glad you convinced me to come, it’s put everything into perspective.”
We decided that instead of spending the Easter holidays worrying about everything, we’d look on a website for last-minute deals and this one to Kefalonia popped up, flying from a local airport and within the dates we wanted. It’s perfect here, so unspoilt, but with the same Greek welcome you’d expect in the busier tourist parts.
“Has it? In what way?” I roll on my side, lower my shades and stare at the beautiful, sloping elongation of his superb male body.
“I don’t regret quitting uni. It was scary, trust me. I was fucking freaked out. I still am. Terrified, in fact. But I don’t regret it. It felt like my life was on hold while I was there, as though if I didn’t take to the social scene, then what was the point?”
I pull my lips in tight. “Why do I feel responsible for all this change? It’s scaring me, too.”
He tugs me onto his towel on the sand and slides his hand down my back while he removes his shades, too.
“I was too scared to admit I wasn’t happy there, but then you came along.”
Everybody has been so shocked by his actions. His granddad almost killed him, his old school friends (who are dotted around the globe currently) all conference called him on Skype to ask him what the frick he was thinking! His university mates bid him au revoir, not seeming to really care because they hadn’t known him long and to me, it didn’t seem like he’d let any of them in either.
“Unhappy, or unfulfilled?” I ask.
“Maybe both.”
I snuggle into his body, revelling in the heat of the sun which has sunk deep into his skin. I try to block out my own thoughts but it’s difficult. I have my own doubts and worries as well, maybe ones I don’t really want to share with him yet.
I’m not fulfilled in my job at the community centre but I’m still not ready to retry for the police either. So many people have told me the force doesn’t deserve me, but maybe I don’t deserve that job.
Neither of us is sorted in life. We both don’t have a clue. All we know is that we love one another and this thing we have is deepening all the time.
I feel between a rock and a hard place, the rock being me and the hard place being me admitting that I do have hopes for other things beside the police, but I won’t entertain those hopes without some proof I am actually capable of achieving something that has nothing whatsoever to do with my degree or my life so far.
Joe’s been training with North Ferriby and is one of their reserves. He wants to get picked but it’s not looking good at the moment. I’ve suggested going to America on a sports scholarship but he’s having none of it. He doesn’t want to leave us and he doesn’t want to be an academic anymore (even despite being a straight-A student). He suddenly wants to play and I’m happy for him if that’s what he wants to do.
“Het?”
“Hmm…”
“We’re all alone,” he says, just above a whisper.
“Are we?” I’m smiling at him as I roll onto his body, his hands cupping my bum.
“Yes, we are.”
He lifts his knees so I slot right between his legs, our groins pressing together, his arousal evident. He pulls my bikini cups open and plays with my nipples, making me instantly wet.
“Someone might come along.”
“Het… babe… there’s been three couples here all day. We’ve not seen any others. And our counterparts have all vanished. We’ve claimed this little cove, like I’m going to claim you.”
He draws me down onto his lips and spreads my mouth open with his, his scruffy ho
liday beard driving me wild as he kisses me desperately.
I’m tugging his hair and losing myself in our kiss. He tastes of our chicken salad at lunch and the sweet pomegranate juice he had earlier. He moves his arms around me and holds me tight to him, his fingers freeing my bikini top so quickly that I gasp out loud when his mouth’s suddenly on my tit and I’m rolled beneath him.
He looks around, checking behind and in front. It’s almost dusk and surely any pervert lurking nearby wouldn’t see much anyway.
I give myself up to the whole exhibitionist nature of this and reach into my knickers to touch myself. He growls, “Are you wet?”
“Very!”
“Orrr yeah.”
He tugs his shorts down, not off, just down. My bikini thong’s tugged to the side and he rams straight into my slick heat, a scream almost escaping me but not.
Heat breaks out over my entire body like wildfire and I squeeze his pecs in my hands as he pumps into me. His eyes focus on mine and he kisses me with little pecks, his moans driving me crazy. He rolls his hips a couple of times in the way I love – because he’s tending to my every need – and I’m coming without caution, without care. While I soak him, he fills me full of his seed and gasps in my ear.
I release a dirty laugh and he chuckles. “Was that a first for you, Etta?”
“Umm-hmm. Never had sex on the beach before. In fact I never had sex with anyone I love before you.”
He gathers some of my hair in his grip and murmurs, “Same here.”
He kisses me without tongues but with such force of his love, holding his lips to mine for ages, his mouth eventually curving into a smile.
“Let’s skinny dip!” I suggest, pushing him off me.
“Het, it’s still–”
“Come on!!”
I’m naked and running for the sea before I know it. I feel crazy and wild. He does this to me!
I dive into the waves and he’s a moment behind me, his arms fastening around my waist from behind.
He turns me and I loop my legs around his waist, holding on tight beneath the chest-deep water.
When I stop laughing I see seriousness in his eyes and I quieten, watching him, waiting for what he wants to say.
Hetty: An Angel Avenue Spin-Off Page 12