by Jade West
No way should she be out alone this late at night. No way should she be here, in this shithole part of Brighton. I feel the anger, at some unknown parents who should be worried sick, parents who should have taught her more fucking sense.
A father who should be driving around looking for his daughter, who should be protecting her from pieces of shit like that fucking waster back there.
I ignore the twitch in my jaw. Push aside that feeling.
She needs a ride home. Just a ride home.
She’s not my problem, and she doesn’t want to be.
I close the door after her and she buckles up oblivious. She’s naïve. Definitely naïve.
But tonight she’s safe. With me.
I’ll keep her safe until I get her home.
She’s staring right at me as I take the driver’s side, still shivering, but she doesn’t look so scared now.
I wait until the mist clears from the windscreen. The wipers give a rhythmic thump from the other side of the glass.
“I can’t get in at home,” she says quietly. “Not without my key…”
“What about your parents?”
She looks at the floor. “My mum’s away.”
“And your dad?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Your mum left you all alone?”
She nods. “She normally does.”
My gut pangs. No dad.
I keep my voice steady. Warm and calm. “I can give you cash for a hotel. Take you wherever you need to go. Maybe a relative? An aunt or uncle? Neighbour?”
She’s shaking her head. “I don’t have… anyone…”
I feel the ache in my gut, stronger now. Me neither.
“You could call your phone, maybe she’ll answer?”
She looks so embarrassed, shaking her head. “I turned it off… to save battery… it hardly had any battery…”
“Do you know your friend’s number?”
Another shake of the head.
“How about Facebook? Social media?”
Her voice is so quiet. “Kelly Anne is um… she won’t… she’s with a guy, drunk…” She sighs. “She won’t even give me a second thought… not tonight…”
Isn’t that just the truth of it.
I put the car into gear. “Then you’d better stay with me until morning.”
She doesn’t even attempt to argue as I pull away.
Laine
I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t know why I’m not scared. My breath is steady now, and the air in the car is warm enough that my wet clothes don’t feel so bad. My nerves are still on edge, I can feel them beneath the relief. The relief that I got away.
I stare at Nick, trying to figure out the guy who grabbed me in the rain and saved me. He saved me.
How could I ever be scared of a man who saved me?
He seems strong, Nick. He seems like the kind of man who could chase monsters away. His jaw is hard, and his nose looks like a Roman carving, and his hair is long enough to curl as it dries. He has heavy brows, serious eyes. He seems serious.
I feel safer than I’ve felt in a long, long time. Maybe I’m still drunk on tequila after all.
I feel so small and he feels so big.
“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?” he asks. His voice is nice. Deep. Strong, like the rest of him.
“Not really,” I say. “Is it far?”
“No.”
I shrug. “I don’t really know my way around. I wouldn’t know where we were if you told me, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I guess not, Laine, no.”
I can’t stop staring at him.
“Your friend doesn’t sound like much of a friend.”
“She’s a crappy friend when she’s drunk.”
“That makes her a crappy friend, full stop.” He glances in my direction. “A friend like that isn’t worth having, Laine.”
And he’s right. I know he’s right. But she’s the only one I have. I don’t want to tell him that, but I think he probably knows. He looks like he’d know a lot of things. He’s a proper man. A serious man. A man who knows his way around the world.
“It’s my birthday,” I say. “My eighteenth. Yesterday. I didn’t even want to go out.”
“Eighteenth?” There’s surprise in his voice. I hear that surprise from people all the time.
“Yeah, my eighteenth.”
“I’m sure you’ve had much better birthday parties than this one.”
But I haven’t. They’re normally shit. I don’t want to tell him that either.
He turns into a petrol station and asks if I want anything. I don’t.
He tells me to wait right there. I do.
I lose sight of him inside, and the nerves flutter in my belly. I feel like a kid again, a stupid kid. Maybe it’s because I’m acting like one, buckled in tight in some stranger’s car, trusting everything will be alright because he saw off some guy who was about to steal my V card in exchange for a crappy half-smoked cigarette.
That’s what stupid kids do, right?
Stupid kids do stupid things.
I see him pay the cashier, I see him smile at her. He has a nice smile, the kind of smile that makes me feel like a silly girl with a crush. I’m sure I’d be crushing on a guy like Nick if I wasn’t in such a ridiculously crap situation right now. The cashier’s smiling right back, and I imagine he gets that a lot. You would if you were a guy who looked like him.
I pretend to be fiddling with my cardigan as he comes back to the car. He puts some bags in the back and slips back in without a word. I don’t try to make conversation. I don’t try to justify my stupid birthday decision-making processes.
We head out of Brighton. The roads turn to streets, and streets turn to lanes, and we’re at big wooden gates at the foot of an incline. They open as the car pulls up to them, slide right to the side to let us pass. Neat. The driveway is gravelled and opens up into a parking area, one of those nice ones where the gravel crunches under your feet. I bet it’s that fancy pink stuff in the light.
His house is big. Really big.
Nicholas Lynch must be rich. I mean it’s obvious he’s rich. The car. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking straight enough to think about it.
He turns off the ignition and gets out. Opens my door for me.
“Home sweet home,” he says. “I’ll take you to Newhaven in the morning, we’ll sort things out, Laine, don’t worry.”
I nod, and climb out. The gravel is the crunchy type, just like I thought. He grabs the bags from the back, and I look at the house. It’s a barn conversion. Big windows line the lower floor. He locks the car and leads me to the front entrance. It’s big and heavy with a wrought iron knocker. It creaks as he swings it open. I always wanted one of those when I was little – a big door knocker that would make a big thumping sound.
I’d have loved a house like this.
A proper home for a proper family.
I wonder if he has a family.
He gestures me inside and I feel awkward, my toes still squelchy from the rain. My pumps are soaked. I ditch them and go barefoot, and he doesn’t seem to care that my hair is dripping down my back and onto his posh wooden floor. He leads the way through to a kitchen. It’s huge and beamed and has one of those fancy range cookers, a granite island, too.
“What would you like to drink, Laine?”
“Just water, please.” My voice sounds weak.
He takes a bottle from the fridge, pours it into a glass. The nice mineral stuff. His fingers touch mine as he hands it over, and they are warm. Big.
“Thanks,” I say. “For rescuing me. That guy… he was…”
“A waste of life. Scum.”
I take a breath. “I’m such a complete idiot. Like Kelly Anne would ever stick around after a couple of tequilas.” I laugh but it sounds pathetic. “What a dufus I am.”
“She left you on your birthday. She’s the dufus, Laine.”
&nbs
p; He slips off his coat, and I realise how tailored it is. He has a shirt on, white. It fits him so perfectly, like those people you see in expensive watch adverts. He could be one of those.
He rustles in one of the bags and pulls out a bunch of flowers, a cream cake, too. I watch mute. Like a fool. He digs around in a drawer and turns his back to me to block my view.
When he turns back around there is one of those little striped birthday candles stuck in the icing. It’s lit, this tiny little flame flickering away.
I don’t know why it makes me want to cry.
His eyes are so dark. It wasn’t just the shadows in the car. He approaches and I’m not even watching the candle, I’m watching him.
“Happy birthday, Laine. Sorry, it’s the best I could do. They didn’t have much of a birthday selection at the petrol station.”
The flowers are carnations. Red ones. The cake is chocolate. An eclair with that thick dark icing I love best.
It’s the best birthday cake I’ve ever had. The thought pricks at my eyes and my throat feels scratchy. Ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.
Drunk, and high on adrenaline, and tired, and scared, and happy.
“Thanks,” I say, like that could ever cut it.
But it does. It does cut it. He smiles like it’s enough.
“Make a wish,” he says.
And I do.
It’s a stupid wish.
A crazy wish.
A wish I’ve been making every year for as long as I can remember.
I wish, I wish upon a star. I wish for my daddy, wherever you are.
I don’t know where my daddy is. I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.
But right now, the guy who rescued me from the rain, the guy with the dark eyes, and the smattering of grey hair at his temples, and the shirt that looks like it came from an expensive watch advert. Right now, I wish this guy could be my daddy.
Chapter Two
Nick
The Maculinea Arion is the largest and rarest of the blue English butterflies. Little, blue-eyed Laine reminds me of one — fragile and delicate and inviting predators, with no idea of its own beauty.
I collect butterflies.
Not in a put the lotion in the basket style, just because I find them both fascinating and beautiful.
Unfortunately they’re usually dead by the time I’m able to admire them now. Long gone are long summer days in the meadow, armed with a butterfly net and a spotter guide to British wildlife.
Laine’s breath is a wisp, her eyes sparkling for a moment as she makes her birthday wish.
I want to ask what a girl like Laine wishes for, but I don’t.
“You have a beautiful house,” she says, and the colour is back in her cheeks.
“Thank you.”
She asks me if I want to share her cake with her. I tell her it’s all for her. She giggles as she gets cream down her chin, and I smile and laugh along with her, even though it makes my dick twitch.
It shouldn’t, but it does.
She tells me she’s a messy eater. Clumsy.
She says it’s because she’s one of those jittery people. Anxious.
I believe her.
It makes me want to grip her dithery fingers around my cock and jerk into her palm until I come.
It shouldn’t, but it does.
I dig out a fluffy pink robe for her and tell her it’s my daughter’s. I take her to the bathroom and stand outside the door while she changes. She gives me her wet clothes in return, ready for the washer, and my pulse quickens at the sight of the bunch of little white knickers she’s given me on the top of the bundle.
The robe dwarves her when she comes out onto the landing, skinny little legs so dainty underneath the swathes of pink towelling. Her hair is drying off, dripping at just the ends now, and her eyes are focused, sharp on mine.
She’s ok here. She feels ok now. She tells me so. She thanks me again.
I give her a tour of the house and make idle conversation, show her the butterfly paintings in the hallway and the old net I had as a boy. She asks me how old I am and doesn’t even apologise for it, just stares up at me until I give her an answer.
“Forty-two.”
Too old for you.
I see the many questions behind her eyes and I wonder if she’s interested in me or just naturally curious. She doesn’t voice any of them, but I ask about her.
Laine Seabourne. No father. No siblings. A mother who’s off with her boyfriend, Denny. Laine is at college, studying childcare. Laine likes children.
I ask her why, and she says nobody has ever asked her that before.
I suspect there are a lot of things nobody has ever asked her before.
She sits in an armchair in my living room and pulls her legs up under her. Her fingers twiddle in her lap, fiddling with the dressing gown belt around her waist.
“Do you want children of your own, Laine?” I prompt. “Is that why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t think that’s why.”
I wait. Listen to her breathe.
Her smile stills my heart. “I guess maybe it’s because I get to give them the things I never had.”
“The things you never had? You mean toys? Games?”
She shakes her head. “Time,” she says. “Someone to play with. I think I enjoy it as much as they do.” Her eyes glitter as she looks at me, and I wonder where she is in her mind. If she’s playing teacups, or dolls, laughing as Barbie kisses Ken under the covers.
I wonder if she ever played that game.
“Didn’t you have anyone to play with, Laine?”
“Sometimes,” she says, “when Mum didn’t have a boyfriend and wasn’t at work. She played with me then. Sometimes.”
“My daughter used to adore those little dolls that fit in your pocket. The ones with the rainbow hair, do you know them?”
She ponders, then shakes her head, and I realise how big the age difference is. Way before her time.
“What is your daughter’s name?” she asks, and my heart prickles.
“Jane.”
She smiles. “Thank Jane for her dressing gown. It’s really cosy.”
I nod, wonder if she’ll ever find out that Jane never owned anything like the dressing gown Laine is wearing.
She won’t find out. Of course she won’t. I’ll be taking her home tomorrow, making sure she gets in ok, and then I’ll be leaving, nice knowing you. I’ll wave her off and hope she has a nice life, glad to have been of service.
As Laine yawns and shoots me a grin, I know I’m lying to myself. She’s comfortable here, with me, as though she’s always been here. As though she belongs here.
“Time for bed,” I say. “Up those wooden hills to Bedfordshire, young lady.”
I’m smiling as I get to my feet, it seems so natural to hold out a hand to her. She takes it with wide eyes.
“Uncle Jack used to say that to me when I was little.”
“Uncle Jack?”
“One of Mum’s old boyfriends. One of the good guys.” Her eyes drop. “One of the few.”
My throat feels tight but I ignore it. “I’ll show you to your room.”
Your room.
She doesn’t let go of my hand, not even when I’ve pulled her to her feet. She keeps it tight, her little fingers so small in mine. I walk her upstairs and intend to take her right to the end of the landing, to the regular guest room where the sheets are white and there is a TV, an ensuite and wardrobe and regular pictures of poppies and a seaside landscape. The boring room. I should take her there.
But I don’t.
I reach Jane’s room and my legs won’t walk any further. I’m rooted to the spot, mouth dry as I press down the door handle.
Laine’s eyes widen as I flick the light switch, and I know I’m doomed when she smiles.
“Oh wow! Wow!” she says, and she’s taking it all in. The princess castle I made myself out of wood and silver paint. The rocking horse in the corner, the patchwork dollies on the shelf.
I see her admire the little dressing table, the white wooden bed carved with hearts.
Sugar and spice and all things nice is stencilled on the wall above the bed.
“That’s what little girls are made of,” she says.
I nod. “Make yourself at home.”
She squeezes my hand before she lets go. “Thanks, Nick. For everything. This is… beautiful…”
I squeeze hers back before I let her go.
“Sleep tight.”
She sits herself on the bed and bounces. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
She’s smiling to herself as I close the door behind her.
Laine
This room is a fairytale paradise.
My heart hurts. It actually hurts.
I’m so jealous of the life Jane must have had, but mainly I’m grateful I get to enjoy it, even if it’s just for one little night.
I sit at her dressing table and use her pretty mirror. I pull down her dolls from the shelf one by one and brush their hair with her cute little princess comb. I look in all the rooms of her princess castle.
I wish I’d have had even one of these beautiful toys growing up.
I wish I’d have had a sugar and spice and all things nice message written above my bed.
But most of all I wish I’d had a dad like Nick.
Jane must’ve been so lucky.
I wonder how many times she played with the cute little Alice in Wonderland tea set at the bottom of the bed, whether she rode her rocking horse every single day or just took it for granted and left it sitting untouched. I wonder how long she’s been gone from here. How old she is. What she looks like.
I snoop around a bit, but can’t find any photographs of her.
There’s one drawing, pinned behind the door. Nothing but a scribble really, a scribbled man with a smiley face.
DaDDy.
She must have been young when she drew that. Much too young to fit into the dressing gown I’m wearing.
My heart thumps in gratitude for her daddy. He saved me. Rescued me and gave me a birthday cake, kept me warm and dry and safe.
I hope he knows how grateful I am.
Maybe when I’m home I can offer him dinner, just something small, a little something to say thank you. Maybe I could cook for him. For us. Something nice…