by Beth O'Leary
‘Off to the shops!’ Kevin says, with a cheery wave. His broad grin looks more like a grimace – I get the impression he’s not especially accustomed to smiling. Looking at Kevin is proving very helpful with the sexual thoughts, so I watch him make his way up the bank and try to concentrate on his grisly balding head.
It doesn’t work. All I can think about is Addie’s soft, curved hip, Addie’s bare thighs, Addie’s long dark hair splayed across my chest as she presses her lips to the band of my boxers. It seems almost unbelievable now that holding her body against mine wasn’t always a fantasy – that once upon a time I could reach out and touch her.
THEN
Addie
Can’t the girl find us another bottle of vino? She’ll have a naughty secret stash somewhere, I’ll bet.
The girl. The girl. There’s been plenty of knobbish visitors in the last six weeks at Villa Cerise, but Dylan’s uncle Terry is getting under my skin like none of the others have. Him and Dylan have been up on the terrace ever since we got back from La Roque-Alric – I’ve been getting on with jobs down here and in the house, but I can still hear them. Terry’s the ‘fun guy’ of the boys you’d see at a pub quiz machine. The one who never gets laid but talks like he’s screwed every girl in the bar. That guy, but twenty years on. Still ‘fun’, still not getting any.
I frown at my reflection in the mirror on the living-room wall of the flat. That was bitchy. I’m better than that. I just . . . need to take a breather.
I examine myself more closely. The mirror’s a bit convex – or maybe the other one, concave. Anyway, it makes my nose look tiny and my eyes buglike and huge. I turn my head a little to and fro, wondering what Dylan sees. Whether he’ll still see it tomorrow.
I’ve always felt like I have a forgettable sort of face. Deb has these beautiful thick eyebrows that she’s never plucked – they make her face look iconic, like she’s a model. My eyebrows just look like . . . I don’t know. I can’t even think of anything to say about them.
Ugh. I look away from the mirror and reach for the bottle of wine I just fetched from mine and Deb’s ‘naughty secret stash’ – because, as irritating as it is to prove Terry right, we totally have one. My heart thumps too fast as I make my way up to the terrace. It’s ridiculous, the way my body reacts to Dylan. I’ve not fancied anyone like this for ages.
‘Here you go!’ I say as I approach them.
My mood improves a bit at Dylan’s expression – that cool, practised stare he was doing earlier has gone, and he’s sort of gazing, as if he’s longing for me, as if he wants to undress me slowly. My stomach tightens. I kind of assumed that Terry arriving would put an end to the staring. Like having an extra onlooker would make Dylan realise, Oh, she’s not that special after all.
‘Good girl,’ says Terry, reaching for the bottle. ‘I knew I liked you.’
I give a tinkling laugh that sounds nothing like my real one. ‘Anything else I can get you?’
‘Won’t you join us?’ Terry asks, pointing to an empty chair. ‘It must get lonely down there in the bowels of the building . . .’
Dylan frowns, shifting in his seat. He doesn’t have to worry. I’m not about to sit through an evening of family banter with pervy Uncle Terry.
‘I think I’ll just go to bed, actually,’ I say. ‘Long day.’
They let me go with minimal protest, and when I close the door to the flat behind me, I lean against it, eyes closed. I remember that look of Dylan’s. The longing look. My breath catches.
I try to go to bed – I’ve been so low on sleep all summer – but I’m too restless. It’s so hot. I kick one leg out from under the sheet, then the other, then give up on it altogether and leave it crumpled in the bottom corner of the bed.
I’m lying there hoping for a knock on the door, if I’m honest. I’ve finally started to drift off when it comes, and for a moment I think I’ve dreamt it. But there it is again, a soft double-tap.
I sit up sharply in bed. My mouth tastes stale and my lips are dry. God knows what my hair looks like. I dash to the bathroom to run a toothbrush around my mouth and scrape my knotted hair up into a messy bun. It looks too ‘done’ – I redo it. By the time I get to the door, the sleepy eyes I’m blinking Dylan’s way are totally fake. I’m wide awake now. The night air is still warm, and as Dylan steps inside the flat he brings the smell of sun-baked vines with him.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d wake,’ he whispers as I click the door shut behind us. ‘You strike me as a heavy sleeper.’
I am, actually. My ex always complained that I snore way too loudly for such a small person, but that doesn’t feel like the sexiest of admissions, so I shake my head.
‘I was . . . not exactly waiting, but . . .’ I flush, already wishing I’d said something that sounded more assertive. More like Summer Addie.
A slow smile grows on his lips. His eyes turn cocky again. He’s wearing that put-on confidence he had when he first turned up on my doorstep. He reaches one hand out and takes mine, tugging me gently towards him.
‘I feel we left a few things unsaid,’ he tells me, voice low.
I step close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to look at him. Just his hand in mine is enough to start my pulse racing again. His floppy brown hair is all styled now, falling artfully over his forehead. Somehow it makes him look even scruffier.
‘Oh?’ I breathe. ‘Unsaid?’
‘Perhaps I mean undone,’ he says, dropping my hand to undo the buttons on the cami I wore in bed. His fingers move slowly, starting at the top, his knuckle brushing against my breast as he unbuttons. He doesn’t shift the fabric until every button is done. I’m already breathing hard when he finally pushes the straps back over my shoulders and lets the cami pool to the floor behind me.
We’re still in the kitchen – we’ve barely moved a few paces from the front door. For a moment he just looks down at me. His eyes are wide, lips parted. My breath hitches. Then he moves, backing me up, his hands shifting down to my waist, his lips closing in on mine. My back hits the door hard just as our tongues touch.
This kiss isn’t a first kiss, it’s foreplay. I lose track of time, of everything, drowsy with wanting, hearing myself moan, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt until he breaks away from me to yank it over his head. When my bare skin touches his we both gasp.
‘Christ,’ he says, pushing my hair back with one hand as he lowers his lips to mine. ‘You’re killing me already.’
I writhe against him, one leg lifting, pyjama shorts ruching. I’m unbuckling his belt when the knock comes at the door behind me.
I jump so much my teeth knock into Dylan’s with a jolt. We stumble away from the door, tangled together. Dylan spins just in time to shield me from view as Uncle Terry pokes his head around the door.
For God’s sake. Terry is absolutely the sort of man who knocks right at the same time as he turns the door handle, isn’t he?
‘Yoo-hoo!’ he calls. ‘Maddy? Oh, well, hello, you two!’ He chuckles. ‘Am I interrupting?’
I cringe back into Dylan, burying my face in his chest. His arms close around me. Maddy. I get called that one a lot, and Ali, and Annie.
‘Go away, Terry,’ Dylan says. ‘Go outside until the lady’s decent, for God’s sake.’
‘Whatever you say, Dylan!’ Terry says, chortling, and I hear the door click shut again.
‘Oh, God,’ I say into Dylan’s chest.
‘Fuckity bollocking arsehole Uncle Terry,’ he says, moving to fetch my camisole and his shirt off the kitchen floor. He’s breathing so heavily his chest is heaving. I’m not much better.
‘I can still hear you, my boy!’ Terry calls.
‘What are you doing knocking on her door at two in the morning!’ Dylan yells so loudly I jump.
‘What are you doing knocking on her door at two in the morning, that’s what I’d like to know,’ Terry calls
back.
‘I think it’s pretty obvious what I was doing,’ Dylan says, running an exasperated hand through his hair. ‘And her name is Addie. Not Maddy.’
I snort with laughter. This is obviously horrifying and not at all funny but also . . . It is a bit funny. That yoo-hoo as Terry stuck his head around the door.
‘I heard a commotion,’ Terry says. ‘When I came down for a snack. Thought I’d better check the lady was all right!’
‘I’m fine, thanks, Mr Abbott,’ I call, then cover my face with my hands. ‘Oh God,’ I whisper.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Dylan says beseechingly. His hair is sticking up all over the place and his lips are swollen. The bravado is gone. He’s even sexier this way. A little lost-looking.
I stand on tiptoes to press a slow kiss against his neck. I feel his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows back a groan.
‘Another time,’ I whisper. ‘You know where to find me, now.’
Dylan
She’s mesmerised me. I’m Odysseus at Circe’s island, I’m Shakespeare’s Romeo, I’m – I’m nursing an almost-permanent erection.
It’s been four hours since Addie pressed that single, burning kiss to my throat in the clutter of her little kitchen, and I’ve barely slept an hour since. My brain is rammed with rushed, heated poems, borderline erotica; they look even worse when I write them down. In a moment of insanity at around six in the morning I decide to fold them and post them under her bedroom door, but thankfully I stop myself just as I head out of my room, realising that this will almost certainly make me look creepy, or – perhaps worse – desperate. Instead I return to my bed and imagine reading them to her here, naked, then I have to take a cold shower.
It’s ten in the morning before I see her again. She arrives on the terrace where Terry and I are taking our coffees – she’s fresh-faced, wearing a patterned little dress that flirts around her upper thighs with each step. In her hand is a paper bag dappled with buttery stains: fresh croissants from the nearby village. Her fingers graze mine as I take the pastries. Never has patisserie been so sexually charged.
‘Thank you,’ I murmur.
‘You look a little peaky,’ she says, and that mole on her upper lip shifts as she tries not to smile. ‘Didn’t sleep so well?’
‘I owe you an apology, my nephew tells me!’ Terry calls. ‘I’m sorry for barging in, it was very ungentlemanly of me.’
When she turns from me to Terry I want her gaze back immediately. I want her all to myself.
‘I’ve forgotten it all,’ Terry says, waving his arm. ‘Don’t remember a thing. All right?’
Addie pauses for a beat. ‘Thank you,’ she says, with a small smile. ‘I appreciate that.’ Then she turns and walks away.
‘Where are you going?’ I blurt.
She looks over her shoulder at me. ‘Jobs to do,’ she says, smiling. ‘You’ll see me around.’
She returns while we take lunch on the terrace; she’s wearing a red swimming costume and proceeds to clean the leaves out of the swimming pool. I think I am going to cry. The task involves an excruciating amount of bending over.
I get drunk mid-afternoon, thinking it might help, or at least make Uncle Terence seem more interesting. All it does is loosen my tongue.
‘I think she might be the one,’ I tell Terry, flopping back on the sofa. It’s too hot to sit outside now – we’ve retreated to the cool of the enormous living room with its silk tapestries and endless cushions.
Terry chuckles. ‘See if you still feel that way once you’ve . . .’ He gives a crude gesture that makes me want to throw the bottle of wine at his head.
‘It’s not like that,’ I insist, topping up my glass. ‘She’s so . . . wonderful. I’ve never fancied someone this hard.’
I meant to say this much, but what I’ve said is more accurate. I’m pained with wanting her.
‘Ah, the impulsivity of youth,’ Terry says benevolently. ‘Wait until you’ve seen her gain twenty pounds and develop a fascination with the shopping channels.’
‘Uncle Terry. Literally everything you say is totally unacceptable.’
‘Your generation, so sensitive,’ he says, sitting back and balancing his wine glass on his beer belly.
I knock back my drink. No day has ever passed as slowly as this day.
Terry invites Addie to have supper with us when we pass her in the hall, but she declines, her eyes on me. I’m not sure what it means: is she turning down more than just that invite, after a day to think? The idea that she might not want me to come to her flat tonight makes me positively light-headed with despair.
Over dinner Uncle Terry doesn’t stop talking about Uncle Rupe and how poorly he invested his money in the 1990s. This could not be less interesting to me – I despise talking about money, it makes me uncomfortable – and all the ranting means Terry eats so slowly I want to reach across and stab the rest of his steak with my own fork to steal it off his plate. He’s not quite finished mopping up the juices with his bread when I get up to clear away the plates, and he squawks as I whisk it out from under him.
‘I know why you’re so keen to get rid of me,’ he says as I carry the plates through to the kitchen and leave them on the side. ‘You want to sneak down to the servant’s quarters, don’t you?’
I grit my teeth. ‘I want to see Addie, yeah.’
‘She’s already got you wrapped around her little finger, I see. Swanning around in swimwear and teasing you all day long.’
I walk back into the dining room as he shakes his head and laughs.
‘You’re going to have your hands full with that one.’
Terry is always obnoxious but hearing him talk about Addie like this is intolerable. I bunch my fists. He isn’t as bad as Dad, at least. For a moment I imagine what it would have been like if the whole family had come on this holiday, as my father had intended. Uncle Rupe and his wilting American wife; the trio of sharp-nosed cousins from Notting Hill; my brother, Luke, without his partner, Javier, because Javier is never invited. Luke would endure the sly homophobia of my family in quiet, stifled agony, and I would want to punch somebody, and Dad would tell us how disappointing we are and Mum would spend the holiday desperately trying to fix everything, as she always does.
No, this holiday is a gift, despite Terry’s presence. I slowly unclench my fists.
‘Look,’ I say. I must try not to sound desperate, though, of course, I absolutely am. ‘If you can just spend tonight on your own, you and I can go on a tour of the local vineyards tomorrow. All day. Just us. I won’t even drink, so I can drive you.’
Terry looks torn. Always the self-described ‘life of the party’, he is absolutely frantic about being left alone for even a moment. But wine tasting is one of his favourite occupations, and I know the promise of my undivided attention for a whole day will have some sway.
‘All right,’ he concedes. ‘Perhaps I could . . . read. A book.’
He looks around in a lost sort of way.
‘There’s a TV in the living room,’ I tell him. ‘And they’ve got all the Fast and Furious films on DVD. All of them.’
He brightens somewhat. ‘Well. Enjoy yourself, boy.’ He winks. ‘I’ll sleep with ear plugs.’
I suppress a shudder. ‘That’s . . . Right. Thanks. Have a good night, Terry.’
Addie
Dylan’s out of breath when he gets to the door of the flat. He must’ve sprinted down from the dining room. It’s been adorable, watching his hangdog eyes following me all day. Yesterday he seemed sexy, interesting – today he seems sweet. Earlier I caught him writing in a leather-bound notebook by the pool and his tongue was sticking out between his front teeth.
‘Hi,’ he says breathlessly. ‘I am here in the hope that even after a day of overhearing my uncle’s objectionable views, you might still be interested in kissing me.’
I laugh, leani
ng on one hip. I’m wearing a pair of dungarees cut off above the knee, with my red swimsuit underneath. I always feel most me-ish in dungarees. I was annoyed with myself this morning for changing into that short dress for Dylan when I got back from the bakery. It had worked – his jaw had literally dropped – but it had felt a bit . . . cheap.
‘How did you manage to get rid of him?’
Dylan’s hands clench and unclench like he’s itching to reach for me. The heat builds in my stomach.
‘I promised him a whole day of undivided attention visiting vineyards tomorrow.’ Dylan brushes his hair out of his eyes. ‘May I come in?’
I pause as if deliberating, but the tortured misery of his expression makes it too hard to keep up. I laugh, stepping aside. ‘Go on then.’
‘Oh, thank Christ for that,’ he says, and then he closes the door behind him and, taking me gently but firmly by the shoulders, pushes me up against it. ‘Where were we?’
‘Round about here, I’d say.’ I tug him closer. He’s at least a foot taller than me, and I’m already standing on tiptoes and tilting my head to meet his gaze. His eyes are all smouldery.
‘I think you’re going to be the death of me, Addie. I’ve spent the last eighteen hours dizzy with wanting you.’
I’ve never met a man who speaks as well as Dylan. Not his accent, I don’t mean that, but the actual words. Everything he says sounds like it ought to be written down.
‘Nobody ever died of wanting,’ I tell him, moulding my body to his. ‘And maybe a little patience would be good for you.’
‘In my experience, patience is awfully dull.’
He kisses me. He’s a great kisser, but that’s not why my body flames the moment his tongue touches mine. It’s the intention behind the kiss that’s done that. This kiss says, This time, I’m here all night.