About Last Night (14 page)

She couldn’t handle a relationship with Nev. She’d done one-night stands and one-week flings, dirty weekends and friendship with benefits, but she hadn’t done a real relationship since Jimmy, and she wasn’t going there again. Whatever it took to sustain a connection to another person, she didn’t have it. She’d never had it. She was her father’s daughter—all flash and wit, dazzle and good times. Never in it for the long haul.

That’s what the tattoos were for—to record her mistakes on her body and to remind her who she was. That’s what the rules were for, too. She’d marked out her limits so she would remember not to try to go beyond them. The tattoos were supposed to keep her safe.

But with Nev, she’d already drifted so far from safe, she couldn’t even hear New Cath’s warnings anymore. The voice of her conscience had faded, and then the semaphores got blurry and the smoke signals grew faint. She was adrift. With keys.

“Would you like a whiskey?” Nev asked.

God, yes
. “Sure.”

He disappeared into the kitchen, and she headed for the couch in his studio. When he reappeared, he’d lost the jacket and tie, and he had two tumblers of Scotch, neat. He slid off his shoes and dropped heavily onto the cushion beside her, handing over her drink. She turned around so they could look out the window together, her back against his chest and her head resting on his shoulder.

He took a healthy swallow, then dropped his own head onto the cushion and sighed. “That’s much better.”

It was. It always was. When their bodies touched, her mind stopped the crazy hamster-wheel shit and settled down.

They sipped in silence, listening to the noises that filtered up from the street as the room gradually darkened and the sky outside reversed itself, white-gray to gray-white. The limited transformation of an overcast London night. The whiskey lit a warm glow in her stomach, loosening all her joints, and he relaxed behind her, his breathing slowing down and deepening as one heavy hand found her thigh and made itself at home there.

This was part of their routine too. The quiet. One more thing she’d only ever found with him.

“I still can’t believe you’ve never seen
It’s a Wonderful Life
. It’s my favorite movie.”

She was at the kitchen counter, dishing take-out noodles onto plates. Nev slid an arm around her waist from behind and nuzzled her neck. “We’re going to watch your favorite film? I really
am
making progress.”

She swatted at his arm playfully. “Don’t push your luck, City. I realized at work today I don’t even know your last name.”

He moved his hand down her stomach and between her thighs, making it difficult for her
to operate the spoon, both because his arm was kind of in the way and because, well, yum. “My surname? It’s Chamberlain.”

He started doing something with his thumb that made her drop the spoon and suck in a breath, but then her animal brain got distracted by the hysterical shouting of her thinking brain, and she turned in his arms, pushing him back with both hands on his chest.

“What is it?” His eyes were heavy-lidded and hot, as though he’d been thinking about doing her on the countertop. Which he probably had.

“Your name is Neville Chamberlain? Like the prime minister?”

Some of the heat drained out of his gaze, and he sighed. “Yes.”

“Crikey,” she said with a grin. “You’re not related, are you?”

“Very distantly, on my mother’s side. But the name is actually my father’s doing. He’s a history buff.”

Neville Chamberlain. He hadn’t exactly won the name lottery, had he? Her name was no picnic, but at least it didn’t twin her to a prime minister best remembered for miscalculating about Hitler.

Except it had such a nice ring to it. Nev Chamberlain. Her guy. And he was wearing such a hangdog expression, as though he’d been through this conversation a thousand times and hated every one.

She decided to take the high road. “He’s my favorite prime minister,” she told him, giving his chest a pat before wrapping her arms around his waist.

“You’re taking the piss.”

“No, I’m not, I swear. He gets a bad rap for the whole appeasement thing. It always makes me sad to think of him coming back from Munich after meeting with Hitler. He must have been so proud of himself. He’d stood up to the dictator, and they’d negotiated, and then he got to come home and tell the people, ‘It will be peace for our time.’ ”

She said this with a little flourish, waving one arm in the air. She’d always liked that line. “Can you imagine what it was like? The country must have gone nuts, everybody totally psyched
because no one wanted to have another war—not after how badly the last one had gone, and not in the middle of the freaking Depression. And then poor Neville turns out to be wrong, because Hitler was a psycho who couldn’t be trusted, and the war started pretty much the next day. He must’ve been so disappointed. But it wasn’t his fault, unless you can blame him for being too starry-eyed.”

Nev smoothed his hands down her back, shoulder blades to tailbone, then back up. She loved it when he did that. His hands were so big, it made her feel petite rather than puny. Feminine. He was trying not to smile, she could tell, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He always seemed to like it when she spouted off. “I believe that’s precisely what he’s blamed for.”

Cath shrugged. “He was just doing what everyone wanted him to do. How could he have known Hitler would turn out to be completely evil?”

At that, the smile broke loose and lit up his face. “That’s a very generous interpretation, darling. Tell me, did they teach you all this in parochial school? Because I was under the distinct impression you Yanks didn’t know anyone’s history but your own.”

He had no idea she worked with history at the V&A every day, or that her mother was from England. The gap his comment opened up between them was narrow, but a cold wind whistled through it all the same, dampening her enjoyment of the moment.

Her fault. She’d made the gap. And she was so tired of herself for doing it, so tired of all the ways her sabotage spoiled their pleasure in each other. He did dozens of things that made her happy, and sometimes she felt like she paid him back for it by shooting him repeatedly with a BB gun. One shot wasn’t going to hurt him—you couldn’t even kill a squirrel with a BB gun—but Nev didn’t deserve a hide full of holes.

Her rules were stupid. She was stupid. She was really sick of being stupid about Nev.

“My mom was English,” she said. “And I work in English history, assisting a curator at the V and A. Though mostly what I do is study knitting.”

He stared at her for a long moment, searching her eyes for something. He knew what
she’d just done. Maybe he was looking for the reason. “Is that so?” he asked finally, his lips curving slowly into a smile. “I’m glad to know it.” He drew her to him for a deep, slow kiss that made her heart thud and her blood rush. A kiss for sharing secrets and holding hands and making love. A kiss that made her soft and vulnerable and okay with it.

When they came up for air, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Anything else you want to tell me, love, I’m listening. Anything at all.”

She waited for the panic to arrive, but it must’ve missed the train. Instead, she was calm. Slightly aroused. Hungry for dinner. Pleased with herself.

Huh.

“Thanks,” she said. “But let’s just eat and watch the movie, okay?”

Nev didn’t have a TV, so they dragged the computer out of his office and set it up on a chair opposite the couch in the studio.

Cath soon lost herself in the story of George Bailey, the boy who’d wanted to see the world but instead spent his life trapped in Bedford Falls, sacrificing everything he wanted for the love of a good woman and to take care of his fellow man.

She hadn’t seen the movie in years—had been afraid to, actually, because she and her parents had always watched it together at Christmas. But Nev had a serious gap in his general knowledge when it came to American cinema, and she’d vowed to do something about it.

The film carried its own freight car of memories: she knew every scene, almost every line. Spooned against him on the couch with his arm around her, though, she was okay. More than okay.

George and Mary were in the taxi on the way to their honeymoon when Nev’s free hand started roaming, and before long he was kissing her neck and pressing something hard into her backside. She couldn’t keep herself from pushing back against him, any more than she could
keep her heart rate from spiking and her breasts from begging for attention whenever he touched her. She did manage to offer a token protest. “You’re supposed to be watching the movie. There’s a really good part coming up.”

“I’m multitasking.”

The hand meandered inside her shirt and paused, flat against her stomach, while George and Mary rescued the Bailey Building and Loan. Then his clever fingers unsnapped her shorts, lowered her zipper, and rested, cupping her curls.

She lifted her hips, urging him to continue, and Nev chuckled. He dipped one finger inside her and dragged it slowly upward. Cath drew in a shaky breath and let it out again. She would never get tired of the way he touched her. It simply wasn’t possible.

“Your knickers are soaked, Mary Catherine,” he whispered in her ear. “Shall I take them off?”

“Shh. You’ll spoil the movie.” But her eyelids had drifted closed.

Nev reached out to pause the DVD. “Time for the intermission.”

Before they restarted the movie, Nev disappeared from the room and returned with a wrapped present. “What’s this for?” she asked as she took it from him.

He shrugged.

Cath tore off the paper. No one had ever spoiled her like Nev did. He was always bringing her little offerings, coffee at the train station, a new notebook to write in. Keys to his flat.

“Oreos! Oh, Nev, where did you find them?”

He grinned, delighted with her reaction. “I happened to see them at Sainsbury’s.”

Cath leaned in to kiss him in thanks, and he cupped her face in his hand, his eyes showing a tenderness he usually kept better concealed. Though she knew it was there. She was
stupid about him, but she wasn’t
that
stupid.

“Do you know that’s the first time you’ve ever used my name?” he asked.

She pressed her cheek against his fingers and closed her eyes. “You’re always Nev in my head,” she confessed. It was a night for confessions, apparently.

He kissed her forehead. “This film is making you sentimental.”

“Nah, it’s the cookies.” She tore the cellophane open. “Do you have any milk?”

“Sorry, love. Milk is for children. And Americans.”

They turned the movie back on and ate the Oreos. Nev agreed they were disgusting and had almost as many as she did. The cookies on top of dinner on top of whiskey made her stomach sort of bloaty, and the movie suffused her with a helpless, desperate love for humankind. Holding Nev’s hand in the flickering dark gave her an anchor.

When all the citizens of Bedford Falls rushed to George’s house to help in his hour of need, she cried. She always did. But this time, she couldn’t stop. Something about seeing George surrounded by his wife and children, his family and friends—everybody who loved him singing “Auld Lang Syne” together at Christmas—hit her like a punch in the gut.