Breathe You In (13 page)

I turned off the avenue onto the main street
into town, dodging an old man walking two Dalmatians.

No, Matt would understand, I was sure of it. He’d
got my whacky, impetuous ways. Had laughed at the same kooky things that made
me giggle. Thought out of the box when he’d needed to in order to follow my
sometimes back-to-front reasoning. My own heart felt content with my deal with
Matt, at peace. He’d understand why I was doing this, I was sure he would.

The bar where I was meeting Janine and her
friends came into view. The Slippery Slope it was called, and it had bright
orange window frames and ornate black lamps hanging either side of the door. It
was sandwiched between a dry cleaners and a hairdresser; above looked like
offices.

Could I ever tell anyone what I’d done? Hey,
meet my boyfriend, he has my dead husband’s heart and lungs, that’s cool, isn’t
it?

A rush of nausea gripped me, and I paused, took
a deep breath. It wasn’t cool, and it was hardly dinner table conversation.

They’d all think I was mad. Maybe I was. Since
meeting Ruben my mind had been a swirl of emotions, a heady soup of longing,
craving, satisfaction and a bright new feeling of optimism. Now I wasn’t having
to pretend to laugh or smile. It was just happening. Each step through the day
wasn’t like wading through a tide of treacle. Some of the time I was even
walking normally, without being weighed down by that damn anvil.

It was something I could get used to, and I sure
as hell wasn’t about to give it up.

There was nothing for it. What Ruben had, and what
had been my decision to give him, would have to remain a secret. Something kept
hidden in that locked box along with the guilt.

No one knew I’d found him except for the private
detective, who was sworn to confidentiality. Only one person, Melanie, my old
boss, had ever known of my desperate hankering to meet the recipient who had
Matt’s heart. That was because of a drunken night out when I’d ended up crying,
her holding me, and my blurting out how much it would mean to me to meet that
person. But she wouldn’t even remember that muddled conversation, she’d been as
sloshed on wine as me. That was in the past. History. Another time and place. Besides,
I was in Northampton now. Forty miles away. I had new friends to make, a new
life to live.

I looked at The Slippery Slope again. Several
people wandered in, laughter and music filtered out. It was a young person’s
pub, so how come I felt old?

Maybe I was, maybe I’d aged. Pain could do that.

“You all right, love?” A deep voice came from my
right.

I turned. A group of several men, all in jeans
and short-sleeved shirts wandered past. One with blond hair was grinning at me
as he walked, hands shoved into his jeans pockets.

“Yes,” I said.

“Maybe catch you for a drink in The Slippery?”
He nodded ahead and smiled wider. He had dazzling blue eyes and a small diamond
earring.

I pushed my hair over my shoulders. “I’m meeting
friends.”

“Ah,” he said. “A man can still hope.”

“Come on, Romeo.” His mate banged him on the
shoulder. “She’s well out of your league.”

“I know.” Blond Guy shrugged and winked at me. “Hope
is always worth hanging on to though.”

They wandered off. Again, I paused. The blond
man was cute; a hot bum neatly encased in denim and broad shoulders accentuated
by a fitted shirt. But whilst I could appreciate a fine specimen, I suddenly
wished Ruben was with me. That he was at my side to give me a quick smile and
squeeze my hand before I met these new people.

I adored the way his eyes narrowed when he
grinned and the way tiny lines creased at the corners. His lips were familiar
now, too, their shape, their taste, how they moved when he spoke and laughed.

I was missing him this week. I hoped he was
having a nice night out with his old teammates, chatting about wild days gone
by, but still, I was looking forward to the next time I saw him smile, heard
his voice, felt his arms around me.

I summoned my courage and, shoving aside a
trespassing thought about turning around and going home, I walked up to The
Slippery Slope.

I’d just put my hand on the door when I heard my
mobile phone beep. Quickly I stepped sideways, not entering the pub but
standing beneath one of the large black lamps out of the way of other drinkers
moving in and out. I plucked my phone from my bag. It was a message from Ruben.
A lovely little shiver, almost a caress, tickled the base of my neck and settled
in my chest. I hit OPEN.

Hope you’re
having a great time with new friends. Looking forward to seeing you Friday.
Shall we snuggle up on the back row of the cinema and eat popcorn? The new Bond
movie looks amazing X

I read it twice. Had he been missing me at the
same time I was hankering for him? I tapped a quick reply.

Just about
to meet Janine and her friends. Cinema sounds great, I’ll check out the times X

After hitting SEND, I slipped the phone away. As
soon as I did another text message came through.

They’ll
love you. See you Friday. X PS I’m still on a high from the other night!

I smiled and let warmth that had nothing to do
with the balmy evening wrap around me. Suddenly, instead of feeling nervous I
felt positive again. I’d always been fine meeting new people in the past. Got
on with everyone, no problems, but tonight, I couldn’t deny that I did feel
nervous.
They’ll love you
, was the
right thing to say and also how Matt would have reassured me.

And as for still being on a high, well, I could
understand that, I certainly was.

Quickly, I messaged back a simple…

X
X

Then pushed into the bar.

Noisy chatter and the tangy mix of cologne,
perfume and beer hit me as did the swarm of bodies and the thud of music.

“Katie, Katie, over here.”

I spun at the sound of my name, peered past
several sets of shoulders and spotted Janine waving from a curved bench by the
window. Three other females sat with her, all with wine in front of them and
wide smiles on their faces.

This would be fine. I knew it would be.

Hope, after all, was worth hanging on to.

*
* * * *

It seemed to take forever for Friday to come
around. Despite having had a lovely time on Wednesday with Janine, April, Mia
and Sarah, and then an upbeat two-hour conversation with my parents on Thursday
about my move and a plan to visit them soon, time, in my mind, had distorted
and it felt like the hours were days.

The girls, as Janine referred to them, had been
a hoot, and there’d been a laugh a minute when the conversation got raunchy
late into the evening—wine loosening tongues and wiping out inhibitions.
I listened, enjoying their frankness about sex and the fact that I didn’t feel
so out of the game; I had a tall, dark and handsome boyfriend now, so Janine
was quick to tell them, who collected me from Skin Deep and whisked me away.

Just talking about Ruben made me smile—one
of the lovely easy smiles that I didn’t have to concentrate on and didn’t hurt
a bit. I’d nodded and said we were heading to the cinema to see the new Bond
film for our next date. This had then started a conversation about which Bond
they’d ‘do’ given the choice—Daniel Craig being the most popular.

But now it was Friday, and I was hovering in my
hallway waiting for Ruben.

I flicked off an electric fan I’d had running
since I’d got in from work, blowing air through the flat. The heat was as
intense as it had been for the last few weeks, but today the humidity had cranked
up several notches. The atmosphere felt damp, the weight of it oppressive.
Perhaps we’d have a storm to re-align the equilibrium.

The doorbell rang, and I took a last glance in
the mirror and touched the silver necklace I was wearing. It had a small
butterfly hanging from it.

I pulled open the door.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Ruben said.

A sweep of shyness tickled my insides. He was so
damn good-looking. But before I could do anything about my bashfulness I was in
his arms and he was kissing me.

I parted my lips, let him touch his tongue to
mine. Closed my eyes and soaked up his fruity, sexy scent as I breathed him in.
His shoulders were high and hard, and I gripped them, loving the feel of his
long body against mine after missing him all week.

Eventually he paused for breath. “We should go,
I have tickets.” He kissed my cheek then touched the damp patch with his thumb.

I straightened his collar and let go of him,
stepped back with a smile. “Yes, we should.” I reached for my keys. It was
tempting to suggest we skip the Bond film. Stay home and let him settle his
debt. I was sure he’d be up for it. But maybe later—right now I just
wanted to be with him. Enjoy the lightness Ruben’s presence injected into me.
He was like a balm to my soul, a very wounded, hurt part of my soul that needed
nurturing back to health.

We walked out onto the street, and Ruben linked
our fingers.

I was about to make a comment about the heat and
the ominous-looking black clouds peeking above the rooftops, when he held my
left hand aloft and studied it.

“You’ve taken your wedding ring off,” he said.

“Yes. At the beginning of the week.”

We carried on walking.

He kept our fingers weaved but dropped our hands
back down.

“Are you okay with that?” he asked.

“It suddenly felt right.”

“You didn’t…” He hesitated. “Take it off because
of me, did you? Shit, sorry, that makes me sound like I’m full of my own self-importance.”
He shook his head and frowned, bit on his bottom lip. “It’s just I had no
problem with you wearing it, that’s all.”

“No. It was for me. My new start here. I didn’t
want to be seen as a sad person anymore. I wanted to just be Katie again. Be
able to smile and have fun without people looking at me and thinking that it
was good, that I was getting over Matt’s death.”

Ruben was silent. We continued on our way.

“Because I don’t think I’ll ever get over losing
him, you know.”

He turned to me, frown still in place. “It must
have been so hard.”

I steadied my balance, kept putting one foot in
front of the other on that thin rope my emotions walked on. “Losing my husband
was the singular most awful thing that has ever happened to me. Nothing could compare.
Living with that is hard enough, living with people feeling sorry for me became
unbearable. It made it impossible to move on.”

“I know what you mean. Sort of.”

“Yes, you probably do. People, your teammates
and friends, must have seen you differently once you became ill?”

“Yes, they did. I wasn’t Ruben the fastest,
strongest member of the team anymore. The bloke who could party all night, sink
pints quicker than anyone else then still think on my feet when the engine
developed problems midrace.” He sighed. “It was hard, that change in the
perception people had of me. Made me feel less of a man, like my body had let
me down.”

“It had.”

“Yep, big time. Facing my mortality was like a
boulder crashing towards me, one that I couldn’t get out the way of, you know,
like in Indiana Jones when he’s running out of the cave with that huge rock
rolling after him.” He huffed. “I was knocking on death’s door, there was no
doubt about it, and all in the space of a year or so. Bad luck had never been
so bad as far as I was concerned.” He lifted my hand again, looked at my naked
finger with its thin dent. “So do you feel like you’re not married to him
anymore?”

I thought of my ring, nestled safely in my
purse.

“I
should have
asked that the other night, before…” Ruben squeezed my fingers a little.
“Sorry.”

“No apologies. I wouldn’t have, well, I wouldn’t
have…you know…if I still felt married. But it’s more complicated than that, I
don’t feel unmarried.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not like we stopped loving each other
and went separate ways. He left, but not because he wanted to, because of that
damn bad luck you were talking about.”

We paused and crossed the road.

Once safely on the other side and with the
cinema in view, I continued. “Till death do us part, that was what we promised
each other. We’ve parted, I accept that now, and I’ve also accepted that I’ll
never stop loving him, but the heart is a wonderful thing…” I glanced at Ruben
as a whip of wind picked up and flattened his gray polo shirt to his pectoral muscles
and flat stomach. “There’s lots of room for love in any one heart, of that I’m
certain.”

The Bond movie was everything it promised to
be—full of action, hot men, sexy ladies and a blast of explosions at the
end. Ruben had stayed true to his word, and we’d snuggled on the back row in
specially designed seats for couples—without the armrests—and
munched our way through an enormous tub of butter popcorn.