Fur Coat No Knickers (8 page)

Travis led me into the living room
. As I looked around for the best place to get cosy, I noticed he’d begun texting someone. I didn’t want to appear nosey, so said nothing.

‘I have just sent a text to your phone, so you can read it when you get back to your mum
’s,’ he said, smiling confidently as he sat down on the large sofa and patted the seat beside him.

With a sigh of
relief, I sat down beside him. Travis then turned to me with a sexy smile:

‘I haven’t enjoyed a night like this in a very long time. You’re different
, Tara. You’re very special.’

But, out of nowhere, his mood then seemed to darken. He withdrew slightly,
rendering the atmosphere in the room heavy and tense. I felt my heart begin to beat faster as I wondered what had changed.

‘I’m afraid to tell you everything about me, in case it puts you of
f,’ he began cautiously, lowering his head, cupping his hands around his beautiful bronzed neck.

I slid off the couch onto my knees and faced this exquisite creature.
Meanwhile, that infernal, bastard thong had sliced my arse into two arses - it was so numb, it was such a relief to get up off it. I lifted up Travis’ stubbly, chiseled jaw and looked deep into his rich, chocolate brown eyes. It felt as if I could see into his soul. But I could sense something just wasn't right. We both fell strangely silent and I pulled away.

‘Look
, Travis,’ I said, confused and trying to get a grip of myself. ‘Are you really single?’ how someone this gorgeous could be single was beyond me. He nodded his head, but didn’t look up.

‘Have you murdered someone?’ I asked jokingly.

He shook his head with half a smile.

‘My job
…’ he replied shrugging his huge shoulders and avoiding direct eye contact, ‘it’s left me with a complicated life.’

Aren’t we all complicated
?
I thought.
Just wait till you meet the rest of my crazy family.

I know I should have been
listening more intently to what he was saying, but his physical presence was just so distracting. God, he was
so
shaggable. While comforting him, I couldn’t help myself rubbing the top of his toned thigh. In an instant, I drifted off into thoughts of him in a rugby kit - all dirty, sweaty and powerful.

‘I’m so glad I found you
, Tara,’ he pulled my face gently to his and we kissed again.

‘Look
,’ I said, doing my best to concentrate by slightly pulling away from those incredible thighs. 'I can cope with most things in life, as long as you’re single
and
honest with me. The rest we can work through.’

‘
… Do you believe in love at first sight?’ Travis asked with conviction.

Sweet Jesus
, I thought, I’ve hit the jackpot here. Not only is he a gorgeous northern ride, he’s also in touch with his feelings.
Stay cool Tara, stay cool.

‘Well
… I believe we can feel a deep connection,’ I answered, not wanting to give too much away. He interrupted me:

‘Tara, I feel like we
just fit. It’s as though I’ve known you for years. It’s like, tonight, I was meant to meet you. I would really like to see you whenever I can, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s complicated and won’t be easy for you. I can’t be seen out drunk and partying thanks to my job. I’m in a responsible position. Tonight was an exception because we were celebrating a win and it’s Christmas. I have to keep a very low profile with my personal life.’

I smiled to
myself.
So,
this
is a role of a WAG
(Wives And Girlfriends). Keep quiet, always look sexy, and always,
always,
have the latest, largest, designer handbag (just in case the paparazzi are out).

I’ve trained for this job my
whole life.

The time was ticking by too fast. It was 4am, my flight back to England was in
six hours and I still hadn’t packed. My heart and pretty much all of my anatomy wanted to stay, but my head was telling me to leave.

The room next door had gone very quiet. Travis remained seated, but I stood up with the intention of going next door to grab Laura and do the sensible
thing, but, before I knew it, Travis pulled me down on top of him. With my legs straddled either side of those firm thighs; he roughly pulled me into him. I could feel his throbbing manhood pushing hard up against me through my jeans. I gripped his huge biceps. He slowly but firmly began thrusting his rock hard cock against my crotch. I gasped in anticipation as he buried his face into my chest and started biting my nipples through my jumper. Oh God, I was so turned on. Running my fingers through his dark brown hair in ecstasy, I pulled him closer, urging him to continue. Was I really about to have a sexual encounter with a man I barely knew?

But then
, the unwanted images started. I mentally tried to push them away, but the pictures of my past crawled into my thoughts uninvited, pushing painful, confusing, conflicting memories to the forefront of my mind.  

In an instant
, I was back to the age of seven; in my usual hiding place, crouched on the bottom of our stairs in between the coats, peering between the banisters through to the lounge. I always took Panda (my teddy) with me. I would cry into Panda and no one could hear me. Sometimes I would put him over my eyes so I couldn't see daddy hurting mummy.

Mummy was sobbing, but it was Friday. Daddy
usually got angry or threw his dinners up to the ceiling on Saturdays. He was ranting something about mummy’s friend being dishonest to her husband and saying she would go to hell for her sins. I didn't like the word hell. It was a bad, bad place where devils would burn you slowly and then they would eat you alive. I wanted to go in and stop daddy shouting at mummy, but it went quiet, very quiet. I inched forward just so I could see through the crack of the door. I could see mummy and daddy praying. I went upstairs to Laura’s bedroom and crept into her bed. She always pretended to be asleep, but I knew she wasn't.

For
cing myself back into the ‘here and now’ and finding strength from somewhere, I leapt up. It was perfect timing - Laura poked her head around the door at just that moment.

‘Er
r, Travis,’ she said very calmly, but unusually wide-eyed for her. ‘Some of your players have passed out on the floor while showing me how to do a scrum… and one of them is at the bottom of the pile that appears to have forgotten how to breathe.’

‘The lad
s aren’t used to alcohol,’ he replied calmly while clearing his throat and trying to hide the huge bulge overwhelming his Levi’s. ‘Don't worry, they’ll be fine.’

Dougie ordered a taxi for
us and then proceeded to pull Laura back into the living room for another snog. Travis and I stood waiting in the hallway, holding each other like lovesick teenagers.

‘Can I fly over and see you soon?’
he asked, tenderly brushing some hair away from my eyes.

‘I look forward to it
,’ I said, dropping my voice a notch or two and fluttering my lashes. YES!! The Big-Man upstairs was on my side for once. We squeezed each other’s hands and sadly said our goodbyes. Laura and I then made our way to the taxi.

‘I’m sending you another text, gorgeous!’ Travis shouted while watching us leave.

I blew him a kiss as Laura and I spilled into the taxi.

CHAPTER FOU
R

The journey back home from Dougie’s house seemed to take forever. All I could focus on was getting back to my phone and reading the mysterious text from Travis. Not that Laura noticed my excitement. She herself looked like the cat that got the cream.

‘I didn’t want to tell you earlier, but they’re really famous around here!’
Laura bragged. Barely pausing for breath, she gabbled on about the antics of Dougie and co. I deliberately zoned out, silently embracing how lucky I had been to meet Travis. In my heart and mind and, well, everywhere else, I already knew he could be
the one
.

I had the passenger door open before the taxi had
fully stopped outside mums. I threw the euros I’d been clutching in my hand at Laura and ran to the front door. Laura was oblivious to my torment, chatting away to the driver in what seemed to be slow motion.

‘C’mon! C’mon!!!’ I hollered impatiently. ‘I need the keys to get in!’

Laura staggered out of the taxi still laughing and fumbled in her tiny bag. After drawing out her keys with a triumphant flourish, she dropped them. She reached down unsteadily to retrieve them from the pavement and promptly dropped them again.

‘For the love of God, give them to me!’ I yelled, the sound reverberating in the gloomy half-light of the suburban street. Snatching the keys from her, I opened the door and dived over
to my phone. I flipped it open with a racing heart.

[No New messages]

Gulping hard, I shook the phone impatiently. I switched it off and then back on. Nothing.

‘BASTARD!’ I exclaimed, not caring who I woke up. ‘I can’t believe it!’

Feeling a mounting sense of desperation, I switched my phone off again. This time, I left it off for about a minute before switching it back on again.
Still nothing. THE LOUSY FECKER!

By now, Laura and the rest of Dublin could hear me from the lounge.

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Laura, who had by now cottoned on to the fact that I was more than upset, tried to console me by saying; maybe the texts had been delayed for some reason.

‘Really?’ I
asked, feeling a little more hopeful.

‘Well, even if he doesn’t make contact,’ she said, as she staggered up the stairs
, ‘you’ve had a great night out, so let it go.’

‘
Let it go
?’ I convulsed, my momentary good feeling vanishing in an instant. ‘You mean, as in, let-it-go, just
forget it?
Are you out of your mind?!’

Silence.

‘Laura, come back downstairs!’ I demanded, ‘What about you and Dougie… haven’t
you
two exchanged numbers?’

No answer.
The lickarse
, I huffed to myself. ‘To think she has letters after her name,’ I cursed, ‘and she has the cheek to call herself a psychotherapist!’

To bring some much needed attention to myself, I forced out a few fake whimpering tears at the bottom of the stairs hoping someone, anyone, would come down to me.

Nothing.

I needed to think.
‘
Come on brain’
,
I tapped. I stood with my hands placed on my hips trying to focus but the heavily patterned pink and purple flowered wallpaper began to make me feel sick. I perched on the bottom step, held the banister and braced myself before I released a long, whiney whimper. I waited silently… okay, so that didn't work either. I raised the decibels up to as high as I could muster, gathering pace, momentum and volume, letting out a-huge, long, ear-aching shrill.

The house remained silent. Apart from the blood
y annoying singing Santa I’d just set off in the lounge.

‘
Selective hearing gobshites!’ I shouted.

I didn't know whose face I wanted to punch the most
; the singing Santa’s, Travis’ or Laura’s.

I really didn't fancy sharing the makeshift double bed with Laura in fear of (accidentally-on-purpose) smothering her with something. I stomped up the stairs, loudly flicking on the bedroom light, hoping to annoy Laura as much as she had annoyed me.

I mean,
I
needed
her. I wanted to talk through the entire ‘if, but and maybe’ scenarios. But
no
. I just got ignored
by
everyone
.

Laura was by now comatose and didn't even flinch
during my continued hissy fit. I deviously ripped out pages from her precious book, doodled some willies in it and switched on the sidelight, aiming the bulb directly in her face for good measure.

Suddenly, I had an attack of conscience and pulled
the bulb away in case it burned Laura. It hadn’t made me feel any better anyway.

By now I was completely fed-up. I pulled my suitcase down the stairs and flopped on the couch staring at the flashing Christmas tree lights in deep thought. I felt so utterly miserable.

The throbbing pain in my arse from that bloody thong was now being diverted directly to my heart. I threw my skyscraper shoes at the wall, pulled off my skintight jeans and released the offending thong. Then, in a childish fit of petulance, I proceeded to jump up and down on the pathetic pile of clothes like a lunatic. All the while, I recited every obscenity I could think of. Strangely, it didn’t make me feel any better at all. For the want of any better way to react to what was clearly the ruin of my
whole
life, I pulled on my inside-out, back-to-front PJs, thought of a few more obscenities and started ranting again.

I threw some things into my case and cursed mysel
f for not taking Travis’ number so I could give him a piece of my mind. Who did he think he was? The gobshite!

I decided
 to try and get some sleep. I lay on the couch and drifted, keeping my phone under the cushion, just in case.

It felt like I’
d only been asleep for a minute when it was time to get up. Of course, the first thing I did was to check my phone. Nothing. I felt like such a fool. Thank God I hadn’t slept with him!

I felt exhausted and was dreading my miserable journey home. As I threw on some creased, mismatched clothes, I kept having flashbacks from the night before. Retrieving my scattered outfit after last
night’s episode, I couldn’t stop myself thinking these clothes were up against that gorgeous hunk last night. What a wanker!

As I finished throwing t
he rest of my belongings into the case, I started to feel pretty foolish and embarrassed for getting so carried away.

‘Ah sure, are you really going to leave looking like that?’
mum asked, as she fussed about, tucking extra stuff into my bag (including what looked like a full packed lunch). She never did trust airlines to feed me properly. She spun around to face me, ‘you look like you've been dragged through a hedge arse-ways. Will you not even run a comb ‘trew your hair, child? And you’ve still got your disco makeup on… let me get that for you, pet.’

With that, mum advanced towards me with her thumb, dripping with saliva.

‘Oh god… mum… no, don’t!’ I squealed, backing up in horror. ‘I couldn’t give two shites how I look right now!’

Mum look
ed offended, but luckily, before she could reproach me, Laura interrupted:

‘
Tara, you’re going to have to shift that arse of yours if I’m dropping you at the airport,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she made determinedly to her car. ‘I’ll be late for work otherwise.’

I could barely conceal my growing
temper as I yelled back. ‘Look - I can’t find my Jimmy Choo pumps… Mum, have you seen them? …
KATIE
! Have you
had
them?!’

I wouldn’t have put it past
that little sister of mine to have them on eBay as quick as a flash to raise cash to feed her nasal hobby.

‘Now don’t you be blaming the child,
Lord knows you’d blame her if it were raining!’ interrupted mum whilst wagging her finger at me. Katie, who was leaning on the doorframe looking smug, seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of saying anything, so I became determined to leave immediately, missing Jimmys or no missing Jimmys.

‘Right -
I have to go!’ I bellowed in annoyance, grabbing stuff right and left and shoving it into my case.

‘Go on with yourself and hurry over to the car
,’ said mum, trying to stuff one last Satsuma into my handbag. ‘God only knows what the neighbours will think - with you leaving the house looking like that.’

I gave mum a big hug and Katie a halfhearted one, grabbed the first pair of shoes I could find and hobbled to the car with my case in tow. I threw my luggage into the boot and slumped into the passenger seat.

‘Are you really going to the airport looking like that, Tara?’ enquired Laura, with her well-practiced ‘have-you-lost-the-plot?’ look. I decided that any answer I gave would be way too foul mouthed, so I didn’t answer her at all.

I pulled down the sun-visor to look in the mirror. They were right. I looked rough as a badger
’s arse. Maybe I should have brushed my hair; or at least wiped away the makeup from underneath my eyes.

I flipped the sun-visor back up and looked down at myself. I really was a mess. My open toed, diamante-encrusted, silver, four-inch heels really didn’t look good with socks on
underneath. To make matters worse, the socks didn’t even match. One was a rainbow inspired stripy sock, the other a novelty Christmas sock with a reindeer’s face on it. Adding to my ‘bag lady’ look was a mismatched, creased, velour tracksuit, which had something sticky on it, more than likely a dribble of rum from those god-awful liqueur chocolates. Finally, completing the tramp-like ensemble was my knee length cream faux fur coat. If James could see me now, he’d have a touch of the vapours and resign on the spot.

No
– actually - for the first time in my life,
I really didn’t care.
My thoughts had already crept away from my outfit and back to last night. Travis seemed so sincere and above all, so honest. How could I have got it so wrong?

Before I knew it, we were at the airport. Barely a word had been exchanged between Laura and I. I think we were both too hung-over to speak. She did mention her pounding head and not wanting to go to work, but that was about the extent of our conversation.

As I was readying myself to say my goodbyes to Laura, she saw the sadness in my face.

‘Tara, today’s a new day
,’ she said gently. ‘Embrace it. Now, go and sort yourself out in the toilets. Your hair looks like something that’s just been emptied out of a vacuum cleaner.’

‘I don’t care
,’ I replied with a half smile before half-throwing my arm around her in a belated attempt to be sisterly.

‘Sorry
, Tara, I have to run. I have to return a book that I borrowed from my boss before I start work. I’ll call you later.’

O
h… FUCK. The book!
I had flashbacks of a drunk, immature me doodling random penises all over it the night before.
Shite.
Right then, right there I didn't have the courage to own up to what I had done to her boss’s book. I decided I would text her instead
after
I had put my case through, that way I’d be out of punching distance (plus there would be lots of security around).

I limped over to the departure lounge with my flapping
, short ankle-bashers revealing my interesting choice of socks and four-inch stripper stilettos.

Checking-
in at the airport was the last thing I wanted to do. I kept fantasising that Travis would make it to the airport in time to stop me from leaving, but I hadn’t even told him what time my flight was. I dragged my weary, hung-over head (closely followed by my body) across the packed Departures hall to the check-in point.

‘Good morning, Madame
,’ said the check-in assistant with a forced smile.

I didn’t give her any sort of
acknowledgement; I just threw my passport on the counter with a big sigh.

‘Thank you
,’ she said with just a hint of sarcasm in her crisp, perfect little voice that matched her crispy large bun. ‘Could anyone have tampered with your belongings, Madame?’

I really wasn’t in the least bit interested in this boring procedure. My thoughts had once again returned
to Travis. That devious, silver-tongued bastard!

‘Yes yes, everybody tampers with my things
,’ I mumbled irritably while wondering where the hell my expensive Jimmy Choo pumps had gone.

‘Madame,
are you saying that someone has tampered with your luggage?’ questioned the check-in girl, her eyes widening.

‘Er
r, no… sorry,’ I stammered, snapping back to the here-and-now, becoming aware I’d said something stupid. ‘
I wish Travis had tampered with my things though
…’