My Best Friend's Girl (23 page)

My date glanced up. A grin expanded his friendly face, crinkling his eyes. I was taken aback by how happy he was to see me. He stood and in doing so, towered above my five-foot-six body with his lithe, six-foot-two frame.

“Hi,” he said, still grinning.

“I’m not late, am I?” I asked.

“Nope.” He shrugged his black T-shirted shoulders. “I was just so excited I got here early.”

“Oh,” I replied, unsure what to say to that.

“You’re more beautiful than I remembered,” he said.

I stopped myself from checking over my shoulder to see who he was talking to, then allowed myself to slide into the compliment. It didn’t sound creepy or contrived; his sincerity made what he said sweet. “What, this old face?” I joked. “I’ve had it years.”

He laughed, a warm, indulgent belly rumble, and then walked around the square table to pull out the padded black chair for me. Impressive, but not overly so. I wasn’t about to go into an Adele-style swoon—I’d met charmers before, and under the glossy smile and polite manners they were still your garden-variety bastards.

We ordered coffee and a chocolate-chip muffin that Nate cut into eight segments, like you would an apple, so we could share it. And we talked. When I eventually got home I couldn’t remember what about; it was the type of talking that was interrupted only by laughter and pauses to ingest the valuable information we’d just received.

When he nipped to the toilet at one point, I caught myself smiling as he walked away—and was horrified. I was falling for it. His charm and his wit had begun to win me over. But I knew what was going to happen. At some point, he was going to revert to type. He’d want to change me, control me, or leave me, and it’d be worse if I’d invested emotion in him beforehand.

By the time he returned and I had drained the chocolatey coffee dregs from my third cappuccino, I had formulated a plan. In the past few hours I’d learned a thing or two about this Turner man and I knew how to eject him from my life. I placed the mug on the table and made direct eye contact with him. “Coffee back at your place, then,” I stated.

Nate sat back. “Um…” he mumbled with a slight grimace, not meeting my eye. After all his confidence and “you’re so beautifuls,” was he rejecting me?

I sat forward in my seat. “Um?” I repeated.

His grimace creased into a complete face cringe. He
was
rejecting me.
Did I imagine the full-on flirting, the shy smiles and the lingering looks?

“You don’t want me to come back with you?” I asked.

“No! God, no! I mean yes! I do! More than anything, I do. It’s just my house is a mess and I don’t want you to judge me on that. And I don’t have any milk or sugar or coffee…I haven’t been to the shop for a few days. I suppose we could stop on the way—”

“Nate,” I cut in, “do you have condoms?”

He nodded.

“Then I don’t care what is or isn’t in your kitchen. We’re going back for sex. Or, shall I put it like this, if we go back to your place you’re going to get lucky.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “Right. Do you want to go back now?”

I moved my head up and down.

“Waiter, the bill!” Nate called, almost breaking his neck to go pay.

Later, much later, Nate pulled me toward him, wanting to cuddle before he drifted off into sleep. I, meanwhile, wanted to get as far away as possible from him. The plan had gone a bit wrong. My scheme—shag him, leave, wait for him to never call—hadn’t worked. Instead of the detachment that accompanied a one night stand, I was
feeling
. I had emotions flowing through me. Affection. Passion. Tenderness. Every time I glanced at Nate’s face the word
inamorato
, lover, came to mind. The full, rounded meaning of that. The one you loved, with your body, your mind, your soul. The one you gave everything you were to. Which was insanity—I’d met Nate twice in my life.

I’d never had sex like that in my life, though. Our first kiss had been tentative—we’d sat on the end of his bed, knowing what was coming next. After our second kiss, he’d slowly caressed his thumb over my lips, erotically searing in the mouth touch while I stared into his eyes. After that it’d been a one-way trip into pleasure. He’d covered my body in kisses, he’d slowed me down with his expert fore-play technique, and by the time we got to mainplay I was biting my lower lip to stop myself calling out his name.

I didn’t want this confusion. I didn’t want to be feeling for him. I wanted everything clear-cut, like it always had been. I slipped out of his hold and frantically picked up my clothes. I shoved my legs into my black cotton knickers, pulled them up. Fastened on my black bra. Then my jeans were on and being buttoned up. I was belting them when Nate realized what I was doing and sat up. “Are you going?”

Pulling my top over my head muffled my reply.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch any of that.”

“I said, yes, I’m going. Places to do, people to be.”

“Oh, OK.” He rested on his elbows watching me search for one of my socks. “I had a great time, Kamryn. The whole afternoon, it was amazing. I haven’t talked like that for years.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, locating my errant sock under his bed, snatching it up and rolling it on my left foot.

“There’s a Sherlock Holmes retrospective down at the National Film Theater,” he said, while I grabbed my jacket and shrugged it on, “I know you like Sherlock, so we could go along? Have dinner and go for a walk along the river afterwards…?” As he talked, I was tying up my shoelaces.

“Kamryn,” he said gravely, as though it’d finally dawned on him what my departure meant. “Will I ever see you again?”

That threw me. I’d expected that this would put an end to it. That he’d think I was a slut because I slept with him on the first date—I’d offered him sex before we’d even kissed, for God’s sake!—and then would tactfully avoid mentioning us making contact again. Which was why I was so upset at enjoying sex with him. I wouldn’t see him again. And that had hurt, more than I expected it to.

“Will I see you again?” he repeated. I revolved slowly to look at the man in the bed. He was delicious: his usually neatly spiked hair, now mussed up, his blue eyes heavily postcoital, his mouth slightly bruised from kissing.
Inamorato
. I could do this again. In a heartbeat I could. I bit my lower lip for a second, scared.
But what if he’s playing me for a fool?
I wondered.
I couldn’t bear it. Not with him.
I remembered his thumb running over my lips, and I thought,
He’s worth the risk.

I kissed the palm of my hand, then blew the kiss at him. “We’ll see,” I said, before picking up my bag and leaving.

“That was him, wasn’t it?” Luke said as I flopped down onto the sofa beside him. We’d done our usual tag team of Tegan’s bath (me) and story (Luke) but I’d had to go in after the story to reassure her I would think about buying her the pair of pink trainers we’d seen earlier. I didn’t know how I’d afford them, but I’d find a way. Now Luke and I could talk, and judging not only from what he’d said, but his rigid posture, it wasn’t going to be easy.

“That was
Tegan’s father
.” He whispered the last two words in case madam, who had pin-sharp hearing, was still awake.

“Yes,” I stated.

“Did you tell him?”

“Call me strange, but I don’t think John Lewis is the place to tell someone they’ve got a daughter, do you?”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Probably.”

“So you’re going to see him again?”

“Yes,” I replied.

He closed his eyes momentarily. “Why?”

“If I’m going to adopt Tegan, I have to get Nate’s permission.”

“His
permission
?” he repeated, affronted. “Are you joking?”

“I never knew this until after I got all of Adele’s things but his name is on Tegan’s birth certificate. And because I know where he is—that he’s still alive—I need to get his permission. He’s Tegan’s surviving parent so he has to sign away all rights to her. Social services try as much as they can to keep families together. There’s so much emphasis nowadays on belonging, knowing where you come from. And the fact she’s white isn’t going to help my case. So I need as much as possible, in writing, to show that both Tegan’s parents want me to adopt her. It’ll be harder to turn me down that way.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Because the last thing I wanted to do was contact Nate. I always knew I could get hold of him through his parents if I wanted but I didn’t want to.”

“You still feel a lot for him,” Luke stated. “That’s why you didn’t want to get in touch with him, you were scared of your feelings.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I replied. “I admit if we were still together we would have been married two years by now so my feelings wouldn’t have changed. But we’re not married, we’re not even together, so my feelings are completely different.”

Luke studied my face, uncertainty billowing in his eyes before he glanced away. I stared at his profile, watched the muscles in his jaw pulsate like a rapidly beating heart. I knew how he felt: jealous. Scared. Unworthy. I used to feel that way about him sometimes when he’d open his wallet to pay for something and I’d spot the picture of Nicole, his gorgeous fiancée, grinning at me; reminding me that he still had feelings for someone else. That while we had great sex and spent a lot of time together, Nicole was Plan A, and I was Plan B. A few weeks ago, I don’t know when exactly, I noticed Nicole had left his wallet. And her specter stopped hanging over our relationship. I’d been able to relax, to concentrate on building a relationship with my boyfriend, to work toward allowing him to penetrate my heart. And I his. Now he was in a similar position, although he was at a greater disadvantage. While I’d been wrestling with a picture and memories, Luke would be grappling with a human presence.

“That doesn’t change us, though,” I said, desperate to reassure him. “I…I love you.”

I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I cared for him but it was too soon to tell if it was love. I’d learned about love from being with Nate, and I knew it wasn’t this; it wasn’t constant doubt. With Luke there was always disquiet. Should we be together? What would have happened if not for Tegan? Neither of us fooled ourselves, Tegan was our Cupid: without her we’d still be sniping at each other, making everyone around us miserable with our mutual hatred. And if he hadn’t decided to change his type, he wouldn’t have kissed me. I was never sure which came first—his changing of type or him liking me and deciding to change type. I was never brave enough to ask either.

In the grand scheme of things, I felt a lot for Luke. I didn’t look at him and think
inamorato
, didn’t want to give everything I was to him, but I was fond of him. And, we were here. Together. No matter how we’d got here, we were here, he was a part of my life. A life I could grow to love. I could love him. I just didn’t. I had to say it though—“Needs must when the Devil vomits in your kettle,” as Adele often said.

“I do, you know?” I repeated to his silent face and skeptical eyes, “I love you.”

“That’s good to know,” he said, his whole body finally relaxing. He bent and pressed a kiss on my mouth, pressed another onto my forehead, then pulled me into his arms and settled back against the sofa.

There were lots of things you were supposed to say when someone tells you they love you but “That’s good to know” wasn’t one of them. A chill breezed through me. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I was still Plan B.

chapter 28

I
like your orangey dress,” Tegan commented as she jumped on my bed. She bounced as though the springs were in her legs not the mattress—high, but controlled.

“Thank you,” I replied from my place sitting on the edge of the bed. Nerves tumbled around my stomach like a washing machine stuck on a spin cycle, and every so often my hands would break into a tremble.

“You look very pretty,” Tegan decided and flapped her arms up and down like a flightless bird trying to take off as she bounced.

“All right, T, enough,” Luke said, coming over to the bed, picking her up and swinging her under one arm.

“Leave Ryn to get ready in peace.”

“I don’t mind,” I told him. Our eyes met, then darted away from each other as though that simple action had burnt us. We’d found it difficult to make prolonged eye contact for the past few days—even in bed we didn’t look at each other too long for fear of betraying our true feelings. Him, his fear; me, my uncertainty.

“Where are you going?” Tegan asked, swinging happily from her position under Luke’s arm.

“I told you already,” I said.

“Tell me again.” She hung her head back until all I could see was the soft, butter-white flesh of her throat. “Please! Tell me again.”

“I’m going to dinner with that man we saw in John Lewis,” I said, aware that every word slashed at Luke’s already fragile ego. Tegan’s head came forward, she was pink in the face. “Are you going to talk about my mummy?” she asked.

“A little bit.”

“Will you tell me what he says?” She scrunched up her nose and mouth as she nodded, willing me to agree that I’d tell her everything.

I wouldn’t be telling her anything—I couldn’t discuss what caused my fiancé and my best friend to sleep together, nor explain that he was her father, nor relay how he reacted to the news that he was a parent.

“If Ryn can tell you, she will,” Luke said. “Does that sound fair?”

“Suppose so,” she replied.

I glowered at Luke, resentful that he’d appointed himself my mouthpiece. He shrugged off my glare by asking,

“Do you want us to drive you into town?”

I shook my head.

“We won’t come in, we’ll just drop you off outside.”

“I’d rather get the train.” That matter was closed as far as I was concerned.

“Where’s he taking you again?”

“I told you, I’m meeting him at the restaurant where you and I had our first disastrous dinner, remember?”

My boyfriend hadn’t said it, but in the past two days he’d been acting as though my arrangement to meet Nate was us rekindling our relationship. He feared I’d leave the flat his girlfriend and return Nate’s fiancée. That was why he wanted to drive me into town—it’d be half an hour of him reminding me of his existence, his relationship with Tegan, what I’d be giving up if I went back to Nate. His question was a test to see if I was thinking of this as a date. I wasn’t. The only makeup I’d applied was a little mascara, my “pretty dress” was the scoop-neck, ankle-length, red and orange silk number that Luke had bought me to replace the dress destroyed by Tegan’s dirty paint water. I’d worn it not because it was flattering—it wasn’t particularly—but because Luke had bought it. I was showing him he would be on my mind because his gift was on my body. I wore heels because the dress would look stupid with trainers. And that was as much of an effort as I’d made—there was nothing else I could do to reassure Luke short of not going. And I was going to do this. I had to see Nate.

“Right, I’d better be off.” I stood and took Tegan from Luke. She clamped her legs around my waist in a viselike grip. She’d had her bath and was in her pajamas so her skin smelled clean and bubblebathy. I carried her out of the bedroom and into the corridor.

“OK, baby, make sure you behave yourself for Luke…On second thought, don’t!” We laughed conspiratorially as I put her down by the kitchen door. “Seriously though, make sure you go to bed on time and that Luke brushes his teeth before bed.”

Tegan giggled her tinkly laugh again. I unhooked my long black coat, buttoned it on, then bent and hugged Tegan. She slipped her arms around my neck and kissed my face. “You smell like sunshine,” she said before releasing me.

“And you smell like chocolate pudding and I need to tickle you!” I laughed as I gently tickled her ribs. This was our thing; our in joke that meant we were close. A unit. She had lots of them with her mum and now we had one, which was a giant step forward in our relationship—we were bonding, moving closer to being mother and daughter.

Tegan squirmed away, ran to Luke and wrapped her arms around his legs. I straightened up and faced Tegan’s unhappy protector. “Thanks for Tegan-sitting, Luke, I really appreciate it.”

He gave a short nod. “Have fun,” he blurted out as my fingers turned the doorknob.

I’m not going out for fun,
I wanted to shout at him. The silent worrying had reached my limit now, one more thing and I was going to sleep with Nate just to make a point.

“Have fun,” Tegan echoed.

“Thank you,” I replied and stepped out into the corridor. “Bye.”

“T, go put on a DVD, I’ll see Ryn off.”

Tegan did as she was told and Luke stepped out into the gloomy corridor with me. Neither of us moved to hit the communal light switch as I waited for him to say something. Seconds crawled by and he was silent, simply stared at me. “See ya,” I finally said and turned away.

“Ryn,” he said, took my arm, pulled me back. In the pause that followed he touched a tender kiss on my mouth.

“I love you,” he said as he pulled away. He hadn’t said that before. Not since I’d said it. In fact, I hadn’t expected him to say it. I’d decided that his reply, “That’s good to know,” had made his feelings clear: he didn’t love me and I should get used to it. There’d been no other explanation as far as I could see. Now he’d upended my certainty about his feelings by saying this. By saying those three words. And he’d tainted it. Because no matter what happened next, I would always wonder
why
he’d said it. If he’d been motivated by genuine feelings or because he was scared I was going to sleep with someone else. Did he love me or did he simply want to control me?

Luke stood still and silent, waiting for my reply and I knew I had to say it back. I had to reconfirm I loved him. I opened my mouth and replied, “That’s good to know.” My answer was a reminder that whatever we both felt, whether we loved each other or not, he wasn’t the only one who could be cruel and withholding of their affections. He wasn’t the only one who had feelings.

He recoiled in surprise and hurt, his fingers slipped away from my arm. And I left without looking back.