Twice in a Lifetime (Carina) (8 page)

“Both.”

“Well, they are men so of course they appreciated that I was always up for a quickie. But neither of them knew about my dessert-first and dinner-for-breakfast policy.”

“Why not? You were with that Jonathan guy for three years. And Richard for two, was it?”

“See, that is just weird that you know that.” And weird that it didn’t bother him. Sarah felt an intense desire to sharpen her claws on any woman who looked at Liam.

“No, what is weird is that you were with them a total of five years and they did not know that about you.”

“No, you knowing their names is definitely weirder. How do you know all of that?”

Sarah smiled as the waitress put their order down on the table—chicken breast and grilled vegetables for Liam, and peanut-butter cheesecake for Sarah.

“Thank you,” she said as she deliberated the merits of using a spoon versus a fork.

“I also know their ages and professions. Your granny is a blether. Don’t look at me like that. You were bound to come up. You are our common denominator. You were wise breaking it off with the teacher—you wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.”

His tone was too casual, too in control, and he had used a properly Scottish word. He could have said her Granny had a big mouth but he called her a blether. He cared more than he was letting on. She had to suppress a smile at the realisation.

“And what about Richard?” she asked, wanting to know exactly how much he knew. Granny might very well be a blether but no one had forced Liam to phone her and listen.

“The consultant paediatrician? Nice flat in the New Town—by all reports, he seems legit. Think you would still be together if he hadn’t proposed,” he said nonchalantly as he pierced an asparagus spear with his fork.

By all reports, he seems legit
. What in the hell did that mean? She was going to ban her granny from using the phone. There was no excuse for her discussing Sarah’s personal life with Liam. “He was, no, is
legit
, but it didn’t work out. It happens.”

“Just like it stopped working when the teacher proposed? Again, Sarah, you dodged a bullet with him.”

“Liam, come a little bit closer. I am going to give you that Glasgow kiss you have coming.”

“Relationships seem to stop working for you when you are pressed for a commitment. You broke it off with me when it was time to leave for uni, and Jonny and Rich got the axe when they tried to put a ring on it.”

“You are ruining my enjoyment of my cheesecake.” She stabbed a piece of peanut-butter cup.

“Well, at least you can commit to that,” he said.

She gave him a swift kick under the table.

“Let’s talk about your sex life now.” There was nothing she wanted to hear about less, but turnaround was fair play. “How many woman have you shagged since I last saw you?”

“I haven’t managed to shag a single one since you saw me last night, or technically it was this morning. Either way, I am still striking out.”

“You know what I mean. How many women have you slept with since you left Edinburgh?”

“Christ, Dr Campbell, that is forward, even for you.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” she scoffed. “We were just discussing my dating history in detail. You really are going to get that Glasgow kiss. Once I am finished with my cheesecake.”

“I never asked you anything about your sexual history. I asked about your relationships. Christ knows those are two very different things.”

“Well, how many?” she asked again when he did not offer a number.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know how many I slept with. I haven’t counted. But there has not been anyone serious.”

“Nothing serious is shorthand for, ‘I sleep with them but I don’t return their calls’. I remember having a relationship like that once,” she said pointedly.

“I never tell anyone I am going to call.”

“So that makes it OK?”

“No, both parties being consenting adults and the fact I always use a condom is what makes it OK.”

“So how many consenting adults are we talking?” She didn’t know if she really wanted to hear the number.

“I don’t know. Do you want me to count?”

“Just a ball-park figure.”
Please be in the single digits
.

He sat for a moment, his eyes raised as he thought. “More than an amateur, less than a professional,” he said with a cheeky smile, a subtle reference to prostitution, but this time there was no bitterness.

There was a strange tug on her heart, one she had not felt in a long time. How could he ever think she viewed him with pity? He was no more the six-year-old covered in cigarette burns than she was the girl with the pigtails and a hand-me-down school uniform that was two sizes too big. They were not children any more, and her feelings for him were anything but childlike. Knowing his past only made her admire him more.

She stared at him, taking in every one of his features: his light blue eyes, the same shade as a cloudless day, and his sun-bleached sandy hair, his razor-sharp jaw line, even the scars on his arms and chest; she wanted to remember everything. Once she went back to Scotland, she wouldn’t see him again. They both knew that. This week was an anomaly. Once Sam was safely on his way to the UK, she would leave too. Even if she could invent another reason to come to Dubai and see Liam again, she could not afford it. She wished she could experience what it felt like to be his just once more. This time she would know it was the last time and she would try harder to form a memory that could carry her through. She had never been happier or felt more fulfilled than when they were together.

She reached across the table and tentatively touched his hand, giving it the lightest squeeze. She wanted to remember what he felt like too. Pressure began to build behind her eyes. The calm sweetness of the moment would be gone soon enough; she did not need to ruin it by crying.

“I always worry when you are quiet,” Liam said.

“I was just wondering about my granny,” she lied.

“Do you want me to phone the hospital and see if her surgery went smoothly?” He reached into his suit pocket and produced his mobile.

“No, I am going to phone when I get back to your flat. I know it is on the list, but why did you keep in contact with her but not me?”

He exhaled loudly as he tapped his fingers on the table. “There is not a simple answer. At first I called to make sure you were OK, had enrolled at University of Edinburgh, you know, you were getting on with things. But I kept calling because she is the closest thing I have got to family since my nana died.”

“Why didn’t she tell me about it?”

Liam shrugged his shoulders. “Ask her when you speak to her today.”

The question that had played on her mind for years repeated on a constant loop demanding to be asked. “Why did you wait so long for us to have sex?”

The way it happened had been cruel. By the time they got around to having sex, they could only be considered virgins in the most liberal use of the word. But still Liam had been determined they wait, only to leave the next day without looking back. If it was possible, the timing made it even more painful. She needed to know for sure he had not planned it that way.

A pained expression settled on Liam’s face. His large hand encircled her fingers, brushing her knuckles in the softest of caresses. “I wanted to wait because you deserved better than a quick shag with a schemie kid. I wanted it to happen when we started our new life together. I waited because it took me that long to afford to rent a room in the Balmoral.” He tried to laugh but the sound caught in his throat. “I waited because, back then, I thought we had for ever. Looking back, I still don’t know if I would change it. I still think you deserved to have your first time be special. But I know now I robbed myself of all that time with you. I wish we had had more time.”

When he looked at her, she could feel his emotion, the same way she could when they were younger. She could feel his sadness and remorse; they mixed with hers and settled painfully in her chest.

A hot sting formed in Sarah’s eyes. She wanted to go back and tell herself to make a different choice. She did not know what choice would have made her hurt less. Maybe they’d always had a shelf life but she could tell herself to appreciate every minute they had together, because she was never going to find anyone else that made her feel the way he did.

They spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing. And she finally got to get a bus; granted it was a hop-on hop-off tourist bus, but it fulfilled her public transportation needs all the same. She listened intently to the recorded guide. Liam used the opportunity to catch up on emails, though periodically she would interrupt him to tell him an interesting fact she had just learned. And, bless him, he pretended to care.

She was eternally grateful for the sunglasses he had given her, not only because her corneas would have been burned to cinders without them, but also because the dark lenses meant she could stare at him unabashedly without him noticing. She liked watching the way his Adam’s apple moved when he took a drink from his bottle of Fiji® water. She loved studying the scar above his left eye; it was barely noticeable now. He got it when he was eight or nine, Sam had thrown a rock at her but Liam pushed her out of the way and it hit him square in the face. Seven stitches later, Liam was left with a small white line running perpendicular through his eyebrow. On other men it might be a flaw, but it was quite possibly her favourite feature on his face. He was far too good-looking for any man. It was almost greedy.

By the end of the tour she had decided two things: Dubai was an amazing city, and she wanted to have sex with Liam. She needed to feel that connection again. This time she would know it was their last time and she would make herself remember more; she would savour it because she knew the memory would have to hold her for ever. He was still the same Liam. The sweet, gentle, gorgeous, considerate man was still there. He was in there and she needed to be with him again. Just once, to have him, the way he was, the way they were.

It was more an all-consuming need than a desire. It wasn’t entirely rational. Well, actually, it wasn’t even a little bit rational. Maybe it wasn’t entirely nostalgia, maybe it was because she had gone too long without sex, but she wanted it more than anything she had ever wanted. And the only thing that could keep her from doing it was, well, him.

When they finished the tour, Ahmed was waiting for them, as if by magic, ready to take them home. Before she got in the car she leaned over and whispered to Liam, “I think we should have sex.”

His eyes widened. “Like, in the back of this car? People get arrested for that here. I can only handle one legal battle at a time.”

Aware that Ahmed might be able to hear them, she whispered, “No, not here. I like quickies now, not audiences.”

Liam’s face was a picture of bemusement. For the first time ever, she had rendered him speechless.

“So are you up for it?”

“Not currently,” he said, gesturing to his crotch. “But I wouldn’t need much encouragement.”

“Is that a yes, then?”

“No, it is an, ‘I’m horny and it would not take much to set me off’,” he said, not seeming to care if he was overheard. He pressed a button and a screen rose, separating them from the driver. “Christ, Sarah. You still have the ability to surprise me, I will give you that.”

She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I’d rather you gave me something else.”

“Damn it, woman, it is taking all my will power not to bend you over the seat,” he said between gritted teeth.

“So is that a yes?” she asked again optimistically.

“Stop asking, or it will be a yes. But no, Sarah.” His face looked pained.

She looked down. It was like old times again, her wanting to go all the way, but him holding back. But now they both knew there was nothing to stop them. “Part of you is up for it. Very up for it, by the look of things.”

“I am a man. Of course I am up for having sex with you.”

“Good, because this consenting adult is well up for it.”

“What exactly are you consenting to?” he asked.

She scrunched up her nose. “Do you want to agree on the fine-print items upfront? Like who is going to put what where? How about just a general waiver? Assume I am up for anything unless I say otherwise. And even then, I might come round with a bit of convincing.”

“No, that’s not what I meant, though good to know.” He shifted in his seat. A bead of perspiration formed on his brow. “I mean what happens after the sex?”

“Hopefully we do it again if you’re up for it. I know you are not as young as you used to be,” she teased.

“And then?” he pressed. His gaze was hot on her, searching her.

What did he want her to say? Was this a trick question? “And then you don’t call.”

“And you’re OK with that?”

“This time I am. I know the rules going in.”

“Have you ever had a one-night stand?” he asked.

She had two choices: lie and say she had, or say nothing. She chose the latter.

“That is what I thought,” he said as they pulled into the circle in front of the hotel.

“So is that a no to the sex?”

This time he did not answer. He took her shopping bags and when she tried to take them he said, “I would rather not share my erection with the world, thank you.”

“You could always just share it with me,” she said coyly.

He did not look amused.

Her phone rang in her pocket. It was Leslie. She would not call unless there was a problem. She was single-handedly the most competent social worker she had ever met.
Please don’t let it be my gran
, she prayed as she swiped her finger across the phone to accept the call. “Hello, lovey. How is my granny?”

“No word on that yet but I have good news. I got Sam a bed in Fife.”

“Seriously? No, you didn’t. There is an eighteen-month waiting list. How did you do it?” Sarah asked. A relief washed over her.

“It may have involved a blow job,” Leslie said.

“No, really?”

“I just pleaded his case to the consultant. Turns out he preferred to put Sam in the front of the queue, rather than answer my hourly calls. Very weak willed if you ask me. I would have held out a hell of a lot longer.”