Unplugged (Blue Phoenix, #3)(15)

“I like you,” I blurt.

“What?”

“I like you. Well, I could elaborate, but I don’t want slapping.”

Cerys’s response is interrupted by the sound of Ella’s coat rustling and her mumbling. I look over at the bleary-eyed girl.

“Are we there? Where’s Santa?” Ella struggles with her child restraint.

Cerys chews her bottom lip, and then shakes her head slightly before climbing out of the car. As she frees her daughter from the car seat, I lean over so I can see Cerys’s face.

“Don’t forget to ask Santa what you want for Christmas,” I say to Cerys.

Cerys makes a sound of amusement and doesn’t reply.

“I want Santa to bring my daddy for Christmas,” announces Ella.

I turn back and look out of the windscreen in case Cerys’s eyes fill with tears. Crying women will be the death of me.

****

I don’t go home. Pissed off with the complicated situation I’ve created, I decide to fill my day with the original reason I came back. Christmas. I spend the morning soaking up the atmosphere – the Christmas trees adorning every shop, the crappy festive music in every store, the combination of stress and excitement amidst the other shoppers. Nobody recognises me, or lets on if they do. I’m not that interesting in my home town. A couple of elderly ladies who knew me years ago say hello, but I avoid stopping to speak to them.

I should buy Christmas gifts but as usual, I have no idea what to get people. Lou promised she’d come shopping in London with me one day, a treat before Christmas. Maybe I should see if Cerys and Ella want to come too. No. Bad idea.

I retreat to a local cafe and buy a bacon sandwich and coffee before tucking myself into a corner away from the window. The windows are steamed from the heat of bodies and the meals cooking. I used to come here with the rest of the guys after school, and I swear it hasn’t been redecorated since. Different owners, but the same yellowing posters advertising fish and chips as ‘the best meal money can buy’ still adorn the walls.

Yawning, I pull out my switched off phone. If I’m around I could give Cerys a ride back home, but I don’t have her number. If I switch my phone on, I would be assailed with messages from my ex so I tuck it away again.

Ex. I’ve thought about Honey more today than any point since I left her, in an attempt to rationalise kissing Cerys as okay. Cerys is right though, what we’re doing is a stupid idea, but the niggling part of me who wants to take care of and protect this woman and her daughter confuses. I can’t rewind to a one off kiss years ago. We’re worlds apart now. Look at what happened to Dylan and Sky; they fell apart after a couple of months. Dylan won’t tell me why but I can guess; Blue Phoenix can’t co-exist with the ordinary.

Why can’t I be more like Jem and have my fun then drop the girl? I smirk to myself, at my non-rock star behaviour. I did all that shit a few years back, and it wasn’t for me. I want stability in a relationship, something I thought I’d found with Honey. Ha f-ucking ha. If the extraordinary won’t work, doesn’t trying the ordinary make sense?

I stare at the flaking paint on the wall next to me. Cerys isn’t ordinary; she’s beautiful and strong. Sexy as hell. And unobtainable.

The day heads toward afternoon and hasn’t brightened, a typical Welsh winter with the bonus of the sky darkening with snow clouds. White Christmas. The giddy kid, Liam, sneaks in. How awesome would it be to go sledging, or build snowmen?

I walk along the main street, beanie tugged over my ears and decide to check a couple of stores on my way back to the car, in case Cerys is still around somewhere. There aren’t many shops so this doesn’t take long, and I locate her in what passes as a department store in the High Street. I approach her and Ella spots me first.

“Mummy! Uncle Liam’s here! Show him the picture of Santa.” She scrabbles around in her mum’s bag.

“I was about to go back to Mum and Dad’s. Did you want a ride?”

Cerys hands the picture to her daughter. “Oh. Okay, thanks. I just need to get a couple more things.”

Ella thrusts the picture into my face and I nod, not paying attention, before turning back to Cerys. I only have to be a few feet from her and I can sense what’s between us. This isn’t me wanting to kiss a girl from my past; this is me wanting the girl from my past. Cerys smiles and we’re locked in another hesitant moment together. My stomach lurches, the teenage feelings from last night taking over. I have to do something, take her somewhere, tell her. Show her.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. What did you need? I’ll help. I think it’s going to snow, so we should get back.”

“Gift wrap and chocolates.”

“‘Kay.”

I drag myself away from her. She dizzies me without touching, distracts me from everything but an obsession with putting my mouth on hers again, holding her, taking her to bed. Not good, Liam.

Is there an art to choosing the right Christmas gift-wrap? I stare at the selection. There’s f*ckloads of colours and rolls. I grab the nearest roll covered in cartoon Santas and holly and turn toward the checkout.

A woman with blonde wavy hair stares at me, blue eyes widened in surprise. Sky. What the hell is she doing here? I met her once at Dylan’s party. This is the girl responsible for Dylan’s retreat into the realm of the broken-hearted over the last few months. If Sky is here in St Davids, then Dylan must be. I look around for him too, but he’s not close by. Shit, if he sees I have to explain because he knows about my history with Cerys.