Head On (Strength And Love)(18)

“Everything’s ready. You need to boil the pasta. Which even you can’t fuck up.” I laugh as I turn to look at Ann and the smile dies on my face.

Ann is in the room, but all I can see, all I can focus on, is Isla. She’s wearing some sort of high necked girly dress. It’s got tiny flowers all over it, and buttons on the front and the sleeves. It’s a sensible length, and if I saw it on a hanger I’d call it an instant erection killer. But on her? It clings to her curves, skimming her hips, nipping in at her waist, sitting tight over those amazing tits of hers.

And then I make the mistake of looking at her face. Fuck me. She’s like God decided to totally mess up my life and send temptation itself to torment me. She no longer looks like a pretty, fresh young woman. She’s beautiful. I always saw that beauty in her, from the first moment I turned the light on in her bedroom, and saw her wearing that ugly fucking nightdress with her bed hair. But now everyone will see it. Every man in the bar will look at her and want her.

My teeth are grinding and I force my jaw to relax. I stare at Ann. Her smirk says it all. Cheeky cow has figured me out, and now she’s helping Isla mess with my head.

“Come on. We’re going to be late.” I grunt a goodbye to Ann and shout bye to Katie. Then I storm out the door without waiting for Isla.

She shoots me an unsure look as she follows and approaches the car. I hold the door open and gesture for her to climb in. As she does so, her dress rides up her legs a little and I swear I’ll kill my sister. I was expecting Isla to come downstairs in that ugly denim skirt she’s been wearing all day. She’d have stuck out like a sore thumb in Josephine’s. Not that I’d have given a shit. I don’t care what people wear. But now, she’s going to stick out in a whole different way.

I slam the door on her once she’s settled in and stalk around to the driver’s side. I climb in and gun the engine, before pulling out of the driveway faster than is necessary.

Not wanting to talk, but finding the silence oppressive, I punch the on button on the stereo. Nine Inch Nails blasts into the car, the hypnotic beat of Closer sounding in the tense space between us. Shit. I go to change the dial but she stops me.

“This is a cool song. Who is it? I’ve not heard it before.”

I can’t even swallow as the words fill the car. I glance at her, and once more reach for the dial.

“I want to listen to it, I’ve not heard it before.” She shoots me a puzzled look.

What can I do? I either pussy out and change the song, which I then will have to explain, or I let this play out. The chorus comes on, singing about fucking like an animal, and I glance at her to see her eyes widen. She bites her lip. Looks at me, at the stereo, then back to me again. Her cheeks flush under the make-up she has on.

“Do you like this music?” Her voice is higher than usual.

“Yeah, I fucking do. You have an issue with it?”

She looks thoughtful for a moment. “No. It’s a good song…interesting lyrics.”

“They are.”

“What do you think they mean?”

Oh, no. Not going there. “No idea. I don’t analyse shit, I just listen to good music.”

She nods and looks out of the window. “You’d laugh at the music I like.”

“Oh yeah?” I turn the song down some, and look at her again. “Why?”

“I like cheesy stuff. Even dad thinks my taste in music is lame.”

I laugh at that. “Well, it must be bad if your dad thinks so. I mean, he must be what? All of forty-something.”

“Yeah. He’s pretty old.” She says it with no irony.

“How old do you think I am?”

She looks at me for a moment. “Twenty-eight or nine?”

“Nope.”

“Thirty?”

I laugh again. “Must be the moisturiser or something. Nope. I’m thirty-four. I’m probably nearer your dad’s age than yours.” I know I am because I know her father’s age after investigating him. He’s forty-three. Had her young, and he stepped up when the shit hit the fan, so I have respect for that.

She shrugs. “So?”

“Just saying.”

But everything we say seems loaded with hidden meaning. An undercurrent of desperate lust running between us. I know she feels it, too. It’s insane. It’s fucking dangerous. This level of need for someone isn’t normal and can’t end anywhere good.

We pull up outside the bar and I look through the big glass front and sigh. It’s rammed, which I didn’t anticipate on a Wednesday night. It’ll be hard to find anywhere to talk, and Luka might start to get twitchy with all the people milling around. I decide we will meet Luka and head off to a pub.

I open the door and jog ‘round to her side, and get her door. There’s no sign of Luka’s battered old run around. It’s his sister’s car, too. He lives with her at the moment and lets her use it. Down on his luck a bit since we got back from our last tour. I’ve told him he’d make a fucking killing doing what I do, but he’s not interested. Which is weird, considering how much he likes to screw.

As soon as I pull the heavy glass doors back, a wave of noise hits. I gesture for Isla to go ahead of me. She steps into the heaving crowd and I’m right at her back. There must be some event going on for the place to be this packed. I put my hand on the small of her back and guide her toward the bar. We get there and I order a pint for myself.