Carnage: Book #1 The Story Of Us (Volume 1)(95)

“I need to go; this little girl is tired and has a headache.” I pushed my chair back way too loudly for the posh restaurant, grabbed my jacket and headed for the door.

I didn’t hear Cam’s chair move so I’m assuming he remained seated. The instant I stepped outside, I saw Benny start the Jag up in a car park across the road. He pulled up next to me with his window open. “All right Duchess, jump in.”

I had lit up a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked in ages but he had pissed me off tonight so I felt the need. “Fuck off Ben, I’m not in the mood, I’ve had to sit through dinner with your boss acting like a prick, again, I don’t need to be patronised by you as well.”

“Fuckin’ ‘ell George, was only ‘avin a laugh wiv ya, ignore him, he’s got a lot on his plate right now.”

“Not interested Ben, not interested.” I stepped into the alley at the side of the restaurant and smoked my cigarette, I put it out and waited for five minutes but Cam didn’t come out. Well f*ck him, if he thought I was going to hang about and wait, he had another thing coming. I looked down the alleyway and could see that it led out to the next street but was blocked by a bollard to stop cars cutting through, so I quickly headed down it. Ben couldn’t see me from where he was sat in the car and I walked quickly, as soon as I stepped out onto the main high street I was lucky enough to be able to hail a cab straight away. I jumped in and gave them Jimmies address and hoped that she didn’t mind me turning up uninvited.

I got the cabby to stop off at the off license and I grabbed a couple of bottles of wine, if Jimmie wasn’t up for a drink, then I would just go home and get plastered by myself.

I rang the doorbell and stood with my forehead pressed against the door, I was so busy going over tonight’s conversation with Cam and his shitty attitude toward me that I didn’t hear the door being opened, I fell forward and face planted right into someone’s chest and I knew, in an instant, in a millisecond, exactly whose chest it was.

He grabbed me by the shoulders at first and I panicked and thought he was going to push me away, but then he wrapped his arms around me tightly, sniffed my hair, kissed the top of my head and said into my ear.” I love you Georgia Rae, show us your tits.”

Everything fell away, the floor from beneath me, the wall around my heart was gone in an instant, the person that I was, the person that I’d become over these past four years crumbled to dust and was gone, disintegrated, decimated.

I had a bottle of wine in each hand, I didn’t let them go but hung on to them, I gripped them so tightly that my hands ached but I needed to hold on to them, they were real, all the time I had them in my hands, I knew that I had some kind of a grip on reality. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed myself into him, taking deep breaths of him in. I thought that perhaps I was dreaming, or perhaps the front door had opened and I had fallen and bumped my head, so I moved the wine bottles that I was squeezing and my brain registered the chinking sound of the glass knocking together.

“Do you know how long I have waited to have you pressed up against me, how long I have wanted to bury my face into your neck and just breathe you in?” I can’t speak, I’m terrified that if I do, I will scare away the magic and it won’t be true, he won’t be here, with his arms wrapped around me “Do you, do you know Gia?”

My insides curl in on themselves at the sound of him, calling me, that name, nobody, only Sean has ever called me Gia, nobody has ever even thought to.

“Four years G… four years and eleven days if you want me to be exact and every single moment has been absolute hell.” He reaches round and using his index finger, he lifts my chin, I close my eyes, I can’t look, I can’t take that chance. What if I have finally had the meltdown of all meltdowns and completely lost the plot and this is all in my f*cked up imagination? In that instant, I’ve never, ever prayed so hard to be mentally insane. “Open your eyes G; I need to see those beautiful blue eyes of yours.”