On Dublin Street(26)

“Joss?”


“What?”


“I’m sorry I haven’t been a better friend. You’re not alone.”


Yes I am. “I’m sorry I haven’t been a better friend, either.”


“Is James still there?”


“Yeah.”


“I don’t want to be alone. Not when I could have him. God, that sounds so cheesy.”


I shook my head, smiling—the tightness in my chest easing. “Yeah it does sound cheesy. Sometimes the truth is cheesy.”


“I’m going to call him.”


I grinned. “I’ll get off the phone.”


We hung up and I lay there in the dark listening. After twenty minutes I heard my front door creak open and shut.


I found the sitting room empty, the blanket on the couch rolled up. A piece of paper lay across it. A note from James.


I owe you.


I gripped tight to the paper and walked numbly back into my bedroom to stare at the photo of me with my family. If anything these last few weeks had taught me, it was that I obviously – like Rhian – wasn’t over losing them. I had to talk to someone. But unlike Rhian, I didn’t want to talk to anyone who could use that crap against me. My therapist in high school had tried to help me but I’d shut down every time. I was a teenager. I thought I knew best.


But I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I didn’t know best. And if I wanted the panic attacks to stop, I needed to make the call in the morning.


~7~


“So, Mystery Man is gone?” The voice scared the bejesus out of me and I jumped, the coffee on my teaspoon scattering onto the counter.


I threw Braden a withering look over my shoulder. “Don’t you ever work? Or knock?”


He was slouched against the kitchen doorway, watching me make my morning coffee. “Can I get one?” he nodded to the kettle.


“What do you take?”


“Milk. Two sugars.”


“And here I was expecting you to say black.”


“If anyone is black around here, it’s you.”


I made a face. “Do you want coffee or not?”


He grunted. “Someone’s pleasant in the morning.”


“When am I anything else?” I dumped his two sugars in his mug with attitude.


Braden’s laughter hit me directly in the gut. “Right.”


As the kettle brewed, I turned around, leaning against the counter with my arms crossed over my chest. I was very aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra under my camisole. In fact, I didn’t think I had ever been more aware of my body than I was when I was around Braden. To be honest, I’d stopped caring about my appearance and all the shit that came with it after my parents and Beth died. I wore what I liked, I looked the way I looked, and I didn’t give a rat’s ass what any guy thought. Somehow that seemed to work in my favor.


But standing in front of Braden, I realized I wasn’t so confident about that anymore. I was curious what he thought about me. I wasn’t tall and skinny like all the glamazon’s that surely orbited Braden’s world. I wasn’t tiny, but I wasn’t tall. I had slender legs and a small waist, but I had boobs, hips and a definite ass. I had good hair on the days I could be bothered wearing it down, but those days came few and far between. It was an indiscriminate color—somewhere between blonde and brown, but it was long and thick with a natural curl in it. However, my hair was so heavy it tended to annoy me unless it was up off my neck, so I rarely, if ever, wore it loose. My eyes were probably my best feature—at least that’s what people told me. I had my dad’s eyes. They were light grey with streaks of gun-metal in them, but they weren’t huge and adorable like Holly’s and Ellie’s—they were tip-tilted and feline, and they were extremely good at glaring.


No. I wasn’t beautiful, or cute, or glamorous. I also didn’t think I was ugly, but worrying about being extraordinary had never crossed my mind before. Braden making me care… kind of pissed me off.


“Seriously, don’t you work?”


He stood up from the doorframe and casually sauntered towards me. He was in another fantastic three-piece suit. Someone as tall and as broad-shouldered as him should have probably looked more at home in jeans and flannel, especially with the messy hair and stubble, but God he worked that suit. As he approached, I found my mind wandering into fantasy land—Braden kissing me, lifting me up onto the worktops, pushing my legs apart, pressing into me, his tongue in my mouth, his hand on my breast, his other hand slipping between my legs…


Unbelievably turned on, I whirled around, willing the kettle to boil faster.


“I have a meeting in half an hour,” he replied, coming to a stop beside me and reaching for the kettle before I could. “Thought I’d stop by and see if everything was okay. Things seemed tense last night before Ellie and I left.”


I watched him pour the water into our mugs, trying to decide whether or not to tell him about James and Rhian.


“Morning,” Ellie chirped, as she strolled into the kitchen, fresh awake and already washed and dressed. Her cardigan was inside out. I reached out and tugged at the label so she could see. Smiling sheepishly, she shrugged out of it and put it back on the right way around. “So I came home and James wasn’t on the couch. Did he sleep in your room?”