Carrie

Posh guy isn’t so much of a dick as I thought he would be. I normally hate rich people – they look down their noses when I pass them on the street like they’re so much better than me. But being rich doesn’t give you a free pass out of Dumbville. Having money doesn’t make your shit smell any better than mine.

I thought I’d hate this guy, Jack, but I don’t. Even though he’s a negligent asshole with his fencing, and his temper is as hot as mine, he doesn’t seem like an absolute total douche.

I feel a weird sizzle when he’s close, and it’s not just because he’s a proper man – like Michael –but because he’s different to everyone else I’ve ever met. A different different to Michael.

Michael is strong and calm and considered. Michael looks at me as though I’m someone who could be somebody someday. He looks at me as though I’m more than my shitty reputation, like I have my own mind and my own brain and my own reasons for acting like I do.

Michael gives me hope I’ve never dared to have before – that there maybe someone out there strong enough to hold me tight and not let go. Who can see through all my shit and call it out for what it is – a stupid, shitty way of coping with being alone.

Jack, on the other hand, he seems like the guy who’ll see through all my shit and hold me firm, keep me right. Jack seems like the kind of guy to not take any shit at all.

His features are harder than Michael’s. His hair is cropped short and his jaw is solid. His eyes are dark and heavy and his nose is slightly Roman. He’s put together well for a guy who’s clearly greying. He’s got to be at least forty, too.

I guess they’ve been friends a long time, him and Michael. I’m good at reading people, because knowing people’s ways is in my blood, and it’s obvious these guys really give a shit about each other. The way people should give a shit about each other but rarely do.

Even though Jack has every right to be seriously pissed at both of us, he shakes his head and helps us out, cleaning up the crow shit and picking up the feathers from the sides.

I wonder why he came back early. I wonder why he didn’t call the cops and make a big fucking scene.

I’m really relieved I can stay. It makes me scared how relieved I am, because good things hurt so bad when they’re taken away, and I’m not sure I wanna go through that. I’m not sure I can stand losing Michael before he’s even been mine.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand losing this house, with its big airy windows and it’s lovely green fields. I’d find it so easy to fall in love with this place.

And to fall in love with being around these guys, too.

I feel safe as I work alongside them, even though they’re both pissed at me for different reasons. I’ve never had people pissed at me before who’ve knuckled down all the same and helped me sort my crap out.

They don’t have to help me clean up this mess, but they do.

Jack doesn’t have to give me a roof over my head for another few days, and I don’t know why he is, but I’m grateful. I’m grateful he cared enough to sweep up the glass and not call the cops on me. I’m grateful he cared enough not to make Michael pay for my stupid fuck up.

I work as hard as I can, because I’m not lazy and I want them to know it. I get carried away in the moment sometimes, and I don’t always think about the practical stuff, but I’m not a slacker.

I didn’t mean to trash Jack’s pretty house, it’s just that I cared about saving the crow more than I cared about his carpets.

I hope he knows that.

I hope Michael knows that too.

Michael fills up a tub of soapy water and attacks the white living room carpet with a scrubbing brush. He doesn’t stop scrubbing, not even as I drop to my knees alongside him and place my hand on his.

“I can do it,” I say, but he sighs and carries on. He flinches when I turn his face to mine, closing his eyes as my fingers brush the shadow of stubble on his jawline. I hate the way he shies away from me touching him. If he hadn’t then I’d have tried to kiss him again like I did last night.

“Let me do it,” I insist and he lets go of his grip on the brush.

“I should’ve called last night,” he tells me, staying put on his haunches as I continue what he started. I glance up at Jack as he heads past us into the hallway with a pan of more broken glass. I wait until I’m sure he’s out of earshot.

“You should’ve stayed last night,” I tell him. “You should’ve stayed with me. We both wanted it.”

“This needs to stop,” he says and my heart pains. When he’s serious he means it. He always means it. I both hate and love how he always means what he says.

I play ignorant. “What needs to stop?”

He brushes my hair away from my forehead and smiles one of those sad smiles. It’s not you, it’s me. Such a fucking cliché.

I hope he doesn’t insult me by fucking saying it.

“I care about you,” he says. “I care about what happens to you. Fuck, Carrie, I was worried sick about you. But I can’t let this turn into anything it shouldn’t be.”

“Anything it shouldn’t be?” My tone comes our sharper than I mean it. “Who’s to say how this should and shouldn’t be?! Who makes up the rules?!” My eyes burn into his. “Did you make them up? What about what I think should and shouldn’t be?”

I stare right at him, all thoughts of scrubbing muddy boot prints drifting into nothing.

“I want you,” I tell him. “I want to be with you. When I’m with you, I feel like we fit. I feel like you could get me, even when I don’t get myself.” I pause. “And I feel like I could get you too.”

“We do fit,” he says. “And that’s a good thing. We can be friends, Carrie. I’d like to be your friend.”

I’d laugh if I wasn’t so fucking mortified.

Fucking friend-zoned by the hot older guy I’ve been getting myself off over for months.

It stings bad.

“Friends?! You want to be my fucking friend?!”

“Yes,” he says, and he’s got that serious edge to him again. “I’d very much like to be your friend, Carrie.”

“And that’s all, just friends? No matter what?” My eyes search his for a chink in his armour, but he looks so sure.

“Just friends,” he says. “And I’ll be your friend no matter what. I’m on your side, Carrie, always. You can count on me.”

I hear Jack’s footsteps in the hallway, and I’m too fucking proud for either of them to see me upset like a silly little cow, so I grit my teeth, shrug my shoulders and act like I don’t give a shit about Michael Warren anyway.

“Fine,” I tell him. “Just fucking friends it is then.”

I turn my back on him and scrub that carpet until I get blisters.

They don’t hurt nearly as much as my heart does.

* * *

Jack

I try to work out if they’ve fucked or not. Michael’s got stronger control over his fucking dick than I have if he hasn’t fucked the girl already.

Whatever heated exchange they’re having on my living room carpet dries up as I return. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife as Carrie scrubs the carpet like a lunatic.

Oh how quickly things change.

This morning I boarded a plane with the sole intention of putting an end to Michael’s Carrie Wells insanity for good. This evening I’ve invited the crazy girl to stay in my home, not for Michael’s sake, but for hers.

Hers and maybe mine.

I’m rarely excited by anything, but I’m excited by her.

When I was a kid, I loved going to watch daredevil stunts with my dad. I loved the guys on bikes doing flips in the air and the people getting shot out of cannons. I loved magic shows where the pretty assistant always got sawn in half in a box.

It always felt so exhilarating – the inevitable buzz of adrenalin that zipped up my spine at the thought that something could really go wrong. As though I was dancing with danger just by looking on from the sidelines.

That’s how Carrie Wells makes me feel – only I’m not on the sidelines with Carrie Wells, I’m right in the fucking arena.

Being around her feels like dancing with danger. It’s all in her eyes. In her wildness. In the way she gives no fucks for social norms and conventions.

It’s in the way I know she won’t be tamed, but I want to try anyway.

I don’t fucking know why, but I do.

I’m watching the clock until sensible Michael heads home for a sensible sleep before work tomorrow. I’m wondering how much work of my own I’ll get done knowing this exotic sprite of destruction is loose in my house tomorrow.

Michael hovers a long while before he leaves. He declines a beer as we finish up the cleaning. He declines a coffee too, stating – as predicted – that he needs a decent night’s sleep in order to give his meetings the best of himself tomorrow.

He’s always trying to give the best of himself.

If he hasn’t fucked Carrie Wells yet, that’ll be the reason why. His own inflated sense of decency.

I tell him I’ll see him soon when he finally heads off for the night. Carrie nods her head but says very little, even though he prompts her for a goodnight.

I can’t keep up with their exchanges. One minute they’re falling over themselves to take the blame for each other, the next they won’t even look each other in the eye.

She looks shocked as I hand her a cold beer from the fridge.

“I think you’ve earned it,” I tell her and clink my bottle against hers.

“Just cleaning up my mess,” she says but swigs it back with a smile.

I pull out a stool from the kitchen island and take a seat. She follows suit, propping her grubby elbows on the freshly wiped marble like we haven’t just spent an age making this house presentable.

I’m not like Michael with his super reasonable approach to life. I like to hammer down the ground rules and make sure everyone knows where I stand on things.

I’m direct and I give no fucks for anything less.

“Let’s get a few things straight,” I say and she cocks her head at me. “I may be letting you stay, but I’m not a total fucking moron. If you want to stay under my roof, you’ll be treating the place with respect.”

“I’ve got more respect than you have for the place,” she tells me. “When was the last time you checked on your land?”

I shoot a look at the window, staring at the blackness beyond. “You mean my fields?” I shrug. “Fields pretty much take care of themselves last time I checked, with a little helping hand from the sheep in them.”

“That’s your problem,” she says. “You don’t know your own land. You have no respect for it. You like the house but not what comes along with it. Maybe you should be a city boy instead.”

Her assumptions rile me and my tone lets her know it. “You think you’re from the land? From a tribe of nature in harmony with the soul of these parts? Is that what you think?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Something like that actually, yeah.”

I take another swig of beer. “Listen, sweetheart, if you cut my family tree it would bleed the sap of this fucking county and all the years we worked the land here. I’ll show you, if you like? Agriculture runs all the way back through my bloodline on the very same soil my house rests on now. I belong in a city no more than you do, I’m just better at blending in.”

“So why are you so fucking useless with the gifts you have, then?” she asks, and it takes me aback.

“Why didn’t I fix a fucking fence, you mean? I have hundreds of fences. Miles of hedgerows and brooks and ditches. You think I’m going to keep an eye on every part of it all the time?”

“You should,” she snaps, and I laugh.

“If you’re so bothered about my fences, why don’t you head out there and fix them up for me?”

I’m surprised when her confidence shrivels. She spins her bottle in her fingers and looks at the table, not at me.

I feel a tiny shiver of enlightenment, as though I’ve lifted up a pebble in a rock pool and found a desperate little crab underneath.

“Well?” I prompt. “You could head out there and fix them up for me. I’d say that was a fair exchange for a roof over your head, no?”

Her eyes meet mine but they’re guarded. “You mean like a job? An actual job?”

“I mean like contributing to your keep. Doing what you can to keep the place together. If you’re staying here too, you should be invested in keeping the place looked after, don’t you think?”

“But I’m only here for a few days…” she says. “I’ll hardly have time…”

I’m surprised to find I’m not even trying to fool myself into thinking she’ll be gone in a few days.

“Then you’d better work quickly, hadn’t you?”

She nods. “I can fix a fence, you’ll see. I’ll make it good as fucking new. Better than fucking new.”

“I hope so,” I say. “Carrie, I’m a fair guy. I like things to run smoothly. I believe in order and taking control of life and making your own luck. I’m happy to give you a shot here, but there will have to be ground rules. I’m not talking Michael-type ground rules, either – I’m no fucking social worker out to fix the world and everyone in it.”

“Ground rules like what?”

“Ground rules like don’t fucking take the piss out of me, treat the place with respect, and do what’s expected of you.”

“And what’ll be expected of me?”

I smile and finish up my drink.

“I’ll let you know when I’ve worked that out,” I tell her. “Goodnight, Carrie, I have work in the morning.”

I’ve reached the stairs before I hear her call goodnight after me.

My hand is down my pants before I’ve even reached the top stair, because I’ve no delusions of fucking morality when it comes to women I want to fuck.

Unlike poor fucking Michael.

I fire a text message off to him before I take a shower, man to man.

And then I shoot my load over my bathroom tiles while thinking about Carrie’s pretty little blue knickers.

* * *

Michael

I should be long asleep when the text message sounds.

It’s Jack, of course, not Carrie.

My heart thumps at the possibility that she’s already decimated his patience. Maybe she’s already descended into hissing monster Carrie and he’s thought better of his offer. Maybe it wouldn’t entirely be such a bad thing, having to bring her back here.

Maybe I could hide her from Pam long enough to figure something out. Maybe having her around could work, even if I won’t allow myself to cross the line with her. Maybe I’d even be able to help her through her shit without having to check all the right boxes at work.

I open the message, expecting the worst – but it’s nothing like that.

Man to fucking man, Michael, are you gonna fuck the girl or what?

My reply is instant, even though my gut aches with it.

Of course I’m fucking not.

It takes a while for him to reply. I’m just about drifting off to sleep when the phone bleeps at me.

But you want her? I’m talking for real here.

I don’t let myself go there because I daren’t. I daren’t allow myself to admit how I really feel about Carrie Wells, because once I do that there’ll be no going back. I can’t allow myself to contemplate the serious potential of crossing the line with a girl less than half my age, a girl who depends on me to help her through this shitty time in her life. A girl who’s had nobody constant who’ll stand strong in the face of all her whims and tricks and silly games.

A girl who needs to know she can rely on me to be her friend above all other things, even if I’m in love with her.

I’m in love with her.

Fucking in love with her.

I’ve never felt so alive as I feel when I’m around her, and if I let myself entertain the possibility that this could be, even for a second, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to live my normal life again.

So I don’t.

I say the right thing.

The sensible thing.

No, I don’t want her and you shouldn’t either. She’s barely even eighteen, Jack. She’s a girl who needs care, not fucking cock.

I don’t get a response to that one.

And I don’t get any fucking sleep either.