Jack

Carrie Wells is a one-girl whirlwind of backchat in my once peaceful home. She’s noisy and obnoxious, messy and disorganised with no respect whatsoever for timekeeping.

Every evening I head home from work nervous of what the fuck I’ll find there, and yet I’m still excited when I turn the key in my front door.

Michael’s right, of course. There’s no way he should contemplate fucking Carrie Wells, and neither should I.

But I am contemplating it. I’m contemplating it every fucking minute.

Still, I do try to talk myself down from pursuing that tight little pussy of hers, simply because I have no idea where that kind of crap would lead any of us. The girl is a loose cannon, and I’ve never been one for commitment. I’m rarely still interested in a woman after she’s spent the night in my bed, and where would that leave our living arrangement if it comes to a thanks, but no thanks next morning?

You know what they say: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned – and Carrie Wells is both crazy and furious enough to make Hell’s own demons shit a ton of bricks. I really don’t need that kind of insanity on my plate, not while she’s holed up in my house.

But that’s really not what concerns me at the heart of it, not if I’m being totally honest with myself.

What concerns me most of all, is that this excitement I feel around Carrie Wells would survive a night in my bed, and escalate all the more because of it.

There’s no doubt she’s craving some kind of stability, and as grotesquely adult and responsible as it is, I feel a strange compulsion to help the girl find her own straight and narrow and keep her on it.

I know that helping Carrie has been Michael’s job for the past five months, and I know he’s been giving it his all, but whereas Michael usually has the experience to excel in this kind of one-on-one coaching, I can’t help but feel he’s slightly off the mark with this one.

Scrap that, I think he’s well off the mark with this one.

Call me arrogant for forming an opinion after just a few days in her company, but I really think I’m onto something.

Where Michael is trying the calm, stable and supportive routine, I think he should be giving her an earful of shit. Where Michael seems like he wants to wrap her broken bits in cotton wool, I think he should be putting a heavy foot down on her bad behaviour,

In short, I think Carrie Wells needs discipline as well as support. Probably even more so.

I think she needs a heavy hand to keep her in line, and I think she’d flourish for it.

I think she’d even like it.

I know Michael’s hands were mostly tied at work. He had boxes to tick and guidelines to adhere to. He had allocated time slots to make a difference and the clock was always ticking.

But not anymore. Not here.

Not for any of us.

I strongly doubt Carrie’s ever been given boundaries by someone who isn’t intimidated by her craziness. I doubt she’s ever been made to understand the concept of tough love.

Maybe not even any love.

I see it in her eyes when they meet mine over our late night beer. I hear it in her voice when she tells me she doesn’t need anyone and doesn’t give a fuck what I think of her approach to loading up the dishwasher so insanely high it’s almost impossible to close.

She’s a bag of backchat and bluster, pushing and poking me for a reaction whenever I’m in her company, but I see enough to get a sense of the troublesome girl with the raven hair.

It’s not that Michael isn’t around enough to draw his own conclusions about what Carrie needs. He heads over every evening when his workday is done to check in on her. He makes calls to various associations about her living arrangements and talks her through the paperwork, even though she’s thoroughly disinterested in everything he’s doing for her.

Carrie gives him nothing because she’s a snotty bitch who’s punishing him for sticking to his morals. I see it even if he can’t.

That’s why I decide to broach it with her after the first swig of beer goes down a treat this evening.

“Straight up answer,” I begin. “Why are you being such a fucking bitch to him?”

She raises her eyebrows like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but I laugh in her face.

“Cut the crap, Carrie, we both know you’re freezing him out. You want to humiliate him for giving a shit about you. Why?”

“You’re fucking mad.” She taps the side of her head. “You’re seeing shit that isn’t there.”

“You’re fucking mad if you think I can’t see right through you,” I tell her. “I just want to know why.”

She shrugs. “Because he’s a fucking dick.”

I shake my head. “Nice try, sugarplum. We both know the guy’s not a fucking dick. Just a couple of days ago you were desperate to confess your undying devotion to him in my living room. Now you act like he’s the biggest loser piece of shit you’ve ever met.”

“He treated me like the biggest loser piece of shit he’s ever met.”

I take another swig of beer. “What do you mean?”

She folds her arms.

“Carrie, what do you mean?”

She groans. “Why can’t you mind your own fucking business?”

I’m not going to let this go. No fucking way.

“It’s hard to mind my own fucking business in my own fucking house, Carrie.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to be nice to a guy who says he doesn’t want you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “He said that?”

She nods. “Friends, that’s what he said we can be. Such fucking bullshit.”

“Friends isn’t the same thing as saying he doesn’t want you.”

She kicks my stool with her boot. “’Tis as far as I’m concerned. He can go fuck himself.” She tips back her drink. “I don’t want him anymore anyway. I don’t give a fuck that he blew me out.”

I know she must be lying, but my hands feel clammy all the same.

“You don’t want him anymore?”

Her eyes aren’t just piercing tonight, they’re dangerous. Her guarded stare gives me the fucking shivers.

“So, what do you want?” I prompt.

“I want you to shut the fuck up,” she snaps.

But I won’t, because she’s sucking her bottom lip as she spins her bottle in her fingers. I won’t, because the sight of her sitting there makes my cock twitch in my pants.

Because I don’t want her to want Michael, not anymore.

I want her to want me.

I want her to look me in the eye and ask me to stay the night, even though it would be crazy.

And I think she knows it.

“He cares about you,” I tell her.

“He can fuck off,” she says, and this time she looks like she really means it.

I can’t fucking keep up with the girl.

* * *

Carrie

 

I know Jack and Michael both think I’m being a lazy bitch who doesn’t give a shit, not for all the advice they’re trying to give me, and not for the way they sigh and shake their heads and try to work me out. I tell them nothing about the work I’m doing on the fences while they’re busy in their day jobs. I tell them nothing about the way I leave Jack’s place every morning and dig around the outbuildings for supplies as soon as his big fancy car pulls off the driveway.

I keep my mouth shut because I’ve never done this kind of shit before and I don’t want to look like a total fucking idiot for getting it wrong. I’ve never hammered in fence posts and strung wire fencing, and trimmed back overgrown hedgerows and measured out planks before. I check out videos on my phone through Jack’s Wi-Fi whenever I’m grabbing a quick sandwich for lunch, and I may not have any swanky grades from school, but by the end of the first week of sorting out Jack’s neglected grounds, I think I might be okay at doing this stuff.

I think I might even be good at it.

My fences don’t look half bad, and they’re strong, too. I’ve tested them out by vaulting them and clambering over them and trying to wiggle them in the ground. My muscles are aching and I feel like I’ve run a marathon by the time Friday afternoon comes around, but there’s a weird glow in my belly.

I did something good.

Something I’m actually proud of.

And although I’m nervous about showing them, just in case I’m wrong and they tell me I’ve made a right mess of it all, I’m excited about surprising them. I’m excited about proving to them I’m not just some loser who’s watching daytime TV in Jack’s house every day.

It still hurts that Michael doesn’t want me. It still hurts that he blew me out when I thought there was really something between us.

It’s been days now since he told me he’s not interested. He’s still kind but he’s guarded, and when he’s trying to talk me through whatever crappy agency he’s working out my fate with next, all I can think about is the way he’s so tense. It’s like he thinks I’m going to jump him any second. Like I don’t know what I’m not interested means and stand a chance of making more of a tit out of myself than I already did with him.

No fear there.

And then there’s Jack. Jack who I first thought was nothing but a douche with a load of money. Jack who I thought for sure would chuck me onto the street and never want to see me again.

Jack who now gives me a beer every evening and talks straight, no bullshit and no dicking about. He says what he thinks, and what he thinks is that I’m being a bitch to Michael without good reason.

He doesn’t know how much it stings to want someone who doesn’t want you back.

But now things are getting complicated, because a few weeks ago I thought all I ever wanted was Michael. The way his eyes are firm but kind. The way he doesn’t want to let me down. The way I know his calmness would disappear the minute his suit came off and I got my mouth around that big dick I know he’s packing. I’ve seen the promise of it when he’s hard but tries to hide it.

I’ve been checking him out for months and liked every single thing I’ve seen.

But here, in Jack’s place, with a whole other proper man to scope out every evening, I realise that it’s not just being grateful that has me feeling butterflies every time I hear his car in the driveway after work. It’s not just wanting some company that has my heart racing every time he grabs me a beer out of the fridge.

Jack’s eyes aren’t kind, not like Michael’s. They’re tough and raw and brutal. His words are blunt but fair. And the way he wears his suit is different to the way Michael wears his. Michael has an almost scholarly look about him, like he’s some kind of boffin professor or something. Jack’s looks like he was born to wear it.

I don’t like suits but I like them on Jack.

I like them on Michael, too.

I like the way both of these guys are put together, and in bed at night I think of both of them.

It breaks my heart to think I might not get either, but I’m not done yet.

Michael doesn’t want me and he’s made sure I know it, but Jack…

Jack looks at me. Not just like Bill and Eli and Eddie Stevens looked at me. He doesn’t try to sneak a peek every time I’m sitting opposite him in a low cut top. He doesn’t try to check me out in the shower when I leave the bathroom door slightly open – and I do.

Jack looks at me like I’m a proper woman, even if he isn’t about to make a move on me. He looks at me as though he could tear my clothes off and fuck me hard and know what the fuck he was doing, even if he isn’t going to. And I am a proper woman. I’m eighteen and I’m not sorry for the fact that I want to get fucked by a guy who can’t keep his hands off me.

But Jack hasn’t made a single move. Doesn’t even hint that he wants to.

I wish he would, but he doesn’t.

I’ve almost finished up a fresh section of fencing when the sky turns grey. I work quickly, because I planned to take pictures of this bit all finished up. I’m panting and sweating by the time the rain starts, and when it starts it starts hard.

I’m soaked through by the time I’ve hammered in the last few nails, skidding through the mud up the bank as I gather up my things and try to get a decent shot of my finished railings. My boots are definitely past it. Their grip is useless as I try to keep my footing, and my arms are too full of tools to keep my balance. I go tumbling, tits first into a sloppy pile of mud, and if I were an indoor kind of girl I’d be pissed, because my clothes are plastered with mud and sheep shit and fuck knows what else. My open jacket did little to protect my cami and bra, and any other colour than white would have definitely been a better choice for doing this kind of work in if I had all that many options to choose from. But I don’t.

I can’t stop laughing as I pull myself up. The rain on my muddy skin feels amazing. Getting so up close and personal with the outdoors sings to my soul, even if I am filthy now. I ditch my jacket in the mud and spin on the spot, not caring that my muddy hair is plastered to my scalp, or the rain is trickling down between my tits, or that I can taste the earth on my tongue.

It’s a moment I want to keep forever, so I dig my mobile out of my pocket and angle it for a selfie. I hardly ever take photos of myself, and it feels weird. I make sure I hold the camera up high so you can see the fencing down below behind me, and I blink the rain from my eyes and give a smile.

And then I see how low my cami is now it’s wet through. I see how you can see the scrappy lace of my old bra and the shape of my nipples poking through the fabric.

I think about Jack and Michael seeing me like this.

I think about Jack wanting me and Michael seeing how wrong he was for turning his back on having what could have been his.

I think about them getting hard when they see how much of a woman I really am under my baggy clothes and messy hair.

So I tug my top down just a bit more. Just enough that the camera shows more than it should. And then I smile a dirty smile and take the photo.

By the time I’ve finished up ditching Jack’s tools back where I found them, it’s later than usual. The lights are on in the kitchen when I kick off my muddy boots by the back door, and the kettle is already on. My heart is pumping as Jack steps in from the hallway, and my cheeks burn up as he does a double take at the state of me.

“What the–” he begins, and marches his way over.

“I’ve been out,” I tell him.

“No shit,” he says. He reaches behind me to grab a couple of mugs from the cupboard.

“I fell,” I tell him and he cocks an eyebrow.

“You look like you’ve been mud bathing.”

I fold my arms across my filthy tits. “I’ve been working.”

“Working?”

I nod, already feeling self-conscious about the big reveal I’ve been planning for days.

It feels so much more stupid now it’s nearly here.

I notice Jack’s only pulled out two mugs. “Where’s Michael?”

“Leaving do. Some temp worker from his office. He’ll be over tomorrow.”

My heart drops. “Tomorrow?”

Jack nods. “Will probably be a late one, these crappy socials normally are.”

“Only if you want to stay at them.” I can’t help feeling rejected, even though it’s stupid. I can’t help feeling like he should be as excited to get here as I am excited to see him, even though I hate him now.

“He’ll be over in the morning,” Jack says. “Give the guy a break, will you? He’s been fawning around you all pissing week already.”

He hasn’t been fawning around me at all, just trying to get me some shitty council accommodation, but I don’t say it.

I must look sad because Jack tips his head and sighs. “If you miss him so fucking much, maybe you should stop being such a cow when he’s here.”

“It’s complicated,” I say and he laughs.

“You’re fucking complicated, Carrie.” He stirs my tea, and I love the way he knows just how I like it now. He puts in just the right amount of milk and hands it over. “Where did you go?”

I gesture to my top. “For a browse around the shops, where does it look like I’ve pissing been?”

“Good. I’m glad you got out for some fresh air. Better for you than watching crappy daytime TV all your life. That shit will rot your brain, you know.”

And that’s when I decide to show him. Michael be damned.

I reach inside my pocket and pull out my mobile, and my fingers are shaking as I call up the gallery app. “I don’t watch fucking TV,” I tell him as I select the very first photo I took of my fencing. “I’ve been working.”

“Working?”

I nod and shove the handset at him. “Working, yeah. Sorting your shit fucking fencing out.”

I hold my breath as he flicks through the images, trying to pretend I’m not nervous as he checks it out. But I am nervous. I feel like my whole fucking soul is exposed to him.

If he says it’s shit, I’ll want to cry and I know it. If he says it’s no good, I’ll have to run away and never come back, because I’ll never want to see those fields again, even though I love them.

“You did this?” he asks and his eyes burn right into mine.

I nod. “Yeah.”

“All of it?”

I sigh. “Think I called out a maintenance crew? Yes, Jack, I did all of it.”

He keeps flicking through the images. “This is incredible. You’ve done every bloody paddock.”

I shake my head. “Not every one. There’s some at the top that need fixing up, but I’ll do them. I’ll finish up next week.”

He looks between me and the phone, and he’s impressed. My heart soars as I see it. He’s definitely impressed.

“I don’t know what to say,” he says.

“You could say thanks,” I tell him, and hate the way my tone is so fucking snarky all the time.

“Thank you,” he says and I feel like a bitch. “You’ve done an amazing job. I’m blown away.” He’s still flicking through the images, and I cringe as I register how many I’ve taken. So many fucking pictures of fences and bits of wood and fields from different angles. My memory card is jammed full of them. “I’ll pay you,” he adds. “You’ve more than earned it. This is worth way more than a bit of food and lodging.”

“You don’t have to pay me,” I say, and I don’t want him to. I don’t want it to feel like they’re his fields and I was just a nobody doing him a favour.

I worked so hard because, just for these few days, it felt like they may be mine too. Like they’re a part of me now.

Like I belong in them.

I take a breath as I notice him swallow. His thumb hovers. And I know where he is. I just know it. He’s reached the end of the gallery, and the selfie I took just a few minutes ago.

His eyes flick from the phone to my open jacket and my soaked cami top. They darken when they meet mine.

“This is a dangerous game to play,” he tells me, and my heart races. I grit my teeth instinctively, because that wasn’t quite the fucking reaction I was hoping for.

“What’s a fucking dangerous game?”

He spins the handset, like I haven’t seen the picture already. But it’s worse than I thought. My top looks even lower than I remember. You can pretty much see the dark circles under my bra.

I look like a slut.

A wet, muddy, filthy little slut.

“Was this for Michael?”

“Of course it wasn’t for fucking Michael,” I sneer. “Michael doesn’t fucking want me, remember?”

“Then who?” he asks. “Who were you going to show this to?”

“No-fucking-one,” I lie.

And just like he usually is, with his calling bullshit on every fucking thing, he looks me straight in the eye, so fierce it fucking burns, and then he says it. He just fucking says it.

“If you wanted me to see your tits, Carrie, you should have just shown me your tits. No need for the theatrics. I’ve seen plenty of them in my time.”

He thinks I’m playing stupid slutty games, and I am.

He thinks I wanted him to see me, and I do.

The self-consciousness burns, and my stomach does a flip, because I do want him to see me. I want him to see me and be as impressed as he was about the fencing. I want him to look at me like he did a few minutes ago when he thought I was amazing.

“You think I took that so you could see my fucking tits?!” I hiss, like he’s well fucking off the mark.

“Didn’t you?”

I shrug. “Don’t give a shit either way. You can look if you want.”

“I wasn’t looking,” he says. “You showed me.”

“I ain’t shown you nothing. Can’t even see my fucking nipples.”

He flips the phone in my direction. “Yes, Carrie, I can see your nipples perfectly well, thank you.” His eyes go straight to my top, and they’re still poking through the fabric. I know they are. My cheeks burn. He hands back my phone, and even though I’m burning up I hate that it’s over.

Jack sips his tea like nothing’s happened, but it has. It has to me.

I’ve nothing to go on but one single second of his first reaction, because he’s been cool as fucking ice for the rest of it. But he swallowed. He swallowed and his eyes widened, just for a second. But it’s enough.

It’s enough to take a chance on.

It’s enough to take a risk on his stupid fucking comment.

So without a word I slip my jacket from my shoulders and tug my straps down. I pull my muddy cami down over my tits and pull my bra down with it. And I stand there, with fierce eyes as Jack takes a step back.

I stare as he stares, nerves dancing as his gaze rests upon my naked tits, nipples still pointy from the cold.

And then I try to come out with some snarky comment. Just like I always do.

Only there isn’t one there.

For the first time ever, my smart mouth stays shut.