Today, December 24th
When I got out of Jack’s car, he said, ‘I’ll see you later.’
I looked back at him. He was leaning on the passenger seat, while his other hand still gripped the steering wheel. ‘Yeah, see you later.’
He smiled as I shut the door.
Shit. I must be mad. This was a stupid thing to do. When he drove off, I lifted a hand and stood there like an idiot, waving at him. A big guy was walking down the street. He looked at me. I turned to climb the steps up to the front door then glanced over my shoulder to take one final look at Jack’s car as it turned the corner. The stranger caught my eye, smiled at me like he was laughing at me, then pulled his beanie hat lower and carried on walking.
I keyed in the code to get into the house and up to my flat, my heart playing out a manic dance rhythm. I was excited and terrified all at once.
I’d never done anything crazy before.
My hands shook as I packed, while the adrenaline dripped out of my blood, the excitement draining out and leaving the nervousness behind. I didn’t put a lot in my case. I didn’t need clothes for staying in bed for a week—having naughty, nasty, sex.
The words gave me shivers. I heard them in Jack’s voice and I felt them in naughty places.
The buzzer on the intercom sounded.
I answered, ‘Hi.’
‘Are you ready?’
I looked back at the case on my bed. I’d shove some heels in and my black dress, then… ‘Yes.’
‘Do you want me to come up and carry your case?’
‘Oo, you’re such a gentleman when you’re not talking about sex. No. I’ll manage. I’ll meet you outside.’ My heart bounced against my ribcage, partly excitedly and partly terrified. The adrenaline was kicking back in now I’d heard his voice.
This was so random. When I’d woken up this morning I’d imagined spending a week in my pyjamas, streaming constant films so I could avoid all the C-word specials, with Ben and Jerry’s on tap.
‘You’re being stupid,’ Rick’s voice said in my head, with a sharp note of warning.
I squeezed my favourite high-heeled shoes into the backpack I had my makeup and toiletries in, grabbed my dress out of the wardrobe and lay it on top of my clothes in the case, then closed the lid. There. Ready. I was done. I was going. Doing this.
I smiled as I left my room and let the door slam shut behind me. But then I turned around and pushed it to check it had shut. In the way Rick would have done. It had shut.
I smiled again as I walked downstairs. I hadn’t left Rick to spend the rest of my life in an attic flat for one. And I didn’t want to begin breeding cats to fight the loneliness. I’d turned the opportunity of life with Rick down because I wanted to do different things. Exciting things. To live in the moment. To feel my heart race. I wanted to be one of the fast-living, uncaring, naughty people – like Jack.
When I opened the downstairs front door, Jack was leaning with his bum against his F-Type Coupe, his keys in his hand. He was wearing the same black trousers and shoes, but he’d swapped his duffle coat for a waist-length leather jacket.
He shifted into movement when he saw me and came over to take the case out of my hand, with one of those tummy-flipping smiles.
‘I was half-expecting a text calling it all off.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought you might go cold on the idea.’
‘No. Still hot.’ I followed him down the steps.
He pressed the button on the key fob and the lights on the car flashed as the locks released, then he loaded my case into the boot, came around and opened the door for me.
‘Are you this much of a gentleman in bed?’
‘You’ll have to wait and see. But probably not. I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Nasty and a gentlemen… Nah.’ The sound at the end of the sentence implied… not a good fit.
My heart raced through the steps of River Dance. How naughty and ungentlemanly/nasty would he be in bed? The idea blew shivers through me.
The seat in his Jag felt like it hugged me. ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this. You do realise it’s nuts,’ I said as he dropped into the driver’s seat. ‘I have no idea how I’m going to work for you after this.’
‘With good memories,’ he said, as he started the engine.
I pressed my head back into the leather. Yes. With memories. That was a good currency; I was only going to trade in making amazing memories from now on – memories that made me go, wow did I do that? Memories that made my heart pound years later. Even if I ended up lonely, with loads of cats, I’d have memories.
Memories of Rick slipped through my head. But they weren’t anything to look back on in ten years’ time. They were like watching YouTube clips of cute kittens. There had been ‘ah’ moments. But never ‘wow, what was that?’ moments.
Biffy Clyro played out from the speakers in the car, ‘Animal Style’. Jack turned the music down a little.
‘I feel like I’m back at school, playing truant,’ I said when he pulled away.
He glanced over and smiled.
‘How long will it take to get there?’
‘It depends on the traffic: about four hours-ish, maybe five.’
He drove into the high street. ‘I have to keep my eyes open, as I’m driving, but feel free to shut yours if you want to avoid the C lights.’
I smiled, but it was twisted. He didn’t see my expression; he was watching the road. ‘You really are bitter. Is this offer of yours more to do with Sharon than me?’
‘Why? Would that make you ask me to turn around and drop you back home?’
My heart danced another Irish jig. ‘No. I’m not here for a relationship, am I? January 2nd, this is over. And you didn’t offer me anything but sex, so why should I care if you’re trying to shut Sharon out. This isn’t anything to do with feelings. So whatever the reason, I don’t care.’
‘Who is bitter?’
‘You. I split with Rick because when he asked me to marry him I couldn’t imagine spending my life with him. And before you ask why, he’s dull. I’m not bitter; I’m just seeking some excitement.’
He glanced at me, with an eyebrow-lift. ‘So your motive for fucking my brains out is to get the boring Rick out of your head. You’re right, I don’t mind if you make me your Rick-eraser. This isn’t about feelings. So that makes us even.’
A laugh came out awkwardly, then I turned the conversation off me. ‘Do you take women up to this place a lot?’
He glanced over again. ‘What, because I’m such a cheat?’
‘Jack, you flirt all the time. And you didn’t deny you’ve had affairs. And we aren’t blind at work, we see them flouncing into the office, and then you disappear—’
‘Flouncing into the office…’ He chuckled.
‘Have you ever done it with Emma?’ They were close, they’d been together for about six years. They’d become friends at uni and then built the business up from the ground together.
He looked at me with a twisted expression. ‘No. She’s my best friend, and she’d be really annoyed with me if she knew I was stealing you away for a dirty, extended weekend. I can hear her voice. Jack, you idiot, what do you think you’re doing? Ivy is one of our best people.’
‘Am I one of your best people?’
‘Doesn’t Em tell you that? She tells me it. She’s been warning me off you ever since you started.’
A surprised laugh was pulled from my throat. ‘Since I started…’
‘She’s seen me watching you.’
‘You watch me?’ I smiled, because I’d guessed he glanced at me at work, and it felt good to hear him admit it.
‘You watch me too.’
‘I do no—’ Him knowing that didn’t feel so nice.
‘Don’t you dare lie.’ He glanced over. ‘I’m not blind.’
I poked my tongue out at him as the traffic slowed and he stopped. His hand came over and squeezed my knee, then let go and returned to the gear stick.
‘But I’ve only seen you looking, because I watch you. The best view is when you wear those black-and-white chequered trousers and lean on to someone’s desk to talk. Your bum looks amazing in those. But then your bum looks pretty amazing in anything. I told you, people who look like you should not be with people like Rick. I cannot imagine, for one minute, that he knew how to deal with you.’
‘Deal with me…’ I discarded the comment, because it made a tremor run up my spine. I couldn’t imagine how Jack was going to, deal with me. ‘You’re such a player. I bet you watch Susie in Nero’s, and every other woman’s bum.’
‘No. Only the bottoms of the girls I really like. You’re one of them.’
A blush caught alight and flared into a hot flame under my skin.
‘See, Em doesn’t know what I know, that you fancy me too. I wouldn’t have made my suggestion to you tonight if I hadn’t known that.’
‘How could you know that?’
‘How could I know… ah, that’s nice, you admit it.’
I pulled a face at him as he stopped at a red light behind a scarlet double-decker bus.
We were driving along the Embankment, past Battersea, out of London. The dark, flowing water of the Thames was visible beside us, in places, reflecting the lights of the city.
His hand reached out again and his long fingers ran up my thigh, over my worn, faded, skinny jeans. ‘I’ve known it from the moment we interviewed you. Your eyes looked at mine through the whole thing. You barely looked at Em, like you just couldn’t take your eyes off me. You always look at me like that when I’m in a room. I like it.’
He made it sound cringe-worthy. ‘Have you fancied me since you interviewed me?’
‘You fancied me, remember. That’s a pretty good aphrodisiac to a man.’
‘And here was I thinking this invitation was a spur-of-the-moment thing, to get over a bad day.’
‘It is that. But also a good excuse to fulfil a few fantasies. Since you walked into the room for your interview, with those ridiculously long legs, I’ve been imagining some fun things.’
‘You’re far too sure of yourself, Jack.’
‘And you are far too unsure. I know you had no expectation this would happen.’
We’d flirted at work for years, but this wasn’t flirting, it was honesty. ‘If you fancied me, why didn’t you make a move earlier?’
‘I told you, Em’s been warning me off. Plus you had Rick on the scene, and I never got the vibe that you’d be up for cheating.’
‘No, I wouldn’t have done anything when I was with Rick, or you were with Sharon.’
‘Well then, perfect timing. A whole holiday of naughty to get over our sexual buzz, which has been crackling around the office for two years.’
‘And then what?’
‘Don’t be a woman, Ivy. Be a predator. ‘After’ doesn’t matter. Don’t think about it. ‘Now’ matters. Thinking about after is what makes life dull. You said you didn’t want dull.’
Thinking of ‘after’ is what makes people sensible. The retort Rick would have given raced through my head. But I wasn’t Rick. Think of now, I chanted in my head. That was what I’d wanted to do. That was why I was here.
Jack turned the music up as he navigated through the traffic in the city. There were thousands of people making their way out of London tonight, going home to family.
He glanced over at me. ‘What do you normally do this time of year?’
‘Go home to my parents, or Rick’s parents, it was an alternate-year thing.’
‘The parents fought over you two, then?’
‘No, what I mean is, alternate years his parents came to mine, or my parents went to his. They’re good friends.’
He glanced over again and laughed. ‘Oh shit. Now I get why you’re alone.’
‘I’m disowned.’ I laughed, in a weird way. I’d been trying to laugh it off, but it hadn’t been working. It hurt. ‘I was told to stay away. Mum’s embarrassed by me. She hasn’t worked out how to be in the middle of all the mess I made and she didn’t feel like she could cancel the dinner invitation. So Rick and his parents are with my parents and I’m here.’
‘And his parents?’
‘Think I’ll come around. They say what Rick says; it’s just jitters.’
‘Is it jitters?’
I looked at him, watching him drive. He was more of a silhouette in the dark as the streetlights and shop windows flashed past. ‘No, it’s not jitters. I like him, he is a really nice man, but I don’t love him. Or maybe it is love, but in the way I’d love a friend. I can’t build a life on that. I’d hate him in the end.’
‘Well, I know how that feels.’
‘What do you normally do?’
‘Me?’ He glanced over. It made me realise how rarely Jack spoke about himself. ‘One thing I never did was see my parents. They’d have considered it hell if I brought Sharon over for lunch. Sometimes we took Sharon’s parents out to a restaurant if they came to London, but not every year. Sharon preferred to party Christmas Eve and paid more weight to that than what we did Christmas Day. Christmas and Boxing Day were about recovering.’ He breathed in, like he thought of something else he would say, but he didn’t say it.
‘Do you realise you said that word three times, then?’
‘Oh fuck, I did, didn’t I? Alright, from now on, if either of us says it, the other gets to think of a forfeit.’
I smiled at that, imagining all sorts of forfeits I’d choose for him, while my tummy quivered, wondering what he’d pick for me. ‘I might start using the word to make you give me forfeits.’
He laughed. ‘Then I’d change the rules. I seriously hate that word now. I hate the whole notion of it and everything it stands for.’
‘Ooo, got it. Bitter… much…’
He glanced over at me and laughed, shaking his head.
‘When did you meet Sharon?’
‘The year we started the business up, oddly enough, although now I realise not oddly at all. I met her the night we won our first big contract. Em always had Sharon down as a money-grabbing bitch.’
‘If Emma didn’t like Sharon, why did you go ahead and marry her?’
‘Em is my friend, not my minder. I listen to what she says in business, I don’t listen to her when she is commenting on my private life, and that’s exactly why you’re in this car, Ivy.’
Point noted. I grinned at him. ‘But—’
‘No buts, leave it. I don’t want to talk about Sharon, not tonight anyway. I’ve had my fill of her today.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You don’t need to apologise, just avoid the subject.’
‘We seem to be setting a lot of rules that are narrowing down our conversation, so I’m just going to shut up. Do you have any quieter music on your phone?’
‘Take a look. You can manage the music.’ He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his phone. It had been playing the music via Bluetooth. I opened up his music and scanned through the albums as he drove out of London. I chose Ed Sheeran’s album Multiply, then shut my eyes, listening to the songs as we hit the motorway. The car was warm with the air-con up high and the seat was comfortable.
When I woke up Jack had Maroon 5 playing, and his hand tapped on the steering wheel as he sang along to ‘Sugar’.
I stretched my arms up. I’d dreamt he’d been watching me through the whole of the Monday meeting and then before he closed the meeting he’d walked up, taken my hand and pulled me out of there and we’d run away.
It was sort of real; I was in a car with him.
I looked through the windscreen into the middle of nowhere. We were on a virtually deserted motorway.
‘What time is it?’
‘Hey, sleepy-head.’ He glanced over and smiled then looked at the clock in the dashboard that I could have looked at. ‘It’s eleven-ten. I was just going to stop, stretch my legs and get a coffee.’
‘I need a pee.’
‘That too. These are the last services before the Lake District.’
‘How far away are we from your cottage?’
‘About an hour, maybe a little less.’
I yawned, even though I’d slept for hours. I hadn’t slept well for days. I’d been too messed up over everything going on with Rick.
The services sign was up ahead, and then the white bar signs counted down to the turning. Jack flipped the indicator on and turned on to the slip road.
There were only about a dozen cars parked in there. I guess most people were not in a motorway services at nearly midnight on… I didn’t say the word, not even to myself, he was right, we should treat this like a normal day.
After he parked up, he looked at me. ‘Pull the hood of your parka up, then you won’t have to look at any of that festive shit. I’m wrapping my scarf around my head.’
I laughed.
‘We’re going in, doing what we need to do, then we’ll grab a coffee from Burger King. They’re right by the door and they’ll be quick, and we can drink it out here.’
‘Don’t you want a longer break from the car?’
‘No. I’d rather not put up with that fucking merry music playing.’
He pulled a beanie hat out of his pocket, slid it on and pulled it down to his eyebrows. Then he reached over the back, through the gap between the seats, and grabbed a scarf, folded it double and wrapped it around his neck, then pulled one half through the other. Finally, he settled both his beanie and his scarf so they covered his ears and nearly covered his eyes. ‘I’m ready.’
I flicked my hood up. ‘Come on, then.’ I opened the door when he did.
It was cold outside. I’d swear it was colder than London had been. I shoved my hands into my pockets as I shivered, walking towards the services. He caught up with me and his arm came around my shoulders. It felt nice.
We walked up to the door like that, with me leaning against him.
As soon as we walked in, though, we realised his plan wasn’t going to work, there was a metal grill barring access to Burger King – they’d already closed up and gone home.
Wizzard’s, ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’, played out.
‘Shit,’ he said under his breath.
‘I fancy a change of seat for a bit, anyway, a hard chair in the café will wake me up.’
‘Alright, I’ll brave the good cheer for you. But I need the toilet first.’
‘So do I. I’ll meet you in the café.’
‘Okay.’
We parted ways.
When I came out he was standing at the entrance to the café, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking stupid with his hat pulled down and his scarf pulled up, but of course his striking blue eyes against his dark lashes and brows, and the bone structure of his cheeks were still visible. I’d bet, even half covered up like that, the women in here thought he was the best-looking man who’d been through here for days. The women in the café were watching him.
‘You owe me big time for making me stand here listening to this merry fucking music.’
The merry music, was now ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham.
‘Can we get something to eat? I’m starving.’
‘Sure, go on then. I’d be mean to make you wait another hour.’
I picked up a tuna-melt for the server to heat up. ‘Are you having something?’
He took a look at what was left in the chiller and chose a pasta salad. Then he shouted over to the girls who were waiting on our order. ‘I’ll have a cappuccino but with three shots, and a skinny, vanilla latte…’ He glanced at me with an eyebrow lift to check that’s what I wanted. I nodded.
When he got to the till he took out his wallet. While he looked out his card, he said, ‘Can you put that sign down for a minute please. I don’t want to see it. Not everyone is happy about that shit.’
The girl made an odd face, then knocked it over. I guess the customer was always right.
He held his card over the machine so it paid on the contactless connection.
‘We’ll bring the tuna-melt over, Ha—’
‘Don’t you dare say it.’
‘Who are you? Scrooge.’
Jack threw the woman a glare.
She flipped up her sign.
I laughed and grasped his arm, pulling him away before he decided to make it a full-on argument.
He picked up a plastic fork to eat the pasta with, and napkins and sugar. I’d never seen him take sugar before, but then he didn’t usually drink cappuccino either.
I took a sip from my latte, watching him as he opened his salad and took a forkful. I liked his hands. He was right, I had watched him a lot at work, but it wasn’t just his face I watched, and his hands were fascinating. I think he actually had his fingernails manicured; they were always perfectly shaped, with no cuticle. He had hands he could model with, his fingers were long and slender, and yet they looked as masculine as the rest of him.
I glanced up. ‘Can I have one of the serviettes?’
He smiled at me, ‘Sure, knock yourself out.’
I took one then leant down to get my handbag; I’d put it by my feet. I couldn’t find a pen, but I had a black eyeliner. I took the lid off and then I wrote on the white serviette.
When I finished, I slid it across the table. ‘Just to make things official.’
Dear Jack
I’m giving you my notice. I don’t want to work for you any more. As of right now, you are not my boss. You’re my lover.
Yours sincerely
Ivy Cooper
He looked up and laughed. Then he folded the serviette and slipped it into his inside pocket. ‘I’m keeping that as evidence that you said yes to me. I might even have it framed and put up in my office.’
‘Don’t you dare.’
He gave me a grin as the woman brought my tuna-melt over.