Chapter 14
brooks
Day 2.
I admit, the tofu wasn’t so bad when Izzy cooked it with Thai spices. She’s a good cook. I say that with surprise because I got the impression she has had a butler to do her cooking all her life. I’ll also confess, it was nice having company. That’s maybe the truth behind why I’m knocking on her apartment door right now, under the guise of making her eggs for breakfast.
“Hey, come in. Sorry I’m not dressed; you’ve got me up a hell of a lot earlier than I’m used to.”
I follow her tiny bed shorts and white T-shirt to the kitchen, not sorry at all. “What culinary delight do I get today?” I ask.
“You get a blueberry smoothie. Don’t look like that. It has banana in there; it will fill you up.”
“If only that were true.”
Sticking her tongue out, she puts the lid on the blender she has already filled and sets it whirring.
“You’re going to wake the whole damn building up with that thing.”
“What?”
“You’re waking my cock up wearing those tiny things.”
“I can’t hear you!”
Chuckling to myself, I move around her and take eggs from her fridge. We shuffle past each other, finding glasses, pans, and cutlery as we each make the other breakfast. When she doesn’t have an audience, she isn’t so bad, I suppose.
“You’re very messy in the kitchen, mister. Haven’t the women in your life ever taught you how to clean as you go?”
“Careful, Coulthard, I could still spit in your eggs at this stage.” She nudges my shoulder. “No, to answer your question. The only woman I’ve ever lived with is my mother, and she was really more of the take-out type.”
Izzy stops clearing the counters and turns to me. “You haven’t lived with anyone? I assumed maybe… Never mind.”
“Go on.”
She shrugs. “I just thought…I mean, you’re thirty-five and, you know…” She gestures from my toes to my head.
I fight back a smirk. “I don’t know. Go ahead.”
“Shut up. You know you’re not exactly unattractive.”
Now I have to laugh. “High praise from Her Royal Highness, Izzy Coulthard.”
“If you’re going to keep saying things like that, it would be much more entertaining if you used my Sunday name, Isabella.”
“No way.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“The shoe, or should I say the crown, fits, that’s all. Isabella, Claribella, Crystabella, Arabella, Marybella. The bellas are a posh group of names.”
She only half smiles. “Yes, well, it’s part of Mummy’s show for the outside world. My sister is Annabella. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You sound like someone I used to know very well.” Someone I loved. The mother of my child.
Her eyes narrow, as if she’s waiting for more. Getting into deep and meaningful is not my thing. It is definitely not my thing with a woman whose goal in life seems to be driving me nuts publicly.
She nods, as if she’s accepting my unwillingness to go on.
“So, let’s get back to your saying I’m good looking.”
She shoves me in the shoulder and sets about pouring us each a glass of water. “I said you’re not unattractive. There’s a difference. And I just figured you were maybe divorced or something.”
“No. No divorces. No relationships long enough to move a woman into my place. How about you?”
She takes a seat on a stool while I finish making her breakfast. “Ha, no. Two longish, or medium-term, relationships. One with a pretentious wanker my parents wanted me to marry. One with a guy I dated to piss my parents off…shaved head, tattoos, working class.”
I keep my eyes on the pan in front of me but clench my hand around the wooden spoon. She really is just another Alice.
“Brooks, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offense.”
“No, hey, none taken. You obviously didn’t mean me because I don’t have a shaved head.”
I force myself to smile. She offers a meek curl of her lips in return.
* * * *
Studio A is becoming the bane of my existence. Today, our audience has grown to four reporters. The two new additions are “important bloggers in the fitness circle,” to quote Madge.
Izzy has put one of her YouTube classes on the big screen in the room and she’s standing to one side, her arms folded across her chest, her back pressed to the mirrored wall, one foot casually resting against glass, distracting me because the glass was just cleaned this morning. I decide to choose my battles and this is a small one that wouldn’t give satisfaction worth the effort.
Instead, I focus on Izzy on the big screen; there’s a smile on her face as she dances. She looks happy, an infectious kind of happy that makes me want to smile. Thing is, I can’t because I’m too damn frustrated trying to get my feet to do what I know in my head they should be doing.
“Just keep moving,” Izzy tells me. So, yeah, I end up doing some kind of Chandler Bing dance that isn’t even in time to the music, all in a bid to work up a sweat.
Laughter bursts from Izzy first, followed by the reporters.
“That’s it. I’m done. This is ridiculous!”
Izzy comes to me in the middle of the room. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I think it’s your stiff hips.” She drops her hands to my waist and turns me to face her. “You need to get more rotation here when you’re doing Latin dances. It will help you keep your rhythm and it will stop you from looking like such a tit.”
I scowl down at her and see her amusement in her shining irises. “Put your hands on my hips.” I do and she starts to salsa, her hip bones rotating under my palm. “Can you feel that movement?”
Yeah, in my groin.
She shifts position so she’s in front of me, her back pressed to my chest, her head against my shoulder. She takes my hands again and places them on her hips. I feel every movement through her yoga pants as if she’s wearing nothing.
“Let’s do it together. Ready? Forward on the right. One, two, three, pause. One, two, three, pause.”
I move with her, my hips pressed to her ass, her shoulders moving over my chest, her scent filling my nose, her hair tickling my neck.
“That’s it. You’ve got it.”
Her hands come up to meet mine on her hips and she interlaces her fingers through mine as we dance.
“Let’s take it to the side on the next count. One, two… That’s it.”
I’m lost in her. The roll of her hips. The feel of her soft skin; a contrast to my harsh, weight-lifting hands. We move easier, more freely. When she turns to face me, I keep my feet moving as she taught me and drown in her gaze, as if plunged into serene, warm waters, floating weightlessly through a new world.
When the track ends, we’re brought back abruptly to reality. A camera flash makes her squint and I remember the reporters in the room. Clearing my throat, I tell her, “I think I’ve got it.”
She wipes imaginary dust from her leggings. “Right. Yep. I’ll just be…you know…over there.…” She waves a hand through the air in no particular direction, then sets off for the right side of the room and turns, switching to the left side with a nervous giggle.
Well, fuck me. Dancing can be hotter than screwing. I really am feeling hot and sweaty now.
* * * *
Yesterday’s argument seemingly did not have the desired effect because I’m sitting at my desk, trying not to stare at the delicate line of Izzy’s neck, as she sits in the desk she never moved from my office. My stomach grumbles like a JCB picking up gravel.
“Izzy, come on, I need something to eat. I can barely concentrate here.”
She checks her watch. “You can have carrots as a snack.”
“I’ll take anything.”
“I’ll ask the bistro to cut some up for you. It’s three in the afternoon—what am I supposed to be gorging on for my six millionth meal of the day?”
“I’ll get Angie to fix you a strawberry protein shake.”
“Bulk in a cup. How tempting.”
If only she could be the quietly sexy Latin-style dancer all the time. “Let me finish this e-mail and I’ll go down.”
“It’s fine,” she says, already standing. “I could use a change of scenery. I’m not doing anything anyway.”
“Really? Not writing another blog about how I’m trying to cheat on your plan by ordering eggs on toast? Yeah, I saw that. I also saw the shitty pictures of my dancing yesterday. Thanks for making me look like a tool.”
“You know what, I’ve changed my mind. You can get your own bloody carrots.”
Before my retort comes, my cell phone rings and teenage Drew, wearing a school tie around his head, lights up my screen. Never fails to entertain me. “Drew, what’s up, buddy?”
“Did you get that hockey game fixed up for tonight?”
“Yeah, I was going to send everyone a message. I’ve booked Sky Rink for an hour at eight. Can you bring a puck? I couldn’t find mine this morning.”
“No worries. Catch you later.”
When I hang up, Izzy is standing by my desk with her pouty lip thing going on and her hands on her hips. “Are you arranging to play hockey? You can’t do that. You have to follow my plan.”
I push out from my desk and lean back in my chair. “It’s a game of ice hockey with my friends. You can’t tell me not to go out with friends.”
“I’m not telling you not to see friends. I’m telling you to eat and drink what I say and exercise as I tell you and only that.”
“Oh really, and what are you going to do, photograph me and cry about it on your little blog?”
She takes a breath that lifts her chest and flares her nostrils. “You’re a twonk.”
“A twonk?”
“Yes. A twat-wanker.”
“What the fu—”
“And I’ve changed my mind; you can’t have carrots.”
As she slams my office door behind her, I ball up the first piece of paper I put my hand on and launch it at the door. I put in a call to my friend who manages the ice rink at Chelsea Piers and call Drew back.
“Hey, it’s me. Change of plan. The rink is booked for nine o’ clock now. The fun police have intervened.”
“Should I ask?”
“No, man, just remember me how I was before my ruin.”