Page 3 of Beyond Repair
Katie huffed as she walked back down the corridor in her stockinged feet, brushing an unruly curl out of her eyes whilst approaching the sitting-room door. Of all possible items she could have forgotten, it would have to be her bloody hair-straighteners and her heels. Since the birth of GHD in 2000 she had rarely allowed her hair to break out into its natural state. The results could be, quite frankly, alarming. But before she had realized her fatal mistake her hair was wet from the spare room shower and there was no going back (Sarah didn’t own hair straighteners: she barely had time to shove her hair back into an elastic band most days).
Katie tried to strap the thick mass of curls back into some kind of semblance of order, but they would not be contained, and she had to settle for the ‘Sideshow Bob’ look. If her appearance wasn’t already comical enough, she had also forgotten her heels, without which she would barely even come up to Sarah’s shoulder.
She caught sight of herself in the hall mirror and stopped for a second, trying to think what she reminded herself of. Depressingly she concluded that she looked like the product of her Great Aunt Gwen’s teacup poodle and an Oompa Loompa, given the fact that her dress was bright orange. She sighed; it wasn’t as though there would be any single guys here tonight anyway.
‘What do you think you’re playing at?’
Katie jumped when she heard Rob whisper-shout through the open door of the kitchen, wondering what she could possibly have done to put him in that bad a mood. Rob was a pretty mellow guy in her experience.
‘Don’t know what you’re on about, mate. Got my invite, I’m here. What more do you want?’ Katie relaxed when she realized that it wasn’t her who had incurred Rob’s wrath but a rather unrepentant-sounding Sam. Feeling a bit guilty to be eavesdropping on their likely work-related barney, she started tiptoeing down the corridor, but came to an abrupt halt at what she heard next.
‘Don’t be a prick. You knew why we wanted you to come. How do you think Katie’s gonna feel when she works it out?’
‘Neither of you said I couldn’t bring a date,’ Sam threw back at him. ‘If I want some guaranteed pussy at the end of my night then that’s my business. Fob her off on one of your other mates. I’ve told you before: I’m not goddamn well interested in someone like her.’
Katie froze.
Someone like her. What did that mean? She felt her chest squeeze and bile rise into her mouth. Before she knew it two tears had fallen onto her Oompa Loompa dress. Sam might be surly, mean, uncommunicative, and generally a bit of an arsehole, but he was without question the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on. The first time she saw him, six years ago, she had thought she was hallucinating. Nobody that attractive could possibly be in her little corner of Wales. The scar that ran from the outside corner of one of his eyes down through his cheek all the way to his jaw was more prominent back then, but that only seemed to add to his appeal. So the fact that he seemed to find her physically repulsive shouldn’t have come as much of a shock. (The first timehelaid eyes onher,his were carefully blank before he looked her over and took a rapid step back like she was diseased.) Benji was a baby at the time and he’d been perched on her hip. When she’d shifted him in an attempt to shake Sam’s hand she’d nearly dropped him, causing him to let out adorable baby giggles, and in her embarrassment she had laughed a touch over exuberantly, and then, to add to her mortification, she’d actually snorted.
Snorted!
And not in an excusable, elegant way. No, this was a wildebeest-like, full-on, room-shaking snort.
Since then he seemed to have made an art of avoiding her. When he was forced to be in her company he largely ignored her, and he certainly never touched her. In fact he was the only person in her life that she had no physical contact with. She was a touchy-feely person. She hugged, she kissed, she shoulder-patted. But with Sam she had learnt to keep her distance. She only ever saw him through Rob and Sarah. From what she could tell he wasn’t the most social guy, but he was certainly tight with Rob; they’d served in Special Forces together and he was the first man Rob brought in when he was setting up his security company. Now, although they were apparently partners in the business, Sam seemed to be a mostly silent one – always disappearing off for months on end on missions unknown and untalked of.
Sarah had told Katie that Sam would take the most dangerous security assignments for the company, in addition to ‘freelance stuff’. Katie wasn’t sure whether that was why Sarah had so much respect for Sam and seemed to really care about him and tolerate his often sullen, antisocial behaviour, or whether there was something else. Whenever Katie had questioned her, she had said there was more to Sam than meets the eye and had encouraged her to give him a chance.
As far as Katie was concerned he could be the toughest commando since Rambo, but moody and brooding werenoton her list of top ten attributes in people to spend time with. The strange thing was that despite Sam’s obvious dislike for Katie, Sarah and Rob seemed to often engineer situations where it would be impossible for them not to spend time together.
The day of Sarah and Rob’s wedding had been one of the most uncomfortable days of Katie’s life. Katie had only met Sam a few weeks earlier at the engagement party, even though Rob and Sarah had been together for two years and had two children. Back in those days Rob and Sam were still with the army and were both away more than they were actually in the country. Add in the fact that Katie had been living in London and going to medical school, and had her own unfolding drama to deal with, she didn’t manage to get back home very often and always missed Sam’s visits. The initial, disastrous meeting with Sam was enough to rapidly create a barrier between them. For him it appeared to be dislike at first sight.
She had thought that at the wedding, seeing as she was the maid of honour and Sam was the best man, it might be appropriate to breach the ‘no contact rule’ that had developed between them. So, when those involved in the ceremony had met beforehand at the church and she’d done the rounds of literally every other person with hugs and kisses (even the vicar), she made the mistake of approaching Sam. Katie just dived straight in and gave him a hug, whilst reaching up to kiss his cheek. His big body stiffened as she wrapped her arms around him. After a few seconds it became clear to her and everyone else present that he had no intention of moving his arms to hug her back, or of allowing her to kiss his cheek (and let’s face it, with the height difference she had no chance of actually reaching his cheek unless he leaned down somewhat). In fact he reared back from her attempted kiss so violently that she nearly fell flat on her face.
After she’d recovered and was standing safely back next to Sarah, Katie noticed Rob staring up at the ceiling in what looked like exasperation, and Sarah, who by rights should have been Katie’s staunch defender, was instead looking at Sam, her features a mixture of annoyance and concern, but definitely soft. Katie had felt that if anyone deserved some concern it was her, right? She was the one who’d been completely humiliated. Since then, she’d been careful to avoid any physical contact whatsoever, and Sarah had seemed to lay off with her attempts at encouraging some sort of friendship.
Well, her reprieve was obviously over, humiliation-wise.
‘If you’d told me that we were the only two single people coming tonight I would have definitely told you to bugger off.’
‘Mate, you told me to bugger off anyway. I had to blackmail your arse to get you here.’
‘Yeah, well, if I wasn’t so shit scared of Goodie I could be at home, balls deep in some seriously willing pussy by now.’
Jeepers, thought Katie, I had no idea how much these guys swore when they thought they were alone. Was this how all men talked to each other or was it just the whole forces thing?
‘Balls deep in some seriously stuck-up, cold-as-fucking-ice pussy, you mean. What’s wrong with you, man?’
‘Better than some vertically challenged, mouthy, annoying little –’
Thwack. Katie heard what sounded like a punch to the face and peeked through the crack in the door to see Sam fall back onto one foot, his hand to his jaw.
‘That’s one, man,’ Sam growled at Rob. ‘You get one free because you like the little squirt. Next time I pummel your arse.’
They stood facing off for a few seconds before Rob reached out towards Sam. Katie thought he was going to punch him again, but was surprised when he curled a hand around the back of Sam’s neck and pulled him forward so their faces were inches apart. He started mumbling to him, too low for her to make out the words. When he was done he released his neck and gave him a few manly slaps on the back.
As Katie turned to get out of there before she was discovered, she heard Sam say in an oddly broken voice, ‘Give up on me already.’
‘Never,’ she heard Rob return with real feeling, before she had to tiptoe-jog down the corridor when she heard them move toward the door. By the time she’d reached the sitting room, which was now full of people, she’d managed to blink back the tears and even slap a smile on her face. She headed straight for the booze; she had a feeling she was going to need it.
