Page 14 of Forever, Maybe
His head jerked in a frantic shake. “No! I meant I’d doyou. So you’re no’ disappointed.”
Her heart gave a little squeeze. He was so earnest, it was impossible not to smile. She pecked him on the nose again, her fingers toying with his zip. “The thing about sex, Danny,” she murmured, her voice light but warm, “is that everyone’s got to start somewhere.”
He shuddered as she gripped his cock, which had sprung out of his jeans. Her bag was within reach, so she grasped the handle, pulling it towards her. As the local health board lived in fear of the Aids epidemic, the student union distributed free condoms.
The union, delightfully inventive around sex education on behalf of the young people in their care, arranged a fun event one night where two enlightened nurses taught male and female students a trick that they claimed would take them far in life.
Nell ripped the foil off a condom that billed itself as ultra-thin and placed it in her mouth, opened her lips and positioned her tongue behind the latex.
Danny’s eyes popped out on stalks.
“Lie back,” she commanded him, her voice muffled. “And think of England.”
Chapter four
April2016
Nell applied the final touches to her makeup, scrutinising her reflection with a frown. Lipstick wasn’t her usual choice—she disliked the waxy texture and the way it always wore off leaving an outline—but tonight she’d opted for a slick of dark, glossy red, hoping it might breathe warmth and vibrancy into her pale complexion.
The result? Her face still looked like it hadn’t slept since 1997, but at least her teeth sparkled like a toothpaste ad. Hooray for small mercies.
She tapped the vanity mirror in the ensuite, dimming the LED lights that seemed programmed to highlight every wrinkle and pore. As she mulled over potential escape routes—headache, plague, sudden alien abduction—she dismissed each with a sigh. None felt convincing enough.
Her phone sat screen-up beside her, obstinately silent. No lifesaving buzz, no glorious last-minute text from Stephanie reading,So sorry, can’t make it. Can we do another time?Ah, the unparalleled joy of someone else cancelling. A get-out-of-jail-free card and the crowning achievement of modern social etiquette.
Stephanie, at a loose end a couple of weeks ago, had suggested a Saturday night out, and Nell had declined, pleading tiredness. Now that the rearranged date had arrived, the exhaustion of the past few weeks still accompanied her every waking minute, worsened by waking in the early hours of Friday and finding it impossible to drift back off to sleep.
That wretched White Lightning Communications photo—and the Pandora’s box of long-buried issues it unearthed—had hijacked her thoughts, dominating her entire Friday morning and afternoon like an unwelcome houseguest who refused to leave.
When she’d sent Stephanie a coded message this morning—Hey, still up for going out tonight or have you had a better offer—her friend chose to ignore the subtext, and replied,You betcha!
Oh well, at least she’d managed to duck out of tonight’s Taste of Scotland awards. When Danny had brought it up a few weeks ago, she’d suggested Nicky step in for her. The novelty of those events had worn off ages ago, leaving nothing but lukewarm wine and polite clapping in its wake.
“You finished in there?” Danny knocked on the bathroom door, and she opened it, letting him in. He was wrapped in a dark grey towel, looking maddeningly bright and fresh. Unlike her. Danny had embraced abstinence in his mid-twenties after a stag weekend had left him feeling so wretched he swore off alcohol forever.
Life seemed determined to stack the deck against women. Danny still looked like the man she’d married years ago. His full head of dark hair and trim physique—complete with a six-pack and arms that could moonlight as a Men’s Health cover—were intact. When they did venture out to restaurants or bars (a rarity these days), he still turned heads.
The problem wasn’t just his ageless appearance; it was his schedule. Take Friday, for instance. He’d crept into the house at three in the morning, waking the already sleepless Nell and triggering a screaming row. She had listed, in painstaking detail, every time his work had bulldozed their plans, while he fumbled to smooth things over, tossing out apologies like they were loose change.
When that failed, he broached the one subject they tried to steer clear of, knowing that bringing it up would pick open an old and not entirely healed scab.Children, Nell. You bulldozed me into that decision… I didn’t bulldoze you; you agreed!she had yelled back.And anyway, I’ve always, always been crystal-clear about that!
The Langbourne hotel trip for her forty-second birthday in six weeks’ time he booked the following day had, however, soothed troubled waters. When she married him, she knew how much work consumed him. Why complain now, after twenty years?
Danny’s eyes, cautious and testing the waters, met hers in the mirror. “Nell, I shoulda let Dennis handle things on Thursday. I’m sorry.”
She waved a dismissive hand. Pointing out the obvious—that he apologised all the time but never actually changed—would only derail another evening. Besides, the White Lightning Communications picture loomed like a thundercloud, a get-out-of-jail-free card he knew nothing about.
He leaned in to drop a kiss on the top of her head. “Gimme a few minutes, and I’ll drop you in the city centre on my way to the Marriott. Want me to pick you up at the end of the night too?”
That offer instantly made the night out more palatable—a built-in escape route and an excuse to leave early. She blew a kiss at his reflection, watching as he smiled, visibly relieved to have smoothed over Thursday’s choppy waters.
“Thank you. I’ll be ready downstairs.”
He stepped into the shower, and the frosted glass quickly steamed up, but not before giving her a glimpse of his lean, toned backside. Once upon a time—and it really wasn’tthatlong ago—she’d have thought nothing of pulling her dress over her head, unhooking her bra and joining him in there. Now? The effort required felt on par with scaling Everest without oxygen.
Was that chapter of their lives truly over…?
Danny joined her downstairs twenty minutes later, resplendent in his kilt. The green and blue tartan, streaked with thin red stripes, swung neatly as he moved, paired with a black ghillie shirt loosely laced at the neck. He looked effortlessly put-together, which was irritating in itself.
