Page 55 of Out of the Shadows
COSMO
I flick through the endless channels, unable to concentrate on anything. I turn the TV off and the room plunges into silence.
“That was a turn up for the books,” I say to nobody.
I shift myself off the sofa and make my way to the kitchen for another beer, my ankle no more than twinging. Daniel was right, it’s getting better and fast. Yet nothing else is quite so clear cut.
Things have shifted between us, out of all recognition. The kiss, earlier in the office… my lips still tingle with the touch. It was so tender, hesitant and sweet. I’ve never been kissed like that before and there’s no point in denying the flutter I felt deep in my stomach, or the way my heart clenched.
I shake my head, flip off the top of the beer and take a long, deep draught.
I’m sounding like one of those gooey romances Freddie used to read, in secret he always thought. I tried to read one on the sly, to work out the appeal, but I never got more than a few chapters in before I threw it aside for the make believe it was. Tender sweetness? That’s never been my experience with any of the men who’ve crossed my path.
Freddie… I dig my mobile out of my pocket. Daniel’s not the only one who’s got a best friend and confidante. I need to talk all this through… The man I loathed, despised, and hated… The man who was rigid and uptight… The man who picked me up and rescued me… The man who kissed me first with a passion that made me see stars… The man who kissed me again with a softness that made me feel butterflies…
The man who at the age of fifty came out to me, in an empty office long after everybody else had gone home.
It’s almost eleven-thirty. There’s no way I can spew it all out to Freddie at this time of night, and after a few beers. And besides, he and Elliot are probably tucked up in bed with their cocoa. I snort at the thought. It’s not the life I want, but they’re happy, content, and have found in each other exactly what they were looking for — and sometimes I can’t help a sharp twinge of jealousy deep in my gut.
I put my phone aside. I can’t ring him not just because of the time but because I know what he’ll say, and I’m not sure I want to hear it.
He was engaged to be married…
All his history is with women…
He kissed you, then ran a mile…
Isn’t this all sounding familiar…?
I flop down at the table and lay my head on my arms. Freddie’s right, but he’s also wrong.
Leon Chambers. I’ve not said the bastard’s name in almost four years. Yes, he kissed me and ran before he scuttled back for more, like the nasty little insect he turned out to be. I scratch my head hard, as though he’s crawling through my hair.
It makes me sick to think of him, now, and of how I was taken in.
Frantic, thrilling, dirty sex, always at a hotel and under a false name. It was exciting and illicit; it was only later I saw it for what it was: grubby and sordid, and all about covering his tracks. He wouldn’t come home with me, complaining that Freddie didn’t like him. He was right about that. We couldn’t go to his place because he lived with his parents.
Yeah, right…
He wasn’t out. He needed to prepare the ground. He needed time. Then, we’d be together properly. The same message, over and over, and I believed him because I wanted to. It was Freddie who pointed out Leon always cancelled arrangements at the last minute, leaving me high and dry.
I was, Freddie said, Leon’s dirty little secret.
Tiredness and beer overwhelm me, and all the bad memories of being another man’s secret shame.
I don’t know what, if anything, is going to happen next between Daniel and me, or even if it should — but I can’t stop the thrill running through me and whispering that I want it to.
* * *
Monday morning rolls around, and I’m jittery with nerves.
“Fuck it.” I pull my tie off, and re-knot it for the third time.
My shirt is crisp, my suit new, and my shoes are extra shiny. I’ve dressed with care and precision. I couldn’t look any sharper or any more professional if I tried. I re-knot my tie for a fourth time as I try a little harder.
I’ve had a quiet weekend, if quiet means not hitting bars and clubs, but my head’s been anything but. My dreams have been vivid and mixed up, leaving me exhausted. Everything is churned up inside me because, in all honesty, I don’t know what I’m going to find when I walk into the office.
What if he’s regretting kissing me again?
