Always Remember (Memories) (4 page)

“
Oi, boobs!” I yell.

“
What?” She looks over Mitch’s shoulder.

“
Come and have a Triple O with me?” I waggle my eyebrows playfully, and I’ve drawn the attention of guys around us. Bing tenses next to me, and as I step closer to Saph, he steps with me.

“
I’ll Triple O with you any day, girl!” Saph claps her hands, and Joe pours another drink from the shaker, barely stopping to think. He places it on the bar and Saph sniffs it.

“
What in the hell is in this?” She raises her eyebrows. “Smells like a brothel.”

“
Know what?” I shrug. “It’s a whole lotta shit we probably shouldn’t down in one go, but who gives a crap? Let’s do this!”

We clink the glasses and drink them in one. Alcohol burns the back of my throat, lining it with a roaring fire as it settles into a comfortable warmth in the pit of my belly.

“Never again.” Saph shakes her head, and dumps the glass on the bar. “Jesus Christ.”

“
I think she’s a wimp.” I turn to Bing, and he’s there, right there.

Like,
“hey I’m so close I can smell the vanilla shampoo you used before you left” right there. And I don’t mind. In fact, any chance of getting a little closer? Shimmy on down. Maybe. I giggle.

“
I think that’s Jen done for the night.” He tugs on a lock of my hair.

“
I’m not Rapunzel.” I shake my head. “Tugging my hair isn’t gonna get me down from my tower, not tonight, so I hate to break it to ya, Prince Charming, but you’ll have to get fucking climbing.”

I laugh at myself, and prop my chin up on the bar.

“Drunk, Jennifer?” Bing whispers the question seductively, and puts a hand on my back.

“
You know, my boyfriend would have kittens if...” I trail off. I don’t have a boyfriend. He has permission to touch. Maybe not from the relationship or break up gods but really, who cares what they think anyway?

“
If what?”

“
It doesn’t matter.” I shake my head and take my phone from my bag. “It’s one a.m. I want to go home, please.”

“
I’ll call us a taxi.” Bing gives me his arm, and I hold onto it tight - less for support and more for the want of his skin against mine.

Okay, so it
’s not the sexy little dreams I’ve been having, but I guess it’ll do.

My head is in the middle of a bad marching band practice, and my mouth has apparently taken up refuge in a bag of cotton wool.

“Oh my god,” I groan, and roll over in bed, placing a gentle hand on my forehead. “Who the fuck let me drink so much last night?”

“
As far as I remember, you insisted on downing a Triple O by Joe.”

My head snaps round too fast. The throbbing turns to a pound, my ears ring, and the room spins a little.
“What in goddamn hell is a Triple O by Joe?”

“
You probably don’t want me to answer that question.” Bing grins.

“
That bad, huh? Then you’re probably right... Can I also ask why you’re walking around my flat like you own the place, minus a t-shirt and plus pyjama bottoms I’m pretty sure you weren’t wearing last night?”

“
You passed out the second I got you in the taxi. I figured you’d prefer to wake up here so I told him to go via my house so I could grab some clothes.” He walks into the room, and I slowly sit up, my hand outstretched for the glass of water he’s carrying.

While I try not to ogle the poster pretty washboard abs right in front of my face.

The cool water slips down my throat, like aloe vera on a burn.

Bing holds his other hand out and produces two tablets.
“I figured you’d want these.”

“
Thank you,” I croak out and take them, downing the rest of the water.

“
You’re welcome, gorgeous.” He smiles and his eyes light up. Does he have to do that? Does he not understand that my head is already full of fuzzy mushy stuff without his sexy presence?

Jen smiles up at me from her relaxed position on the bed, and boy... What I’d do to be in there with her.

The second I put her in the taxi yesterday she passed out on my shoulder. I had my arm around her the whole way back, just holding her close to me. Something protective surged inside me at seeing her so vulnerable. Whatever happened in Devon must have been
kinda bad ‘cause not even Jen gets that out of control on a weekend.

“
How are you feeling? You seemed a little devil may care last night.” I lean against the wall, knowing if I get closer to her again I will get in that bed.

“
Aren’t I always?” She gives me a cheeky grin, catching her tongue between her teeth. I want that tongue between my teeth, damn it. “Yeah… No, I’m okay. I just needed to let go last night, I think. I’m as dandy as cotton candy now.”

I smile at her choice of words.
“Are you planning on getting out of bed any time soon?”

“
Probably not.” She closes her eyes.

“
Then you won’t mind if I join you.” I wink roguishly at her, and she opens her eyes.

“
I’m sorry, I must have distracted you from your usual shag fest this weekend.” The hardness in her voice is unmistakable - and did I imagine that flinch?

“
Not at all.” I stand up straight, and move to the door, speaking softer. “I dunno when you’re gonna realise I’m not who I was two years ago, Jen.”

Her blue eyes meet mine, and there
’s a sadness in them, threatening to swallow her up. I want to hold her again. I don’t do holding, I do sex, but for Jen I’d make an exception.

Hell, for this girl, I
’d make an exception for anything.

“
Whatever, Sam. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”

“
No, but a bird can always renew its feathers.” I open her door again, and walk through it. “If you need anything, you have my number.”

~

I’m a bitch.

It
’s something I’ve been told plenty of times over the years, but I laughed it off ‘cause, really, who gives a shit what people think of you? I don’t. I am who I am – and that’s no-one’s issue but my own.

Besides, I wouldn
’t say I was a bitch. I’m just brutally honest, and there is a difference.

So i
t’s a thin line, but it’s there.

But Bing
’s eyes haunt me, and I know I am the biggest bitch today. He looked after me last night, brought me home, and even stayed the night to make sure I was okay today. What do I do? I throw his past back in him.

Yeah, woo! Give the stupid speak-before-you-think blonde a gold fucking medal for the mantel.

The worst thing is that I can’t even blame it on my hormones or my hangover. Nope, it’s because I’m jealous of all the girls who’ve been there, and that’s a whole lot of damn jealousy.

I don
’t even know why I’m jealous. He has that many notches on his bedpost that the bedpost probably doesn’t even exist anymore.

But I am not one of them, and when he walks in my bedroom with nothing on that f
ine ass chest of his I get mad. And waking up with a shirtless Bing is also starting to become a habit – one I could get too easily accustomed to.

My phone makes an annoying little
pingy dingy fuck off sound next to me, and I grab it, if only to shut it up. Lexy’s name appears on the screen.

Bing says you got drunk last night. Be safe crazy girl. Love you x

Always safe. Your brother slept over to look after me. He’s going soft. Love you too. x

He slept over? Are you taming the beast?

I would love to tame the beast.

No. Just passing out on him in a taxi.

Nice.

I huff out a short, sharp breath
, and make the decision to get up. I pad my way into the kitchen with a rumbling stomach, and there’s a DVD case on the side. I frown, picking it up.

It
’s my favourite movie, Stardust, and beside it is a note telling me to look in the freezer. I pull the freezer door open, and look inside a drawer. Two pizzas and garlic bread.

It dawns on me like I
’ve just been hit round the head with a skateboard, and I groan loudly, smacking my head on the freezer.

“
Fuck!” I curse and rub my forehead. “I’m a twat. Such a twat.”

I crawl across the front room floor
, knock my phone off the table, and dial his number.

“
She’s alive then,” his husky voice answers.

“
Alive and kicking. Not so much kicking. More head-butting and crawling. But yes. Alive,” I ramble out.

He chuckles.
“Any particular reason you’re calling me?”

“
Umm.” The open freezer door catches my eye. “Yeah. I just got out bed on a food mission, and noticed the DVD fairy stopped by along with the pizza fairy. I know I can eat like a horse but I’m pretty sure I can’t eat all the pizza and garlic bread by myself so...”

“
And?”

And you
’re so fucking difficult all the time.

“
Are you actually going to make me ask you to come over and eat the food you bought?”

“
Maybe.” The teasing lilt to his voice tickles me, and I’m momentarily distracted by what it’d feel like if he actually did tick-

“
Fine. Samuel, would you like to come over to my place for pizza and garlic bread you bought, and to watch a DVD you rented?”

“
I have to wash my hair,” he dead-pans.

“
Are you fucking kidding me?” I flinch at the volume of my voice. Oh, my head.

“
No. That messy ‘I just had sex’ style is hard to maintain.”

“
Well I’m sorry to break it to you, John Frieda, but it doesn’t look like you’ve just had sex. It looks like you’ve been pulled through a hedge, run over by a lawnmower, and shit on by a donkey.”

“
Oh, she flatters me so. Will you be nice to me if I come over?”

“
I don’t know. I might leave your sorry ass on the doorstep.”

“
My hot sorry ass,” he corrects.

“
Your hot sorry ass,” I say without thinking.

“
You think my ass is hot?”

“
What? No. Fuck off!”

He roars with laughter down the phone.
“I’ll see you later, gorgeous.”

“
Goodbye, Samuel.” I clench my teeth and put the phone back.

I take it back. I
’m not a bitch if it’s deserved. 

~

I open the door resembling something somewhat human opposed to total zombie apocalypse.

“
Have you passed the head-butting stage yet?” Bing leans against the door frame looking sinfully sexy in a white polo top and dark wash jeans. Mamma Mia on horseback.

“
The head-butting thing was an accident.” I smile sweetly. “But it can always be arranged.”

“
So it’s safe for me to come in?” He smirks, his eyebrows raised slightly.

“
Depends on your definition of safe,” I mumble and step aside. He glances at me out the corner of his eye as he walks past.

“
Something to say, Jennifer?”

I want to wipe that shit eating grin off his face with my frying pan.

“Not to you.” I flutter my eyelashes, and shut the door.

Jennifer Mason should not flutter her eyelashes unless she wants this movie night to end x-rated. There’s something about the way they frame her blue eyes, their length making me wonder what it would be like to have them flutter against my skin as we…

“
Funny girl,” I retort and throw myself on the sofa to stop myself grabbing her. She has a boyfriend.
That isn’t me.

“
Please, make yourself at home.” The sarcastic lilt to her voice is so familiar.

“
I will, thanks.”

She grabs two pizzas from the oven
and brings them over, the DVD case between her teeth. She really doesn’t know how fucking sexy she is.

Jesus Christ. I
’m a walking hard-on around this chick.