Just Human (16 page)

“What happens after two weeks?”

I shrug. “We’ll review.”

He thinks about it and then smiles.

“Deal?”

“Deal!”

He kisses my forehead.

“Good, now go and brush your teeth, I have to work!”

I crack on while he’s gone, getting all my jobs done. I’ve given him my key so that he can go in from the other door, rather than wheel his suitcase through the diner. But now, I have no idea if he’s back or not, the suspense is killing me. It’s almost ten, so I text Max.

‘Wakey wakey! He’s bringing his stuff from the hotel…Eeek!’

He texts back straight away: ‘HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN ASLEEP?’

I laugh out loud and reply, ‘Very funny.’

I put my phone in my back pocket. Connie thinks it’s great, I remind myself, before I begin to doubt the decision. Max does too, he’s just teasing. Danny has been gone ages. What is he doing? But I press on. If I can just do the wages, I will be free in an hour. Providing he hasn’t run back to America. I settle myself into the back booth and spread my paperwork across the table. PAYE is quite simple, but now that I do it for twenty-three people, it takes some time. I open my laptop and get stuck in.

I’m plodding through the task when a lady carrying a huge bunch of flowers comes through the door and approaches the counter. I watch with mild interest as she speaks to Connie, but I’m shocked when Connie points at me. I flush with embarrassment when the lady approaches me.

“Liv Harper?”

“Yes?” I manage meekly.

“For you,” she smiles handing the beautiful arrangement to me.

“Thank you.” I blush.

Mercifully, she keeps it brief and leaves, but as I stare at the flowers, I’m mobbed.... Well, okay, Connie and Ali rush over to have a look.

“Is there a note?” Connie asks.

I examine the bouquet and find a small white envelope tucked with a sachet in the centre. I hastily open it.

Beautiful flowers for a beautiful girl.

I have missed you.

Danny x

The three of us swoon. I’ve never been sent flowers before. I’ve received the odd bunch from the supermarket, but nobody has ever had them delivered to me by an actual florist. I’ve also never seen such a beautiful display in all my life and I need two hands to hold it. Bright magenta tulips and delicate lilac tulips with frilly petals, mixed with purpley hyacinths and some other flowers I don’t know the names of, in all possible shades of purple. They are so beautiful, I almost cry.

“I’ll get something to put them in,” offers Connie, hurrying off to the bar.

Just then Danny appears from upstairs. He beams when he sees the flowers in my hand.

“Secret admirer?”

I smile as he approaches and puts his arms around me, being careful not to squash the flowers. He smells great. His hair is damp and he’s wearing jeans and a white long-sleeved t-shirt.

“Thank you, they’re beautiful.”

He kisses my temple. “Like you,” he murmurs into my skin.

Connie reappears and takes the flowers from me. She sets to work and I leave her to it.

“So did you check out?”

“Yeah, my bags are upstairs…. It feels weird!” He smiles shyly.

“Two weeks remember, nothing to freak out about.”.

“That’s true.”

He hovers, looking unsure what to do with himself.

“Listen, I’ll be done down here by eleven. Can you keep busy until then?”

“Yeah, d’you have Wi-Fi?”

“Of course, I’ll get you the code,” I say heading to the till. I copy it down for him. “It works, here, upstairs and in the bar. Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want a coffee to take up?”

“I can’t keep taking your coffee, can’t I make one upstairs?”

I look at him as if he has suggested growing the coffee beans himself. “Why would you want to do that? It’s nowhere near as nice. Besides, staff

soft drinks are free.”

“I’m not staff.”

I shake my head and make him a coffee. As I hand it to him, he sighs.

“Look,” I say in a lowered voice. “When I first started this place, Max and I lived rent-free upstairs and only had to share the bills. We took a low wage to get things off the ground and ate here every day to save money. It kind of stuck!” I check no one is listening. “The rest of the staff get soft drinks free and fifty percent off everything else. Max and I still mainly eat here, because we can. By default, Charlie does too.” He looks at me like he’s not going to give in.

“Listen, it’ll cost me more to stock my kitchen than feed you here. If you’re going to be my guest for two weeks, you’ll have to accept that. No one here will take your money!” I smile sweetly..

He raises his eyebrows and sighs. “Fine, but I’m taking you out this afternoon.” Then he turns and takes his coffee upstairs.

I sigh. Egos! Pfft!

At 11am, I head upstairs and find Danny asleep on the sofa, with an iPad lying on his chest. He must be really tired; I don’t want to wake him. But then again, I've been downstairs counting the minutes until I could see him again and it's no fun if he sleeps all day. I sit on the edge of the coffee table next to him and gently lift the iPad off him. He opens his eyes.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

“It’s fine,” he yawns, rubbing his face. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I guess it just caught up with me.” He stretches and puts his hand on my knee. “Have you finished?”

“Until six.”

“So do you want to go out with me?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Get ready, it’s a surprise,” he grins.

“Get ready for what?” I frown. I hate surprises. I’m prepared to admit I’m a control freak. He must remember this about me. "What shall I wear?"

He smiles. “Just jeans and a sweater, we’ll be walking.”

I do as I’m told and he fishes a jumper out of his case, puts his wallet in his pocket and takes my hand, flashing me a grin.

“Where are you taking me? You don’t know where anything is.”

“I did live here for twelve years, you know, it can’t have changed that much.”

“Well the only place we ever went was Connie’s…and that’s gone!”

“It’s not the only place we went.”

We walk through town and out onto the park, holding hands. It feels like it used to be, for the first time since he arrived. Maybe because we’ve done this walk so many times before. I can’t figure out where we’re going when we walk all the way through the park and out onto the road. We cross over and the only thing left in town is the leisure centre. As we walk up towards it, I’m confused. I thought we were eating.

He holds open the door for me and leads me over to the glass wall.

“What do you think?” he says, nodding his head towards the ice rink below us. I look down and then look back up at him, amused.

“The last time I went down there was with you.” I can’t believe he has brought me here, this place is
so
us.

“Well would you do me the honour of accompanying me again?” he asks, holding out his arm in a comically overblown chivalrous gesture. I happily link my arm through his.

As we reach the lower level, the smell of the ice hits me like a shot of nostalgia. I’m glad I never came here after he left because I think this would have killed me. I’ve butterflies in my stomach as we wait for our skates and I can’t help but stare at him. He’s happy, excited like a teenager. Just being here with him makes me feel the same way.

We lace up our skates in silence. It’s busier than I thought it would be on a weekday lunchtime, but still quiet compared to the old days at the ice disco. We used to come here a lot. In those days they used to play a few chart songs on a loop and hearing Barbie Girl still brings me back here. They don’t call it the ice disco anymore; according to the poster in front of me it’s now ICE XTREME! But I feel old just reading the poster, so I won’t suggest we go for old time’s sake. This is perfect.

We stand and teeter towards the ice; he steps out first and turns to help me. My body tenses as it adjusts to the loss of traction underfoot. I hold onto the side with my other hand.

“I’ve forgotten how!” I giggle.

“You’ll remember,” he says, completely at ease. “Come.”

He leads me away from the handrail and we’re off.

I try to remember how to do this in a fluid, relaxed style. I used to be quite good, but any skill I had seems to have left the building. I can remember feeling this free: forwards, backwards, pirouettes, I could do it all. I try to loosen all my joints and get my muscles to remember, but I’m rigid. The muscles in my bum are already pleading for mercy. I come to a stop, laughing.

“What’s wrong? You used to be so natural,” he laughs. “It’s like I’m dragging an ironing board around!”

I’m laughing so hard, I’m at risk of doing a windmill and landing on my arse.

“I know! What’s happened?”

“Just relax. Here, bend your knees.” I oblige. “Now bounce,” he insists, demonstrating. I copy him. Then he takes both of my hands and wobbles my arms like a caterpillar, to make sure they are nice and relaxed too. He gives his whole body a shake and I do the same.

Then he takes my hands again and expertly sets off backwards, leading me. I must admit it feels better already. I relax into it and before long we are whizzing round holding hands, it feels amazing. My body eventually loosens up and I start to feel free again.

We venture into the middle and slow down. The middle is the haunt of the cool kids and the couples. He spins us slightly as we come to a stop and I put my arms around his neck. He kisses me and I melt. It feels like I’m in a film. I feel like Kate Moseley kissing Doug Dorsey in The Cutting Edge.

“Do you remember that awful ice skating film you made me watch a thousand times?”

I laugh. “The Cutting Edge.”

“That’s it. He was a hockey player who got injured and cut from the Olympic team. Wasn’t he blinded?”

“He lost some of his peripheral vision,” I correct. I could tell him that it was eighteen percent but I feel this knowledge doesn't reflect well on me.

“Sorry! Then she turns him into a figure skater and they win gold. God, it was awful!” He shakes his head, amused.

I slap him playfully.

“I loved that film.”

“Don’t I know it?”

I kiss him deeply as he gently spins us.

“This is brilliant, thank you for bringing me.”

“Come on,” he says, taking my hand. “Let’s eat.”

We sit in a gorgeous little pub. I’ve been here before, it used to be awful. It has recently been done up, but as I hardly get out, I didn’t realise. Sat on a comfy sofa, we face each other, having eaten a satisfying lunch. We both had fish and chips, which he views as a delicacy. This tickles me, but apparently they just can’t get it right in the States.

We’ve talked about his life at home, his friends. He tells me about ‘pretty blonde girl, Jen’. She sounds lovely; he hopes I’ll meet her one day. He tells me she was partly responsible for him coming here to see me.

“So why now?” I ask, hoping it will open the door for about five thousand-or-so of my other questions.

He hesitates, like he’s deciding whether to tell me.

“Something made you enter my head. Once you had, I couldn’t shake you out.” He smiles shyly.

“Did you think about me much?” It’s not a question I would want to answer, but I’m only thinking about myself when I ask it. I want to know if I was ever on his mind.

“At first,” he sighs. “But I had to move on. I was torturing myself.”

“So you shut it out?”

“I had no choice.”

I nod in empathy; it’s exactly what I did.

“I know,” I whisper. How do we get so deep so quickly?

“Once you were back in my head though, I either had to look you up, or start trying to shut you out all over again. It seemed like the right time, so I took the risk.”

“Big risk. I might have been married!”

He laughs, like somehow he knew it wasn’t the case.

“When I found you, it seemed like you were unattached…you know the rest.”

“But what if I hadn’t seemed unattached?”

“I would have left you alone,” he looks away, like this idea pains him. He recovers quickly though and turns on me. “What about you, did you ever try to look me up?”

“Never.” But not because I didn’t want to, I want to say. Because I couldn’t stand it. Even though he has just admitted the same thing, I just can’t reciprocate. I feel too vulnerable.

“Yet, here we are,” he muses.

“I know. Is this all a little weird?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I think most people would have tried to be friends to begin with.”

“Most people didn’t have what we had in the past.”

“I know, but…I’m nervous about us falling back into it without addressing some issues.”

“What issues?”

“Erm, our geography stands out as the most obvious thing,” I joke, but there is little humour in my voice.

“I’m here.”

God this is infuriating. Is he trying to make me ask him to stay? I’m not doing it! He couldn’t possibly promise me something like that yet and I wouldn’t expect him to.

“Yes, but not for good,” I dodge the inevitable.

“Why?”

Shit, really? No way! I shake my head in exasperation. He doesn’t know what he is saying. He leans forward and takes my hand. It sends my insides into a frenzy. What is he going to say? He looks serious.

“Listen, here is what I know. Nothing went wrong between us, just circumstances tore us apart. If I hadn’t left, who knows, we might still be together. I’ve tried very hard since then, to not hold everything up against what we had, but it’s impossible. There has been something missing in my life ever since that day and last week, for the first time in twelve years, something changed. The missing piece came into view and I had to come see if I could put myself back together.”

He breathes…I don’t.

WHOA!

If I don’t breathe soon, I’m going to die. I expel the air from my lungs and heave in some more. I swallow hard. What am I supposed to say? I feel like I’ve been hit by a lorry. I haven’t allowed myself to fully examine my feelings for him yet out of self-preservation. But here he is talking about missing pieces. I must have my mouth hanging open. I make an effort to communicate with my body. I think it responds, but I can’t be sure.