The Art of Keeping Faith (33 page)

“It’s quite okay, thank you. I would like the green one.” He flashes his rock star smirk.

She gives in with good grace and checks us in.

“Just let me know if there is anything else you need help with at all during your stay.” She simpers as she hands over the key with a good old grope of his fingers before casting a critical glare over my sad tatty outfit.

Oh, my God! I am standing right here.

“We will be just fine,” he assures her turning and sliding his arm around my waist.

“After you,” he whispers into my ear.

I practically run for the stairs and the pea green heaven that they lead to.

Later

“So do girls give you come-to-bed eyes all the time?” I ask. I have my head on his chest and am running my fingers up and down his stomach, which is still delightfully defined.

“I don’t ever notice.”

“Oh come on, she was practically ready to jump onto the counter and let you have it.”

“Lilah! That’s filthy
.”

“I could show you something filthy, if you like?”

“Delilah!” He grins as I stretch up and clamber across his lap. “What is it exactly?”

“Well I have had a lot of thinking time on my hands.” I lower my lips down his torso flicking my tongue along the rivets of muscle.

“Have you been having dirty thoughts about me?”

“Yes.”

“How dirty?”

“Very.”

Later

“Lilah, I think if you were to put that much thought into you academic studies you would probably get a first.”

“But then I would not have time to think about doing stuff like this…” I roll him back over me sliding my hand down his back which is still damp with sweat.

“I’m going to need a rest.”

“Rest when you’re back in America, not on my time.”

“Well, that’s a plan. You are such a clever girl.”

Later

“Beer and crisps?”

I am not sure I have heard him right. I am face down on the bed and may be in a shagged-out coma.

“Beer? Crisps?”

“I need food, Lilah. I haven’t eaten since the plane.” I open my mouth to clarify that he has eaten, just not any food, when he holds his hand up to stop me. “Okay, I am taking my Lilah out for a drink now. Is dirty Lilah staying here or coming with?”

“Coming with. Let’s go,” I shout jumping from the bed.

Seven Pints of Beer Later

Yes, seven. A piece.

Beer talk = not good.

Dirty Lilah is fine when drunk. Sadly, her alter ego still can’t keep her mouth shut.

We are walking along the Cobb again and unlike last year I am determined to mention nothing whatsoever about being only best friends.

“Are you too scared to talk?” Ben laughs after ten minutes of determined silence by me.

I nod my head.

“You’re crazy.” Coming to a stop he slides one arm around me, pulling me tight and kissing me as the blustery sea wind gusts around us.

When we pull apart he tightens his arm around my waist and we continue our little drunken zigzag walk.

“So what do you think about Meredith and Tristan setting a date,” he asks.

“I think they are mad.”

“Really?” he frowns a little.

“I just don’t know what the rush is.”

“Why? Because she wants to get married now?”

“Yeah, I mean they row all time. I’m worried that she thinks getting married will stop the rows.”

“But they love each other.”

“But is love enough, Ben?” The words slip out before I can stop them. Curse it.

He stops walking and turns to face me.

“So what? Do you not want to get married ever or have a baby?”

Why does everyone put getting married with having a baby? Are they mutually exclusive of each other?

“Well, yes, no. I don’t know, Ben.”

“That does not make any sense.”

“All I am saying is that I can’t really see myself married or being a mother, I just can’t visualise it.”

The blue stare at me with a melting intensity, “I can.”

“Can what?”

“See it, I can see you being those things.”

“Really? Because I honestly can’t…” I stop myself from saying anything else, he has a frown crease between his brows and I am not sure what it means.

Pulling him in close I kiss him and try to distract him from the conversation. I don’t know where it is heading but it feels uncomfortable and I just want to enjoy the limited time we have together. That and dirty Lilah wants to come out to play again. Conversations like this might stop that from happening.

As we walk back to the hotel, step in time with one another he links his fingers with mine and raises my hands to his lips.

“What was that for?”

“Because I hope that one day you see me the way that I see you. But I think I have to wait for that moment.”

I stop walking.

Fuck, have I done it again?

“Ben did you have something to say?”

“No.”

“Ask?”

He smiles. “No, it is okay, Lilah. I am happy just waiting for you.”

I don’t understand this because I thought I was waiting for him. Waiting for him to do his thing in America; waiting for him to come home. I don’t bloody know, waiting for something. I am going nowhere. So why on earth is he waiting for me?

I try to push the thoughts away from my mind for the rest of our time together at the hotel. But in a way it is kind of hard. I end up reading things into everything he says. And Ben, for his part, literally devours me with a hungry determination the rest of the night.

I wish I knew what he was thinking. In the silent darkness of the pea green room, it feels like he is trying to show me something. Only, I don’t know what it is.

16th February

Home

Meredith and Tristan have left The Sun open on the kitchen counter. Tristan has also left one of his sarcastic Post-it notes saying that he figured I would break my no-reading-of-The=Sun vow for this.

Spread across the double page gossip section is the picture of Ben and I taken at Trafalgar.

I stop and look at it with a critical scrutiny, but there is little for me to fault. It looks very romantic. Ben has his hands gently holding my chin and throat in his kissing hold and both our eyes are closed as we lean into each other.

“I never realised how much taller you are than me,” I say, turning to face him, catching him with a smirk on his lips.

“What are you up to?” I ask with a smile.

“Nothing, I don’t know what you are talking about.” He shrugs.

I point at the picture and then the smirk on his face, which is getting wider by the moment.

“Benjamin?”

“What?”

“Tell me?”

“I am staking my claim is all.” He gives a secret smile with his words.

“What? What on earth does that mean? What are you staking a claim in?” I push.

“You.”

Kit’s thrilled.

I am kind of thrilled myself.

17th February

“You’re going, aren’t you?”

I have my arms tight around Ben’s waist as he tries to get up from the bed.

“Yes, Lilah. To the shower.”

“Nope, not allowed.”

“Oh for goodness’ sake.”

Ben lifts me up off the bed and carries me screaming into the shower.

Twenty minutes later

“What time is your flight?” I am drying my hair and watching him get dressed in the mirror. Let’s be honest there is not much hair drying going on. I am actually drying the wall instead of my hair. I’m just drooling over him walking around barefoot and bare-chested in jeans.

“I’m beginning to get the impression you want me out of here. Am I cramping your student style or something?”

“Well you’re not, but that big hunk of silver is doing nothing for my poor student street cred.”

The blues crinkle at me as he pushes his damp hair away from his eyes.

I could so easily blow off lectures today.

“Well I was planning on escorting you to campus, then picking you up later and cooking you dinner if that would be okay with you.”

Nope. I don’t think my ears are working properly.

“So you aren’t leaving today?” I practically scream.

Ben laughs. “No, Lilah.”

I launch myself across the bed and into his arms.

“Best Valentine’s ever.”

“I’d say.” He cups his hand around the back of my head, fingers sliding in my still-damp hair, and tilts my mouth to his.

“So are you still going to campus?”

No, no, no, no!

Then I remember Pilchard and the fact that he actually likes me at the moment and I know I don’t want to let him down.

“Yeah.” I begrudgingly mutter.

Ben just laughs some more.

“We have all afternoon and all night, Lilah, I am not leaving until tomorrow okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

9.35 a.m.

Bugger, I am late for class again. I don’t care though. Ben has walked me across campus, holding my hand, his step in time with mine. He is determined to make me late by snogging me every two minutes.

I will take late for that anytime!

I burst through the door to the lecture hall flushed to the max.

“Ah, Delilah McCannon. Good weekend, I assume?” Pilchard calls. He is not frowning though. In fact he is smiling.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d say,” he sends me a wink that I stare at open mouthed. Everyone laughs and throws little jeers my way along the lines of ‘Way to go, Lilah.’ It seems the History Students like their news tabloidy and gossipy over the weekend.

Everyone apart from Barbie, who is simmering near the back, and Richard, who is looking anywhere apart from at me.

11.55 a.m.

Lunch. I walk through the door thinking I will just go and grab a coffee or something before my next lecture. Monday is sadly double bubble day and I have lectures both morning and afternoon. It sucks big time.

I see Ben straight away. He is loitering on the grass with about fifty girls all hanging a short distance away. He looks most bemused, sending me a shrug from across the grass, before starting to walk toward me, all long-legged artistic grace. I stand in mesmerised rapture watching him.

“Close your mouth, Lilah,” Richard speaks low into my ear from behind me. He does not stop to chat with me or Ben, and just walks off in the opposite direction.

Fine.

Ben reaches me and leans me back in a ridiculous kiss, which makes all the girls watching him give a little sigh.

Oh yes—and he is all mine.

So back the fuck off.

Ha ha. Only joking. Okay, only joking a little bit.

“Fancy a beer?” he asks, the freckles crinkling.

“Benjamin Chambers I am a very serious student, I don’t have time to drink at lunch time.”

“That’s because you don’t have me to drink with anymore.”

“True.”

“Come on. Let’s go. I am sure Trev will be pleased for the boost in profits.”

“If you absolutely insist.”

No afternoon lecture.

8.00 p.m.

Ben is cooking. Spaghetti Bolognese—God, I love that man.

Meredith and I are on our third bottle of wine; the good stuff that Ben has bought us, not the cheap shit we have been drinking of late.

I may be a little drunk as I sit on the kitchen counter watching him cook.

“What you grinning at?” he asks.

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I love this, when you are here. It feels just right.”

He gives the sauce another stir and then comes and wedges himself as close as he can to me, pulling my lips down to his own.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” shouts Tristan. “Don’t start bloody snogging again. We are never going to get dinner at this rate.”

“Bite me.” We both shout back at the same time.

9.30 p.m.

Meredith is showing me wedding dresses on the Internet. Tristan is talking about something boring with Ben. I zoned out after the first five minutes. I have no idea what my brother talks about half the time.

“Lilah,” Ben calls eventually. I have not looked at a single dress. I have just been watching him across the room. “I’m going for a ciggie, coming?”

Duh.

I am struggling up from where I am wedged on the cushions as Ben walks around the sofa and peeks at the laptop. “That one,” he says to Meredith.

“Really?” she asks, clearly not keen on a boy’s opinion.

I look, too. “Uh, shit yes. That is the one.” I agree wholeheartedly.

Ben has pointed out the most beautifully understated dress I have ever seen. It will look perfect on Meredith’s tall willowy frame.

It’s the kind of dress I would like to wear if I was a) taller and b) thinner.

Outside I take a cigarette from our remaining duty free stash. “Nice choice.”

“It’s what I can imagine you wearing one day.”

“Really? I think that would look terrible.”

He blows his smoke into the air and stares at the stars that are playing hide and seek in the wisps of light clouds passing by.

“I see you completely differently to how you see yourself,” he tells me.

That’s true.

Turning to face me he glides one hand along my cheek, and moves himself into my space. The freckles are glimmering in the moonlight and I reach a finger toward them, grazing over the pattern they make on his skin.