The Offer (19 page)

“I see.”

I raise my
brow at him. “You just want to go through my underwear.”

“Oh, I’ve
already gone through your underwear.”

“Lies.”

“I wore them
on my head and danced around your apartment.”

“Did you
really?” I ask, totally serious.

“Come on,” he
says grabbing my forearms. “If you want to sleep in your clothes,
that’s fine. But I’m bringing you to your own bed and taking off
your shoes.”

“Can you brush
my teeth too? I need clean teeth.” I let him pull me to my feet and
I pitch to the left, heading right for the coffee table. But I’m in
his arms, his capable arms, and he’s holding me to him.

“You have
capable arms.”

“You have an
exquisite arse,” he responds and half leads me, half drags me out
of the living area and into the bedroom.

“
I like
the way you say
arse
,” I say
with a giggle, exaggerating his accent. “I like the way you say
everything.”

“I’m glad,
because I foresee a lot of arse talk in the future.”

“Yeah, yeah.”
I try and swat him away. “All talk and no arse pinching.”

“You’re as
tipsy as a loon,” he whispers into my ear. “Otherwise, I’d be all
over you and in you. You wouldn’t be able to walk for days and I’d
just be getting started.” He lays me down on my back and then
starts to take off my shoes.

“Sounds
painful,” I comment, feeling my whole body turn into a jellyfish.
For a moment I think I don’t even have fingers and toes or arms or
legs, I’m just this squishy, nebulous blob.

“Nebulous
blob?” Bram asks.

“You can read
my mind!” I’m offended at the violation of privacy.

“No, you just
said nebulous blob,” he says. “Aloud.”

I take in a
deep breath, trying to protect my thoughts from his mind-reading
abilities. Then I blurt out, “I made out with something. I mean,
someone.”

“Okay,” he
says slowly, placing my shoes on the floor and sitting on the edge
of the bed. “And you’re telling me this because?”

“Because you
can tell the things I did.”

His breath
hitches slightly and I roll my head to the side to peer down the
bed at him. “I let a guy almost have sex with me in the bathroom.
He was twenty-four and a Giants fan.”

His Adam’s
apple bobs as he swallows. “Sounds like half the boys in the
city.”

“But I didn’t
have sex with him.”

“No? Are you
an Oakland A’s fan?”

“
I’m a
Giants fan,” I snipe, getting defensive. “And he wasn’t
you
.”

He tilts his
head, studying the nebulous blob on the bed. “So why did almost
have sex with him to begin with, if you knew he wasn’t me?”

“Because,” I
say, frustrated. I place my hand over my eyes. My hand smells like
beer. It makes me want to vomit. “I didn’t want the last person I
kissed to be you. I wanted to wipe you from my lips.”

A heavy
silence fills the room. I feel like I’m sinking further and further
into the bed and I want to panic, thinking it’s swallowing me
whole. Man, I haven’t been this drunk in ages. I’m going to regret
absolutely everything in the morning.

“I was the
last man you kissed?” he asks, his voice light and unbelieving.

I nod. “Yes.
At the wedding.”

“And why would
you want to erase that kiss?” He puts his hand on my bare leg, just
beneath the hem of my dress. I want his hand to go up higher. I
want the energy to do something about it.

I also want to
pass out.

It’s a
conundrum.

“
Because,” I tell him. No use in holding back now. “I saw
you with that girl later. You took her behind the bushes, to where
we just were. You were a fucking asshole.
Arse
hole.”

I can hear him
lick his lips. It sounds so loud in this room. My heart is thumping
loud too, like a hammer against a padded wall. “She was second
choice,” he eventually says. “You turned me on like nothing else
that night, sweetheart, I didn’t know what to do.”

“Go home and
jack off like every normal person,” I tell him snidely.

“You know very
well that it’s not always a good substitute. And certainly not for
a woman like you.” He leans forward and puts his warm hand on my
face, his fingers trailing down the side of my cheek. It brings out
a shudder in me that I can’t suppress. “I only had eyes for you
that night,” he tells me.

He’s a
liar. He had eyes for everyone that night. I roll over on my side,
away from him, and the room makes this
whom whom
throbbing sound. I think it’s my brain. I broke
it.

“I’m serious,
Nicola,” he goes on, voice gritty and soft all at once.

Whatever. “Only an
idiot
would fall for a line like that,” I mutter into the sheets,
sleep coming for me now, wanting me even when I’m feeling
slighted.

A pause. I
feel his weight lift off the bed and know he’s standing up, bearing
over me. “Even smart girls can be fools sometimes.” He sounds
almost sad.

I can hear him
leave the room and for a moment I think he’s gone and something in
my chest seems to be snuffed out. Then he comes back in and places
a glass of water on my nightstand and shuts off the bedroom
light.

“Ava is
asleep. She did fine all night. Her blood was normal. I’m sure
she’ll wake you bright and early and you’ll feel like absolute
shit. But if you need anything, you know where I am.”

Then he leaves
the room and leaves the apartment and I’m swept away into a spiral
of beer, shame and regret.

I wish I had
the drunken courage to have made him stay.

“Mommy, are
you dead?”

“Almost,” I
croak, attempting to open my eyes and roll over at the same time. I
fail at both. The room swims and my head feels like it’s full of
quicksand. My stomach churns. I don’t want to get up – I fear death
by spinning room if I do – but if I don’t, I’m going to puke all
over my child.

I can’t
believe she’s seeing me like this. I can’t believe I was such an
idiot last night.

Memories seep
in.

Bram.

Bram.

Bram dragging
my drunk ass to sleep.

Bram telling
me he only had eyes for me.

Me, who told
him I made out with someone else in order to get over him.

Shit.

Now, I’m
really going to vomit.

I cover my
mouth with my hand, throw back my covers and run into the bathroom,
making it to the toilet just in time. Somewhere in the back of my
head, behind all the vile grossness being evacuated from my body, I
hope that Bram can’t hear me. The bathrooms seem soundproof so far
– thank God – but this is definitely something I wouldn’t want him
to hear.

When I’m done
and it feels like I have nothing left in my stomach, I flush the
toilet a few times and stagger to my feet. The mirror shows me a
hot mess. No, not hot – just a mess.

My hair is
somehow still in its updo, but it’s completely askew and fuzzy like
one giant dreadlock. My fancy eyeliner is halfway up my temple and
the red lipstick is a smudge around my mouth and chin. I look like
a creepy clown lady.

I look like a
terrible mother.

“Are you
sickie?” Ava asks. “Do you need the ouchie now too?”

“I’ll be
alright, sweetie,” I tell her, quickly brushing my teeth and
attempting to melt off my makeup with cream cleanser. I spend a few
minutes trying to make everything right in the world but nothing
works. I strip my clothes off, take a hot shower and then get into
loose boyfriend jeans and a long grey tunic, all comfy. Anything
tight today can just fuck right off.

It’s 7:15 am,
so luckily I’m not too behind on Ava’s monitoring. I prick her
finger and breathe a sigh of relief when I see the numbers in the
normal. Then I get set on getting some egg and avocado in her, with
a small slice of wholegrain toast, part of her carb counting to
keep her levels in check.

As for me, I
can’t eat and I can’t fathom drinking coffee, so I sit on the couch
and finish a whole carton of orange juice, feeling sorry for
myself. And all the while, I wonder if I’ll hear a knock on the
door. I wonder if Bram will come over. I wonder if he still likes
me – if anything – after being such a drunken fool last night.

Even smart girls can be fools
, I hear his words echo in my head. I know it’s
not what he meant, but I’m definitely feeling the fool right
now.

When lunch
time rolls around, I’m only feeling better enough to have a packet
of chicken noodle soup, the fluorescent yellow one that comes in
the packet and contains no chicken at all. That, plus Bragg’s soy
sauce, plus hot sauce, plus a hit of Worcestershire and a side of
toast, and you should be feeling right as rain in no time.

Only I’m not.
I lament everything I drank, everything I did, and when Bram still
doesn’t show, I start annoying Steph and Kayla via group
message.

Steph assures
me that Bram used to be worse than what I was last night and that
was part of his nightly routine. There was no way he could be
looking down on me.

Kayla thinks
it’s a shame I passed out before I could get some and when I tell
her it wasn’t even on the table because I was so drunk, she says
that Bram was more of “the man” than she thought.

But neither
have any answers and when I finally have a bit of strength, I go
over to his apartment. I knock on the door and wait.

No answer. I
put my ear to the door and listen but can’t hear anything inside
except the faint hum of his fridge.

It’s
completely silly to take that as a sign of rejection but somehow I
do. I plod back to my apartment and decide to busy myself to take
my mind off of things. Because Ava is bored and a light rain has
started outside, which is something of a relief in a city that
always seems to hold it in, I try and make assembling an IKEA couch
sound like an exciting adventure.

She falls for
it. She always does. We open the boxes and then get to work. It’s
only when I see the two drawn figures in the instructions saying
this is a two-person job that I wish again that Bram was home. But
still, I do what I can, even the instructions have me completely
confused and things would be so much easier with an electric
drill.

Eventually I
tire out and give up. So does Ava. We retire to my room and the
both of us pass out on my bed. She always loves it when I have
naptime with her and I can’t remember the last time I treated
myself to such a luxury. Sometimes it’s the easiest, most simple
things in life that bring you the most joy. The good, pure kind of
joy that just makes you feel human and proud of it.

I must have
only been asleep for about fifteen minutes when I hear a knock on
the door break through the fog. I get up without waking Ava and
close the door behind me as I go across the apartment.

Even though
I’m tired, my heart is lodged at the top of my chest, ready to pop
like champagne. Am I actually giddy from just opening a damn
door?

But yes. I am.
Bram is in the hallway, his lips pursed in concern.

“How are you
doing?” he asks, looking me over. “You look like shit.”

“Always the
charmer,” I say dryly, even though my heart is beating fast and I
can’t help the smile on my lips.

He shrugs
casually. “You told me you liked it when I’m a jerk.”

“I say a lot
of things,” I tell him. “That’s the first thing you should know
about me.”

“Oh, I already
know a lot of things,” he says. “After all, I was here last night
going through your photo albums, just like I said I would. Is it
strange that I think we would have been boyfriend and girlfriend in
high school? I saw you with your hair short and purple, with a
Lovage t-shirt. Girl after my own heart.” He looks over my shoulder
at the apartment. “So, are you going to let me in or what?”

I step aside
and gesture for him. “Come on in. You can see over there the
attempt at putting together one of the couches. I’m pretty much an
epic fail today. A hangover and no cordless drill make Nicola a
dull girl.”

He raises a
finger in the air. “Just one moment.” And then he’s turning around
and heading out the door into his apartment. I watch his high, firm
ass as he goes. He’s dressed in a suit again, which makes me think
he’s been doing important things all day.

When he comes
back in he’s holding a toolkit.

“Well, aren’t
you a handyman,” I tell him, as he opens it and starts taking out
tools and placing them on the ground.

“I’m more than
just a pretty face, I can tell you that much,” he says with a wink
and soon he produces a cordless drill. He revs it a few times and
I’m glad I closed the door to the bedroom so Ava can keep on
sleeping. Even so, it’s not that loud.

But it’s
definitely
hot
. Bram takes
off his grey suit jacket and throws it on the couch, then rolls up
the sleeves of his black dress shirt, showing off those gorgeous
forearms again and gets to work. If watching Bram jerk off was the
hottest thing I’d ever witnessed, then watching him be all take
charge and manly man with the tools is the second hottest thing. I
guess it says I’m a pretty basic bitch to find that attractive but
hell I’ll own up to it.

“So,” Bram
says while I try and hold together one part of the frame while he
connects another. “What do you remember about last night?”

I groan, not
wanting to relive this. “Everything. At least the last half of the
night.”

“You said you
made out with some Giants fan. Almost had sex with him.”