Authors: Kirsty Greenwood
“
I'll pay you,
”
she pleads.
I wouldn't normally accept money for looking after Jean-Paul Gaultier, he's the sweetest little poodle, but a bit of extra cash would not go amiss...
“
Fine. No probs.
”
“
Excellent, cheers,
S
is. But…do you mind if I pay you next month, rather than this? There's this dress I'm after in River Island and I really want to buy it for Saturday night.
”
She grabs a lipstick off my dressing table, checks out the colour on her hand and then pockets it.
“
But you wouldn’t have accepted money to look after him anyway, right?
”
Yes.
“
Oh, no, no. Course not.
”
“
Awesome sauce. That's that sorted. When’s Olly getting here?
”
Twenty minutes ago.
“
He should be here any minute. Probably driving over here as we speak. I best get on.
”
“
Right,
”
says Dionne, flipping her blonde hair so that it lands in a perfect arrangement over her shoulder.
“
Well, I’ve got to go anyway
-
Jean-Paul Gaultier needs a walk and then Bull and I are going to his ho
use to watch Scarface. H
is uncle’s cousin was a consultant on the set of the movie. He had to make sure it was all true to life and realistic and stuff. It’s all very close to Bull’s heart.
”
I picture Al Pacino and his massive desk mountain of cocaine and wonder how realistic that scene was. And then I wonder how worried I should be about this Bull fella and his murky connections.
“
When do we get to meet him, then?
”
Dionne bites her lip and shrugs,
“
Soon. He’s shy.
”
A shy gangster. What next? An interesting accountant? An obedient hairdresser?
On her way out of the room Dionne grabs my favourite silver and turquoise scarf - the one I intend to wear to the pub tomorrow - from the wardrobe door and flings it around her neck.
“
Oooh, can I borrow this?
”
“
Well, actually
-
”
“
Smell ya later, sis!
”
She dives out, not bothering to wait for my reply.
Arrrrrrgh!
Fifteen minutes later a horn beeps outside. Olly! I check my lip-gloss in the mirror, hop downstairs, and with a quick ‘see you later’
to M
um, head out of the door and into Olly’s car.
TEXT FROM: DIONNE.
4got to tell u Bull’s mate does wedding cake 4 cheap. All styles. Even glitter cakes.
REPLY TO: DIONNE
Sounds great! Nt sure abt glittery cake though…
After all the no
ise and wedding stress back at M
um’s house it is quite lovely to be in the silence of Olly’s apartment. We’re snuggled up on his huge black leather sofa watching some kind of sporty programme on Sky Sports. I’m not so much watching as peering at the telly and wondering why the men on the screen are wearing Lycra bodysuits. I
am
thoroughly enjoying the feel of Olly’s lovely arm flung around my shoulder, though. He lifts his bum off the sofa in excitement; something apparently interesting is happening on the screen involving weird grunting from the Lycra men. I don’t really understand it all but gasp with feigned interest, nevertheless. In response, Olly turns to me and blows a kiss before eagerly returning to the Lycra action.
I’m not really into sports and stuff but Olly loves it. Really loves it. He’s very into fitness and weight training. Every morning at six on the dot he wakes up and heads to the gym to ‘get pumped’ for an hour before coming back to pick me up and drive us both into Manchester for work. How committed is that? And then on the weekends he does paintballing with his friends and plays golf with his dad. His favourite things in the world are his car, me (presumably) and competitive sports. Sometimes I wonder how the heck we’re still together. Him a muscled, wheatgrass drinker, and me decidedly soft, (all right, flabtastical) around the edges. He doesn’t seem to mind at all though. Obviously he thinks I should lose a little weight for the sake of my health. Obviously. He doesn’t want me conking out on him when we’re married, and that’s totally understandable. He’s really caring like that.
Olly's gorgeous. I don’t even say that because I’m about to marry him, but he really is. His tanned, angular, his face makes Jude Law look like Donald Trump gone to seed, and he has the most gorgeous coffee coloured hair. He’s a little shorter than average, but just about taller than me, and it’s not like we spend all our time standing up next to each other, so it doesn’t really matter that much. And his body is just gorgeous. All toned and muscled and tanned and trim and firm and honed from the gym. And another good thing. Olly is really neat. Not like neat in the sixties groovy way, though obviously he is that too. But neat in the really tidy way. I’ve never seen him in anything that is creased or worn and his house is cleaner than a hospital operating theatre, which makes sense because both of his parents are surgeons. And anyway, it’s a great antidote to my natural state of messy and cluttered, something I’m working on improving for when we move in together.
At the next ad break on the sports programme (which I’ve since figured out is a documentary about the exciting lives of pro wrestlers) Olly jumps energetically off the sofa and bounds around into the open plan kitchen of the apartment. He lifts the lid off one of the pans that has been simmering away on the cooker and inhales deeply.
“
Voila!
”
he declares.
“
Ready in few minutes, sweetness.
”
See? How great is this? Whenever I stay at his he cooks me dinner. None of those archaic gender stereotypes going on in this relationship. No-siree. I mean, I love cooking. Really love it. For as long as I can remember I've wanted to be a chef. Making people happy with delicious food must surely be one of the most wonderful experiences there is. It’s too late in the year to take up my catering course again, but I did Google ‘Manchester + Evening Cooking Courses’ and there are few night classes which look interesting. I'm digressing now. The point I'm trying to make is that as much as I adore cooking, it’s kind of nice to know that I don’t
have
to cook should I not want to.
I scoot around the black marbled kitchen counter and take a seat over at the little two person table in Olly’s kitchen. As he dishes up he sings quietly to himself. It sounds like an old Kylie song, but I’m not sure. Bless him. As usual he’s set the table up with a pristine white tablecloth, a couple of tea-light candles in navy blue glass holders and a well chilled bottle o
f non-alcoholic Bonne Nouvelle C
hardonnay has been placed at the centre of the table. I pour us both a glass and take a sip. It tastes a little like apple juice that’s past its sell by date, but it’s worth it because it has only a third of the calories tasty real wine has. Plus no hangover tomorrow!
“
Dinner is served, my love.
”
Olly zips my wine glass onto a coaster, places my napkin over my lap and sets down the plate in front of me.
“
Oooh, yum! It looks great!
”
I say.
This isn’t strictly true. It’s a steamed fish stew and boiled brown rice. It’s beige.
Olly sits across from me, lifts his plate up to his nose and takes a big old whiff. He says
“
Aaaaaah
”
before setting his plate down. This is a ritual he has. It’s kind of cute, really.
He nods towards my plate. Oh yes. That’s another part of the ritual. I have to sniff too. Apparently it's possible to get full just from sniffing your food before eating it.
So I lift up the plate and inhale.
I can’t really smell anything.
This is often the case. The first time it happened I snuck into the kitchen after Olly had gone to bed and took some pickled garlic out of the cupboard to see if my sense of smell still worked. The pungent, acidic scent of it made my eyes water, which was excellent because I was beginning to worry about the sudden disappearance of my smelling powers, especially as a wannabe cook. I suppose that no discernible flavour is just the way with healthy food, though, isn't it? If it smelt and tasted amazing then you’d want to eat loads of it and you'd eat more than you normally would need to eat and then you'd get fat and that would defeat the point of it being healthy.
“
Take a bite! Fill your boots!
”
says Olly excitedly.
I do an eager face, heap some of the fish broth and rice onto my fork and put it into my mouth.
Nothing. It is air flavoured, oh and there's a bit too much black pepper. Any flavour that may have initially existed has been cooked away.
“
Mmmm… lovely!
”
I smile, giving my tummy an enthusiastic pat.
“
Come on!
”
Olly admonishes.
“
You reckon you want to be a chef. You can do better than lovely.
”
I nod and then pretend to be the blokes from
Masterchef.
“
Um. Soft...
grainy rice. And um. Sweet, sweet fish. A fishy explosion! The whole thing is...
delectable. A cuddle on a plate, if you will.
”
“
And the best thing is that it’s so
good
for you!
”
Olly contributes, proud of his prowess in the kitchen.
Satisfied with my judgement he declares that I should ‘tuck in before it goes cold’ and heartily scoffs his own.
I eat up as instructed and, trying hard to ignore all thoughts of a big bloody filet mignon with some French beans and onion tempura, repeat to myself that it doesn’t taste that bad and at least I’ll look all svelte and radiant with good health on my wedding day.
A couple of hours later Olly and I are tucked up under the covers of his low platform, Zen style Japanese bed. Before we go to bed Olly always insists we shower together so that we’re nice and clean before we make love. It does take the spontaneity away somewhat, but at least neither of us smells or anything, which would be infinitely worse. I used to try and encourage Olly to combine the shower and sex into one sensual, soapy activity, but he takes his showering seriously. So now we take turns to stand under the jet stream and wash thoroughly. It’s actually a rather nice bonding experience, though it can get a bit cold when it’s not your turn to stand under the hot water.
In bed, Olly leans over me and unties my dressing gown so that I’m naked. I feel slightly self-conscious of my stomach, though he strokes it and doesn’t appear to notice that it’s perhaps not as tight as the bellies of the women he must see at the gym. He grins at me, his eyes shining before heading straight for my neck.
“
You’re so damn cute, Natty,
”
he groans, doing little kisses around my ears.
“
Thanks. You too.
”
“
I mean it. Your cute little nose,
”
he kisses my nose.
“
Your cute little freckly cheeks,
”
he kisses my cheeks.
“
Your cute little chubby wubby belly,
”
he kisses my belly.
“
You’re…
almost perfect.
”
Wait a second.
Did he just say
almost
perfect? I startle for a second before mentally shrugging. Almost perfect is pretty good going, I’d say. At least he’s not lying. If he said I was totally perfect then he’d be lying.
I place my hand on his bicep and give a little squeeze. Mmmm. He really is delicious. Any girl would be lucky to have him. So, so lucky.
Our lips find each other and we kiss for a while, feeling every inch of each other’s bodies pressed up close. It’s lovely. Right before we get down to the rude stuff, Olly stops and gazes deep into my eyes.
“
I really, really can’t wait until we’re married, sweetness. I love you so very, very much.
”
I sigh with content, all thoughts of bad hair, shiny wedding dresses and diamante banished from my mind. Those things really don’t matter. I’m getting married to a gorgeous, kind, sexy man who thinks I’m almost perfect. That’s what matters.
“
Me too.
”
I grin, grabbing his bottom and pulling him into me…