Chapter 29 Forbidden Fruit #2
“A wee bit, but also eager to get the first few days over with. No one likes being the new girl.”
“There’s our next date then. At the end of the week, I’ll take you out for dinner to celebrate. We can go to El Vino’s and you can help me with the menu again.”
“Sounds lovely, as long as you promise not to wear your frowny face this time.”
“I promise.”
“And how strict are we being in the no-sexting rule?”
Catherine shook her head. “No sexting. You can keep all those thoughts to yourself, but do bear in mind I can hear the ceiling creaking when you move in bed.”
Jules’s eyes practically doubled in size, and a blush crept up her neck, staining her fair skin a delicate pink. “No, you cannot!”
Catherine grinned, reaching for Jules’s hand and threading their fingers together; a gesture somehow both chaste and charged.
“I have this mindfulness micro-blog I write for work…” Catherine shook her head. “Oh, actually, never mind… it’s silly.”
Jules squeezed her hand and smiled. “Go on, say what you were about to say.”
“The last couple of days spent with you have been… I’ve been really present in a way that I haven’t for such a long time. It’s like I’ve finally got out of my own way. Holding back isn’t about restraint, although it kind of is too; it’s…”
“I get it; it’s about enjoying where we are now and not rushing.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
They held each other’s gaze. For the first time in a long time, Catherine felt seen, understood. But as the moment stretched, Jules’s smile drained from her face.
“I… I need to tell you something. I wasn’t completely honest with you before.” She bowed her head, breaking eye contact and flooding Catherine with unease.
“You know how I told you I’d looked you up…”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I stumbled across your blog.”
“Oh, okay.” Catherine nodded. “You already knew about my blog?”
“It’s really good. I mean, I’ve enjoyed reading your posts.” Jules chewed her bottom lip. “But there’s more…”
Catherine angled her head.
“I messaged you a few times.”
Catherine frowned. “You messaged me? When? What about?”
Hesitation hovered in Jules’s voice. “I don’t know why I started, but I enjoyed chatting with you, so, it just sort of continued.
I wanted to tell you who I was, but the longer I left it, the weirder it seemed to just say, ‘Oh, by the way, my mum used to be your neighbour, and we spoke on the phone when she died.’”
“I really don’t understand.”
Jules’s forehead wrinkled. She held up her hand and gave a small wave as if introducing herself for the first time. The blush on her cheeks deepened. “I’m… Betty77.”
Catherine carefully put down her cup. No sudden movements — she might startle the stalker.
Jules looked at her through wide eyes, as if she’d just read Catherine’s mind.
“I see how this might look to you now. I really clicked with you online, I didn’t imagine it’d be even better in person.
” Jules reached her hand into her hair. “I want to be completely honest with you… about everything. I know it doesn’t make things any better, but I suspended my account as soon as I knew I’d be moving in above you. ”
“Why Betty?”
“Sorry?”
“Why was your username Betty?”
“Oh, it’s just what Will calls me sometimes. He’s Wilma, I’m Betty… You know, The Flintstones?”
Catherine blinked.
“It’s just one of those work things that stuck, it isn’t—”
“I feel like a fool. You lied to me, Jules.”
Jules held up a hand. “Technically, I didn’t lie.
I know I’ve done things all tits about, but…
I like you, Catherine. I really like you.
I felt it back then, and, my God, I feel it now.
I don’t think I’ve ever been drawn to someone like this before…
it’s… you’re…” Jules’s shoulders sagged as words deserted her.
Catherine shook her head. She’d managed to shrug it off when Jules had told her she’d looked her up online, but now unease welled inside her.
This was worse; this was much worse. She’d been manipulated and lured into conversation.
On the surface it all seemed fairly benign, but still, red flag.
Big red flag. Catherine didn’t need one of those waving in her face to recognise it; she’d seen plenty throughout her career, and she’d survived Francesca.
Jules stood. “I should leave.”
Catherine nodded but didn’t get up to see her out.
Her stomach ached with disappointment as the front door clicked to a close — the sound of something ending before it had really begun. Catherine picked up her phone and texted Penny.
Woman down. Help!
Penny called right away. After listening to Catherine’s frantic retelling, she let out a low whistle and muttered, “What in the Kathy Bates?”
“That’s not helpful, Pen.”
Penny chuckled. “Look, we’re just heading out to dinner, but I’ll be home tomorrow. Loz has to pop into the office, and he says it’ll be a late one. Come over; we’ll order something in and chat it through, okay?”
“I feel so foolish.”
“I know it’s hard, babe, but try not to overthink this. Put it out of your mind, can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good girl. See you tomorrow.”
Catherine hung up and looked around her apartment. She’d lived there for over a decade and always felt completely at home. Jules had been in her flat for less than an hour, and now the place felt emptier without her, though Catherine knew the space hadn’t changed; she had.
The anxious energy buzzing through her would best be dispelled with a walk.
Before heading out the main door, she glanced up the stairs — she now officially lived beneath a woman she would have to actively avoid, so why was she still being pulled in her direction?
She yearned to know what was happening beyond her neighbour’s door. Was Jules feeling as hollow as she was?
Catherine couldn’t shake the look of vulnerability etched on Jules’s face as she gave her full disclosure. That, and the shape of her smile, the taste of her kiss. Unhelpful.
“So, all along Jules was the same person you’d been messaging online?
The one I’d warned you about getting too close to because they were probably-most-definitely an axe-murderer?
” Penny collapsed back into the plush cushions of her sofa with a whoosh of a laugh.
“Bloody hell! I mean, you couldn’t make that up. ”
Catherine buried her face in her palms and nodded.
“Although, actually it’s a bit like that movie.”
“What movie?” Catherine asked through her fingers.
“Er… Tom Hanks and the cute blonde woman.” She squeezed her eyes shut and clicked her fingers, “You’ve Got Mail.”
“It’s nothing like You’ve Got Mail.”
“It is a bit.”
“No one is falling in love with Meg Ryan or saving an indie bookshop from a greedy corporation.”
“No, but you spent months exchanging cute messages with a woman you didn’t know you were already connected to. And now, she lives above you and wants to bone you.”
“Penny!” Catherine tried and failed to hide her grin behind her empty glass. “You’re supposed to be helping me figure out what to do about my stalker-cum-neighbour situation.”
Penny gulped down her last mouthful of wine and sat up to refill their glasses.
“Babe, I’m trying to help you re-frame it. You met someone online, had a genuine connection with them, and they turned out to be a real living, breathing, as-gorgeous-as-the-sun woman… and you don’t want to date her because?”
“Because what she did was very intrusive. She sort-of-stalked me and drew me into talking to her…”
“And then turned out to be better than anything you could’ve even dreamed up, no?”
Catherine lifted her shoulders, but she had to admit Penny was right. In the ridiculously short time she’d known Jules, Catherine’s overriding feeling was that she wanted more: more time, more information, more of everything and anything Jules had to offer.
“I mean, she’s really hot! She can sort-of-stalk me whenever she likes.”
Catherine hit Penny’s arm. “Penny, stop. Be serious for once. It’s a red flag. If a patient came to me with a situation like this, I’d tell them to run a mile.”
“Okay, fine.” Penny shrugged. “She didn’t need to ‘fess up to you, but she did. That’s got to go in her favour.”
“Yeah, but that was only because we almost slept together.”
“She still didn’t need to tell you. She could have had her wicked way with you, and you’d have been none the wiser.”
“Hmm.” Catherine pressed her lips together.
Penny held up her hands. “Admittedly, what she did at the start was a bit creepy, but she had her reasons. She came to protect her mum and stayed for the sparkling conversation. We’ve all done our fair share of weird shit, right?”
Catherine blinked.
“Okay, you’re an exception. But you know from your job that most people do weird things.”
“Yeah, and then they go and get help.”
“I think you seriously need to ask yourself whether you’re just getting in your own way again. Like, are you so intent on looking out for red flags you’re dismissing all the green ones?”
Catherine sipped her wine and slowly nodded as Penny’s words settled in her mind.