6. Leah
6
Leah
Strange shit is happening to me.
I’m twenty-one and it’s almost the weekend. I should be making arrangements to get wasted. But no, here I am tucking a six-year-old into bed and reading her a bedtime story. I’m not stupid, I knew she’d try to get me to read the longest book she owns, but I spotted The Gruffalo and said I did great animal voices. She was asleep before I read the last page so I’m not sure if that was exhaustion or a reaction to my reading style. Truth is, I can’t wait to get back downstairs to her daddy. There are gorgeous smells of tomato sauce and garlic coming from downstairs and I can hear pots and pans clattering around. The special ingredient in my hot chocolate seems to have gone straight to my head—I’m such a lightweight—and I’m feeling all sorts of confusing feelings.
This girl needs a mum.
I never thought about having kids before and now maybe I can see them in my future.
I don’t really have much family now. Is that what’s making me think of creating my own?
Jenson Hale is one sexy fucker.
* * *
With one last glance at how cute Amelia looks fast asleep, so angelic and peaceful, I close her bedroom door behind me softly and make my way downstairs.
“She’s exhausted; she fell asleep before I’d even finished.” I tell him as my eyes feast upon his body. The fitted fabric of his shorts makes his arse look delectable. The food aromas are making me hungry; Jenson’s body is making me hungrier. I lick around my bottom lip as it feels a bit dry and Jenson groans.
“What’s up?”
“Erm, cramp. A bit of cramp.” He shakes out his foot.
“Do you want me to rub it for you?” I offer without thinking.
“Erm, no, it’s okay.” He flusters. “It’s gone off now, just a twinge.”
I move nearer to him and lean over the hob. “So what are you making? It smells divine.”
“A new pasta sauce for the restaurant. I’m just experimenting at the moment for the autumn menu. The tomatoes and chilli in there are from your garden. I think your dad’s chilli might just be my winning formula. He lifts up the spoon and holds it out to me to taste.
I open my mouth to accept the wooden spoon and the taste dances on my tongue. The burst of tomato, the underlying garlic and spices, and then that chilli kicker. “Wow.” I exclaim. “That is superb.”
“I’ve been experimenting for weeks with different ingredients and then you walk in tonight with that bag and bring me the magic. Amelia says I’m the magic one: magic fingers, magic hot chocolate. Looks like I have a rival for the role of magician.
I shrug. “It’s my dad’s magic really.”
Jenson reaches over and touches my arm. I feel that electricity pass between us once more. “I’m sorry, Leah. It must be so difficult.”
I nod. “Yeah, it is. I think I’ll feel a little better once the house is done and sold. It’ll give me some closure.”
But then I won’t see you , I think.
“Are you hungry? I could fix some spaghetti to accompany this sauce and you can be my guinea pig and give me some feedback.”
I bite my bottom lip while I wonder if I should admit to the fact I had a pizza delivered not all that long ago.
“Yeah, sure, just a small portion please.”
He adds spaghetti to a pan and then picks up a bottle of red wine from the inbuilt wine rack. “I hardly ever drink being the sole carer for Amelia, but shall we live dangerously and open it?”
“Why not?” I reply. Given I’ve already shown him my arse I don’t see how being a little tipsy might embarrass me any more than I was earlier. He pours a hefty slug into a glass for me, half a glass for himself and then adds a bit to his pasta sauce before tasting again.
“Almost there.” He nods towards the circular small dining table. “Do you want to take a seat over there? I’ll bring over some cutlery and the placemats.”
Before long we’re both seated and I have a plate of spaghetti in front of me. I tuck in and it’s just everything. The most delicious meal I’ve ever tasted in my life, brought to the table by the most delicious man I’ve ever seen in my life. I feel a little nervous and keep drinking my wine. The next thing I know, Jenson has got up and is refilling my glass. “I really shouldn’t. I’m not used to drinking.”
He fills it up halfway, goes to the sink, grabbing a glass on his way and returns with a glass of water. “There you go. That should dilute the wine.”
“I heard Amelia giggling this afternoon through the window, while I was painting.” I blurt out. “I looked and she was being chased around by a woman. They looked to be having a ton of fun. Made me quite jealous to be indoors.”
“Yes, Amelia loves her Auntie Kaylie. They’re about the same age mentally.”
I almost choke on a piece of spaghetti due to the fact I started laughing while I was chewing. “She’s… what, your sister? Or your ex-wife’s sister?”
“Mine, and seriously, I don’t know what I would do without her. She looks after Amelia while I work, and she absolutely dotes on her. I do feel guilty though because I don’t think she’s fully living her own life, while she’s busy in mine.”
“Do you have no contact with your ex at all?”
“Oh, she sends Amelia birthday and Christmas cards and some presents. Totally extravagant crap like designer handbags which she asks me to put away for when she’s older. Apparently, they’re an ‘investment’. She could do with being a little more invested in our child. But no, she’s too busy being a hotshot lawyer and having her photo taken for celebrity magazines while she rescues some poor sap who she only chose to help for their potential future headlines.”
“Amicable divorce then?” I quip.
“She gave me custody of Amelia. I told her she could have anything else she wanted, but our daughter was mine. She didn’t even fight for her.” His jaw sets and I watch as he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“I’m sorry.” I think about the gorgeous little girl upstairs and I can’t understand how anyone could leave her behind.
He looks up at me and smiles. “Don’t be. We’re so much happier without her. Christ knows what I saw in her in the first place.”
I decide a change of conversation might be warranted, plus my head is starting to swim a little despite the food so I don’t want to ask him about anything else that’s personal.
“Tell me about your job.”
At this he becomes visibly animated, telling me how he owns InHale after being a chef there, how it fits in with life as a single dad, but also means he can step into the kitchen when he likes. “You’ll have to call in sometime and try me out,” he says.
“Mmm, there’s an offer I don’t see I can refuse.” My mouth has officially entered the ‘speaking before thinking’ zone.
For a moment, Jenson is stock still and then he growls, “Fuck it.” The next thing I know he’s dropped to his knees and his lips are on my own. I’m tasting Hot Daddy.
He breaks away from me, wiping his mouth.
“Fuck, Leah. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yes, you should.” I half yell and then I pull his head towards mine.
I’m sitting on his dining chair, leaning down with a sex god at my feet. My hands run through his silken strands. He tastes of the dinner and red wine and he smells of masculinity. My hands trail down the side of his face running through the brush of his beard that tickles at my face. Our breathing is coming in short gasps as we feast on each other’s mouths. Then we pull back.
“I’m too old for you, Leah? What are you, eighteen?”
“I’m twenty-one.”
“You are?” He looks surprised. “But I’m ten years older than you. You should be with someone your own age.”
This pisses me off and where I may have normally kept my mouth shut, the wine fires me up. “Way to go to make me feel like I’m about twelve years old.” I push back on my chair away from him and stand. He stays on the floor looking up at me, regret in his gaze.
“I’m not a kid. I’m a fully-grown woman, and I knew exactly what was happening between us just now. Sexual attraction. It’s been pulling between us all day, this chemistry, whether you want to admit it or not. It’s a little ironic that I’m the one grown up enough to face the truth. When your balls drop, come find me. Until then, thanks for the dinner and the wine, but I’ll be off now. I thought dessert might be on the cards but it seems it’s way past my bedtime and my teddy bear is probably missing me.”
“I- I’m…”
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry again, or I will coat you in the remainder of the pasta sauce and hope the chilli burns your face off.” I’m so sexually wound up and frustrated I want to have a full on slanging match but I’m not drunk enough to be unaware of Amelia being asleep upstairs so I just make sure there’s plenty of venom in my tone.
I pick up my shoulder bag and head for the door. “I’d say fuck you, but seeing as that’s kind of the issue here, I’ll just tell you to go. Screw. Yourself.”
With that I flick my hair and turn to the door where I stomp out all the way back to my own home. Then I throw myself on my bed and cry tears of frustration for the shit storm my life is right now.