18. Leah
18
Leah
I’d spent the morning sat nursing hot drinks and staring into space. I’d had hundreds of different ideas of how I could go and explain last night to Jenson. They mixed with doubts and thoughts that maybe I should just see this as a sign and move the fuck on. It’s a bittersweet moment when a small white van pulls up and a guy gets out and hammers a ‘For Sale’ sign into the front garden. It’s almost bang on the spot where Jenson found me with my injured knee.
I’m lost in my head once more when I hear a bloodcurdling scream from next door’s garden. I’m out of the back door like a greyhound out of the trap, Amelia my rabbit. I jump the small fence that separates our gardens and dash for the tree house where Amelia’s unconscious body lies in the wood chippings.
Jenson is unsurprisingly hysterical.
We get Amelia in the recovery position while we wait. Her breathing seems okay, thank God. I ask her to ‘open her eyes’ but there’s no response.
I keep checking her breaths until the ambulance arrives and then Jenson and Amelia are gone. I stay behind to lock the house up, and clear pieces of broken mug and spilled coffee I find on the floor. Then I decide that whether I’m welcome at the hospital or not, I’m going. I return home, phone a cab, gather my things and then I’m on my way.
I’m directed to Jenson sitting at the side of an awake Amelia in bed.
“Oh, thank God.” I cry.
“They’re going to do a scan to make sure everything’s okay, but it seems to be just a concussion. She has to rest and they’re keeping her in overnight.”
“My head hurts, Leah. I fell.” Amelia says groggily.
“They’ve given her some painkillers.” Jenson explains.
“Am I okay to be here?” I ask him.
“Don’t leave me, Leah. You can talk princesses.” Amelia’s small voice tears my heart wide open. I walk towards the spare seat at the side of Jenson.
I can see Jenson is trying hard to fight back tears and I know what he’s thinking because I thought it too. That for one brief moment in time, the thought hit that Amelia was lying there dead. I touch his arm. “It’s going to be okay.” I take the seat next to him.
Amelia falls back to sleep and Jenson turns to me.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he says. “We’ve not spoken about, well, not defined what we are, and I have no right to tell you how to spend your time.”
“Jenson, you complete idiot. That man was from the company who my parents owe the money to. He was threatening me.”
Jenson’s eyes widen. “But I saw…”
“His hand running down my cheek. Yes, he was saying I might find another way to make a payment.”
“What the…?” Jenson punches the bottom of the bed. Luckily it doesn’t wake Amelia.
“Jenson!” I admonish.
“I’ll kill him. Where do I find him?”
“You don’t. You stay at your daughter’s side where you belong. The house is up for sale now. Once they’ve been paid that’s it. Done. Over.”
“How do you know that though? I hear about these companies and how they add interest all the time so you owe them forever.”
I shrug my shoulders. “They can’t take what I don’t have and the debt is from my parents who are dead, so good luck with them getting any more money from anyone. And I’ll probably be gone, won’t I? Moved on. So hopefully this will be the end of it. Time to draw a line.”
“Are you talking about the house now or us?”
“Is there an us? I don’t know what you want, Jenson. It’s not even a month since we met. And you have your daughter to consider.”
“She adores you.”
“Yeah, but how does her dad feel about me?”
Reaching for me, his fingers cup my chin gently and turn my face to his. “I think I’m falling in love with you, okay? The days in Disneyland were incredible, seeing Amelia’s face, but the nights were never ending. All the time we were there Amelia kept saying what you would think as she met each princess. You’ve stolen pieces of both of our hearts. I do not want you to leave. I want you to stay, with us.”
Holy fucking hell.
“But we barely know each other.”
“I know enough. I’ve felt more for you in weeks than I felt for Amelia’s mother all the time I knew her. Yes, we could wait, but why bother? Why not just say ‘to hell with it’ and take a chance? Look at today. In the blink of an eye I could have lost my daughter. I’m not living my life with any more regrets. Come live with us, Leah.”
“Oh… okay.”
“You will?”
I nod. “I thought I was being crazy, feeling all these huge feelings for you and Amelia; wanting to belong with you both. With what happened with my parents I also don’t want to waste a moment of life. It’s too short.”
Jenson reaches over to me, pulling his chair towards mine and his lips meet my own.
“That’s just a taster of what I’m going to do to you later.” He picks up his phone. “Now, just excuse me a minute.”
I listen as he calls the estate agency and puts in an offer on my home for the asking price.
“What are you doing?” I mouth, but he just waves me away.
I laugh as my own phone rings and I ask them to hold.
“Jenson, what are you doing? I can’t ask you to do this.”
“It’s not for you. It’s for us. I’m going to make the houses one large detached. I don’t want neighbours and given the restaurant is booked for two years ahead now thanks to the piece in The Sunday Times, I can well afford it.”
Smiling, I return to my phone. “I’ll accept the offer.”
Once I’ve said goodbye to the estate agent, Jenson grabs my hand. “I shall make sure that loan company is well out of your hair too.” I see a tic in his cheek and a flash of fire in his eyes. “I didn’t get to be where I am in business without having a couple of people in my pocket who can deal with arseholes.”
We sit by Amelia’s bedside, chatting and holding hands, taking turns to fetch coffees and sandwiches etc until the hospital decide Amelia is okay to be taken home after all, with 24-hour observation. We take it in turns to sit by her bedside all night.
* * *
We spend a quiet day together. Amelia is recovering well in that way kids do and greets the news I’m moving in with screams and whoops of delight. I fix her pancakes for tea because that’s what she wants and I don’t give a shit. She just had an injury, she can have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner right now, and once she’s bathed and in bed, I tell Jenson to take a seat at the dinner table while I warm up the chilli sauce I made a couple of days ago.
I’m excited for him to try out my cooking. I’ve never been able to so much as boil an egg and I’m keen to learn.
Sat near each other we both take our first mouthful of sauce. My face soon turns beet red and I watch as Jenson runs for the sink and swallows a glass full of water.
“How much chilli did you put in it?” he asks.
I can’t answer. My whole body is on fire. Obviously, too much.
Jenson has the milk out of the fridge. He takes a huge gulp straight from the carton and then passes it to me. I’m burning up. I begin stripping off because I have to get cool somehow. My whole body is sweating.
Jenson isn’t half as affected as I am judging by the fact that his hands are roaming my now naked body.
“Jenson.” I gasp. “I’m freaking melting.”
“Yup, hot stuff.” He strips off his own clothes and picking me up he lifts me onto the kitchen table, pulling off my panties and standing between my thighs.
“Don’t you dare put your mouth on me. I don’t want my pussy on fire.”
“Oh it’s gonna be on fire all right,” he says and he pushes into me.
I groan.
“See, Leah. Look at how kind I am. Distracting you from the fire in your mouth by putting it somewhere else.” He thrusts hard, and harder still.
We fuck at the dining table while chilli sweat mingles with sexy and I know that I am so hot for this man it’s ridiculous.