Chapter 9
9
It could have been the plot from some cheesy rom com: the type she refused to watch. Standing there kissing, with crowds and policemen and feral children running around them. Then hailing a black cab, tumbling inside, and kissing again the moment the door slammed shut. With her pulse pummelling away, she barely heard what was said as they separated just long enough for him to give the driver an address, before the kissing recommenced. As she pressed against his chest, she discovered that it actually was chiselled. And not only his chest. His arms, his shoulders, his back, all of it taut and toned in a way that demanded her touch.
When the cab pulled up, she threw the driver two twenty-pound notes. Then it was in through the front door, up the stairs, ripping each other’s clothes off before they’d even reached the landing.
‘I don’t normally do this kind of thing,’ she gasped, in a break from kissing.
‘Me neither,’ he said, his lips moving down her neck before grabbing her T-shirt and pulling it up over her head in one swift motion.
‘I mean it.’
‘I know you do.’ With surprising ease, he successfully unclipped her bra and lowered her onto the bed.
‘God, you’re gorgeous,’ he said.
She tensed.
‘What is it? Is everything okay?’ His hands moved up to her face.
She nodded mutely. ‘Only, it’s been a while…’
He smiled, then returned his attention to the top of her neck. ‘I guess you better let me do all the work then.’
The last thing she had planned to do was fall asleep afterwards. In fairness, the last thing she’d expected to do was jump into bed with the first yoga teacher she met, the same day her husband told her he was filing for divorce, but sleeping had definitely not been on the agenda either.
Whatever the reason – either the effect of midday drinking or the most exertion she’d experienced in a bedroom in over a decade – she had slept, and was more than a little surprised to find herself blinking her way back to consciousness. Moaning a little, she moved to stretch, only to find herself pinned by a very muscly arm.
‘Hey, sleepyhead,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Good,’ she sighed. ‘You shouldn’t have let me sleep, though.’
‘Why not? You looked like you needed it.’
Her brain was still processing his words when his lips were back on hers. There was less urgency than before, more tenderness. If anything, it was more indulgent. Slower, deeper. His touch sent shivers along her skin.
‘Are you good to go again?’
No, Fiona! The voice in her head yelled. You’re not. You’re not thinking straight, you need to head home – now!
‘Because I would love to go again.’
Do something, Fiona, you need to stop this!
‘I think there’s a lot more fun we can have.’
Don’t let his hands go there again, Fiona. You need to call a halt. You need to stop them ? —
‘Oh!’ Her eyes pinged open with a sudden gasp. Now completely unable to regulate her breathing, she let her gaze drift across the room.
‘You have a lot of books,’ she observed, momentarily distracted from what she was feeling.
‘Uh-huh,’ he mumbled, mouth otherwise occupied.
‘They look like, proper book books.’
‘Uh-huh. I have to do a lot of reading at the minute.’ He was still distracted. ‘Not for long though,’ he added.
‘Until what?’
‘Until I graduate.’
Her eyes closed as the feeling intensified. A second later, they flew back open again.
‘Until you graduate ?’
She pushed herself up to a sitting position and stared at him. ‘You haven’t graduated yet?’
‘I’m doing my Masters,’ he said, attempting to pull her back down.
‘But you mean part time, right? Like, alongside your job. Like, a mature student, right?’ She looked at him. There was no denying it now; it was a baby face. Cute and fresh and oh so adorable.
‘Yes, I work. I met you at my job, remember? I work at the yoga studio.’
Relieved, she relaxed back down onto the bed, only to spring back up again.
‘Sorry,’ she said, biting down on her lip and now unable to take her eyes off his perfectly clear complexion. ‘I’m sure you mentioned this earlier, but exactly how old are you?’
He cocked his head to the side, combing his fingers through her hair.
‘I’m twenty-five, why?’
‘Twenty-five!’ she almost choked. ‘You’re twenty-five?’
‘Yeah,’ his eyes narrowed. ‘I took a gap year.’
In her entire life, she had never once suffered the experience known as The Walk of Shame . She’d lost her virginity to her sixth-form-college boyfriend, after three months of dating and while she had a few notches on her bedpost, they all were all from what she would have considered relationships of one form or another, as opposed to one-night stands. This was very definitely, a one-night, or one-afternoon, stand.
Shaking and frozen stiff as she stood on the pavement, it seemed impossible to hail a cab. Students milled about. Young students. Each one a reminder of the reprehensible – and at the same time mind-bogglingly heart-pounding – acts which she’d carried out at the hands of a twenty-five-year-old. Twenty-five! He’d have barely started school when Stephen proposed to her. Good God… Stephen. What was he going to say when he found out? No, he didn’t have to know. She would keep this to herself – a momentary lapse in sanity, for which she was most certainly not culpable. Clutching a nearby railing, she pressed her hand against her chest and forced herself to calm her breathing.
In the end, she gave up on the taxi and headed for the nearest Tube station.
The train arrived and the doors hissed apart. She hopped into the nearest carriage.
‘You have to be kidding me,’ she said out loud. Every seat, every handrail, every spot in the entire place, was taken up by a habit-wearing nun.
‘Do you need to sit down, my dear?’ one of them offered, as Fiona struggled to find a hand hold between all the wimples and veils. ‘You look quite pale.’
‘I… I… I’m getting off at the next stop,’ she replied, not actually having any idea of how many stops there were before home and wondering if the incense at the yoga studio was, in fact, a form of hallucinogenic. It wasn’t as if she was religious or even superstitious, but a whole carriage full of nuns the very afternoon she’d broken her marriage vows? What were the odds?
By the time she reached her house, the air was thick with the promise of a thunderstorm and sweat had soaked the underarms and back of her shirt. What she desperately needed was a shower although, from all the missed calls on her phone, that would have to wait a while.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Formal greetings were abandoned when Holly picked up on the first ring.
‘I can’t explain.’
‘Well can you try? I was worried.’
X-rated images flashed through her mind. There was no way she was sharing any of those.
‘I need you to come over,’ she said as she slumped down onto the sofa.
‘Why, what happened?’ Holly’s voice grew even more concerned. ‘I sent you a dozen messages. Is everything okay?’
Her mouth turned dry as a thousand-and-one feelings of guilt overtook her. She wasn’t going to tell Stephen. She couldn’t. But Holly? She needed someone to talk to about it. She would go mad otherwise. But this couldn’t be discussed over the phone. It would be spoken of just once and it would happen in person, as soon as possible.
‘I’ll explain when you get here. If I’m in the shower, just let yourself in. I’ll leave the door open.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Do you need me to bring anything?’
‘Vodka, bring lots of vodka.’
With every part of her scrubbed with her most expensive L’Occitane shower gel and her hair wrapped in a towel, she tried to work out exactly how she was going to explain the situation to her friend when she arrived. Stress eating was well underway. In a moment of inspiration, she had dug out two Easter eggs that Joseph had forgotten in the lounge cupboard. She wasn’t entirely sure they were even from that year; the milk chocolate was now speckled with white flecks. But it didn’t matter. They went perfectly well with the bottle of gin and can of coke she’d found in the drinks cabinet.
‘If I tell you what happened, you have to promise you’re not going to judge me.’ Fiona downed the rest of her drink, the towel still firmly around her head.
‘Of course I’m not going to.’
‘You say that now…’
‘I mean it. You know I do.’
Placing her glass on the table, she flexed her fingers as she worked out where to begin.
‘You know, this is actually all your fault…’ she started.
Five minutes later and Holly’s lips were twisting painfully as she failed miserably to conceal her amusement.
‘I don’t see how I’m to blame,’ she protested. ‘I just asked you to come to yoga. I didn’t say you had to sleep with the instructor.’
‘But you were the one who left me on my own.’
‘Really? That’s why it’s my fault? Oh, Fi.’ Unable to hold it in any longer, she collapsed in a fit of laughter. ‘The yoga teacher?’
‘This is not funny.’ Fiona yanked the towel from her head and flung it at her friend. ‘This is serious.’
‘No. This is funny. This is so, so funny!’ Tears ran down Holly’s face.
‘I did not invite you here to laugh at me.’
‘No, then why did you invite me?’
Fiona pressed her lips together. She knew Holly well enough to have known what her reaction would be.
‘Look.’ Holly wiped her eyes. ‘It’s done. You had fun. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘But I’m married!’
Holly planted her drink down with a thud.
‘Don’t you dare tell me you feel guilty about this! You’re not serious?’
‘Of course I am. I’m married.’
‘And so is Stephen. He has also been married for the last eighteen months, remember? And that didn’t stop him screwing around.’
Fiona shifted her gaze to the bottom of her glass. This, she knew, was why she’d asked Holly to come over: to say the words she couldn’t say to herself.
‘You can’t tell anyone about this. Ever. You understand?’ she asked, feeling only marginally better about the situation, despite her friend’s support.
‘But it’s amazing. Twenty-two! You should be proud. Haven’t I always said you look amazing for your age?’
‘Twenty-five. Not twenty-two.’
‘Still, it’s such a compliment. He obviously didn’t think you were old enough to be his mother. Or maybe he did! Kinky…’
Fiona tightened her grip on her glass. ‘I swear, I’ll cut you dead if you say a word about this.’
‘Even to you?’
‘Especially to me.’
‘Okay,’ Holly eventually agreed, with the first almost-serious look she’d managed since Fiona had confessed all. ‘I will not say another word. But you have to help me out with something.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
Relieved that the conversation had turned from her infidelity, Fiona retrieved the towel and folded it over the back of a chair.
‘I will if I can.’
‘The thing is, I’ve been going to that gym for three months now and I still have absolutely no idea what the instructor’s name is. He’s told me twice but, after that, I had to stop asking. Is it Drew, or Seth? Or Angus? I’m sure it’s something like that.’
A moment’s silence was all it took for Holly to cotton on.
‘Oh, you are priceless,’ she said, her grin now stretching from ear to ear. ‘Absolutely priceless.’