Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-three
There is no sign of life on my approach. No twitch of the curtain—still drawn firmly across the window. No flicker of movement within. A distant scream of a siren, before it fades. The night is still. Perfect.
I reach for the large brass knocker on the door, and, for a second, I falter.
It doesn’t happen very often, but I am horribly aware of what rides on this.
This is my moment. My make or break. I will have to put on the performance of a lifetime.
I check my posture one more time, rounding my shoulders so I look weaker, more innocent, unthreatening.
The knocker booms inside the house. I can hear it echo and, out here, it cuts through the air like a gunshot.
Silence. No rustle, no hurried footsteps.
I try again, harder this time. If he’s there—which I suspect, due to the slice of light I saw through the curtains, he is—I will make him come to the door. I won’t wait any longer.
The sound echoes again. Three hard, efficient raps, which don’t really fit with this new skin I’ve slipped on, but desperate times and all that.
This time, I think I hear a noise. A quiet click—a door perhaps. I recheck my posture, pull my brows together in an expression of deepest concern, clasp my hands anxiously in front of me. Footsteps. I’m sure of it. The sound of a chain being pulled back.
And then, there he is. Right in front of me, as though no time has passed at all. Except it has. And it shows on Jack’s face.
If he looked haggard the first time I saw him at the group, it’s nothing on this. He looks as though he hasn’t slept in a week. There are bulging purple bags under his eyes, deep lines etched across his forehead. For a moment, I forget the act altogether. I simply stare at him, open-mouthed.
A split second where he only blinks, as though he does not—cannot—register that I am here. On his doorstep. And then we both come back to ourselves and start to speak at once.
“I’ve been so worried—”
“Iris? What’re you doing here?”
We break off. I allow the silence to stretch.
Allow him to register my presence properly.
His eyes are glassy. Unfocused. I ignore this.
I look up at him through my lashes: not as I used to, which was brazen and unapologetic, but with a pretty innocence that I borrowed from the woman at the café.
It worked so well, the way she did it. Her boyfriend’s pupils dilated as she looked up at him.
He’d pulled her into him, pressed a kiss to her forehead.
It doesn’t have the same effect on Jack, who looks at me blankly, like he can’t understand what I’m doing here.
“I’ve been so worried,” I say again, in that breathy, high voice. “You didn’t come to the group tonight. Or last week. And I just—I wanted to apologize in person.”
“How did you get my address?” I foresaw this question. An understandable one, given we never quite got past the dinner date stage.
“Well,” I say slowly, slightly apologetically.
Sweetly embarrassed. It’s a welcome change from Marcie’s audaciousness.
This new personality opens a whole new world of possibility.
“I actually looked in the signing-out book. I—when you didn’t come.
People at the group are vulnerable. And I just… worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” he says gruffly. Doesn’t question the fact that he didn’t put his address in the signing-out book at all, though I doubt he’s in a state to question anything at the moment. He smells, strongly, of alcohol, and his lips are stained red with wine. Tonight, that works in my favor.
I sense an opportunity. It was, after all, following a long night of drinking that Freddie kissed me for the first time.
On our second date—the lunch date where the brush of his leg against mine seemed to shatter the awkwardness that had blossomed suddenly between us—we finally moved away from discussing work.
He’d rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.
“There was something I wanted to chat to you about, actually,” he said, lowering his voice as though to take me into his confidence.
Goose bumps raced across my skin. “I’ve been feeling a bit…
off, recently. It always happens around the anniversary of my brother’s death.
I don’t feel like anyone in the office really understands.
It was so long ago now, and when I tell them about it I can see them wondering why I’m still bothered all these years later. ”
It was a moment of openness that still sends a thrill through me, even now. Because number one on my mental checklist of attraction was vulnerability. He’ll start opening up to you if he sees a future with you. He’ll want to go deeper.
I’d nodded, fighting to keep a straight face when all I wanted to do was grin.
“I understand. I feel it, too, around the anniversary of Marcie’s death.
” It was true. Every year, like my body was keeping score, I found myself becoming a little off.
Sometimes, I’d do something to commemorate it, like apply overexaggerated eyeliner, or try out some of her more outrageous lines in the mirror.
And while that sadness in Freddie’s eyes was genuine—I had no doubt about that—I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was using this common ground as a way to get closer to me.
He’d smiled in relief. “I knew you would. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have someone who understands what it’s like.”
We realized, then, that our lunch hour had come to an end, bringing an abrupt close to the intimacy that had started to creep into the conversation. But Freddie did not let it lie there. That week, he sent several messages, checking in, and then, on Friday, he asked me out for another drink.
Two times in one week. I took it as a very good sign.
I was more than a little frustrated, therefore, to find he’d been in the pub for an hour or two prior to my arrival. Greg was sitting with him, and both men were clearly well on their way to intoxication.
“Greg,” I said, in as dignified a manner as I could muster. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
The man clearly had no sense of propriety, because he slapped his hand on the table and told me to grab myself a drink, join them. I did so, unwilling to pass up an opportunity to spend time with Freddie, though irritated that he’d so clearly crashed what could have been a lovely evening.
I sulked as they chatted, and occasionally Freddie would shoot me an apologetic look. They drank three more pints before Greg checked his watch and flinched. “Fuck. She’s going to be furious. I’d better go.”
He left, huffing and puffing about his long-suffering wife, and Freddie and I were alone. The atmosphere shifted instantly, becoming charged with promise. Again, we skirted around it, Freddie—evidently quite drunk now—telling me about his family, a little more about his brother.
“Dating’s been hard, you know? I always feel like they recognize some sadness in me and want to try and fix me,” he said ruefully, toying with his glass. I knew he was telling me this for a reason. I liked the fact that he’d singled me out. It made me feel special.
Last orders were called at the bar, and Freddie sighed. He stumbled slightly as he rose to his feet, threw his jacket over his shoulder. “We’d better get going,” he said.
Outside, he lit a cigarette, swaying on his feet. I stepped closer to him, bolstered by the knowledge that he saw something in me that others didn’t. He blinked at me. We were very close now, breath mingling in the cool air. I tilted my head.
And despite the fact that he tasted like beer, it was—to date—the best kiss I have ever had.
—
“Can I come in?” I say now, gently, to Jack.
“I’d really like to explain what happened the other night at dinner.
I’ve been feeling terrible about it. Eaten up with guilt.
” I twist my face into an expression of utter wretchedness, as though the thought of that evening causes my skin to crawl with shame. It’s not entirely off base.
He releases a long sigh, then stands back from the door with an air of defeat. Like he can’t muster the strength to argue with me.
And so I find myself entering the house of Jack Reynolds. The house of the man who has taken up more space than is probably healthy in my head.
It is every bit as wonderful as I pictured.
Better, even. It’s huge, for one thing. The exterior doesn’t do it justice.
An imposing staircase rears upward, right into the belly of the house.
Ornate rugs cover the tile floor. A rich, spicy scent hangs low in the air: tuberose, I think.
I catch sight of myself in the age-spotted gilt mirror to the left.
I need to tone down the excitement. It’s plastered all over my face, still flushed from the cold.
Jack, stumbling, leads the way through to the room I have seen only from the outside. I’m hit first by the smell. The greasy scent of takeaway food and a sour stench that I associate with Mum. Stagnant air. An unwashed body. Stale alcohol.
This fact is confirmed by the bottles that litter the coffee table. Beer, wine (expensive, from the looks of those labels), vodka. I wrinkle my nose, but the signs of Jack’s relapse cause a frisson of excitement to trickle down my spine.
It seems I came at the perfect moment. It’s almost like Alice is smiling down on me from above. She helped Jack out of it before, and I’ll do the same now. I can step into her shoes and position myself exactly where I need to.