Chapter 16 #5
I roll my eyes in Dan’s direction. “She was pretty as well. Ignore her. Anyway, we’d catch up at college, and she’d ask me to go for a drink.
I kept saying no, just making up excuses.
Then Ash came to work for us at Posh Frocks because that just exploded and turned into something we weren’t expecting, and suddenly, we had three shops.
The only way I can describe it is that it wasn’t quite like I’d been asleep, but I hadn’t been fully awake, either.
It’d been over three years since Sean. I was twenty, and I knew I had to make some kind of an effort to move on with my life.
He was”—I shrug—“as Marley and Len explained he definitely was. I still wasn’t in a place where I wanted to have full-blown conversations about him or the band, and I never listened to their music, but it was time to start living my life again.
Across the road from the shop was a wine bar.
Jimmie was home, so me and Ash finished work one night and went over the road to meet Jim for a drink. ”
My mind is flooded with images, the sounds and the smell of the wine bar.
“It was called Kings, and that’s all I knew about it.
It was obvious when we called in that this place was a lot more upmarket than the pubs I’d been to with the band.
The crowd was older, and it was the eighties, so full of yuppie types.
Lots of double-breasted suits, big shoulder pads, even bigger hair.
I’m not gonna lie, I was terrified. It was such a normal thing to do.
I was doing what your average twenty-year-old did after work back then, but for me…
” I lick my lips as my mouth has now gone strangely dry.
“It was letting go. I’ve never thought about it like that before, but that’s what it was.
I was finally letting go of the past. Not completely, but going out that night was one giant leap towards doing that…
” I trail off as I process what I’ve just said, and my behaviour suddenly starts to make sense.
“I said before that what I went through was similar to a grieving process. I skipped denial because there was no way of denying it. It was on the news and on the front page of the papers, so my grieving process immediately started with depression. When I went out that night, it was the beginning of my acceptance, but that quickly flipped to anger.”
“Why? What caused the flip?” Daniel asks.
I laugh lightly. “When we got to the wine bar that night, Jim was already there with a bottle of wine in a cooler waiting on the table. I’d not seen her in a while, and we were giddy, catching up. Between the three of us, we knocked back the bottle of wine in about ten minutes.”
“They can do it in five now,” one of my brothers—Lennon, I think—calls out.
I flip him my middle finger before I carry on.
“Ash went to the bar and came back with a barman carrying a bottle of Moet in an ice bucket, and three glasses. She told us it was compliments of a crowd of blokes she’d got chatting to at the bar.
The barman poured our drinks, then I turned around to raise my glass to say thank you, and there were three or four men standing there who gave me a nod or whatever.
Now I want to preface this by saying that I was still not mentally or emotionally stable enough to be looking for any kind of relationship.
I wasn’t even interested in going out on a date.
There was just nothing there for me, no interest. I was numb, or at least very slowly thawing, but still frozen.
Then he, him… this tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man turned around, and when my eyes met his, my first thought, my very first thought, was fuck!
Because for the first time in three years, my heart let me know it was capable of doing more than just keeping me alive. ”
I take another long pause and take a moment to process the memory of it all.
“You know now they reckon that the butterflies you get when you meet someone you’re interested in is your fight or flight mode firing up. It’s your brain sending a signal to your body that this person has the potential to hurt you. Maybe not physically, but emotionally?
“I don’t know if it’s a scientific fact or just a TikTok I saw, but I one hundred percent believe it, and when I laid eyes on Cameron King for the very first time that night, I was terrified.
He made me feel, and I knew I wasn’t emotionally equipped to deal with that.
I think maybe then, that’s when the angry stage of grief started to kick in.
I was angry at Sean for doing what he did, and angry at myself for not being strong enough to get over him.
Anyway, for the next few weeks, we’d go over to the wine bar after work, and a bottle of champagne would always get sent over, compliments of Cam.
Or Cam and his mates. He made no attempt to talk to me, and I had no idea who he was, or even his name at that stage.
Then, one night, Ash convinced me to go clubbing with her after the wine bar.
Usually, I said no, but feeling brave that particular week, I agreed to go, and as we were leaving the bar, Cam stopped me and told me to enjoy the rest of my night.
But he used my name. Said something like, ‘Enjoy the rest of your night, Georgia.’”
“Bit stalkerish, Dad,” one of our boys says.
“It was the eighties. No one cared,” Cam replies, causing a ripple of laughter.
I turn and narrow my eyes on him. “No one cared?”
He holds up his palms in surrender.
“It was a joke. I didn’t mean no one cared. I meant it was… there was no internet. It was harder then…”
“Yeah, I think you just need to shut up now, Dad,” Harry suggests.
“I didn’t stalk her. She and Ash had been coming in every week. They’d spoken to my staff, who’d gotten to know their names. They may have mentioned them to me.” Cam’s palms are now gesturing towards me as he pleads his case.
“The big man’s squirming. Never seen that before,” Marley says with a laugh.
“Cam, you want to come join us?” Daniel asks, and the room falls silent.
Cam’s eyes cut from me to Daniel, then back to me as his mouth opens and closes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my husband so lost for words. Raking his teeth over his bottom lip, he slowly nods. “Yeah, all right, then. I will.”
I’m so shocked, I’m left immobile for a few seconds.
“Go, Dad!” George calls out. “Tell them how you got the girl.”
I watch as Harry gives him a nudge with his elbow while hoping he spots the narrow-eyed glare I’m giving him.
By the time I turn around and face Daniel, Cam’s already mic’d up and taking a seat next to me. He slides his arm along the back of the sofa behind me, and I look up at his face and smile.
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell him quietly.
“I know. But I’m here, and I’m part of this story. Everyone else has put their two-bobs’ worth in. I might as well add mine.” His eyes dance all over my face, and I know he’s trying to read my reaction. “Unless you have a problem with—”
“Absolutely not. I love that you want to be a part of this,” I cut him off.
“I don’t, but I also don’t wanna come across as a fucking weirdo stalker.”
“Oh, shut up. They’re just poking the bear. Stop giving them a reaction.” I rest my hand on his thigh and give him another smile.
“Quiet, please!” someone calls out, and the room falls silent once more.
“So, you knew her name. Did you know who she was?” Daniel asks Cam.
“I had no idea,” Cam replies. “It was just one of those situations where your eyes meet across a room. Kids these days probably have no idea what I’m talking about because it’s all different now.
There was none of this talking online first shit back then.
You went out, you saw a bird you fancied, and because blokes back then had big enough bollocks, you approached the bird, asked if they’d like a drink, chatted them up, and either got to go home with them at the end of the night, or asked them out on a date. Sometimes both.”
“And what did you get?” Dan asks.
Cam laughs, and I close my eyes as I recall how rude I was to him.
“That particular night, I got fuck all. In fact, after I told her to enjoy the rest of her night, she said something like…”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Marley interrupts Cam in a high-pitched voice, which I assume is supposed to imitate me.
Everyone standing around either laughs or claps their agreement, so I give them all a double middle-finger salute.
“Pretty much,” Cam says through a grin. “I think what she actually said was, ‘Whether I enjoy the rest of my night or not has fuck all to do with you.’”
There are more laughs, claps and whistles that ensue.
I shake my head but smile at the memory of it all. “I did thank him for the champagne. But, yeah, I was such a bitch.”
“I loved it,” Cam says with a wink.
“I remember.” I press my lips together, remembering how he pulled me against his big, hard body. How he got my libido all fired up after years of being dormant. “You called me an angry kitten.”
“Cute,” Kiki calls out.
“Dad had rizz,” George adds.
“So, that’s where it started, the whole kitten and tiger thing. It started that night?” Ash asks.
“Yep,” Cam and I reply in unison.
“Aww, that’s so cute. I love that I was there right at the start.”
“What was it about her?” Daniel asks Cam.
With his arm still stretched along the back of the sofa, Cam draws circles over my shoulder and the back of my neck. His free hand goes to his face, and his long fingers scratch at his jaw before he looks away from Daniel to meet my eyes.
“I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” he says quietly. “It was her eyes that caught my attention first, how very blue they were, and how very sad they looked.”
I swallow the lump forming in my throat as we stare at each other.
“Did you get your date?” Dan asks.