4. Jay
Chapter four
Jay
I arrive at Flights and Fancies just as a woman with short green hair and lace fingerless gloves is setting out a sandwich board advertising their lunch specials. I’m lingering outside, peering through the window, when she sets out a pair of miniature trees in plant pots and offers me a wink.
“Won’t be a minute,” she promises. “We open at twelve.”
The place has that fashionable modern-rustic vibe that seems to be all the rage right now, with pine panelling on the walls, off-white paint, and plenty of greenery for a pop of colour among the minimalist decor. I check my watch. Only five minutes to go, and twenty minutes until I’m supposed to meet Katy. I bounce on the balls of my feet, raising onto my tiptoes and back down again. It’s a habit I picked up in physiotherapy sessions after my leg was blown to pieces. It’s supposed to help with muscle repair, and it’s a good way to release some of the nervous energy coursing through my veins.
Isn’t it funny how I could be dead still and silent for hours, lying in wait for something to happen on the front lines of a brutal war, but fifteen minutes in the cool winter sunshine waiting for a pretty girl to show up for lunch has me losing my fucking mind?
I force my heels back to the ground and push my hands deeper into the pockets of my open jacket. The sun shines weakly, bathing the ground in just enough warmth to dry the evidence of the morning’s drizzle. I begin to walk: a hundred yards one way, a hundred back to where I started, another hundred in the opposite direction. And back again. My leg aches after a couple of laps, but I push through it, regardless.
I’m pacing. Let’s call a spade a spade.
And then she appears. Her blonde hair is twisted away from her face in a pair of braids that disappear behind her ears, leaving the bulk of her locks flowing free over her shoulders. Her eyes are lined with those dainty wing things that make them look like cat eyes. Her cheeks are pink from the cool air, and she smiles with her teeth when she sees me waiting. God, she’s pretty.
“Hey.” She smiles, leaning in uncertainly. “Can I—are you a hugger?”
I’m not—not for anyone who isn’t my mum or my sister. I never have been. But for Katy, I’ll make an exception. I reach out and pull her to me. The soft, worn material of her jacket is warmer than I expected, and the leather mingles with sweet citrus to create a unique blend, one that I file away in my mind alongside her beautiful smile and the soft oh as I wrap her in my arms. I hold her for just about as long as I can without seeming weird. She probably thinks I’m strange enough already. I feel empty the moment I release her, but her shoulder brushes against my arm as we walk towards the bar, and her warmth seeps through both of our jackets and into my skin.
The green-haired lady seats us at the back of the room, in a high-sided booth with a river view, and Katy orders sparkling water before cracking open the menu.
“Huh. I see why they call it Flights and Fancies.” She lifts an eyebrow, a wryness to her tone. She tilts the menu in her hand towards me. “Wanna do it?”
The menu features two double-page spreads of beer flights on offer, all with a matching cake or cookie flight designed to pair with the beer for the ultimate tasting experience. I lean across the table for a better view of the menu—and to inhale her soft orange scent again.
“This one sounds good to me.” She taps a short, pink-painted nail on the page. I nod in agreement. I recognise at least two of the breweries listed. “And those cakes sound so good.”
“Let’s do it,” I suggest. My stomach growls in agreement. “I could go for one of those sandwiches too, though. I skipped breakfast for this.”
When our food and drinks arrive, Katy holds out a miniature pint glass in a toast. “To a new year and new friends.”
I pick up another one to clink against hers. It’s a new year. It’s the perfect time for a new beginning. And it’s looking very much like, whether I’ve asked for it or not—whether I want one or not—Katy is my new friend. I could do a lot worse. She takes a mouthful of the beer in her hand and then offers the glass to me.
“Mmm… I don’t know if I like that one.” Her nose scrunches as she shakes her head, her tongue poking out as she reaches for her water and drinks greedily. I taste it cautiously.
“Huh. It’s fine. A bit earthy.”
“A bit? It’s like red wine fucked a cheap lager and had an illegitimate bastard brew.” Katy laughs at her own joke, a musical twinkle, and something in my iced-over heart thaws just a little more. Until recently, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a conversation with anyone that didn’t revolve around how my shattered leg and skin grafts were healing, or how I’m coping after leaving the army.
It’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t baby me. I love my parents, but they don’t know how to talk to me anymore. Mum looks at me with sad eyes, and Dad can’t make eye contact at all. Every conversation with him becomes something hyper-masculine, like he’s trying to convince himself I’m still the same man he raised fifteen years ago, the one who naively had little concept of the world’s horrors. And Ruth… well, she tries. But my sister is bull-headed and a fixer, and she’s desperate to decide for me what I can and can’t handle.
Katy doesn’t do any of that. Katy talks to me just as I am. With Katy, the conversation flows, although she carries most of it alone. Blessedly, none of it is about what my life used to be, or how my legs feel. It’s more about moving forward, about what I’m doing with myself now that I’m no longer beholden to the government’s defense department. It’s about her friends, my new job, the places she wants to visit—places I find myself wishing I could be bold enough to take her to.
Damn, I need to touch some grass if one lunch with a pretty girl is making me so fucking sappy. I shift in my seat, surreptitiously adjusting myself in my pants. It’s unnerving that the simple act of eating a piece of cake has such an effect on me, but when she wraps her pink lips around a forkful of red velvet cake, I find myself imagining the ring of pink gloss those lips would leave around my dick if I had her on her knees. She’d look so fucking pretty on her knees.
Get a grip.
Well, at least it’s kind of comforting to know it all still works down there, I guess.
There was a part of me that wondered if it did—if I could make it happen. If those parts of my brain and my body could still communicate properly. There was a time, in the hospital between surgeries to repair my shattered bones and burnt-up skin, when I wondered if I’d ever enjoy that aspect of life again. If I could get hard. And if I could get that far, whether or not I could see it through.
Christ alive.
“What’s your favourite food?” Katy’s sweet, gentle voice wakes me from my dangerous daydream. Her eyes scan the sandwich menu as she speaks. I train my eyes on her while her attention is elsewhere, taking the time to memorise as much as I can while I think about my answer. The perfect arch of her eyebrows. The shallow slope of her nose. The tiny freckle beside her left eye. Why are all of these things standing out to me?
“Ruth’s—what did you call them? Fancy Nugs? But the way Granny Bevan used to make them.”
“I think I might agree.” She closes the menu with a quiet snap. “Fancy Nugs, or maybe tacos. Ruthy makes good tacos, too.”
“She makes a lot of good things in the kitchen,” I agree. “Mum and Dad made sure of that. Neither of us could get away with not learning to cook.”
“You cook too, huh? Is there anything the Bevans can’t do?”
“None of us can sing. But I’m decent in the kitchen,” I admit. “Not as good as Ruth. But I can feed myself.”
“You’re full of surprises, you know?” Her eyes sparkle at me as she offers an indulgent grin, and something in my chest begins to stir.
Katy is my little sister’s best friend. She’s off-limits to me as anything other than a friend. She has to be. There’s no way she’d even want to be anything more, not with the amount of baggage I’m carrying. I’m not conceited enough to think she might want me even without the baggage, but the longer those coffee-coloured eyes burn holes into my soul, the more I think I might like calling Katy Keller a friend.