Chapter Seven #3
The women laughed, and Maddie was in equal parts envious and irritated.
She was jealous that the women had people to mull over their confusion with and irritated that their discussion was encroaching on her reading time.
Admittedly, it was also making her feel strange.
Not possessive, as such, but... something.
A little sick. Vaguely frustrated. Mildly confused. The women were talking again.
“Seriously, I’ve never met a man with such well-placed confidence. I was sure it was all talk, but he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s a genuine sex God.”
Maddie rolled her eyes and sank lower in her chair.
She tried once again to focus on the first page of the novel, but even when the conversation moved from James and onto another man, she could not stop thinking about him.
She was embarrassed to admit he hadn’t been far from her mind since she’d woken up in his bed earlier this evening.
She felt like a silly teenage girl. He’d thrilled her for a few minutes, that was it.
She hadn’t had to travel far to find another of his conquests.
He was with women all the time. She had already decided this couldn’t go any further.
It infuriated her that, despite all that, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
She gave her head a little shake and forced herself to concentrate.
She’d be annoyed at herself if she left here later having hardly read anything.
Thankfully the book, one given to her by Pip, was so enthralling it stole her focus quite quickly once she’d set her mind to it.
She was so consumed she didn’t notice the pub empty of people.
She shifted from side to side every fifteen minutes or so to prevent her hips and back from seizing up and drilled through the pages, marvelling at the author’s poetic depiction of desire steeped in confusion.
She couldn’t wait to thank her brother for the recommendation.
She was so deeply distracted she didn’t notice a man enter the pub, nodding yes when the barman asked him if he would like ‘the usual’.
She was blissfully unaware when he collected his drink and sat down in the window.
She missed the moment when he looked over and realised who she was.
She didn’t know he was there until he’d sunk his pint and — having briefly mulled over what he should do — was standing up to leave.
He kicked a chair over in his haste, and the clatter broke her focus.
She looked up to find him standing there, staring at her.
“James,” she said, closing her book.
“Maddie.” He nodded, looking anywhere but at her. Stevie, who was sitting dutifully at his side, waited for Maddie to hold out her hand to her and then trotted over for a fuss. They were silent for a moment.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“Just a couple of minutes.” Maddie’s eyes flitted to the empty pint glass in his hand, and she knew he’d been hastily leaving.
It did not make her feel good. He followed her gaze and winced.
“I realised I forgot to...” He faltered when he saw the look on her face.
She knew men better than this and would not fall for such bullshit.
“It’s fine,” she said, opening her book on a random page.
She expected him to leave, but he didn’t.
Maddie moved her eyes from side to side as though she was reading the book.
She figured he would get the hint eventually and go away so she could swallow her disappointment and convert it into rage, but he just stood there, watching her, for what felt like an age.
In the end she raised her head to look at him.
“You OK?” she asked. He moved as if he was going to nod his head, but he didn’t. Instead he continued to stare at her. “I thought you were heading off to sort out that thing you realised you forgot?” she said, a little bitterly.
“I was lying about that.” He held up his hands in mock submission. “Hard to believe, I know. I was so convincing.”
Maddie had to fight hard to keep her face straight.
She locked her eyes on his, trying to force the memory of him moaning in her ear out of her mind.
It was difficult. He looked dishevelled in faded blue jeans and a baggy green sweatshirt, but he was somehow still the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
He was carrying a guitar on his back and it looked like he was fiddling with a plastic pick in his hand.
His hair was curlier than usual and looked a little wet — she concluded he’d recently showered.
She wondered if he’d thought about their tryst as she had.
If he’d touched himself. She silently admonished herself, and must have shaken her head a little bit as she did, because his eyes were suddenly brimming with sorrow.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” he said, stepping towards her.
“I’m not that fucking guy, I swear it. I’m actually pretty good at communicating the way I feel most of the time.
When it comes to romantic partners, I mean.
I don’t know why I was planning on bolting.
I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s because you’re my boss, I don’t know. ”
Maddie raised her eyebrows and blinked theatrically at him. “Then how do you feel, James?” she asked. He paused, looking thoughtful. Maddie tried not to be distracted by a set of manically flashing Christmas lights strung over a picture frame behind his head.
“Can I sit down?” He pointed at the chair opposite hers.
“Sure.” Maddie shrugged. He asked the barman to pull him another pint, ordered her another glass of wine, set down his guitar, then perched on the edge of the other fireside armchair, warming his hands in front of the fire as though he’d just stepped in from outside.
Stevie lay down in front of the hearth. Maddie used the time to consider how she’d get home, given she’d be over the legal limit to drive if she finished the drink he’d just bought for her.
She reasoned she’d call a taxi or ring her dad and ask him to collect her.
She knew he wouldn’t mind. James waited until their drinks arrived before he said anything.
“I don’t know what the hell that was this morning or where it came from,” he said. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Maddie asked, confused.
“The look on your face when I asked if you wanted to stop or slow things down... We’d been talking about me losing my brother and I know that’s such a sad conversation for you, too. I don’t know, I came away from it feeling like I might have overstepped the mark.”
Maddie scoffed. “You did not take advantage of me.” He narrowed his eyes at her, as though searching for further confirmation. She shook her head a little violently. He looked relieved.
“I don’t know what to do now, it’s all I’ve been thinking about all day,” he admitted.
Maddie felt a little sad at that. The dozen or so times she’d relived what they’d done that morning had been bursting with thrills in her memory.
James, on the other hand, had considered it only from the perspective of having done something wrong. Maddie wanted to reassure him.
“It was a welcome distraction,” she said, a little shyly.
“A completely unexpected one,” James agreed. He blinked rapidly, hiding his face behind his pint, as if he was blushing. Maddie took a sip of her wine, realising he’d bought her a large one. Good job she’d already decided not to drive home. “Did you sleep today?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Did you?”
“Not a wink.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, worrying about it, wondering about it.” He shuffled to the very edge of the chair and leaned forward, as though he was about to tell her a secret. Maddie leaned towards him. “Where did that come from?” he murmured.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you hated me,” he said.
“I thought you hated me .”
He shook his head in disbelief and then sat back again, nursing his beer.
She saw his shoulders rise and fall slowly and fathomed he was sighing away some tension.
She did the same. For a horrible moment, when she’d caught him trying to leave, she’d thought he’d been trying to avoid her because he regretted their frolicking and wasn’t adult enough to confront it.
That level of immaturity from him would have devastated her. She was relieved.
Despite that, she was still adamant it could never happen again.
As deliciously enjoyable as it had been, Maddie needed to devote every free moment she had to the house.
She was confident she couldn’t manage everything she needed to do and foster a situationship, so — as horny as she was and as wild as James’ proximity was driving her — she needed to find a way to turn this into a friendship at the very most. He had not taken advantage of her, but he was right. .. there was a lot going on.
“Oh, God, what?” James interrupted her ruminating.
Maddie realised she had been frowning and straightened her face.
She shuffled uncomfortably and sipped her wine, watching him watching her over the top of her glass.
She wasn’t sure how he was going to react.
He might be angry and upset. Perhaps he’d call her ugly, like her previous lover.
He might feign relief in order to try to hurt her feelings and save face.
Or perhaps he’d be visibly and genuinely relieved.
That would be even worse. She didn’t want him to regret what had happened between them.
She wanted him to feel the way she did about it — that it was wonderful, but the sensible and adult thing to do would be to leave it at that.
“You’re killing me here,” he prompted her.
“I don’t think we should do it again,” she said. His face fell, and Maddie had to stop herself from congratulating him on reacting in exactly the right way. He didn’t look defensive or bruised, he just looked disappointed.
“Oh, really?” he said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said.
He seemed to shrink a little bit, and she was worried he was jumping to conclusions about himself, so she rushed to make him feel better.
“It’s nothing you did or didn’t do,” she said.
“It’s just there’s so much going on at the moment and I’ve been feeling.
.. not great, but I need to devote myself completely to the recovery retreat and now the wedding. There’s no room for anything else.”
Maddie paused. She felt very suddenly completely and utterly overwhelmed.
Autumn’s and Marley’s engagement and the silliness that had occurred this morning between her and James had been heavy distractions from everything else, but now the weight of her to-do list was looming in her periphery, just waiting to set itself back on her shoulders.
James nodded his understanding, eyeing her intently. “Are you OK?” Maddie shot for a confident affirmation, but her attempt at a nod landed somewhere between an uncertain shrug and shake of the head. “Convincing,” he teased her.
In spite of everything, she laughed. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Do not apologise.” He shook his head.
“It’s not you, it’s just not the right time for a situationship of any kind,” Maddie reiterated.
“I totally get it.” He nodded. “I know things have been weird between us, but how about a friendship, instead?”
Maddie beamed. She couldn’t help it. A friend was exactly what she was looking for.
She’d lied to her dad and told him she was coming here to meet friends, now it felt somehow like she’d manifested one.
She was the type of person who looked for the meaning in everything and she felt like James’ suggestion gave her the answer she needed as to why what had happened this morning had happened.
They had dry-humped in the kitchen in order to fast track their friendship.
In her wine-filled haze, this made perfect sense.
“Can we draw a line under everything and start again?” Maddie asked.
She didn’t have the energy to work through her initial annoyance at him for working on a farm, or his anger at her for misleading him about Bowie, or his refusal to treat her better after she had apologised, or the countless dirty looks they had thrown one another, the mutterings under breaths, the way they had ignored each other countless times. ..
“Absolutely,” he said. Maddie smiled and James stood, gesturing towards the bar. “So, friend,” he said. “Have another glass of wine and unload your worries. From now on, your burdens are my burdens, and mine are yours.”