Chapter 22
LYRA
Sunday Lunch at Mum and Dad’s
Mum and Dad have friends visiting for lunch. Brian and Jean are both consultant doctors, predictably, and godparents to Livy and me. They’ve driven up from York for the day, which they do every couple of months. Livy and Joshua-not-Josh are here, too.
They’re all in the lounge, enjoying wine and conversation that’s ranged from Livy’s big day in September to Brain and Jean’s life since they both retired last year.
I’ve been adding very little to the group, preoccupied about the one thing I don’t want to talk about with my family.
So I’m tucked away in the kitchen. Mum always makes the meat for a Sunday roast – a north-east staple, despite the stifling air temperature today – but I make an epic Yorkshire pudding and the best stuffing balls in the family.
Accolades I have to hold on to because, you know, I’m not a doctor and it’s one of few things I do that doesn’t make Mum look at me like I eat kittens for breakfast.
I open the oven to place my stuffing inside and the wave of hot air that engulfs me thrusts me back to last night, standing in the steam of Guy’s shower, with him.
I’ve never had sex out of a bed, let alone been made to see stars on a sofa, been held up against glass balcony doors because my legs are giving out, or feeling a man as perfectly sculpted as Guy through the slick moisture of soapy water.
Falling asleep in his arms, against his chest, sated, was easy.
Staying asleep was much harder. I felt… alive.
With anticipation, excitement, fear of what morning would bring.
I thought about leaving in the middle of the night to spare me the uncertainty but there was a big part of me that thought Guy would have to be the best liar in the world to have faked the looks, the touches, the words he whispered against my ear and the sounds he made that drove me crazy with lust.
I’ve never felt more womanly, more desired. More confident and… sexy.
When he came to me in the middle of the night as I played guitar, Scott’s guitar, he was afraid; I felt it. He was exposed and vulnerable, too.
I stare at the stuffing and roast lamb cooking in the oven, my hands roaming my neck, my collarbones, where his stubble grazed and his mouth caressed.
‘I still can’t believe you cut your hair,’ Livy practically snarls, leaning into me to make sure I can hear, an unopened bottle of white wine from the fridge in her hand.
Ah, yes, one of the perks of being late to arrive. Brian and Jean were already here and spared me – for a while, at least – the fallout of me cutting off my hair yesterday, which Livy has taken as massive shade.
It was. It is. But it’s also for me. It’s only a haircut but it has reminded me in a small way of someone I was the last time I think I was truly happy.
I haven’t been unhappy since I dropped out of university but with hindsight and whatever has come over me recently, I haven’t been living my best life.
Maybe I can’t completely have a do-over but maybe I don’t need to be acting as if I have a million obligations and a thousand people to please, all more important than my own wants and desires.
‘You don’t like it, then?’ I ask my sister.
‘I told you not to cut it before the wedding.’ She slaps her free hand to her thigh in exasperation. ‘You’ve already had your hair trial.’
‘I’ll pay for a new one.’
‘Lyra, it’s not about money. And, for the record, I do like it.
I think it looks great on you. But my wedding is in six weeks.
Couldn’t you have waited six weeks?’ She raises her arms out in question.
‘I don’t know what’s got into you recently.
It’s like—’ She cuts herself short with a gasp. ‘Are you seeing someone?’
Because, of course, my sister drives me crazy, as mad as I make her, but she can also read me better than anyone else. We’ve spent twenty-eight years in each other’s company.
‘Ah, erm, no.’
‘You are!’
‘I’m not. I— It’s new and I don’t know where I’m at or where he’s at yet.’
Livy pulls two empty wine glasses from a cupboard and sets them down on the kitchen table. She opens the wine bottle and pours some into each glass. She sits into a chair and pats another.
‘I’m not doing this,’ I tell her, knowing my pinkened cheeks and curved-up lips are betraying me.
‘We absolutely are doing this. It’s about time you let me live single life vicariously through you.’
The sound that escapes me would be best placed on a teenage girl at a sleepover. It’s a giggle that says, I have a crush on a boy and he kissed me. That’s how it sounds in my head and it obviously sounds that way to Livy too because her eyes practically burst from her head.
‘You’ve slept with him!’ She’s leaning into me, shout whispering like we would in our bedrooms when we didn’t want Mum and Dad to hear our secrets.
Good thing, too, because when Mum finds out I slept with the wedding singing naked butler, she’s going to flip at best, and disown me at worst.
‘I’m still furious with you about your hair but I want all the details.’
I’m almost certain I’m not going to spill any details until words are tripping out of my mouth. ‘It was…’ I cover my face with my hands, shaking my head. ‘Fuck, Livy, it was…’
‘Oh my God. That good?’
I nod, sipping my wine. ‘Yeah.’
‘Who is he, this Adonis?’
I full-blown laugh now. ‘You don’t know him.’ Which is true, though she for sure knows of him.
Her eyes narrow on me. ‘Oh, Lyra, no. Not Guy Walker?’
Her words kill my laughter because I know what she’s thinking; I’ve thought it, too.
‘Sweetie, he’s…’
‘Go on, Livy.’ I drain the wine in my glass out of temper more than want. ‘What is he? Or, what is he not?’
She sits back in her chair, no longer in gossip mode but older, brighter, got-her-shit-together big-sister mode.
‘He’s not boyfriend material. I mean, come on, Lyra.
I know you used to love The Hand Me Downs but he’s not in a band any more and if his current profession is anything to go by, he’s a deadbeat too, these days. ’
I push out my chair, the rub of its legs loudly scraping the floor tiles as I stand.
‘Would everyone stop with that? I agree, he might not be boyfriend material. I have no idea yet and, honestly, who’s to say I want to be his girlfriend anyway?
But I didn’t sleep with him because he used to be in a band.
I slept with him because I’ve fallen for who he is now. ’
‘Lyra—’
‘No, Livy.’ My voice is raised far beyond where I intend it to be.
We’re no longer two sisters having a secret talk in our unicorn bedrooms. ‘What everyone seems to forget is that I am in the wedding industry too, and every time someone says he’s worthless, do you know how that makes me feel?
It makes me feel like I’m nothing, too.’
I can’t believe it but tears are forming in my eyes, because this day that started out so incredibly well has turned to crap and it’s only lunchtime.
Because every word I’m saying is true – my family think I’m nothing, and perhaps I’ve thought it too, before now; perhaps I’ve allowed them to make me feel like that since I gave up on medicine.
But yesterday, someone made me feel like I was something.
So today, my family’s view of me feels like it’s breaking my heart.
I turn my back on my sister and her protests, her outstretched arms that I’d usually give in to when we fight so that we can end it all sooner, no matter which of us is in the wrong. Because today, I just don’t feel like hugging it out with her.
Before I leave the room, I tell her, ‘I did cut my hair to spite you.’
* * *
After I’d pulled myself together, sitting on the bed in my room, I faked cheeriness for my godparents, finished making lunch and poured the others wine. Now, I’m listening to Jean trying to sell my mum on retirement, again, wishing I was anywhere else than at this immaculately set dining table.
As Livy and Joshua dish out their contribution to lunch – an overpriced, pre-bought fruit flan – my phone pings. No one seems to notice as I slip it out of my dress pocket under the table, but I think everyone notices my Cheshire cat grin.
I knew I wasn’t going to be first to call or message and I guess I can admit now, I was afraid I misread last night. That Guy and I would do what we seem to have been good at – kiss and don’t call. So when I read his words, I can’t hide my relief.
Can I see you tonight?
I want to reply with Yes, duh. But I play it slightly cooler, I think.
Depends. What do you have in mind?
Honestly, barring swamp swimming or bog sampling, he could say anything and I’d go.
It’s a surprise. Can you be at my place by 7pm?
I leave it a minute to reply. Ignoring the eyes on me around the table, pretending like I’m not messaging against Mum’s no-phones-at-the-table rule, when blatantly I am.
Okay.
He fires a message straight back.
Don’t sound too excited, will you?
I chuckle, my eyes shooting straight to Mum and her disapproving face. Then, for some reason, to Dad, who is also staring at me, only he’s smiling. His quirky smile, which I see more in the brightness of his eyes than on his lips.
What should I wear?
Typing…
Typing…
Typing…
Is this a trick question? Start the night in those tiny little shorts you wore yesterday. Maybe not a bikini on top, though. I’ll let you decide what to wear at the end.
* * *
He meets me in the car park of his building at six fifty-six, wearing washed-out jeans and a t-shirt and, though I’ve seen him naked and I’ve seen him in a perfectly tailored suit, it’s this look that makes me want to tear him out of his clothes.
God, last night has sent my hormones into overdrive.
I need to play it cool, I remind myself as he opens my car door and I climb out. Play. It. Cool?—
Guy decides not to. As soon as I’m standing, his fingers slip into my hair, tugging at the base of my neck, and his other hand runs a tantalizing line up my thigh to the hem of my probably too-short shorts.
Similar but different to last night’s. It’s still reasonably warm but I’ve worn my old leather biker jacket over my plain t-shirt.
I’m thrilled I didn’t have to make the first move. Even happier I didn’t have to wait a second longer to taste him again.
‘I want to tear you out of these clothes but we’ve got somewhere to be,’ he says when we part.
I run a thumb along my still plump lips, from last night, this morning, just now. ‘You know, a polite man might have led with hello.’
He narrows his eyes. ‘What gave you the impression I’m polite?’
‘Good point. You’re actually extremely grumpy.’
He’s still scowling at me as he sniffs the air. ‘What’s that smell?’
Oh. I reach back into my car, knowing Guy is watching my arse as I lean over the driver’s side to the passenger seat, unabashedly teasing him in a way that is completely unlike me.
Then I hand over a foil-covered plate and a gravy boat. ‘Leftover Sunday roast. Lamb, Yorkshire puds, stuffing, the works.’
There’s humour in his expression as he takes the food and thanks me.
‘Is it weird that I brought you leftover food?’
‘Ah, no?’
He’s still staring at it, contrary to his words.
‘I assure you, I make the best Yorkshire puddings and stuffing balls for miles.’
‘Then I’m looking forward to it.’ He nods in the direction of the entrance to the apartments. ‘Come on, we need to get going.’
‘Where are we going?’ I ask, honestly, kind of disappointed to not just be staying here with Guy, taking him out of those jeans and that top that is clinging to all the right places on him.