Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Dad’s texted!’ Jake shouts across the din, waving his phone in the air. ‘She’s fine, it’s all good! She’s had the once over. They reckon it was definitely just a migraine, and I was being a big old worrywart as usual!’
The room cheers, clinking glasses, as Jake re-takes his seat at the table with his friends.
They’re playing a very competitive game of Monopoly and the shouting over Park Lane immediately resumes.
A few feet away, playing our own board game at the coffee table, Edward and I make relieved eye contact.
‘Phew,’ he says quietly, and I smile widely, rolling the dice and moving my piece four squares. Yay, a ladder!
‘Phew indeed,’ I echo back, handing over the dice for his turn, ‘And now we know your mum is okay, Edward, I get to ask you something I’ve been dying to know since before we even got here.’
His face changes in that moment and something charged zigzags between us.
The rest of the room gets dark and far away.
I feel my heart thump in my chest as I scramble to quickly continue.
‘Er, about you and your brother, I mean.’ I swallow.
‘You guys are… Edward and Jacob?’ Our surroundings rush back in as he blinks at my question, then frowns.
‘Yes?’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘C’mon, you know what I’m saying, don’t you? You’re Edward and Jacob! Do you also have a sister called Bella, perchance?’
‘What?’ He looks baffled, and I burst out laughing. ‘No, we don’t have a sister.’
‘You cannot tell me no one has ever pointed this out to you?’ I snort. ‘The characters from Twilight? Edward and Jacob?’
He shakes his head. ‘Never heard of it. Is it a TV show? Were they brothers?’
‘No,’ I say with frustration. ‘They were rivals or whatever… come on, there’s no way you don’t know this! It was a book, then more books, then a huge movie series! Edward was the vampire and Jacob was the werewolf…’
‘Werewolf?’ Edward sounds astonished. ‘Was it a horror film?’
‘No!’ I wave my diet coke around, exasperated. ‘It was romance, really, I guess. Romantasy. It kickstarted an entire generation of sexy monster fiction!’
‘So, the werewolf and the vampire were in love?’ Edward rolls the dice and moves his piece up another ladder. He’s winning.
‘No!’ I cry, grabbing the dice for my turn and shaking them furiously. ‘Absolutely not. Bella Swan was the one in love – with both of them. And they were in love with her. She had to choose.’
‘So, there was a vampire, a werewolf, and a swan?’ His face is the picture of confusion.
‘Oh my god, stop talking,’ I laugh as I slide down another snake. ‘Basically, they were two iconic love rivals, and the entire world – apart from you it would seem – was either Team Edward or Team Jacob.’
He’s looking at me again. ‘Which were you? Team Edward or Team Jacob?’ He asks this in a soft voice.
‘I was Team Charlie Swan actually,’ I giggle again, trying to dispel the weird tension between us. ‘Bella’s dad.’
‘That seems wrong on a few different levels,’ Edward comments wryly, raising one eyebrow.
‘What can I say?’ I shrug. ‘I have daddy issues.’
He yawns, reaching up into a deep stretch and I watch his body move. The vest of his three-piece suit rides up, along with the shirt. For just one solitary second, there is a centimetre of skin, and I feel a hotness creep into my bones.
He reaches for the dice again. ‘I need a six,’ he tells me, keeping eye contact, and it’s exactly what he rolls.
‘You get all the luck,’ I complain, and he looks at me. There’s something unreadable on his face.
‘I win again,’ he says simply, then reaches to take off his suit jacket.
He rolls up his shirt sleeves and I take in his forearms, trying to remember if I’ve ever seen them before.
Surely I have? So why does this feel so shocking?
He scratches the wrist around his watch, and I try not to notice what muscular arms he has.
He’s been hiding some serious buff-ness under all those suits.
Is this a new development, or has Edward always been so… defined?
‘How do you get your hair so shiny and thick?’ I ask suddenly, trying to redirect my thought process. He raises an eyebrow.
‘Is it shiny?’ he asks, reaching up a hand to gingerly touch it.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know you have great hair. What shampoo do you use? I’ve wanted to ask you all day.’ I pause, adding, ‘For as long as I’ve known you, actually.’
He frowns. ‘I don’t know. It’s one I’ve had forever; I don’t take any notice.’ He squints, trying to remember. ‘Weirdly, I think it’s a brand made by that American writer, Gore Vidal?’
I shake my head at how little this makes sense. ‘What?’
He nods. ‘I know that probably can’t be right.’ He shrugs. ‘My dad uses the same stuff. Mum got a job lot of bottles years ago. She loves a bit of a Del Boy deal. It probably fell off the back of a lorry – as she would say.’
‘Show me,’ I say, standing up. He looks amused, but obeys, leading me through the hallway to a large bathroom at the back of the house.
I automatically close the door behind me and then turn to face him, realising how odd it is that I did that.
How odd this whole thing is. I’m standing in a bathroom with my therapist. With my therapist’s perfect hair and his powerful arms. At his parents’ house. And I just shut us in.
‘There.’ He points at the bath, and I pick up a bottle. I turn to stare at him with amusement.
‘Gore Vidal?’ I ask, and show him the bottle.
‘Oh.’ He looks a little embarrassed. ‘Well, I’ve never heard of Vidal Sassoon. I assume there’s no relation to Gore.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ I smirk, then shake my head in bafflement. ‘So, the secret of your magical hair is a discontinued shampoo from the noughties that you thought was made by a dead American writer.’ I’m really trying not to laugh. ‘You are a complicated fellow, aren’t you, Edward?’
‘You think my hair is magical?’ he asks quietly, and something pulses between us. Something new. I no longer want to laugh as he stares down at me, his eyes black. I suddenly remember our earlier conversation about showering, and feel my cheeks blister with heat.
‘I think I better go,’ I say, feeling very warm and strange.
‘It’s a long way back and Sam will be wondering where I’ve got to.
’ I open the bathroom door, walking quickly back through the hallway to find my coat in a jumble by the front door.
The noise from the living room would imply Jake won the auction for Park Lane and is now building hotels to destroy everyone.
Edward catches up with me as I go to step outside.
‘You’re really leaving?’ he says, his hand on my arm. ‘Don’t you want to wait and see my parents, Esme and Carlisle?’
I gasp as his eyes twinkle. ‘You do know what Twilight is! You’re such an arse! I can’t believe I fell for that.’
‘Are you kidding?’ He shakes his head. ‘Do you know how many people went on about it in 2008? It ruined my entire year. It’s why we go by Ed and Jake at home – much less fantasy chic.’
‘I didn’t think you liked me calling you Ed,’ I tease. ‘I only did it to piss you off.’
‘I know,’ he says with intensity. ‘But maybe I liked it too much.’
I swallow hard. ‘And there was me thinking you were such an uptight fuddy duddy, you didn’t ever concern yourself with nicknames or pop culture,’ I tease, and suddenly he’s standing a little bit too close.
I give him a light poke in the chest. ‘Always in your suits. Buttons always done all the way up.’ I brush the pristine white buttons. ‘Do these ever actually undo?’
‘Sure they do.’ He smiles, obliging with the top one. His Adam’s apple bobs lightly under the loosened collar.
‘Oh, come on!’ I scoff. ‘Is that all you can manage, Edward? Surely you can do better than that?’
He reaches up and undoes two more buttons.
I can see taut skin and thick chest hair in the unleashed triangle, and suddenly feel a bit lightheaded.
Edward is even closer now and I can feel the heat of his body through his shirt.
I try to stop myself staring at the hint of bare chest and find I can’t.
It’s impossible not to look. Who would’ve thought such a small amount of flesh would cause such a reaction in me?
I look up at last and he’s watching me, his eyes dark and penetrating, nostrils flared.
A heat suddenly flashes between us, and we reach for each other, right there in his parents’ hallway.
Next to the shoe rack. His hands are on my face as we kiss.
And then they’re in my hair, on my back, under my coat.
Edward’s tongue is in my mouth; mine in his.
It’s unbelievably hot. He’s an amazing kisser.
I want to tear his clothes off right here, right now, in front of the coats, with the front door wide open, in his mum and dad’s home, with his brother’s friends probably watching on from the living room.
And I don’t care about any of it. I want this man so much.
Edward is the one to pull away first. He looks panic-stricken.
‘Shit,’ he says, but I don’t hear him. My gaze is too unfocused; the world spinning around me. All I want is to be kissing him again. I reach for him, but he steps back. ‘I’m so sorry, Olivia,’ he says, and I recognise the voice. It’s Edward the therapist, talking to Olivia, his patient.
Oh my god. The realisation of what we’ve just done rushes in. We kissed. I kissed my therapist. My therapist kissed me. What have we done?
My horror is mirrored plainly on his face, and I feel the now-familiar crush of abject humiliation.
We stare at each other for another long moment, and then I turn on my heel, rushing out the front door and running for my car. I don’t stop until I’m inside and driving away, the satnav telling me to do a U-turn as soon as safely possible.
‘I’d really fucking love to do a U-turn’, I mutter to myself as I try to steady my breathing.
That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. And I’m including the time I had a public meltdown over a tiramisu and went internet famous.
I kissed my fucking therapist. What the hell is wrong with me?