Chapter Twenty-Seven Nico
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nico
‘I want to try the sun-dried tomato one again,’ Tara says, leaning over the table to dig her spoon into the luminous orange ice cream. ‘I still don’t understand what the black bits are?’
‘I think it’s olive tapenade,’ Lee muses.
Luke makes a horrified noise low in his throat.
‘It’s honestly not as bad as it sounds,’ Lee insists. ‘It’s sort of…’
‘European,’ Tara nods pensively. ‘Like a gazpacho.’
‘I don’t care. It’s an abomination,’ Luke mutters.
‘Shhh!’ Tara swats his arm. ‘Miss Rita will hear you.’
Luke looks chastened for a moment, but when Tara doesn’t move her hand from his arm right away, his expression melts into something smug.
I’m glad one of us has their love life under control, seeing as I just found out I’m spending the next two weeks sharing a bed with the woman I’m in very serious lust with but definitely shouldn’t touch.
Fantastic.
‘I brought you a new one to try.’ Rita hustles over with another single-serve tub of ice cream. ‘This is a little something I’ve been playing around with. It’s a bit unusual, but I think I’m close to cracking it.’
As the ice cream in question is a vivid yellow with veins of green sauce running through it I dread to think what this means.
‘Thanks, Miss Rita,’ Tara sings, beaming at the mad scientist. Rita leaves with a cheery wink, humming to herself as she goes.
Obviously, she’s delighted to find someone who is willing to try her wild experiments, and our table in the front of the parlour is covered in small tubs of half-eaten ice cream.
‘What do you think?’ Tara pokes the new flavour in front of her with her plastic spoon. ‘Banana?’
‘That is extremely optimistic,’ I say.
‘She said unusual,’ Lee wrinkles her nose. ‘It could be some sort of cheese?’
‘Isn’t there a type of chard that’s yellow?’ Tara ponders. ‘That might explain the green bits.’
‘Okay, I definitely draw the line at chard,’ Luke grumbles. ‘Ice cream should come in one of three flavours: vanilla, strawberry or chocolate.’
‘Boooooooooo!’ Tara pokes him in the side. ‘Where is your sense of adventure? For that I think you have to be the one to try it.’
She scoops a spoonful of the yellow mixture and holds it up. She’s grinning at him, an obvious dare.
When Luke takes the spoon into his mouth and licks it clean, Tara’s breath catches, her eyes glued to his lips. I think she’s humming something under her breath.
‘Well?’ Lee asks, her amusement clear.
Luke grimaces. ‘I don’t know. Is there such a thing as fish ice cream?’
‘Oh god,’ I wince.
Luke takes a long sip of his vanilla milkshake, while looking a bit pale, and Tara tells him how brave and manly he is.
We’ve spent the afternoon giving Tara her tour of Roseport, and when Luke happened to bump into us, he tagged along too.
Phoebe opted for a playdate with Maya instead, and Maya’s mum offered to drop her back later, so it’s been just the four of us ducking in and out of shops, enjoying the crisp autumn weather, while Tara and Lee ooh and ahh over every single building, lamppost and picket fence in Roseport.
It’s been good, actually, a welcome distraction from not only the catastrophic events of earlier, but also the absurd and overwhelming crush I have on my wife, the one that increasingly threatens my sanity.
Seeing that ring on her finger this morning almost had me on my knees, offering her a lot of things I have no business offering her.
But come on, when I opened that box and found a daisy made of diamonds nestled against the velvet I knew the universe was fucking with me.
If I had ever actually proposed to Lee then it’s the ring I would have chosen.
It looks so right on her finger it makes me want to howl.
Honestly, everything about this woman has me feeling feral.
I’m slightly concerned about what the next full moon will bring.
It’s possible she’s awoken something in me.
‘Alert! Alert!’ Rita comes barrelling back towards us, her phone clutched in her hand.
‘The Operation Wedded Bliss group chat is hopping! Your lawyer guy’s wandering around downtown and Ern’s keeping him busy at the hardware store but he’s going to pass by here any minute, so you two need to start looking way more married. ’
‘What does that even mean?’ I ask. ‘We’re sitting right next to each other.’ It’s bad enough that whenever we’re in public together Phoebe is constantly making sure Lee and I are holding hands, I don’t need Rita micromanaging me as well.
Rita rolls her eyes at me. ‘Good lord, Nico, it’s no wonder you can’t get a date.’
‘Hey!’ I protest. ‘Just because I haven’t been dating doesn’t mean I couldn’t if I wanted to.’
Tara and Luke are already pushing away from the table.
‘It’ll look more convincing if it’s just the two of you,’ Tara says innocently. ‘Me and Luke are going to go and check out… the bookstore again.’
‘Yup,’ Luke nods eagerly. ‘Don’t worry, you guys. I’ll make sure Tara gets home safely.’
‘Such a gentleman,’ Tara murmurs. ‘We’re still on for dinner?’ she asks Lee. ‘You’re not sick of me yet?’
‘Stop by around six.’
‘Nico! Get your arm around your wife RIGHT NOW!’ Rita snaps as our best friends melt into the distance, their hands almost touching. ‘I can’t believe you young people today, do you need me to tell you how to do everything?’
‘I think we’ve got it from here,’ I grit out.
With another huff Rita leaves. Ern’s hardware store is a few shops down from Scoops, and we’re sitting at one of the small pastel pink tables in the long window facing onto the street. If he’s coming this way then Rita’s right that Charles is going to get a great view of us.
‘You ready?’ I ask Lee, being very careful about our communication here. We haven’t talked about the physical contact issue since the kiss.
She turns towards me, a look of determination in her eyes.
‘We did a rubbish job this morning,’ she says. ‘So let’s make this count. Get your hands on me!’
She blurts the last words and then winces, but that is all the encouragement I need. It’s for the ruse, I tell myself. I’m supposed to look like I want to lift her up onto this table and do unspeakable things to her.
I push my chair back and reach for Lee’s, grabbing the edge of her seat and dragging the whole thing across the floor so that she sits with her legs at an angle, caged between mine.
She lets out a little squeak of surprise and her hand drops to my thigh, the diamond ring on her wedding finger catching the light.
The wolf that apparently now lives inside me approves of this situation greatly.
I drape my arm around the back of her chair, and toy with the ends of her hair. She has it down today, a silky fall of honey-coloured waves.
‘How’s this?’ I ask in a low voice, leaning in so that my face is closer to hers.
‘Mmm,’ she murmurs, and when she turns towards me, I can see every shade of blue in her eyes, the slightly darker ring around her iris. So pretty.
She leans further into me, her hand grazing higher up my thigh.
A low sound hums in my chest. ‘Daisy,’ I rasp, and our noses brush. I’m half a breath away from taking her mouth with mine, and I know there are reasons I shouldn’t, but right now I can’t for the life of me think what they are.
‘Yes, Nico,’ she whispers, and I don’t know if it’s a question or permission. Her eyes round as she looks past me through the window. ‘He’s coming,’ she breathes.
She said I could kiss her, I remember that very clearly. Kiss me like you mean it. Oh, I can do that. I can definitely do that.
I cup her cheek, closing the tiny distance between us.
The first touch of her mouth is soft, tentative, but I’m no passive participant this time, and I want more.
I want everything. I cradle the back of her head, bury my hand in her hair, and trace the seam of her lips with my tongue.
With a small, surprised gasp, her mouth opens and I sink into her.
She’s soft and lush and she tastes like strawberry ice cream.
Dimly, I hear the bell ring over the door.
Her fingers curl into my thigh, and I rumble appreciatively against the sweet, sensitive corner of her mouth.
‘Ahem.’ A sound interrupts us, and Lee jerks back, away from me, blinking like she’s waking up from a dream.
Standing about two feet away is Charles Saunders, his face impassive as he looks down at us.
As we put on that entire show for his benefit I shouldn’t be feeling so annoyed by his interruption, but I am and my whole body crackles with frustration.
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t close to enough.
A drop of water in an ocean of need and longing.
Then Charles frowns and steps back. ‘Good grief!’ he exclaims.
I follow his gaze to the window, and there, leering at us through the glass, is an enormous black crow. His beady eyes move from Lee to me and back.
‘Oh my god,’ Lee whispers. ‘It’s really him…’ She looks rumpled and flushed, like she’s just had all the sense kissed out of her.
I rap my knuckles against the glass until the bird grudgingly flaps away.
‘He’s a pervert,’ Lee tells Charles, still sounding dazed. ‘The crow. Russell.’
There’s a pause.
‘I see,’ Charles says. He clears his throat again. ‘Anyway… I was just passing, and I saw you in here. I wanted to apologise once more for the mix up this morning.’
I glance over at Lee and she’s summoned up a smile. I have no idea what she’s thinking. I had all but forgotten this man’s existence, but maybe she really did only kiss me so that he could see? That was the plan, right? Maybe she’s not as completely turned around by it as I am?
This is exactly why this whole mess is so complicated.
‘Really it’s no problem,’ Lee says smoothly. ‘I’m only sorry we weren’t at our best.’
Charles gives a thin smile. ‘I’m not here for your best, Ms Turner-Jones. Just as an impartial third party observer. It would be helpful if you continued to live as you usually do.’