16. Chapter 16
Lucy’s breathing was coming in rapid and shallow breaths and she seemed giddy, unsteady on her feet as she paced about the room. Jack could feel the heightened energy reeling off her. She was like a caged animal looking for any way out, her eyes overly bright and still full of tears.
Jack didn’t have much experience with family conflicts. His own family had simply avoided one another once things went wrong, his mother retreating to her new family and his father into his grief. But he could feel the fragility of the family ties Lucy was trying to hold on to.
As she paced, Lucy looked at once like a beautiful and fierce woman who could defend herself, and a small child who didn’t know what had gone wrong. He couldn’t bear it any longer. He stepped in front of her, interrupted her pacing and took her in his arms, pulling her close. In response, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his shoulder. He could feel her heart pounding, tension making her body stiff and unresponsive. Then she gave in and started to cry, her body trembling against him. He held her tight and pressed his lips into the top of her head, stroking her hair. Gradually, her breathing slowed, and he felt her body relax into his. After a while, she pulled back, let out a shaky breath, and wiped her face with her hands.
Jack held her by the shoulders and stared down into her face.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, brushing her damp hair out of her eyes.
She stepped back unsteadily and knocked some books off a table.
‘Oh.’
She bent to retrieve them, but Jack stopped her.
‘Come here,’ he drew her over to a sofa. ‘Sit down and stay there.’
He disappeared out of the door, then returned a few minutes later with two glasses of amber liquid. Lucy sniffed the whisky and wrinkled her nose.
‘Drink it,’ he said. ‘You need it.’
He draped his arm along the back of the sofa, and Lucy tipped her head back.
She sniffed.
‘Very glad my fake boyfriend was there to step in.’
Jack smiled.
‘Yes, you looked like you might launch across the table at her. Poor Heather.’
‘Poor Heather?!’ Lucy’s voice reached a pitch only dogs could hear, and Jack winced. ‘Tuh, don’t you worry about Heather. Heather always comes up roses.’
She took a ragged sip of whiskey.
‘By now,’ she gestured with her glass at the clock, ‘Heather will have told Mum and Dad that I am being unreasonable, even though she does nothing but belittle me.’ She took another sip. ‘She’ll shake her head and sigh and make it seem that she’s the bigger person, putting up with me.’
Her voice trailed off, and she suddenly looked very small and tired. Jack wished he could hold her, but he was suddenly acutely aware that he was her fake boyfriend, not her real one. He sipped his whisky and listened.
‘She always does this,’ Lucy said, rolling the glass in her hand. ‘She’s always the one who works the hardest, sleeps the least, is the most stressed.’
Lucy looked around, searching for inspiration in the vintage prints on the snug walls.
‘And then,’ she put the glass down a little heavily onto the table, ‘when it all gets to be too much, it’s everyone else’s fault. She loves being a martyr—no one suffers like Heather. No one else is ever as stressed by work, or worried, or….’
He smiled in the dim light cast by the sconces on the walls.
‘I know Heather gets to you—’
Lucy snorted. ‘That’s an understatement.’
‘I also remember that a few years ago, when you had that landlord who kept harassing you and tried to force you to move out without due notice, she contacted him the same week, and he backed down faster than you could say, I’ll see you in court.’
Lucy rolled the glass in her hands.
‘And I bet,’ Jack said, shifting to look directly at her, ‘she’d defend you to the hilt if she thought anyone—anyone other than her, of course—was going to hurt you in any way.’
Lucy sat still and stared across the room at a portrait of a man astride a horse taking aim at a peaceful-looking stag.
‘Please don’t try to make me like her,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I don’t want to at the moment. I have finally,’ Lucy raised watery eyes to meet his, ‘stood up for myself.’
She was quiet for a moment, and Jack saw her gaze flick back to the hunting portrait. They sat in silence for a few moments, and then Lucy’s hand fluttered to her mouth.
‘Oh god, Jack….’ she whispered. ‘I think I was pretty awful. Wasn’t I? Was I? But I still,’ she said a little more loudly, ‘think I was right, and I only defended myself, but…I said things I didn’t need to say.’
Jack stayed quiet and sipped his whisky, welcoming the distraction of the burn of the alcohol as it slipped down. Lucy moved her glass back and forth, from hand to hand, watching the liquid sway. She wiped at her eyes and took a large swig of whisky that made her splutter and choke.
Jack rubbed her back.
‘Christ, Lucy. It’s one thing after another tonight.’
She coughed, then looked at him and giggled, wiping her eyes.
‘I’m glad you’re here.’
He squeezed her shoulder and stroked her hair away from her face, feeling the softness of her skin under his fingertips. He swallowed and forced himself to hold her gaze.
‘Me too. Feeling better?’
She nodded.
‘Feeling better.’
He stood up and took her hand, pulling her up after him. ‘Come on then,’ he glanced at his watch. ‘It’s not late. We can rescue this evening yet. Ollie and Sophie will wonder where you’ve gone.’
‘I got Heathered,’ Lucy mumbled. ‘Not to mention my near-death experience from choking,’ Lucy added, raising her glass.
‘Yes, that too. Thank god you made it back from the brink.’
He draped his arm casually around her shoulders as they made their way towards the door. It felt good. Lucy nestled into his side, the fragrance of her shampoo wafting up to him. He pulled her into him, so they were walking in tandem. The most natural thing in the world. His hand dropped down over Lucy’s shoulder, and she reached up and took it, her fingers brushing over his. A shiver went through him at the easy intimacy of the touch, and he laced his fingers through hers and tipped his head down to look at her.
‘You can have the bed tonight,’ he said. ‘No coin toss necessary.’
If she raised her head to meet his eyes, her face would be close, so close he would feel her breath on his cheek. He wanted her to look at him, look up through the smudged eye makeup. Wanted to see if the current he felt between them was only in his imagination.
Then, as easily as she had taken his hand, Lucy abruptly unlaced her fingers from his and stepped away from him. For a split second, his arm hung awkwardly by his side. He missed the feeling of her shape tucked into him.
‘Sure,’ Lucy said, avoiding his gaze. ‘My turn to take the bed, I think.’
She hurried ahead of him to the door and heaved it open.
A few steps behind her, Jack heard her voice echo from beyond the door.
‘Wait, this isn’t the right way, is it?’
She turned and barrelled straight into Jack’s chest as he stepped into the corridor. He caught her and steadied her, feeling the soft warmth of her arms beneath his hands.
‘Oops, sorry!’
Her face flushed, and she avoided Jack’s gaze as she stumbled backwards, heels catching in the carpet.
Jack’s arm shot out to catch her again, but she moved out of reach. Jack stepped back and slipped his hands into his pockets, unsure of her. She seemed jittery. Lucy was tugging on the door handle to go back the way they had come, but it didn’t budge.
‘Hey, steady on,’ Jack laughed. ‘What did that door ever do to you? Here,’ he took her gently by the elbow, and this time she didn’t pull away. ‘We’ve just come out the other side of the room. There must be two doors. But we can follow the sound of family arguments to find our way back to the party.’
He raised an eyebrow and grinned, his eyes trained on her face, watching for her reaction.
In response, she muttered, ‘Ha ha.’ and let him guide her down the corridor, following the sound of music and voices. As they rounded a corner, they were met with a door with a sign that read, Staff Only.
‘Oh dear, wrong way,’ Jack said.
He tugged on the door in case they could slip through regardless, but it didn’t budge.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lucy said and shrugged.
She ambled part way back along the corridor, then stopped to pull off her heels before they and the thick carpet conspired to send her headlong.
‘A little more time and distance between me and Heather is no bad thing.’
She hooked her shoe straps over the fingers of one hand and tilted her glass at Jack with the other.
‘And this whisky isn’t going to drink itself.’ As far as Jack could tell, she’d already pretty much emptied the glass, but he said nothing. He watched as she leaned against the wall and wondered if she had any idea how sexy she looked. Hair tousled, bare-footed, shoe straps looped over her fingers, sipping her whiskey. Her head tipped back, throat exposed, a dress strap slipping off one slender, freckled shoulder.
‘Let me have a sip of that,’ he growled as he stepped towards her, his fingers brushing hers as she handed him the glass.
He didn’t know what was happening to him. He and Lucy had been on plenty of nights out. They had shared drinks, milkshakes, brunches, late night cheese on toast. He’d seen her dressed in old leggings losing her balance trying to hold tree pose in yoga; and he’d seen her dressed up to the nines for birthday parties and Christmas dos. He’d always appreciated that she was an attractive woman—he wasn’t blind—but he hadn’t been attracted to her.
Tonight, she was having a new and entirely distracting effect on him. Maybe it was seeing her so raw in front of her family and wanting to protect her. Or maybe it was pretending to be her boyfriend—holding her hand, feeling her soft skin when he put his arm around her, the curve of her body pressed into his side. He took a sip of the whisky and leaned in to slip the glass back between her fingers.
She was leaning back against the wall, looking up at him from beneath heavy lashes, smudges of mascara below her eyes, and a smattering of new freckles across her cheeks. It would take nothing for him to close the distance between them, for him to sway towards her, press her against the wall and kiss her.
He hesitated, unwilling to add to the drama of her evening by kissing her when she was already in such a heightened emotional state. To complicate things for them both. To risk a friendship. But he couldn’t make his body move away. He stayed frozen, leaning into her, his eyes locked on hers. Then he felt Lucy’s hand come to rest gently on his chest and a slight but insistent tug on his lapel. It undid him. He closed the gap between them, and his lips found hers.