Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
LUCY
Ialmost feel the sigh of relief that slips out of Bram as we walk out of the hospital doors. He turns his face to the sky, his breath billowing out of him like mist into the night.
‘She’s ok,’ I hear him whisper, and it strikes a bolt straight into my chest. Relief, empathy, I’m not sure which. His mum had a minor fall, Angela explained, and fractured one of the bones in her forearm. She’d already been discharged.
‘She’s back in her own bed already,’ Angela said with an easy smile. ‘I’m actually here with another resident now.’
I noted her use of the word resident, but I didn’t say anything. I was sure Bram would explain when he was ready. Instead I simply stood with him as he took in the news, wanting to go see her immediately.
But it turned out that, though his mother only had a simple fracture, she’d become upset during the casting process and ended up needing to be given medicine to help her relax.
‘She’ll be fast asleep by now,’ Angela said, her Leeds accent thick and comfortingly familiar. ‘You’re best letting her rest. Come by in the morning.’
I sensed his hesitancy, but Angela dealt with it like a pro.
‘I promise that she’s ok,’ she said, gently but without any room for argument.
And then, with a smile and a reassuring pat on the arm, she rushed off to deal with a different family’s crisis.
I don’t know what the bigger picture is with Mrs Bramwell, but I know that, whatever it is, if I were Bram, I’d want someone like Angela in the frame.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ Bram says now, adjusting his jacket beside me.
‘Not a fan of hospitals?’ I ask gently, and when he turns to look at me, his smile is barely there.
‘Something like that.’
I nod. It’s not the whole story, but I’ll take it. ‘So,’ I say, suddenly awkward. ‘What do we do now?’
He reaches for my hand, his fingers shielding mine against the nip of the night air.
‘You hungry?’
I actually didn’t think I was hungry, but I’ve just inhaled a full plate of summer rolls, and my stomach’s still growling, so I think it’s safe to say that I definitely am.
I’ve dragged Bram to my favourite Vietnamese place on Vicar Lane, and he’s delighted by the decor here: bright red walls with colourful travel posters plastered here and there, and dozens of paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling.
The lighting is dim and atmospheric, and it reminds me a little of Bitten.
‘This is super-goth,’ he whispered to me as we walked to our table, and it was so far from true that I burst out laughing right there in the middle of the restaurant.
He’s still entranced by it now.
‘Which is your favourite lantern?’ he asks, pulling his gaze back to me.
I don’t even have to look.
‘Lime-green with the pink blossoms. Over by the kitchen door.’
He raises an eyebrow, clearly impressed. ‘You come here a lot.’
It’s not a question, but I answer it anyway. ‘I do.’
He takes another glance round before he looks back at me, eyes wide. ‘Guess mine.’
I consider the lanterns a moment, but when I see it, it’s as plain as day. ‘Deep maroon with black trim.’
‘Damn it,’ he says, fighting a smile. ‘I’m too predictable.’
I can’t help but smile back. ‘I just thought to myself, what would Dracula do?’
His expression changes into something different then.
It’s a moment of confusion before his hard lines soften, the tug of a grin at his lips, the edges of his eyes falling into soft creases.
He sweeps his hair out of his face – his trademark gesture – while his eyes settle on mine, burning into me a moment or two before we’re interrupted by the main course arriving.
And if I’m being really honest, there isn’t a man alive who could distract me from this food. It’s my absolute favourite.
I catch Bram appraising it and nudge my bowl his way. ‘You want to try some?’
His brow creases. ‘What have you got?’
‘Garlic noodles.’
He’s not quite fast enough to hide his grimace. ‘No, thank you.’
And there’s a moment, again. Another hint of something a little dark and dangerous beneath his cool exterior.
And I mean that literally. The first time he held my hand, I assumed that his was just cool because of the chilly night, but his hands are cold all the time.
Not freezing, mind. Just enough for it to be a little odd.
Maybe he’s just got the worst circulation known to man.
Or maybe…
‘Not a fan of garlic?’ I ask, in what I hope is quite a casual way, and it makes his mouth tip up instead, into a smile.
‘It’s weird, I know,’ he says, and in that moment I swear there’s a flash of light off the prominent canines dimpling his lip.
I eye his spare ribs. ‘You know there’s garlic in that marinade, right?’
‘Don’t worry, Lucy, I won’t dissolve or anything.’ One of his eyebrows arches. ‘You can put your crucifix down.’
Anxiety rolls in my chest for a moment, but there’s an unmistakeable twinkle when I meet those sea-green eyes over the table.
‘You’re messing with me?’
The way he laughs then is anything but dangerous. It’s almost a chuckle, like a little boy who’s up to no good. ‘A little bit.’
I eye him with theatrical suspicion, which conveniently conceals my slight but very real suspicion, and he laughs again, bringing a still-steaming rib to his mouth.
He keeps his eyes on me as he takes a cautious bite, and I honestly can’t tell whether he’s worried about burning his mouth or bursting into flames.
I think we’re both relieved when neither happens.
And then I devour every last garlicky noodle in my bowl like I haven’t eaten in days. When I come up for air, Bram’s watching me.
‘This is your favourite place to eat?’ he asks, sweeping his hair out of his eyes again. I nod, and there’s a shadow of something in his expression.
‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ he says, and then he looks back at the lanterns one more time. ‘Emmy would love this place. She’s crazy into East Asian culture.’
My heart swells a little. I love introducing people to things that bring them joy. ‘Maybe you could bring her sometime,’ I say, and he nods lightly as his eyes scan the room again.
‘Maybe we could all come,’ he muses. ‘Date night.’
‘It feels like we’re on a date now,’ I say, without really thinking about it, and when his eyes darken in the warm glow of the lantern light, my mind goes straight back to the beach.
With everything that happened this evening, I haven’t really had time to process it, but the sudden memory of that almost-kiss on the rocks makes my body flush with heat.
‘It does,’ Bram says. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but his voice sounds rougher somehow, and it makes something roll deep in my belly.
‘Is that how you’d seduce me if we were?’ I tease, trying to sound light, unaffected. ‘By making me guess your favourite lantern?’
But he doesn’t smile. His eyes drop to my lips again, the way they did on the beach, and then slowly move back up as his hand reaches across the table for mine.
‘No,’ he mutters, his voice all gravel and grit, as he trails one finger up the inside of my forearm to the crook of my elbow before dragging it down again, his fingers settling lightly around my wrist.
I nearly jump out of my seat. Heat scatters around my body, from the tips of my fingers right down into the depths of my insides, where it swells and grows as his fingertips skate deftly over my skin.
I wouldn’t have said that my arms were particularly sensitive, but I’m rewriting the book on that now.
My libido takes the reins, and I wonder how it would feel to have his hands on other parts of my body.
I feel like I can’t breathe.
‘You’ll know if I’m trying to seduce you,’ he mutters in that same gruff voice, like a promise, and then he lets go of my arm and leans back in his chair, casually, like nothing happened at all.
I don’t move a muscle for a full ten seconds. It takes me that long to regain even a semblance of my faculties.
‘What?’ he asks, one corner of his mouth tugging back into an easy grin. I can’t help but stare at it as my senses slowly return to me.
I shake my head, hands gesturing to nothing in particular. ‘You just shocked me, that’s all. I didn’t know you could turn on the charm like that.’
He throws his head back with his laugh. ‘You didn’t? Remember, I’m a reformed womaniser.’
I did know that, but I hadn’t heard it from him, and I wasn’t fully sure how true it was. With the work I do, I’m fully aware how spin works, and now that he’s brought it up, I’m curious to hear things from his side.
‘You are?’ I ask, my voice even, and I see his expression change with my tone. Had he expected judgement from me?
There’s a twitch in the muscle at his jawline. ‘That’s what everyone says.’
That’s my tell that there’s more to this story. ‘What do you say?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looks away, one hand going to scratch under his chin. ‘There was a period of my life when I … didn’t always make the best decisions.’ There’s something in the way he says it which nags at me. It reads like shame, or maybe regret, and the reporter in me can’t resist pushing it.
‘You were trying to live out your fantasies of being a heartbreaker?’
His brows tug together at the question – thoughtful rather than offended. ‘No,’ he says, his shrug just barely a movement. ‘It was simpler than that.’
I’m drawn in. ‘What happened?’
He doesn’t answer for a moment, like he’s weighing his words, and when he finds them, they’re so open and honest that they tug at my chest, pulling me closer with every syllable.
‘I loved, I lost, I tried my hardest not to love again.’
My breath catches in my throat. It’s entirely the opposite reaction to mine in a similar situation. I loved, I lost and I tried my hardest to fill the emptiness which remained with love. Or something that looked like love, anyway. I’m realising now that love was never what was on offer.
Even so, Bram’s words resonate with me so clearly it’s almost painful – the pitch-perfect note which makes a glass shatter into a million pieces.
There’s a part of me that wants to lean further into it, to lay myself bare in the same way he just did.
But something holds me back before I can even find the words.
‘That tracks,’ I say instead. ‘Isn’t it lonely?’
He looks straight at me, his eyes soft and warm. ‘It didn’t use to be,’ he says, and I feel the weight of every word, at once exciting and comfortable and something else – something that hums lightly beneath my skin. Something beautiful and haunting, like a tide that draws me in, again and again.
Because in this moment all I can think is that if this were a date, it’d actually be kind of perfect.