Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ashley
For me, sex has been a way to connect or a chance to gain release, but it’s never been like it was with Paige tonight.
She wasn’t afraid to tell me what she wanted, what felt good, and there wasn’t a whiff of shame or embarrassment about her body, what she needed, or anything I said to her.
Comparisons aren’t good for anyone, but I can’t help it.
Having been with only two women, the experiences are night and day.
When Imogen and I first got together as teenagers, we were nervous and didn’t communicate as well as we could’ve.
I recognize that now, and I reckon that pattern only got worse as we got older.
Conversations that skimmed over too much, not getting to the root of anything.
Never spotted the difference till I started living with Paige.
Imogen rarely gave me any guidance about what felt good or what she liked.
If I happened to stumble on something she enjoyed, she’d sometimes let me know, or she’d expect me to realize without her saying.
From talking with my mates, I knew it wasn’t like that for everyone.
But I loved her, couldn’t imagine life without her.
She’d seen me through my dad’s absence, my mum’s death, and my uncertainty about a career.
Her family felt like my family. Until she left, and I realized they’d never really been mine at all.
Not even there for Chloe, which is so much worse in my books.
“You’re very quiet,” Paige says as she draws idle patterns on my chest. “Regrets?”
“No,” I say, and I gather her closer to my side in hopes of hiding my flare of annoyance at myself. Thoughts of Imogen in any capacity have no place here. “Not at all. You?”
“None,” she says. “Not yet, anyway.”
“You’re expecting to?”
“We just made our lives a lot more complicated. I’m not sure what to expect.” She glances up at me.
I run my fingers along her arm, and I wonder whether I should ask my next question. Her answer seems obvious, but if I’m going to commit to being open and honest, and if I’m going to pat myself on the back about how different things are with Paige, then I need to ask.
“Was it all right? Is there anything you’d like me to do differently?”
“I had two orgasms, Ash. I’m not likely to say you could have gone for a third.”
“Good to have goals,” I say, and I try to hold in my grin. “Aim for three tomorrow.”
“If that’s your short-term goal, I’m not physically prepared for the long-term one.”
“We’ve got lots of time to work up to it,” I say. “Multiples of multiples.”
“I’m not sure that now is the right time to mention it, but my visa is actually good for two years. The company has to ask me to stay for another year, but . . .”
“When will they ask you?”
“I don’t know. They might not. Things are a little behind right now—weeks—not a full year.”
“And then you’re going back to Michigan?”
She’s quiet for a minute, her hand flat against my chest. “That’s where my life is. My house. My family. The promotion I’m hoping I’ll get based off this job is at the Grand Rapids office.”
It stings a little to have her phrase her life like that when we’ve built a pretty good existence here over the last five months.
But I understand she doesn’t mean it the way I instinctively take it.
England was never the long-term plan. A stopover in her life, not a permanent destination.
In our emails and texts, she was very transparent on the length of time she’d need me when she hired me.
Perhaps being with Paige is the start of me learning how to be in a casual relationship.
Hasn’t suited me before, but maybe it will now when the end is already set.
I’ll be able to hold a piece of myself back, knowing we can’t ever be the stable family unit I’ve craved since I was a kid.
More than anything, that’s what I want for Chloe—to grow up in a stable, secure household.
“I’ve never asked about any of these,” Paige says, tracing a tattoo that stretches across my pectoral.
It’s a version of the solar system with a date in the middle, and it’s one of only two tattoos that I have which mean something.
“What’s the date in the middle for?” She glances up at me, and I run my hand along her back.
“Date Mum died,” I say. “Still felt like she had to be out there somewhere. Impossible to believe that was it. All that energy—that life—simply gone.”
She leans across me and trails a line of kisses around the planets and along the date. She smooths her hand across my skin and then kisses my chin and cheek. “You’re such a gift, Ash. She must have been an incredible mom.”
“She tried her best,” I say, and my voice is rough with emotion. We didn’t have the greatest life—barely two pence to rub together some months, but she was always there for me while also teaching me how to be self-sufficient. I never appreciated how fine that line was until I had Chloe.
“The one on your back-right shoulder is for Chloe, right?”
The tattoo is Chloe’s birthdate in Roman numerals, and I shouldn’t be surprised that Paige would recognize it. I was so chuffed that I got it within days of her being born. Imogen has one, too, on her wrist. Not a lot of good that reminder did her.
A discontented wail pierces the closed bedroom door, and I draw Paige closer for a kiss. When she draws back, we stare at each other for a beat, and it really, truly hits me how much we might’ve changed things.
“I can’t wait to be with you again,” I say.
Paige smiles, and when she kisses me, the remnants of her smile are still teasing at the edges of her lips. My heart is full.
Another, more insistent cry rises, and Chloe is likely concerned that I’m not already out of bed tending to her needs.
She’s used to me being at her immediate beck and call in the middle of the night.
I give Paige one last kiss, and then I climb out of bed to tug on my boxer briefs.
After I’ve gathered my other pieces of clothing off the floor, I pause at the door for a beat.
“See you in the morning?” As much as I’d like to come back, I agreed to keep the kids separate. While Chloe might not be able to discover me in here, Joey could quite easily.
“I think that’s best,” she says. “Don’t you?”
The way she says it makes me think I could argue, and she’d cave. But I don’t want things to be like that with us, where I sense a weakness and take advantage. She was very clear on the boundaries of what we’re embarking on, and respecting each other’s limits is what’s gotten us this far.
“For the best,” I agree, and I shut the door behind me to tend to Chloe.
Sunday is always a bit of an unusual day between me and Paige, and the next morning is doubly so.
She’s up before me, which almost never happens, and she’s already got Joey fed by the time I come downstairs.
They’re in the front garden playing footie, the late September wind whipping through their hair as they run and laugh.
While Chloe sits in her high chair, trying to fist food into her mouth, I watch them from a window.
Not for the first time, it strikes me how lucky I’ve been to land in this house.
Tom was right—somehow, miraculously, I landed on my feet.
Perhaps my mum is looking out for me somewhere.
After my streak of bad luck, I gave up on that notion, but if I hadn’t had Chloe, if Imogen wouldn’t have left, if my childminders hadn’t been so inconsistent, if I hadn’t lost my job, I would never have ended up here.
At the moment, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.
“Da-da?” Chloe calls from the high chair.
“What you need, love?” I go to the tray to check the bits and bobs I placed there. Most of it is gone. I mix some cereal, and as I stand in front of her feeding it, occasionally letting her give it a messy go, the front door opens.
Joey shouts excitedly about his last goal, and Paige tries to shush him.
“We’re awake,” I call.
She appears in the doorway, flushed from their running outside. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I scan her the same way she’s scanning me. Bloody gorgeous. Might be a little harder to pretend last night didn’t happen than I thought. I really want to go over and scoop her up.
“You’ve got football today?” She leans against the doorway, and Joey comes to wrap his arms around her leg.
“I do, yeah.”
“Are Tejinder and Diya coming for dinner?”
“Is that all right? Diya’s boyfriend might be here too.”
We’ve fallen into a routine of them coming every other weekend for a roast of some sort, but with Chloe’s birthday yesterday, I could likely beg off.
Not sure if other people will be able to spot the change in us, but it feels very obvious right now.
I thought being with her would ease this tension between us, but I swear it’s only ratcheted it up.
If I could, I’d abandon the kids and carry her back upstairs.
“Diya and her boyfriend broke up,” she says. “Got a text this morning. Had a fight after the party last night. He had the audacity to mention wanting a family some day.”
That makes me laugh, and Chloe claps her hands in excitement.
I spoon another scoop into her mouth. While Diya is good with watching Chloe and Joey, she’s got no desire for kids of her own.
Her parents keep trying to inch her toward agreeing to an arranged marriage, and Diya’s got a defiant streak the size of a football pitch.
It’s been one bloke after another since they tried to get her to meet with the matchmaker in London.
“What do you want to do, then?” I scrape out the last of the cereal and offer it to Chloe. She takes the spoon and smears the lot all over her face as she tries to get it into her mouth. Looks like bath time might come early.
“Let’s have them here, as long as you think that’s a good idea.”
“I reckon it’ll be all right,” I say as I get a cloth to wipe Chloe’s face. “I’ll get the chicken out to defrost.”
“Ash,” Joey says. “Ball?”
“We can play for a bit, mate, as long as your mum is okay to watch Chloe.” I finish cleaning Chloe’s mess, and I pop her out of the high chair to set her on the ground. She toddles over to Paige and smashes into her legs.
When Paige lifts her up to rain kisses all over her face, Chloe giggles before grabbing Paige’s face and planting a slobbery kiss in return. Not sure six months of this will feel like enough.
Tejinder is beside me in the midfield, and we’re supposed to be paying attention to our coach who is having a go at a couple of the other players for being lazy blighters.
“My parents are really after Diya to meet with the matchmaker,” Tejinder says.
“Never know. Might work.”
“If you can move in with a random bird and make it work, maybe Diya can too.”
“Paige and I aren’t like that.”
“Sure you’re not,” Tejinder says with a twist to his lips. “Neither of you fancies the other at all. Not one bit. Plain as day.”
“Even if I did,” I say, “I can’t fuck up my job. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“’T’is.” Tejinder puts his hands on his hips and releases a deep sigh.
“But I’ve never seen you so settled, mate.
It’s what makes me think the matchmaking thing would be all right for Diya.
Shake things up. You did something totally out of the box—way out of your comfort zone, and I honestly thought you were mad to be doing it, but look at you now. ”
Except there’s this clock ticking in the back of my brain every time I think about how happy I am.
This is temporary, and there’s no way to make it permanent or even longer term.
Based on what Paige said last night, another year, maybe, but I can’t count on that.
The coach calls us back to the drills, and for the rest of the practice, I try to stay focused on what I can control both on and off the pitch.
We’re walking toward the changerooms when someone calls my name from the sidelines. I stop at the familiarity in the tone of their voice, and I squint at the two people standing on the edge of the pitch, not far from the goal. How long have they been there?
“Mate, is that who I think it is?” Tejinder asks, and there’s a tinge of anger in his voice.
I’m not angry, not yet, at least. Bewildered and a bit shocked. “If you think it’s Imogen’s parents, you’d be right.” Instead of going over to them, I clap Tejinder on the shoulder and lead the way into the changerooms. “Got nothing to say to them.”
In the changerooms, I shower and get dressed slower than normal, my mind trying to work out why her parents would show up here almost a year after Imogen left us.
“What the fuck are they playing at?” Tejinder asks me, finally. He’s been mimicking my slow pace, likely in a bid to walk out with me.
“Don’t know,” I say.
They moved down south to work when Imogen and I finished upper school, and while we saw them once in a while, the distance meant we hadn’t seen them as much the last few years.
After Imogen left me and Chloe, I thought they might have been in touch to see their granddaughter, but they never were.
Figured that said it all. I wasn’t about to hound people who didn’t want to be in my daughter’s life.
Never chased Imogen, and I certainly wasn’t going to chase her parents, no matter how much I’d once liked them.
I sling my bag over my shoulder, and Tejinder walks out with me. In the carpark, Imogen’s parents are waiting.
“Ash,” Toby, her dad, calls. “Can we have a word? Won’t take long. We’ve moved back to Bedfordshire. A quick chat, that’s all.”
I glance at Tejinder, and his jaw is set like I’d expect mine to be. So far, curiosity is driving me more than anger. To wait almost a year to make any sort of contact is absurd, and if the situation didn’t involve my daughter, it’d be laughable.
“I wouldn’t, mate.” Tejinder is tense beside me. “When you needed help, they were nowhere to be found.”
Fair point. “No,” I say to Toby. “Not interested.” I take long strides toward my car, and I keep my head down.
Her mother, Flora, hurries over to my side, and she’s thrusting something toward me—paper or a card. “Our contact details are in here. We just want to talk.”
I take it on instinct, and I open the boot to throw my football kit inside along with the card. Seeing Flora reminds me too much of Imogen, and I’ve finally gotten to a place where the thought of her doesn’t gut me.
“I’ve got no need to speak to you,” I say, and I duck into the car before shoving the gearbox into first and following Tejinder’s car out of the carpark. My focus is straight ahead. I’m not looking back.
Whatever they want, the only thing they can bring either me or Chloe is pain. This full body vise is the worst I’ve felt in months.