4. Mentor Allocation
Chapter four
Mentor Allocation
After making it home just as Priya was due to finish her shift, Dylan hurriedly made her way down the hall. The air was filled with the clean fragrance of fabric conditioner as Priya busied herself in the kitchen.
‘Priiii,’ she yelled from the doorway, unfurling the word apologetically. ‘I’m so sorry I nearly made you late.’
With her finger already pressed to her lips, Priya smiled as Dylan pulled her into a hug.
‘Be quiet, hen,’ she warned quietly before squeezing Dylan back just as tight.
‘Don’t be silly. Anyway, Margs fell asleep over an hour ago, so I’ve done some long overdue sorting of her meds and equipment and whatnot.
’ She examined Dylan's face with narrowed eyes.
‘You look exhausted, Dylly. Is everything okay?’
‘With me? I look tired, do I? Me? Nah, I’m good.’
Priya hummed, cocking her head to the side, her suspicious gaze raking over Dylan’s sweatshirt and jogging trouser-clad body. ‘Well, I’m back tomorrow but then off for a few days, Dylly—don’t forget. Margs is covered, but I just wanted to remind you.’
‘Ughh,’ Dylan whined. ‘Can’t we keep you here forever?’ she joked, only a smidge serious. ‘I’d make you tea and toast while you watched Corrie and your antique shows with Margs… Might even give you a nice foot rub.’
Priya rolled her eyes while continuing to fold the warm towels she had just pulled out of the tumble dryer. ‘Mr Anjali might have something to say about that, Dylan.’
‘I bet he doesn’t rub your feet,’ Dylan scoffed before theatrically throwing her forearm across her forehead; her other hand grasped onto the kitchen counter. ‘Leave him for me, Pri! You know I’d treat you better!’ Her accent was suddenly that of an over-dramatic Eastender.
Stifling a belly laugh, Priya gave another whispered warning for Dylan to be quiet and not wake her mum.
‘Right, you bloody mad bugger,’ Priya said warmly.
‘I’m off. The cameras are set up. The NIV machine is NIVing.
Meds all in and she’s fresh as a daisy. We’ve had a great day…
someone got four hundred pounds at auction for an old war medal, they only paid fifty pence for it. We couldn’t believe it. ’
Smiling her widest smile, Dylan pulled Priya back into a bear hug with her strong arms and kissed the top of her head. ‘What would we do without you?’
‘You’d be fine. You need to eat.’ Priya patted Dylan’s hard stomach with the hand she was still holding onto a towel with.
‘That belly rumble nearly bloody deafened me. There’s a Mr Anjali biryani in the fridge—your favourite.
Make an egg and eat it…he sent parathas too, with extra ghee.
’ She waggled her eyebrows and smacked her lips together. ‘But remember to—’
‘Heat them on the hob, not in the microwave, so they’re nice and crispy. I know.’ Dylan smiled before dramatically dropping to one knee, grabbing Priya’s hand on the way down. ‘Are you sure you won’t leave him for me? I’m a good cook too… We could start again, Pri, please!’
‘Get up you bloody clown,’ Priya laughed, shaking her head and snatching her hand away. She folded the last towel, placed it on the pile on the pine table and patted the top for good measure. ‘Right, I’d better go.’
Dylan chuckled as she stood, running her hands over her knees to dust them off. ‘Okay, well, I will see your gorgeous head in the morning, yeah?!’
She was again too loud for Priya, who replied with a finger to her lips. ‘Will you use your small voice please!?’
Wincing around a smile, Dylan threw her arm around Priya and walked her to the door.
Once Priya was gone, Dylan headed straight to her mum’s room, hovering on the threshold to avoid waking her.
With her head pressed against the door frame, she watched her mum, fast asleep amidst the whirring and flashing machines.
The Non-Invasive Ventilation mask sat snugly over her face, forcing air into her lungs to keep her airways open while she slept.
As her blinking quickened Dylan fought back her tears; they were no good to her anymore.
She’d already cried a river, and her mum was still ebbing away, so what was the point?
Before heading upstairs, she checked the room camera was linked to her iPad.
She bypassed the biryani that looked amazing, but she didn't have the stomach for it.
After showering, Dylan lay on her bed, door open, the live camera and baby monitor—which she and Priya had renamed the Margs Monitor—both running.
Being her mum’s carer had turned Dylan into an incredibly light sleeper—in tune with every noise, every beep and every alarm.
Staring at the ceiling, listening to the familiar sounds, her mind dragged the afternoon to the fore.
She had been ravaged by Margot but had watched the shift happen before her eyes.
For the first time ever the safe word had been pressed against the walls of her mouth.
Now two rules had been broken, neither of them by Dylan.
After two years of strict adherence, everything had shifted within a week.
A seismic, tectonic, destabilising, utterly thrilling shift.
***
Forcing open one squinted eye, Greta reached for her phone to silence the alarm that was reverberating in her brain.
Seven o’clock. She hadn’t gone home. She’d stayed the night at the hotel, finishing the champagne in a bid to decipher what the actual fuck was happening, because of course the answer lay at the bottom of the bottle. Except it didn’t.
The events of the previous night washed over her in a deluge of anguish.
A second rule had been broken, and by her.
Although she’d only had one glass before Remi arrived, she must have been tipsy.
That had to be it. The champagne had gone straight to her head, the stress and exhaustion of the week exacerbating everything, making her crazy.
That was it. The only logical—or feasible—explanation.
As she lay on the sprawling hotel bed—her brain feeling not dissimilar to a walnut rolling around an empty shoebox—she stared at the chair where Remi had fucked her and felt the air grow thin.
Groaning aloud, she pulled a pillow over her face and screamed into it.
After thoroughly chastising herself for fucking up so royally, again, she gingerly got ready to leave.
At reception, she handed her key card to a clean-shaven, bespectacled middle-aged man who politely thanked her. ‘How was the connection for you, madam?’ he enquired, peering at her from over the top of his round, gold-rimmed glasses.
‘Excuse me?’
‘The Wi-Fi, madam, for your international connection. All well, I trust?’
She couldn’t tell if he was being facetious; her head was too fuzzy, and her mouth distractingly dry.
‘Yes, it was fine, thank you.’
As she walked to the main hotel doors, she heard him clear his throat. ‘We’ll see you again soon, Miss Grenson.’
She didn’t turn around or acknowledge him and carried on walking, stepping straight into her waiting Uber.
***
Throwing her keys onto the console table and dropping her bag in the hallway, Greta was hit with a wave of gratitude that it was finally the weekend.
She still had to work, she always had work to do, but at least she could tackle the backlog from home.
Between an unfinished grant proposal and the weeks of accumulated incomplete tasks, her recent lack of sleep and reduced productivity had set her back.
With no ability to function or think coherently pre-caffeine, she headed to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.
While it brewed, she poured a highball glass of filtered water, gulping it down greedily with two paracetamol to combat the champagne-induced headache and dehydration ravaging her.
Sitting in silence at the kitchen island—elbows on the surface, both hands wrapped around her cup—she inhaled the steam and blew out a long breath, unable to shake the previous night.
She had gone in too hard with Remi, pushed too far, and it had backfired.
Guilt gnawed at her with the thoughts of Remi begging and desperate.
Greta had half expected to hear the safe word, yet she had cruelly kept on pushing.
She wasn’t even sure what she would have done if Remi had actually used it; she couldn’t have let her leave, not when she wanted her so badly, but she had forced Remi to a cruel point of almost breaking.
Self-control was not something Remi lacked—she had shown it for two years—but Greta had to prove her own point, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what the point was.
Drunk on euphoria and a single glass of champagne, she’d believed she could handle breaking the second rule, immediately proving herself wrong.
The moment she saw the two halves of Remi as one, the dildo she had licked Remi off taunting her, she knew she’d fucked up.
Again. She wanted her. Her touch, her mouth, more of her taste.
All of her. But the futility of that want was as painful as it was ridiculous.
She couldn’t allow any feelings to root, let alone grow.
It wasn’t an option. Remi was young and an escort; those two things alone made any real desire an absolute impossibility, but there had been a shift in her attraction to Remi, and last night had confirmed it.
It roiled in the pit of her stomach. Her eyebrows drew together as the agony crept up her chest, clawing at her throat. At her heart.
Starting again with a new escort was the only option. Start again, Vincent, and forget all about Remi.