‘Laurie! Laurie, wait up.’
He’s out of breath, my coat clutched in his hands as he catches hold of my sleeve. ‘Please, just stop a second, will you?’
I pull away, too hard, spilling the shopping from one of my bags over the quiet backstreet. He helps me to shove it back in and wraps my coat round my shivering shoulders, then he wraps his arms round my coat, holding me until the heat penetrates my clothes and my bones. It’s so very, very warm from the fire, and I close my eyes because I’m inexplicably in tears again. I’m not generally a crier, yet today my tear ducts seem to be bursting their banks.
‘Laurie,’ he whispers, raw, his eyes star-bright in the street lamps. ‘The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you.’
‘I’m such a fool,’ I whisper. ‘I don’t even know why I’m crying.’
Jack sighs, exasperated, kind. ‘Because you’re tired, and you’re worried, and you feel as if you’re always swimming against the tide.’
He rubs my back as he speaks low and steady against my ear, his body sheltering mine from the snow. My back is turned to the wall, and my fight is gone because he’s saying such incredibly comforting things and he’s holding me close. I’m so very tired of swimming. Most of the time I feel like the tide is going to pull me under, but here in Jack’s arms I feel as if he’s just reached over the side of a life raft and hauled me to safety. I realize, bleakly, that I don’t think there will ever be a time when I don’t have feelings for this man.
‘I wanted you to kiss me, Jack,’ I say, bereft. It’s not as if he isn’t aware what I wanted back there; to be coy would be pointless. ‘I don’t like myself for it.’
He strokes my hair, cups my chin, looks me in the eyes. ‘If I tell you something, do you promise to never tell another living soul, not even a goldfish?’
I swallow, eye to eye with him as I nod, and he takes my face between both of his hands. Whatever he’s about to say, I think it’s something I’m going to remember for ever.
‘I wanted to kiss you back there in the pub, Laurie, and I want to kiss you even more right now. You’re one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met in my whole life.’ He looks away, down the length of the deserted street and then back at me again. ‘You’re beautiful and kind, and you make me laugh, and when you look at me like that with your summer hedgerow eyes … only a fucking saint wouldn’t kiss you.’
Then he leans me against the wall with the weight of his body, and because he isn’t a fucking saint, he kisses me. Jack O’Mara dips his head and kisses me in the snow, his lips trembling and then hot and sure, and I’m crying and kissing him back, opening my mouth to let his tongue slide over mine as he makes this low, injured animal noise in his throat. I feel the relief of him in every follicle of my hair, and in every cell of my body, and in the blood in my veins. His breathing is as shallow as mine, and it’s so much more than I’ve ever imagined, and trust me, I used to let my imagination run riot where Jack O’Mara was concerned.
He holds my face as if I’m precious and then pushes his fingers into my hair, cupping my head in his hands when I tip it back.
This is the only time we will ever kiss each other. He knows it, I know it, and it’s so achingly melancholy-sexy that I feel tears threaten again.
I cling to the lapels of his winter coat, our kiss salty with my tears, and I open my eyes to look at him because I want to remember this kiss till the day I die. His eyes are closed, his snow-damp lashes a dark sweep on his cheek, all of his attention focused on our once-in-a-lifetime kiss.
We break off at last, the spell broken by the engine of a car crawling slowly past because of the inclement weather. Our breath almost crystallizes on the ice-cold air as it leaves our bodies in sharp, painful bursts.
‘Let’s be kind to each other about this,’ he tells me. I expect he wishes that his voice were more steady than it is. ‘We both know it shouldn’t have happened, but it doesn’t have to mean anything, and it doesn’t need to change anything.’
It’s such a searing understatement that I almost laugh; the sigh that leaves me as I look away from him is rent with longing and self-loathing, and quiet ‘no one will ever kiss me like that again’ distress.
‘Maybe if we’d met under different circumstances,’ I say, looking at him again after a while, and he nods.
‘In a heartbeat.’
On cue, a taxi trundles slowly along the side street towards us, and he raises his hand to flag it down. It’s a good decision.
‘Not a soul,’ he reminds me quietly as he opens the door and puts my bags inside.
‘Not even a goldfish,’ I whisper as I climb in. I don’t smile to make light of it, because it’s not even slightly funny.
He hands the driver a note. ‘Take her home safely,’ he says. His eyes hold mine for a few long seconds as he slams my door. I’m reminded of the last time I watched him disappear into the night. I didn’t know him then; I had no control. It isn’t like that tonight. I know who he is, and how he tastes, and for a split second I long to open the door of the cab, to stop history from repeating itself.
I don’t. Of course I don’t. Despite the fairy-tale snowstorm out there, this isn’t Narnia. This is London, real life, where hearts get kicked and bruised and broken, but somehow they still keep beating. I watch him recede as the taxi lurches cautiously away, and he watches me too, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders bunched against the wind. I lay my head against the cold glass as we turn the corner, my heart and my conscience lead heavy in my chest.
I wish I’d never laid eyes on Jack O’Mara.
2011
* * *
New Year’s Resolutions
I’m not sure I should even write this down in case anyone finds it, even a goldfish.
1) I resolve to never, ever kiss my best friend’s boyfriend ever again. In fact, I’m never going to allow even one errant thought about him to enter my head.
2) I’m putting all unplatonic thoughts of Jack O’Mara into a crate, sealing it with bright yellow ‘toxic’ stickers and chucking it into the hinterland at the back of my head.
1 January
Jack
‘Happy New Year, mermaid girl.’
Sarah laughs as I pull her into my arms.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper into her hair, making a silent resolution to not kiss anyone other than Sarah this year.
‘What for?’ She holds me at arm’s length, her eyes narrowed slightly.
Shit. ‘For eating so much garlic last night. God knows how you’re able to come anywhere near this pong, I can smell it every time I yawn.’
She looks kind of amused and kind of confused. It’s a good job we’re both more than halfway towards being rat-arsed, because it’s exactly the kind of comment that could land me in all sorts of trouble. Honestly, it’s as if the truth is trying to leak out of me. I’m a petrol can riddled with holes, an accident waiting to happen.
Laurie
HNY, Lu! Love you!