Chapter Three
Fin
The days pass, as days are wont to do. I don’t think of Rory too often, though by accident rather than design. Saturday is by far the busiest day of Ivy’s opening week; it seems everyone in Auchkeld is in need of a cut, a colour, or a waxing somewhere. Or maybe they’re all just a bunch of awfully nosey bastards. Whatever the reason, business is off to a great start, meaning my mind doesn’t wander badly during the day, though all bets are off by the time I crawl back into bed.
I swore I’d never return; growing up here was enough. Yet, here I am, and in a strange kind of way, nothing has changed.
I’m still dependant on someone, having exchanged Mom for Ivy.
I’m back to avoiding the villagers and their pitchforks.
And I’m still sleeping on a tiny twin bed, while imagining him. Though, strictly speaking, I’m not imagining. I’m reminiscing.
I moved away for college, or university as they say here, and the week my finals were over, my mother told me she was selling the house. I was shocked, and apparently, now old enough to go it alone. I hadn’t begun looking for a job, not a real grown up one, instead making plans to go back-packing with Ivy for half the year. In between the end of classes and leaving, I’d headed home to clear the nine years of crap from my childhood bedroom, leaving Ivy in London to finish the last few weeks of her course. The Far East. Australia. New Zealand. Those were our plans and I couldn’t wait. It was what we’d always dreamed of, or at least I had, and I’d busted my ass studying while taking on all kinds of paid work to pay for the trip.
Telephone sales. Waitress. House keeper. I’d done them all.
Twenty-one, blue haired, and restless, I was without my sidekick in a village I disdained. And as a consequence, I’d agreed to go to out for a drink with afriend. Melody had been Ivy and my sometime third wheel; not really a friend, more like someone who’d hung out with us when it suited her. Melody—or Malady as we called her on account of her many and varied ailments, mostly imagined—was also at a loose end that evening after her boyfriend cancelled on her. We were already three ciders in when she’d spotted the reason for her free evening at the other end of the room.Her boyfriend. And his date.Honestly? You’ve got to worry about the gene pool in such small places, because the guy looked floored to be caught. And then he was just actuallyflooredas Malady stormed to the other end of the room, kneeing him in the crotch. They were asked to take their domestic elsewhere, and when I followed them outside, they appeared to be already making up.Faces glued together, his fingers digging into the flesh of her ass.
Faced with the prospect of more packing back at home, I’d decided to return to the pub and order another drink. It was an act of independence and perfect practise for travelling, I’d reasoned. As it turned out, it was also a perfect opportunity for the bitches from school to resume their bullying campaign.
I can be snarky. Bitchy. But confrontational? No way.
‘Finola, did y’ken all that studying has turned your hair blue?’ The girl’s hair was heavy with the scent of hairspray and cheap perfume, proving that some things never change. And though I could place her face to my senior English Lit class, I couldn’t recall her name.
‘I heard you’d gone to uni.’ This from Tweedle-Dumber, sounding more like a jibe than a genuine enquiry, not that I recognised her.Not from any of my classes, therefore one of the stupid masses.‘Should’ve saved the money and had yer tits done. Isn’t that how your ma bought that house? On her back?’
I’m not sure how I’d allowed this to happen. Maybe their provocation had whipped the wind out of my sails, because I couldn’t find a comeback. I’d been gone three years, had gained an education, and what later turned out to be a first class degree. I’d cultivated a life of my own and crawled out from under my mother’s reputation. I was a new person; my hair was blue, for goodness sake! But in that grotty pub, my bohemian exterior didn’t protect me. It just made me fair game.
‘Nah, tits will’nae make any difference. I reckon she’s a lezza, anyway.’
And then, something extraordinary happened—as extraordinary as aliens landing in the village, or the Queen popping in for a pint of ale—masculine hands landed on my shoulders, turning me bodily. I felt his mouth before I saw it, as I was pulled to him and kissed thoroughly. I don’t know where he’d come from, or exactly what he’d heard, all I’d known was he was there, turning my face to his, his lips meeting mine as his large hands threaded into my hair. His body was as hard as his lips were soft, and though I’d been kissed before, I’d never been kissed quite sothoroughly.Never so I’d stood on the tips of my toes as his lips had pulled away.
‘Hey, baby blue.’ Though clearly Scottish, his accent was nothing like those around me. He’d brushed his nose against mine, his eyes sparkling with a combination of mischief and mirth. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, sliding his hands down the sides of my face to thread blue locks behind my ears. ‘Do you want to introduce me to your friends?’
His voice was like sandpaper, his gaze sliding to those gobsmacked bitches then back to me again. Sparks of residual pleasure coursed through my arms and legs. I was stunned—literally—and hadn’t realised I’d spoken until I heard my own throaty response in the air.
‘Not particularly.’
And, oh Lord, his husky chuckle brushed down my spine like trailing fingertips.
If you want to know a man, look at him when he laughs.
I’d read Dostoyevsky in Russian Lit the year before, and boy, was I looking right now. And feeling. There were lots of feelings, especially as he wrapped his hand around my hip.
‘Then let’s get out of here.’
