A Brighter Spark (Xcite Romance) (5 page)

‘Sixtry?’ Drew cut her off, laughing. ‘Oh my God, you’re tipsy and moping. This is so sad, Suze. You are being genuinely pathetic right now. I can’t even tell what it is that you’re actually miserable about.’

‘I’m miserable because I’m not good enough for him. He deserves someone perfect, and I’m … I’m a
Suzy
. He deserves a
Susan
, or at least a
Suzanne
. You know?’

‘That is the lamest thing I have ever heard anybody say. Ever. About anything,’ Drew told her flatly.

‘No, shut up. When it happened the first time I was so down with it, because I was like, maybe all I need is this distraction from my life, right? This awesome hot guy rocking my world in bed, making me feel all pretty and special and stuff. But now – now he’s
in
my life and I’m thinking about him all the time. And Lil’s gonna hate him. His son hates me and Lily’s going to hate him.’

‘Of course she is. Nothing you do is right. That’s what puberty is
about
; little girls rejecting everything about their mothers, and thereby forming their own identities as independent human beings.’

‘Stop being logical while I’m trying to have a rant,’ Suzy grumbled. ‘And what about Steven? You and him have such a great relationship. What if having this new older guy around makes him withdraw? He’s already so quiet, you know? In a way that’s almost harder than the tantrums and arguments, because at least I know what’s going on with Lily. And you all drive me insane, but you’re my family, and I’d never, ever do anything to hurt you, not for anything. Not even for an amazing lover.’

‘Oh no, I’m not letting you rationalise yourself into dumping a guy because of some hypothetical situation which could only possibly take place in Crazy Town.’ Drew shook his head. ‘Nope, nope, nope. For starters, you do remember that Joseph is my – to use what I believe was your exact phrasing on the subject – “silver fox hotass sugar daddy”, right? Yet somehow the presence of his dad’s older boyfriend has
completely failed
to give Steven any kind of weird masculinity complex. So that’s out as an excuse.

‘It won’t hurt Lily, it won’t hurt Steven, and unless this new dude has a heretofore unmentioned intention to take over my role as your longsuffering confidant for drunken existential bullshit, it won’t hurt me. Therefore, the only conclusion I can draw is that you’re afraid that this is going to hurt
you.
’

Suzy rolled over and smushed her face into the grass. ‘I hate you. Go away.’

‘Nah.’ Drew patted her on the back of the head. ‘You’re stuck with me. We bred.’

‘So? Lots of people breed and don’t have anything to do with each other ever again.’

‘Well I guess I must like you for your personality or some horseshit, then.’

‘I love you too, Drew,’ Suzy mumbled. ‘And I am. I’m scared. How the fuck did I get to be a grown-up when I’m still scared of going steady with a guy?’

‘I think a better question to ask yourself is how anyone can say “going steady” without a trace of irony in their voice in this day and age,’ he retorted. ‘Look, Joseph promised Steven and Lil that he’d take them out on the boat. What if this Daniel guy’s kids come too? They can all get to know each other without feeling like they have to have their guard up or their good manners on or anything.’

‘Lily has a “good manners” setting? Are you sure? Also, hold up, your silver fox hotass sugar daddy has a boat? For real? Is it awesome? Can I ride in it sometime? Is he looking for any ladies to lie around in bikinis and bring him martinis? I make a mean martini, you know.’

‘Getting off the topic, Suze.’

‘The topic of how I’m totally not good enough for my boyfriend? Thanks for the reminder,’ Suzy said dryly. ‘I just feel like shit, because you’ve always been there for me, and he’s had to do this all on his own, and yet I’m the one who feels like there’s too much on my plate all the time.’

‘No, that was not the topic; that was you being whiny and self-indulgent. The topic is that you’re going to invite his apparently perfect little rugrats to be exposed to the bad influence of our less-perfect little rugrats, so that you and Daniel-the-perfect-guy can go hang out and be in love at first sight and other fairy tale nonsense. OK?’

Suzy had learnt long ago that life was generally easier if she listened to Drew’s ideas when he first had them, instead of grudgingly agreeing to them later when it would involve him saying “I told you so” several times and her having to do the same thing that he’d suggested in the first place anyway. But before any plans for a fairy tale evening could be put into motion, one of the small everyday disasters of ordinary life got in the way.

A few hours after Drew left, Suzy was shaken out of sleep by Steven. He was standing beside her bed, his eyes very wide in the dim light, a worried expression on his face.

‘Lily’s sick,’ he said.

Suzy didn’t bother to ask how Steven knew that his sister was ill. Her kids had never had the kind of freaky connection so common to twins in movies and books, but there’d certainly been a few instances over the years of one knowing when the other was miserable or in pain. Usually that had just translated to having two miserable kids at the same time instead of one, but Suzy had never minded that. It comforted her to know that whatever happened, her children were looking out for each other.

Lily was allowed to keep her door shut at night on the condition that she didn’t lock it. Suzy knocked, and got a miserable rasp of a “come in” a few seconds later.

‘Your ears?’ Suzy asked. Lily had been plagued with infections since infancy; getting her tonsils out when she was seven had helped a little but nothing seemed to do away with the problem completely. Steven’s weakness was his vision, but that was more about management with the right prescription of glasses than it was about antibiotics and weeks off from school.

Lily nodded miserably, clearly feeling too terrible to bother with even a token level of antagonising her mother.

‘Bad enough to go to the late-night clinic, or do you want a couple of aspirin for now and a visit to the doctor in the morning?’

Lily’s lip trembled as the girl tried to put on a brave face, but after a moment it crumbled and she burst into tears. ‘Clinic.’

‘OK. C’mon, kiddo,’ Suzy said gently, helping Lily up out of bed and slipping the girl’s dressing gown around her shoulders. ‘Steve, you’re old enough to just stay here and go back to bed. Try to get some rest. We might be a while.’

The thought of a long wait to see a doctor made Lily cry harder, and Suzy’s heart broke a little bit. All her daughter’s bravado and grown-up snideness had fallen away, leaving nothing but a little person in pain, still much closer to childhood than adulthood.

The drive to the all-night clinic made Suzy feel as if she was inside a time capsule, transported back to a world of years ago, when the kids were smaller and they’d made this trek across town for emergency antibiotics a number of times. It felt strange to be back here, now accompanied by a thorny, adolescent Lily who was so fraught to be around, to herself be 30 years old instead of 23.

It was weird, but as well as weird it was surprisingly comforting. Even though Lily was unhappy and in pain, she seemed to feel it too, curled up on the front passenger seat and staring out at the wash of streetlights over the windscreen.

‘Some stuff still makes sense,’ Lily said quietly, almost as if she was talking to herself. After she’d spoken she glanced over at her mother, so Suzy figured it was probably safe to say something in reply without getting her head bitten off.

‘You can always count on me, baby.
Always
. No matter what we say to each other when we’re angry. No matter how much you don’t need me most of the time … And that’s good, it really is. I’m so proud of how independent and clever you’re turning out to be. But no matter how grown-up and independent and clever you become, you’re always going to be my little girl. I will always, always help you when you need it.’

Lily rolled her eyes at the sincerity, but Suzy didn’t mind.

Eventually they were done with the doctor and dispatched home again, armed with a bottle of extra-strength eardrops and a new bottle of painkillers.

‘You can stay home from school, of course,’ Suzy promised. ‘Steven can pick up your homework for you, if you feel up to doing it.’

She braced herself for the conversation she knew would follow: Lily would beg for Steven to be allowed to stay home too, complaining that it was boring being home alone. Suzy would counter by pointing out that Lily wasn’t staying home in order to be entertained, and then Lily would call Suzy a tyrant, and they’d end up giving each other high blood pressure and stress headaches by the time the car pulled into the driveway at home.

But all Lily actually said was, ‘OK,’ and she sounded so wrung-out and diminished as she said it that Suzy felt absolutely rotten for assuming there was going to be an argument about it. Usually it was Lily who saw passive-aggressive motives behind everything and manufactured drama where none had existed.

For the thousandth time, Suzy reminded herself not to fall to the same level of argument that her adolescent child typically occupied. Somebody had to be the grown-up in the household, after all.

She was surprised at how comfortable that designation felt. Grown-up. Huh. Who’d have expected it to start feeling natural, after so many years of being such a poor fit within her sense of herself?

‘Steven can stay home too, if you like. I know you like watching him play the Xbox when you’re feeling lousy,’ she told Lily. ‘Oh hey, I know something that might cheer you up. I heard about this horrible thing called a stargazy pie. Have you ever heard of it?’

Lily just shook her head, too exhausted to answer with words.

‘It’s made out of fish, but instead of throwing the heads and tails away, they’re stuck into the pastry on top of the pie, so it looks like the fish are, you know, star-gazing, I guess. Fish heads! Can you imagine how disturbing and gross that would look?’

‘That’s
awesome
,’ Lily said, weariness momentarily overcome by amazement. ‘That’s so disgusting. I bet it’s the kind of thing people would eat in Lovecraft stories.’

‘Can you imagine sitting down to dinner and your dinner looking back at you? And not just looking back at you, but looking back at you from
decapitated fish heads
sticking up out of your
pie
?’ Suzy enthused. If it took a situation and subject like this to give her a bonding moment with her daughter – well, she’d take what she could get.

Lily giggled a little bit. ‘Ewww. So gross,’ she said appreciatively. ‘Can I have one on my birthday?’

‘If you never want any of your friends, or your brother, to ever speak to you again, then sure,’ Suzy answered wryly. ‘Maybe we could make your cake in the shape of it, out of fondant or something, instead. That’s a more acceptable level of gross for a teenage birthday, don’t you think?’

‘Thanks, Mom,’ Lily said, resting her head against the window of the passenger door as they drove home quietly.

Chapter Five

Daniel phoned her in the evening.

‘What’re you up to?’

‘Sitting in my favourite spot in my garden,’ she answered. ‘Vaguely wishing I had a glass of wine, because I feel like relaxing. But I had a little more than I should have last night – Drew teased me, said I was drunk, but I wasn’t really. And thank God I wasn’t, because later I had to drive Lil to the 24-hour medical centre with a bad earache. I’ve spent the day fussing over her and making sure she gets the drops administered at the right time.’

‘Is she ready to kill you for daring to force that much attention on her yet?’ Daniel asked. Suzy laughed, a little sadly.

‘Not yet. She still feels too wretched to be properly antagonistic. Poor kid. Drew’s going to come around and spend time with her tomorrow, so I can go back to work. So what about you, what’s your day been like?’

‘Not nearly so dramatic as yours. Hannah wants to dye her hair pink. I’m in two minds about whether it’s a good idea to let her. On the one hand, the school might object and I don’t want to give her teachers reason to make life difficult for her, but on the other hand I feel a certain amount of responsibility has been entrusted to me through the fact of her even asking my permission in the first place,’ Daniel explained. ‘If I discuss it with her and we reach a satisfactory outcome, rather than me just saying “no”, then she’ll know she can approach me with more serious problems and expect to be treated with respect and seriousness.’

That made Suzy give a gentle, sympathetic laugh. ‘I miss the days when the most serious dilemma involved in parenting a daughter was whether to let her spend all of her allowance on My Little Ponies or to try to teach her about saving.’

‘The ponies always won with me,’ Daniel confessed.

‘Me too,’ Suzy agreed. Then, changing the subject, she told him, ‘Drew wants the two of us – you and me, I mean, obviously – to go on a … A fairy tale evening, I think he called it. Something along those lines, anyway. A romantic night out. Though that’ll have to wait until Lily’s on the mend, I guess.’

‘Yes, it wouldn’t be fair to her or to you for you to be otherwise occupied while she needs you,’ Daniel replied immediately. ‘We can plan it for a later date.’

Suzy was touched by the words, said so unguardedly and automatically. More than one of the short, non-serious relationships she’d had in her 20s had fallen apart largely because her lovers had expected more of her heart and attention than she’d ever be able to give them. No matter how much she liked somebody and wanted to spend time with them, she’d always be a parent first and a girlfriend second. Nothing could change that.

But Daniel got it. He’d always be a parent first too. He might not particularly like it when Suzy was unavailable because of teen-related disasters, but he’d understand. There would never be any fights over her attention, fights that no lover, no matter how perfect, could ever win against her children.

‘When everyone’s back on the mend, we should all go to a drive-in sometime,’ she said, remembering trips she’d taken as a child, the excitement of sitting in her family’s own car to watch a movie. ‘There’s still one operating a few suburbs away from here.’

‘That would be lovely,’ Daniel agreed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever taken my kids to one – and I think that’s probably something I’d remember doing, if I’d done it.’

‘It’s a date, then. One day,’ decided Suzy. ‘And, in the more immediate future, once present earaches are taken care of and I won’t feel like the worst parent on earth for even contemplating having fun while my child is ill, we’ll have a proper romantic, grown-up night out. Hannah can babysit Henry, Lily, and Steven, maybe?’

‘Yes, I think she’d like that. And the youngsters will too, once they’ve made token protests about – well, about being called “youngsters”, for a start.’ Daniel grinned. ‘Hannah’s good at making babysitting a fun experience for all involved.’

‘Drew thought maybe they’d like a day out boating. Drew’s partner Joseph has a yacht, which Drew assures me is “small but jaunty”. God, on one hand I’ve got him saying “jaunty” and on the other I’ve got you saying “youngsters”. It’s a wonder I don’t start praising Lily for her gumption and pluck in the face of a jolly putrid earache.’

‘That was adorable. Vaguely terrifying, but adorable,’ Daniel told her with a fond tone.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Suzy assured him. ‘Anyway, when Lily’s better, that’s the tentative plan. After they’ve been out on the boat they can sleep over at Drew’s, provided none of them have an aversion to an inordinate number of Jim Henson prints on the walls. You’d honestly think that the Muppets were a decorating school, to look at that man’s house. He claims it’s ironic but I stopped believing it several Christmases ago, when he gave Steven
The Dark Crystal
and Lily
Labyrinth
.’

Daniel laughed aloud at that. ‘Your family is a delight, Suzy. They truly are.’

‘Yeah, they’re OK, I guess,’ she agreed, smiling.

He called her every night for the next week, while poor Lily slowly recovered her sharp edge and things went back to normal. With some surprise, Suzy realised that she and Daniel had spent longer apart than they’d had the chance to spend together. Talking to him every night about trivial, easy things – what work was like, what was in the newspapers, their kids (Hannah had decided to skip the pink hair; Henry had a crush on a girl in his class; Steven had given his parents the tip that My Little Pony toys were currently “totally cool and awesome” for teens; Lily had been absolutely delighted by the blue plastic pony with a rainbow mane and tail which Drew brought round for her the following day), how much they missed each other – those simple little conversations had given Suzy the opportunity to appreciate just how much she genuinely liked Daniel as a person, entirely separately from the overwhelming pull of attraction she felt whenever she was near to him.

That intense desire didn’t abate during their time apart. Quite the opposite happened, in fact – Suzy’s whole body felt on edge with anticipation, nerve endings that refused to go back to sleep now they had been awoken by his touch. She wondered how she’d ever managed to go so long alone; it seemed absolutely unthinkable to return to celibacy ever again after discovering such deep and true pleasure with Daniel.

Finally, finally, Lily’s health returned enough that she could spend the day out with Drew and the others, bidding her mother farewell with a cranky “yeah, see you later, whatever”. Suzy had never been more delighted to be the target of the girl’s acidic rudeness.

She booked herself and Daniel into the penthouse suite of a rather nice hotel she’d heard good things about from co-workers. She figured that it would be a nice escape for the both of them, to spend the night somewhere special and different, and if the place turned out to be a dive or they got bored and just wanted their own ordinary, comfortable surroundings then, well, it wouldn’t be much effort for them to leave and go to Suzy’s place or Daniel’s instead.

She left the evening entertainment in Daniel’s hands, since he was the one who knew things about wine-tasting and art galleries and proper sensible grown-up date things like that.

When he arrived at her house to pick her up for the adventure, he presented her with a pair of tickets.

‘
Orfeo ed Euridice
. It’s the Italian version, not the French adaptation from later on.’

‘I’ve never been to the opera. I’ve always wanted to, but …’ Suzy shrugged one shoulder.

‘But what?’ Daniel asked, puzzled.

‘I don’t know, it always seemed like something I wasn’t smart enough for. Opera’s for cultured people. People who know how to pronounce the titles, for a start. I never would have had the faintest clue how to say that properly.’

Daniel shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. ‘Art is for everybody. Not to mention that, for one thing, you’re talking to a man who took you to a room of
clown paintings
for our first real date, so I don’t know what higher standard you think I’ve reached and you can only aspire to –’ He paused as his words made her laugh, a tender smile curving up his own mouth. ‘And for another, you are incredibly smart. You don’t give yourself any credit for all the amazing things you do.’

‘You know I’m a sure thing, right? Flattery is for when you don’t know for certain if you’re going to get the other person into bed or not. Trust me, you’re getting me into bed.’

Daniel sighed. ‘You have an extremely endearing and extremely annoying habit of deflecting compliments, did you know that? Come on, let’s go see a show.’

She loved it. Absolutely and without reservation. Suzy couldn’t remember being so moved, so transported by a live performance, not since she’d been a teenager sneaking into rock concerts with her friends. She hadn’t even known that being this moved by a piece of music was even
possible
except for teenagers.

Maybe being an adult wasn’t as dreary as she’d been thinking. Maybe there was just as much passion and overwhelming intensity and beauty and excitement and disaster and silliness and joy to be found in being grown-up as there had been in her younger years. Plus, for one thing, the sex was way better now than it ever had been back then.

A lot of things were better. Maybe getting older didn’t mean that the fireworks of her youth were gone for ever. Perhaps, in fact, maturity had even greater rewards. An even brighter spark.

When the performance ended, the audience rose to their feet in a standing ovation. Suzy clapped and cheered as loudly as anyone, beaming at Daniel beside her and feeling as if she’d never stop.

In the hotel room they ate strawberries, and kissed, and drank tall glasses of cold, good wine, and kissed again. The spa bath proved such an attraction that their fingertips and toes were wrinkled to pale little prunes by the time they were done with it.

‘Let me wash your hair for you,’ said Daniel. Even coming as it did from her lover, there was an intimacy to the offer that made Suzy blush. Nevertheless, she nodded, sinking lower into the bubbled waters of the tub so that he could more easily reach the top of her head.

As with everything else he undertook, Daniel was measured and deliberate and gentle, massaging the small bottle’s worth of hotel shampoo into an even and fragrant lather over her scalp.

He rubbed her shoulders too, his thumbs kneading into the tense knots of her muscles, somehow finding a way to slip between her defences and make tensions that she’d carried for years and years begin to ease.

‘Stop thinking so much,’ Daniel teased her in his calm, playful voice. Keeping her mind on the world and its millions of distractions proved harder and harder as Daniel managed to seek out and cure every kink in Suzy’s upper back. His hands were so warm and strong that it was impossible for her to entirely fight off the feeling that she could let go of the tight grip she held on her life, to trust him to catch her before she’d fall.

She shaved him, when they were shampooed and scrubbed and wrapped in lush white bathrobes. Daniel’s five o’clock shadow was soft from the heat of the spa already, so Suzy didn’t have to worry about a hot towel or anything like that before she stirred the brush in shaving cream and lathered it carefully into his face. He stayed completely still as she did so, his eyes closed and a small, trusting smile on his lips.

It was an almost breathtaking sensation, to have him bare his throat to her as she held a blade. Suzy had never considered herself to be somebody who cared about power or dominance or anything like that, but looking down at Daniel … The amount of faith he must have in her, to give her access to the soft and vulnerable parts of himself like that. It was a responsibility second only to motherhood, in terms of how daunting Suzy found the whole thing.

‘I love you,’ she blurted suddenly, then shut her eyes and winced. Her heart’s sense of timing for its greatest revelations left something to be desired.

The light touch of his hand atop hers made Suzy open her eyes again.

‘I love you too,’ Daniel told her, as if it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. ‘And I’d kiss you right now, but you’d wind up covered in shaving cream.’

That made her laugh, and she put the straight razor down on the edge of the sink and climbed onto his lap and kissed him, not caring about the shaving cream getting all over their faces and into their hair, not caring about anything in the world except how happy and complete she felt.

They made it to the bed, eventually, but not before Daniel had found the light-blocking eye masks provided for them along with their bathrobes and chocolate mints.

He slipped the satin mask down over her forehead, onto her eyes. Suzy’s vision was completely blotted out; she couldn’t even see the shift of light and shadow that would have been possible if her eyes were simply closed instead of covered.

She gave a nervous, self-conscious laugh. ‘This is silly.’

‘Shh,’ he hushed her, kissing a light line down her throat and collarbones, his breath ghosting hotly over her nipples without his lips touching them.

Daniel guided her steps back to the edge of the bed, then laid her out atop the silky cotton sheets. He used his fingers, lips, teeth, tongue, nose; nuzzling up and down Suzy’s inner lips as they plumped with heat and parted, moist and slick. He teased her clit with the very tips of his fingers, light enough and slow enough that after a while of his attention her thighs began to shake and her hips began to buck, aching for more and firmer contact.

‘Yes, please, oh, oh that feels so good,’ Suzy groaned out through her clenched teeth, her back arching like a tight-strung bow. Every nerve in her body was singing. ‘Oh, oh.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Let me see you, please. I have to be able to see you.’

Not waiting for approval, she fumbled at the mask, pushing it up into her sweat-tangled hair and blinking at the sudden brightness of the world. She shifted, sitting up as best she could with her knees still up over Daniel’s shoulders. He didn’t pause in his ministrations between her thighs, nuzzling hungrily at her.

‘So gorgeous,’ Suzy said, her voice sex-rough, and she reached out to pet at his hair. Just as she tangled her fingers in the tousled dark locks, Daniel let his teeth brush lightly against her clitoris, and Suzy could do nothing but groan in ecstasy and pull hard on his hair, her hands desperate to cling to something, to maintain grounding in any way possible lest she fly apart entirely.