Against the Tide (31 page)

“Yeah, it was
really
good. We should do this again sometime,” I joke.

“Would you?”

“Would I, what?”

“Do this again … come on another date?” he asks nervously, fidgeting in his seat.

“Well,” I draw it out a bit, making him sweat. “I won’t lie …”

He sits back and smirks, “Come on, give it to me straight.”

“I thought at one point, that maybe it was a crazy idea that I even agreed to do this with you, but then I realised, any idea you have is crazy, and I quite like it.”

“I do have some uncrazy ideas you know,” Finn informs me with a mock indignant tone.

“Okay, if you say so.” I roll my eyes at him playfully, and in return he gives me a grin which creases a dimple in his cheek. I study his face for just a second. He’s handsome, not in an obvious ‘OMG’ kinda way, he’s rugged and rough and the aura he gives off is all male, but he has an edge of sensitivity, and although it isn’t obvious immediately, the more time I spend with him, the more I see it. He would make beautiful babies … Oh. Fuck.

“You okay?” he asks with concern. “What’s up, too much food in your belly?”

“Something like that,” I mumble, fiddling with the contents of my bag.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah, I just need to go to the loo.” He gives a low chuckle which makes me smile back at him, and I happen to look over at the lady that’s still on the table next to us as I turn, and I catch her passing an unamused expression. “I have to pee, be right back,” I chirp bluntly. I can’t help but wind her up.

I drop my bag on the posh marble counter top in the ladies’ loos and take a huge breath. Today has been crazy. Finn’s crazy. But there’s something about him that I really like. Which sounds totally lame even to my ears as I’ve already
been
with him, and … I’m pregnant by him, which he doesn’t even know yet, and how do I tell him? I’m rambling in my head to try and make sense of things but it just seems to be more of a tangle. If I tell him, will he want me to keep it? The thought of terminating this pregnancy now without telling him, after getting to know him better seems so wrong. There’s no clear right and wrong in my head, and for the first time it feels like it’s not my decision alone to make. We both made me pregnant. We should both decide what to do next. But, when is the right time? Do I go out there and say ‘Hey, thanks for dinner, by the way, I’m pregnant and I’m ninety nine percent sure it’s yours.’ What if those little tests got it wrong? What if I’m further along and it’s Damien’s? I’m almost certain this isn’t the case as I’ve had periods since the last time we slept together, but these things happen, don’t they? And being ‘almost’ certain isn’t enough to go around telling the man I’ve just met that he’s going to be a dad, if in a couple of weeks’ time I have to tell him that he isn’t. I need a scan. I need to find out how far along I am. It’s not right to tell him until then, is it?

When I finish up in the loo, I come out to find Finn still sitting at the table chewing on his bottom lip and looking concerned.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, placing my hands on the table and leaning down in front of him.

“How fast can you run?” he whispers, looking around nervously.

“Have you seen these heels?” I joke, hoping he’s joking too but his edginess tells me he isn’t messing around.

“Well, you’re going to need to go ahead of me then. I’ll take the bear,” he mumbles through grated teeth and with a sense of urgency.

“What is going on?”

“The bill is a lot. I mean like, fucking loads.”

“Well, I have money, I can pay it,” I say opening my bag to find my purse.

He grabs my wrist and berates me sternly. “You are
not
paying for dinner on our first date. Just walk casually out, then when you get around the corner head for the stairwell in the car park, okay?”

“Finn! I can’t do that, I−”

“Do it. NOW!” he insists in a barked whisper.

Shit. I jump at the urgency of his voice and make my way to the door with my heart beating fast and my legs working faster. I say a quick, garbled thank you to the snobby maître de on the door, and when I get outside, I run.

I run so fast my legs almost get tangled up together. I run down the side of the buildings, through a group of people that are all dressed up for the night, and into the stairwell of the car park. I’m breathless. Not only am I short, so I have to work my legs twice as fast to get anywhere, I am seriously unfit after kidding myself that by just having a gym membership, I could run like Ussain Bolt even if I only set foot through the door once.

I peer around the corner of the stairwell. Nothing. Finn isn’t anywhere to be seen. Crap. What if they caught up with him? What do I do? I could just go back and pay …

“BOO!”

The bear appears from behind the concrete post that I’m peering around, scaring the hell out of me. “Fucking hell,” I squeal clutching my hands to my chest. “FINN, you twat!”

“Oh my god, Meg. That was so funny! You should have seen your face.” Finn throws his head back and roars with laughter, it’s such a deep, warm sound and it’s not long before I join him.

“What happened back there, did you get out okay? You know, next time, we are going to go for fish and chips, just like I suggested in the first place. ” I flick his upper arm with the back of my hand and he stops laughing to look at me intently. “What?” I ask confused. “Do I have dinner on my face?” I wipe either side of my mouth but he doesn’t answer me, instead he drops the bear to the floor and steps slowly toward me, walking me backward to press against the cold, hard wall, and out of sight from passers-by.

“I’ve wanted to do this all night, Meg. All day, actually.” His voice is deep and sensual, and sends ripples of awareness across my skin. His large hand takes my face, holding it gently and stroking his thumb across my cheekbone. My eyes flutter shut as I lean into his touch and I feel as though I’m dreaming. It’s so intense, so deep. I feel his lips touch mine like a whisper, moving slowly, pressing harder and then his tongue slides across my bottom lip, eliciting a whimper from my throat. There’s an intimacy to this kiss that we haven’t had before, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt a kiss like this before. It’s a deliciously slow exploration, and my senses reel as if they are short circuited. Then he pulls away slowly, and I open my eyes to see him looking back at me with equal intensity as the kiss.

“Can we go to your place?” I ask breathlessly without thinking it through. I’ve never had sense or rational thought where he’s concerned. All I know is that my body is craving him. He has every part of me listening to him and ready for what’s next.

“No,” he says softly, shaking his head.

“No?”

“Meg. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. But we are not doing it like this. This is our first date.”

“Well, I think we’ve done it before, don’t you? Twice in fact.” There’s a ripple of frustration through my voice as I wasn’t expecting him to say no.

“Yes, we have. But I didn’t even know you then. I want to know you. I want to do things right this time. What if you …” He trails off with a look of vulnerability about him.

“What if I, what?”

“What if you get up in the morning and don’t come back? I’d really like another date with you. I want to start over from today. I want to move on from the past, which means doing things differently.”

I hear him. Every word, and hiding the fact that I’m pregnant starts to eat away at me. His raw honesty and emotional vulnerability means that I can’t mess around with this, with us, if there ever could be an ‘us’. It seems so close, yet there’s so much standing in our way. I need to know facts before we take this further, and I need to know them soon.

“You’re quite the gentleman.” I peck him on the lips and he steps back, giving me some space to compose myself.

“I try,” he mumbles with a roll of his eyes clearly as frustrated as me but with a better hold on it. “Come on, let’s go.” He picks up the bear and dusts it off, tucking it under his arm, before holding out a hand for me to take. I place my hand in his before remembering why we’re here in this stairwell.

“Wait, is it safe for us to go out there yet? I think we should stay here for a while.” I tug on his arm as panic sets in. It’s ridiculous that I’ve taken class A drugs and didn’t give it a second thought, but when it comes to taking something that isn’t mine, I don’t like it. I’ve never done anything like that before. Could we get arrested for that?  Finn stops and starts to chuckle. “What’s so funny? It’s not funny, Finn. I feel like we’ve just stolen our dinner.”

“Sweetheart, you didn’t steal dinner.” He shakes his head with a smirk.

“Well, technically, yes I did, and I blame you. I’ve never stolen anything before.”

His brows scrunch together as he studies me intensely. “Not even a penny sweet?”

“Nope.”

“Are you really a good girl masquerading as a tattooed, pierced, badass?”

“Ha fucking ha, Finn. I am a badass.” I draw my shoulders back and raise my chin in the air. “And don’t you forget it.”

“You’re
that
badass that when I told you to run away because, you couldn’t pay, you ran …”

“Well, I didn’t want to get arrested or even worse, we might have had to work for our supper and wash up for the night to pay it all off!”

“I paid,” he says softly, letting go of my hand and hooking his thumb in my belt loop to pull me closer to him. He bends his knees, pushes our hips together and holds me close.

“You WHAT?” I screech.

His eyes crease with amusement but his gaze sweeps over my lips, distracting me momentarily. “I paid, when you were in the loo.”

“You fucker! You made me run away thinking you couldn’t pay!” I can’t believe he did that, but if he hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have shared
that
kiss.

“You didn’t have to run away.” He raises one eyebrow at me, before gently kissing the tip of my nose. “But I’m glad you did, this was fun.”

“You’re a twat,” I grumble but in good humour. It was fun.

“And you’re adorable.”

“Badass,” I remind him.

“Whatever.”

We walk home in a comfortable silence, exchanging smirks and smouldering glances every now and then. Is this what people mean when they say something just feels right? It feels so comfortable and like it’s … how it should be. But I get a heavy ache in the pit of my stomach when I remember everything that underlies this surface feeling of happiness. There’s a heap of circumstances that could come between us before we’ve even got started.

“This is your place?” he asks as we stop at the gate.

“My mate, Jamie’s place.”

“It’s nice,” he says aimlessly, looking up and down the brickwork. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s nervous.

“Yeah, it is. So−”

“I−”

“You first,” I offer, feeling his nerves rubbing off on to me. He places the bear on the low wall next to the gate and stands directly in front of me, gently taking both of my hands in his.

“I had a great time today, Meg. I didn’t think it could be that great, but it was.”

“I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not!” I laugh.

“That’s not what I meant. I … I don’t know what
this
is. I don’t know what I’m ready for. But you made me laugh more today than I have in a very long time, so thank you. It was the best first date I’ve had.”

“I had a great time too,” I whisper, glancing at the hollow of his throat as he swallows.

“Can I call you? Maybe tomorrow?” he asks.

“Sure. You have my number now, and you know where I live, so I doubt I could avoid you,” I tease.

“I’m very persistent,” he whispers before dropping my hands and cupping my cheeks with heated urgency. His lips drop to mine and he covers my mouth with a slow, drugging kiss. He pulls me closer tenderly and I’m consumed. He’s stolen my will power and replaced it with desire. The kiss lasts forever, yet not nearly long enough, and with one last stroke of his tongue, he pulls away. My thoughts spin, and my pulse races as we both try to catch our breath.

“I, uh, I should be going,” he breathes out raggedly, stepping back and running his hand over the back of his neck. “You should look after the bear.” He walks reluctantly backwards down the path and I back in the front gate, pushing it open with my bum.

“Thanks, I’ll take good care of him.” I grab the bear off the wall and hug it to me, as the night air blows gently, I can smell Finn’s aftershave. This poor bear might just get hugged to death tonight.

“I’ll call you,” he calls out, still walking backwards down the hill.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“See ya.”

A huge grin spreads across my face. “See ya,” I call back with a giggle.

“Goodnight, Megs.” His chuckle flutters through the night air, hitting me in the chest and making my heart squeeze tightly.

God, I am in so much trouble. “Goodnight, Finn.”

My feet feel light. Like I’m walking on air, or maybe it’s just happiness. Who knew that the girl that demanded my attention without so much as a single word, could make me so happy in just one evening? I’ve been on dates before, but they were nothing compared to dating her. And leaving like that, knowing I could have taken her back to my place, wanting so badly to take her in every way imaginable, takes all my will power but I want it to be different. I want to respect her. I do respect her, and I want her to respect me too. I’m not stupid enough to think that part of me still isn’t messed up. It is. I know there’s hardship and heartache in my very near future, so I need to take things slow with Meg. I can’t pull her close then push her away when things get tough.