Blooming (2 page)

“That’s you
about done Jennifer, and your colour’s coming back, that’s a good sign.”

“Thank you,”
– Jen mumbled, “but seriously I need to go, I’ve got work waiting.”

“Stay and
have a coffee or really tea would be best for shock, I have to get ready to
leave but Todd can sit with you for a few minutes, he works mainly from home.”

Jen didn’t
know which news was worse the idea of sitting with the scary hunk on her own
and having to make conversation, or knowing that he was likely to be around the
apartment building just as much as she was.

“Here he is
now – “Todd,” she shouted, “make Jennifer, do people call you Jenny..., a cup
of tea if we have any?”

“Jen is fine.”
 

“It will have
to be this herbal crap you bought, I don’t have English breakfast tea,” he
complained.

“Really I
don’t want anything,” Jen protested.

“Humour me,”
Lily said, “once you’ve drunk it, Todd can see you safely upstairs if that’s
what you want.”

She dashed
off before Jen could argue further, and Todd came across the room and placed a
cup on the side table next to her. God did this man never put a shirt on - she
didn’t know where to look, everywhere she turned was muscles and creamy skin. As
if it was the most natural thing in the world he scooped a large hand under her
head and eased her up to a sitting position, crouching before her.

Todd found
himself staring at her again; he must stop it. So she
was
a Jen, maybe
not so prickly after all?

“Drink your god-awful
tea like a good girl.” He chuckled deep in his throat, “nurse’s orders.”

Jen sipped
trying not to grimace. If this is what it took to get out of here so be it. She
kept her eyes down and tried to keep a lid on her growing panic.

Todd didn’t
speak for a minute and then decided he’d best try to make conversation, he wasn’t
one for awkward silences. “So Jen, what do you do?” she still wouldn’t look at
him.

“I design and
manage websites for small businesses.”

“Hey that’s
great, I’d be interested to see what you do some time, I own and let my own
properties across Bloomington, and I’ve plans to increase my portfolio. I’ve
been thinking about getting a web presence for a while now, but kept getting
too busy to organize myself.”

Jen shot
upright, and was at the door before Todd finished his sentence.

“Hey wait
up...” she was struggling with the deadbolt and he put his hand over hers and
released the lock for her. Up close behind her he smelled like heaven, and his
hands were large and strong over the top of hers. Just because she could never
act on it didn’t mean it didn’t affect her, just instead of exciting her, it
terrified her.

Jen flew
through the open door and Todd followed on her heels, amazed that half dazed
she could move so fast, he had to take the stairs three at a time just to get
alongside her. The discarded paper fluttered about in her wake.

“Was it
something I said – you know Lily’s going to kill me if anything happens to
you?”

She held up a
hand as if to fend him off and practically ran down the hallway to her door; he
was just about to follow her in when the door slammed in his face, missing his
nose by a hairs breadth.

What the fuck
was that? He stood scratching his head, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d
had a door slammed on him. He shook it off ruefully; things just got a hell of
a lot more interesting round here.

Jen ran to
her bedroom and threw herself on the mattress of her unmade bed, which only
jarred her bruised body. Pushing her face into the mattress she screamed
soundlessly, stifling the urge to vocalise her distress. No, no, no what was
she going to do now?

****

It was twenty
minutes later when Jen picked herself up off the bed and into the shower; she
had too much to do to give in to her self-pity today. With a bit of luck her
neighbours would avoid her like the plague now that she’d given them a good
dose of her brand of crazy.

Unfortunately
Todd had decided to take matters into his own hands. First by packing all the
paper from the stairwell back in its box, and second by carting the box back up
to its owner to make sure she wasn’t dead from a delayed brain trauma.

A soft
tapping on the door had Jen hissing softly. The tapping persisted, whoever it
was wasn’t going away.

“Hi, it’s
Todd from downstairs,” he called through the door. “Lily’s left for the day and
she made me promise to check on you, are you there?”

Jen stood
undecided in her living room, which way to jump?

“I’m fine
really, I’m just going to take it easy for a bit.”

“Are you
sure? I’ve got your box of stuff out here; I can carry it in for you if you
open up?”

“Er – I’m not
dressed, just leave it there, I’ll get it later.”

She really
didn’t sound so good – and he wanted to see her for himself, “ok I’m going, see
you round.”

“Yeah, thanks
again.”

About 15
minutes later Jen opened her door and found she was looking straight into a
pair of mischievous green eyes.

“Shit,” her
hand went to her chest, –“you scared the crap out of me and,” her eyes cast
down, “you’re sitting on my box!”

Todd gave her
a lazy grin - her unfortunate turn of phrase not lost on him, “Sorry honey, but
I had to make sure you really were ok, I couldn’t chance somebody dying in my
building. That’s not good for the rental value.”

“Your
building – you own the building?”

“Yeah, I tend
not to advertise the fact when I initially lease someone an apartment here. My
agent handles it for me, saves me being hassled by new tenants at all hours of
the day & night. I get the impression I’m not going to have that problem
with you, you can’t wait to get away from me.”

This was not
good, not good at all and was he flirting with her? She never was any good at
telling, and why would he? It didn’t matter anyway she wasn’t interested, maybe
interested wasn’t the word - more like impossibly unable.

Todd gave her
a little closer scrutiny, her brain was running riot he could tell. Dark hair
wet from the shower hung to her lower back and was sorely in need of a good
cut. Her skin was whiter than pale apart from the cute flush staining her
cheeks, which seemed to slowly spread down her face and neck into the top of a
very unflattering sweatshirt.

Jen gave
herself a subconscious kick as he hauled himself up from the box, “by the way
that dent in it isn’t from my ass, it’s from your head, but I think most of the
contents survived.”

“Thank you I
guess, I seem to keep saying that,” she wouldn’t look him in the eye; he was
far too much of everything too tall, too broad, too close.

“Are you
going to let me through so I can bring it in for you?” he stepped forward
lifting the box to his waist.

“No, I got it,”
she jerked the box out of his hands blocking herself from his further scrutiny
and once again he found himself on the receiving end of a slammed door.

On the other
side Jen slid down to the floor, sick to her stomach, she couldn’t have chosen
a worse set-up and worse still she couldn’t afford to move again so soon, she
was going to have to tough it out.

Resentment
pooled in her stomach alongside a little frisson of interest, she wasn’t
completely immune to an attractive man. He stood more than a clear foot taller
than her and had a killer face. Strong and animated, the beautiful piercing
green eyes, a thick head of straight dark brown hair, good bones and skin, a
gentle cleft to his chin. He seemed to smile easily and often, giving him an
overall aura of strength and kindness.

It was no
good though she’d tried before and only hurt people’s feelings and left herself
humiliated and frustrated.

This man was
confident in his own skin and would expect the same of others, something she
just couldn’t give. So it was to Jen’s relief that the next few days went by in
blessed solitude. She’d managed to finish unpacking all the boxes, and the
apartment was starting to take shape. It would be some weeks yet before she
felt secure enough to call it home, and she was still perturbed about the
encounter with Todd and Lily, but she had also got two new sites up and running
for customers and the promise of more work to come via word of mouth.

She’d found a
nearby grocer who offered online shopping and home delivery, and a coffee shop
she had braved once and intended to go back to, if only as her own self imposed
form of therapy.

Jen coped
with a walk round the block or a trip to the market as she would a challenge to
be completed and only did so in an attempt to prove that she still had one foot
in the world. Although she had to admit that the fact her body language
screamed stay away, and she only interacted with other people when absolutely
necessary, kind of made it only about a 50 percent success at any given time.

She didn’t
really know at what point her problem had become so bad. When she’d been
younger and going through therapy, the idea that there would be a life changing
event that corrected everything had still been a possibility, something to
cling on to. But the older she’d gotten and the more life seemed determined to
kick her in the teeth, she’d become disillusioned and stopped believing a better
life was possible.

Four years
ago when she’d finally seized on the website course as a means to making a
career she could cope with, it also gave her the perfect excuse to withdraw
further from the world and most of the time she thought little about committing
to a life alone. Alone was safer - more manageable.

Of course the
more withdrawn she’d become the harder it had become to deal with people when
she absolutely had to. Although she still made minimal efforts to look ok with
a little make up and taking care of her skin, she had no real interest in
clothes or shopping because she didn’t like to linger anywhere. And also
because she didn’t try to attract any attention to herself - in general she
didn’t.

The stupid
thing was no matter how invisible she succeeded in making herself, Jen always
felt like she walked around with a blazing spotlight over her head which
advertised, “Look at the weirdo!”

Meeting Todd
had forced a flashback to the two occasions she’d talked herself into acting on
a physical attraction. The awkward first dates when she had to pretend to be
normal, the crippling nausea that came when they called her the next day, then
sitting by the phone - not answering, until they didn’t bother calling again.

A few years
back, she’d enjoyed flirting occasionally and to the world she probably looked
confident enough, but the setbacks she’d experienced when she found herself
unable to follow through had led her to give up on the idea of a relationship
entirely.

As Jen pulled
herself out of her funk, she brought her focus back to her computer and
continued cropping and editing her client’s product shots, playing with
different layouts and graphics to make them pop on screen.

She didn’t
hear the first knock on the door, the second one she ignored, but the third she
knew indicated intent to continue.

Drawing on courage
brought from pure annoyance she went to the door and opened it.

Confusion
over her own slight disappointment when it was Lily standing there and not
Todd, threw her for a second.

“Hi Jen,” god
Lily was so bright and shiny it almost hurt Jen to look at her. “I wanted to
give you a couple of days to settle in before I sprung a welcome to the
building dinner on you.”

“That’s
really not necessary; you were kind to me the other day, that’s enough.” Panic had
sent her voice an octave higher than normal.

Lily ducked
her blonde head to meet Jen’s eye, “I have a confession to make, I knew you
were up here and figured you’d probably be done with work for the day –
dinner’s almost ready so I won’t take no for an answer!”

Jen
considered for a long second whether Lily would take “fuck off” for an answer,
but realised she was neither heartless nor brave enough to suggest it.

“Fine,” she
said trying her hardest to sound gracious. “I’ll need twenty minutes though to
freshen up, and then I’ll come down.”

“Great it’s
just me, Todd, and the third floor guys who are a gay couple and really good
fun. Up until you came I was using them as my surrogate girlfriends!”

As Jen’s jaw
dropped open Lily stepped back and gave a cheery wave, “See you in a bit.”

In a panic
Jen shut the door fast, just catching herself before it slammed too hard,
“fucking doodly fuck,” she cursed softly, what was she going to do now?

Running to
the kitchen she grabbed a glass, and cracked open the first bottle of wine she
put her hand to, pouring a generous glass.

With the
first gulp she swallowed double the dose of herbal calming tablets, the ones
that never seemed to do a thing for her. She finished the wine and took a
second glass into the bathroom with her while she quickly showered. There
wasn’t time to wash her hair so she scraped it up in a bun on top of her head.

Reeling a bit
at trying to make herself look decent in record time, she slapped on a little
tinted moisturiser and blush, mascara on her lashes, which she thought were her
best feature, and a bit of lip balm on her lips.

She
scrutinized herself in the mirror, not too shabby. Jen knew she wasn’t
hideously ugly but she wasn’t eye catching, thank god. Throwing the closet open,
the easiest clothes to throw on were a new white t shirt and clean jeans. Luckily
by the time she was ready the wine was starting to kick in, which got her out
of her front door and down the stairs before she had time to think it through.

Jen drew a
deep breath outside their apartment; she felt a bit woozy and tried to remember
if she’d eaten at all that day. She’d been on a bit of a work buzz and
sometimes it was too much of a pain to stop and eat.