Blowing It (9 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was early May when I got the first round of edits
back from Squire. I’d been expecting to have longer to work on the third book
before I went back to the second, but the publisher was fast-tracking the pre-release
schedule, and they’d turned the editing around in three weeks. Now it was up to
me to go through the editor’s recommendations, which weren’t, thankfully, too
extensive, make the changes Squire required and get the manuscript back to them
by the end of the month. The editor wanted me to remove a small side-story she
thought distracted from the central narrative, but removing it was proving a
bitch, going through the entire manuscript looking for offhand references she
might have missed.

I barely heard the knock on my door. “It’s open,” I
called distractedly, shuffling through the printed papers on my desk, looking
for the notes I’d scribbled feverishly at three that morning, seeming to
remember there were some important observations amongst them.

Magnus entered, two cardboard coffee cups in hand.
“Busy?” he asked, approaching my desk.

“Just a little.” I frowned at the hastily-torn
sheet of lined paper I’d found, turning it and staring blindly at the blank
side. I could have sworn I’d written more.

“How long have you been working?” he asked, setting
one of the cups by my keyboard.

“Since Friday.” I tossed the paper and renewed my
search. There must be another page somewhere.

“Owen, it’s Monday. When, between Friday and now,
have you taken a break?”

I screwed up my face. “I think I ate something
around dawn.”

“Have you slept?”

“Maybe.”

“Owen, stop.” He took the sheaf of papers from me
and set them on my desk. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I’m fine.” I waved away his concern. “This is how
I work.”

“It’s not healthy.”

“Is that coffee?” I grabbed the cup he’d put on the
desk and sniffed at the small opening in the plastic lid. “Mmm, caffeine.”

Magnus frowned. “I should have brought you hot
chocolate.”

“Coffee is
good
,” I said, stretching the
vowels into a long, appreciative sound. I grinned at him over the rim of the
cup as I swallowed a mouthful. “You’re my hero.”

He smiled despite himself. “You’re a workaholic,” he
said affectionately.

“Speaking of, aren’t you supposed to be surveying a
house or something?”

Magnus shook his head. “I only had one appointment
this morning, and they cancelled. I might do some site visits later, keep the
lads on their toes.”

I smiled. I couldn’t imagine Magnus intimidating
anybody, and certainly not a group of burly builders.

“I don’t have to stay if you’re busy,” he said. “I
just thought as I was local, I’d pop in and see how it’s going.”

“No, stay, please.” I clung to the hem of his dark suit
jacket. “I think I’m going mad here. I could have
sworn
I made more
notes than I’ve got.”

He brushed his hand through my hair, flattening the
strands I’d pulled into wild disarray through the night. His fingers caught in
a knot, and he gently teased it out. “Take a break,” he suggested. “Go lie down
for an hour if you need to.”

I shook my head. “I’m sick of the sight of this
flat.”

“So let’s go for a walk. Get some fresh air.”

I glanced guiltily at my laptop. “I really should
be working….”

“Owen, up.” His authoritative tone surprised me. “One
hour away from your desk won’t kill you.”

My lip twitched as I fought a smile. “Yes, sir.”

He narrowed his eyes at me.

Laughing, I stood and gave him a quick kiss before
dashing to the bathroom to freshen up. Teeth brushed, clothes changed, and a
quick spray of deodorant later, I was passable enough to be taken out in
public.

“I like that T-shirt,” Magnus said as I pulled on a
battered pair of Converse trainers.

“What, this?” I glanced down at myself. The shirt
was old, soft, brushed cotton that had once been black but had long faded to a
medium-grey. It hugged my shoulders and upper arms, but the waist was loose and
rode up as I bent to lace my shoes. “It’s comfortable. Right now, comfort
wins.”

“You could look good in a bin bag,” he said, taking
my jacket off the hook and holding it out for me.

“Just don’t get too close,” I cautioned. “I
probably smell like one.”

“You smell like you,” he said, catching me around
the waist and blowing a raspberry against my neck as I squirmed and laughed in
his arms.

“Where are we going?” I asked when we reached
street level.

“Where do you want to go?” he countered, glancing
at his wristwatch. “It’s almost eleven. We could get a late breakfast or early
lunch somewhere.”

“I’m good with this,” I said, raising my coffee cup
to my lips.

A small frown crossed his brow. “You’re too skinny
to skip meals.”

“I’m fine,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “I ate a
whole bag of gummy bears last night while I was working.” On reflection, that
was probably why I’d stayed up so late. Sugar did strange things to me.

“Sounds nutritious,” Magnus commented dryly, but he
let the matter rest.

We walked in companionable silence down Bethnal
Green Road. The day was pleasant, the tree-lined pavement almost clear of pedestrians.
We passed a long, low block of flats built on cleared ground between rows of
older terraces, the ground floor of each given over to newsagents and off
licences, a jewellers, and various small restaurants and takeaways. At a junction
where the shops gave way to the scaffolded bones of a new apartment building,
we turned off the main street, past more ’70s homes faced in ugly white
cladding, and alongside a wall topped with high black railings separating the
pavement from St. Matthew’s Church and the open, grassy grounds surrounding it.

We turned into the churchyard at the main gates, approaching
the boxy building, all grey-brown brick, the corners and arched windows edged
in white. The blue and gold tower clock chimed the hour as we strolled by, making
for the winding tarmac pavement which meandered through the neatly-kept
grounds. An elderly couple sitting on a bench smiled at us as we passed, and in
the distance, I faintly heard the drone of traffic on the main road.

I liked these unexpected green spaces, little oases
of calm in the midst of London. It was hard to believe we were in one of the
world’s busiest cities. Birds sang in the trees, the sun was warm on the top of
my head, and at the front of the church, Christ hung on his cross, still doing
penance for the sins of man.

“It’s nice here,” Magnus said, mirroring my
thoughts.

I made a small sound of agreement, dropping my
empty coffee cup in a bin as we passed it.

“I quite often come here,” I said. “When the
weather’s nice, anyway. It looks pretty in the snow.”

Magnus nodded.

I slipped my arm through the crook of his and leant
against him. He stopped walking, turning to stare at me.

“Is this really wise?” he asked.

I shrugged as best I could with one arm. “Who’s going
to see us here?” I said. “Besides, I don’t care if you don’t.”

“You know I don’t,” he replied. “I just don’t want
you to get into trouble.”

“Fuck Max,” I growled.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Smiling, I hugged him closer. “No worries there.”

“Good.” He kissed the top of my head, and we resumed our
unhurried circuit of the churchyard.

҉҉҉

Work got in the way of me seeing Magnus again for
the rest of the week, but before we parted on Monday, we’d made arrangements
for me to have dinner at his flat on Friday night. As the days passed, I found
myself looking forward to it even more than I usually would. I was on top of
what I needed to do to get the manuscript presentable for my editor, and I was
beyond ready for company. Particularly Magnus’s. I wanted to eat good food and
drink a glass of nice wine, snuggle up against his big furry chest, and watch
something mindless on the TV. I wanted to kiss like unsupervised teenagers,
grind our dicks together, taste his sweat. It had been over a week since we’d
had sex, and despite two years’ abstinence, with Magnus I’d rediscovered my
love for the act.

Carl and I had done it every which way, in every
room of the flat I was living in at the time, in every room of his house and everywhere
in between. Magnus and I were tame by comparison, but I preferred what we had,
liked that he wasn’t pushy, that he didn’t sulk if he thought I was being
reticent. The Owen Barnes who’d bent over on the first date was dead, in his
place a more cautious man who found pleasure in other ways. And Magnus didn’t
seem worried that the only penetrating so far had been done with fingers, and that
only once.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to straddle his lap
and sit on his dick, because the very thought had helped me get off more than
once since we’d met. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, either, because I did, no
matter my trust in all men had taken a battering. When it came down to it,
however, I still wasn’t ready. Given Magnus wasn’t pushing, maybe he wasn’t,
either. Maybe he just wasn’t that into penetrative sex. There was no law which
said we had to do it. The fact neither of us seemed to expect it was
liberating. The most meaningful conversation I’d had with some guys was whether
I was a top or a bottom. With Magnus, none of that mattered.

I showered early and was picking out what underwear
to surprise him with when my phone rang. Seeing Magnus’s name on the screen, I
knocked it onto speaker. “Guess what I’m wearing,” I said, standing naked
before my mirrored wardrobe, holding two pairs of pants against my hips.

Magnus chuckled throatily. “Something scandalous, I
hope?”

“Max would throw a fit.”

“Good.”

“You need me to pick something up?” I asked,
frowning at my reflection. I tossed the black aussieBums I’d been considering
onto the bed and pulled on a pair of white low-rise pants with blue piping
instead. They were like little sailor shorts, and even had an anchor on the
hip. Turning in the mirror, I admired my reflection. It probably wasn’t healthy
how good the right pair of underwear made me feel, but Magnus wasn’t
complaining, and neither was I.

Magnus cleared his throat. “I’m going to have to
cancel tonight.”

I stopped admiring the curve of my arse. “Why?”

“My brother called. His mother-in-law’s been taken
into hospital. It sounds serious, and they need someone to look after Abi.” He
sounded genuinely rueful. “They’re on their way with her now, so I thought it’d
probably be better we rearrange.”

“You’re keeping her all night?”

“God, I hope not.” Magnus laughed. “Even I have my
limits.”

“I can still come over, if you like.” I picked up
the phone and turned off the speaker. Cradling it against my ear, I sat on the
bed. “I’ve missed you,” I said softly.

He breathed into the handset. “I’ve missed you,
too.”

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all week.”

“You have?”

“Mmhm. I’ve picked out my underwear ’specially.
It’s a pair you haven’t seen before.”

Magnus groaned. “That’s not fair.”

“I never agreed to play fair.”

“It’ll be really boring,” he warned. “She’ll
probably want to watch
Tinker Bell
eight times in a row.”

“You have that?”

“I might.”

“Interesting.”

“Don’t judge me,” he growled. “If you’d ever
babysat, you’d understand.”

I sniggered. “No judgment,” I promised. “You
haven’t seen my DVD collection.”

“It isn’t
my
DVD.”

“Whatever you’ve got to tell yourself.”

“Arse.” I heard the affection in his voice, and it
made me smile.

“If it’s a problem, I won’t come over,” I said,
deciding to be diplomatic. My disappointment could get over itself. Maybe
Magnus’s brother wouldn’t want some stranger around his kid, and Magnus was
being too polite to say. That would be understandable.

“There’s no problem,” Magnus said. “I just didn’t
think it’d be much fun for you, being stuck here with a nine-year-old.”

“As long as it’s you and a nine-year-old, I don’t
mind.”

“Seriously?” He sounded sceptical.

“Seriously! What’s the worst she can do?”

Magnus laughed darkly. “You have no idea.”

Undeterred, I told him I’d be there at eight.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tinker Bell
was indeed playing when Magnus
let me in. Abigail ignored my greeting in favour of staring at the screen,
captivated by the antics of a very wilful fairy. “Drink?” Magnus asked, after
we’d exchanged a quick kiss.

“Diet Coke’s fine.”

Magnus pulled a face. “I have to buy this
especially for you,” he groused, taking a can out of the fridge.

“Nectar of the gods,” I replied.

“Cat piss.”

I grinned and took a sip.

“I want Coke!” Abigail said the moment we entered
the lounge.

“What have I told you?” Magnus said. “I want never
gets.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“But I said please!”

“Tough.” Smiling at me, he sat on the sofa next to
his niece. “You’re not allowed fizzy drinks at home, so you’re not allowed them
here.”

I took a seat on the opposite side of the girl. She
was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt with some kind of horse on it. “Is that My
Little Pony?”

Abi nodded, squeezing closer to her uncle. Clearly,
I was still intimidating.

“I had loads of them when I was your age,” I said.

She frowned. “But you’re a boy.”

“So I’ve been told.” My lip twitched, but at a
frown from Magnus, I resolved to behave. “Boys are allowed to like them,” I
said. “And you’re allowed to like Action Man, or whatever it is boys play with
these days.”

Abi shook her head firmly. “Boys are smelly.”

I grinned. “Yes they are.”

She leant against Magnus, her attention fixing
firmly back on the TV, where Tinker Bell was teaching a little girl with a
terrible English accent how to fly. Abi’s mouth moved along with the dialogue, whispering
the words a half-second after the characters. I reclined against the soft
cushions of the couch and resigned myself to a long evening. I wondered what
time she’d fall asleep.

“My Little Pony, eh?” Magnus asked, speaking softly
so as not to disturb Abi.

I grinned at him over the top of her head. “My
mother indulged me.”

“I preferred the Turtles, myself.”

“Who was your favourite?”

“Leonardo.”

I rolled my eyes. “He was
everybody’s
favourite.”

“Who was yours?”

“Raphael, of course. There was something wounded
about him.”

Magnus snorted and shook his head. “Only you.”

“What?” I demanded, putting on my best you-hurt-me
face.

Magnus remained unmoved.

“Are you hungry?” he asked when I was done pouting.

“I could eat.” The original idea had been for me to
dine with Magnus, and despite the plans having been changed, I’d not bothered
getting anything just in case.

“I was going to order something in. What do you
fancy?”

“Chinese?”

“Sounds good.”

Magnus rummaged in the drawer of the table beside
the sofa and produced a battered menu for the local takeaway. “Pick what you
want,” he said, handing it over. “I’ll run out and get it.”

“I want ribs!” Abi demanded, quickly adding a
sheepish “Please” when Magnus glared at her.

“You’ll get ribs if you behave,” he said.

“Please don’t leave me here,” I said in a whisper
when he’d phoned in our order.

He looked uncertainly at Abigail. “You want me to
take her with me?”

“Why don’t I go?” I suggested.

“I’m driving. The takeaway is ten minutes away.”

“Oh. I’ll be fine.” I brushed off his concerns.
“What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You’re sure? I really don’t mind—”

“Go,” I said firmly. “We promise not to burn your
house down.”

He grinned. Rising from the sofa, he pulled on his
coat and returned to give me a quick kiss. “You behave for Owen, you hear?” he
said sternly to his niece.

“Where’s Robbie?” she asked, and a wince crossed
his face.

“Robbie’s living somewhere else now, sweetheart.
You don’t mind Owen, do you?”

“I want Robbie,” she said petulantly.

“Kids.” I laughed uneasily.

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not taking it
personally.”

He gave me a long look.

“Seriously, Magnus. It’s fine.” I smiled. “Go get
the food.”

Pulling the lapels of his coat closer around his
chest, he left.

I settled more comfortably on the couch. Abigail’s
attention was focused on the TV, and I gave thanks for the distraction. God
knows what I’d do if I had to actually
talk
to her. Then again, she
didn’t want to talk to me. She wanted Robbie.

Magnus hadn’t spoken about his ex, and I hadn’t
asked. I had no idea when they’d broken up, or why. Had Robbie lived here with
him? How long had they been together? Did Magnus miss him?

I silently scolded myself. Everything was going
great with Magnus, and he’d never given me the impression I was a rebound fling
or second best. I wasn’t going to get myself worked up over somebody who wasn’t
in his life anymore, even if he had got on better with Abigail. The kid would
come around eventually—or she wouldn’t, and that would be okay, too. Our
relationship didn’t require her approval.

Magnus returned within half an hour, carrying two
thin plastic bags, the rich smell of the food quickly dominating the small
kitchen. I helped him remove cardboard lids from various foil boxes, examining
the contents and matching them with our order. He plated up on the worktop, giving
Abi a small bowl of fried rice and sweet and sour chicken, a couple of spare
ribs on the side covered in rich red sauce. We split the remainder between us,
heaping the plates high with soft noodles and tender meat in various savoury
sauces. We carried the food into the lounge, and Magnus handed Abi her bowl and
a spoon with strict instructions not to spill a thing. I deposited a bag of
prawn crackers on the floor before the sofa and dug in.

By the time we were finished eating, the plates and
Abi’s bowl piled on the small table beside Magnus’s arm of the couch, rib bones
picked clean and the prawn crackers half gone, we were halfway through the
second playing of the Tinker Bell movie, and Abi was leaning heavily against
Magnus. I smiled to see him so relaxed, an arm around his niece, his attention
captured by the film, no matter he’d protested earlier he only put it on for
her benefit.

He lifted his finger to his lips as I opened my
mouth to speak, nodding significantly at Abi, whose head had dropped onto his
stomach, eyelids drooping, close to sleep. I glanced at my phone and saw with
surprise it was gone ten o’clock. No wonder she was crashing.

By ten thirty, she was fast asleep. Magnus eased
out from under her, settled her gently on the cushions, and covered her with
the bright throw from the back of the couch.

“I thought she’d never nod off,” he said, pitching
his voice low to avoid disturbing her.

“Ryan says they all crash eventually. It’s a case
of waiting them out.”

Magnus grinned. “Ryan’s right.”

I picked up the remote and paused the DVD. “Want to
watch something else?”

“No.” Magnus tugged my hand, pulling me to my feet.
“I want to talk to you. I haven’t seen you all week. How’s the writing going?”

I leant against him, wrapping my arms around his
waist. “The writing’s okay. I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

The kiss we shared was brief, but spoke volumes. I
laughed as Magnus turned with me in his arms, sat on the couch, and pulled me
into his lap.

“What are you doing?” I asked, smiling and
wriggling to get more comfortable.

“Making room for both of us without disturbing madam—ow!
Your arse is bony!”

“Sorry.” I wriggled again until he stopped
complaining. “Better?”

“Just.”

I grinned. “I could always move.”

“Don’t you dare.” Magnus hugged me to him, linking
his fingers to lock me in place.

I slung my arm around his neck, still trying to
find a position in which we were both comfortable. The buckle of his belt was
digging into my hip, but the discomfort was tolerable, the heat from his thick
body through a thin T-shirt more than making up for it.

“No eyeliner today?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t wear it often.”

“It suits you.”

“You’re saying my eyes are too small?”

“No, I’m saying eyeliner suits you. It makes you
look like a rock star.”

I laughed. “My mum says I apply it wrong. I smudge
it too much.”

“She’s okay with it?”

“I was an unusual kid. My parents were resigned to
it from an early age.”

“How were you unusual?”

“In all the usual ways, if that’s not an oxymoron.
Didn’t like sport or play any of the boys’ games.”

“Ah, yes. My Little Pony.” Magnus nodded sagely.

“Piss off.” I gave him a playful poke. “I suppose
you were on the football team and everything.”

“Rugby,” he admitted.

“So that’s how it started. Squatting for all those
burly boys, reaching between their legs, showering together afterwards….” I
waggled my eyebrows.

Magnus laughed. “I think you watch too much porn.
It was cold, dirty, and hurt like hell when I got tackled. Nothing sexy about
it.”

“So you weren’t lusting after the captain?”

“Not exactly.”

“The coach?”

He snorted. “Definitely not!”

“There must have been somebody,” I persisted. “Some
cute boy you were in class with?”

“Maybe.” He smiled. “What about you?”

“There might have been one or two,” I admitted.

“Your parents knew?”

I nodded. “I’m pretty sure they’d guessed by the
time I was five. I told them when I was fourteen.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Well, they asked. I wasn’t exactly being subtle.
To be honest, it was a relief getting it out there.”

“I can understand that.”

“What about you? When did you tell your parents?”

“I told my brother first, when I was seventeen. I’d
just split with my first boyfriend. It wasn’t even much of a relationship, but
I still felt like my heart was broken.” He paused, remembering. “It’s odd. I
always thought I’d tell Georgie first, but it was Eric who wouldn’t let me off
the hook.”

Georgie was his sister, I knew. “Who’s the oldest?”
I asked.

“Georgina. She’s five years older than me, two
older than Eric.”

“So you’re the baby?”

He nodded.

“Aww.” I rubbed our noses together. “Did they look
out for you?”

“Eric did. He always took the big brother bit
seriously. Georgie was too old, really. She played a lot with me when I was
little, but we were never in the same school, and she left for uni when I was
thirteen. I only really saw her on weekends after that.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a midwife.”

I pulled a face. “Rather her than me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re squeamish?”

“A bit,” I admitted. “I can think of better things
to do than look at
that
all day.”

“I don’t think she does it because she can’t get enough
of looking at lady bits,” Magnus said dryly. “There’s the small matter of seeing
babies being born.”

I shuddered delicately. “Still rather her than me.
She didn’t help with Abi, did she?”

“God no!” Magnus started. “Can you imagine?”

“Yeah, that would be weird.”

“Although, I don’t think Lorna would have cared
when it came down to it,” he said. “She was in labour for about twenty hours.”

“Ouch.” I winced. “I’m bad enough when I stub my
toe.”

We laughed.

“What’s wrong with her mum?” I asked when we’d lapsed
back into comfortable silence.

“I’m not sure.” He frowned. “She’s been having
tests for months, something to do with her heart. I hope everything’s okay.
She’s a good woman.”

I rubbed his shoulder consolingly. “I’m sure it
will be.”

“I hope you’re right.”

I gave him a small smile and a quick kiss, then
rested my head against his, my arms around his neck. He brushed his fingertips
across my flank, and I made a small sound of contentment in the back of my
throat, closing my eyes and letting myself drift. I’d glossed over the progress
I’d made on the manuscript because I was sure he wouldn’t really understand,
but I was exhausted. I’d read it over so many times, the words had become flat
and lifeless to my eyes, the plot plodding and predictable. I knew enough to
trust my editors and publishers when they said the book would be good, but it
wasn’t there yet.

People think writing is a wishy-washy sort of
occupation, not realising manuscripts have to be bullied into shape, whole
chapters cut or rewritten, characters’ motivations tweaked or twisted or, in
some cases, completely slashed and burnt. It had taken me almost a week to make
the majority of the changes my editor wanted, but there was still work to be
done. Probably the most depressing thing of all, the actual length of the book
had barely changed. A layman glancing over the submitted manuscript and the
revised draft would be forgiven for thinking nothing had changed between the
two. It felt like I’d spent a week busting my gut for nothing.

Magnus ran his hand through my hair, gently teasing
the long strands at my nape, and I repeated a little groan of contentment. I
was dangerously close to falling asleep on his lap, just like Abi before me.
The thought made me smile. There was something comforting about his big body,
something that made me feel instinctively safe. He smelled of sandalwood and Chinese
food, security and domesticity. I hoped I didn’t drool on him if I nodded off.

I started at an abrasive buzzing sound from the
door. “That’ll be Eric,” Magnus said, sliding me off his lap and standing.

I stretched languidly as he crossed the room to let
his brother in. The display on my phone read eleven thirty.

Magnus returned, followed by a man who bore a
striking resemblance to him and a small, tired-looking woman, her bobbed hair
the same shade of blonde as Abi’s, although I suspected the colour wasn’t
entirely natural. Introductions were made and I rose to shake Eric’s hand. He
stood a couple of inches taller than Magnus, his hair almost black where
Magnus’s was definitely brown, streaked through with grey. His hand was large
and warm, his grip firm without being crushing. When he smiled, it reached his
eyes.