Crystals (4 page)

“Well, that’s good
then, ain’t it,” he said giving her a kiss. “Come on let’s go.”

This was the first
time she was going to Shane’s place and she was excited. He’d been boasting
about his cooking skills and Crystal couldn’t wait to taste whatever he plated
up.

He had told her
that he was a mechanic and that he lived and worked in the same building, so
she was prepared for something industrial looking from outside. What she wasn’t
ready for was the sight of his huge loft.

“Oh, my God, Shane
this place is fantastic!”

“Um… yeah, it’s
okay.”

“Okay… okay. Are
you bloody joking? You have to let me decorate it for you.”

“What’s the matter
with how it looks now?”

“Well, for a
start, Lofts call for designated areas. You’re going to need a living area and
an office area. And we’re going to have to put up a partition to separate your
bedroom. If we don’t get you organized you’ll just end up living in chaos.”

Crystal was
chatting so much she never noticed his skeptical look or when he shrugged and
walked away. Nor did she consider the fact that he’d been living just fine in
chaos
as she termed it for years. In her head she was already planning out every
detail of the changes she was going to make.

Rummaging through
her portfolio case, she withdrew a pad and pencil and got to work on some
sketches. Lost in what she was doing, she paid him no attention until he all
but shouted her name.

Rushing over to
where he was standing by the stove, she followed the direction of his gaze. Her
hand slapped over her mouth to hold in her laughter.

Shane had
attempted to cook her Caribbean food. He had already dished out what looked
like overcooked boiled plantain and yellow yam. But he wasn’t looking at that.
His gaze was on pieces of white fluff that floated on the surface of a pot.

“Do these look
right to you, Crys,” he asked as he poked at the white misshapen balls with a
frown.

“You’re supposed
to use plain flour not self-raising for boiled dumplings.”

“Shit! Dizzy never
told me that!”

“It’s okay,
everything else looks lovely,” she lied.

“Like shite it
does. Come on, let’s go to the pub.”

That night they
made love for the first time and, for Crystal, it was one of the most beautiful
experiences of her life.

To redeem himself,
the next night he attempted the same meal, and this time he got it right and it
was delicious. The man could cook.

~~~

Present Date

Shane often
thought of his mother and the visit they had made to Ireland. Now, only vague
memories of the old man remained. However, what had never faded from his mind
was the affection he’d felt between his mother and her grandfather. He
remembered that he too had wanted to experience that feeling of closeness with
someone, and with Crystal, he knew that he did.

Apart from that
one occasion, no matter how hard he tried, his recollections of his mother
were always tinged
with bleakness. Refusing to allow gloomy
thoughts to spoil the afternoon he had planned, he consciously relegated
thoughts of Molly to the back of his mind.

Minutes later
hands covered his eyes. He had heard her the moment she’d opened the front
door, but it always amused him that she thought she could sneak up on him.

“Happy birthday,
love!”

“You could at
least act surprised!” Crystal huffed.

“Yeah, I could.”
Shane laughed as she removed her hands.

Spinning around in
his chair, he took a good look at the woman who had unexpectedly become his
world. To him, Crystal was beautiful. He especially loved her upturned nose
that looked haughty even as her mouth belied the impression. As usual, she was
immaculately dressed. It made no difference where she was going, she never
seemed to have a hair out of place—except after they had made love.

He had worked hard
at isolating his emotions. Yet, out of nowhere, he’d gotten close to her and it
had taken less than two years. In that relatively short period of time, Crystal
Buchanan had somehow managed to burrow under his defenses. She was now so
important to him, he sometimes awoke in the middle of the night with his body
covered in sweat thinking she had left him. When he realized it was only a
dream, his anxiety would slowly ebb away.

“How’s my
toy-boy?” Crystal asked bending to give him a kiss on his scruffy cheek.

“I’m your toy-boy,
now am I?”

“It’s my birthday,
so that makes me officially twenty-five to your twenty-four.”

“Okay, you can
have this one, but I’ll have caught up by next month,” Shane replied pulling
her onto his lap. “I missed ya, love!”

“I missed you
too.”

“So what do I have
to do to get a kiss from the birthday girl?”

“Oh, ya want a
kiss, do ya?” Crystal asked mimicking his cockney accent as she ran a hand over
his face.

“I love it when
you touch me, all soft and gentle like that,” Shane murmured as his head turned
to follow the path of her fingers and culminated with a kiss on her palm.

“What else do you
love?” Crystal teased as she took his face between her hands and rested her
forehead against his.

“Fast cars and
faster women.”

“Is there even an
ounce of romance in your bones?”

“I reckon I can be
as romantic as the next bloke. All I need is the right motivation.”

“May I remind you
it’s
my
birthday,” She teased.

Without waiting
for a response, she kissed him just the way she knew he liked it, slow and
easy. There was no rush. They had the whole afternoon to spend together. For
now, all he wanted was to feel the softness of her lips against his.

She felt so good
to him with her breasts pressed against his chest that he deepened the kiss.
Shane moved his tongue against hers with a slowness that caused his body to
harden and his breath to accelerate.

For him, it was
always like this. All it took was a few minutes in her company for him to want
to make love to her. Pulling back before they
got carried
away, he stood up. Crystal’s legs immediately wrapped around his waist and he
laughed.

“God, when did you
turn into such a lazy lump?”

“Oh, you want to
talk about lumps do you? Well, let’s address this one.” Crystal smiled as she
anchored herself with an arm around his neck, and palmed his erection, and
squeezed none too gently.

“Leave off will
ya. Ya need to handle him with care.”

“I thought this
was my birthday present.”

“Well ya thought
right, but I’ve got something else for you as well. If you let go of me dick
for two minutes, I’ll get it.”

“Geez,” Crystal
sighed in mock exasperation as she slid down his body. “To hear you talk,
anyone would think I was some kind of pervert.”

“Don’t worry, you
can perv on me dick later.”

“Well, maybe I
won’t be interested later.”

“I thought you
were supposed to be the adult in this relationship!” Shane laughed at her sulky
expression.

“You are such a
fuc
–”

“Jesus, Mary and
Joseph! If Queen Gwendolyn Buchanan could only hear Princess Crystal’s
language, she would rend, yes, rend apart her silken lawyer robes.”

“Shut up you
fool!”

“Do you want your
present or not?”

“Yes please,”
Crystal said giving him her cutest smile.

Shane strolled
over to a table near the front door and picked up a brown paper bag. By the
time he turned around, she was standing directly behind him. Holding the bag
above his head, he shooed her away.

“Lord, Shane,
couldn’t you have wrapped it up?”

“For that, I
should make ya wait before ya open it.”

“You probably
don’t even know how to wrap a gift for a lady, do you?”

“Lady, my arse.
More like a kid on Christmas morning.”

“May I please have
my birthday present?”

As he lowered the
bag, Crystal grabbed it out of his hand and rushed over to the sofa. In her
eagerness, he thought she would rip the bag apart to see what was inside. To
his surprise, she did the complete opposite. With great care, she took her time
unfolding the paper. Then she pulled the wrapping apart, looked at him and
smiled, before returning her attention to her gift.

Reaching into the
bag, Crystal pulled out its content. “Oh,” she gushed, “you bought me a… rock!
It’s a very lovely rock, Shane, thank you.”

She was doing it
again. She was about to make him laugh. It was obvious she had no idea what she
was looking at. Yet her emotional reaction to what she supposed was a rock
touched him. Striding over to the sofa, he sat down beside her. First he looked
down at his gift and then turned his piercing gaze to his love.

“I know it looks
like just a piece of rock, but it’s called
Amazonite
. It’s a crystal.”
When he had her full attention, he continued. “Sometimes Amazonite is referred
to as the Amazon stone–”

“Like the mythical
female warriors?”

“Exactly,” he
smiled. “Mythology says that the Amazonian warriors used this quartz to
decorate their shields. But that’s not why I chose it for ya. I got it because
you’ve just started your business. Apparently, Amazonite is supposed to bring
prosperity and protect against any
fuc
…people who
want to mess with ya. It’s also supposed to bring ya new customers and make ya
loads of money.”

“Do you believe
all that,” Crystal asked with an incredulous glance.

“Do
I
fuc
…um, no but I like the
thoughts behind it.”

“I do too. Thank
you. ‘I’ll always treasure it.”

Shane turned his
attention to the stone. In her hand, Crystal held a piece of turquoise rock
with spider-like veins of white running through it. On the outer ends, there
were two thicker bands of white that looked like flashes of lightning. On the
rough edges and throughout the stone, flecks of gold were also visible. Looking
up, he saw that she too studied the quartz, her fingers running over its rough
surface.

“I’ve got
something else–”

“You got me
another present?”

Shane couldn’t
help laughing at her eagerness at the thought of another gift. “Nah, this is
for me. But I suppose in a roundabout way, it’s for you as well.”

At her blank look,
he got up and walked to his desk. When he returned, he carried an envelope.
Retaking his seat, he licked his lips as he stared down at the thin package
that he had yet to open.

“Oh my God, Shane,
it finally came!”

“Yeah.”

“Why haven’t you
opened it?”

“I was waiting for
you.”

“Well, I’m here
now, so go ahead and open that thing.”

“What if they said
no, Crys?”

“Of course they
haven’t. I believe in you, Shane Tierney. I may not have the faintest idea what
this new nose cone means to the racing world, but I know you do. Plus, you’re a
brilliant engineer, so how could they say, no.”

“Thanks, love.
Here, open it for me.”

Shane handed her
the envelope and fixed his gaze on her face as he waited.

He heard the
reluctant release of the glue as she pulled the sticky flap of the envelope
apart. Next came the rustling of the paper as she unfolded the letter. In his
mind’s eye, he could see her fingers at work. His heart was thumping so hard he
had to exert all his concentration not to hyperventilate.

To date, this was
the single most important moment of his life, and he was glad Crystal was there
to share it with him. Her eyes remained lowered as she read the letter.

When she finally
looked at him, she had tears in her eyes and a part of him had already known
what the outcome would be. He had poured all his efforts into getting it right.
He had been working on the design of his new nose cone since he was sixteen
years old. He had built all his hopes and dreams around the success of his Drag
Reduction System, or D.R.S. as it
was known
in Formula
1.

He’d been here
before with the refusal of his patent. Making this work had been his sole focus
for so long, he had used all his spare money and his free time to make it work.

Being granted the
patent would have meant he would have had something to guarantee their future.
It would have been the foundation on which he could say the words
I love you
.
Without it, he had nothing tangible to offer her, nothing except his love. And
who could live on love.

“They passed it,
Shane.”

“What?”

“They said yes!”

“Why are ya crying
if they said, yes?”