Laura's Big Break (12 page)

“Do you want your sandwich?’

Laura smiled before pushing the plate towards him. She hadn’t had much of an appetite anyway. He’d been watching her push the food around for almost an hour.

“Thanks.”

As he reached for the food, he pressed closer into her. Her eyes widened. Her cheeks flushed. He felt her hand on his thigh and his pulse quickened. She made tiny circular motions with her thumb and it drove him wild.

“Another drink?” he said.

“Diet Coke,” she told him.

Her hand slid to his inner thigh. He briefly wondered if it would be crass to move it to where he really wanted her to touch. Yeah. Probably best to wait. Bummer.

He pushed the plate away, relaxed back into the booth and put an arm around her. She didn’t resist when he pulled her tight against him. That was better.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he told her.

She smiled like she knew it.

“Why don’t we get out of here?”

She motioned towards the window.

“It isn’t dark yet.”

That one sentence took his breath away. He’d been watching too. All his plans for the tent needed darkness. Still, he wasn’t sure if they were on the same page.

“We could go to a motel,” he said quietly.

Laura looked up at him. A small smile curled her lips.

“I’m kind of attached to the tent.”

It didn’t answer his question. The band started to play. He ran his fingers up and down Laura’s arm making her shiver. A woman came to the table selling tickets for an outdoor gig later in the week. He bought two just to make her go away. Laura moved her hand to his stomach. His muscles tensed. He leaned towards her ear. He had to know.

“Are we on the same page?” he said.

He felt her grin. She moved so that she could talk in his ear instead of shouting over the music.

“Well, I was planning to have sex in the tent. What were you planning?”

His mouth went dry. Before he could say anything else she spoke again.

“What do you say Charlie? Do you want to sleep with me?”

Blood rushed from his head to the more important parts of his body. He wanted to shout: ‘yes, one hundred percent, yes’. Instead he wove his fingers into her long hair and angled her head so that he could see her face. Slowly, deliberately, he kissed her lips. She melted against him. He could feel her heart beat pounding right through his chest. It took all his self-control to end the kiss. He moved to her ear.

“You know, sweet cakes, just once, I would like to be the one who says those words.”

That made her smile.

He pulled her tight against him while they listened to the music. Laura’s hand drifted under his shirt to caress his chest and he kept a close eye on the sky outside the window. Crazy woman. He had absolutely no idea what to make of her, but at least, for this night anyway, he knew what to do with her. That made him grin. He kissed her hair.

Laura was in a daze. Her brain had left her body and it was all Charlie’s fault. All she could think about was getting her hands on him. They made it back to the campsite in pitch blackness. All around them were the sounds of night, low mumbled conversation, and soft laughter. Charlie held her hand tightly as though he expected her to bolt. She wasn’t going to. She didn’t want to. Not tonight.

Charlie crawled into her new, and larger, tent. He reached for her to come in after him. Laura did as she was told.

“Okay,” Laura said. “We’re doing this huh?”

Charlie didn’t say anything. Instead he reached for the bottom of her t-shirt and pulled it over her head.

“I guess that’s a yes.”

He shook his head slightly, before bending over and taking her nipple in his mouth. He sucked her through the lace of her bra as his hands held her waist tightly. Laura swayed as her breath quickened. At last he stopped and sat up to look at her. It took effort to open her eyes, her eyelids were so heavy.

“That’s a yes,” he said.

And then his mouth was on hers. Laura grabbed at his t-shirt, making him stop kissing her to take it off. She didn’t know what to touch first, all of that muscle. She ran her hands wherever she could reach as his tongue stroked her lips.

“Let’s get these off,” he growled as he tugged at her jeans.

She wriggled to get them off, but there wasn’t enough space, they fell over onto one another with Laura’s jeans trapped around her knees.

“Wait a minute,” Charlie said. “I can get them.”

He knelt beside her, grabbed the top of her jeans and pulled. They came off too fast. He lost his balance on the edge of her replacement air bed and fell into the side of the tent. It knocked her bike over and it crashed to the ground. They stilled. Fortunately, no one rushed to see what the racket was.

“Okay,” Charlie said at last. “Where were we?”

He lay beside her on the mattress. They wriggled to get into position. It wasn’t built for two and as Charlie leaned in to kiss her there was a pop and a hiss. The mattress deflated beneath them. They lay still until they hit the ground.

“We can still do this,” he said determinedly.

“Yes. We can,” Laura said, although she was beginning to have her doubts.

Charlie ran his hand down the length of her body, leaving a trail of tingling flesh in its wake. That was more like it. Gently he kissed from her shoulder up to her neck. Laura bit her lip as she reached for him.

“Wait,” she said. “Do you have condoms handy?”

He stopped dead.

“I meant to buy some,” he said dejectedly.

Laura pushed him away from her.

“I don’t have any either.”

Charlie plopped on the ground beside her. They both stared at the roof of the tent.

“Well this is a disaster,” Charlie said at last.

Laura started to giggle. It bubbled out of her until she was clutching her sides from laughing so hard; through it all she could hear Charlie laughing along with her.

When they calmed down he pulled her towards him, wrapped his arm around her and held her tight against his chest.

“Next time better,” he said. “Promise.”

“Well, it couldn’t be worse, moron.”

He kissed the top of her head before pulling the sleeping bag over them. Laura smiled contentedly and fell asleep listening to the steady rhythm of his strong heart.

“So, you’re never getting married?”

Laura had discovered, much to her disgust, that Dutch people mainly ate sandwiches for breakfast. Fortunately most cafes offered pastries as an alternative. She tucked into a large croissant and waited for the answer.

“I won’t say never, but it’s not on my list, no.”

As usual Charlie was eating enough food for a small army. Plus, he’d made the waitress leave the full coffee pot on the table beside him.

“That’s way too much caffeine,” Laura told him.

“I need it.” He gave her a pointed look. “Someone kept waking me up last night with her wandering hands.”

Laura flushed and reminded herself again that the first thing she needed to do was buy condoms. It had been a very long and very frustrating night.

“So,” she brought the conversation back to marriage, “why not? Too many women, not enough time?”

She prodded him with her toe under the table. Every movement seemed to take the most amount of effort. She felt like her bones had been removed and replaced with jelly. She needed sleep or sex, probably both, and she needed them fast.

“Marriage just isn’t for me.”

She scowled at him which made him grin.

“Enough with the interrogation already. I just don’t see myself in the suburbs raising kids and worrying about dental bills and football games. It sounds so…”

“…boring?”

“Exactly.”

He handed her the Danish pastry on the edge of his plate without her having to ask.

“And?” she prompted.

She might not be the investigative journalist she’d always dreamed of becoming, but she could tell when Charlie was holding back. He got the same constipated look that his sister did.

“Fine.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, which meant it was. “When I was in the army I saw the toll it took on the married guys. They were out there every day risking their lives, living half a world away from their families. They missed a lot. They heard about baby steps and first teeth via Skype. And they worried what life would be like for their families if they didn’t make it back. I kept thinking about the strain on everyone. I don’t know how they did it. I couldn’t do it.”

She pointed her coffee spoon at him.

“But you don’t have to do it. You left the army, remember? So you don’t have to leave a wife and kids to go off to war.”

“Yeah, but I can’t stay at home with them either. I’d drive us all nuts.”

“That’s true,” she conceded. “So why did you leave? You’re the poster boy for bravery right now, not to mention easy on the eye. The army must want you back in the worst way.”

His face closed off a little.

“It was the right time.”

“I don’t get it.”

She thought he wouldn’t answer her, that he would back off completely, instead he gave her a sad lopsided smile.

“I’m a coward, short stuff, I can’t hack it.”

Laura stilled with the pastry halfway to her mouth. She didn’t know what to say. He held her gaze.

“Those kids, remember?”

She nodded; suddenly she didn’t have any appetite.

“We put them in danger. We killed them. In that uniform we paint a target on ourselves and the people around us. Those guys,” he rubbed a hand over his face, “they know that, but they know how essential it is for them to be there. The good outweighs the bad. They’re not just fighting for the rest of us, but because it’s right. That’s where I fell down. The fact I made everyone into a target outweighed everything else.” He paused. “Ergo, no army for me.”

“You’re not a coward.” Laura said, mainly because she didn’t know what else to say.

“I joined for the excitement, then it bit me in the backside. Those people actually needed me.”

She looked around for the right thing to say. She couldn’t see it in the busy square or the town hall that was built in the Middle Ages.

“It’s not a bad thing to realise,” she said at last.

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s kind of counter to my life motto.”

“Party hard?”

He laughed and she felt relieved.

“Yeah, but I might go back, just not with the army. I got to know a guy who runs
Medicine International
; they’re like
Doctors without Borders
. They set up clinics all over the place and they always need people. I might do something with them.”

He shrugged like it was nothing. Laura’s mouth went dry. He was planning to go back to Afghanistan without the backing of the army? Without guns? And he thought he wasn’t brave?

“Don’t look at me like that; I’m in it for the rush remember? Boredom equals death. This is not a bid for sainthood.”

Laura grinned wryly. He actually looked like he believed himself. And maybe he did mean it. Maybe it was all about the excitement. He was a lot like her best friend in that way. Maddie was all about her latest idea, her next exciting thing and Charlie was born with itchy feet. Something clicked in her head.

“That’s why you became a doctor. A profession that would take you anywhere.”

She smiled triumphantly.

“Good try, Sherlock, but no that’s not why I became a doctor.” He bit off half of a giant cheese sandwich while he studied her. She vaguely wondered if she had food in her hair. “Actually, you were the reason I became a doctor.”

Wow, she really didn’t see that one coming.

“When I was in my last year at school wondering what to do with my life, well, what to study at least, you informed me that I was a complete loser. That I was wasting my brain and talent for dealing with people and that it was my responsibility to get off my backside and make a difference with my life.”

Laura honestly couldn’t remember ever saying anything to him. It was back in the days when she was struggling with her crush on him. And being Laura her crush didn’t mean she got to look at him with rose coloured glasses, nope she saw reality. So she swayed between lusting after him and being repelled by how shallow he was. Now that she thought of it, it was just the kind of thing she would have said to him if she’d had a chance.

Charlie’s eyes twinkled at her.

“I do believe your exact words were – use your God given ability or lose it, moron.”

She cringed.

“In my defence, I was very young.”

“And yet so wise.”

“So boring.”

“Or sensible.”

“I’m beginning to think that sensible is just another word for repressed,” she scoffed.

“Well, since you brought it up. I can help with that repression. One night with me and you’ll be wondering what the words sensible and self-control actually mean.”