Second Chances (17 page)

Chapter Thirty

ALLEGRA MUST HAVE punched the number into her phone a dozen times and deleted it without making the call. Can’t be doing my RSI any good, she mused, clenching and unclenching her fist and flapping her wrist around to try to ease the discomfort. But she’d tried everyone else she could think of, and he was the last person who might possibly be able to help her out.

The
thought of calling him, however, sent a chill of nervous trepidation down her spine. How had things become so weird that she couldn’t even make a simple phone call? To speak to him, endure some pleasant small talk before getting to the point? So she sighed, decided “WTF”, and punched the numbers into her phone again. Thirteenth time lucky, she told herself. She heard the ring tone, and then he answered.

‘Hello, angel… How’re you doing?’ Damn caller display, now she didn’t even have the chance to hang up without speaking because he knew exactly who it was that had called him. She took a deep breath and plunged in; both of them being polite and chatty and friendly, both wondering when she would get round to saying what she had actually called to say.

‘Ummn… listen, I was wondering if I could get some smoke off you,’ she finally said, hesitantly. She crossed her fingers, hoping Jack would just say yes and that would be that. The last thing she wanted was a lecture on the evils of smoking dope, or an inquisition on why she wanted the stuff, what the occasion was, etcetera. Sure enough, there was a pause on the other end of the line.

‘Yeah, sure, angel, no worries… how much do you need?’ he asked. She could hear the uncertainty in his voice. She knew that he smoked the stuff himself and was more than happy to pass spliffs around company, but he wasn’t comfortable about “supplying” it to anyone.

‘Not a lot; in fact, if you could just give me a couple of joints that would be great… When can I meet up with you? I’d like to have it for Friday night.’

‘Sure… why don’t you drop by my place Thursday evening? I’ll have it all ready for you.’

He’d
have it “all ready” for her, Allegra thought, a dull ache starting in her heart. “All ready”, so that she could just knock on his door, hand over the cash, and leave; “all ready” so that there need be no reason for him to pause for even the most inane of chats. Oh well. She could hardly have expected anything else. Things had got weird. It was that simple. She didn’t know how or why.

Never
mind. Move on, move on. If only her stupid heart would let her. And if she could just stop having those bloody dreams… dreams of her and Jack, naked, kissing… She shook her head. Don’t even start thinking about that.

That
Thursday, she nearly went mad trying to decide what to wear, and in the end, having gone through her entire wardrobe, decided it was all a pointless waste of time anyway and any effort she made to look nice or special would just be futile and end up making her feel worse. She didn’t even bother with “nice” underwear, which she had taken to wearing not because she thought there was any hope of… well, anything, but simply to try to make herself feel better. It didn’t, of course. It just made her cry every night when she went home alone, took it all off and thought how foolish she was to even bother.

So
when she finally got into the car, she was wearing baggy camouflage cargos, an old sleeveless black t-shirt which she liked because it made her shoulders look nice, she thought, and flip-flops, which she took off in the car because she could only drive barefoot.

It
was freezing, but she didn’t care. If she was cold, maybe she’d be too cold to think about what she was doing. Her mind on autopilot, concentrating on the road, but she was nonetheless surprised to find herself outside Jack’s flat without having had a major accident. She couldn’t remember the drive at all. She switched the engine off and sat there, gathering her strength, staring into space.

Finally,
she ran her hands through her hair, grabbed her purse and keys and got out of the car. Bugger the flip-flops, she’d be back in the car in two minutes anyway. A smile firmly fixed on her face, she rang the doorbell. First, silence, then she heard his footsteps approaching and the door unlocked. He stood there, beaming.

‘Hello angel,’ he said, giving her a perfunctory peck on the cheek. ‘Come on up, I’m not quite ready for you.’

This
was a turn for the books. Allegra wasn’t sure she liked it. She’d rather have just taken the smoke and run, if truth be told. That’s what she’d been mentally preparing herself for anyway; now her whole emotional self-preservation gameplan was shot to hell, thanks to him. Bastard. Men are all bastards, she thought. Still, she couldn’t just stand on his doorstep, so she followed him up to his flat and hovered awkwardly at the sitting room door, unsure of what to do next.

‘Sit, sit,’ he said, waving her in. ‘I won’t be long.’

He
disappeared into the bedroom — well, she assumed it was his bedroom, she had no idea — so she perched on the edge of a footstool, wishing he’d hurry up so that she could just go. It was possibly the longest three minutes of her life before he re-emerged, holding out two spliffs for her. As she moved to take them, shivering now because the cold had finally got to her, he suddenly held them out of her reach. She looked up at him, feeling mildly irritated now.

‘What? Oh… right. Okay, how much do I owe you?’ she said, opening her purse. She glanced at him; was he looking worried or angry? She couldn’t tell. Maybe both. But why? She was a big girl, she thought, she was not about to be lectured or made to beg by some jumped-up little —

‘Why do you want them?’ he asked, no longer smiling, interrupting her train of thought. Oh Christ, here it came, the lecture. Allegra stared back at him, equally unsmiling.

‘I don’t think that’s any of your concern, is it?’ she said, flatly.

‘I think it is my concern,’ he said.

She
could see the muscles in his jaw clench. Stupid jerk, who did he think he was? ‘Really? And why would that be?’ she asked, her eyes cold and angry now.

‘Because I care about you and I’m afraid you’re going to do something really stupid. You know and I both know that you can’t handle this stuff,’ he said, his voice rising slightly.

‘Right. You care about me. Well, thank you for your concern, but if you could just hand those over and tell me how much I owe you, I can be on my way and you won’t have to waste any more of your time caring about me.’

Allegra
was standing now, they were both on their feet, glaring at each other. Jesus, she thought, how the hell did it come to this? I should never have come here. And my feet are really freezing now. She snapped her purse shut and folded her arms across her chest.

‘First you tell me what’s up. There’s something going on, and I don’t like it. I don’t like the idea that you’re planning to do yourself harm.’ There was a strange glint in Jack’s eyes. He really was angry.

Allegra
snorted. She couldn’t help herself. Do herself “harm”? With two spliffs? She was sick and tired of hearing how she was a lightweight, how she couldn’t handle anything. Anyway, it was just none of his damn business. Staring at him, something inside her finally snapped.

‘Fine. You want to know? I’ll tell you. I’m going to go meet a nice man, a perfectly nice, sweet, pleasant man, who is lovely to me and likes me, and I’m going to go to bed with him. It’s a sympathy fuck, you see. He’s volunteered a no-strings shag and I decided I’m going to take him up on it. But in order for me to go through with it, I need those…’

Oh
hell. Allegra heard the wobble in her voice. Dammit, don’t cry, don’t you dare fucking cry! Too late. She glared at Jack, furious with him, furious with herself, tears silently coursing down her face.

‘But… why, Allegra?’ Jack’s voice was a little softer, a little more gentle. ‘Why?’

‘Because, like Mount Everest, he’s there. Because the man I really want doesn’t want me.’ She dashed the tears away angrily, still glaring, daring him to say something else that would make her even angrier, make her cry more.

‘How do you know he doesn’t want you?’

‘Because I just know, okay? It’s as simple as that. He’s made it crystal-clear. That it’s never going to happen. So when this other guy offered to pinch-hit, I finally figured, fuck it, why not. Because at least for a while I can pretend to myself that someone does care about me. Because at least for a while I can pretend to myself that I care about him. Because at least for a while I can close my eyes and pretend he’s the guy I actually want to be with.’

Allegra
had to stop, had to try to breathe normally, to slow down the big, heaving gulps of air she was taking in.

‘Have you asked him? Not this guy. The other one. The one you like. Have you actually, really, seriously asked him?’

Jack
had taken a step closer to her, gently stroking her bare arm as she clutched her purse to her chest.

‘I… I don’t… No. I don’t know how. I don’t know what I would say to him,’ she whispered miserably, trying to move her arm away from him. ‘Please… don’t touch me. I couldn’t do it anyway. I know he’ll say no, he’ll be disgusted, he’ll reject me… and I don’t think I could stand it. How can I say anything to him when I’m this scared?’

‘Maybe you don’t actually have to say anything,’ Jack said, his voice sounding odd. ‘Maybe what you need to do is just look up into his eyes…’

He
took her purse from her hands, dropped it onto the table and lifted her chin, forcing her to look up at him. ‘And then maybe you should just put your hands on his chest… yes, like that… move your arms around his neck… reach up so that your faces are almost touching… just like this…’

His
lips were brushing her cheek, his breath hot on her face. ‘Then… kiss him and see what happens…’

‘What if he doesn’t kiss me back?’ Allegra whispered, her heart pounding.

‘He will… I promise you that. He wants to. So badly that he can’t think about anything else. That the thought of you going to bed with anyone else makes him feel sick with jealousy.’

He
traced the path of her tears with his finger. ‘He will kiss you back… I swear it…’

She
kissed him. A small, soft kiss, not quite on the mouth, and when he didn’t pull away, when he didn’t push her from him, she kissed him again. This time, he kissed her back. It was long kiss, growing less uncertain, more ardent. Lips parted, she felt his tongue tentatively flicker against hers. Forgetting everything else, she responded and then they were really kissing, deep, hard, with a strange but wonderful urgency, as if they had so much lost time to make up for.

Finally,
they came up for air and she gazed at him, still not entirely sure if she’d done the right thing; maybe he kissed her back out of pity?

‘See? I told you he’d kiss you back…’

Jack
grinned, kissed her on the nose and swept her off her feet. ‘I told you he wanted to…’ He carried her into the bedroom. ‘I told you that’s all he could think of…’

He
lowered her onto his bed and moved on top of her, his legs between hers, raising himself up on his arms to look down at her. ‘Actually, I may have been wrong about that last part. Kissing you wasn’t all he could think of… He can think of lots of other things he’d like to do as well…’

Allegra
pulled him down to her and then everything melted into a blur of clothes being torn off; then somehow, he was inside her and they were moving together, faster, faster, until she knew he was going to come and so was she…

How
long Abi had been standing there, neither Jack nor Allegra would ever know. After their quiet, explosive climax, they had lain there, still entwined, panting; not thinking, just being.

‘Hello,
Jack… And you must be Allegra, I take it. We’ve never met, but Jack’s talked about you.’ Abi’s voice cut like a knife through the darkness.

Jack
rolled off Allegra and sat up as if he’d had an electric shock, panic registering in his eyes as he took in the full extent of the horror of the moment. As quietly and discreetly as she could, Allegra reached for the sheet and pulled it around her, sitting up too, wishing she were dead.

‘Abi… oh God, I… I’m sorry… Listen —’ Jack’s voice was shaking.

Abi
raised her hands and shook her head, as if to signal her refusal to listen to anything he had to say at that moment. ‘No, it’s fine, I have eyes in my head. It’s quite clear what’s been going on,’ she snapped. ‘You know, Jack, I realise things weren’t great between us, and that we were probably going to call it quits sometime soon anyway, but this…’

She
laughed; it was a harsh, unpleasant sound. ‘I would never have expected it of you, Jack, of all people.’ She looked at Allegra with contempt. ‘As for you, you bitch, I have no idea. But I’d have thought you would have more self-respect than to do something like this. You could have at least waited until my side of the bed was cold before you leapt in and fucked my boyfriend.’

‘Abi…’ Jack’s voice was imploring, wracked with guilt.

‘Forget it. I only came to check you were feeling better, but quite obviously, you are. I’ll just leave my keys here, shall I? That way, you won’t risk another unwelcome intrusion while you’re… busy.’ She spat the word out, turned around and marched down the stairs.