Sticks and Stones (4 page)

Bittersweet

Dylan heard himself growl and jerked in surprise. What kind of freak stood around bloody growling at a New Year’s Eve party? He didn’t think he’d ever growled in his life before. Ash was looking at him as though he’d grown an extra head and Dylan didn’t blame him.

They’d been happily talking about the arthroscopic rotator cuff repair Dylan had managed to skive off to assist Mr Trompeter with (well Dylan had been happy, Ash’s glazed expression may have hinted that he didn’t find the conversation quite as riveting) when Dylan caught sight of Lou talking to Richard-Slimeball-Morris. Her head was thrown back with laughter and she had her hand resting on his chest. Rich was loving it  - the creepy git - and Dylan could swear that he’d seen him smell her hair. The fact that watching Lou and Rich engaged in some seriously vomit-inducing verbal foreplay had actually made him growl was another indication that, as far as Lou was concerned, Dylan was losing his ever-loving mind.

Kiss me
, Dylan heard Lou’s voice whisper in his head, and his mind flashed to a vision of her face: lips parted, cheeks flushed, beautiful blue eyes staring up at him with a look of such longing that he felt his chest constrict painfully.

‘Goddamn it,’ he muttered savagely, shaking his head to clear it of the image and no doubt further freaking poor Ash out.

‘You alright?’ a confused Ash asked carefully. Dylan tore his eyes away from Lou as he heard another peal of her laughter ring through the living room.

Yet another image flashed into his mind, this time she was laughing into a pillow hysterically before turning back to him, framing his face with her hands and saying through a wide gorgeous smile, ‘This is why.’

‘Why what?’ he’d asked.

She’d searched his face for a moment before looking into his eyes and whispering, ‘Why it was always you. Always.’

Christ, what the hell was wrong with him? The weird dreams he’d been having about Lou had started invading his consciousness during the daytime. It was just glimpses of her face as she lay in bed with him, and snatches of conversation. It felt like there was something his mind was reaching for but never quite getting to, and it was driving him nuts.

Ash looked back over his shoulder in the direction of Dylan’s gaze, then the crazy bastard turned back to Dylan and smiled like a lunatic.

‘”Love is blind but jealousy has 20-20 vision”,’ he told him.

Dylan rolled his eyes, ‘Okay, tell me that you did not just proverb me you weirdo.’ Ash shrugged and continued his freaky smiling.

‘I like you crazy Welshmen and your strange courting rituals. It amuses me. I’m glad that you and Lou are going to provide me with entertainment now that Tom and Frankie have finally succumbed to the inevitable.’

They looked over at Tom and Frankie. Frankie was talking to one of Tom’s buddies, Stuart. Tom was standing behind her with his arms locked around her waist. Dylan didn’t think he’d seen them more than a foot apart all evening.

Although it was so cutesy that it made Dylan vomit in his mouth a little, he was still glad that it had worked out for them. The gut churning guilt of what he did at Uni to keep them apart had kept him up at night since Frankie had moved here, and at least now it was all out in the open. As he looked at Frankie he realized that even though he felt drawn to her, it wasn’t with the sharp, bittersweet yearning and intensity that it had been back then. He couldn’t say when he’d stopped feeling that overwhelming attraction to her, but now the only pull she seemed to have was as his best friend.

Please stay with me
. Lou’s face and her whispered voice flashed into his mind again. Frustrated, Dylan brought the heels of his hands to his eyes and pressed in, trying to rid himself of the unwanted image. He was definitely losing it. Growling again, he grabbed the bottle of tequila next to him on the kitchen counter. The only receptacle he could find was a wine glass so he poured in a good measure and slammed it back.

When he’d put the glass back down and was feeling the burn in his throat he looked over towards the living room again and was satisfied to see a slightly disgruntled Rich standing on his own. He followed the direction of Rich’s gaze to see an overexcited Lou jumping up and down on her sky high FMBs, and trying to extract a reluctant Frankie from Tom’s arms. Dylan listened to the sound system for a moment and realized that Lou must have slyly changed the music; ‘Backstreet’s Back’ was now blaring out; she was always a cheese monster.

He was about to smile at her ridiculous antics, until he realized that every bloke in the room was also staring at her in fascination. In typical Lou fashion she was not wearing casual clothing appropriate for a house party. No, she had decided to wear a skintight, short, backless, red, lace dress that left very little to the imagination, especially whilst she was bouncing all over the place. Shaking his head in disgust at the bloody cheek of all of them ogling his Lou…wait. What? He reached for the tequila bottle again. What was going on? Since when was she his Lou? Men had been staring at Lou and her assets for all the years he’d known her, and he’d never had the urge to punch a wall before.

Lou seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to win against Tom, and released Frankie huffily. Dylan watched as she spun out onto the makeshift dance floor in the centre of the living room, and started doing what she always did; dance like a psychotic, but sexy, stripper. He saw Rich push off from the wall and start to move towards her, and his control snapped. There was no way he was going to be able to stand by and watch whilst Rich danced with, and likely mauled Lou. Dylan slammed back another shot and pushed past a bemused looking Ash, striding over to catch Lou up in his arms just as she was executing a particularly raunchy but bizarre squatting stripper move.

‘Omph!’ she exclaimed as she was hauled up against Dylan’s chest. ‘What the hell are you doing you freak? You’re interrupting my flow.’

‘Babes, you do know that this is a house party and not Stringfellows?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re just jealous of my sick moves.’

Dylan stifled a laugh. Lou was renowned for her insane dancing. Typical reactions were shock, confusion and possibly arousal (for the men and maybe even some of the women), but he didn’t think that jealousy featured that often.

As she tried to pull away Dylan pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, ‘Come on babes, stop being chopsy. Dance with me.’ Lou rolled her eyes again, but he could see the small smile that was tugging at her lips as she started swaying in sync with him.

When he could feel that she had given in he spun he out, twirled her a couple of times and pulled her back in. Lou and Dylan had many years experience dancing together. In their second year of Uni he had convinced her to learn salsa with him at a bar in central London. Things were not progressing at all with Frankie, and he had decided that the way forward was lots of meaningless sex. In his nineteen-year-old brain he equated being able to dance with scoring more chicks, and he was right. He was surprised that Lou had agreed quite so readily to learn with him but it had turned out to be a stroke of genius on his part. They always just clicked when dancing, and he could throw her around effortlessly to great dramatic effect. Back in Uni he’d used their prowess on the dance floor to reel in girls he had his eye on. Turned out that seeing him dance confidently with a beautiful woman was a huge turn on to others, and Lou didn’t seem to mind.

*****

Lou let out a hysterical giggle as Dylan spun her faster and faster, and then pulled her back in against his chest. She took a big breath in to inhale his unique, clean scent. When they danced like this she could almost pretend that he was really hers; that they were made for each other. Over the years their moves had become so perfected that the dance itself barely required any conscious thought at all. Lou had learnt simply to appreciate the time she was allowed to be held close to him and shut everything else out, like the fact that there was usually some other willing woman waiting in the wings that Dylan was trying to impress.

She was used to the bittersweet thrill of being spun around and ultimately pulled back in against his huge frame, and the amazing feeling of his breath against her face as he dipped her down practically to the floor. Unfortunately she was also used to the stinging disappointment when the dance was over, and she lost his warm strong body against hers. Then had to watch from the sidelines whilst he moved in on the unwitting female whom he would have made sure had a front row seat to the proceedings. Lou had always smiled through the pain, sometimes even giving him a cheeky wink and wishing him luck whilst her heart felt like it was breaking inside her chest.

As Lou landed on her feet after their well-practised finale of ‘the lift’ straight out of dirty dancing, and applause from the onlookers that had congregated around the outskirts of the living room, Lou steeled herself to plaster on a smile and act casual when Dylan made his inevitable swift retreat. However, when she didn’t lose the warmth of his body against hers, she looked up into his eyes and was confused by the weird, intense way he was staring at her. The applause faded but Dylan still held her close to him and searched her face, tucking a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes behind her ear.

The music changed and he seemed to register where they were. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the living room as couples piled onto the dance floor. Once out of the living room Dylan led her into a relatively quiet corridor and turned to face her, looking even more confused than Lou felt.

He tore his hands through his hair then paced away only to pace right back into Lou’s personal space. ‘Lou, I…‘ Lou frowned at him, he never called her by her first name, ‘I…’ He was staring at her mouth. Her lips were parted and she was still panting slightly from the exertion of the dance, her chest rising and falling rapidly. His gaze dropped to her chest then back up to her mouth before settling on her eyes. She watched as another wave of confusion swept over his gorgeous face before he reached out and cupped her jaw with his hand, smoothing her pink cheek with his thumb.

Her eyes flared wide as she realized what was about to happen, but she was too late to question it as he crowded her back against the wall, slid his other hand up to the other side of her jaw and kissed her. 

In the back of her mind Lou could hear the faint voice telling her that this was a supremely bad idea, but with his big hands cupping her face, his lips on hers and his scent surrounding her she found it impossible to be anything other than an avid participant in the proceedings. Seconds ticked by with Lou’s heart in her throat as she kissed him back. When they finally broke apart they were both breathing heavily, their foreheads resting against each other.

‘Thawasmazin,’ Dylan slurred, and suddenly Lou registered the smell of tequila on his breath. Her belly hollowed and her heart sank into her boots. She wrenched her head away from his grip, hitting the back of it on the wall behind and wriggled out to the side to step away from him.

The thud of Lou’s head on the plasterboard seemed to sober Dylan somewhat. ‘Shit, babes, you okay?’

And now she was back to babes.

Of course.

*****

‘You’re drunk,’ Lou said flatly, backing away further from him, and his brows drew together.

‘Well it
is
New Year’s Eve babes,’ he replied, his voice laced with confusion. What was wrong with him being drunk? Just then, a movement from the stairs caught Dylan’s eye. He swung round to be confronted by a curious little face peeking through the banisters next to them.

‘Hi,’ Benji chirped cheerfully, apparently unconcerned that he’d been caught spying on them. ‘What were you guys doing?’

Dylan closed his eyes in frustration at the interruption, and when he opened them Benji was still looking straight at him, his eyebrows raised imperiously as if demanding an answer. Dylan had come across Tom’s nephew a few times now, and to say the five-year-old was a loose cannon was an understatement.

‘We were…um…talking,’ Dylan said evasively. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’

‘You weren’t talking a minute ago,’ Benji said, narrowing his eyes, ‘and you were both making funny noises.’ Dylan ground his teeth, wondering why at midnight on New Year’s Eve he was being given the third degree by a kindergartener.

‘Well?’ Benji asked, lifting his eyebrows again.

‘I’m going to go and get your mum and dad,’ Dylan replied, feeling that this ridiculous conversation had gone far enough.

‘Okay,’ Benji said nonchalantly, his too-intelligent eyes lighting with amusement, and a smug smile on his face. Dylan was about to turn back into the living room to find Rob and Sarah so they could put the little shit to bed, but at the sound of Benji’s easy agreement he paused.

*****

Benji watched as Dylan swung back to face him.
Ha! Now he’s getting it
, he thought. If there was one thing Benji knew it was when adults were trying to hide something. He was guessing that Dylan would not want Mummy and Daddy to know that he had been cuddling Lou against the wall and making funny noises. Gathering information was one of Benji’s specialties, as was negotiation.

‘Benji, how about we keep all this between ourselves for now?’

Benji bit his lip to stop himself smiling, this was working out fantastically. ‘Well…’ he started, pretending to be considering his options, ‘I guess I
could
keep it a secret.’