The Chocolate Run (12 page)

‘Soz, mate, laydee says she don’t
wont
’er new floorboards scratched.’

‘Sod this,’ Greg said. ‘OI, MEATHEAD. COME SORT OUT YOUR STUFF OR ME AND NECTAR ARE WALKING.’

As if by magic, the movee appeared. Greg knew him so well – the thought of having to unload the transit van himself had stopped him arranging his shoes in order of purchase or something equally anal but important to him. Matt flushed a shade of crimson when he saw what I was holding and almost broke his leg running to relieve me of it.

‘Cheers, m’dear,’ I said, ‘that was giving me arm-ache. Something I’m sure you’d know all about with that box.’ Matt pinked up even more. I stretched my fingers, trying to get the circulation going again.

‘I think Amber’s trying to tell you something,’ Jen said, smudging Matt’s cheek with a kiss. ‘Mr Shirker.’

‘DOES ANYONE CARE THAT MY ARMS ARE DROPPING OFF HERE?’ Greg bellowed so unexpectedly I jumped.

‘Oh for goodness sake,’ I said, spun to him and relieved him of the box on top – then almost dropped it under the sudden weight. Didn’t realise Greg was so strong. His biceps, exposed in his grey marl T-shirt, rippled under his browned, freckled skin, the dark brown hairs on his sculptured forearms glinted slightly in the unexpected sun of this February day. I glanced up from his arms to his face. Locks of his black hair were plastered to his damp forehead.
Boy, he’s attractive
, I thought.

I always knew that, but this wasn’t the same. My body, blood and hormones had suddenly clicked with his. I’d seen him for three years and thought he was gorgeous; I’d had sex with him and it’d been out of this world. But it was only at this moment that I started to fancy him. Independently of what was going on between us. It was simple, plain, pure attraction. I wanted this man. Badly.

His eyes watched me watch him and he asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ with his eyes and face.

My lips slipped into a slight smile. Nothing was wrong. Everything was different, that’s all.

The box weighing down my arms, I turned back to Matt and Jen – they were snogging the faces off each other, Matt’s porn box between.

‘Get a hotel room – or move in together, but do it quick because my arms are killing me,’ I joked.

I sneaked an ‘Aren’t they cute?’ look at Greg. He’d gone. He’d wantonly dumped the box of videos on the newly floor-boarded hallway and was halfway up the path to the van, rubbing the back of his head with the flat of his hand.

One ‘move’ later, we all flopped onto the large leather sofa, except for Greg, who was incapable of flopping. If the words ‘tense’ could be personified, it would be him. Every part of him was rigid – even his liquorice hair was clenched. So, while we all virtually lay on the sofa, he sat forwards in the armchair, poised to jump up and run out at a microsecond’s notice.

Jen eventually hoisted herself out of the sofa, left the room, then returned with a bottle of champagne, and four champagne flutes. She handed a glass to each of us, then gave Matt the bottle to open.

‘So,’ Jen said, flopping down between Matt and me once our glasses were filled, ‘let’s make a toast.’ We raised our glasses. ‘To new beginnings for me and Matt . . . and to you two finding special someones too.’

‘Cheers,’ we all said and took a sip – except Greg who just held his glass up.

‘Yup, let’s hope you two meet special someones too,’ Matt said, with a sly peek at Greg that was so unsubtle their upstairs neighbour probably saw it.

‘All right, Matt, that’s it!’ Jen said. ‘Why, whenever I say something about either of those two meeting someone special, do you look at Greg? You were doing it on Monday, too.’

‘What?’ Matt replied.

My heart left my chest and lodged itself in my throat.

‘I’m not stupid, Matthew, I’ve noticed the looks you give Greg. Something’s going on. And
I
, no,’ Jen linked arms with me, ‘
we
want to know what it is.’

I know what it is
, my tongue tried to say. I clamped my teeth together to stop it confessing everything.

Matt, meanwhile, had gone into rabbit-caught-in-headlights mode and stared at Greg. Greg, the only one unbothered by Jen’s demand, shrugged casually. ‘I’ve met someone.’

‘No!!’ Jen shrieked. ‘When? Where? How?’

‘Yes!!’ Greg shrieked back, mocking Jen by matching her tone. ‘About a week ago! Leeds! Through work!’

‘And . . .’ Jen hurried.

Greg shrugged. ‘It’s going well.’

Jen cuffed Matt around the ear. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’

‘He made me promise,’ Matt pleaded.

Jen’s face showed her displeasure at being left out of the loop. The urge to throw myself on her mercy surfaced again.

‘So, what’s she like?’ Jen asked.

Greg shrugged again. ‘Like a woman.’

‘Come on, Walterson! More. I want details. What’s she like?’

‘OK. Details,’ Greg said as his face split into a smile that could only have been conjured up by the devil himself. He was going to tell the truth. He was going to tell the truth and get me into the biggest trouble I’ve been in since I was twelve and broke Eric’s Action Man on purpose. Had we been in a film, I’d be leaping across the room in slow motion screaming: ‘NOOOOOO!!!’ right about now.

‘She’s average-looking . . .’
EXCUSE ME?! You are so going to get a kicking
, I telepathically said to him. ‘You know, hair, two eyes, nose, mouth. And she’s got the most
amazing
body, all curves and smooth skin . . .’
All right, you made that sound lascivious enough to rescind that kicking
. ‘Um . . . She’s all the usual stuff, clever, funny, thoughtful, friendly, etc., etc. I don’t know. I can’t put it into words without diminishing what I feel. She’s whole. But not. Hypnotic.’

That was me he was talking about. Me. Amber Salpone.
Hypnotic
. I fingered the word in my head.
Hypnotic
. I liked that. Liked the feel, the touch, the essence of what he was saying.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Found I couldn’t and swallowed harder to get rid of it, dipped my head to secretly blink dry my teared-up eyes. How pathetic was I? All he’d said was . . . I blinked harder.

‘What makes her different from all the other girls you’ve screwed, then screwed over?’ Jen asked, destroying the reverential atmosphere.

Hurt flashed across Greg’s face. ‘I don’t know, she’s different. I adore everything about her,’ he said. ‘She’s everything I ever wanted in a girlfriend and everything I didn’t know I needed in a girlfriend, too.’

‘You’ve only known her a week,’ Jen scoffed.

‘I only got together with her a week ago. Our paths have crossed before, but it was only last week that I finally got her interested.’

Jen turned to me. ‘Did you know about this?’

‘Not, erm, until recently. Very, very recently.’ Not a lie, just not the complete truth.

‘I’m literally the last to know,’ Jen said. She crossed her arms, sat back, stuck out her bottom lip.

‘He didn’t tell me he felt like that,’ I protested.

‘Me neither,’ Matt said.

‘You obviously have a way of bringing out the poet in him,’ I said.

‘Hmmm, maybe. But I can’t believe he feels like that after a week.’

‘Thing is –’ Matt started.

‘Can everyone stop talking about me like I’m not here, and stop acting like I’m incapable of feeling anything other than lust,’ Greg snapped. ‘I feel a lot for her but it’s only been a week. I want to keep it low-key, but rest assured I’ll keep you all posted on any developments.’ Greg put his champagne glass on the floor beside his foot. He hadn’t taken a sip, nor put the glass near his mouth – he wasn’t even going to pretend to celebrate. ‘H’OK.’ He leapt out of the leather armchair. ‘I’ve got plans, so I’m off. Amber, can I give you a lift?’

‘Nah, Amber’s staying for dinner,’ Jen said.

This was news to me. ‘Sorry?’ I turned to Jen. She flushed. Matt, knackered as he was, was suddenly on his feet, moving around the living room, straightening his stuff on the mantelpiece, doing something. Anything.

‘One of our friends is single,’ Jen said, ‘and, erm, he’s really, really nice, so we thought we’d invite him over for dinner tonight to meet you.’

She made it sound like this was no ‘biggie’. Like I should simply slot myself into her plans to pair me off. It would be her plan too: Matt was the epitome of the selfish gene, he didn’t give a flying toffee if I was single or attached. It didn’t affect his life, so he didn’t think about it.

Whereas Jen . . . During my celibacy she’d been doing all she could to pair me off with the ugliest blokes on earth. Anyone who says looks don’t matter is lying. Looks are important – if they weren’t we wouldn’t spend so much time dressing up and slathering on make-up and fixing our hair – we all just happen to find different things attractive. Physical beauty that could lead to anything romantic for me was inextricably linked to someone’s personality. To their ability to capture and communicate with my mind, imagination and sense of humour. To conjure up a spark of recognition. There was this thing I read once that said love is recognising ourselves in someone else and delighting in that recognition. And that was what was galling about the people Jen set me up with – she’d known me for about twelve years and she still thought I could even think about kissing someone who started a joke, ‘There was this Englishman, Irishman and black man . . .’ Without exception they were all lacking in anything I could work with. I’d tried, honestly I had, then I gave up all pretence of caring what any of them thought or said. Any blind date disguised as a dinner party she’d arranged resulted in me getting openly drunk rather than talking, and staggering off home before dessert. After I left during the main meal last time, she had, for the most part, stopped doing it.

Having said that, on those occasions when she did stitch me up, she’d at least warned me we were having dinner. I wasn’t sat in sweat-dried clothes with frizzed-up hair and aching muscles.

A mist descended upon my body, seeping into my aching muscles, swelling the veins in my brain and speeding up my heart.

Who the hell is she to decide who I should date?

This was it. She was going to get the full length of my tongue this time. I’d reached the end of my tether when it came to Jen and blind dates. Shouting wasn’t part of the Amber Salpone repertoire of response to anger: the only person I’d ever shouted at was Greg and that was generally after a rescue that had enraged me to the point of me wanting to lash out at him. But I’d never shouted at Jen. I’d come close to it a couple of times, of course, but not actually done it. I’d seen, over the years, that when someone shouted at Jen it produced a steely determination that flashed first in her eyes, then resulted in her screwing said person over weeks, sometimes months, down the line. Sarcasm and snapping, I’d found, yielded the best results. However, this time, sod sarcasm and snapping – she was getting the full extension of my lungs.

I opened my mouth to scream that I was Greg’s ‘hypnotic’ woman; to yell, ‘I’m worth much more than the idiots you feel obliged to set me up with.’

‘Didn’t you say you were meeting people in town?’ Greg interjected.

‘Oh?’ Jen was surprised.

‘Yes, Jen, I have a life,’ I went to say.

‘Yeah, come on, Nectar,’ Greg cut in. ‘I’ll drive you home so you can get tarted up. And if you don’t take forever, I’ll drop you off afterwards.’

Greg took my hand then pulled me out of the chair, bundled me out of the living room and then out of the flat. I realised two miles down the road I hadn’t said a word after ‘Sorry?’ Greg had not only saved Jen from a mouthful, he’d virtually raised my hand and waved it at them.

chapter ten

the honesty clause

‘Do you mind if we stop at mine on the way back?’ Greg asked as we hit Headingley, on the way to my place. Traffic seemed to have appeared from nowhere, we’d been bumper to bumper with a green Mini for about, oooh, forever. The silence in the van’s cabin and my nefarious mood brought on by the blind date hadn’t helped the appearance of time crawling by.

‘Course, why would you be any different to every other person trying to run my life?’ I snapped.

My new lover took a deep, deep breath, then exhaled at length. ‘We could spend the evening there now Matt’s gone,’ he continued, clearly not about to be drawn into a row he hadn’t started. ‘Rocky’s away with his girlfriend. We’ve the house to ourselves.’

OK
, it’s not Greg’s fault my best mate has issues with me being single. It’s not Greg’s fault I haven’t got around to telling Jen where to shove her blind dates
, I reminded myself. ‘All right, but let’s not stay over – I know how toxic your bedroom is.’

‘I tidied up a bit,’ he said, ‘just in case.’

Greg had lived with Matt and Rocky since they’d moved out of halls in the second year of college about ten years ago. After they graduated, Rocky’s parents had bought the house for him. This meant Rocky and Greg and Matt could do it up as they saw fit. Greg had painted his bedroom white, put pictures of scantily clad women on the walls, moved a double bed in and basically used the floor to file his books, clothes, magazines, papers, shoes, videos, DVDs, CDs, etc. I’d been in there a few times and while he’d picked a path across the carnage littering the floor, I’d stood in one spot, too scared to move in case I caught something. Greg had once explained that he kept his room in a state because it kept women away – at no point would he be tempted to invite one back. His room was his palace, his castle, his sanctuary, and he avoided letting any woman in there to sleep over or even to have sex because that would mean she had a bit more of him. She could get up and run her finger along his dusty shelves, see which books he had, which books were most battered, most thumbed. She could open drawers, see where he kept his pants, where he kept his T-shirts, how he rolled up his socks. Greg’s room was a no-woman zone and he’d done his best to keep it that way. That’s why I’d said not to stay over, I was giving him a way of rejecting me without rejecting me.

‘Do you fancy a takeaway?’ Greg said as he undid the deadlock on his blue front door. ‘Or I’ll cook something.’ He slid his key into the Yale lock.