The Piano Man Project (20 page)

‘Honey,’ he breathed, not sure if he was going to say something to stop her or just needed to say her name.

‘Name the night, Hal, and I’m yours. Tomorrow. Tonight. Right now. Show me. Please?’ She spoke around his kisses, her lips soft and open for him, her tongue sliding over his between her words. Oh, he wanted so much to say yes, to press her backwards on the sofa and slide her out of her clothes. He could practically feel her naked beneath him, and she was right. He could make her body need his so badly that she’d shiver with it, that she’d have no choice but to come for him. She’d be transcend-fucking-ent, and it’d feel amazing, to be the man who gave her what no other man had ever given her. It was heady; intoxicating.

‘We can’t keep doing this, Honey,’ he managed, holding her face in his hands. ‘Because however much I want to say yes, and you have no fucking idea how much I want to say yes, the truth is that you’re lying to yourself. It wouldn’t be one night.’

‘It would,’ she pressed. ‘Hal, one night. No lies, no promises, no relationship. We don’t even like each other.’

Her words said one thing, and her tone of voice something else.

‘You’re not that kind of girl, Honey.’

‘I could be. With you.’

‘Liar.’

She thumped his leg out of frustration, then grabbed his hand and slammed it flat over her heart. ‘Can you feel my heart banging? You must be able to, because I feel as if I’m going to have a bloody heart attack here. I haven’t just plucked this out of the air you know. I’ve been thinking about this ever since the other night.’ She gulped and carried on. ‘Hal, if you don’t do this one thing for me, I’ll go out there and find someone else who will and it’ll all be your fault. I’m not even joking. My entire life is up in the air at the moment, and more than half of that is on you. You’ve woken my body up, and it won’t go back to sleep again until someone sings it a goddamn lullaby!’ Her voice rose in both volume and octave as she made her impassioned speech, the queen of her own debating society. ‘I want that person to be you, more than anything I want it to be you, but I swear to God, Hal, if not you then it’ll be someone else, and soon.’

She stopped speaking, finally, and Hal found his hands had moved to grip her shaking shoulders.

‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘You don’t mean it.’ Even as he said it he thought that actually, she sounded as if she meant every word.

‘Oh, I do,’ she said hotly. ‘I’ve had a bloody epiphany these last few weeks. Pianists. Campaigns. And you, Hal, you shouting and swearing and kissing me like no one else ever has. Is it so bad that I want you?’

Hal was rarely speechless, but this was one of those times. She was actually serious. Strawberry Girl, his beautiful, crazy neighbour wanted him – or to be precise, she wanted him to teach her how to orgasm.

‘You know how crazy this sounds, right?’ he said, scrubbing his hand over his stubble after a few moments of contemplation.

‘Yes,’ she said. He could hear how much depended on what he said next, so he chose his words with care.

‘Let me think about it, okay? Just promise me you won’t go out there dragging strangers in off the street when you leave here.’

She sniffed. ‘You’re not making this easy on me.’

He was tempted. Of course he was. He missed sex, the intimacy of a warm body against his, the mindless release. She’d woken his body from its slumber too, but unlike Honey it made him want to run a mile away rather than tumble into bed. If he gave her what she wanted, he’d be giving himself a fast pass to a place he didn’t want to go. A place he’d closed the door on, a door he’d had to brace his back against and fling the bolts across to keep it in place. Opening it was a monumental mistake, but saying no to Honey felt like a mistake too. He was caught between a rock and a hard place, or in this case a door and a soft, seductive, strawberry-scented place. He’d come here counting on the hope of making peace with himself, of saving his sanity, of forgetting, of learning to be the man he needed to be. He just hadn’t counted on Honey.

Standing up, he held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. Leading her to his front door, he walked her across the lobby to her own threshold.

‘There. I walked you home. No strange men tonight, okay?’

Her hand still warmed his; she didn’t let go. He felt her body rub against his as she rose on her tip-toes, and tasted the subtle longing in the brush of her mouth against his.

‘You told me that every date should end with a goodnight kiss.’

‘That wasn’t a date.’

‘You made me dinner.’

‘You see? Back there you said no dates. No complications. I told you you couldn’t do it.’

‘I can so. I’m a woman of the world,’ she said, and he felt her small smile against his lips. Hal had known many worldly women in his life, and Honey wasn’t one of them. He’d even loved one of those worldly women, and she was one of the many reasons he’d needed to slam that door so tight. Could he open the door just enough to let Honey in as a temporary guest without being crushed by the stuff that would try to force its way out of there? The weight of rejection, the heartache, the crush of having it pushed down his throat that he was no longer man enough to be a husband or a father? He was broken. Broken eyes, broken heart.

He pressed his lips against her forehead. ‘Go to bed, Honey.’

She nodded, a tiny movement. ‘You promise you’ll think about what I’ve said?’

He mirrored her actions, the same small nod. ‘Bed.’

It was only as he closed his door that he put his hand down and discovered his dark glasses lying on the hall table. They were his armour, yet he hadn’t given one single thought to them all evening.

‘Do you think you could come with me?’ Lucille whispered the next morning, twisting her string of bright blue glass beads around her fingers and looking beseechingly at Honey. Glancing towards Mimi, who was chatting to a customer across the shop floor, Honey struggled for an answer that didn’t compromise her neutral position between the two sisters. It was bad enough that she knew of Lucille’s clandestine meeting with her brother at all, let alone tagging along as well.

‘Lucille, don’t you think it would be better if you told Mimi? If you wait until afterwards it’s going to be ten times harder to tell her. She might even want to come with you.’

‘She wouldn’t. She won’t even talk about him with me. I’ve tried, Honeysuckle, but it’s up to her. She can’t stop me from meeting him.’ Lucille fired a nervous glance towards her sister, who was now engrossed in teaching a nervous-looking student how to tie a Windsor knot for an upcoming job interview.

‘I know that. I just think you’re setting yourself up for an argument by keeping secrets.’

‘I’ll tell her as soon as I’ve been,’ Lucille promised. ‘I just want to meet my brother. How can that be wrong?’

It wasn’t wrong, and Honey could completely understand why Lucille felt she needed to do this, with or without her sister’s approval. The letter from the adoption agency had opened the lid on a can of worms that couldn’t just be closed again without action, and in some ways it reminded Honey of the proposition she’d put to Hal last night. Lucille was asking for help because she needed answers, and in her own way that was what Honey needed too. It was all becoming quite exhausting. Maybe if she helped Lucille, and Hal helped her, they could all move on and get back to business as usual.

‘You absolutely promise you’ll tell Mimi as soon as we get back?’

Lucille beamed. ‘I promise. Thank you, Honey, you’re a poppet.’

Glancing across at Mimi, Honey didn’t feel like a poppet. She felt compromised, and she tried not to wonder if she’d made Hal feel the same way last night.

Later that afternoon Honey glanced around the busy shopping street, trying to pick Nell out in the crowd. She’d received a strange text earlier, an SOS of sorts.
Emergency. Meet me by that sex store on the High Street at 4pm. Tell you later. Nell. xx

Honey had to double-check the sender; she wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if it had been from Tash, but from Nell it seemed entirely out of character.

‘There you are.’ Nell appeared at her side, neat and efficient in her teacher’s attire. ‘Thanks a million, Honey, I didn’t fancy going in on my own, I might see someone I know. This way I can say I’m with you.’

Honey rolled her eyes. ‘Thanks a lot. I have a reputation too you know.’

‘Not with the school gate mafia you don’t. Trust me, one whiff of scandal and I’ll be in the head’s office.’ Honey glanced at the St Trinian’s-clad model in the sex shop window behind Nell and tried not to laugh.

‘What are we here for anyway?’

‘It’s my turn,’ Nell said, leaning in.

‘Your turn to what?’

‘To buy something new,’ Nell tilted her head towards the store. ‘From in here. For our … collection.’

‘Ohh. I see.’ Honey wasn’t certain she wanted in on helping Nell choose their next sex toy, but … ‘Come on then. Let’s go in. Do you think we’re going to need to go behind the curtain?’

Nell’s eyes flickered around as they went inside, already viewing the shelves with a more practised eye than the last time she’d been in there. ‘Possibly.’

They trailed amongst the lingerie, pale lace to hot pink nylon, something for every taste. Honey paused by a pale peach wisp of a bra with matching silk knickers, beautiful and sexy without being too much. Would Hal like her in that? It was all too easy to imagine his pleasure as his fingers discovered the slender velvet bra straps, the silk-encased bones, the cobwebbed soft lace. Her fingers had found her size even as she ran through the scenario in her head, and she carried the set in her hands as she followed Nell behind the curtain into the strictly adult zone.

‘Any idea what you’re looking for?’ Honey said, and Nell shook her head, perplexed.

‘None.’

Honey’s eyes slid over the packed shelves. ‘You should probably have asked Tash to meet you rather than me. She’d have known what to suggest in a heartbeat.’

Nell laughed. ‘I guess. But then she’d also have made me buy something that probably isn’t even legal.’

Honey browsed the shelves and picked up a black silk blindfold thoughtfully, her mind already miles away from Nell’s bedroom conundrum. Running the silk through her fingers, she could almost feel Hal’s fingers tying the strip of silk behind her head, putting them temporarily closer to a level playing field. She looked down as Nell plucked it from her fingers with a grin.

‘You’re a lifesaver, Honey. Perfect.’

Honey watched Nell walk towards the tills, and after a moment’s hesitation she hurriedly grabbed a second blindfold and followed her friend.

Hal hadn’t answered his door when Honey tapped it after work that evening, but as she was heading to bed just after eleven there was movement in the hallway and then a knock on her door.

‘Don’t open it,’ Hal said. ‘Just listen.’

Honey stood perfectly still behind her closed door, her hand flat against it.

‘I’ve thought about what you asked me,’ he said, the rumble of his voice low and rich and sure.

‘And …’ Honey said, biting her top lip and crossing the fingers of her other hand behind her back without realising. ‘What did you decide?’

He paused. ‘Did you mean it when you said you’ll go out and find someone else to do it if I won’t?’

‘It wasn’t intended as a bribe, Hal,’ Honey sighed, laying her forehead on the wood.

‘No dates. No relationship. One night, and then we never mention this again.’

Honey’s hand covered her mouth in shock as she reached for the catch on the door.

‘I told you not to open the fucking door,’ Hal warned, stilling her fingers. She wanted to see him very much at that moment, but she sensed that it was more important to him that she didn’t.

‘Okay,’ she said, dropping her hand away from the catch. ‘Hal … when?’

He was quiet again. And then, ‘I’ll come over again on Friday.’

She swallowed hard. Friday was three nights away. ‘Friday it is then,’ she said, so quiet that almost no sound came out.

‘It’s not a date,’ he reminded her.

‘Roger that,’ Honey said, rendered stupid by nerves.

An amused silence, then: ‘Try not to throw yourself at passing strangers between now and Friday.’

Honey could hear traces of dry humour in his voice. ‘’Kay.’

He went to move away, and she called out: ‘Hal … shall I buy nibbles?’

He was silent for far longer than she knew what to do with.

‘No nibbles, Honeysuckle. No funny stuff. Buy whisky if you feel the need to shop. This is how this thing will go down. I come over here. We do it. I go home again. Are you crystal clear on how this is going to go?’

‘Crystal,’ she said, wondering what the hell had possessed her to suggest nibbles. She’d never used the word nibbles in her life.

‘I’m going now,’ he said. ‘Do me a favour. Don’t say another word.’

Honey screwed her eyes shut and nodded.

He really needed to go home, and she really needed to shut up.

‘This is it, I think?’ Honey looked up at the large, well-kept terraced house with steps leading up to the shiny green door. The kind of house that estate agents might describe as a
gentleman’s residence
, with neat tubs of flowers in the vestibule.

‘It looks nice, doesn’t it?’ Lucille said, holding on to Honey’s arm as she looked up at the gleaming windows of the house. ‘Should we go and knock?’

Honey squeezed Lucille’s hand and smiled. ‘Well we didn’t come all this way just to admire Ernie’s hanging baskets, did we?’

‘They are very nice though,’ Lucille said. ‘I wonder if he did them himself? I’m hopeless with plants, but Mimi is wonderful. She looks after all those flowers in the window boxes at home, you know. Green fingered, as they say.’

Honey recognised Lucille’s words for what they were; an early attempt to draw parallels between her beloved sister and her brand new brother, to find common ground between them to help her to win over Mimi when they spoke later. It had been Honey’s only condition, and she was in no doubt that Lucille would honour it.