Authors: Sarah Manning
Unsticky (58 page)
After that, it had all become a bit of a blur, though Grace did remember buying a round of drinks for everyone in the house on Vaughn’s credit card, possibly singing ‘A Total Eclipse of the Heart’ and there had finally been a trip to a kebab shop. When she’d tried to leap the counter so she could shave the elephant’s leg, after much encouragement from Alex, Noah had marched her to the nearest minicab office.
Now she was standing outside the gates of Vaughn’s ridiculously big house, unable to remember the security code and also having extreme difficulty in locating the buzzer.
Her fingers had turned into fat, stubby sausages so Grace hit as many buttons as she could see on the security panel until Vaughn’s voice floated through the ether.
‘Grace?’
‘Lemme in! I’m freezing my arse off out here.’
The gates slowly swung open and Grace staggered up the drive. The front door opened, light spilling out, and there was Vaughn standing in the doorway.
‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ she bellowed when she was halfway up the drive. Her voice had sounded a lot less shouty and slurry in her head. ‘Did you wait up for me? You didn’t have to ’cause I was fine.’
She finally reached the front door and almost fell through it; only Vaughn’s hand seizing her elbow stopped her from falling over for about the fifth time that night. ‘Did you miss me? I missed you.’
Vaughn pulled Grace through the door and slammed it shut behind her, smiling thinly as she jumped. ‘You’re drunk,’ was all he said, as she wobbled on one leg and tried to take off her shoe.
Grace gave up on the buckle and tugged the shoe off with great force, nearly toppling over again, before she attempted the same manoeuvre on the other foot. ‘Maybe a little bit tipsy,’ she corrected him. ‘Just a little bit.’
She brushed back the curtain of her hair that was in her face, spitting out a few stray strands that had ended up in her mouth, and froze at the look on Vaughn’s face. He was furious and she didn’t know why.
‘What the hell have you been doing?’ he hissed, reaching her in a few short strides so he could grasp Grace’s upper arms and haul her close. ‘It’s nearly four o’clock.’
She wriggled in his hold. ‘It’s not that late,’ she insisted. ‘It doesn’t feel that late.’
‘I’ve been calling you and calling you. I even called the car company and they hadn’t heard from you. How did you get home? What the fuck have you been doing?’ He was spitting questions at her and shaking her slightly when he got to the end of each one.
‘Why are you so mad at me?’ she whimpered. ‘You said I could go and I didn’t hear my phone ’cause I couldn’t find my phone. Noah got me a minicab because he said . . .’ Grace closed her eyes because she couldn’t bear to look at Vaughn’s red face any more and she needed to think exactly what Noah had said ‘. . . I was too much of a princess to get the night bus.’
‘Did you fuck him? You fucked that little shit, didn’t you?’ This time he shook Grace so hard she was sure that her teeth were no longer attached to her gums.
‘What? No!’ She tried to struggle free but Vaughn refused to ease the punishing grip that was going to leave bruises. ‘I didn’t fuck anybody! What are you talking about?’
‘Then why is your lipstick so smeared and you’re missing buttons. Ripped them off in the throes of passion, did he?’
Grace looked down at her dress, which was missing a few buttons, where she’d caught the hem on the edge of the table when she’d tried to get up and had fallen over. But even with her brain fogged with vodka she knew that it redefined the concept of a flimsy excuse. She stuck with the easy to explain. ‘My lipstick’s smudged because I had a bloody kebab. Here, smell!’ And she breathed onion fumes in Vaughn’s face, which was the secret code to make him let her go so she could rub her arms reproachfully. ‘You think I fucked Noah?’
Vaughn folded his arms and looked at Grace like she’d just heaved her way out of some primordial swamp. ‘Well, didn’t you?’
‘No, I didn’t! How could you think that? I wouldn’t do that - I’m with you!’ She felt like she should be shouting but there was too much hurt in her voice to make it do anything other than throb.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Vaughn said flatly, as if that was all there was to it.
‘You don’t believe me?’ Grace didn’t feel quite so drunk any more as she stood there in her stockinged feet with Vaughn towering over her, disappointment and disapproval etched into his face. It was one hell of a reality check. ‘How could you? I would never do something like that! I was just drinking with him and about ten other people. Seriously!’
Vaughn was still staring at her, his eyes flickering from Grace’s face to her body as if he had UV vision and could see Noah’s fingertips all over her.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Grace wrenched up the skirt of her dress. ‘You want proof I didn’t shag him, be my guest.’ She was already yanking down her tights and she didn’t know how far she was going to go with this, how far Vaughn expected her to go, but she wasn’t going to be found guilty of something so completely ludicrous.
‘Stop it! Just stop it!’ Vaughn snapped out of his funk and his hands were on Grace’s, pulling up her tights, smoothing over her hips again and again as if he could brush away Noah’s phantom touch. ‘I swear, Grace, if you ever, ever fuck him, I’d kill you and then I’d kill him.’
It was such a silly, melodramatic thing to say in a fight that had already seen too much silliness and melodrama that Grace wanted to laugh, but Vaughn’s voice was so low and urgent, his eyes blazing into hers, that all she managed to croak was, ‘I haven’t and I’m not going to, but if you think I’m the kind of person who would fuck someone else behind your back then I’m leaving.’
The onions in the kebab were repeating on her and Grace pulled a face as Vaughn cupped her cheek, wiping the corners of her mouth where her lipstick had bled. Five minutes earlier, she’d have smacked his hands away but now she curled her fingers round his wrist and stroked the spot where his pulse was thundering away.
Vaughn cleared his throat. ‘Just in case you were wondering, Grace, this isn’t an open relationship.’
She suddenly pulled away from him and flapped her hands ineffectually as she opened her mouth and then wished she hadn’t.
‘What’s the matter?’ Vaughn asked, as Grace turned a full 360 degrees because she couldn’t decide the fastest way to get to the guest bathroom. Vaughn was already half-lifting her by the elbows and propelling her down the hall.
It was a three-second dash before Grace was on her knees and bringing up everything she’d put in her mouth in the last three hours.
Vaughn was much more helpful than he’d been in Whistler. He squatted down next to Grace as she hunched over the toilet bowl and gathered her hair up in a loose ponytail as he rubbed her back. ‘You stupid, stupid girl,’ he said over the retching.
Eventually there was nothing left in her stomach and Grace sat back with an exhausted little sigh. There was drool dribbling down her chin and she looked at her hand in dismay when she wiped her mouth and found it smeared with what was left of her lipstick.
‘Are you all right now?’ Vaughn ventured, all ready with a damp towel. For the life of her, Grace couldn’t decide if it was the alcohol and the kebab that was responsible for her hurlathon or the violent argument they’d just had.
She stayed on her feet long enough to clean her teeth, then deliberately ignoring Vaughn’s attempts to take her arm, she sank to the floor and star-fished her limbs.
‘You can’t be comfortable like that,’ Vaughn protested, but he was sitting down and resting his back against the side of the bath. ‘Wouldn’t you like to lie on a bed, or a sofa?’
‘How can you say that this isn’t an open relationship, when it’s not meant to be a relationship at all?’ Grace demanded in a raspy voice.
‘It’s just an expression.’
‘It’s not a relationship, Vaughn. We’re not having a relationship. It’s an arrangement, we both know that.’
It sort of
was
a relationship, but if they started calling it that, slipping into bad habits, then, like all Grace’s relationships, it would end prematurely and horribly. And she didn’t want this to end - yet.
was
a relationship, but if they started calling it that, slipping into bad habits, then, like all Grace’s relationships, it would end prematurely and horribly. And she didn’t want this to end - yet.
‘I know it’s an arrangement. It was just a slip of the tongue.’ Vaughn gave an empty chuckle, which completely lacked anything approaching humour. ‘Neither of us are cut out for a relationship, We don’t play well with others, do we?’
‘Well, you definitely don’t! I stayed out way later than I said I would but I swear, Vaughn, if you think I’d shag Noah then come trotting back to you, I’m going. I mean it.’ Grace could feel the anger welling up again.
‘Would it make you feel better if I told you that I hated myself the whole time you were throwing up?’
‘Not really.’ Grace wondered if that might actually be the moment that Vaughn said the s-word, but he just reached over to stroke her foot, which was the only part of her within arm’s reach. ‘You could at least offer to make me some toast and tea - that would be a start.’
‘I could do that,’ Vaughn agreed gravely. He stood up and very gently helped Grace to her feet. Her ribs felt like they’d had a run-in with a cheese grater. ‘What number does the toaster go on again?’
He wasn’t joking either. Nor was he capable of getting the exact boiling-water-to-milk ratio right for a cup of tea that was halfway drinkable.
‘I’ll do it myself,’ Grace sighed, using the wall to steady herself as she limped towards the kitchen.
They sat on opposite sides of the table drinking tea. Every time she looked at Vaughn from under her lashes as she took a sip of tea, he’d smile hesitantly at her like he was trying to make things right between them, though he obviously didn’t have a clue where to start.
Grace looked out of the window where the sun was high up in the sky. ‘There’s no point in going to bed,’ she said. ‘I’ll just feel worse when I have to get up in an hour’s time.’
‘Surely you’re entitled to a sick day,’ Vaughn suggested, but Grace shook her head.
‘Kiki knows I had a big party last night so she’s not going to believe any excuses about twenty-four-hour stomach bugs, and I have a ton of prep work for Nadja’s shoot.’ Grace slumped over the table. ‘You should probably let Piers have the day off though.’
‘Oh, bloody hell!’ It took a huge effort but Grace raised her head to catch the shamed look on Vaughn’s face. ‘I fired Piers.’
‘You did
what
?’
what
?’
‘I told him to keep an eye on you, and when you hadn’t come home, I phoned him up and sacked him,’ Vaughn admitted, running a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.’
Grace could have done without the shouting and the shaking he’d subjected her to, but it had been a long time since anyone had been worried about her making it home in one piece. Not since she’d lived with her grandparents and their ridiculous 11 p.m. curfew. As Grace had tiptoed up the stairs, usually at least two hours after eleven, she’d always hear her grandmother call out, ‘Is that you, dear? You’re grounded for a month.’ Happy days. Still, it didn’t mean that Vaughn was forgiven.
‘Piers lasted about ten minutes after you’d gone before he walked into a lamppost and had to go home. You’d better phone him up and unfire him,’ Grace snapped.
‘I’ll do that,’ Vaughn said quickly. ‘He’s had his eye on this Pop Art triptych that came in last month. It might do as a peace-offering.’
‘You’d do that?’
‘I would do that. I’m trying to make up for how unreasonable I’ve been, but you’re sitting there with a look of dejection that I can’t seem to shift.’
‘I know.’ Grace pulled a rueful face. ‘Honestly, I could sulk for England.’
Vaughn reached across the table and took her hand. The spark between them that was always there, even when they were fighting, began to burn brightly again. Grace let her fingers coil around Vaughn’s and none of it seemed to matter so much any more.
chapter thirty-two
Grace had had a lot of fights with a lot of boys, none of them coming even close to the ferocity of her fight with Vaughn, and it had always been the beginning of the end. They’d make up, but then they’d break up, usually within a week.
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