I was meeting Nell after work for a quick drink before she went to dinner with Chloe and I went to Logan’s for beer, pizza and Xbox.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down at the table Nell was at. She smiled up at me and pushed a pint my way. “Thanks.” Shit, she was the perfect woman.
“Hey. How was work?”
“Good. You?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
She turned her little button nose up and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I’m seriously considering the laxatives in their coffee thing again. It’s alright though because I have two interviews next week,” she said proudly.
“Yeah, that’s great. We’ll celebrate when you land one of them.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself but you’re on.”
“So do you have a date yet?” I asked. She’d know what I meant. Nell had finally decided to visit her dad. He refused to apply for bail so was waiting for sentencing after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
I was glad she’d decided to visit. She had questions she needed answering and things she needed to say. He had to know what they’d done to her.
“Eight days time,” she replied. “I’m not looking forward to it but right now I’m spending the evening with friends and I don’t want to cry in the middle of a bar.”
“So we should talk about something else.”
“That’d be good. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“You’re the first girl I fingered.”
I watched her wish she’d never asked. She slowly placed her arms on the table and lent in. “You what?”
“It’s the truth.”
“But… How?”
I shrugged. “I’m shit hot with my tongue.”
She blushed and smirked. “I remember. So really? I was the first?”
“And the only actually.”
“Ah, so you didn’t treat your Kavos conquests to some finger love?”
Laughing, I shook my head. I loved it when she was as crude as me. It didn’t happen often. “No, that was just drunken sex that I barely remember and you know the second one just blew me.”
“Charming.”
“They knew the score.”
She held her hands up. “Wasn’t judging, we were doing the same.”
Ouch. What we’d been doing wasn’t some big commitment but it was more than a one-night stand. “We weren’t doing the same and you know it.” There was no way she didn’t feel anything for me at all.
“Sorry. It was more than your holiday shags.”
“Can we put them on the do-not-discuss list too?”
“Sure,” she said. “Are you positive you and Logan don’t want to join me and Chlo for dinner?”
“And listen to girl gossip? No thanks. Anyway, you’ve not been out with Chloe for a while.” Not since her mum died. “But if you want I’m up for having you stumble into my flat later tonight.”
“What do you have planned?” She asked, narrowing her eyes all suspicious and accusing.
“You sleeping in my bed but if you’re offering more I’m not going to say no.”
“You’re so easy, Damon.”
I’d only ever been able to tell her no once and that didn’t end up well. There was absolutely no way I was fucking up that badly again. From now on we were doing shit my way. Her past had clouded her idea of what a relationship is so I was taking the lead.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, I will do that thing,” I replied.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, forget it.”
“No, go on.”
“I know I’ve been a big, huge bitch and I’ve hurt you.” Hurt was a very small word to describe it. “I want to make things right between us. I’m not saying that I want to…” She frowned and I realised that, probably for the first time, she had absolutely no idea what she wanted to say. She’d always known what she wanted, what she was going to do, what her life would be, and what she had to do to get it.
What she wanted to do to protect herself was now colliding with what she wanted to be happy and I could see her struggling. I wanted to leap in and rescue her, to tell her not to worry, that we’d feel our way thorough as we went. But I really needed to hear her express what she was feeling to me. I knew how she felt, but now, it was time to hear it.
Clearing her throat, she looked to the ceiling. “I don’t know what I can offer you, Damon, but if you’re willing maybe we could start up where we left off?”
An icy chill stabbed at my spine. I thought we’d decided on slow but now she wanted no string sex? “You want to start the casual sex up?”
“Well, yes but no. I want us to be how we were, you know, hanging out and stuff. The sex too, but…” She licked her lips. “Without the other people.”
“Go on.”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction when she realised I wasn’t letting her off easily. She was going to have to be very clear with what she wanted. “If you call it that again I’ll shove this cocktail stick right down the end of–”