Page 120 of Pelvic Flaws

“Well they’re not good, but they’re not bad either, just a bit in between.”

I nodded, kind of understanding her logic. That was exactly how I felt. Dex wasn’t being off with me when we did communicate, he was still lovely Dex, but we just weren’t communicating and if we did, I was the one instigating it.

“What if he doesn’t come back?” I asked, feeling a pain in my chest.

“You move on and find a new bloke.”

“That simple?” I asked astonished, dreading the thought.

“That simple.”

“Mandy,” I growled. “I wouldn’t be able to do that. I really like Dex and even though we’ve only been together a couple of months, I don’t think I’d want to move on from him – not for a long, long time.”

“Two of those weeks you’ve been together, he hasn’t been here.”

“Thank you Mandy, I’m well aware, but until four days ago we were in constant contact. In any case, I’m sure women married to serving soldiers don’t say, we’ve been married for ten years, but I only count it as three because he’s been away on duty.”

Mandy shrugged. “Just saying, you shouldn’t waste all the effort you’ve put in, getting yourself to a happy place, if Dex doesn’t come back. It’s not as if you’re in love with him.”

I stayed silent, preferring to peruse the tins of baked beans instead.

“You don’t want the nice, bare fanny to go to waste, do you?”

“I went through that torture for Dex, not some random bloke that I don’t even know yet.”

“Obviously you don’t know him yet,” Mandy sighed. “But we can find you someone.” She paused and looked around. “What about him?”

She nodded toward the man working behind the wet fish counter.

“He’s good looking.”

“He wears a hairnet and a trilby to work and probably smells of haddock. No.”

I rolled my eyes and stalked off into the next aisle. Within seconds, Mandy was screeching up beside me, her trolley free-wheeling as she had her feet off the floor and was leaning on the handle.

“How old are you, six?”

“Seriously, Katie you need to come back to the tinned food. There’s a really fit bloke down there. He’s almost as hot as Dex. You need to come and look at him,” she whisper-screeched at me. “He’s got a really nice bum.”

Her eyebrows were almost in her hairline, she was pleading so much.

“Fine,” I huffed and stormed past her back to the tinned food aisle.

When I rounded the corner, I burst out laughing with a loud snort. Standing handing out leaflets was a man dressed as a chicken, with huge, clawed feet and a plastic beak held on with elastic around his head.

“Sorry,” a little voice said in my ear. “I promise I won’t try and set you up, not yet anyway. Not until Dex has called and said he’s never coming back and hopes you have a nice life.”

With that, I picked up the French stick and whacked her with it.

Katie

As I unpacked my shopping, my mind whirled with the possibility of Dex not returning – ever. And it was a possibility, because if he decided to keep Savannah, she had to be his main priority and if she needed to be in the US, in an environment she was used to, then I’d support him wholeheartedly. It’d break my heart, but it would be something I’d have to cope with.

I wondered whether we could maybe do the long distance thing, but that wouldn’t work. I couldn’t see him being happy to not date or have sex with anyone, except the once a year that I’d be able to visit him or him visit me. It wasn’t as though he was in love with me.

Me, though, well that was another matter. I was most definitely in love with Dex Michaels. Absence had made the heart grow fonder, but I think my heart was pretty much already there before he’d left. It had definitely been teetering on the edge at least, and then with him being gone for two weeks, four days and thirteen hours, I was definitely in love.

It was going to take me a long time to get over Dex, and as pathetic as it made me feel and sound, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

---