Page 2 of The Price of Love
And there you have it. The essence of my little problem. Whenever I see a man I find halfway attractive, I start throwing up. Can’t help it. It’s happened ever since my teens. My doctor says it’s stress-related. Oddly enough, it never happens at work — although that might be because Katie and I work in a department of the local paper where the only men are moribundand/or pensionable. But it means that, of necessity, all my friends are women. If you don’t count Jazz and I’ve known him since primary school so I’m immune. Even though people tell me he’s good-looking, I can’t see past the buck-toothed, toad-loving ten-year-old.
Another one of the unpleasant things about my problem is that it can give rise to misunderstandings. Following a visit to a pantomime and a case of food poisoning, I had to spend six weeks convincing Jazz and Katie that I fancied neither of the Chuckle Brothers. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how embarrassingthatwas.
‘Can we go back in now? It’s freezing out here.’
‘Are you sure?’ Katie raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, it’s been a rough time for you, Will, with the funeral yesterday and all this today. Wouldn’t you rather go home?’
What, and miss the chance of ogling Luke on an empty stomach? ‘I’m fine. Honestly.’
We tried to re-enter nonchalantly, pretending we’d only popped out for a breath of air. ‘Okay then, Willow. Spill the beans,’ Jazz said, then slammed a hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry. I meant, fill us in. Details about this Luke, please, and I meandetails.’ He waggled his eyebrows in a way suggestive of . . . well, actually just suggestive. Sometimes Jazz is such agirl. That’s why we like him.
‘There’s really not much to say. He did some kind of science degree. I used to see him now and again hanging round the Union bar. He had a job in town, in a record shop, went out with most of the girls in our year.’
‘Uh-huh. Soyounever went out with him?’
‘Um. No.’
‘But you wished you had?’ Sometimes, for all his comical affectations, Jazz can be quite perceptive. I was only now realising that misery had no statute of limitations on it.
‘Um.’
‘Willow.’ Katie frowned at me. ‘Is this the guy you had that enormous crush on? The one who played in that band that you made me go and see about fifty times? Used to be so skinny he made Johnny Depp look fat? That guy?’
Yes, Kate, I wanted to say. That guy. The man I lost sleep over, the man who haunted my dreams, who slid his hand down my thigh in my hottest fantasies. ‘Could be,’ was what I, in fact, said, mitigating wildly. ‘Looks a bit like him.’
‘Luke Fry.’ Katie glanced over again and clicked her fingers. ‘That’s his name. He asked me out once, you know.’
What! ‘You never told me that.’
‘Well, I knew how much you fancied him.’ The rest of the sentence went unsaid, but if it had been pronounced, it would have contained words such as ‘never even noticed you were alive’.
‘Did you go?’ Despite the churning of my stomach, I let my gaze roam over and rest on the back view of Luke Fry. He was still slim, though the scraggy body had filled out to be merely slender and, in contrast to his friends, he wore stonewashed jeans and a dark blue shirt. Flanked by the two suits, he looked like a rock star being minded by accountants.
‘Ha. Did I, hell.’ Katie turned a thoughtful gaze my way. ‘Too bloody cocky for my liking. Anyway, I had Dan.’ And that is just one of the reasons why Katie is my best friend. Oh, not for calling Luke ‘cocky’, but for turning him down. She’d always had her pick of men at uni, whilst I’d been more — ah, limited in my choices due to the whole vomit thing. Knowing that she hadn’t just upped and gone out with the man I would have sold my entire family for one night with made me love her all the more.
‘And you still do.’ Jazz tapped his watch. ‘But only for another twenty seconds if you don’t get home in a hurry. You told him you’d be back by five, remember?’
‘Oh, shit.’ With much scrabbling around under the table for coat, bag and phone, Katie prepared to leave. ‘I thought having him as a stay-at-home dad was going to be the end of my problems with childcare, not the beginning of a whole new world of guilt. I’ll call tonight, Wills, yes? Just to make sure you’re okay. Provided the twins go to bed all right. For some reason, a Friday with their father is usually enough to wind them up beyond all human understanding. If not, you’ll be in tomorrow, all day?’
‘Course. Love to Dan and the boys.’ But my eyes had swivelled of their own accord to the impeccably tailored back of Luke Fry. God, how I had wanted that man. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that the intervening ten years should have wiped out at least some of that longing, the sheer emptiness I’d felt at the end of every day when he had once more failed to acknowledge so much as the space that I occupied. But, here I was, old enough to know better and still, God help me,stillwishing he’d turn around, catch my eye and smile that particular smile.
‘You okay, Will?’ Jazz patted my arm. Owing to the enormous weight of silver rings he was wearing, it was like being caressed by a carthorse in full harness.
‘Fine, Jazz. Look,’ my voice was shaking slightly, ‘I’d better be off home, too. I suspect a family conference is going to be thrown, now we’ve all found out what Granddad left us, so . . .’ I kept my eyes stapled to his face. Why should I look at Luke Fry? Why should I even want to?
Jazz stared at me. Although he’d dyed his hair black to go with the whole undead thing, his eyebrows were still distressingly pale, giving him the appearance of an unfinished painting. ‘Sure you’re all right? You’ve not done the up-chucking thing for a while now.’
‘I know. It got me a bit by surprise, but I’ll be okay.’ I pulled my jacket on and backed towards the door, my face pink with the effort of not glancing over at the bar. ‘Better get back, you know what my family is like, they’ll be imagining me mugged and in a ditch by now.’
‘Who’d mug you for a nose?’ Jazz lifted his drink again.
‘I don’t know, Tycho Brahe?’ Then, because he was doing the ‘blank face’ of a man whose hobbies only include reading if the words are printed on the back of a beer bottle, I said, ‘Look it up. Anyway, if you’re at a loose end tomorrow, pop over. I’m not doing anything, as usual.’ I finished speaking, spun round to open the door and collided hard with another body.
There was a sudden smell of expensive cologne, an impression of firmness and the scratch of linen against my face. Then my mortification was completed by a hand under my elbow helping me upright until I could stare into the face of—
‘I’m terribly sorry, wasn’t looking. Hold on a moment. Don’t I know you? Your face is really familiar. Give me a minute. It’s Willow. Willow Cayton, isn’t it? Good God, that’s incredible. Do you remember me? Fry. Luke Fry? We were at university together?’
With deep breathing and an empty stomach, I could just about keep things down and under control, but I hoped he couldn’t see the desperate clenching that was necessary. ‘Oh. Ah. Hello.’
