Page 67 of The Price of Love
In the flat I flopped down on the big sofa overlooking the window.
‘Coffee?’ Cal stood nervously in the kitchen. ‘Or something else? Or, shall I cook?’
‘We’ve just eaten garlic chicken,’ I reminded him. ‘Coffee is fine.’
‘Or tea? Or there’s some hot chocolate.’
‘Cal. Coffee is fine.’
But he didn’t move, simply stood, staring at me. ‘God, you must be mad.’ He ran fingers through his hair. ‘Wanting to be here, with me. I mean, look at the place, look atme. Not exactly Johnny Depp, am I?’
‘You really don’t have any ego at all, do you?’
‘I think there’s a jar in the cupboard somewhere.’
‘Cal, shut up.’
‘Or wine. I could open a bottle, would you like a glass of wine?’
‘Cal, shut up.’
‘I keep looking at you, waiting for you to disappear in a puff of smoke.’
‘Callum Moore, if you don’t shut up and come over here I bloodywilldisappear.’
‘Ooh, I like a woman who knows her own mind.’ He sank down onto the sofa beside me.
‘And if you don’t kiss me properly within the next ten seconds, I’m going.’
‘I like a woman who knowsmymind even better.’
‘It’s like living in a fridge magnet factory, being with you.’ But his lips were cool on mine, his fingers gentle on my face, the slight scratch of stubble against my cheek and his hair in my eyes, and I could forgive him anything.
Apart from eating all the bread. I was still working on forgiving that.
* * *
Cal’s bedroom was pale green and terracotta, poster-sized blow-ups of computer innards framed and hung around the walls. Windows racked with blinds against the night. A fan, circling, blowing streamers of tape which made tricksy little shadows. A drenched oasis in a cracked-earth reality.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey yourself.’ Cal lay tangled in the sheets, a cunning fold of bedding covering his groin and leg but leaving his chest bare.
‘Did you arrange yourself like that before I woke up, just so you’d look debauched?’
‘Give me a break. My bauch is without question.’ Cal sat up, still trailing sheets artfully.
I gave a little shiver, remembering the shameless sex that had carried us through the night. Exciting, edgy, nothing like the sex that I had with Luke. ‘You were incredible, Cal.’
Instead of the self-deprecating remark I was expecting, Cal smiled, slowly. It was like watching a cat grin, enigmatic, poised and very slightly smug. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t I just.’
I’d even dared, last night, to look at Cal naked and uncovered. I’d averted my eyes before, stupidly ignorant about cerebral palsy and worried that he might be twisted or deformed, but the leg looked almost normal, slightly less muscletone than his right as we’d worked up a sweat between us — but nothing scary.
A sudden thought struck me. ‘What’s it going to be like for you, if I have to keep pretending to Luke that he and I are still an item? I don’t want to sleep with him again,urgh, but I’m going to have to keep you in the background.’
Cal still had that lazy smile stuck to his face. You could have taken his picture and used him to illustrate the statement self-congratulatory. ‘I’ll live with it. It’ll be worth it in the end. And besides,’ he rearranged my hair as it fell on my shoulders, ‘why should I worry? I’m a much better fuck.’
‘Ah, the return of the ego.’
