Butterfly (15 page)

BEN

At 7.30 p.m., I ring Grace’s
doorbell, feeling nervous. I don’t want to stuff this up like I’ve
stuffed up so much in my life.

It’s just a drink, that’s
all!

Even though I’ve been telling
myself that constantly, it means more to me than just a drink.

She opens the door, and the
first thing I notice is she’s had her hair done. Golden highlights
weave through the auburn, and it’s been layered so it bounces and
shimmers as she moves. She’s wearing faded tight jeans, high heel
black boots, and an emerald green top with a scoop neck that brings
out the colour of her eyes. Minimal makeup. She smells of her
signature vanilla scent.

She’s so breathtakingly gorgeous
I’m lost for words for a few seconds, and I just stand there,
staring at her like an idiot.

‘You’ve had your hair cut,’ I
blurt out the obvious.

She touches her hair. ‘Yep.
That’s the caring thing I’ve done for myself today. It’s been a
long time, and I needed a good trim.’

‘It looks great.’ Maybe that
sounds like it didn’t look great before, so I add, ‘Not that it
doesn’t always look great. Actually, you look gorgeous.’

She blushes, her gaze running
down my jeans and dark purple shirt. ‘Thanks. You look…great,
too.’

She locks the door, and we walk
through the warm night down the high street. The promise of summer
is on the verge of rolling in, and neither of us has a jacket.

‘Where do you want to go?’ I
ask.

‘There’s a pub with a beer
garden by the river that’s supposed to be nice and quiet,’ she
says. ‘We could go there?’

Honestly, I don’t care where the
hell we go as long as I’m with her.

My hands fidget at my side. I
want to slide my fingers through hers as we walk, but I don’t. What
if she’s not feeling the same things as me? I want her to be
completely secure with me, and that means she has to make the first
move, if it ever happens.

I’ll wait as long as it
takes.

We order drinks and sit in the
beer garden at a secluded table in the back overlooking the river.
She faces the door and scans the crowd, her eyes deep in
concentration, making sure that bastard isn’t here.

Satisfied he’s not, she
straddles the backless wooden bench and turns to me.

‘So…’ I trail off, completely
lost for words as I think of something clever to say.

Yeah, your conversation is
really scintillating, you idiot!
You can barely string a
sentence together.
Think of something to say!

I’m not used to this. I don’t
get close to people. I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is
that with Grace, it’s different. I’ve never felt like this with
anyone before, it’s completely alien to me, and a voice in the back
of head tells me I shouldn’t.

I don’t deserve it. I don’t
deserve to be happy.

But I want to be. And she makes
me happy.

‘Have you been here before?’ I
say, and almost kick myself because it’s such a pathetic line.

What’s wrong with me?

‘No. In fact, I haven’t been out
socializing anywhere for a long time.’

‘Me, neither. Maybe we should
raise a toast to having fun.’ I reach out my bottle of beer to her
glass of wine.

‘Fun. Yes, I like the sound of
that.’ She touches her glass to the bottle.

I take a sip of beer to give me
more time. ‘The new self-defence course starts tomorrow morning. Do
you still want to do it?’

‘Absolutely. Where and
when?’

‘At the gym we’ve been going to.
Ten a.m.’

‘I’ll be there.’ She sips her
white wine, looking at me over the rim of it. ‘I think it’s really
nice of you to volunteer to teach it.’

I can’t speak because I don’t
want another lie to come out of my mouth, so I just nod.

‘How did you get into teaching
it? Because of the MMA training?’

‘Yeah, Mixed Martial Arts gives
you a background for all kinds of defensive moves. When I was
younger, I was the BAMMA British Middleweight champion a couple of
times over.’

‘Wow, that’s fantastic.’ Her
eyes light up.

I shrug as if it’s nothing,
because it
is
nothing now. That part of my life is long
gone. ‘I was always into sports when I was a kid. I started doing
Judo then moved onto jiu-jitsu, then boxing, and Thai boxing, so,
that’s how I can teach self-defence. And passing on what I know to
women is more rewarding than winning a belt. It might help save
someone’s life one day.’

‘Well, I think it’s great.’

I take another long sip of beer
to hide the smile of pride I feel at her words.

‘You don’t like to talk about
yourself much, do you?’ she asks. ‘Which is weird. Theo
loved
to talk about himself all the time. It was his
favourite subject.’

‘Maybe it’s because of my job.’
I glance at the floor before flicking my gaze back up to hers. ‘I
let other people talk.’

‘So…talking of fun, what do you
do when you’re not teaching or counselling or at the coffee shop?
What do
you
usually do for fun?’ She tilts her head, and her
hair cascades over her shoulders. I want to run my fingers through
it.

‘You promise you won’t
laugh?’

She makes a cross over her heart
with her finger. ‘Promise.’

‘I read. Autobiographies and
psychology books, mostly. And I watch documentaries. Sounds pretty
boring, doesn’t it? I’m a nerd.’ I don’t tell her I sit and think
about that night all the time, too. Going over and over in my head
how differently things could’ve turned out.

‘Well, you don’t look anything
like the nerds I went to school with.’ She looks me up and down,
and the warmth of her gaze sears my skin.

‘I just like learning stuff. And
it’s amazing the things you can learn from documentaries. For
example, did you know that noseprints of dogs can be used to
identify them, just like human’s fingerprints.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. A human skeleton has 300
bones when you’re born but only 206 when you grow up.’

‘No way! Where do the extra
bones go?’ She raises a questionable eyebrow.

‘You’ll have to watch some
documentaries to find out.’ I smirk. ‘Some turtles can breathe
through their bums, did you know that?’

‘You just made that up, didn’t
you?’ She throws back her head and laughs, exposing the soft white
skin of her neck upon which I can imagine my lips tracking a line
of kisses.

‘Snails can sleep for three
years at a time.’ I grin. ‘Only half of a dolphin's brain goes to
sleep. The other half makes sure it comes up for water so it
doesn’t drown.’

‘Wow.’

‘I could go on forever, but I
don’t want to bore you with my useless facts.’

‘It’s not boring. It’s pretty
interesting, actually.’ She smiles at me. ‘I was the school nerd,
too,’

I arch an eyebrow. ‘Well, you’re
definitely
nothing like the nerds I went to school with,
either. Actually, I was never very academic at school. I was too
busy with martial arts and more interested in practical stuff.’

‘Well, you’ve got a degree in
psychology and counselling, so I’d say you were pretty
academic.’

‘Yeah, that came later. Along
with the nerdiness.’

‘So, what’s your favourite
fiction book?’

I take a sip of beer and swallow
slowly as I think. ‘
To Kill a Mockingbird
, probably.’

‘I love that book! We did it for
our English O Levels, but I must’ve read it about ten times since.
After Mum died, I kind of threw myself into books to escape my
life. None of my friends really knew what to say to me after it
happened. Gradually they drifted away, and I let them. Death does
funny things to people. My world consisted of reading and working
in the coffee shop, and I never really fitted in anywhere. I…I
wanted to be a writer.’ She looks wistful and a little
uncomfortable, as if it’s the first time she’s shared this with
anyone. ‘I wanted to study creative writing, but Imogen made it
clear she couldn’t afford for me to do that. I had an obligation to
work for her to repay her taking me in, so I replaced the books
with learning all I could about baking.’

‘Never say never, Grace. If
that’s what you want to do, I’ve got no doubt you’ll do it.’

‘Maybe I will, one day.’ She
shakes her head as if trying to clear away the long-gone hopes
pushed into a corner of her brain. ‘Anyway, we made a promise not
to talk about sad stuff, so…tell me something else about you.
What’s your favourite film? Mine has to be
The Shawshank
Redemption
. Do you know it? The one where an innocent guy gets
sent to prison?’

I look at the ground to try to
hide the emotion bubbling to the surface. ‘Never seen it.’ I try to
keep my voice steady as I stand up. ‘Do you want another
drink?’

She stares at her empty wine
glass as if she can’t remember drinking it. ‘Mmm, thanks.’ She
holds out the glass.

When I come back from the bar,
I’ve pressed the memories back down and composed myself again. We
talk about other books we’ve read, new recipe ideas she has for the
shop, music, places we’d like to travel. I can’t stop looking at
her mouth as she talks.

‘So what do you think?’ she
says.

I didn’t hear the last thing she
said. I’ve been too captivated by her mouth.

‘Sorry?’ I say.

‘You weren’t listening, were
you?’ Her lips curve into a smile that just about undoes me.

‘Er…yeah, I was listening.’

‘What did I say, then?’ She
tilts her head.

‘Something about…’ I trail off
and laugh. ‘You’re right, I was thinking about something else.’

‘What?’

I don’t say anything. She’s not
letting me get away with it that easily, though, and she raises her
eyebrows in a question.

I clear my throat. ‘You probably
don’t want to know what I was thinking.’

‘I do.’

I take another sip of beer for
courage. I’m not used to alcohol anymore, and it’s going to my
head, making me braver.

My gaze roams over her mouth,
the dip and curve of her full lips, and I wonder if they feel as
soft as they look. ‘I’m thinking how much I want to kiss you right
now.’ I instantly regret the words as soon as they’re out of my
mouth, because her jaw drops open and her eyes widen.

31

GRACE

I’m so surprised by what he’s
said, I stare at him open-mouthed. He just admitted in a roundabout
way that he likes me, and that ripple of excitement is back. Ben
evokes strange feelings in me that I’ve never had before, and I
don’t know how to deal with it.

I’m happy and scared all at
once. I don’t know if I’m capable of this. If I can ever take
things further with someone.

I like Ben. I mean, I
really
like him.

But I don’t want to.

It’s too hard. Too
complicated.

Why am I feeling like this? Is
it just because he’s been there for me all this time? Is it because
he’s so kind? Do I like him because I’m just grateful? I don’t know
how to do this, whatever this is. I don’t know how to have a
relationship. I was never any good at it with Theo, and since
him…well, now it’s just not possible. I’m scared, but I’m not
scared
of
Ben. I’m scared for an entirely different reason.
I don’t want to mess this up. This…friendship. I don’t want to make
a mistake; I know how deadly they can be. It’s reckless even to
think what I’m thinking about right now. I need to protect
myself.

But I’m also sick of thinking,
analyzing, and worrying too much for once in my life. Sick of being
the girl who longs and wants for things she can’t have. Tonight I
want to forget and just live for one second, instead of just
existing. Feel what it’s like to be cared about by someone. I’m
tired of being alone.

I don’t know if it’s the wine
going to my head, making me more relaxed and reckless. But what I
do know is that I really want his lips on mine. And suddenly I
can’t stop the words falling out of my mouth...

‘I want you to kiss me.’ My
voice sounds strange to my ears as I gaze into his dark eyes, as if
it belongs to someone else. And the way he’s looking at me…no one’s
ever looked at me like that. His eyes are all consuming, burning me
up from the inside out.

Before I know what I’m doing,
I’m angling my head towards his.

He leans in closer, his spicy
aftershave wrapping itself around my nose. His powerful hands slide
up my shoulders and cradle the back of my neck, but instead of
feeling vulnerable, I feel protected.

His soft lips brush across mine,
and I’m dizzy.

Hot.

Breathless.

My mouth parts automatically, as
if it has a mind of its own. His tongue seeks mine, and as they
sweep together, the touch is so light it’s almost like torture. A
gentleness that Theo never possessed is there.

I don’t want to breathe in case
he stops. My hands reach up to touch his smooth jaw and chiselled
cheekbones. My pulse bangs hard in my ears. My head spins. Heat
floods my cheeks.

As the kiss deepens and he wraps
his tongue around mine, my fear vanishes, and every muscle in my
body relaxes. The inner tightness coiled inside like a hard knot
dissolves.

A kiss was never like this with
anyone before. I thought I’d be shaking and trying to tear away
from him, but it seems so natural, as if our mouths are a perfect
fit for each other. I realize that even though I’ve been kissed
before, this is the first time I’ve ever been really
kissed.

I’m so lost in the flickers of
desire flaming through me that I don’t want to open my eyes in case
it’s not real. In case I’m dreaming. I’m trying to etch the feel of
his full lips on mine into my memory forever because for this
moment, I’m a normal woman again.

When he wrenches away from me,
it’s like part of me is missing.