Lean On Me (Take My Hand) (4 page)

Rachel

Man
, I could really do with Emily right
now. I’ve never needed my best friend more in my life. I texted her a couple of
days ago and briefly told her how confused I was over the whole Jared situation
but I didn’t get as much back from her as I’d hoped. I know it’s understandable
considering all the shit she and Dexter are dealing with over there in the States,
and I’m probably being selfish… but I just wanted her to forget it all for a
few minutes and help me. Call me. Skype me.
Anything
me. I just… need her.

Jared is relentless. I thought he might
ease off a little when we got back to London but if anything, without my
parents around to stifle his efforts, he’s got worse. Tonight is New Years Eve
and I’m dreading what he might have planned. I agreed to go out with him
because that is what we ‘do’. We’re friends – we go out and drink
together… and I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose him – I
don’t want to lose our friendship.

I was adjusting the height of the built
in shower chair in the cubicle when I heard a song start playing out of
nowhere. Holding my robe over the front of my body to cover the essentials, I
made my way out of the bathroom and followed the noise. A few more lines in I
realised it was Just Say Yes by Snow Patrol and as I got closer I noticed it
was coming from my phone. I knew without even looking it had something to do
with Jared and as I picked it up and swiped across the screen, I wasn’t
surprised to find a text message from him.

Jared: Need any help changing for our
date tonight? ;-)

Me: You touched my phone. Don’t ever
touch my phone

Me:
PS.
The only date today is 31
^st
December

Jared: U didn’t answer my question

Me: And I’m not going 2

Jared: I’ll pick u up in an hr

Me: I won’t b ready in an hr. I’ve not
even showered yet

Jared: In that case I’ll be there in
half ;-)

Me: Don’t bother. I won’t let u in

Jared: Em gave me a key and I’m not
afraid to use it :D

She didn’t. She wouldn’t. Would she?

Me: Hey ho. Did u give Jared a key to
our place? Miss u trundles xxx

Ten minutes passed and Emily still
hadn’t replied. Assuming she wasn’t going to, I showered as quickly as I could
just in case Jared was telling the truth. Ever since my fall at my parents’
house I’ve been nervous showering while I’m alone in the flat. It’s ridiculous
really – I’ve been doing it for years with no slip-ups (excuse the pun)
whatsoever. But it’s either stink like a tramp in summer or man the fuck up and
get on with it.

Sliding my bangles further up my arm, I
looked at my watch when I heard a car pull up outside. The sod was even earlier
than he said he’d be. A smug grin washed over my face as I made my way towards
the door after hearing the bell ring. He mustn’t have a key after all, I
thought, feeling amused
and
relieved.

Seriously, how glad was I that I didn’t
open the door with one of my usual greetings such as ‘hey, dick wart’, when I
was met with a flower delivery guy.

“Rachel Mason?” he asked, holding a small
bunch of wrapped purple peonies, the same colour as the one tattooed on my arm.
I nodded and took the flowers from him, admiring up close how pretty they were.
When I looked back up Flower Delivery Guy was gone, so I laid the flowers
across my knee and wheeled back inside. There was a small card tucked inside
the cellophane and I pulled it out sceptically – knowing who it was from
but curious about what he had to say.

Day 5
~ Your future boyfriend x

Day
five? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Seemed I was about to find out
when a few seconds later, Jared let himself into my flat, waving his key
proudly in the air and looking too hot for his own good in black jeans and a
white shirt with just the right amount of buttons undone at the top.

“Fucker.”

“Good
afternoon to you too, saffy. I see you got my flowers?”

“Day
five?”

“Today
is the fifth day you’ve still not said yes. If I were smarter I’d have started
sending them on day one. But I’m not… so we’re starting at day five.”

“Well
as long as you know you’re going to end up bankrupt,” I said dismissively,
trying to ignore the warm feeling cocooning my heart.

“Nah.
It won’t take that long,” he replied confidently. I simply shook my head,
amused at his sureness. “You ready?”

“My
hair is wet. Do I
look
ready?”

“You
look beautiful.” A smile emerged on my lips without permission, even though I
knew he was probably bullshitting me as part of his master plan. “Let me do
your hair.”

“My
hair
.
You…
want to do… my
hair?
”
What the…

“Sure,”
he said, shrugging nonchalantly.

“Um…
let me think. How about, fuck no!”

“I’m
doing your hair.”

“You
are
not
doing my hair!” I protested,
gripping my hand-rims and wheeling away from him.

“I’ll
catch you, saffy. I can run faster than you can wheel,” he teased.

“Seriously,
I don’t get what’s gotten into you lately!” I stopped, throwing my hands in the
air. Damn, I was laughing. I was supposed to be acting pissed off.

“Well
I know what’ll be getting into
you
soon
enough.” He strode over to me with a wicked grin illuminating his irritatingly
gorgeous face. Then he bent down so his mouth was level with my ear, and when
his breath swept across my heated cheeks my breath caught.
Damn.
“Me,” he whispered throatily.

Ah,
fuck. I’m so screwed.

Well,
I gave in; I let Jared do my hair. He played around with the pink strands for a
while before blasting them off with the hairdryer and then brushing it through
with his fingers. That’s why, when we came to leave the house, it was piled
neatly in a bun on the back of my head courtesy of my
own
hands. Don’t ever tell him I said this, but I had so much fun
watching his face twist in frustration through the mirror when he couldn’t get
it to do what he wanted.

I
don’t live too far from the city centre so we decided to walk into town rather
than pay for overpriced taxis. When we reached the end of the path leading up
to my flat Jared moved behind me and started pushing me forwards. The weird
thing was – I didn’t stop him. I’ve always had this thing about people
pushing me. It’s almost like they’re quashing my independence. Yet… it didn’t
even occur to me to ask him to stop and I have
no
idea why.

“You
know…” I began as we rounded the corner. “I’ve never met any of your other
friends. So either you’re keeping them a secret or you don’t have any. You’re
not some kind of creepy, loner, serial killer are you?”

“Well
I have been known to massacre a cornflake or two in my time.”

“You’re
such a loser.” I couldn’t see his face but I could almost
feel
his smiling eyes boring into the back of my head.

“I
have friends,” he continued. “But they’ve all grown up I suppose. They’re all
settling down with girls and babies and shit.” That was one of those moments
where I was reminded just how much older Jared is than me.

“And
don’t you want that, old man? Babies and shit?”

“Sure
I do.” Whoa… why wasn’t I expecting that answer? More importantly, why did my
heart feel like it was having a party in my chest? “I’ve just never met anyone
I wanted to do that with. Until now.”

No
way did he just say that. No. Fucking. Way… was he mentioning babies and shit,
and
me
in the same sentence.

“Let’s
start there,” I said, pointing towards a bar called Beatz and purposely
changing the subject before my cheeks combusted, my heart exploded and my
nerves disintegrated.

**********

Three
hours, two bars and a pub later… we ended up back at Beatz. We found a free
table and decided to stay there for the rest of the night because the whole
city was hammered with people celebrating the New Year. Jared and I were just
the right side of drunk. We weren’t wasted, but were easily tipsy enough to
forget the awkwardness that had been looming over us lately.

Or
was that just me?

“Can
I ask you something personal?” Jared asked, slurring only slightly as he folded
his arms across the table and leaned towards me.

“Shoot.”

“I
hope I’m not being disabledist…”
Disabledist?
He can be so stupidly adorable. Or rather, so stupid it’s adorable. “But
can you, you know…
feel
stuff down
there?” His gaze dropped to my crotch and if I hadn’t been bordering on drunk,
I probably would’ve slapped him. “Is that a stupid question?”

“It’s
not stupid,” I confirmed with a small laugh. “And it’s not ‘disabledist’
either. I have what’s called an
incomplete
spinal cord injury. That means I still have some sensory function in random
places below the waist. Luckily for me, down
there
is one of them,” I clarified with a wink. What was I doing? I
was bloody flirting with him! Ah well, we weren’t planning to stop drinking any
time soon so neither one of us would probably remember tomorrow. “But it’s not
like that for everyone. People with complete spinal cord injury can’t feel
anything at all.”

“Wow,”
he muttered. “Poor bastards.”

“Yeah,”
I agreed, shaking my head and sniggering.

“So
you can…you know?” He stopped mid-sentence and bit his bottom lip. Dear God how
I wished that was
my
lip between his
teeth.

Stop it!
I mentally
scolded myself.

“Oh,
baby… you wouldn’t
believe
the things
I can do,” I answered, leaning closer to him.

Seriously…
stop it, stop it, stop it!

“I
have very strong arms that can lift me into all kinds of positions.”

Fuck it. I give up. As you were…

“And
if you stand up, my mouth is at just the right level to blow your fucking mind…
among other things.” Jared swallowed forcefully and shifted in his seat before sliding
his chair closer to mine and pressing our noses together.

“Rachel…
I have never wanted to be inside of a girl so much in my whole life as I want
to be inside you right now. Let me take you home. Let me have you before the
New Year begins, and if when it does you still just want to be friends… I’ll
back off, I promise.”

Oh,
sweet Jesus, I’d never wanted to be able to cross my legs so badly. It was the
only thing I could think of that might dull the violent throb between my
thighs.

“Please,
Rachel. Let me fuck you,” he whispered hoarsely into my ear before nibbling on
my lobe. How did he make such crude words sound so incredibly beautiful?
Must be the alcohol…

“Okay.”
I rushed the word out before I had a chance to change my mind. Just one night
then we could be ‘friends’ again? I could do that. It might even be beneficial
to get it out of our systems. Maybe it would kill Jared’s curiosity (because
that’s all it was, right?) and I would be able to stop obsessing over these
stupid, nonsensical feelings all the damn time.

Yeah,
the more I thought about it, the more I decided this was exactly what we needed
to do.

Just.
One. Night.

Jared
called for a wheelchair accessible taxi to take us back to my place but after
waiting for nearly twenty minutes, he got impatient and started pushing me home.
It was only a ten minute walk away but it was one of the most nerve-wracking
ten minutes of my life. I’d never been so aware of my own heartbeat, I’d never
felt so hot despite the frigid December air and I had
never
had so many nerves fluttering around inside my belly. Forget
butterflies, I had a herd of a thousand tiny elephants stamping around in
there.

We
didn’t speak the whole way home and I’m pretty sure it was the longest time
we’ve ever been in silence together without being passed out from drinking too
much. I’d done this before – been home with a guy. So why was I so
nervous? Actually fuck nervous, I was almost petrified. I had the most
distorted fear that I was about to let him down. What if I was too much for
him? Too overbearing? Jesus Christ, what if I wasn’t enough? What if I made him
nervous or afraid to touch me? Fuck, what if he
pitied
me?

I’d always been so confident in the
bedroom department, possibly to the point of being over the top. Maybe that’s
because, as with everything, I’ve always felt this need to prove myself –
prove that I’m not hindered by these damn legs of mine.

Before
tonight I’ve been safe in the knowledge that guys dig the fact I take control.
If I focus entirely on
them
and what
they
want, they’ll be too busy reeling
from what I’m doing to them to worry about me or what I’m capable of. If I’m
giving them the time of their life, they won’t have time to feel sorry for me,
or even worse… be
fascinated
by me. I
can’t bear to be looked at like I’m some kind of circus animal, and yes, some
dickholes really
do
do that.