A Funny Thing About Love (24 page)

The next dilemma was to text or not to text Daniel to see if everything was okay. If she sent one, did it make her sound too keen? That ridiculous playground chant went through her head: treat them mean to keep them keen. Or did it just say mature woman who didn't need to play games and was just checking his daughter was okay? She decided not to, knowing that if she did she would then spent the next three hours obsessing
about whether he was going to reply or not. She would text him in the morning.

But actually, she reflected at five a.m., when she'd woken up still feeling strung out, maybe she should have texted him that night, maybe it looked as if she wasn't concerned about Millie? In so many ways, wasn't it easier being in the sexual wilderness? At least one knew where one stood.

She had just emerged from the shower the following morning when the doorbell rang. She wrapped a towel round her, padded to the door and opened it to Daniel.

‘Millie's with her gran, I just wanted to say sorry.' He looked knackered and was unshaven, but still oh so gorgeous. They stood staring at each other for a few seconds as water dripped from Carmen on to the hall floor.

She felt self-conscious after the unbridled passion of the night before. It had been so intense and here they were behaving like polite strangers.

‘'S'okay – d'you want a coffee?' When in doubt offer a hot beverage.

Daniel nodded and followed her in. ‘I'll just get dressed,' Carmen said, diving into the bedroom.

She was about to whip off the towel and grab her clothes when Daniel walked in. ‘Actually, can't we pick up from last night? I promise my phone's not going to ring. And by the way, I didn't choose the
Star Wars
ringtone, it was Millie. Just in case you're having second
thoughts about getting close to someone who has that on their phone.'

He walked towards her. Carmen decided to be bold and let the towel fall from her body. And they did indeed pick up from last night, except this time on the bed, not on the hard wooden floor, but as Daniel began kissing her body, starting with her neck, moving to her breasts and then continuing his delicious exploration, Carmen would have gladly lain on cold concrete to be the recipient of such intense pleasure, and even if he'd had the ringtone of ‘Agadoo', she would have done it all again.

Afterwards they both lay staring up at the ceiling. Carmen didn't know how to begin to frame a sentence expressing all the emotions colliding in her head. In the end it was easier than she thought as Daniel turned to her and simply said, ‘Thank you.'

‘Thank
you
,' she replied, staring into his brown eyes which were flecked with gold and reminded her of sunlight dappling through the autumn leaves. Ah, didn't post orgasm make one come out with the sweetest things?

‘So?' Daniel continued. ‘Can I see you again? I don't want you to think that this is just a physical thing, although that was pretty amazing. You're like no one I've ever met before. You're so funny and warm and sexy. Very sexy.'

Carmen turned over and propped herself up on her elbows to consider Daniel, who looked like a handsome Roman soldier with his strong profile and black hair fanned out on the pillow, then checked herself.
I absolutely must not think of the Roman thing, it's just a small step from there to
Gladiator. ‘So this isn't just in the pretty-waitress category?' she asked. ‘You won't forget who I am next time we meet?'

Daniel groaned. ‘No.'

‘Promise?'

‘Promise,' Daniel replied, pulling her to him and kissing her.

And frankly, Carmen thought, even if it was just a fling maybe she could live with that.

‘Oh my God! You got to shag hot dad!' Jess exclaimed when Carmen finally caught up with her in the late afternoon after spending a good three hours in bed with Daniel.

Carmen now knew a few more facts about Daniel:

• He was indeed a very good lover, so good that when they made love she forgot all the bad stuff.

• He closed his eyes when they made love.

• He had a tattoo of his wife's name on his shoulder which he said he wanted to get rid of.

Thinking of the last point, Carmen wondered why he hadn't done it ages ago. Actually, so what? If he could make her feel like she did right now, which was sexy, powerful and satisfied, let him keep the tattoo. She gave an enigmatic smile and stirred her latte.

‘I have so got to tell all the other mums! They'll go mentalist!' Jess continued.

The enigmatic smile vanished. ‘Have you reverted to Harry's age? Strangely enough, Jess, I don't want everyone to know. I'm not just a piece of playground gossip!'

Jess looked suitably shamefaced. ‘I'm so sorry, I just forgot myself. If you knew how very few nuggets of gossip there are in the playground you would understand, and Daniel is like a shining star of beauty in a sea of fairly unattractive men – not that I fancy him, of course. I don't shag other people's boyfriends – not like the bitch whore from hell.'

She was like a dog with a bone! Carmen glared at her friend. ‘Do not pop my post-orgasm bubble with your bitterness!'

Jess looked at her watch; she just had twenty minutes before she picked Harry up from skateboarding club. ‘So come on, give me the low-down, I haven't got long. Is he as good as legend has it?'

A slight nod from Carmen confirmed this.

‘No further details?' Jess asked regretfully.

‘Nope.' And to prevent any further interrogation she asked, ‘Are you feeling okay now?'

Jess looked blank.

‘When I phoned last night Sean said you had a terrible headache and had gone to bed.' The blank look became slightly guilty. ‘Oh yeah. I did have a headache. I took these really strong painkillers and I must have just zonked out.'

Carmen dipped a spoon into her latte and scooped up a layer of froth. Clearly Jess was not going to admit
drinking too much. Carmen wondered how best to get her friend to open up. And she was convinced that she could smell alcohol on Jess now.

‘So it wasn't a hangover?'

Jess shook her head, immediately seeming defensive as she snapped, ‘No, a headache. I told you.' And before Carmen could come up with a follow-up question, Jess quickly changed the subject. ‘So,' she said brightly, ‘when are you next going to see sexy Dan?'

‘He's asked me round for supper on Tuesday, and I guess I'll have to do the whole engaging-with-small-person routine.' Meeting Daniel's daughter again was a nagging source of anxiety. Yes, her godson Harry seemed to think she was okay, even if she did hug him too much for his liking, but then again she was not getting up close and personal with Harry's dad.

‘Oh, come on, you're great with kids and Millie is sweet. She's not a girly girl, and even Harry likes her – in fact, she's the only girl in his class that he does like.'

‘Um,' Carmen was not convinced and she knew that however sweet Millie was it was still going to give whatever she had going with Daniel an added layer of complication. ‘And there's something else.'

Jess looked at her enquiringly. ‘Go on.'

‘Don't you think that Daniel's out of my league, looks-wise? I've never been to bed with a man as gorgeous as him before. He's like A-list good looks; I see myself more as a B- or C-list. B-list on very good days and
going right down to an E on bad days. I bet his wife is really beautiful, isn't she?'

Jess frowned. ‘I can hardly remember what Imogen looked like. Even when she lived with Daniel and Millie he did most of the childcare and school pick-ups. She was always engaged in one of her artistic endeavours. And anyway, sweet cheeks, you're not B- or C-list on the looks front, you are A-list. You're super stylish and sexy.'

‘Only with a lot of assistance from Mademoiselle Coco Chanel, combined with flattering lighting,' Carmen said gloomily.

‘Oh, pull yourself together! You never used to be so insecure about your looks!' Jess told her.

‘That was when I was the right side of thirty, married and looking forward to having children. Now I'm the wrong side of thirty, separated and . . .' – she paused, some of the glow left over from her passion with Daniel dispersing with these thoughts – ‘. . . barren.'

‘Don't say that,' Jess implored her. ‘Come on, focus on the good. This is your fresh start in Brighton. Don't be tied to your past, Carmen. It's time for you to move on.'

Carmen sighed and took a sip of coffee. Logically she knew Jess was right, it was just that the past was like a thorn lodged deep inside her and she didn't think she would ever get away from the sadness of not having a child, however much she could rationalise it.

Daniel lived a few streets away from Jess. It was very different from the red-brick, rather imposing houses Carmen was used to in North London. Here, many of the Victorian terraced houses were painted in pastel colours – pink, purple and blue seemed to be popular – and so the area had a cheerful, laid-back vibe. Daniel's terrace house was no exception. It was a brilliant Mediterranean blue with a sunshine-yellow door and window frames. Even though it opened directly on to the pavement Daniel still had several large pots of plants outside and Carmen noticed a rose bush and a hydrangea cut back for the winter. She had rocked up at quarter to nine, keeping her fingers crossed that Millie would be safely tucked in bed. She needed more time with Daniel before she got to know Millie. She felt a mixture of anticipation, nervousness, excitement and lust – that Andrex puppy was working overtime.

Daniel opened the door. He had come straight from the shower. His hair was damp and he was naked except for an orange beach towel wrapped round his waist with the word ‘hot!' emblazoned across it in red letters.
I should say so
! Carmen thought, taking in his beautiful,
smooth brown skin, the colour of mocha. Hang on, she really couldn't be channelling a Ricky Martin song could she? Lust could do most unsettling things to a girl, and right now on a scale of one to ten her lustometer was set to ten. ‘Hi,' she murmured.

‘Hi,' Daniel murmured back as he dipped his head down and kissed her, at which point Carmen was mightly relieved to have swapped the Chanel red lipstick for the sheer cherry lip gloss, otherwise the Chanel would have gone all over Daniel's lovely manly chin and there would have been that awkward moment when she rubbed it off and wondered what the state of her own chin would be. But never mind about the lipstick, there was a much more interesting stick on her mind right now, actually not on her mind but making its presence known against her. Daniel was not unmoved by her arrival. Carmen kissed him more deeply while his hands slipped under her sexy, understated off-the-shoulder tee-shirt and caressed her bare skin. This was so hot. And then suddenly not, as Carmen took a step to the side and found herself on a skateboard. Before she could get off she shot down the hall, crashed into a table, fell off and landed with a heavy thump on her backside.

‘Ouch!' she wailed, having suffered a severe bash to her coccyx and an even worse dent to her pride.

‘Why the fuck is there a skateboard here?' she exclaimed, forgetting about the no-swearing protocol in the house of a small person. ‘Have you got a teenager you haven't told me about?'

Daniel walked towards her and reaching out his hand hauled her to her feet. ‘Um, actually it's mine,' he said sheepishly.

Carmen shot him her most withering WTF look. ‘But you're over thirty! Isn't there a law that all skateboards have to be abandoned when a man enters his twenties?'

‘I'm really good at it, so I'm afraid not.'

Carmen took a minute to register the thought that the man she wanted to shag senseless, the man who had given her one of the best orgasms of her life, must also at times be a complete tit. ‘Just tell me that you don't go around wearing your trousers halfway down your thighs and showing off your pants.'

‘Only occasionally.' Daniel laughed as if this was a laughing matter!

Was he in arrested development? A man-child? Was he going to suggest they smoked pot out of a bong (Carmen hated pot,
hated
it!) and listened to Dizzee Rascal? The lustometer went down to five, further still when Millie appeared on the landing and called out, ‘Daddy, will you come and tuck me in?'

Daniel shot an apologetic look at Carmen before scooting up the stairs. ‘Go downstairs and pour yourself a glass of wine. I'll be down in a bit. I promise.'

Gingerly rubbing the base of her spine, Carmen took a few minutes to survey her surroundings. The house had a similar layout to Jess's and reminded Carmen of the Tardis, in the sense that it looked deceptively small
on the outside while being spacious inside, and not in the sense that it was a time-travel machine. Directly opposite her was the bathroom, a Victorian roll-top bath taking pride of place. Carmen did love a Victorian bath – so much better to lounge in with your lover. Its size meant that one could lie back seductively and not constantly obsess about whether one's stomach was sticking out, as was always the case in a smaller bath, where you were forced to sit up and breathe in. Evidently Daniel had an out-there approach to decor, as the bathroom was painted a deep cobalt blue, the fireplace was painted silver and the floorboards were purple. She peeked round the door to the small front living room, whose walls were painted orange, and took in a battered pink velvet sofa covered in purple cushions, a futon and a guitar, but fortunately no bong. The whole effect screamed bohemian artist. But never mind the decor and furnishings! Carmen's attention was riveted by a painting above the fireplace. And not just any old painting. This was a huge portrait of a naked man, lying on a bed with his arms behind his head. A naked man who bore more than a passing resemblance to Daniel – in all departments. Wasn't it a little strange to have it hung above your fireplace for the world to see just how well hung you were? She moved closer, trying to decipher the artist's signature, only to find herself eyeball to private parts, like some pervert, at the exact moment Daniel walked in. She immediately turned round guiltily. Great, so now she probably had a penis sticking out of her ear.
Perhaps she would need that bong after all. She moved sharply to the window.