Mile High Guy (24 page)

When the waiter comes round with the dessert menus, we agree to share a chocolate hazelnut torte. Adam also orders two Irish coffees. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to get home now, but I’m too happy and drunk to care.

All my life I’ve waited for someone like Adam. In fact I’d almost given up. Venturing out for a night on the tiles is a chore sometimes. I’m tired of being verbally attacked by men who seem intent on taking women down a peg or two. Thankfully I didn’t settle for any of
them
. I don’t know what I’d have done if Adam hadn’t come along to rescue me.

After a while I notice we’re the last customers in the room. Everybody else has quietly disappeared. I check my watch and am stunned to discover it’s almost midnight. It seems like we just got here five minutes ago. Where did the time fly? Hesitantly I
show Adam the face of my watch. His fingers reach out and intertwine mine. He holds my gaze and suddenly it’s obvious we won’t be going home.

Adam, it turns out, has already booked a room. When I ask why he didn’t mention it earlier he says
he wanted it to be a surprise. I’m so touched. It’s a gorgeous Victorian type room with a chandelier and a huge four-poster bed. Like something straight out of an interiors magazine. Another champagne bottle is chilling on the bedside table.

‘I’m not drinking that,’ I insist drunkenly.

‘You don’t have to,’ Adam smiles and removes his dinner jacket. ‘But you don’t mind if I have a glass, do you?’

He pours himself another glass and sips it slowly. As far as I remember I pretty much drank the rest.

I am NEVER EVER drinking again. No really, I mean it. God I feel my head has got caught in a cement mixer. I’m leaning over the toilet in the pretty little bathroom next to the gorgeous bedroom where Adam and I made love for the first time last night. But instead of being wrapped in his arms in post-coital bliss I feel wretched.

Oh, and by the way, you’re not getting any sordid details about last night because to be honest, even if I
wanted
to tell you, I couldn’t because I remember very little about anything after that third bottle of champagne.

The bath is running because I don’t want Adam
to hear me getting sick. The sweat beads gather on my face and neck and tears are streaming down my face. My stomach retches and I feel totally miserable. Why am I being punished for this? Why did I let myself get so plastered? Adam’s going to think
I’m a drunken twit with no morals. He’ll think I’m the type of woman to jump into bed with anyone. I stand up unsteadily and give the mirror a fright. I look a holy show. Should I have a shower? I look at the tiny hotel standard bottle of hair and body
shampoo and don’t think it’ll do my hair any favours. Then again, if I go back out and climb into the bed with bits of vomit stuck to my hair, it’ll be even worse, won’t it? Oh Katie, why do you never learn?

As I’m in the shower washing the remnants of
last night’s meal from my hair I hear a knock on the door. Adam’s wondering if he can join me. Suddenly I become all shy. I mean I know he saw my body last night but it was dark then so it was completely different. However, I don’t want him to think I’m a prude so I wrap myself in a bath towel and open the door. Adam is standing there naked, like a Greek God, looking ridiculously sexy. I’m mortified and don’t know where to look.

‘Get back into the shower, Missus,’ he orders and I obey.

He takes the soap and lathers it all over me and we make love again but I refuse to kiss him. God, do you know how much I’d pay for a toothbrush and toothpaste right now?

At breakfast the dining room looks completely different. Fresh flowers have replaced last night’s candles. The room looks more homely than romantic. I don’t have any appetite though. Black coffee will suffice.

Adam orders a fry. I order toast because if I eat anything else I’ll probably throw up again. I feel more normal once I’ve tasted the coffee. I’ll feel even better when I hit the fresh air.

‘Listen I was probably talking a load of shite last night so forgive me,’ I tell Adam as he drives us home.

‘You were funny,’ Adam laughs. ‘Anyway I should be apologising for letting
you
get so drunk.’

‘You can bring the horse to the well . . . but nobody forced it to drink champagne. I bet I made a fool of myself though. Alcohol has a weird effect on me. I always either become quite argumentative or else I become all lovey dovey.’

Adam places a hand on my thigh and squeezes it. ‘You’re a refreshing girl, do you know that? So many of the actresses I work with won’t drink. I dunno why. Maybe they’re afraid of putting on weight or don’t like to lose control. Women are
different in the States. They don’t let themselves go.’

‘Wise women,’ I comment.

Adam slows down the car and then stops it. ‘Listen,’ he turns to me. ‘You’re not to go beating yourself up about last night. I thought you were fantastic.’

‘You did?’

‘Hey, let’s do it all over again later.’

‘Oh em . . .’

‘No excuses. Hey my folks are away at the moment. Why don’t you come and stay in my place tonight?’

'Do you not have a place of your own?'

‘Well no actually, my home is in New York now so I tend to stay with my parents when I’m in Ireland. They don’t mind. I’m an only child so they adore me.’

‘Really? I don’t know any only children. Aren’t they supposed to be spoilt?’

‘Spoilt rotten,’ he grins. ‘But you don’t see me complaining.’

I never told you that Adam’s parents live in a palatial mansion complete with indoor swimming pool and outdoor tennis court. Nor did I tell you about their mini-cinema, private bar and snooker room. No. And the reason I didn’t tell you any of this was because I had absolutely no idea. Of course, you can imagine my shock as Adam’s
BMW pulled into the drive of his family home in Foxrock.

If I felt intimidated before, I’m absolutely stunned into silence as the imposing electric gates open and his car sweeps into the drive.

‘Wow, you have a lovely home,’ I say because although I’m stunned, I feel it’d be terribly rude not to say anything at all.

‘It’s a house,’ he contradicts me. ‘Just a house. And it’s not mine, it’s my parents.’

He parks the car and I follow him up the steps to the huge Georgian front door.

Before he finds his keys, the door opens. A small suspicious woman wearing thick glasses and flat, brown shoes looks me up and down.

‘Hi, I’m Katie.’ I give her my best air hostess smile and shake her hand. It feels like a dead fish in mine. She doesn’t tell me who she is or what she’s doing here. Nor does she ask who I am.

‘Hi ya Rosie, looking well.’ Adam greets her as he grabs my hands and leads me up the big sweeping stairway.

As I ascend the stairs I can almost feel that strange woman’s eyes on my back.

‘Who the hell was that?’ I ask in a whisper, once we’re safely in his bedroom. As if she might be lurking outside, her ear pressed to the doorway.

‘She’s the housekeeper,’ Adam sits down on the side of the bed and kicks off his shoes. ‘She’s a bit wary of me bringing back strangers to the house.’

‘Does it happen a lot?’ I ask, sitting down on his knee and ruffling his hair playfully.

‘Nah, but she doesn’t like it all the same. Give her a while. She’ll get used to you.’

I like that way he says that. I love it, in fact. It makes me feel secure. Adam obviously expects me to stay in his life for quite some time. Suddenly I think of my parents and feel guilty. They must be wondering where the hell I am. I tell Adam I’m going to ring them to let them know I’m okay.

‘What time do you have to be back at?’ he teases, toying with the top of my bra strap.

‘Uh . . .’

‘Is tomorrow morning too late?’ he asks.

I ring my house but thankfully there’s no answer so I just leave a message. I tell them I’m in Debbie’s and feel really awful for lying. But the guilt soon passes.

‘Right then,’ Adam says, unbuttoning the front of my shirt. ‘What are our plans for this evening? Are you still supposed to be off sick from work?’

‘Yep,’ I laugh. ‘I’m sick.’

‘So we can’t go out?’

I shake my head.

‘Okay. What’s plan B? We’d better order some food in. What do you fancy?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘Can you swim?’

I nod. I saw the swimming pool on our way in but I don’t have a swimsuit. I tell him this.

‘Who needs a swimsuit?’ he murmurs as his fingers reach the last button on my shirt.

Okay, so what’s the catch? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Let’s face it, the guy’s gorgeous, rich, famous, confident, generous, hard-working and nice. He doesn’t hate me for getting drunk and doesn’t think I’m easy for hopping into bed with him on
the second date. But men like that don’t exist, do they? Well, that’s what
I
thought. Until now.

Adam is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. At this very moment there are no other men left on my planet. They’ve faded into oblivion. The only man standing is Adam Kirrane.

I am utterly hopelessly addictively in love. And I’m almost sure Adam feels the same way. He’s asked me to come out to New York (again) so a
future together looks highly likely. In fact, right now it seems to stretch ahead of us like an airport runway on a clear night. No air traffic controllers are telling us we can’t take off. I’m just waiting for clearance.

‘You expect too much,’ my mother always said to me.

‘Your standards are way too high,’ my sister used to agree.

‘There are plenty of nice guys out there. You just don’t notice them,’ my friends would advise.

Well I held out. Against all the odds. I held out. I refused to settle. And look what happened. Nobody, and I really mean
nobody
could be as happy as I am now.

I’ve just emerged from my bed now after a much needed snooze. For the last forty-eight hours I’ve hardly slept a wink but Adam has just gone back to the States and I’m back in my parents’ house.

When I dragged myself through the front door this morning I got an earful from my mum. She was yelling at me for treating her house like a hotel, blah de blah de blah.

God when that woman gets going she’s pretty
unbearable.

‘You’ll have to get out,’ she screamed at me as I slunk up the stairs.

Now, how many times have I heard that before?

I don’t take much notice any more really. I’ve been threatened with eviction since I was about eighteen. Actually long before that, come to think of it. As a child I was being threatened with the orphanage almost on a daily basis.

‘You’re nearly twenty-eight,’ is the last thing I hear as I close my bedroom door behind me. Jesus, I think, what the hell’s got into her now?

My mother is always reminding me that she got married at twenty-two. I’m not sure why she keeps
telling me this as though it’s some kind of huge achievement. I mean back then everyone got married young. Careers for women weren’t really an option and everyone got married by twenty-five. Now everyone waits till they’re around thirty.

I myself don’t see the point in marrying the nearest man available when I hit thirty. I mean, I think I would be better off single than with the wrong person. I’m strong.

At least, I think I’m strong anyway.

My mother always called me self-destructive as a child. But as I was bullied by my classmates in school and my sister at home, I completely lacked confidence, and used to walk around with my head down most of the time. I thought if I kept my head down, people wouldn’t see me and just forget I was there. It didn’t work. I was basically a punch bag for a certain school bully called Celeste who’d threaten to do my head in if I didn’t steal cigarettes from my mother’s bag to give to her. Celeste, the pest, I really hated her. She made life hell for me. Then to top it all, my mother would hit me when she realised her cigarettes were missing. They say that your school days are the happiest days of your life. Not for me they weren’t. On my last day of school I remember the sun shone very brightly and the birds seemed to be singing a bit more cheerfully than usual. I walked out of the building and didn’t look back. Not once.

That was the first day of the rest of my life. I literally ran home from school, lit a big fire in the back garden, threw my petrol-coloured uniform on it and watched it go up in flames. It was the same uniform Ruth had worn before me. She had wanted to burn it the year she left, but Mum warned her if she did, she’d have to work all summer to get the money to buy me a new one. So that was the end of that.

I’m glad I was the one to burn the damn thing in the end.

Hello again. You haven’t heard from me in a while ’cos I’ve been holed up in my room finishing my damn script. I’m off to Milan later this afternoon, so I’m busy printing out copies of my script before I go. I’m posting them to ten literary agents. Hopefully all ten won’t get back to me at once. How on earth could I choose?