Peer Pressure (18 page)

It was almost a cliché that was not lost on Katy, as amongst the many other emotions going through her mind at that point, was the one that was taking her back to being fourteen, making out in the back of movie theatres, or under the slide in Duthie Park, even back to when she first kissed Tom, Jodie’s father. Perhaps it was this last memory that caused her to break off the kiss, but more likely it was the headlights of the oncoming bus.

“Come on,” she said, “Let’s catch it.”

Rob, disorientated from the kissing, found his arm being tugged, as Katy, holding his hand, ran to the side of the road and stuck out her arm for the bus.

Mercifully it stopped, although not before drenching their feet as it drove through one of the many large puddles that had formed at the roadside. Neither Katy nor Rob really noticed this however, already wet beyond comprehension, and hopped on.

Rob dug in his pocket for change, before drawing a blank as he looked at the driver, who smiled and posed the question:

“Where to?”

Rob and Katy looked at each other, before grabbing a bus schedule, neither actually sure where the bus was going to take them.

Rob could see from the schedule that they would be passing by his flat and, despite a moment of hesitation, was still riding high from having seized the moment in the doorway, so stuck a handful of change into the ticket slot, saying:

“Two to my place.”

The driver gave him a
‘what the fuck?’
look. Rob amended his statement.

“Um, just before King Street please,” before turning to make sure Katy was okay with his decision. She smiled at him and, still holding his hand, started to walk up the aisle, to find them both a seat. They ended up at the back of the bus, as it pulled out and headed off into the rainy night.

They both sat in silence, soggy and uncomfortable, but still holding hands. Rob smiled to himself. Katy did nothing, but the buzz of what had just happened was still going through her body. Their eyes met briefly, but it was all they needed, to start laughing, a laugh that continued for the next eight hundred meters before they reached their stop, just a three minute dash from Rob’s flat. They jumped off the bus, the rain still firing towards the ground like it was aiming just at them, before running all the way to Rob’s doorway.

He struggled with his keys, before shoving the door open and leading Katy into the hallway.

“That was smooth”, Katy quipped.

“Yeah, that door is a pain in the ass.”

“But such a nice ass.” It was said in flirtation, but Katy worried that it might have been too much, as if she had revealed her hand too early. Rob, however, gave her a polite chuckle and led her into his flat.

“Coffee? Wine?” asked Rob as he quickly tidied up his lounge around Katy.

“Wine would be great, thanks,” she replied, with a smile.

Rob disappeared into his kitchen, while Katy looked around the room, surveying the various shelves of books and CDs that Rob had arrayed around the television and above his couch. Rob returned with two glasses of red wine, handing one to Katy. They clinked glasses.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Cheers.”

They both drank from their glasses, followed by an awkward silence, as both looked at one and other. They were both fully aware of what was happening here, or indeed, what was about to happen, but they hesitated. Rob, through politeness, while Katy’s was more a case of savoring a feeling she hadn’t experienced in years.

“You have a lot of books.”

Rob shrugged.

“I’m an English teacher.”

“And I don’t recognize any of the bands in your CD collection. Apart from Bob Dylan.”

“Do you like him?”

“Not really.”

Rob nodded, sensing a change in Katy’s attitude. Her face confirmed this, a hint of melancholy entering her eyes.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I just feel old.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Behind the times. I know nothing about music these days. Or films or books.”

“You’re not exactly over the hill.”

Katy smiled,

“Thanks for saying that, but sometimes I feel like it.”

Rob stepped forward and kissed her hard on the lips, making sure his tongue touched hers. There was intent behind this kiss and he wanted to make sure Katy knew this.

Then, quick as he had kissed her, he broke it off and asked,

“How do you feel now?”

Katy paused for a moment, before answering,

“Do you have a towel?”

“Sure,” Rob nodded, “hang on.”

Rob walked through to his bedroom and grabbed a large towel out of his chest of drawers, before returning to the lounge to find Katy standing in front of the television, with the top of her dress pulled down, exposing her bra.

He stopped as quickly as he entered, taken aback, to say the least, by what he was looking at. Katy said nothing. She just stood there, looking at him, waiting for him to make the next move, which he did by slowly walking towards her and handing her the towel. This allowed their hands to meet, a moment that was not lost on either of them. The touch turned into them both standing in the middle of the room, hand in hand.

“You are so beautiful,” was the only thing he could think of to say. It was a compliment, to be sure, but there was more to it than that. He wasn’t just re-assuring Katy, who he sensed felt vulnerable, but he truly meant it at that moment. And then she started to laugh.

She didn’t mean to be rude. She was even touched by the sentiment. It was just that it seemed silly, despite the fact she relished how refreshing it was to hear a good looking man say something like this to her. Rob rolled his eyes.

“I was serious,” he said, a little serious, a little hurt and now a little embarrassed. Katy shook her head and gave him a quick, re-assuring kiss on the cheek, adding,

“I know you were.”

Katy then looked straight into Rob’s eyes, with a look that suggested so much, but said nothing. Rob understood, immediately.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Katy merely nodded, her mind and her libido now somewhere between lust and a little too much enthusiasm. Rob took her in his arms, kissing her with all the force he had in him.

Katy returned this with a passion she had not felt in years, turning Rob and pushing him down onto the couch. He looked up at her, smiling. She threw the towel over his face, before running out of the lounge and into his bedroom. Rob felt it would be plain bad manners not to follow.

Jodie woke the next morning filled with an uncharacteristic bout of enthusiasm. Despite the fact she had spent the previous night in front of the TV, filling out her university applications, while her mother had been taken out by the man of her dreams, her mood was surprisingly chipper.

This may have been due to the confidence Laura had instilled in her about the sabotage list, which Jodie had decided to hold onto and which now resided between chapter eight and nine in her copy of
‘Jude the Obscure’
.

It may have also been due to the buzz she had gotten from completing her university applications, one to London and one to Edinburgh, which she would mail later that day.

She had spent most of the night looking over the prospectuses, already deciding how her room would look in her halls of residence, where she would go every morning for coffee with friends, how she would dress, what kind of persona she would adapt, and yet nothing about her course or the workload. It felt like a fresh start, with one exception. In her mind, every weekend, Rob would travel down to spend time with her. She thought about the friends she hadn’t made yet. About how jealous they would be of her when they met Rob. How impressed they would be to find out she was dating a teacher seven years older than her. And she thought about the nights she would spend with him, alone in her room, just the two of them.

But more likely than any of these, Jodie was excited to talk with her mother and find out how badly the previous night out had been, desperate to discover if any of her earlier tactics had been successful.

She expected her mother to be upset, if only temporarily. She also expected some gossip on Rob, what he wore, what they talked about and, most importantly, what had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, what had been the main reason that they had decided to call it quits. Was it circumstance? Or lack of attraction? Or was it simply that Rob was too young for her mother and that really he would be better suited with someone like...oh, let’s say
her?

Surely that was it.

Jodie swung her legs out of bed and sat up, rubbing her eyes a little and allowing herself a couple of minutes to wake up properly. The she stood up slowly and shuffled to her window, opening her curtains and blinds and letting the morning sunlight into the room.

She let her eyes adjust, before opening her window to let some fresh air through the room. She noticed Sean across the way, his back to her, doing chin-ups on a bar that was attached to his doorframe. She watched him for a few moments, even allowed herself to admire his build, his broad shoulders and strong back. But just as quickly as she admired him, she quickly glanced down at her alarm clock and noticed the time, thinking to herself,

‘
Who the hell does chin-ups on a Saturday at 9 am?’

“Mentalist,” she said to herself, before turning away from her window, grabbing her dressing gown and opening her bedroom door.

Then her mobile phone buzzed, Jodie stopped, turned and walked over to her bedside table to retrieve her phone and clicked to open her text.

It was from Laura and read:

‘
SLEPT WITH ‘S’ LAST NIGHT. LET’S MEET UP?’

Jodie couldn’t help but look across to Sean’s room, as if somehow he would be able to comment on the message she had just received, but he was gone.

Jodie thought about replying, but in the end, she just threw her phone down on the bed.

She would reply later, but coffee and breakfast were her priorities right now, as she slipped her dressing gown over her shoulders and walked out of her room into the hallway. It was once in the hallway, that Jodie became aware of something strange. It wasn’t anything specific, certainly not anything she could put her finger on, it was just an atmosphere, a feeling.

For a start, it was unusually quiet. Jodie walked slowly down the hallway, her head cocked to one side, listening for any sign of life. There was none. Then she reached her mother’s room. The door was slightly ajar, so Jodie slowly pushed it open to reveal her mother’s bed. Nothing unusual here either, really, except that it was already made and she didn’t usually do that until about lunchtime. Confused, Jodie closed the door and headed downstairs.

There was no TV on in the living room, usually, on any given Saturday morning her mother would be lounging on the couch half way through her second cup of coffee watching
BBC News 24
. But not this morning.

Jodie headed to the kitchen, where once again, everything felt different. The extractor fan wasn’t on, there was no smell of burnt toast and the kettle wasn’t boiling. She leaned against the counter for a moment, trying to figure out why everything was a little off. She grabbed a glass and went to the tap for some water.

Somewhere between the glass being half full it finally twigged. She turned the tap off, suddenly nauseous, suddenly sweating, suddenly panicked. In an attempt to escape these feelings and indeed, the truth of the situation that was slowly dawning on her, she made for the back door and stepped out into her garden.

She breathed in and out, trying to focus. In her head, she did the math:

‘
Empty house x Friday night date = SHIT!’

“Good morning.”

The voice snapped Jodie out of it and she turned to her left to see Sean standing on the back step of his house next door, drinking an orange juice. He only had to look at her face to see that something was up.

“Bad night or something?”

Jodie didn’t know what to say, offering up a paltry,

“I guess you could say that,” before stepping back into the kitchen, “see you,” and closing the door.

Sean shook his head.

“Okay, that wasn’t weird at all”, he thought out loud and went back to his orange juice.

Jodie put down her glass and stood alone in her kitchen. The silence was freaking her out now, so she switched on the kettle to cut through the air, even to block out the thoughts flying through her head at that moment.

Thoughts and images that no girl wanted to have about her mother, certainly not with the man she was in love with. Then, before the kettle got too loud to drown out all other noise in the house, Jodie faintly heard her phone beep again, from upstairs.

As she walked through the hallway and started up the stairs, she knew two things. One: the message could be from Laura, who was impatient and wondering why she hadn’t replied to her last message. And two: that she was kidding herself about number one. She knew who the message was from before she even got to her room or picked up the phone to read it.

‘
Didn’t want to wake you. Stayed over and will see you later this morning. Hope you had
a good night. Love you. Be good. Mum xx.’

Jodie discarded her phone to the floor and instinctively got back into bed, pulling the duvet up over her head and rolling herself into what medics would probably recognize as the recovery position.

Katy woke the next morning feeling, if not quite a new woman, at least on the way to being the woman she once was. Rob lay to her right, one arm draped around his pillow, which he had turned on its side, his bare back exposed thanks to a discarded duvet in the middle of the night, most of which Katy had wrapped around herself. He was sound asleep; completely oblivious to the fact he was being watched.

Katy smiled to herself and tried to place at what point she had decided this was exactly what she had wanted. Granted the night hadn’t been perfect; the dinner plans hadn’t exactly run smoothly, while the weather had also played a part in cutting short she was sure had the potential to be a romantic walk.