Seven Days: The Complete Story (28 page)

The first few
days at Nicholas and Joel’s — I mean, my new place — go smoothly.
Things are easy, like it’s been this way forever. So much so, I’ve
literally pinched myself on more than one occasion thinking I might
be having the most bizarre of dreams. The guys and I settle quickly
into a routine of eating breakfast together and then leaving the
house separately. Nicholas organised a key for me on the first day
so I can come and go as I please, which will make it easier when
they’re both working late. Not that they have yet. Both boys have
been as eager to get home as me. We have this need to spend every
minute we can together and because nobody can ever know of our
relationship, the only place we can do this is at home.

It took some
cajoling on my part to get them to let me pay my way. I know they
own the house but rightfully I’m a lodger. Who knows if that will
change but for now I want to feel at least one bit of independence,
so they’ve agreed to let me contribute to the buying of groceries
and paying my share of household bills. It’s only fair. I’m not
here to sponge because they have money and I have little. I’m
staying because I can’t be without them. I won’t be without
them.

The last few
days at work have been uneventful. Apart from the odd smile or wink
as the boys and I pass each other on the stairs or sit opposite
each other in a meeting, nothing has changed. I’m working hard and
Jill is pleased with me. She’s going to give me a good reference at
the end of this, I know. I only wish she’d offer me a job. I love
being in the Hardwick & Lawson environment. It’s so
stimulating. And that’s not because I see my boys all the time
either.

Okay, well
maybe it is. But only a little. I really do love this job.
Massively.

So the main
dilemma at this stage seems to be one I’ve created for myself.
Since I moved in with Nicholas and Joel I’ve been finding it more
and more difficult to keep my head in the game, to be professional
when I should be. My thoughts wander constantly to things we did
the night before, to a certain look, a touch or a thought we’ve
shared. I find I’m daydreaming
all
the time and usually at
the most inappropriate moments, like when I’m watering in a plant,
for instance. Try explaining the flooding of planter pots and
resulting river of water running down a gutter because you forgot
to turn off the hose. I couldn’t exactly say it was because I was
imagining I was holding another type of hose, now could I? I’m
embarrassed too by the way my eyes get fixated on them. I watch
their every teeny move, committing it to memory. All it takes is
for Nicholas to stretch or Joel to lock his fingers behind his
head, revealing that strong expanse of chest and I’m a zombie.

On the last
day of my internship, I spend the morning in the office with Jill
and Nicholas. Together, we go over my grade for the prac and they
give me feedback on my time with the firm, along with a few ideas
to polish my written assignment. I’m pleased with what they tell
me. Even the suggestions they make are positive. The constancy of
having the boys near me twenty-four seven hasn’t affected my
professional performance. I’ve been trying so hard not to let
it.

“I’d like to
say we can offer you a position when you graduate, Sadie. You’d be
an asset to the team. You have so many amazing skills,” Nicholas
says as he, Jill and I sit around the desk in his office.

I ponder my
skills and decide it’s not my making of coffee or the thoroughness
of research he’s referring to. He’s talking in code.

“But we don’t
have anywhere to put you right now,” he continues. “Not without
letting another staff member go. My suggestion would be to start
making the rounds and I’ll contact you if and when a spot comes
up.”

His eyes stare
pointedly at me, boring holes beneath my clothes. He looks as if he
wants to rip them off. Dirty boy. I stare back at him, wondering
how he manages to keep up this business like façade while his
shoeless foot is fondling my calf under the desk.

“You do
understand?” Jill says. “It’s not you or your work. I’d love to
have you on board but we just don’t have any positions.”

Well, not the
sort of positions she’s talking about.

“Sure. I
wasn’t expecting anything.” Which is the absolute truth.

“Hopefully,
one day in the near future we’ll be able to take you on.”

I press my
lips together, trying not to giggle at the thought of Nicholas
‘taking me on.’ He already does that regularly —
on
the bed,
on
the sofa,
on
the floor. Last night
on
the
bonnet of his car when the three of us went to look at the stars
from the top of the hill near our house.

“I understand
completely,” I reply, trying to ignore his foot as it wiggles
toward my crotch. I’m going to kill him when we get home.

“Great.”
Nicholas gives me a look and I know this is his way of telling me
he’s playing this safe for all our sakes. Because, in this
situation, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. The fall
out if Nicholas gave me a job and someone discovered we were
sleeping together would be enormous, let alone if Joel’s name were
mentioned. None of our lives would be worth living.

After lunch, I
head to Iris with Jill for the final time. It’s almost the close of
business and she wants to catch up with Joel about a drainage
problem she’s spotted at Highfield. I’m more than happy to tag
along. Every minute I get to spend in the presence of my boys is a
bonus for me, even if we can’t acknowledge each other as more than
colleagues.

My boys.

I like that I
can call them that.

I like that
when I get home tonight, I’ll be greeted with kisses and love.

We arrive at
the building site and find a spot to park. I hop out of the car and
stop to adjust my overalls. I don’t want to look too eager. It’s
bad enough that my heart beats so in my chest when I see them that
I do stupid stuff, let alone giving Jill more fuel that I’m
harbouring some sort of unrequited crush. She’s been teasing me
non-stop for the past three days. If only she knew.

Joel is in the
site office. He’s looking adorable as usual with his shirt
unbuttoned to reveal a hint of his chest and his shirtsleeves
rolled up his forearms. Even though I’ve seen him already today my
heart does a little dance at the sight of him bent over a set of
plans, his hard hat plonked on the desk beside him.

He looks up,
smiling. I know that smile is for me but Jill has no clue. She
thinks Joel is falling for that model he’s been “seeing” as part of
the decoy. She thinks he’s more into her than any girl ever because
he looks happy all the time and goes about the place whistling
which apparently he’s never done before. Joel and I know better.
It’s me he loves. The whistling is for me. Only me.

“Ladies.”

I stand in the
doorway behind Jill who’s entered the room. “I might go for a look
around if that’s okay,” I say. “It might be the last chance I
get.”

“Sure,” Jill
replies. “I’ll be twenty minutes or so, if you want a lift to the
bar.”

Jill, Nicholas
and Joel are shouting drinks in my honour tonight. I’ve passed my
internship with flying colours and I know I’m looking down the
barrel to being Dux of my class, the honour I’ve aspired to since I
began my degree.

“Nick’s
somewhere up on the first floor if you want the tour of the
latest,” Joel comments.

“Cool. I’ll go
look for him. I want to thank him.”

“Again?” Jill
laughs.

I roll my
eyes.

“What’s going
on?” Joel asks.

“Sadie has a
crush on Nicholas.”

“I do
not!”

Somehow, I
manage to make that sound realistic.

“I’d get over
that quick smart if I were you,” Joel says. “I’m pretty sure the
big fella has got a new woman. Supremely hot, from what I’ve been
told.”

I stare at him
and try not to smirk.

“Take a hard
hat,” he adds. “We don’t want you knocking your brains out on your
last day. And thanks for your hard work over the last month, Sadie.
I know Jill has appreciated having you around.”

“I’ve enjoyed
myself. I’ve learnt so much.”

Jill and Joel
settle down to chat and I grab a bottle of water from the mini
fridge in the corner and a hat from the rack before setting off in
search of Nicholas.

It only takes
a minute before I reach the first floor and hear Nicholas’ voice
coming from a room along the end of the corridor. The echo makes it
easy for me to find him so I head in that direction, stopping at
the door when I discover he’s in a heated discussion with someone
on the other end of his mobile. I pause and sip my drink, not
wanting to disturb him. He’s got his back to me and is gesturing in
frustration as if the person on the receiving end is in the room
with us.

“No, Dad. I
don’t want to meet John Wilson’s daughter. I have no desire to date
some debutante, no matter how rich and beautiful she might be.”

There’s
silence as he listens to the voice on the phone.

“Because I’m
sort of in a relationship.”

More
silence.

“It’s nobody
you’d know. She’s not part of the circle.”

What circle?
Do I have to be in some sort of club to be accepted? Is this a side
of Nicholas I never knew about? Do his social connections mean more
to him than I thought? I had some inkling what his family were like
when we first met but I never thought I had to conform to an
expectation to be part of his life. I can’t do that. I am not a
society girl. Suddenly, the doubts I had over our relationship
resurface with a vengeance. This is not good. Not good at all. I
knew this would happen. I told him someone was going to get hurt
and then I let him talk me into something we both knew would never
be right.

“I met her at
the bay,” Nicholas continues. We’ve reconnected recently.”

More
talking.

“No, Dad she’s
not a waitress. She has a degree in landscape architecture.”

Well,
almost.

“Only a month…
Yes, It’s serious. I’m serious. More serious than I’ve ever been
about a woman.”

My heart does
a little dance at that.

“You can’t
meet her… Because I don’t want you to… This is not some ploy to
throw you off. She
does
exist… Not yet. Maybe one day. Look,
I’m hanging up now. This conversation is over…. No. Goodbye, Dad.
I’ll talk to you later in the week.” Nicholas hangs up the phone
and shoves it into his pocket with an exasperated sigh. Shaking his
head, he turns toward the door, a look of shock on his face at the
sight of me.

“Uh, hi,” I
say.

“Hi.” He gives
a strained smile so I walk to him, my arms outstretched. He wraps
me up tightly. His hands stray up and down my back and into the
sides of my overalls. His thumbs lock into the fabric of my
t-shirt. My hard hat hits him on the chin and he releases a
chuckle. “I like the outfit. Very tradesman.”

“You like a
bit of lower class scruff then, Mr Lawson?”

He takes the
hard hat from my head and leans it on the window ledge. Returning,
he squeezes me to him again. “Only if she happens to be you. And
you’re not lower class.”

“No, I’d have
to be a waitress for that, right?”

“I gather you
heard.”

“Yeah. Does
your dad always pressure you like that?”

“Only when he
thinks I should settle down. Which is roughly every time he goes to
his club and his mates try to palm their daughters off. He has this
deluded idea that I’m bachelor of the year or something.”

“I thought
match making was more of a mother thing?”

“In my family
it’s more of a status thing. I might be thirty but Dad still thinks
he has the right to pick my girlfriends. I used to go out with them
to shut him up and a few of them were nice but well… you know the
history.”

I snuggle into
Nicholas’ chest thinking about what’s just happened.

“Am I the
right girl for you, Nicholas? I’m not wealthy. I have no
connections. Surely there’d be someone else who’s better suited to
the life you lead than me,” I say. I don’t want to be his second
best. I’d give him up if I thought his father would pressure him
over me. I couldn’t bear for him to hurt.

Nicholas
kisses each of my eyelids in turn and then my nose. He holds me
tighter, his chin resting on my head. He sighs. “There probably is,
but I don’t want another girl. You’re the right one. You’re
perfect.”

“Even if I’m
not a sophisticated debutante who knows which wine goes with
fish?”

“Especially
then. Most of those girls are self-absorbed money grabbers, the
ones my father likes even more so. I want you for you. I like the
fact that you suck at cooking and think Pop Tarts are a food
group.”

“Who told you
that?”

“Joel messaged
me. He thought it was insanely cute.”

“You sound
like you’re discussing a new puppy.”

“Well, you are
a bit like a new toy—”

I glower at
him.

“—A very hot
new toy.”

I pull back.
“Nothing like being objectified.”

“Er, pot
calling kettle, my love. Just remember who was caught ogling men’s
bums yesterday. Talk about objectification.”

I grin and
return to his embrace. “Your father is never going to like me, is
he?”

“He never has
to meet you.”

My mouth
twists in frustration. I’m not sure that I like that idea. I guess
I hoped that one day I’d be a part of every aspect of Nicholas’
life and Joel’s too. Family is important and I don’t want to come
between Nicholas and his father. Blindly, I assumed that this crazy
relationship would somehow end up as something people would accept
but now I see that can never happen. We can never play happy
families while there are three in the bed.