Spiralling Skywards: Falling (Contradictions #1) (30 page)

“I don’t care whether you don’t care or not. I care,” she said from where she was still hiding behind her hands.

I crawled up her body and pulled them away, revealing her crimson chest, neck, and cheeks.

“Look at me, bub.” She opened her eyes, closed them, and then opened them again. I had no idea if she could focus on me.

“I’ve heard you fart, more than once.” She opened her mouth to argue with me.

“You fart all the time in your sleep.”

“Ohhhemmmmgeeee. Nooo, you’re lying. Please tell me you’re lying. How embarrassing.”

She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling.

“Don’t be stupid. It’s only you and me here. Whatever goes on between us when we’re on our own, stays between us.” I kissed her nose and each of her eyelids.

“Tell ya what, how about we get some music in here, then you can just play it when you think the gases might be about to escape.”

She sat up and threw her arms around my neck.

“You’d do that for me?”

“Anything for you, pretty girl. Anything at all.”

“Thanks, Liam. You’re the best boyfriend in the world.”

Five minutes later she was both snoring and farting as she slept.

I looked down at where the knickers I’d taken off her last night were laying on the floor. They were purple, I picked them up and read what it said across the arse.

“B is for Bitch & That’s Ms Bitch to you.”

I pulled off my jocks and pulled on her knickers, turning the music up loud, I stalked into the bathroom. She had her back to me as she stood at the sink washing her hands but spotted me in the mirror. I did the sexiest dance I could muster. Grinding all around and against her as she stood totally naked and watched me, laughing as she did. I bent at the waist and wiggled my Ms Bitch arse in front of her and she slapped it.

I turned back around and simply watched her laugh. She was naked and bare to me in every possible way, no clothes, no make-up, her hair a tangled mess and looking every bit the fresh faced twenty-two-year-old she was. It wasn’t the way I’d planned to do it, but the moment was just perfect, too perfect to waste.

I dropped to my knees and kissed her belly button. She gently ran her hands over my head and through my hair. When I tilted my face up to look at her, she was looking down at me, and for a few seconds, I was once again overwhelmed by how much I loved this girl.

“Sarah?”

Her eyes widened and she looked a little startled and maybe even scared by the seriousness of my tone.

“I never planned to do it this way. I was going to wait until . . .”

She tried to step away from me, but I tightened my grip on her hips.

“No, Liam . . .” Her hand came up to cover her mouth, and her eyes filled with tears. I had no clue what she was thinking, but I knew that I had to get my words out.

“I wanted to ask your grandad first, I wanted to talk to Luke. I wanted it to be so much more romantic than us standing in a bathroom, you naked and me wearing your knickers with Ms Bitch written across my arse, but I’ve never seen you look more beautiful than you do right now.”

She still had one hand in my hair, the tips of two fingers of the other covered her lips, her breaths short and frantic.

“I love you, Sarah Kathleen Carter. In five short months you’ve changed everything about my life. What started as a quick trip overseas has led to my wanting to make a permanent home here. A home with you. Even though you wake up miserable every morning and look at me like you wanna nail my balls to the floor and step on my dick for at least one week every month, I want you and all of your shitty attitude to be a permanent part of my life. I want you, me, us, and lots of little versions of us forever. I want to marry you, pretty girl, please would you be my wife?”

She let out a sob and when she nodded her head, I think I did too. Before I had a chance to stand up, she dropped to her knees in front of me and wrapped her arms around my neck.

I hadn’t realised until I slid my arms around her how badly I was shaking.

“Yes,” she said against my mouth. “Yes! Yes, a million times yes. I’ll be your wife.”

Liam had picked
me up from work just after twelve, and we were an hour into our drive into Suffolk. The sun was shining and The Kaiser Chiefs ‘Ruby’ was blasting on the radio.

I watched Liam as he drove and sang along to the song.

“If we have a little girl and she has red hair, I think we should call her Ruby. What d’ya reckon?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.

“I reckon we should wait until the house is finished, we’ve settled in, gotten married, and have spent a few years enjoying each other’s company before we start picking baby names. We’ve been together what, five months? Why the rush?”

Liam had raised the subject of starting a family a few times, and it scared the crap outta me.

I loved him, I’d agreed to marry him, I just wasn’t sure at what stage I wanted to have children. Everything had moved so quickly with us. I just wanted to move in together and draw a breath before we started planning a wedding. Children could come later, much later.

If I were being totally honest, the thought of being a mother was not something I found appealing.

Okay, the thought of me turning out to be a
bad
mother terrified me. I was coming around to the idea that, with the right support, which Liam had promised he’d give, I’d be great at it, but alongside the desire to give Liam a child was the almost crippling fear that I would be a failure. That I’d be just like my own mother, like both my parents in fact.

“You wanna wait a few years? C’mon, Sares, I’m thirty already. I don’t want you having to push me in a wheelchair at the same time as you push our baby in a pram. I’m not rushing, I just wanna be young enough to enjoy my kids.”

“You’re hardly old and infirm. You proved that in the bathroom this morning.”

After his sexy dance in my Ms Bitch boy legs and his beautiful marriage proposal, he’d lifted me up onto the edge of the sink and had me coming in seconds with his tongue and minutes later with his dick. I’d arrived at work late and with my cheeks still pinked with an after sex glow.

He grinned his crinkle-eyed grin, shrugged, and gave me his what-can-I-say look. I almost climbed into his lap and rode him all the rest of the way to Suffolk.

But that would be dangerous, so instead, I continued to state my case.

“Anyway, I’m only twenty-two, remember? I’ve got plenty of time.”

“So that’s not a no then?”

“I’ve never said no. I just don’t think I’m quite ready yet.”

I stared out at the passing countryside without actually seeing anything but a green blur. Having this conversation was making my stomach churn.

“You know I’d never do what he did, don’t ya? I’d never just up and leave.”

I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t turn to face him.

“I’ve never for a moment thought that you would.”

I turned and looked his way. He took his eyes back off the road to meet mine.

“You’re my future, Liam. You’re all that I want right now. But like I said, let’s concentrate on the renovations, get moved in, and plan our wedding. Then we can go from there.”

He turned his gaze back to the road and we drove in silence as The Fray told us how to save a life.

***

My grandparents’ place was a four-bedroomed, grade-two listed, detached farmhouse. It was set in over an acre of the beautiful British countryside, just outside of Newmarket and close to the Cambridgeshire border.

Their move out to the country was supposed to have been a downsize for them. Although the house was a little smaller than the one Luke and I had grown up in, it still had as many bedrooms. Nan worried about where we would all stay when we came to visit and insisted she still have four bedrooms at their ‘downsize’.

Most of the grounds were covered in grass, but there were a few large trees scattered here and there. There was a huge flower bed and a raised vegetable patch. An old barn stood to the side of the property which my grandad used as a potting shed, it also contained a beer fridge, an armchair, and a radio. He would disappear to “pot up some plants” for hours at a time some days. Whenever I’d go to fetch him in for his dinner, I’d find him asleep in his chair, horse racing on the radio, and a can of Guinness in his hand.

The car tyres crunched on the gravel drive as we pulled up. The front door was wide open and Winston, my grandad’s tan-and-white British Bulldog came out. Most dogs bounded, but Winston was old and fat, so he plodded on his short legs towards us.

I climbed out before Liam had even shut off the engine, and moved to give Winston a rub, trying at the same time to avoid getting his slobber all over my jeans.

Liam walked around the car and bent down next to me to pat the dog’s head.

“Sorry if you feel like I’m pushing you, Bub. I love you and want you to be happy. We’ll go at your pace, I promise.”

I got teary instantly. I didn’t know why I was being such a bitch about things. This was a happy day. I was getting married. Liam was going to ask Grandad and my brother’s permissions first, then he was going to “propose” to me in private, and we would make the big announcement the following day. Obviously no one knew that Liam had already asked me, and I’d already accepted.

We both stood and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

“You’re not pushing me. My period’s due, I just need you to take off my bitch knickers so I can wear them.”

He slid his arms around my neck and tried to pull me closer, but Winston had wedged himself between us and was now sitting on my feet.

“Find a room, you two.”

I looked around Liam to see my brother coming towards us, Nan behind him. Liam couldn’t step away from me quick enough when he saw her.

Luke had driven up straight from work the night before and would also be staying the weekend. He loved it here, and although he’d never said as much, Nan had let slip that it was him that had paid for all the renovations that they’d had done to the place. He was also the one who paid a gardener to come in once a month and a cleaner to come once a week.

“Hey, Nan.” I ignored Luke’s comment and stepped around him to give Nan a cuddle. I swore she got shorter every time I saw her.

I breathed in the familiar sent of her Anais Anais perfume that she’d worn for as long as I could remember.

“Let’s take a look at ya, Sarah.”

She held me at arm’s length and inspected me as if I were something on sale that she wasn’t sure about buying.

She shook her head. “You get more gorgeous every time I look at ya. You lost some weight?”

“Don’t think so, Nan, but I’ll take it if you think I have.”

“So come on then. Introduce me to the Aussie fella I’ve heard so much about. Still curling your toes is he?”

Liam cleared his throat from behind me, while I glared wide eyed at her. What a traitor. Last time I’d been to stay, Sasha had been with me, and we’d sat up enjoying a few wines with Nan, discussing men and sex. I may have had a few too many and revealed things about my sex life that I had no right discussing with my seventy-six year old Nan.

“Don’t give me that look, Sarah. If he’s that good, I wanna meet him. Might even take him for a test run myself, so you better watch out.”

I stepped aside and reached for Liam’s hand so I could pull him forward.

“You’ll do no such thing, Nan. What would Grandad say if he heard you wanted to chase after younger men?”

“He wouldn’t say anything. He’d just be happy that they were making
me
happy and saving
him
a job.”

“Seriously, Nan, can we
not
go there?” I heard Luke say from beside me.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of men out there that would love to make you happy, Mrs Carter, but this one is very much taken. I’m Liam, Liam Delaney, Sarah’s boyfriend.”

Liam laid on the charm, giving her his best crinkle-eyed smile and a wink.

“Oh my days, would ya hark at that accent. No wonder you let this one into ya knickers! I wouldn’t even bother wearing any around him.”

“Nan!” I’m not sure who screeched her name louder, me or Luke.

“Oh shut up, the pair of ya, I’m just pulling your leg.”

She rubbed her hands together before holding one out.

“Less of the ‘Mrs Carter’. It’s Mai or Maisie, whichever you prefer.”

“Good to finally meet you, Mai. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to make it happen.”

“Get here and give me a cuddle, and I might let you off.”

Liam didn’t hesitate to step forward and embrace Nan. I watched as she ran her hands up and down his back, but my smile turned to a look of horror when they moved down to grab his arse cheeks.

“Nah, you’re no good to me. You’re safe, Sarah, I won’t be running off with your fella, not unless he puts on a few pounds, he’s a bit too skinny for me right now.”

“Who’s too skinny?”

Grandad strode across the lawn towards us as he dried his hands on a small towel.

“Not you, that’s for sure,” Nan called out.

“Well that’s coz you keep feeding me, woman.”

“It’s nothing to do with what I feed ya. It’s the beer you drink in that shed every day and the whiskey you sip in front of the telly every night. Not to mention the amount of liquorice allsorts you polish off every week.”

“I’m eighty years old, Maisie, I’ve worked hard all my life and raised these two fine people. I think that entitles me to drink, sip, and polish off whatever I bloody well like, which includes you when the mood takes me. So there’ll be no chasing after younger men, there’d only leave ya disappointed anyway. You’ve had sixty years of the best, there’s no going back from that.”

He looked at me and winked.

“Can the pair of you stop talking about geriatric sex for Christ’s sake? You should be done with all that by now.”

“You jealous, son? Is your ol’ grandad getting it more than you?”

Luke shook his head and headed back into the house.

“C’mon, Winston, let’s go and get drunk.” The dog followed Luke.

While Nan and Liam watched my brother’s retreat, I stepped into Grandad’s arms.

Despite his age, he was as tall, as upright and agile as I’d always remembered him to be. His once sandy hair was a little thinner, and now totally grey, but he was still a handsome man.

“How are you, Sunshine? You look well.”

“I’m good, really good.”

“The Aussie still looking after ya?”

“Very much so.”

I breathed in the scent of his Tabac aftershave, Ariel soap powder, mixed with a little bit of sweat, and something else.

“You been having a sneaky roll up in the shed?” I asked him.

Nan thought he’d given up smoking years ago, but I’d seen the tin of rolling tobacco and papers in the shed he had at our old house and knew that he enjoyed the occasional puff on a cigarette.

“Come on now, thought that was our little secret.”

“It’s not good for you.”

“I know, but it’s only every now and then. Let’s meet him then, introduce me to the bloke who’s made my Sunny Girl smile.”

“Yeah, good deflection there.”

“You like that, did ya?” he asked with a sly smile.

Why did men think that by winking or smiling at a woman they could get away with shit? Why were women stupid enough to fall for it and let them?

We both turned to face Liam and Nan. My mouth may have fallen open as I watched her touch her hair, giggle, and then reach out and touch the top of his arm. Nan was a serious flirt, and Liam was lapping it up.

“Grandad, this is Liam Delaney. Liam, this is my grandad, Archie Carter.”

Liam stepped out of Nan’s clutches and held out his hand.

“Good to finally meet you, sir. I’m only sorry it hasn’t happened sooner.”

I watched as Grandad accepted his hand and shook it, but didn’t say a word.

“It’s a beautiful place you’ve got here, thanks for the invite. Sarah and I would love to have you come down and stay with us once our place is finished.”

“You’re moving in together?”