Sticks and Stones (10 page)

‘Let’s get a few things straight Dildo,’ Lou said, all traces of small and broken swept away. ‘You’re going to pull your sodding finger out on the ward from now on.’

‘Yes,’ he replied immediately and her eyebrows shot up, blatant disbelief colouring her expression.

‘I will babes, I promise. I’m a prick, I’ll do better.’

His hands came up to cup either side of her face, and he shocked her by bringing his forehead down to rest against hers.

‘I’m so ffwcin* sorry,’ he whispered, the pain and regret in his voice almost painful to hear.

Lou closed her eyes. There wasn’t anyone on the face of the earth with as much power to hurt her as this man, but he wasn’t to know that. How could he know how much he’d crushed her? She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

‘I forgive you,’ she whispered back, opening her eyes and meeting his. She’d said it before, but it was clear that this was the first time it really meant anything.

‘Thank you,’ Dylan breathed, as he took his hands from her face and pulled her in for a tight hug.

‘Okay Dildo, calm down,’ Lou wheezed. ‘Can’t…breathe…’ She felt the sudden bite of the night air as he abruptly released her, stepping back almost awkwardly and running his hands through his hair. Weird, Dylan was almost never awkward, seeming immune to any form of embarrassment most of the time.

‘What…um’ he muttered and Lou frowned in confusion. More awkwardness? Bizarre. ‘What did your mum mean by…um…’

Now Lou had always been able to think on her feet. It was a natural ability that came in useful given her impulsive nature. So in a completely self-assured, derisive tone she cut him off, ‘Oh Dildo, don’t get your knickers in a twist. So what if I had a bit of a crush on Ewan when I started at Uni; it’s all water under the bridge now.’ Dylan crossed his arms over his broad chest and raised an eyebrow.

‘You fancied Ewan Evans?’ Lou nodded casually. ‘Ewan wet-pants Evans?’

She shrugged, ‘His other charms overshadowed the whole personal hygiene thing. Not all of us are as squeamish as you.’

‘The guy stank of urine Lou. He notoriously put his dick away before he’d finished pissing and didn’t wash his hands. I watched the sick bastard do it a fair few times myself. The front of his pants had a constant wet patch.’

‘You’re so judgmental.’

‘Babes. I’m not judging him. If he wants to stink of piss then he can be my guest. I’m just expressing doubt that you took one look-slash-smell of him and wanted to check out his urine-soaked knob.’

‘You’ve just got a phobia of urine since I got Bernard to swamp your bed.’ Lou smiled the smug little smile she could never hold in when recalling her victory, and Dylan’s eyes narrowed.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘First Bernard, and now wet-pant Ewan. You’ve got some sort of twisted piss fetish. Golden showers and – ‘

‘Yes, yes the smell of urine sets my heart racing blah blah blah,’ Lou interrupted, waving her hands dismissively. ‘I’m a self-confessed urophiliac. Ricky Martin and I would be in seventh heaven together. Now smell my foot.’

‘Smell your foot? Is this another weird – ‘

‘Just smell it will you,’ she balanced on one foot and lifted the other as high as she could, grabbing onto Dylan to stop herself toppling over. ‘You dragged me through a yet-to-be-identified liquid. Obviously I need to know what it was and whether I need to change my stocking. Of course if it
is
piss I will be in thrills of ecstasy all evening so I’ll probably – ‘

‘You’re wearing stockings?’ Dylan’s voice sounded strangely hoarse and Lou looked at him in confusion.

‘Yes, freak. You know I never wear tights or cotton underwear. Now smell my foot.’ Two slashes of red appeared across Dylan’s cheekbones and Lou saw him swallow before he cleared his throat. She shook her foot at him again and even had to resort to poking him in the tummy with it to snap him out of his stupor. He grabbed her calf, took a deep breath and lowered his head to her foot.

‘Nothing,’ he said in a choked voice before clearing his throat again and releasing her leg. ‘I mean, I think its just water.’

‘Oh well,’ she muttered, shoving her shoe back on. ‘Better luck next time I guess. Maybe I can sneak into the urinals and get some cheap thrills that way.’ Dylan let out a strangled sound, which she thought might have been an attempted laugh at her joke, but his face still had a strangely faraway expression. She snapped her fingers in front of his nose, impatient now to get back to the pub, and furious that she had become the kind of woman who allowed a little bit of heartbreak and an unpleasant family member to run her out of her own birthday party.

‘Come on loser. I need a drink.’

My Louey

‘Right,’ Lou shouted, slamming her shot glass down on the bar and stamping her foot. ‘Who’s dancing?’

The party had moved onto a bar with a live jazz band and bizarrely an open mic. The result was surprisingly good. Who knew the pale radiologist who’d made it out of the bowels of the hospital for a rare night out had such a soulful singing voice? Or that the theatre team could give such a good rendition of ‘Mack the knife’.

Just as she was about to grab Frankie’s hand and force her onto the crowded dance floor, the music was interrupted, and a familiar self-satisfied voice sounded over the microphone.

‘Hello there everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Miles, and I work with an…interesting woman who has a hitherto undiscovered talent.’ Lou froze and turned towards the stage, her eyes widening and her face draining of all colour.

No, he wouldn’t…

‘I must say I was surprised,’ he went on, and Lou felt the urge to punch him right in his smug, smiling, annoyingly flawless face. ‘She’s not exactly known for hiding her light under a bushel. But it seems that she’s been keeping a secret from us all and tonight, as she’s the birthday girl, I think she should finally let her talent shine through. Ladies and gentleman I give you Louise Sands.’

Lou’s mind flashed back to a conversation she’d had with Gwen in outpatients. Her worst fear: singing in public. It wasn’t as if it was even an irrational fear. Lou was tone deaf, and not just in the fake-self-deprecating way people say when they didn’t particularly enjoy a singsong. Lou singing was agonizing. Dylan had once likened it to the slow death of a constipated goat.

The whole bar erupted into applause and Lou felt herself being shifted forwards through the crowd. She caught sight of Frankie’s panicked face as she tried to push through the crowd after her, and noticed Dylan had also moved away from Katie at the bar to start towards her, but she was powerless to stop being propelled forward. Before she knew it, she’d been pushed up onto the stage and was in front of the mic.

‘What’d you wanna sing love?’ the sax player asked her and she shot panicked eyes to him, before looking back out to the seemingly vast crowd. Her hand shook as she reached up to clutch the mic and she took a deep breath.

*****

‘I think maybe Miles has his wires crossed,’ she started, and Dylan tensed, recognizing the broken quality in her voice that he had grown to hate. Miles was a dead man for humiliating her like this. ‘You see I…um…I really,
really
can’t sing. In fact, I’d say that it could even be considered a health hazard if I performed in public.’ 

‘Come on Lou! Don’t be such a pussy!’ Miles shouted from in front of the stage and a ripple of laughter spread through the crowd around him. He then stood and got up on his chair. ‘Who here thinks the birthday girl should just bloody sing?’ he shouted into the crowd, whipping them up into a frenzy. ‘Sing. Sing. Sing. Sing,’ he started chanting, waving his arms for the crowd join in. Once everyone had followed suit he smiled and turned back to Lou on the stage.

*****

Lou shifted on her feet, heat flooding her face as she prepared to make her excuses and get the hell out of there. Just as she was about to speak though, she locked eyes with a chuckling Miles, who had crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow in challenge.

Well fuck him and the horse he rode in on
, thought Lou. She closed her eyes for a second before slowly opening them and taking a deep breath in through her nose, fixing Miles with a chilling glare. His smile faltered for a second in the face of her blatant defiance.

That’s right
, thought Lou,
squirm away spawn of satan; you ain’t seen nothing yet.

*****

Dylan was halfway to the stage when he saw the look of determination replace the abject fear on Lou’s face, then saw her turn away from the mic to talk to the sax player at her side. A slow smile spread across the guy’s face and he nodded, before moving to form a huddle with the rest of the band. A few seconds later the first chords of Etta James’ ‘I Just Wanna Make Love to You’ rang out through the bar. Lou’s hips began to sway and her eyes closed for a moment, before she yanked the mic out of the stand and started murdering the song with gusto.

‘I don’t want you,’ she started, more shouting than singing really, and bearing little relation to what the band were playing, ‘to be no slave.’

Then the strutting began, back and forth across the stage until she came to a stop in front of the piano.

‘I don’t want you,’ she continued, wrapping a hand around the back of the pianist’s neck and then up into his hair. A couple of notes faltered, but to give the guy credit he managed to continue valiantly on.

Despite the terrifying noises she was making, the crowd was going absolutely crazy, ripples of laughter and applause coming from all sides of the bar.

‘To work all day.’ She moved on then to the sax player, and Dylan noticed the male laughter stop abruptly as she executed a perfect slut-drop onto her haunches in front of the poor guy, and then slowly worked her way up his body. The women were still cheering her on but most of the men were frozen in place, eyes fixed to the stage with their mouths hanging open. This only intensified as Lou ripped her shirt off when she came to a stand, leaving her in a tiny vest top, which showcased her bright pink bra underneath.

‘Holy shit,’ Dylan heard a man next to him breathe as Lou made her way back to the front of the stage.

‘But I want you,’ she continued, her free hand going into her hair and lifting it up to the top of her head, before releasing it with a flourish and shaking it out around her shoulders. ‘To be true.’ Her focus now fell on the table in front of the stage, and Dylan saw that she was staring straight at a slack-jawed Miles, who’d foolishly failed to retreat a safe distance.

‘And I just wanna make love to you,’ she pointed at Miles as she started descending the steps into the audience, never taking her eyes of him.

‘Well I can tell by the way you walk that walk.’ She was circling a wide-eyed Miles now. Terror and confusion were warring with blatant arousal across his features.

‘And I can tell by the way you talk that talk.’ She crouched down in front of him, put her hands on his knees to spread his legs, then moving in between them and to work her way up his body, until her free hand had slid up into his hair and her mouth was a hair’s breath from his. Miles held perfectly still and looked like he was having trouble breathing.

‘I can tell by the way you treat your girl,’ she continued, having to move the mic up between them, but still managing to keep her lips centimeters from his. ‘That I could give you all the loving in the whole wide world.’

She grabbed his tie and pulled him up with her as she stood.

‘All I wanna do is make your bread.’ Another perfectly performed slut drop saw Lou at Miles’ feet, and then slowly working her way back up. ‘Just to make sure you’re well fed.’

Once back to standing she pulled him down towards her as if to kiss him. Miles’ lips parted and his eyes completely glazed over, mesmerized by Lou’s beautiful face.

‘I don’t want you sad and blue.’ She pushed him down, and he was so stupefied that the move threw him off balance, falling sharply back into his chair. Her leg then came up to rest on one side of the back of his chair next to his shoulder, stretching the dimensions of her skirt almost to breaking point.

Dylan had unconsciously moved through the crowd towards her and realized that he was now directly behind Miles’ chair. She briefly flicked her eyes to his, and then nodded towards Miles whose eyes were fixed on her leg.

Dylan realized what she wanted just in time as she belted out, ‘I just wanna make love to you.’ And gave Miles’ chair a firm push with her foot, causing it to topple over backwards.

Before his head hit the floor Dylan caught the back of the chair. He was going to right it, but at the last minute when he remembered how the bastard had tried to humiliate Lou, and he tipped it on its side. Miles came crashing out and, Lou stood over him for a second, before snatching his pint of beer from the table. ‘Love to you,’ she continued whilst emptying the pint over a spluttering Miles on the ground.

Then, before he could get up, she turned on her heel and strutted back up to the stage, finishing off the song with a huge smile on her face. The crowd erupted with applause. Everyone was up on their feet cheering by the time Lou had calmly dipped down to pick up her shirt and sauntered off the stage.

*****

‘You’re my idol!’ shrieked Katie, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in front of Lou. Lou looked down into her shining face and felt her heart lurch. Why oh why did she have to be so adorable? Why the hell couldn’t Dylan find someone that Lou could justifiably hate?

‘You. Are. A. Goddess.’ Katie continued to shriek, grabbing hold of both of Lou’s hands in her excitement. ‘I mean holy guacamole, I would have freaked out all over the place. But no, you were all like BAM! “Take that Miles you sniveling weasel”’ Katie’s arms were flailing wildly as she mimed punching Miles in the face, something Lou was pretty sure didn’t actually happen.

‘Then he was all: “Oh no,”’ for some reason best known to herself Katie was using an extremely high-pitched voice to imitate Miles. ‘”I made a huge mistake”,’ she was now cowering down in front of Lou, her hands held up in front of her in mock surrender. ‘”Please don’t kick me in the nuts while you pour beer all over me”.’

Lou couldn’t help herself; she gave in and started laughing at Katie’s performance, vaguely wondering if the girl ever stopped talking, and if anyone could locate her off switch. Dylan reached down and plucked Katie up off the floor with an arm to her waist, laughing along with everyone else in the group around them.

Well, nearly everyone.

Lou had noticed that Rob’s friend (another military guy called Sam) looked totally non-plussed by Katie’s performance, and was regarding her like she was something rather unpleasant that he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe. As Katie was Sarah’s best friend, Lou assumed she had been around this guy a fair bit before and wondered what he could possibly have found so offensive about her. She noticed Katie glancing briefly at him as she was set on her feet by Dylan, and saw that her face paled and her smile slipped slightly as she took in his disapproval, before quickly looking away. Sarah slung her arm round Lou’s shoulders.

‘You’ve got to teach me some of those moves Louey-Lou,’ she slurred, leaning heavily into Lou’s side. Lou smiled at her briefly, but was distracted again by Katie who had started chattering to Rob. Although Rob wasn’t always the most forthcoming bloke, it was obvious that he had a soft spot for Katie, and was grinning in the face of her verbal diarrhea: something about the local Women’s Institute, and would he mind coming and talking to them about pirates. Apparently a particularly feisty ninety year old had asked if she could come for a ‘ride-along’ when the team next went out to Somalia. 

Lou sighed.

It was official; Katie was the nicest person Lou had ever wanted to punch in the face.

*****

Katie settled into the crook of Dylan’s arm and felt his breathing even out as he fell asleep. This was the first time she’d stayed over, the first time really in years that Katie had felt comfortable enough with a man to allow that level of intimacy. Not that they’d done anything. She knew she wasn’t ready for that. But for some reason, despite Dylan’s extensive reputation, she felt safe with him; she instinctively knew that he wouldn’t push her. It was almost as if he wasn’t really bothered either way, which Katie knew should have set off alarms bells but in contrast she found it oddly reassuring.

He was so much fun, and a massive contrast to her past experiences with men. She had vowed to herself that no boyfriend of hers was would ever again be a dark, brooding type and Dylan was anything but. In Katie’s experience grumpy men made grumpy boyfriends, and grumpy boyfriends were
not
fun. From bitter experience she knew just how not fun they were.

Her mind flashed to Sam. Yes grumpy and broody and mysterious pretty much summed him up she thought, and bloody rude. Katie knew that she talked too much, got too overexcited and was generally a bit of a goof, but there wasn’t really any way to hold it in. Lord knows she tried around Sam. She tried to talk less, not snort when she laughed, not bounce about too much as she was wont to do but it was too hard, her personality was just too much to contain.

So she endured his obvious disapproval and remained her normal self whilst around him, which fortunately wasn’t much given his commitments in Somalia with Rob’s company. The only slight problem was how desperately attracted she was to him. Despite his foul personality every physical thing about him made her hairs stand on end: his height, his bulk, his thick dark hair and dark eyes, his strong jawline, the way his muscles on his forearms rippled and bunched even when just passing her the salt at Sarah and Rob’s house. Yes, in terms of aesthetics that man was pure perfection.

She huffed and snuggled in closer to Dylan, annoyed that she had allowed herself to think about that prick
again.
What was wrong with her? Here she was in bed with an attractive, laid back, funny, great guy and all she could think about were the forearm muscles of a man who clearly detested her.