Love & London by Ellie White
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Less than an hour after we start our drinking game, we were all well on our way to being pissed and have all been told off by my mum for being childish.
Thirty years old and still getting told off by my mum for getting drunk when, by the end of the night, you can guarantee she will be the drunkest one here.
So, to avoid a further telling off, we all settled down a little on the drinking and just made an effort to speak with Mum's party guests.
Jake has kept his arm wrapped around my waist as he stands behind me all evening, letting me lean against him, propping me up and taking half of my weight to give me some relief. People offer me seats but I decline, using the excuse that I will seize up if I sit for too long.
I'm still not confident on the crutches and the alcohol doesn't help my balance at the best of times so, if Jake is willing to keep his arms around me, I'll take full advantage of that. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway, that he's helping me balance and that's why I need him to hold me. It's totally not the fact that I crave his physical contact. No not at all.
It hasn't helped convince people that we're just friends either. That and the fact that everyone has seen the karaoke video on Facebook… And the photo of us that Jake took on our romantic champagne picnic by Tower Bridge that Jude posted on social media last night, wishing our followers a 'Happy Valentine's Day'.
I even stopped denying that we are together after a while. Jake hasn't denied it all evening and I decided that, by the end of tonight, I'm going to tell him exactly how I feel.
More and more of our conversation comes back to me as the night goes on. I remember what I said about him to the doctor in the hospital, how he said we'd talk about it when we got home but, clearly, I was in no fit state to do that.
I've spent the better part of the evening scrutinising our friendship and I suppose there are a lot of reasons to think we're a couple.
"Let's go to the summer house before the others make their way down. Your dad got the fire pit started earlier so it'll be nice and warm. I think he knew we would all hide down there, eventually. I could also do with five minutes to chill. I forgot how intense Jones family parties can be," Jake says, taking my drink so he can carry it for me. He helps me navigate through the kitchen and out of the back-patio doors. We pass my brother who winks at me as we quietly sneak out, avoiding all the 'grown ups'.
On the outside, I'm rolling my eyes at him. On the inside, my stomach has tied itself in knots, thinking about me and Jake, alone in the garden.
This is my chance to speak to him and I still have no idea what I'm going to say. I'm so nervous that I'm shaking and Jake notices.
"Are you cold?"
"I'll be okay when we get to the fire pit," I lie.
He leads me down the garden path, past the goldfish pond and wishing well water feature that Mum insisted on having custom built but now refuses to go anywhere near it out of fear of frogs.
Six weeks ago, I would have put money on Jake pushing me in the pond.
The summer house is a large shed at the bottom of the garden surrounded by lush, green trees and shrubbery that my dad turned into a garden bar 'before it was cool', as he likes to remind us. We would sneak out of family parties as teenagers to come down here and help ourselves to the vodka and gin he kept under the high bar.
Back then, there were a few collapsible garden chairs, a mesh table and a plastic storage box where the booze was kept. Now, there is a tall, wooden bar with a built-in beer pump and keg, hanging shelves containing top end spirits and cosy outdoor sofas with cushions and blankets. A hanging egg chair sits in the corner opposite big, double doors that open out onto a paved area where the fire pit sits.
I think our parents must have figured out what we were doing as kids because, over time, the spirits would change to cheap home brand and tasted like it was mixed with 90 percent water but we still loved feeling like rebellious kids.
It's been a long time since I've been in here. There are now shelves around the eves of the room, housing empty whiskey bottles from all over the world that Dad and his friends have finished. Rock’n’roll memorabilia he's hoarded from the 70s and 80s decorate the walls. He's even got one of those cardboard peanut and pork scratching hangers that his mate from the pub down the road got him for his birthday.
"Tonight has been great. I'm glad you invited me." I don't mention that James invited him weeks ago but he declined because of our fight.
"Why did you stop coming to our parties all those years ago?" I ask, curious.
"I don't know. I guess I just said ‘no’ to my parents enough times that they stopped asking me to come in the end."
"That doesn't answer my question. Why did you say ‘no’ in the first place?"
"Can I ask you something?" he asks me to avoid my question again, suddenly looking nervous.
"Sure."
"Last night, when you asked me to kiss you-"
"I had just about gotten over that embarrassment. Maybe I just read the room wrong?" I say in a question, hoping he'll tell me that I wasn't wrong at all.
"Answer me honestly. Did you want me to kiss you or was it the morphine talking?"
"Jake..." I plead with him not to make me answer that question before I have chance to probe him a bit more about his feelings.
He just raises his eyebrows at me and I sigh in defeat. I know I need to come clean.
"Yeah, I did. I've wanted to for a while and I tried to ignore how I feel about you but I don't think I can anymore. I'm sorry, I don't want to make things awkward between us if you don't feel the same way," I say, once again blushing as I look at my feet. Do they do classes on how not to blush? I could really do with finding one.
He takes my crutches and places them to one side. He rests my hands on his hips so I can balance, our bodies almost flush together as he runs his hands up my arms.
"It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, saying ‘no’ to you last night," he says, his voice low and rough as he pushes my hair behind my shoulders. The sensation makes my skin buzz with anticipation.
Yep, not breathing anymore. Where does the oxygen go?
Before I'm able to muster up some kind of response in the form of jumbled up nonsensical words, he explains, "I wanted to kiss you. I really, really wanted to. I've thought about it a lot and not just last night. This goes way beyond that but I just couldn't do it. You were out of it and I didn't want to risk you forgetting our first kiss. Or worse, remembering and regretting it." He absent-mindedly plays with strands of my hair, making the hairs on my neck stand up on end. "You asked me why I stopped coming to your parties. Do you remember that girl I told you about? The one that was never available?"
"Yeah?" I say, remembering the conversation we had about her.
‘"Did you love her?"’ I had asked him.
‘"Yeah, I've never stopped. Don't think I ever will."’ he had said.
I'd told him she must have been an idiot not to want him.
"She's you," he says, taking me by surprise. "I realised how I felt about you when I went off to uni. That Christmas, when James and I came home, the smile you gave me when I walked in the room knocked me off my feet. Everything made sense to me then but you were going out with Philip. I thought, one day, you wouldn't be and then I could ask you out myself so I chose to distance myself from you until then. It was the hardest thing I ever did but I felt so guilty for feeling the way I did about my friends’ girlfriend. I watched him propose to you a couple of years later and I knew, then, how much you really loved him. It would never come down to a choice between the two of us for you. I stopped coming around completely because I couldn't bear to see you be so happy with him and I hated feeling that way because I knew he was a great guy that deserved you.
“Then, he died and we nearly lost you, too. I missed him; I hated the fact that I couldn't be a friend to him because of my own vanity. I wanted to make things right with us but I'd pushed you so far away that, over time, we stopped being friends and it killed me. I would make up excuses to come see you at work and the only time I'd get a reaction from you was when I was winding you up so I kept doing it because even that little bit of attention felt like I was close to winning you over again."
"I didn't know. I just thought you enjoyed being a shithead." An uncontrollable grin spreads over my face and I can't seem to help myself as I wind my arms tighter around his waist, trying not to think about how lean and muscular his back is. "This is all so much to take in."
I'm trying to process everything he's said but it's hard when he is looking at me like this, like he's holding back, waiting to see my reaction.
"I wish you had told me."
"Do you still want me to kiss you, Maggs?" he asks, his voice low and breathless as one of my hands move to his chest, grabbing a handful of his shirt to steady myself.
Again, I forget how to breathe and words fail me so I just nod and hope that's enough of a response.
He cups my face and angles it to where he wants me before he lowers his mouth to meet mine.
It’s everything I imagined it would be and more. Everything comes together in my mind, every word he's spoken that I didn't understand the context behind. Each argument we've had makes complete sense now.
Without removing his lips from mine, he lifts me up so my legs are around his waist and he can walk me backwards to sit me on top of the bar. This way, we're hidden where no-one can see us from the house, something we didn't think about when we started kissing in full view of everyone inside. Let's just hope no-one was looking out the window.
His hand slides up my bare thigh. His lips move to my jaw and down to my neck as I rest my head back against the wall, trying to take control of my breathing, unable to think about anything other than his touch or the feel of his hair in my hands or my fingers digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders.
I kiss him again in the hope that he'll see how much he means to me, that he'll see that I'm falling in love with him.
We could be kissing for 2 seconds or 2 hours - I really couldn’t tell. He pulls his lips from mine and rests his forehead against mine. I let out an embarrassing whimper in protest.
I don't want to ever stop this.
"Unless you want James to walk in on us like this, we should really put a pin in it," he finally says, looking at me breathlessly. He strokes my cheek as the sounds I didn't hear before, of my brother and our friends, get closer. "Not that he would be surprised. He's probably guessed why I brought you out here alone, anyway, as much as he won't want to think about it."
"He told me how you felt about me earlier tonight. I didn't believe him," I say clearing my throat as he helps me to sit down on the wicker sofa, propping my foot up on a cushion on the stool and settling in beside me. I snuggle into his side and he kisses me gently through his own smile.
"To be fair, you were the only one I hadn't told. They're all sick of me banging on about how much I want you and me never having the guts to actually do anything about it," he says, confirming what James had said.
He kisses me one last time before everyone appears in the doorway of the summer house.
I don't think anyone realised what they interrupted out here, although they exchange looks between themselves when they notice that we're holding hands. My heart is racing and my mind is firmly in the gutter as I replay that kiss over and over. Thoughts of what could have happened if we weren't interrupted.
I commit everything to memory. How soft his lips are, how firm his shoulders are, how strong his hands felt on my thigh. I think about it as I hold his hand that hangs over my shoulder and rest my head on his chest.
My lips are still tingling and my heart speeds up when I think about how amazing our kiss was. There was always gossip at school from girls who had kissed him but you can tell by looking at his full, soft lips that he'd be great at it.
Every word he said to me is etched in my memory. I had no idea that his feelings went as far back as they did. I'd never noticed.
Guilt floods me as I remember why I didn't notice his feelings for me when I was younger. It was because of Philip. I was too busy loving him to notice my best friend.
***
As the night goes on, Jake deals with the whole situation much better than I do considering he is still able to hold a conversation with my brother without blurting out the fact we nearly set the summer house on fire with that kiss.
I, on the other hand, have barely said two words since our friends interrupted Jake and I a couple of hours ago nor have I really heard a word anyone has said and, yet, the conversation continues around me.
When Laura questioned my sudden silence, Jake stepped in and reeled off a dozen excuses like that I’m probably still tired from spending the night before in hospital and the painkillers I'm on and that he should probably take me home soon. Really, I'm replaying everything over and over in my head and wishing he would take me home sooner.
Eventually, I do manage to focus enough to hold a conversation but I'm fairly sure everyone can tell something is going on.
Mum calls us back to the house to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to James and dig into the delicious cake that Laura made. Everyone clears out of the summer house, leaving Jake to help me with my crutches.
"Will you stay with me tonight?" I ask. "I don't know if I can function without help right now."
"I'll stay as long as you need me to," he says before kissing me again. "You need to stop looking at me like that, though or we'll never make it out of this shed."
"Mum will kill you if she hears you call it a shed."
"I know but she'd forgive me. After all, she forgave me for her vase," he says, making me laugh.
Around midnight, we finally say our goodbyes to our families and jump into our Uber. Everyone bought the excuse that the painkillers probably didn't help along with the alcohol I drank so they didn't fight us when we said we we're leaving before the party was done.
In reality, our moment in the summer house sobered me more than a large coffee and an ice-cold shower would have.
"Maggie, are you okay? You haven't said anything since we left your mum and dad's," he asks, looking worried as he helps me open the door to my flat.
I don't answer. Instead, I just close the door behind us, drop both crutches and launch myself into his arms. Luckily, he catches me otherwise it would have been really embarrassing and quite painful.
He hitches me up so my legs are wrapped around his waist, taking my weight, and he finally meets the urgency in my kiss. This kiss is fuelled by desire and is a bit more haphazard than the kiss we shared earlier but it's just as electrifying.
Less than 2 months ago, he was my annoying co-worker. My brother’s arrogant, egotistical best friend. Now, he's my lifeline, the person who keeps me sane, my business partner. Should I add potential boyfriend to that list? After his confessions earlier, I think it might be too late to refer to him as anything less.
Kissing becomes impossible as I try and unbutton his shirt while he holds me tightly to him. He finds the closest surface to put me down on which happens to be the breakfast bar that separates the kitchen and living room. He doesn't make any attempt to let me go.
"Maggs, are you sure you want to do this? I didn't come here expecting anything. We can take it slow," he says as I lose patience with his fiddly buttons and just rip his shirt right off. Buttons fly across the room. "Or not," he laughs.
I lose all train of thought as I stare down at his chest, toned and sleek with a sprinkle off dark chest hair. His body is just as gorgeous as it feels when it's pressed against me.
"What?" is all I can manage to ask, not making eye contact with him.
He raises my face to look at him. "I want you to know that I'm not here for a one-night thing. I've given it a lot of thought and I know you haven't but, if this is going to work, if we’re going to do this and keep our company, then we have got to do it properly. I'm talking a real relationship so, if you're not ready for that, it's fine but you need to tell me. I've waited fourteen years for this and I'd wait another fourteen if it meant I got to keep you."
I thought I had seen every side of Jake but this side of him, his sensitivity, is new to me. He's laid everything out on the table for me: He's holding nothing back.
"Until a few hours ago, I had no idea that you felt this way. Every excuse I had for not taking a risk with you before now counted on you not wanting me. I don't know how to be a girlfriend and that worries me because I don't want to let you down if I'm terrible at it. I might not have realised how I truly felt about you until a few weeks ago but it doesn't mean it's any less of the truth."
"It's not like I have any idea what to do in a relationship either. We'll figure it out together. We don't have to label anything right away unless you want to. We can tell the world or keep it between us just as long as we have the same end goal."
"I want you, Jake. I want us. You're everything to me."
"You've got me, Maggie. You always will, I promise," he says, returning his lips to mine.
We discard his ruined shirt on the way to my bedroom and, as our kiss heats up again, I clumsily manage to pull my dress over my head.
He lowers me to my bed as I gaze into his eyes. I'm in disbelief that this is happening. He looks at me with so much love that it fills my heart, so much so that it finally feels whole again. Different but whole.
"What do we do about the boot?" I ask, earning a laugh from him.
"No idea. We'll add it to the list of things we need to figure out," he says, laughing as he settles his weight away from my right leg, leaning down to kiss me again.
I know I'm ready for this. I'm ready to openly love him. I've never been so sure of anything because, when we're together, nothing else seems to matter but the two of us. He brings out the best parts of me, makes everything easier, everything brighter and better.
I know that, with Jake by my side, I'm exactly who I want to be.