Chapter 7

Seven

T he first bouquet of flowers arrived on Monday morning when the boys were at school.

Roses, carnations, snapdragons, and alstroemerias in a glass vase, together with a card that said simply I'm Sorry .

I threw the whole lot in the bin.

Then stewed for half an hour.

Then retrieved the bouquet and put it in the dreary living room because nobody had ever bought me flowers before, and they really were quite pretty. It wasn't as if Eyes would know I'd kept them. He could just imagine I'd tossed them out the window and stomped their wilted remains into the mud.

And I deserved the flowers.

He should be sorry.

Sorry for what he'd done, and sorry for stirring up bad memories.

I'd first met Eyes in the village shop a couple of days before that night. Our hands had brushed when we both reached for the last iceberg lettuce at the same time, and he told me I should take it. Then he'd held the door open as I struggled out with two heavy bags.

"Want me to carry those for you?" he asked. "Which car is yours?"

"I'm walking."

He frowned, which was a habit of his, judging by the lines I'd seen on his forehead yesterday.

"I'd offer you a lift, but I'd also advise you against accepting rides from strange men, which leaves me in something of a quandary. Want me to call you a cab?"

"I'm fine, honestly." Then, "Are you admitting you're strange?"

Finally, he smiled, and that flipped him from merely handsome to devastating. "A little."

Then he'd sauntered off to his car—a BMW, I remembered—and driven out of my life.

Or so I'd thought.

On a warm August evening two days later, I'd ventured out to the Hand and Flowers to show my face at Veronica Delven's eighteenth birthday bash. I didn't much like Veronica, but my mum worked in the office at the local golf club with Veronica's mum, so I had to make an appearance to keep the peace. I'd only been there for ten minutes when Eyes walked in. And he'd looked…unhappy.

"Still lamenting the lack of lettuce?" I asked.

"What?" Then recognition flickered in his eyes. "No lettuce tonight." He nodded towards the bar. "What can I get you?"

"So I shouldn't accept a lift from a strange man, but it's okay to take a drink?"

"As long as you watch the bartender pour it, and you don't let it out of your sight."

One drink turned into two, and as the pub became busier and I grew tipsy, I found myself nestled on his lap. Warmth from his broad chest seeped into me, and my pre-cellulite ass felt quite at home on his muscular thighs. Chairs were so overrated. The way his arm snaked around my waist said "mine," and the handful of guys who tried approaching us backed hurriedly away when they caught sight of Eyes's fierce expression. I kind of liked that. Feeling wanted, I mean. In those days, I'd had the time to make an effort with my appearance, and people always told me I was pretty. I thought my nose was a bit big and my teeth were crooked, but I didn't look terrible.

Two drinks turned into three, and a perch at the busy bar turned into a cosy bench seat in the quietest corner we could find. And we talked. Or rather, I talked. In hindsight, I realised Eyes had asked me an awful lot of questions about myself without giving much away in return.

He knew my full name was Janie May Taylor, and that I should have been called Jamie, but someone made a typo on my birth certificate and nobody noticed until it was too late. I didn't even know his surname.

He knew I'd graduated from the local comprehensive with four A-levels and no real idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I'd decided to work in an office for a year or two and save while I figured it out. Maybe I'd go to uni? Maybe I'd travel? The world was my oyster. He'd mentioned having family in London, but beyond that, I had no clue where he came from or what he did for a living.

He knew I dreamed of visiting the Maldives, that I didn't love eating fish, that I enjoyed walking but wasn't a big fan of team sports. He knew I was a Sagittarius, and I had a pet cat named Tiger because he was stripy, and I'd quit driving lessons after backing my dad's car into a wall three days after my seventeenth birthday. I knew he had a sizeable dick. I could feel it against my ass as he whispered in my ear that I was beautiful.

Three drinks turned into four, or five, or six. Daniel Menzies puked on the dance floor, and after that, people began to drift off home, or possibly to a nightclub in town. Eyes wanted to call me a cab, but I told him I'd be fine walking, that I'd done it a hundred times and knew the way. He'd insisted he was coming with me to make sure I stayed safe.

I wasn't entirely certain how we'd ended up at the nature reserve. Maybe I'd wanted to show him the moonlight on the lake, or perhaps I just wasn't ready to say goodbye. Kisses turned into more, and he'd taken my virginity on the dusty floor of the birdwatcher's hide. Taken. That made it sound as if he stole it, but make no mistake, it was freely given. It was only what came afterwards that left me with regrets.

The metaphorical punch that hit me from left field.

Eyes had returned to London, a commitment he couldn't miss, he said. He'd texted me a hundred times in the days that followed, called me on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday too. Then on Wednesday, he went quiet.

My "are you okay?" message stayed unread for hours before he delivered the death blow.

Eyes

This isn't how I wanted to end things, Janie, but I don't have a choice. It's nothing you've done. This is all on me. Be happy, and I'll never forget you.

That was it. Poof. Gone. Until Harry threw paint over the door at Twilight's End, and the world's biggest, most spectacular dick came back into my life.

He'd never forget me? What a crock of shit. He probably hadn't given me another thought after he sent that text, not until Harry ruined his porch, anyway.

I sighed as I added water to the vase. This time, the decision on whether to talk was mine, and Eyes could go fuck himself.