Could It Be I'm Falling in Love? (43 page)

But now here they were: three workmen in yellow hats, down a hole in Blackberry Lane. And it was Sue’s very own feet that had delivered her to them. And now those very same feet had stopped.

He was here … The builder who’d knocked into her in the newsagent’s … The one who’d actually noticed her presence. And he was doing something buildery with a hammer and a pipe.

Sue hesitated as they continued their work, oblivious. She waited a moment – the longest moment she could ever remember. And then her heart skittled in panic. She’d got it wrong; she shouldn’t have come. She was still the same … still invisible. Still Sue.

She started to turn back towards home, but was stopped by a noise: a funny, off-beat chink of a hammer not quite hitting its mark.

She turned back.

He was looking at her. The builder from the newsagent’s had stopped working and was looking at her.

Their eyes locked. Sue held her breath. He was an ordinary-enough looking man: neither young nor old, neither handsome nor plain. But that wasn’t the point.

And then slowly – ever so slowly – he smiled. And then he nodded, tipped his hard hat and winked.

‘Afternoon.’

Sue inwardly gasped. She seemed to take an hour to reply. ‘Afternoon!’

And then she span on her heel and away. Not breathing –
not needing to breathe – she walked off home with a singing heart.

He’d noticed!
She
had been noticed! She wasn’t just Sue any more. She didn’t look back. It didn’t matter if he was still looking or not. The point was, he
had
looked and things need never be the same ever again.

4.48pm @foxyroxy

My chocolate log ROCKS! CHOCOLATE ROCKS!

Woody was holding his breath. He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly realised his lungs were stuck on pause. He forced himself to breathe out, check his watch and knock again.

Still no answer.

She was out.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. He should have come round sooner. Roxy wasn’t the type to stay in in the evenings. She was probably whipping up a storm on a dancefloor somewhere, knocking back tequila in a dress so short it came with an arrest warrant. Woody tried not to feel disappointed. He was
glad
Roxy was out. After the last few days she’d had, she deserved to have a good time. Woody nodded, as if confirming something. And then he turned and headed back down Roxy’s front path. He’d come back in the morning to apologise instead.

As he walked down a dark Gates Green Road, he thought back to the other night, in the pub – to Roxy, and Terry’s eyebrows, and the punch. And, halfway along Chestnut Avenue, his lungs went on pause once again. God, he hoped she wasn’t at Austin’s! After all, Austin
had
been as subtle as a donkey
on heat about Roxy, and he wasn’t a man who was often told no. Woody knew
that
better than anyone. When Austin decided to be seductive, women seemed unable to resist. And, Austin’s objectionableness aside, why
should
Roxy resist? She was young, free and single. And hadn’t he just told himself that she needed a good time?

Woody frowned into the darkness. He picked up the pace as he strode home. And, as he rounded the corner to Blackberry Lane, he saw her: the black Aston Martin, double-parked – and Chelle in a bundle on his doorstep.

It was 8.30am in Roxy’s kitchen.

Confessing felt surprisingly good
, Roxy thought as she waited for her flapjacks to brown.

She’d always prided herself on being a computer-says-yes kind of girl. There was nothing she wasn’t prepared to go on the record about, from waxing her tash to her old school reports. But over the years, and much to her surprise, Roxy had developed taboos.

The first had been her date of birth (the precise digits of which she’d told so many lies about, that the filling in of an official form – like a passport application – now necessitated a phone call to her mum).

But Roxy’s major taboo was her career – or rather, her career’s demise. Gradually she’d become uncharacteristically cagey about the state of her work diary. Since being relieved of the services of her final agent (‘There’s nothing more I can do for you,’ she’d smiled sadly. ‘Go home, dust off your GCSE certificates and remember your fifteen minutes with a smile’), nobody had been privy to the secret of quite how empty Roxy’s
schedule had been. Even Roxy had barely known. Looking at her diary, with its endless pages of snowy blankness, had freaked her out so badly she’d decided not to look. Why torture herself? The truth only ever got her down, and everyone knew that to be hired you had to be up, up, up!

Looking back, all the denial had been exhausting. It took more effort to lie about being busy, she now realised, than it did to actually
be
busy. She was dizzy from all her own spin.

But coming clean, telling Woody, ‘fessing up to her unemployment … Roxy felt like a great and terrible weight had been lifted from her. It was far more effective than the colonic. She felt lighter – literally
stones
lighter. She felt giddy with freedom, like gravity had been switched off and her feet couldn’t stay on the ground. Even getting puked on by Austin hadn’t fazed her. She wasn’t Roxy Squires, Failing TV Presenter Perpetually Hunting Down The Next Job … She was just … well, she was Just Roxy Squires, and being Just Roxy Squires felt great. If she’d known ‘fessing up was so amazing, she’d have done it yonks ago. Maybe the Catholics were on to something.

The oven timer pinged.

Roxy frowned.

Of course, there was still one big taboo left, eating away at her like the knowledge of a Mars bar in the cupboard …

Woody.

It was now twenty-four hours since her moment of self-discovery. And lying in bed that morning, her mind uncluttered by the list of potential jobs she should be chasing and
TV execs she needed to poke, Roxy had made a decision. She was going to be true to herself. She was a heart-on-her-sleeve girl. She wasn’t a procrastinator, long-game player or dweller of fences – she was a plain-spoken, no-fannying-about motormouth.

She’d heard people say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and so Roxy’s plan of action was flapjacks. After all, her armoury of micro-skirts and tit-tops was now balled in a corner of her bedroom and, since she’d discovered the comfort of jumpers, she wasn’t sure she could welcome them back. No amount of breast-wobbling or smutty innuendo would work with Woody, anyway. And, short of challenging him to naked arm-wrestling, strip poker or truth-or-dare drinking games, that was it … all of her pulling techniques exhausted.

Flapjacks were the only course of action.

Because it was time to tell Woody the truth.

The truth
.

She wouldn’t be sly about it. She wouldn’t try to talk him into anything. If Woody wanted Jennifer – fine. She wasn’t a man-stealer. She’d wish him good luck and then scarper. But …
but
 … if he was having any doubt about Jennifer …
any teeny, tiny molecule of uncertainty at all
 … then surely he needed to know how she felt? And what Roxy felt, felt massively like love.

It was a high-risk strategy. But, hey – dignity was overrated. And so she picked up her flapjacks and set off.

The whole way over, she rehearsed the script in her head:

Woody. I know you’re with Jennifer, but just in case you’re ever not with Jennifer, I just wanted to let you know that I, Roxy Squires, am available …

Woody. I think you’re wonderful and kind and handsome and lovely, and I’d be honoured if you’d consider me for the position of your girlfriend …

Woody. I fancy the arse of you; always have, always will…

Woody. I think that I might… that I might lov—

Oh, she was just going to have to wing it … to cross her fingers and hope the right noises came out of her mouth. Because it was too late now – she was here. Her feet scraped to a halt at the end of Woody’s drive.

This was it: no turning back.

She took a deep breath and walked up to the door. But before she could knock, it opened.

‘Roxy Squires? What the cockin’ell do you want?’

Roxy froze.

Standing on Woody’s doorstep – as bold as brass and dressed in something only marginally more sturdy than a negligee – was Chelle.

Roxy’s body turned to lead. Her heart clattered around her ankles. Was Chelle …? Was Woody …?
Were Chelle and Woody …?

‘I was …’ she floundered as she saw Chelle’s bonked-all-night bed hair. ‘I was just …’

Chelle raised an eyebrow.

‘Spit it out! We’re busy.’

Roxy’s mouth flopped as she tried to find the power of
speech … but inexplicably the motormouth was silent. Every word in the English language escaped her. All she could hear were Chelle’s words.

We’re busy
.

We.

Chelle and Woody were a
we
. And
we
were busy.

Busy doing what?
Nausea flooded her. But then her brain contracted tightly as protection against the visions.

How could she have missed this development?
Surely there must have been signs … lingering looks, jointly-timed exits, body language impossible to ignore …? Yes, Woody had a reputation that preceded him – but he seemed so different to the tabloid stories of his past. And Roxy had never thought he’d be the kind of man to do
this
. She thought he was better, kinder, more honourable.

‘But Jennifer …’ she managed to utter.

‘Who’s Jennifer?’ Chelle screwed up her face.

‘Woody’s girlfriend!’

But Chelle’s only reaction was a shrug. ‘They for Woody?’ She eyed up the flapjacks then leant forward and whisked the Tupperware out of her hands. ‘See ya, then.’

And then the door closed and Roxy was left staring nose first at Woody’s woodwork, wondering where all the thousands of words she should have said had just flown to, and how on earth she could have got Woody so wrong.

To:
Feisty; Rain Man; Downton; Vidal; Sugatits; Head Girl; Woodster; the WAG

From:
Austin Jones

Hello. Is Austin’s girlfriend, Carmen Bonitta, here. Austin is very sorrey for the other nite and would like to invite you to hes house tonite to say sorrey. Please come. He is not horrible all the time, I promise! He knows he has been (is this right word?) plonker.

Love,

Carmen

‘Now
this
is something I have to see,’ grinned Terry evilly as they crunched up the long, winding drive to Austin’s manor house. ‘Austin Jones, forced to eat humble pie by his girlfriend: priceless!’

‘It must be a difficult transition,’ reasoned Holly. ‘He
was
a movie star a few months ago.’

‘Yes, well, everyone has dreams that get broken,’ said Cressida. ‘It doesn’t give him licence to be rude.’

‘Can’t we just hear him out?’ asked Simon. ‘The man wants to apologise!’

‘Oh, hark at you now,’ sniped Terence. ‘Just because he watched
Down Town.’

‘I just think everyone deserves a second chance.’

‘And a third, and a fourth, and a twenty-fifth …’