Heart of Glass (19 page)

A gentle hand rested on my
shoulder, pulling my hair aside as I redecorated the garden beds,
Technicolor style.

“
Still want to do
shooters?” Coops joked, “You’re going to kill my plants if you keep
this up.”

He handed me his hanky.
“This isn’t my first choice in end of evening entertainment. How
many times are you gonna write yourself off before you’ll
learn?”

I stopped. Was that the pot
calling the kettle black or was I dreaming? Holding my hair was the
man I’d watched chugging back crates of beer and vodka every
weekend while scoffing at the imminent hangover. Who was he to
judge?

Leaning against his chest, I
used him to regain my balance, feeling the warmth of his arms
around me. It was peaceful there.

“
Thanks, Coops, you’re a
real friend.”

“
You stink,” he said,
chasing a lash from my cheek with his finger.

“
I love you,
too.”

‘
Don’t say that, it’s not
fair.”

“
But I do.”

“
Yeah. Are you ready to go
inside?”

I shivered. His voice was
deep and sexy, his smile so Richard Gere in Breathless. Suddenly, I
didn’t feel sick anymore. I wanted to be alone with Coops. I wanted
to live without the ghost of Ben.

“
No. Just cuddle
me.”

We snuggled in silence. He
gazed at the stars, pretending he couldn’t feel my hand inside the
back pocket of his jeans. The flannelette of his shirt was soothing
against my cheek.

“
Tell me what’s wrong,” he
said, at last.

“
It’s nothing I can’t
handle.”

“
I don’t think you can.
You’re going to get yourself into trouble if you keep this
up.”

I snuggled closer. He was
reading my mind. “But I want to get into trouble…..I want to get
into trouble, with you.”

I licked my lips, waiting
for his reply. His eyes were on them, and he hesitated but only for
a second. Just one kiss, one kiss couldn’t hurt.

His lips were cold and
surprisingly soft. I tingled. “Can I stay with you tonight? I don’t
want to be alone. The night’s all scary when I’m alone.”

“
No. You have to go
home.”

I pulled his head down to
mine. I kissed him hard. He wanted to say yes, I could feel it and
his lips were making me quiver like I hadn’t in months. His voice
was making the ghosts recede.

“
Please?”

“
What about
Dean?”

I pressed myself against
him. “I don’t want to go out with him anymore. You could be my boy;
you’re a much better dancer than he is, anyway.”

I slid my tongue
tantalizingly into his mouth. “Nobody will ever know. Come on,” I
pleaded, as I swayed against him, pleading with him to take the
ghost away.

“
What about our friends
inside the house? Don’t you think they’ll know?”

“
Send them home. Take me to
bed, fuck me. I want you to.”

He released his hold on me.
“Jesus, Bella. No girl could so blatantly ask to be fucked and make
it sound ladylike. Go home. You’re drunk and we’d both regret it
tomorrow.”

Looking into his eyes, I
could see he was regretting it already. I tilted my chin.
“Please?”

“
No. Now get
inside.”

He watched as I climbed the
back stairs, my bottom sashaying from side to side. I hope he
cursed his luck. Maybe he did, for I heard him say behind me “A guy
needs the willpower of a saint to be your friend,
Bella.”

***

Having determined that
flirting with my friends was not the best thing for my dignity or
theirs, and in the cruel light of day realising what a total fool
I’d made of myself, I set my sights on the greater male population
of the city, with little concern for my so-called boyfriend or the
fact that he may have had feelings other than those of superiority.
I’d sent out the hint loud and clear that I wanted a break. The
fact that he’d chosen to ignore it, ostrich-like, wasn’t my
fault.

“
This is awesome,” I
stated, as we sat crowded around a small table in the bar of the
Sterling Arms one night a few weeks later. “How come you’ve never
bought me here before?”

“
We didn’t think the world
was ready for you,” Justin said.

“
What’s that meant to
mean?”

“
You know exactly what it
means,” Coops laughed. “You’re a flirt, Bella. The average
Australian bloke doesn’t know what to do with a girl like
you.”

“
So I like my coffee with
cream, what can I say?”

“
How come you’re here early
tonight, anyway?” Prue asked. She was the only one of my school
friends I saw these days. Sometimes it was nice to have her around.
Sometimes.

“
It was dead as. I left
early.”

I pushed back the chair and
stood up, collecting the empties. Capably avoiding spillage of even
the minutest level on my new red Mary Jane’s, I went to the bar to
order. A dark haired guy was standing on the other side of the bar.
His foot was tapping to Otis Redding as he pulled a beer and stared
quite openly at me. He winked.

“
Nice shoes, very
decadent.”

“
Thanks.”

“
You know what they say
about girls who wear red shoes, don’t you?”

“
Yep. I also know what they
say about men with big hands,” I replied, taking the drinks and
leaving.

Back at the table, I leant
over to Prue. “I saw the cutest guy behind the bar.”

“
Do you have no shame? You
have a boyfriend. Remember? My cousin? Dean?”

I sat down beside her. “When
did you become the relationship police? Besides, we’re on a
break.”

“
Since when?”

“
Since he told me that
‘excellent’ is not the only descriptive word in the English
language and I told him that I knew lots of other words like
‘condescending’ and ‘arrogant’.” Dean’s face had pinched, a bit
cat’s bummish, at that. He didn’t like sarcasm.

“
That’s not an excuse to
treat him badly.”

“
I didn’t treat him like
anything. We’re on a break.”

I glanced at the bar; the
cute dark haired guy was still there. His biceps were flexing as he
pulled on the beer tap and mouthed Otis in my general direction. I
could see his lips telling me that he knew what I needed, that he
could give it to me. How did he even know I’d been
watching?

“
That guy is singing to me,
Prue. Look.”

Prue turned on her stool.
The barman was looking the other way. “Don’t be
ridiculous.”

“
Oh my God.”

“
What?”

“
He just mouthed ‘I want to
fuck you.’”

Justin shook his head.
“You’re priceless, Bella. Drink your drink.”

“
But he did! He winked at
me, too.”

“
In your
dreams.”

Prue looked around the
table, “She was never like this at school, you know. She was a
quiet little mouse. I don’t know what’s happened.”

I did. I was one of the boys
and they loved me for who I was not what I could pretend to
be.

***

At midnight, a low moan
erupted around the room as the lights flickered to life and people
began to realise the end was upon them. Boys at the bar tipped
their glasses trying to squeeze out every last drop and a group of
girls could be seen tottering on their high heels down the hall
towards the eternal queue outside the toilet, one last pee before
they headed out into the cold. Justin and I had finished our drinks
and waited impatiently for the other three, so that we could move
on to the next venue, an underground nightclub that stayed open
until the early hours. It was the type of place one only frequented
when desperate for alcohol, being a hangout for leather and stud
emblazoned men who worshipped Boy George as their hero but at that
time, on a Thursday, the alternatives around the city could be
counted on one finger.

As we stood to leave, a
barmaid arrived at our table with a tray of drinks. “This is for
you guys. Compliments of the management.”

“
Who are they
from?”

“
Our new bar manager, Nick.
He’s out the back for the moment but he said you’re welcome to stay
after closing. He’d love to have a drink with you.”

I watched her place the
drinks on the table. Technically speaking, Dean and I were on a
break, so if I were to find out how to mix a few cocktails it
wouldn’t be cheating. I grinned.

“
Thanks.”

“
Have a nice
evening.”

***

3am came and the bar was in
darkness. The staff had long since gone home and Nick had locked
the doors and turned the music down to a muted background noise.
The room felt spooky without the mass of people and dark corners
that had been inviting looked eerie and cold. I didn’t care. I was
trying to figure out how I could get Nick’s attention without the
others noticing. It hadn’t been my imagination that he’d been
singing to me.

I’d pressed my thigh against
his under the table. I’d grazed my hand over his knee without so
much as an eyebrow raise on his part. I’d leant over for him to
light my menthol and I’d even thrown some innuendos into the mix
but had been tragically ignored. My curiosity and failure to
attract attention, getting the better of me, I tried to listen
semi-interested as Nick explained that he’d been back-packing
around Europe for two years before returning home.

“
And you like managing the
pub?” Justin asked.

“
Yeah, it’s a great job. I
want my own pub one day.”

I nodded. Ambition was good.
It was very sexy and commanding to know what you wanted from life.
I looked at his wide shoulders… yes, sexy and commanding was very
nice, indeed.

As the boys continued
talking, I studied Nick over my glass. His skin was tanned or maybe
naturally olive, his hair dark and wavy but not black and his eyes
hazel flecked with hints of gold. He was very Mediterranean in an
international I’ve-had-sex-with-loads-of-girls-and-loved- them-all
way. I focused on his lips as thoughts of Dean sank further and
further into the background. How would it feel to have those lips
on my body, I wondered.

“
Anyone for another drink?”
Nick asked.

He walked into the black
behind the bar and peered into the fridge. I swallowed, as indecent
thoughts about him peering into my top took over my
brain.

“
I’ll have to go out to the
public bar for wine if you want one, Bella. Won’t be
long.”

I jumped up from the table,
adjusting my jeans and walking around the bar to join him. “Can I
come too? I need to go to the toilet and it’s all spooky in the
dark.”

“
Watch out she’s doing the
flirty walk,” muttered Phil.

“
That walk could be used by
ASIO,” Coops groaned. “It’s an instrument of pleasure
torture.”

“
She only uses it when she
wants something.”

“
I don’t think Nick knows
what he’s up against.”

“
I think it’s disgusting,”
snorted Prue. “What about Dean?”

“
What about him?” the boys
chorused.

I heard some shuffling of
chairs as Justin and Prue stood, the first to make a move, and
realising that it was later than he thought, Phil followed
suit.

“
Hey, look, I don’t think I
want any more, it’s getting late,” he said. “You coming,
Bella?”

Nick was watching, Coops was
looking dark and Justin had already disappeared, trying to avoid
the awkwardness of knowing what was going to happen but not wanting
to know.

“
I might have one more, if
that’s okay?”

“
You can have whatever you
want,
Cara
,” Nick
whispered.

Coops had made his way to
the door, too. “Thanks for a great night Nick, there’s some money
on the bar for the drinks.”

Nick looked from the boys to
me and went silently after them to lock up. “I’ll be in the shit if
the hotel isn’t properly secured for the night,” he explained, as
he went about bolting the doors and arming the security alarm.
“Don’t go away.”

As if!

I stood at the bar, in the
darkness, gulping on my wine. This was the worst thing I had ever
done, well apart from trying to have sex with Coops and punching
Ben in the nose. I had just picked up a man and was going to have
wild unprotected sex with him. Could I do it? My eyes followed
Nick’s shadow around the room. His sinewy body was bending and
reaching, locking the doors and stacking the chairs. I could hear
him humming Otis in the darkness. He was gorgeous. Could I do it?
You bet your sweet Catholic rosary I could and I wasn’t going to
regret a thing. I wasn’t going to think about Dean or
Ben.

Ben Who?

See. I was forgetting him
already.