Sympathy for the Devil (13 page)

       Now I regretted the smelly dumplings. “Hi,” I mumbled, putting them down on my desk along with my bag.

       He put the book down and stood up. “I just wanted to say sorry about yesterday. Or this morning. I overstepped the mark. Again.”

       I unscrewed the top of my aloe vera juice and took several swigs before I answered. “Well. My relationships aren’t your responsibility. And I’m not in one anymore, so…” I moved to the sink and quickly washed the oil from my hands. “It doesn’t matter.”

       “What happened?”

       I sighed. “You’re right. Four months is far too soon for anyone to be tracking me.”

       Instead of hashing out platitudes, Ben simply held me. Pulled me into his strong arms and hugged me, until I felt less like a complete failure. The magic in Ben’s hugs soothed my ego and unnecessarily stoked my lust.

       “Does that mean,” he whispered into my hair, “it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to kiss you right now?”

       “No,” I whispered back. “Not at all.”

       I called. And called. And kept calling. She didn’t answer. So I tried a different tactic.

       “West?” Cari asked, as soon as she answered my call. “What’s the matter?”

       “I think Toni’s finished with me,” I said and saying it out loud broke me. “You don’t understand. I love her so much.”

       “What’s happened?”

       “Didn’t she tell you about this weekend just gone?”

       “The Bank Holiday where you wanted me to voluntarily spend time with your best friend, who Druids probably worship on the regular? That one?”

       I blinked, confused by her words. “Yeah... What?”

       “Never mind. Yes, the Bank Holiday. No, she hasn’t said anything. Our rule is, if nothing bad’s happening, I don’t need a daily account of your Nicholas Sparks love.”

       “What are you talking about?”

       “Nicholas Sparks?
The Notebook
? I’m surprised you had a girlfriend...”

       “She hasn’t spoken to you?”

       “No. What’s going on?”

       “She dumped me. And it’s my fault. I get it. I pushed her too hard.”

       Cari sounded suspicious when she said, “About what?”

       “How she cheated on her ex with his friend.”

       Cari sighed heavily. “You can’t do that. You know that happened ages ago.”

       “I’m just scared. The more I tried to prove I was there for her, the more she edged away. And now she’s completely given up on me.”

       “Have you ever cheated on a girl?”

       “No,” I said in disgust.

       “Okay, that makes it a little more complicated. Anyway, you’ve had relationships in the past, haven’t you?”

       “Of course.”

       “And has Toni ever mentioned any of those girls to you?”

       The penny dropped. “No.”

       “If you want to be with her, be with her. If you can’t handle what she did, leave her alone and let her be with someone who won’t make her feel guilty about stuff that happened before she even knew you existed.”

       She spoke nothing but the truth. I had to let it go if we ever had a chance of working things out. “Thanks. I really appreciate you talking to me.”

       “No worries. I’ll talk to Toni as well. You have to make the first step though. Start with Man U memorabilia.”

       I laughed. “Okay.”

       Ending the conversation, I thought about ways to make it up to Toni and hit upon the simplest thing. Giving her space over the rest of the week seemed better, and after a single text message to say that I was leaving her be to think, I sorted everything out and on Friday night, I called her again. This time she answered.

       “Hi.”

       Nothing in that one word gave away how she felt.

       “Hi.”
This is going great.
“I… Can we talk? Face to face?”

       She sighed. “Really?”

       “Yes. Toni, there’s something worth saving. Just meet me. Tomorrow morning.”

       “What time?”

       “Can you meet me at Wembley Station at 11?”

       “Okay,” she agreed softly. “I’ll see you then.”

       “Thank you. You won’t regret it,” I promised. She didn’t say anything else, only ended the call. The simple fact she’d agreed to meeting up made all the difference.

       On Saturday morning, in the blustery winds of the tube station exit, I waited for Toni. As soon as she appeared, my heart jumped into my throat in a combination of fear, excitement and worry. She wore her hair in a knot at the top of her head, the wind loosening strands of curls. The casualness of her leather jacket, jeans, and white T-shirt reminded me why I adored her. She wasn’t fussy or dressy or high maintenance. A little smile curved her lips and, unlike the last time we met, she kissed me on both cheeks.

       “You look nice.” Her voice was full of admiration as she nodded to my blazer.

       “Oh, yeah. Cheers. Shall we go?”

       I walked her to the looming shadow of Wembley Stadium. No words of sense emerged from my mouth. I found myself mute in her presence. What could I say to make it up to her? I mean, the gesture of the outing couldn’t be considered as enough.

       “What are we doing here then?”

       “Erm,” I muttered. “We’re having a tour. Having a proper look around.”

       Her eyes lit up. “Really? That’s amazing! I’ve never been able to go to Wembley before, definitely not the new improved stadium.”

       Toni had to be the only girl in the world who’d appreciate walking around Wembley. We entered the stadium and were met by our tour guide. The whole atmosphere of the place overwhelmed me. My imagination took leaps to envision a crowd roaring, on their feet, cheering and celebrating. Together we were walked up the Trophy Winner’s Steps. I only paid attention to half of what the guide said. History, legacy, blah, blah, blah. Instead, I watched Toni’s face, practically glowing with delight.

       “Can you imagine?” she asked, throwing her hands up into the air and displaying a toned stomach. “People screaming your name? Bradley, Bradley, Bradley,” she chanted, fists pumping in time. “I, your Captain, bring this trophy to you people of Manchester. You are free!”

       My laughter faded away as I stared at her. The tour guide motioned us over to him and I said, “Can you give us a minute?”

       He looked at his watch. “Well, it’s only a seventy—”

       “—five-minute tour, I know. I need one of those minutes. Please.”

       The tour guide’s mouth parted in comprehension and with a double thumbs up, he stepped away.

       Toni stopped skipping up and down the steps and looked at me. “What?” she asked. “Don’t want to talk about football for the next forty-odd minutes?”

       I shook my head. “Just… Can we forget everything that happened from Monday until today? Right now this minute?”

       Toni didn’t look at me. Instead, she scuffed her shoes on the concrete. “Monday wasn’t the problem.”

       “I know it’s me, and I’m saying let’s just leave it. In the past. With anything else.” I could see refusal forming on her lips and I fought. “I’m sorry, okay? I just… I love you so much and I want to be with you. You’re so perfect, all I keep thinking is someone’s going to take you away from me.”

       She shook her head. “You don’t trust me.”

       “I do! It’s just other people I don’t trust. We can just go back to how we were. I promise. Nothing happened since Monday.” My heart stopped and stuttered in my chest, waiting for her answer. It seemed forever until she spoke.

       “If I say… we give it a go…” she offered slowly, “then you have to let everything go. We start from today.”

       I closed the gap between us and pulled her into my arms. Tears of relief stung my eyes and I swore, “From today. I swear.”

       She unravelled herself from me and sent me an uncomfortable smile. “The guide’s waiting. Let’s go, okay?”

       “Okay,” I agreed, taking her hand in mine and following the tour guide to the Royal Box.
I’ve done it!
I thought, excitement and happiness bubbling over.
I’ve got her back!
She’d admitted nothing went on Monday night and that was all I needed to know. My girlfriend, once more, was my own.

       I didn’t want to see Ben. I couldn’t face him. West had booked us for dinner after the tour and I pleaded a moment to go to the ladies. In nothing less than the ultimate of cowardly moments, I called him.

       “Hey, Curtis! Am I seeing you tonight, or what?”

       “Ben…”

       He paused. “I don’t like the way you just said my name. What’s wrong?”

       “What happened the other night…”

       “When you and I tried sharing a single mattress? Not the most comfortable night’s sleep I’ve had. The rest was spectacular.”

       Oh, God. I rubbed a hand over my eyes and pressed my back against the nearest wall for support. “West and I are giving it another go. So, what happened won’t happen again.”

       “That’s… disappointing. I don’t understand why you want to be with someone who doesn’t really know you. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. I know you.”

       “It’ll be fine, Ben. You and me isn’t going to happen. Again. It needs to stop. We both need to stop running to each other when things get hard. Yes, we’re supposed to be friends but we can’t be just friends. So we can’t be anything at all.”

       “We are
everything
together.” He sounded so passionate, and it almost made me cry. “We always end up back with each other, because it’s meant to be that way.”

       “I can’t do it. It’s never right. And we both end up hurting so many people.”

       “Because we keep lying about it. Toni, I love you. I’ve been in love with you since I met you and every time I think about us, I kick myself for letting James mess you about. I regret all of it, but not you and me.”

       “Please,” I begged him. “No more. Just… Delete my number. We’ll stay away and it’s better that way. You know that.”

       “Good luck,” Ben said, his voice bitter. “You know you shouldn’t ever sacrifice a friendship for a relationship that won’t last. And I promise you, you and your One Directioner won’t last.”

       He put the phone down on me and despite all the hope in me that he was wrong, deep down that sense of dread in my belly told me chances were, Ben would be proved right.

       I only turned up to see Cari. Glutton for punishment, obviously. I just needed to see her, if only from a distance. Just so I knew exactly what I didn’t deserve. After our date —or the hour of disaster, as I referred to it —she didn’t call or text. Neither did I. It made me sick to my stomach to think about what happened that night. What could have been…If only I’d called her, pushed everything back to another day, maybe even a scant hour, I may have calmed down. Realised what I was so close to having. Instead... Armageddon.

       The unofficial end-of-term celebration, before we all started exams, was nonsense. Time that should have been spent studying, but no one was willing to admit that. Instead we pandered to Adele Cox, whose father owned the Mayfair club. I’d been before. It sucked then, and with everyone on campus inside the box-sized venue, it sucked monster balls. I lit a menthol and noted a bouncer edging over to me. I sent him one look. Just one. The man abruptly turned the other way.

       Adele bounded over to me, fake breasts hardly moving. “Pierce, darling,” she simpered, slipping an arm around my shoulders. Pinching her skin between a thumb and forefinger, I lifted her arm from my person.

       “What do you want?”

       “Can you not? Smoke, I mean. Daddy will be getting the most awful fines...”

       I pretended to search in my pockets and made a face of contrition. “Sorry. No fucks here to give.” Adele blinked at me, at a loss for words. “Invoice me. Off you trot.”

       “Making friends?” West asked, yelling over the music. Nothing but a deep drag of my cigarette helped calm me.

       “Not really.” I looked at him properly and nearly balked. My God, Toni had put a tie on him.

       Toni waved away the smoke with a hand. “Hasn’t anyone told you there’s a ban?”

       “Nope,” I replied.

       To be honest, I had little to say to either of them. West had made his choice, and Toni would only bring him down. I glanced at West, who struggled for something to say. How sad. The fine threads of our friendship kept me from telling him that all our difficulties were wrapped up in five foot eight inches of his unfaithful girlfriend. If only he’d listened to me from the start...

       Cari breezed into the club, swept past me with barely a raised eyebrow to squeal with delight at Toni’s outfit.

       “For a girl who spent the last six hours shopping for something to wear, you’re not wearing much.” West declared, his eyebrows raised.

       “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, feeling instantaneously defensive. Cari, Toni, and West all stared at me. Ah. Awkward. “Hello, Cari.”

She threw a vague smile in my direction. “Callun. Toni, you look stellar! West, looking growl, my love! Shall we get a drink?”

       I watched West open his mouth, indicating I should join them, but he couldn’t speak the words.
Dickless
, I thought with disgust.

       “Enjoy the night.” I dismissed all three of them and found somewhere to sit.

       Kate Farrell waved me over to her table with Sam. They both decided I needed to catch up and ordered several trays of shots, which we downed one after the other. I remained stubbornly sober. Every cell in my being told me to leave. Game done. I said my goodbyes to Kate and Sam and pushed my way through the crowd to the gents. As soon as I finished, washed my hands, and opened the door for the next guy coming in, I heard a “Pierce!”

       Ben. If I were religious, I’d be convinced God was playing a really nasty trick on me today. “Hey.” I sent him a smile that meant I’d had enough of whatever he and Toni were doing together. Not my chapter.

       “Look, I wanted to say thanks.”

       I came to a stop and turned to face him. “What?”

       “Thank you. For getting Toni to talk to me. I mean, she still got back together with that bloke, North?

       “West,” I corrected slowly. “What do you mean talk?”

       “We...” he made a circular motion with his hand. “Well, we... They had a fight a while back,” he explained as the blood left my face. What. The. Holy. Fuck? “And I thought it meant we were going to pick up where we left off, but Toni said she wanted to work things out with her fella. I get the feeling you tried to talk her out of that.”

       Decidedly.

       Ben shuffled, sticking his hands in his pockets, explaining further, “She made up her mind to stay with him.”

       “When did all this happen?”

       “After the Bank Holiday weekend. Didn’t Toni tell you?”
Of course not, you fool!
“Look, I know that guy’s your friend, but so is Toni. She made her choice. They’re happy, as far as I can see. Telling your friend will only hurt people.”

       I agreed. What would be the sense in talking to West? What good would it do? Ben’s face filled with colour in the sudden bright light from the bathroom. Toni. Not even an ounce of shame. Fair enough, I could hardly sit in judgement, but still. All that bullshit about loving West. How did she sleep at night? It wasn’t as if I’d dangled Ben’s dick over her mouth to bite.

       She glanced between me and her ex. I needed to exit stage left. “See you.”

       Toni followed me, grabbing my arm. “What did he say to you?”

       “Nothing you should tell West if you have any hope in your relationship working out.” Her eyes filled with tears. Oh, Christ alive. My irritation threatened to run rampant.

       “You don’t get it, do you? You started this! Pushing me and pushing me! Whispering all those things in West’s ear. All I needed for a minute was just some company.”

       “What you wanted was sex. Clearly. Because you’ve got a friend somewhere here who would have given you everything you needed.”

       Guilt pulled at her features. I almost felt sorry for her. “You can’t tell him. We’re working things out.”

       “You won’t if you put another tie on him,” I said with distaste. She was right, still. I couldn’t say a word. She’d deny it. And that would be my friend, my brother from another mother... gone. I pointed a warning finger at her. “I’m telling you once. If he asks me, I won’t lie to him, and I certainly won’t lie for you. Tell him.”

       “Or you will?”

       Fuck’s sake. “Do your own dirty work.”

       “Why don’t you understand that you caused this?”

       I did understand. Moreover, I knew what it cost me. “Fine. I won’t say anything to him. But if he finds out... you’re on your own.”

       She threw herself into my arms and hugged me. I carefully scraped her off and walked slap bang into Cari. Okay.
That’s done it. I’m no longer agnostic
.
There is a higher power, and it is punishing me today with a vengeance.

       “Why is my friend upset?” she asked genially. Her politeness threw me off balance.

       “No idea. If you’ll excuse me...” I made to step around her, but she stepped the same way.

       “What did you say to her?”

       “Nothing. Seems these days anything sets her off,” I lied with a shrug.

       “Pony. For all intents and purposes, I get it. I really do. You love your friend with a love that cannot be spoken. But Toni and West are happy. She makes him happy. Deal with it. And deal with your own issues.”

       Her faith in her friend was truly breath-taking. “I would, but as you see, your delightful friend has taken away my sounding board for said issues.”

       “Well, if you weren’t such a crabby bastard, you’d have a few more!”

       I blinked, tilting my head to one side. “Are you applying for the vacancy?”

       She folded her arms, gold dress shimmering in the lights. “I’ll play along. What are the requirements?”

       “You need to be this high,” I raised my hand to the top of her head. “Bossy. Opinionated. And not make scenes in Michelin star restaurants.”

       “Sounds... desperate.”

       “I kinda am,” I admitted.

       She stared at me for a moment, searching for artifice with those big eyes of hers, when she leaned up, touching her fingertips to my cheek and pulling me down to her. “All right then, you sad knob, I’ll be your mate.” She pressed her mouth to my cheek and disappeared into the crowd.

      
What just happened?
I thought. Adele waved furiously at me, phone in hand and pointing between myself and Cari. I flipped her the finger.

       Cari returned. “Toni’s going home.”

       “Are you going with her?”
Don’t,
I begged.
Stay and talk to me
.

       “Just making sure she gets back okay. Why? Does this friend job start now?”

       Everything I’d been holding back for months, maybe years, threatened to bubble over. “I need to talk.”

       “Just talk?”

       “That’s all, I promise.”

       “Wait outside for me. I’ll be back. Just wait, okay?”

       I nodded, not daring to touch her for fear of what avalanche could begin. I wanted a chance. If I let go of it all... Maybe we had one...