Bonds of Love. Sarah K

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      I laughed. ‘Boring.’

      He threw back his head and laughed along with me. While I believed Alex when he said that he would book separate rooms, I think both of us knew that if I went to Whitby with him that wasn’t what was going to happen.

Chapter Three

      ‘For God’s sake,’ said Gabbie, pouring me another glass of wine. ‘You’re hardly a blushing virgin. Go. It’ll do you good.’

      ‘You make it sound like some sort of universal cure-all.’

      ‘Nothing wrong with a little therapeutic sex, Sarah. Come on, you said yourself that he is cute, and let’s face it, you could do with a diversion. You’ve been moping about for months since you split up with Max. Time to start over, honey. Time to be getting on with life.’

      ‘I have been getting on with life,’ I protested.

      She raised her eyebrows. ‘As far as I can see you’ve been getting on with avoiding life,’ she said.

      Gabbie is one of my best and oldest friends. Along with Joan and Helen, we make up a quartet of friends who go back the best part of twenty-five years, and we are still going strong. The four of us first met up at antenatal classes in a draughty scout hut on the outskirts of Cambridge, but we’ve all come an awfully long way since then. When our children were small we used to meet up once a month at each other’s houses. Now that we’ve all moved away and moved on and our children have grown up, we still try to get together regularly for supper, it just doesn’t happen as often as any of us would like.

      Tonight, however, was an extraordinary mid-week general meeting with just Gabbie and me present, because I thought Joan would disapprove of me going away with Alex on principle and Helen had started seeing a man called Geoff and was so excited and loved up that – pleased as I was – I knew that he would be the main topic of conversation. Even if we did talk about Alex and the pros and cons of going away with a complete stranger for a dirty weekend, she wouldn’t really be listening and, while I didn’t want to steal her thunder, I needed some support and advice. Helen deserved a good man. We all did.

      ‘I don’t know why you’re making such a big thing of this. What harm can it do?’ Gabbie was saying. We had ordered a takeaway. She was waving an onion bhaji around for added emphasis. ‘You’re a big girl now, Sarah. You don’t need anyone’s approval, least of all mine. Look at the mess I make of relationships. Go to Whitby, have a good time, have a weekend in a nice hotel with someone you fancy and have some good meaningless sex. Or not. Let him book you a separate room and have a bit of a cuddle. Your choice. You’re old enough to make up your own mind now, and you can have a relationship any shape you want it to be these days. I mean, he might be the one.’

      I laughed. ‘Yes, and he could also be an axe murderer.’

      ‘True. But then again so could anyone else you go out with and –’

      ‘He offered to drive,’ I said.

      ‘And what? Your mother was very strict about you getting into cars with strangers?’

      ‘And rightly so.’

      ‘Okay, so you offer to drive up there then.’

      ‘I don’t want to drive to Whitby. It’s bloody miles away.’

      ‘Go by train and meet him there.’

      ‘It’ll take all day.’

      ‘Okay, well, don’t go at all then,’ said Gabbie, throwing up her hands in frustration.

      ‘But I want to go,’ I said, realising that with every passing minute I was sounding more and more like a petulant teenager than a fortysomething adult with a job, a mortgage and grown-up kids.

      ‘You probably know a lot more about Alex than you would about some guy you’d met in a bar, and I think you’d know if he was weird.’

      ‘You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you? But I’m not sure I trust my instincts.’

      ‘Oh well, that’s it then. Ring him up and tell him you’re not going. Or do you want me to do it?’ Gabbie paused and waited for me to reply, and when I didn’t she said, ‘What you really want is for me to give you my approval and to encourage you to go, don’t you?’

      She was right, of course. I just needed someone else to tell me it was okay and I wasn’t mad to want to go away with him.

      To help convince me that he wasn’t weird or a mad man, Alex had sent me a map of where we would be staying, a link to the hotel website, a copy of the wedding invitation and all sorts of numbers and bits and bobs so that I could check him and his invitation out. If he was an axe murderer he had gone to an awful lot of trouble to make himself look credible.

      When we’d parted in the car park after our day out at the seaside, he had kissed me very briefly and told me to let him know if I wanted to go with him to the wedding. He said it would be great to spend some more time together, and part of me agreed wholeheartedly. The afternoon had just flown by and I hadn’t had such a nice time in ages. He had such a light touch on life, and had made me laugh more in one afternoon than I had in weeks. He had made me smile and he had listened, and made me realise that there was life after Max, and that without meaning to I had been wallowing in a whole world of ‘poor me’, even if I hadn’t said anything out loud.

      ‘So,’ Alex had said as we got to my car. ‘Time to go then.’

      I nodded as he bobbed in to kiss me on the cheek. ‘I’ve had a great time,’ he said.

      ‘Me too,’ I said. I didn’t want him to go and it seemed the feeling was mutual because he ran through the plan for Whitby one more time.

      Alex planned to drive up on Thursday morning, then go to the wedding on Friday and come back on Saturday. Or Sunday, he offered, still smiling. As he spoke, I wondered if he might kiss me for real, rather than the maiden-aunt-style peck he’d just given me. At which point he leant in closer, and I felt my heart do that fluttery thing that hearts do – and I almost pulled away, coming over all prudish, as I felt a surge of what felt remarkably like pure old-fashioned lust. And then he kissed me properly and I was convinced of it. It was lust, pure and simple, and it was heady stuff. I’d been through a lean time. His kiss was like nectar.

      I can’t remember the last time that kissing someone genuinely made me go weak at the knees, but Alex’s kiss came damned close. Good kissing is an art – this was close to perfect; he gently held me by the elbows, bringing me into range, and then he brushed my lips with his. The kiss was just intimate enough; strong but not too pushy, gentle pressure and slightly open mouth but no tongues, with the promise of more to come. When he pulled away, Alex’s eyes were bright with a flicker of desire and a lot of amusement. He grinned. ‘I’d really like to do a lot more of that. Have a safe trip home.’

      I felt myself blushing and then he was gone.

      By the time I got back to my place Alex had already texted me: ‘Great to spend time with you today. I’ve emailed you the details of the wedding, but seriously, no pressure. I’d really love to see you again, whether you come to the wedding or not. Just hoping you feel the same. A x’

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