Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [53]
‘Did you ever think you would be able to?’
Natalie looked shamefaced. ‘I don’t know.’
Tom shucked her off his lap.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Really I am. I so didn’t want to offend you, or hurt you.’
He didn’t say anything. She patted his forearm. ‘Or get you all wound up, for that matter. I haven’t, have I? You know what I mean, don’t you? It just doesn’t feel right, does it? Us doing… that.’
It had felt pretty bloody right to him. But if only one of them was into it, it was pointless.
Her face was imploring him, as only Natalie’s could, to let the moment pass, make things okay.
‘Don’t be cross with me, Tom. Please.’
‘I’m not cross with you, Natalie.’ He stood up. ‘Forget it. Not my first drunken grope. Or the last, I shouldn’t reckon.’
But he was cross. With both of them. With Natalie for saying she was going to sleep with him, and with himself for believing it. She’d so obviously been winding him up. She’d never really meant it. She was playing the game with him, that was all. And hadn’t he asked for it? He’d been an idiot for trying it on. And after she’d had a few drinks.
‘And we’re okay, are we, really?’
He smiled, and said, yes, of course, they were okay, except that he hadn’t quite forgiven her for the H, and she’d better watch out for the I.
Natalie climbed back on to her bed, and was asleep within five minutes. She must have had more Jack Daniel’s than he’d thought. Tom felt momentarily guilty. He wished he hadn’t kissed her.
But then he lay down on the other bed and watched her. Her face was smooth and expressionless in sleep. Her mouth was slightly open. She had no idea what she was doing to him, did she? Because she didn’t think of him that way, and she still hadn’t really got the message that he did. That he fancied her rotten. That he was lying here now, with a stonking hard-on, wanting her. Someone who didn’t know her as well as he did would call her a prick-tease. Maybe he would, too, if he didn’t adore her so much. Perhaps he was making excuses for her behaviour, telling himself she didn’t know what she was dealing with.
God, he was turned on. Frustrated. It had been a while, and he felt a dull ache. He thought about going to the bathroom, but that felt bad, so he turned over irritably, and tried to think about something other than ripping her pyjamas off. He had no choice now but to spend the night next to her. Then get up in the morning and pretend he hadn’t been any more serious than she was. Let them both make a joke out of it to get over the embarrassment.
It took Tom ages to get to sleep.
March
Natalie and Anna
She’d come for her dad. She’d promised. It felt strange.
She hadn’t lived here, with Mum and Dad, for years, but it looked the same.
She hadn’t been since New Year. Normally she’d have been for her mum’s birthday, but not this year. She’d been ready to make excuses, but there’d been no need. Mum hadn’t seemed bothered either way when they spoke on the phone.
And Christmas had been so awful.
Long silences and high tension were so wrong in this house. It wasn’t like that here. Even though she’d long since moved out, Natalie knew she still wanted to see her home and her parents as a sanctuary, a refuge. She felt hugely resentful of her mum for stopping it feeling like that.
Bridget was a bit too knackered to think about it, and Susannah was too selfish, but Natalie had thought about it a lot after Christmas. Realised that she was angry with her mum. Tried to reason with herself about it, and make it go away. Natalie wasn’t good at confrontation, and the idea of fighting with her mother was abhorrent.
The conversation with Dad had made sense of some of it, and she was relieved not to be angry any more. But it still felt awkward.
She’d rung up and made an appointment to visit. At least that was what it had felt like.
It obviously felt just as weird to Anna. She made tea. ‘Your dad