Linger Read online

  I cleared my throat and reached to pour the tea into my cup.

  “So how’s your dad going?” James asked.

  “He’s good.” I nodded. “He’s still working away, two months on, two months off. He’s been pulling a lot of doubles lately though, so sometimes it gets lonely at home. But I get by.”

  James took a sip of his latte. “He’s in the Navy, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “He still loves it?”

  “He’s always loved being at sea and I know he misses me, but I’m old enough to look after myself now. I want him to be able to do what he wants and not have to worry.”

  James smiled. “You’re his daughter; he’s always going to worry about you.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  There was a short silence and I took a long gulp of my peppermint tea. It burnt my tongue.

  “So do you have any plans tonight?” James asked.

  I looked at him and fell into his eyes.

  “Tonight? No,” I replied. “Well, nothing other than making dinner and curling up on the couch for an early night. I have work again tomorrow.”

  James nodded and glanced at his expensive-looking watch. “Did you want to catch a movie or something? I can have you home by ten… nine even.”

  “A movie?” I blinked. “With you?”

  He laughed. “Did you think I was just going to drive you there and leave you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I mean, really? You want to see a movie with me?”

  “Sure, I’ve got nothing else to do. Plus, I really want to see that new action one that came out last week. What do you think?”

  “When does it start?”

  “I think there’s a showing at six thirty.”

  I glanced at my smashed watch and saw it was nearly quarter to five. “Do you think we’ll make it?”

  He chuckled. “Unless that teapot is never-ending, I think we’ll be all right.”

  “I don’t know, James, I’ve got…”

  “To what?” he asked. “You just said that you’re free.”

  “But then there’s dinner, and I’m already getting tired.”

  “I’ll buy you dinner then. Whatever you want – the biggest salad you can find.”

  I laughed. “I don’t want you to have to buy me dinner.”

  “I know I don’t have to, but I’m offering. So what do you say?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “So is that a yes?”

  I took another sip of tea and topped up my cup.

  “Okay,” I said before I could talk myself out of it. “Let’s do it.”

  James grinned, and his whole face lit up. “Great.”

  **

  James and I parted ways when we’d finished our tea and coffee, and I headed back to my house to get myself organised for the movie outing. It was almost half past five by the time I got home, and it made me nervous to think that in an hour’s time, I’d be sitting in a darkened theatre beside him.

  I had a quick shower and found some clean clothes that were dressier than what I would usually wear. I knew that James would look impeccable, so it didn’t matter what I wore since I would never measure up to him.

  I arrived at the cinema in town close to six thirty and found a seat inside the door to wait for James. At six thirty-five, when my nerves were on their final strand, he walked through the door as if he had all the time in the world.

  “Hello, Alice,” he said, glancing at his phone as he approached me. He was sporting a pair of jeans and a clean, pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  “Hi, James,” I sighed. “Didn’t you say the film started at six thirty?”

  “Uh, yes,” he replied, sliding his phone into his pocket. “But there are always ads before it starts.”

  “True.”

  It was hard to concentrate during the whole movie knowing that James was sitting beside me. Every movement made my pulse quicken.

  But nothing happened.

  Not that I expected it to, really. Though, every slice of romance embedded into the action film made me fidget nervously and wonder what he was thinking.

  But nothing happened.

  At the conclusion of the film, I couldn’t even remember the plot. As we wandered out into the cinema’s foyer, I could barely offer my opinion on what we had just seen.

  “Are you hungry?” James asked after giving up on the critique.

  I could feel my stomach was empty, but I was too anxious to eat. It was a strange, irrational sensation. After all, this was James. I’d known him since I was thirteen and he still managed to make me jittery. I tried to think of a clever way to decline.

  “Um…”

  “Because I know a place that serves pretty good salads,” he added. “Well, according to my sister.”

  “How is Victoria?”

  “She’s all right. She’s finishing up high school, and dating some broadcast journalism student from SCU.”

  “Really? What does she plan to do next year?”

  “Who knows?” He shrugged, then laughed. “I think she just hopes to coast along until I buy a hotel and hire her.”

  I smiled. “That sounds like a well thought-out plan.”

  “She is a child,” James sighed. “So, anyway, what about dinner?”

  “I’m actually kind of tired. I have an early start tomorrow. Can I take a raincheck?”

  “Raincheck? Okay, if that’s what you want.”

  I felt my forehead crease in confusion. What I want? Did I have an option of getting what I want?

  “Yeah, I haven’t been sleeping too well lately, and I hate getting home too late to an empty house,” I answered belatedly.

  “Okay then. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  He gestured for me to lead the way and I hesitated, then stepped in front of him. I felt his hand rest on my lower back, as it had earlier today, and we walked outside into the crisp night air.

  “So are you working all week then?” James asked as my car came into sight. It was the same one I’d driven since getting my license, a small blue hatchback.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I replied. “I mean, I get a couple of days off here and there, but lately they’ve been split up. My supervisor is taking advantage of my availability.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Mm.”

  “So, it was fun catching up,” he said, resting his foot on my car’s front tyre.

  “Yeah, we should do it again,” I answered.

  James smiled.

  “Well, I guess you still owe me a salad.” I shrugged.

  “That I do.” He chuckled, stepping forward to capture me in a hug. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

  “Goodbye, James.”

  I gave him a gentle squeeze and took a step back. It scared me being too close to him. I could feel the effect he still had on me and it was unnerving.

  James smiled again and raised a hand in farewell, turning slowly as he slid both hands into his front pockets of his jeans. I watched as he disappeared into the blackness of the night. He didn’t turn back, just like the last time we’d parted.

  If I was honest, I didn’t expect to see him again.

  Chapter 2

  Addictions

  “James? The boy you knew from high school – James? As in the one you always talk about?” My best friend Maria asked in her silky, Italian-accented voice. She had only moved to South Coast a couple of years ago, but it felt like I’d known her forever.

  “I don’t always talk about him,” I mumbled.

  “Maybe not always, but I feel as if I know him, and yet we have never met.” She smirked and her chestnut brown eyes gleamed in the light of the prototype kitchen in The Red Chandelier. It was two days after my movie-date with James.

  Date… hangout… whatever.

  “He was a big part of my life.” I shrugged, sitting next to her at the table setting. “I mean, I saw him nearly every day for five years.�
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  “And then heard nothing from him for three,” she reminded me. “And now he is leaving again.”

  “Not for a couple of months.”

  “Regardless, Alice, this cannot end well.”

  My shoulders slumped. “I know it can’t. But it’s James.”

  Maria smiled sympathetically. “Has he contacted you since the movie?”

  “No. I don’t think he will.”

  Reflexively I checked my phone anyway, feeling even lower when I saw nothing had come through.

  “This boy is a drug.” Maria frowned. “Give him up now, Alice, before you get addicted… or more addicted.”

  I nodded. I knew she was right – she usually is. James was leaving, and whether anything was to start or not, that was fact. Not that it would start. What was I even thinking? This was James. I was Alice. Nothing is ever going to happen.

  “I must go,” she sighed. “I have the lunch shift at the restaurant, and the new hotel supervisor begins today.”

  “Okay,” I replied, sitting up straight. Maria was a brilliant cook and she had managed to acquire an apprenticeship at the acclaimed restaurant in the Eclipse Hotel. It wasn’t a bad effort for a twenty-year-old.

  “Promise me you will not mope over this boy,” she said, raising an eyebrow at me. She brushed her dark chocolate curls over her shoulder.

  “I promise,” I replied. “I need to get back to work anyway.”

  “Si, I will speak to you later.”

  “Yep.” I pushed myself to my feet and smiled. “What is the new supervisor like anyway?”

  “He is a bit arrogant, but he is knowledgeable.” She rolled her eyes. “I barely see him. He has more to do with admin than the kitchen.”

  “Well, that’s good then.”

  I looked down as she turned to leave, and then glanced up as she hesitated. She frowned at me as if I was in a delicate state. I wondered fleetingly what she saw on my expression that worried her.

  “If you like, you can come by Eclipse tonight and we can eat together,” she offered. “We haven’t done that in a while.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. Resistance with her was futile. “What time does your shift finish?”

  “Make it six thirty so it’s before the dinner rush.”

  I tried to smile. “I’ll see you then.”

  Maria lowered her head and left.

  I took a moment to breathe before heading back to the showroom since working in customer service was, after all, just a stage production.

  “Alice,” a voice said as I’d barely stepped out. I was stationed in lighting today and felt as though I was under the constant watch of the globes above me.

  “Tyler,” I sighed. “What’s up?”

  “What time do you finish today?”

  “Four,” I answered, as a globe blew in the fitting above me.

  “Do you maybe want to grab a coffee after work?” he asked.

  I admired his persistence, despite how irritating it sometimes was.

  I shook my head. “I can’t, sorry.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t. I’m meeting someone after work.”

  “Someone? Girl or guy?”

  I got a spare globe from the cupboard and reached up to change it. My hand flinched away from the hot glass and I cursed under my breath. I looked around for a rag, but Tyler shrugged out of his jacket and offered it to me.

  “Thanks,” I breathed. “But I don’t want to burn it.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He shrugged. “Worry about your hand.”

  I wrapped the fabric around my fingers and reached back up to remove the blown globe.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he continued, passing me up the new one.

  I sighed. “Because it doesn’t matter whether it’s a guy or a girl, it doesn’t change anything. My answer is the same.”

  “It still affects my odds on whether you’re ever going to agree to go out with me.”

  I screwed in the new globe and looked down at him, letting my shoulders drop. “Let’s just pretend that your odds are the same either way.”

  “What is it really about?” he asked. “Why won’t you go out with me? Surely it’s not just the ten month age difference between us.”

  I looked down and frowned. Ten months was not significant, but it was easier to accept age as a reason than the possibility that a part of me had always been stuck on James.

  “I—it’s hard to explain,” I answered, then tried to smile. “Besides, you should be dating girls your own age or, you know, younger.”

  Tyler pulled a face. “Says who? There are no rules when it comes to dating, except the ones that you set.”

  “Right.” I nodded. “And they are set.”

  “You’re stubborn.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Never mind, I like a challenge,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll change your mind one day.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t try.”

  Tyler pressed his lips together. “I like you, Alice, and I’m not giving up… maybe you’d understand me better if you knew what it was like to want to be with someone and have them not want to take the chance.”

  I huffed in amusement. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Well, if you do know how it feels, then why can’t you just give me a chance?”

  “Because it would be a lie. I don’t feel what you feel,” I replied, my smirk dropping into a frown. “And as much as I try I… I’m never going to see you the way you want me to. I’d just be wasting both of our time.”

  My heart sank at the realness to my words, because they were words that I could almost hear coming out of James’ mouth. He’d never feel for me the way I wanted him to, and there was nothing I could do to ever change that. People made rules in dating, but there were no rules of attraction. Love wasn’t fair, and it never claimed to be.

  Tyler didn’t stay much longer, and despite my relief that I didn’t have to fend off unwanted advances for the rest of the afternoon, it meant that I was alone with my thoughts. There was nothing to distract me from checking my phone every few minutes. I was driving myself crazy. James was driving me crazy, and he wasn’t even here.

  Later that evening, I met Maria for dinner and she stopped me from going completely insane. Under her watchful eye, it was easier to suppress my urge to think about him or check my phone. I knew the lecture that would follow, and it wasn’t worth it.

  A full week passed, then two, and I heard nothing, not a word from James. But then on the sixteenth day of nothing, an invite came via text message.

  Eight words: “Come into town for coffee with the boys.”

  The words whipped my heart into a sprint, and when the initial excitement subsided, anger set in. Coffee with the boys? Was I just an add on to him? I didn’t reply right away because I didn’t know what to say. Should I go? What would it be like to be with him and his friends? Would it feel like I was just one of them, or like I was James’ friend? James’ female friend. I tapped the phone on my fingers and glanced at my watch, it was about a quarter to seven. It would take me less than ten minutes to drive into town. But for what? Coffee with the boys. Not with James.

  The anger began to dissolve in my veins and I sat forward on the couch. I would need to get dressed, and I would need to look great. My dinner in the microwave beeped to tell me it was cooked, and my stomach responded in anticipation. It was too late. It would be awkward. I shouldn’t go. My fingers moved over the screen on my phone and began typing: “Can’t tonight, sorry. Raincheck.”

  I hit send before I changed my mind. The internal conflict between “yes” and “no” grappled me like a couple of professional wrestlers.

  Not a minute had passed when I got a response: “I’ll buy you a salad.”

  I smiled to myself, and then gulped air to slow my heart. I made my way into the kitchen to retrieve my vegetable lasagne from the microwave.

  “Already eaten… have fun though.” I hit send.
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  His reply was almost as instantaneous as the last: “Then come for a little while. I promise I’ll have you home before bedtime.”

  “Bedtime is sooner than you think,” I typed, trying to fork some hot food into my mouth. It burnt my tongue and made the food taste powdery.

  “Is that an invitation?” was his response.

  I looked at it unseeingly for several seconds. Was he serious? Or had one of his friends stole his phone? Was I being mocked?

  I pressed my lips together, feeling a little humiliated: “Tell the boys I said hi. Goodnight, James.”

  I didn’t hear back from him, and the anger returned. It felt like the burn on my tongue – a painful sting, then just a mild irritation.

  **

  The next day it was Friday, and the week had felt like two rolled into one. If I was honest, it was exactly the case because I had been waiting for James to reply for that long. Like a drug addict, I was waiting for my next hit. It was excessively unhealthy, and I knew it, but I couldn’t stop. I needed it. I needed him. James. I never knew how much I’d missed him until I saw him again, and seeing him was like a deluge after a drought. He was my addiction, but Maria was right, it was going to end badly, and not just because he was leaving soon.

  “Tell me it’s raining outside,” James’ voice came from nowhere. I straightened my stance and wondered if my mind had advanced so much in my obsession that I was now hallucinating. When he stepped out in front of me, I was a little relieved that it wasn’t the case. He looked as perfect as ever.

  “Raining?” I asked. “What? It’s spring and South Coast. It hardly rains here.”

  “You owe me two rainchecks,” he answered as if he couldn’t believe that he’d accepted two rejections. “Tell me I can cash at least one of those in for lunch, or I might think you’re trying to avoid me.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Me avoid you? Right.”

  He leant against one of the dressers in his perfectly pressed suit. “What does that mean? I asked you to come out for coffee.”

  I pressed my lips together. “You did.”