The house was in darkness. Fumbling in her bag for her keys, Ally opened her front door. The first thing to hit her was the smell of cold pizza, the second the deep vibrations of Rory snoring, the third the horrible sting of tears as she slumped on the bottom stair and put her head in her hands.
Rory didn’t often snore—but when he did, the house vibrated with each and every agonising breath. So much so that on occasions, when poking and pleading hadn’t helped, Ally had sat on this very step playing cards with his latest girlfriend, explaining that this wasn’t the norm. Rory only snored when he was seriously exhausted, perhaps after a full weekend on call or on the very rare occasion when he’d had too much too drink. Despite the fact Rory was very much a bloke’s bloke, he didn’t drink that much, too mindful of his patients to let loose. Rory invariably hit the diet cola, but every now and then he handed over his pager—when his rugby team won the final, which was almost never, and if he wasn’t rostered on for New Year and once or twice on his birthday.
She’d sat on these steps with Rory’s girlfriends for other reasons too—when Rory had decided to up stumps and move on! Box of tissues in hand, Ally had sat and shivered, listening as a pretty mascara-streaked face had begged Ally to tell her where she’d gone so wrong, attempting to explain that it wasn’t them that had the problem—that there wasn’t a thing they could change that would make him stay. Rory had told them from the very start that he didn’t want to settle down, that he was here for a good time, not a long time.
Her eyes caught on a duty-free bag on the hall table. Frowning, Ally picked it up and read Rory’s scruffy unmistakable writing that told her he’d given up and gone to bed, but thought she might like this. Peering into the bag, Ally started at the familiar purple packaging of what had once been her favourite perfume.
Once been, because the day Rory had left, she’d never worn it again.
Pulling open the lid, she aimed a squirt on her wrist, inhaling the heavy fragrance, closing her eyes and dragging it in, the husky, seductive tones evoking memories too dangerous to recall…Rory holding her, the strong, infinitely safe cradle of his arms wrapped around her slender body, the weight of his lips as he slowly explored every flickering pulse point, speaking to her for the first and last times in the intimate tones that were saved for the bedroom, telling her how her perfume drove him crazy, whispering dangerous words as he drove her to a higher place, telling her how the lingering scent of her long after she’d left a room could hold him there a moment longer…
And she couldn’t do it, couldn’t go there. Rubbing her wrists on her shirt as if she were contaminated, Ally tried to escape the heady smell, tried to slam shut the window of memories he had opened, but the blast was too strong, every recall painful, every memory tainted by his departure—multiplied by his re-emergence. Burying her head in her hands, Ally let out a tiny low moan, shook her head and willed it all to stop, but her mind was stuck in some vengeful replay, forcing her to remember the past, forcing her to gaze once again into those green eyes and recall his words.
‘You’d be so easy to stay for.’
‘Then stay.’ Two words uttered in the glowy dew of their first love-making, and even with his bags packed in the hall, the taxi booked to take him away, surely the love they had shared that night and the two words she had uttered should have revealed to him how much he meant to her.
But he hadn’t stayed.
Ally could still hear the sound of the shower in the en suite that horrible morning as he’d washed away every trace of her fragrance. She could still recall lying in bed and facing the curtains, pretending to be asleep as he awoke, sensing the regret that had drenched his body as he’d replayed the events of the previous night. Quickly, silently he’d dressed and an audible sigh of relief had come from him as the taxi had tooted in the driveway and he’d placed one final kiss on the swell of her shoulder.
Sitting on the stairs, head in hands now, it felt as if for three years she’d been playing some grown-up version of snakes and ladders. Elation at their closeness followed by devastation at his departure—and then the horrible process of regrouping, living in a world where he didn’t exist any more. The occasional postcard had been nowhere near enough to sustain her, so she’d focused instead on her work—climbing her career ladder in record time, placing a tentative toe into the murky single world she inhabited, dating even when she hadn’t felt like it, clawing her way to the top, where now it was Ally turning down dates, Ally who could pick and choose where she went on a Saturday night. Only for Rory to appear again, only to roll a six and find herself sliding down that appalling slippery slope and arrive back at the beginning.
And suddenly all the game looked was daunting—the thought of starting over incomprehensible.
Two weeks!
He could stay for two weeks and then he’d damn well have to find somewhere else. There was no way she could keep this up, no way he could expect to walk back in and take up their easy-going friendship, to stroll back into her life and take up where he’d left off.
An ironic smile twisted her mouth.
He’d left her naked in bed.
Showering in record time, Ally pulled on a T-shirt and for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom she bypassed the G-strings and pulled on the biggest, comfiest, ugliest pair of knickers she could find—knickers her great aunt had sent her one Christmas, knickers that she had meant to throw out, knickers she wouldn’t be seen dead cleaning the windows with! Sliding into her cold sheets, she pulled the blankets up to her chin, closing her eyes on this turbulent day, willing sleep to come so that she could function tomorrow. Pulling a pillow over her head, she tried to drown out the noise, then gave in and stared at the ceiling, admitting the truth: it wasn’t Rory’s exhausted snoring that was keeping her awake—the house could be in silence and she’d still be lying here awake.
It was the overwhelming fact that he was here.
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