Running scared, p.13
Running Scared, page 13
‘That’s so thoughtful,’ Lexi said, sniffing the flowers.
‘Thoughtful my ass. He fancies you.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Give him a ring, then,’ Debs challenged, snatching the card out of Lexi’s hand and turning it over to show her the mobile number written on the back.
‘I’m not ringing him,’ Lexi said, aware that she was blushing. ‘You’re the one who’s got the hots for him; you ring him.’
‘He might be as fit as fuck, but I don’t waste time on men who clearly fancy someone else,’ said Debs. ‘Tell me to butt out if I’m overstepping the mark, but men who look like him and send expensive flowers to women they’ve only just met are few and far between, and the least he deserves is a thank you. So get them in a vase and ring him!’
Rolling her eyes when Debs turned and went back to her own room, calling over her shoulder that she was going to put the kettle on and to come over when she was done, Lexi closed her door and re-read the short message on the card. Then, sighing, she laid the flowers on the table and, reaching for her phone, tapped in Theo’s number.
‘Well?’ Debs said when Lexi walked into her room a few minutes later.
‘Well what?’ Lexi played it cool.
‘Did you speak to him?’ Debs handed a cup of coffee to her. ‘What did you say?’
‘I thanked him for the flowers, like you told me to; and he said I was welcome.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yep.’ Lexi nodded. Then, pursing her lips thoughtfully, as if she’d just remembered something, she said, ‘Oh, wait . . . he might have asked me to go out for dinner with him tonight, as well.’
‘You bitch!’ Debs grinned. ‘See, I told you he fancies you. And you’d better have said yes, or I’m gonna slap the stupid right out of you.’
‘I agreed to go,’ Lexi confirmed. ‘Oh, and he’s not married, by the way.’
‘Yay!’ Debs clapped her hands excitedly. ‘So where’s he taking you?’
‘To some Italian restaurant, I’m not sure where. He’s picking me up at nine.’
‘Ooh, a late one; I like it. Perfect for the old wanna come back to my place for a nightcap scenario.’
‘I’ll be coming straight home, so there’ll be none of that,’ Lexi insisted. ‘Anyway, you got your way, so you can shut up about it now.’
‘Shan’t say another word.’ Debs mimed zipping her lips.
Sipping her coffee, Lexi caught Debs flashing sly glances at her, and mock-sighed. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Debs feigned innocence. ‘I was wondering what you’re going to wear, that’s all. Only I’d go with that nice purple dress you had on the other week, if I was you. You look really sexy in that one.’
‘I’m aiming for classy, not sexy,’ said Lexi. As soon as the words left her mouth, she remembered Nicole saying the exact opposite in the run up to the fateful party and shook her head, wondering how they had ever been friends when they were so different in so many ways.
‘Penny for them,’ Debs said, watching the thoughts flicker in her eyes.
‘I was thinking I might wear my black pants and that silver top you gave me,’ Lexi lied, pushing Nicole out of her mind.
‘Seriously?’ Debs was unimpressed. ‘Don’t you think he’d prefer my choice?’
‘I need to feel comfortable,’ Lexi argued, glancing at her watch. ‘Anyway, I’ve got some stuff to do so I’d best get going. I’ll catch you later.’
‘Off to touch your roots up?’ Debs gave a knowing smirk.
‘Shut your face,’ Lexi laughed, standing up. ‘I’ll bring your cup back later.’
‘Make sure you do. That’s one of my Royal Doultons.’
‘You got it at Aldi last week. I was with you, you daft cow.’
‘Just piss off and get your hair done,’ Debs smirked. ‘You’re starting to look greyer than Ada.’
Sticking two fingers up, Lexi was smiling as she walked out.
17
‘Wow!’ Theo drew his head back when Lexi came out of the house later that night. ‘You look incredible.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, thinking he looked pretty good himself when she noticed the way his soft blue shirt was moulding itself to his muscular chest and biceps, and how his grey trousers showed off the thigh muscles Debs had drooled over.
Smiling when he opened the passenger side door for her, she tugged down the hem of her purple dress before climbing into the car, conscious of Debs spying on them from her window as Theo got behind the wheel and started the engine.
Giuseppe’s was located in a rural area several miles outside the city centre, and had once been a farmhouse and then a pub before it became a restaurant. The building looked ancient, with low doors and leaded windows behind which the flicker of candlelight was visible, and Lexi guessed that it was quite an exclusive place judging by the expensive cars parked outside.
Taking Theo’s hand when he came around to open her door after pulling into a space between a Bentley and a Ferrari, she said, ‘This looks so pretty. But it must be really expensive.’
‘It is a bit pricey,’ Theo conceded as they strolled toward the door. ‘But it’s worth every penny. The chef’s an old Italian guy, and he uses recipes that have been handed down through his family from generation to generation, so it’s the real deal. You’re gonna love it.’
Inside, seated at a table in the corner, they placed their orders and thanked the waiter when he poured their wine before discreetly moving away. Sipping on hers, Lexi surreptitiously checked out the other diners who were seated around the room. The men were all suited and looked every inch as perfectly groomed as the elegant women they were sharing dinner with, and she felt like an imposter in her cheap dress and even cheaper shoes. Theo, however, looked totally at ease with his arm casually draped along the back of the banquette seat.
‘So tell me about yourself,’ he said, giving her his full attention.
In the habit of giving out the bare minimum after years of receiving pitying looks whenever people heard about her mum, Lexi gave him a brief rundown of her life so far, then said, ‘Your turn.’
‘Not much to tell, really.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m forty-three, and I was born and raised in Manchester, but I’ve been out of the country for the last few years. Secret Service stuff,’ he added, lowering his voice even though none of the couples at the other tables were close enough to overhear.
‘Really?’ Lexi’s eyes widened.
‘Nah, I’m messing with you.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve got business dealings abroad so I relocated for a bit. But you know what they say: there ain’t no place like home.’
‘So you’re back for good?’ Lexi asked, thanking the waiter when he brought their starters over. ‘Your family must be happy about that?’
‘Don’t really have any,’ Theo said, reaching for his fork. ‘I was an only child and my mum and dad both passed away when I was in my late twenties. I’ve got a few distant cousins, but they live in Birmingham so I never see them.’
‘I know you told me you aren’t married, but I take it you were?’ Lexi asked, nodding at the gold band on his finger.
‘Nah, this was my granddad’s.’ Theo smiled. ‘He handed it down to my dad and my dad passed it on to me. When I go, my boy will get it.’
‘You’ve got a son?’
‘Yeah, but me and his mum split before he was born so I haven’t seen much of him growing up. How about you?’
‘No kids and never been married.’
‘Any boyfriends that I need to know about?’
‘Not now. I was with someone for a few years, but he cheated so I finished it.’
‘Say what?’ Theo drew his head back and gave her an incredulous look. ‘A dude cheated on you? Was he crazy?’
‘Not crazy, just selfish and narcissistic,’ Lexi said, rolling her eyes. ‘He claimed he was a writer and, sucker that I was, I worked my arse off to keep us both while he lounged in bed all day writing the next Wuthering Heights. I had to laugh when I went through his stuff after I kicked him out and found his notebooks.’
‘Let me guess . . . no book?’
‘Oh, there was a book, but it wasn’t his. He’d lifted a load of passages out of one of the books on my shelf and rewritten them in his own crappy words; like he thought I wouldn’t recognize the story if he changed the characters’ names and shifted a few things around. Idiot.’
‘A liar and a thief.’ Theo shook his head. ‘But, hey . . . his loss was most definitely my gain,’ he added softly, peering deep into her eyes.
Blushing, Lexi took a swig of wine. He was older than anyone she had ever dated before, but maybe that was where she’d been going wrong? Kyle was the first man she had ever actually lived with, and his immaturity, despite being the same age as her, had seriously irritated her at times, so maybe a more mature man would suit her better. And Theo was certainly ticking a few boxes right now. Handsome, charming, and easy to talk to, he was the complete opposite of her lying scam-artist of an ex, and she reminded herself how lucky she was that Kyle was now Violet’s burden and not hers.
After dinner, which was every bit as delicious as Theo had promised it would be, they chatted for an hour over Irish coffees before heading back to Lexi’s. Sitting in the car outside the house, she was contemplating whether she ought to invite him in for a nightcap, when he said, ‘Well, thank you for a lovely evening, Miss Alexis, but I know you’ve got an early start tomorrow, so I’ll say goodnight.’
Relieved – if also a bit disappointed – Lexi smiled and said, ‘Thank you. I really enjoyed myself.’
‘Me too,’ he said, winking at her as he added, ‘And hopefully we can do it again soon?’
Floating up the stairs after waving him off, Lexi was glad when Debs didn’t come barrelling out of her room demanding to know how it had gone. Still a little tipsy from the wine and the whisky-laced coffees, she took a quick shower and made sure her uniform was ready for morning, then climbed into bed and mentally replayed the date from start to finish before falling asleep with a smile on her lips.
18
When Theo rang the following morning to ask her out on another date, Lexi accepted without hesitation, and it quickly became a regular thing. The more time she spent with him, the more she grew to like and trust him, and it wasn’t long before she started spending the occasional night at his flat in a high-rise block in Stockport.
Unlike Kyle, whose first words when she arrived home from work had usually been a variation of What’s for tea? or Did you get me that booze/weed/money I asked for? Theo liked to take care of her and would tell her to sit down while he poured a drink, ran a bath, made – or, more often, ordered – dinner. He also insisted on calling her by her full name, claiming that it sounded classy, which felt a little strange, because no one ever called her Alexis unless she was in trouble or being interviewed for a job. But she gradually got used to it.
As much as she enjoyed being with someone who was as attentive and sensitive to her needs as Theo was, it was still early days in their relationship, so when he asked her to move in with him one night as they lay in his bed after making love, she turned him down flat.
‘It’s way too soon. And my place is more convenient for work. If I had to take the bus from here I’d be adding an extra couple of hours to my journey every day, and it’d cost me an absolute fortune.’
‘I can drive you there and pick you up,’ he offered.
‘You’ve got your own business to take care of,’ she reminded him.
‘I’ll buy you a car, then.’
‘I can’t drive.’
‘So I’ll teach you.’
‘You’ve got an answer for everything, haven’t you?’ Lexi laughed.
‘Is that a yes?’ Theo grinned.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You know I love spending time with you, but it’s only been a few months and I don’t want to rush it. If I change my mind, I’ll—’
‘When you change your mind,’ Theo interrupted.
‘OK, if and when I change my mind, I’ll let you know,’ she continued. ‘But, for now, let’s just keep things as they are.’
‘Whatever you say,’ he sighed. ‘But don’t blame me if I find myself a spare wifey to fill in on the nights you’re not here.’
‘Go for it,’ she challenged, knowing full well that he wouldn’t.
‘As if,’ he chuckled, reaching for his phone when it started vibrating on the bedside table.
‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ Lexi asked when he glanced at the screen before putting it back down.
‘It’ll keep,’ he said, rolling onto his side and pulling her toward him.
‘It might be important,’ Lexi said when, immediately after stopping, his phone started vibrating again. ‘Go on, answer it. I need the loo anyway.’
Climbing out of bed, she reached for the dressing gown she’d brought over a couple of weeks earlier and, slapping Theo’s hand away when he made a grab for her, pulled it on and padded out to the bathroom.
Theo was getting dressed when she came back. ‘Sorry, I need to nip out,’ he said when she gave him a questioning look. ‘Go back to bed. I won’t be long.’ He kissed her, then snatched his keys off the table and hurried out.
Lexi wandered over to the window and watched as he emerged onto the path down below a couple of minutes later and hopped into his car. No longer sleepy, she closed the blinds when he’d driven away and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea before heading into the living room. She switched on the table lamp, then sat on the sofa and scrolled through the channels on his huge flat-screen TV. She still hadn’t got around to buying a TV of her own, and Debs talked so much whenever she tried to watch anything at her place it was impossible to concentrate, so this was a rare luxury, and she intended to enjoy it while she could.
Finding an old episode of Medium, she settled back against the cushions to watch as Allison DuBois battled the demons in her latest dream. Half an hour in and beginning to wonder if she ought to have opted for a comedy instead when a creepy-looking man slithered out from the shadows behind an oblivious young girl who was chattering on her phone, she almost jumped out of her skin when the living room door suddenly opened and Theo walked in.
‘Christ, you scared the life out of me,’ she squawked.
‘Sorry.’ He leaned over the back of the sofa and kissed her. ‘I thought you’d be asleep by now.’
‘Decided to have a brew,’ she said, lifting the empty cup off the table. ‘Want me to make you one?’
‘I need something stronger,’ he said, walking over to the drinks cabinet.
‘Is everything OK?’ Lexi asked. Then, hearing a low voice in the hall: ‘Is somebody with you?’
‘My boy,’ Theo said, pouring shots of Jack Daniels into three glasses. ‘Someone ran a red light and smashed into his car, so I had to pick him up.’
‘Oh, no. He wasn’t injured, was he?’
‘Nah, he’s fine. The motor took the brunt of it.’
‘That’s good,’ Lexi said, smiling when he handed one of the glasses to her. They hadn’t really spoken about his son in any great detail, but Theo always called him “my boy” so she’d assumed it was a child. If he had a car he had to be at least seventeen, however, which meant she was only eight or so years older than him. The age gap between her and Theo had never bothered her, but how would the boy feel about his dad dating someone who was closer to his own age?
‘Cheers for picking me up, Dad,’ Theo’s son said as he entered the room. ‘I’ve arranged to have the car towed to—’ He abruptly stopped speaking when he spotted Lexi, and time seemed to grind to a halt as they locked eyes.
‘This is my girl, Alexis,’ Theo said, handing a glass to him. ‘Alexis, this is—’
‘Ryan,’ she said, swallowing the sickly taste that had flooded her mouth at the sight of him.
‘You know each other?’ Theo looked at each of them in turn.
‘She used to be Nic’s best mate,’ Ryan told him. ‘But I knew her as Lexi, so it didn’t click when you mentioned Alexis.’
‘Oh . . .’ Theo said slowly.
Confused by his reaction, Lexi frowned when she caught a hooded look passing between them. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ Theo said, smiling again. ‘I didn’t realize you and Ry knew each other, that’s all.’
Frown deepening when something occurred to her, she said, ‘Hang on a minute . . . when Nic was showing me the wedding photos, I asked where Ryan’s dad was and she told me he was in prison in Jamaica. But you told me you’ve been working abroad for years, so which one’s true?’
The men exchanged another uneasy glance. Then, sighing, Theo held up his hands, and said, ‘OK, I was in prison. But not in Jamaica, in Wakefield.’
‘What?’ Lexi stared at him open-mouthed. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘I got out a couple of weeks before we met,’ he said, squatting down beside her and reaching for her hand. ‘I was going to tell you when the time was right, but things have been moving so fast I haven’t had the chance.’
‘You’ve had three months,’ she argued, snatching her hand away. ‘But you haven’t even tried.’
‘I’ve wanted to, loads of times. But it was going so good I didn’t want you to think badly of me.’
‘Well, that worked out well for you, didn’t it?’ she replied sarcastically. ‘I can’t believe you’ve spent the last three months telling me about all the different countries you’ve been to, when all the time you were in prison. How long were you even in there?’
Shamefaced, Theo dipped his gaze. ‘Fourteen years. But I was set up, I swear. That’s why me and Ry have been—’
‘Dad, don’t,’ Ryan cautioned.
‘No, let him speak,’ Lexi snapped. ‘I want to hear this.’
Theo ran his fingers over his shaven head as if struggling to make a decision. Then, sighing, he said, ‘No, he’s right. It’s better you don’t know.’
‘Wow!’ Lexi stared at him in disbelief. ‘First you lie, and now you’re blatantly hiding stuff from me? Well, fuck you, Theo!’
