AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER TWO
LILY
IfindmyselfatClub Forty-Seven with my work colleagues. I’d rather be at home by the fire with a glass of Prosecco and a good book. But I’m trying to be more sociable. My mother says I would put an introvert to shame with how much of a recluse I am. A new-born nun she often teases. I don’t find her words funny. I wasn’t always like this.
No. My mother and her brother did this to me.
“What can I get you, Lills?” My coworker Jonathan asks. He’s sweet, caring, and I know he sees more than just a work colleague when he looks at me. I’ve made it clear nothing will happen between us, and Jonathan agrees, but at moments like this, I cringe at the want in his soft green eyes.
“Just juice.” I shrug out of my heavy black jacket. My work suit underneath is too professional for this club. I’m trying not to look around at all the half-naked women that seem to float around. I’m only twenty-one, but I feel old and frumpy. I’m tempted to pull out the band that keeps my hair tied back and free my long brown hair. But what would the point be? I’m not trying to impress anyone.
“Black currant or orange?” Jonathan asks. Most people laugh when I say juice, not Jonathan. Sometimes that makes this worse.
I stop looking into his green eyes. “Black currant.” I slide into a chair across from Laura and Crystal. We all work in the same accounting office in town.
“This place is deadly.” Crystal is practically bouncing on the red cushioned couch that runs along the wall. Large mirrors over her head allow me to see the club behind us. I pick up a beer mat and play with it feeling all sorts of awkward. A shiver runs across my neck and tightens my shoulder blades, and I get the sense I’m being watched, but I don’t dare look over my shoulder. No doubt Jonathan is watching me from the bar.
“You are going to break his heart,” Crystal says, like she can read my mind.
“I already told him where we stand,” I confess and stop fidgeting. I’m not one to shy away from awkward conversations. I don’t like them, but I also won’t run. I’ve spent most of my life running, and I’ve lost too much already.
“You need to tell him again, girl.” Crystal is grinning, her red lips stretch across snow-white teeth. She’s beautiful and brave with her candy-pink hair. I always admire how she just goes for it. No apologies.
“Here you go, Lills.” Jonathan places the drink in front of me. I touch the black straw, pausing before I take a drink. The sense of being watched makes me hyper-aware of my surroundings.
“I can’t believe Kelly picked you two to go back to England. You are so fucking lucky,” Kieran pipes up. I would gladly give up my spot. Traveling back to England, even if it’s for a weekend, is the last thing I want to do. But it’s the final part of my training, and then I’ll be a qualified chartered accountant. I enjoy my job. I don’t love it. But I enjoy it. It affords me a sense of solitude and honest living. One that keeps me far away from my family's underhanded dealings.
I shift uncomfortably in the chair at the thoughts of my family. My God, I just want to go back to my house and lock the door.
I take a sip of the juice. Kieran says something to Crystal that has her laughing. Laura’s checking her phone, and I take a peek at Jonathan to find him watching me.
“Is your drink okay?” he asks.
“No, the black currant is too black currant. What the fuck, Jonathan.” Kieran spouts before rolling his eyes. “She’s not going to fuck you.”
I die a little inside. I like them, I do. But they are just acquaintances, and all of a sudden, I’m wondering what I am doing here.
“Don’t be so mean, Kieran.” Laura tries to defend Jonathan, and I know if anyone will get through to Kieran, it’s Laura.
“You're so rude. We are just friends.” Jonathan’s lame words make me cringe.
But I don’t want to leave him hanging. So I force a smile. “We are all friends,” I say. I try so hard to fit in, to hide my own nature. To hide who I am. I don’t want anyone to look down on me, but honestly, I wouldn’t blame them.
A dark figure catches my eye in the mirror, and the black currant juice becomes bitter on my tongue. The blood seems to freeze in my veins, and I’m rising from my seat. It can’t be. I spin around, and my heart hammers as I glance over the crowd. But the dark figure is gone. I had thought I saw Daniel, only he was more-terrifying looking than I remember. Even with his light blue eyes and blond hair, Daniel had such a darkness in him.
A hand circles my wrist. “Are you okay?” Jonathan’s concern has me shaking off the sense of dread. I had thought I had seen Daniel, the boy who destroyed me. I have never loved anyone like I loved him. I know I never will, but he was the wrong kind of love.
I was obsessed with him. They say he was obsessed with me. An obsession that I would have gladly stayed in.
“Yeah, I thought I saw someone.” I slowly sit back down. His name suited him, a god. That’s how I often saw him.
“You look like you saw a ghost.” Crystal leans across, her cleavage almost spilling out of her silver top. Crystal and Laura both had gotten changed at the office before we came here, so I stood out a mile and even more so now, with how awkward everything feels.
“Not a ghost,” I finally answer Crystal. I would never compare Daniel to a ghost. He was so present. He was a presence that everyone was aware of. He made you want to impress him. You wanted his attention, but often when I had it, it was too much. He was too much. Too intense, too dark. I pick up the glass and take a long drink through the black straw. “Yeah, it was someone from high school.” I never speak about my past, and I can see even Kieran is paying attention to me. “A friend,” I say while they all stare at me.
Crystal waggles her eyebrows. “A friend with benefits?”
She wrestles a slight smile out of me. It was so much more than that. Daniel was everything. Sounds stupid, but I can’t explain how he was my every thought and breath, all that mattered was me and him. I take another drink, but no matter how much I gulp it down, it doesn’t stop the dryness that’s closing my throat.
