AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shook my head. “I love you for saying that Rem, but you don’t have the space, and I can’t stay around here. Not when Jeff and Penelope Ross are potentially around every corner.”
She reached out and lightly touched my cheek, noticing the bruise I’d tried to cover with makeup I rarely wore. “I can’t believe he did that to you.”
I swallowed back the ball of emotion hovering in the base of my throat. I wasn’t sad for myself; I was sad for my mum. Jeff had done something to her, pacified her. She had no energy these days, only damn migraines, and I was old enough to sort my own shit out. So that’s exactly what I was doing.
“Wait…” Remi squeezed her eyes shut then pinged them open sharply. “You said you’ve got a bidder? Someone has bid on your virginity? Back up a little. I need information. Where are you auctioning yourself off? How exactly does it work? And…” she squeezed her eyes closed before narrowing them back on me, “how the hell did you come up with that idea?”
I grinned. “Well, the last one’s easy. It was something Penelope said actually, right before I threw my pint over her head.”
“I don’t recall the two of youconversing.”
“No. It was something she said behind my back – that the only way I’d ever lose my virginity was if I sold it at an online auction. I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise.”
“Well, no,” Remi said slowly. “Because you were waiting for the right person. Maybe… bookshop boy?” She grinned.
I smiled. “I was fourteen years old, Rem. I’m never going to see him again.”
She frowned. “You don’t know that. And from what you told me, you two were destined to meet.”
I leaned forward and arched a brow. “I’d only just started getting my period. I thought every good-looking boy was the one I wasdestinedto meet.”
Her smile dropped. “That’s not how I remember it. How many times did you go back to that place looking for him?”
I dropped my gaze to the table and my cheeks heated. “Every day.”
“For how long?”
“A year.”
“Ayear,” she repeated. “Why?”
I looked off to the side, unable to meet her gaze, and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
I sighed, defeated. “He was beautiful,” I said, wistfully. “His eyes… they just swallowed me up.” I flicked mine towards Remi and she nodded for me to continue.
“I still remember everything about that day. Everything.”
Remi clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them. “Tell me.”
My smile was timid but I never tired of telling the story.
“It was just me and Mum. We were happy. She needed to go shopping so she dropped me off at my favourite bookshop. The staff knew me there – they’d practically babysat me during all my mum’s shopping trips.” I smiled, remembering those times with such fondness my heart hurt.
I looked up at the trees swaying overhead. “You know I’ve always loved buildings and design, but my interest had reallygrown at that point, so I made a beeline for the design section. I found a couple of books and sat in the corner. I was planning to stay there the whole two hours, just reading and getting lost in those wonderful texts.” I darted my gaze back to Remi. “When he showed up, I was actually pissed off. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, I just wanted to read.”
“So, how did he get you to talk?” Remi smiled. She loved hearing this story as much as I loved telling it. It was like a magical fairy tale from long-forgotten times that became instantly unbelievable when life hit you over the head with a reality hammer.
“He quoted a line from the book I was reading. Which was strange because I didn’t knowanyonewho enjoyed reading architectural texts in their spare time.”
“And then what?”
I smiled. “Then he sat on the floor, leaned his back against my chair and asked me to read to him.”
She shook her head and gazed off into the distance wistfully.
It didn’t happen exactly like that, though.
