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ConsideringFreddy and I already had a first date nearly eleven years ago, I’m a flapping flamingo at best. I’m acting like, well, I’m acting like I did nearly eleven years ago, which has made me realise I was averagely cool then, but now not even close. Not even edging near to cool.
My eyes will fall out of my head with the amount of window stalking and curtain twitching I’m doing. Then they will roll across the dusty floor, pupils staring blankly at the ceiling thinking—damn, there won’t be a date now will there, Amber French, you total moron.
I’m wondering what the night is going to involve.
Really, I’m just wondering if it’s going to involve sex. I mean, last week in the pub garden was outrageously sexy.Hello picnic table, I have new dirty and perverted needs for you, possibly not suitable for a public space that also contains a swing set and slide.It’s been on a constant loop in my mind ever since. I’ve trimmed the ‘bushes’ just in case.
I’ve seen Freddy since the pub. I’ve waved at him across the street during the day, both of us grinning as we walk on past. I’ve seen him at school when he picked Bailey up; apparently Wednesday is his afternoon to have Clever-Clogs-Bailey. Not that I’m bitter. It turns out Henry’s son is naturally gifted at everything, especially mathematics.
But more exciting than all of that is when he’s turned up at my doorstep every night at half past ten to wish me goodnight. I did explain that there is technology called mobiles, and we could swap numbers, but he said he’s worried I will slip into my text addiction days of the past, so he’s keeping it old school. So at ten thirty I open the door, and he’s standing there looking all hot, freshly showered, and smelling divine. He gives me one of his cheesy grins as he leans against the doorframe and asks about my day, and I lie and say I wrote some blinding new material, then he kisses me goodnight. And my god, are those kisses worth waiting all day for.
He never asks to come in, and I’m sure the reason he comes at ten thirty is because he’s heard through the Dani grapevine that ten o’clock is roughly when Isaac gives in and finally falls asleep.
So this week there has been grinning, kissing, a handful of lingering looks and I can safely say my ability to block all thoughts of Freddy Bale has seriously disintegrated. I’ve gone from three controlled thoughts a day to about three thousand.
"Are you going to stand there until he comes?” Dani goads me from the lounge doorway.
“I’m not standing anywhere. I’m checking the net curtains are straight.”
“Whatever.” She laughs and shuffles back to the kitchen where she is convincing Mum that Meals on Wheels aren’t a patch on her cooking. I’m not convinced, and Mum, who doesn’t have a clue who Dani is no matter how many times I remind her, doesn’t look like she’s bought into it either.
“So,” I lean against the doorway and attempt to look nonchalant. “Do you know where I’m going?”
“Nope.”
I give a little tut.‘Am I dressed right?”
She glances me up and down. “Yep.”
“So you do know where I’m going, you liar.”
Dani gives me a cherubic smile.
“Dani, can I ask a question?”
She places her hands on her hips. “Do you need protection? I don’t know for sure, but I’d hedge on yes.”
Waving my hands, I try and stop her talking. “Shh, my mum’s through there.”
“You’re nearly twenty-nine, I think you’re allowed to have sex.”
I purposely ignore the prospective thought of having grown-up sex with Freddy Bale. “She thinks I’m eighteen most of the time.” I sigh.
“Is that because you act like you’re eighteen most of the time?”
‘I do not! I’m a very sensible mother heading towards thirty.”
“You were just watching for your boyfriend through the curtains!”
‘I was not, and he’s not my boyfriend.”
Dani rolls her eyes. She’s taken great joy in teasing me all week, which brings me to my question. “Dani, why are you so sure that this is a good thing between me and him, when ten years ago you thought it was a terrible mistake?”
She stops stirring her concoction and turns to face me. “Because I made a mistake ten years ago. When I met Grant, I realised how it might have been for you, but it was too late for me to tell you.” She picks up her spoon again. “Also, I saw how Freddy was after you left, and no one suffers like that if it isn’t something deeper than just fancying someone. If you’d bothered to ring me, you know, to say hi, tell me you’d had a sprog, that kind of thing, I would have told you.”
