55Written for the Meet the Mate Contest, this is just a little piece of fluff. Thank you to all those who took the time to leave a comment on the contest site and to those who voted. Thanks also to Cosette Cullen for running her eye over my rather hastily knocked up effort, and for encouraging me to go ahead and enter it.
Here he comes.
I glanced up at the clock, which told me it was just a few minutes before ten o'clock. He always came in just before I closed – maybe he'd finished work or he needed to escape from the house for twenty minutes. I didn't know. What I did know was that I'd started looking forward to seeing him, although why that was I couldn't say, because we hardly ever exchanged more than the time of day.
Okay, that's not true – I knew exactly why I looked forward to seeing him. And no, it wasn't because he was hot… well, not entirely. I mean, he was hot… like, a thousand degrees Fahrenheit hot. It was as if some higher power had been tasked with creating the most physically perfect man, designed to a set of characteristics plucked straight from my fantasies, and then threw in a few added extras for good measure.
Tall – check.
Fit, but without being gym-monkey ripped – check.
High, sculpted cheekbones – check.
Strong, chiseled jaw – check.
Broad shoulders – check.
Slim hips – check.
Long legs – check.
Kissable mouth – check and double check.
As if that wasn't quite enough, he had the most incredible green eyes and extraordinarily beautiful hands – like a surgeon's or a pianist's. Capping it all off was a riotous mop of silky hair which was the color of a shiny new penny. I'd never been a particular fan of redheads in the past, but this guy… oh, I'm pretty sure he had made me a convert.
And that smile.
Oh, fuck me, what wouldn't I do to make that pretty mouth smile? Well, you could probably write it on the back of a postage stamp… with magic marker.
Trouble was, I'd only ever seen it once. That one, lone smile didn't reach his eyes, and there was a melancholy there that seemed to reach into his very soul.
I agonized for weeks about that. He had the tell-tale laughter lines around his eyes which spoke of a man who knew how to laugh – a man who had smiled and laughed often in his life. But something had happened to rob him of that ability, leaving behind a sadness which made my own heart ache.
It was the occasion of that single smile that had turned my vague attraction for an unattainable man into a longing and desire which was close to becoming all-consuming. It had, in fact, been the catalyst for me to do something about my life and my dead-end relationship.
Because Mike was, without putting too fine a point on it, a dick – it was essentially his default mode – and although I'd long since had enough of him, it was time to actually do something about it.
The store was quiet, as was usual at that time of night. The after-work crowd had come and gone, and it was a good time to do a little inventory. Mike usually headed upstairs to our apartment once those buying last-minute dinner ingredients has cleared out, preferring to Velcro himself to the couch in front of the TV or hang out with his deadbeat buddies at O'Brien's Bar, rather than help me keep the business afloat. Still, I'd rather do it myself than put up with his bitching and moaning or, worse, his clumsy attempts at seduction – not that that had happened in a very long time.
Oh yeah, that ship hadn't just sailed… it had sunk to the bottom of the fucking ocean with all hands lost a long time ago. I could never be glad my dad was no longer around, but sometimes I couldn't help but be relieved that he hadn't lived long enough to see me make the worst mistake of my life.
Charlie had suffered a massive stroke a week before graduation, putting an end to plans for college and any hopes I'd fostered of escaping from this one-horse town. I'd had to take over the family business and also take care of my father. I knew he hated being a burden, but robbed of speech and most of his mobility, there was little he could do to articulate his disappointment that I'd sacrificed my life for his. By the time he died, I was stuck. Dad's savings and my college fund had long since been swallowed up by hospital bills, and his life insurance policy barely paid off the loans I'd taken out to cover subsequent medical and nursing costs.
I'd known Mike most of my life, and he was around when I'd needed someone… when the loneliness became untenable. I should never have let it go beyond a one-night stand but discovering that I was pregnant meant that, one way or another, Mike was likely to become a long-term part of my life. Of course, I thought about a termination, but at twenty-eight I wasn't sure I was prepared to give up what might be my only chance of becoming a mother. Mike, too, seemed sincere in his wish to take care of me, so, like a damned fool, I said yes when he proposed.
Two weeks after tying the knot at the courthouse, I miscarried.
Turned out I had antiphospholipid antibodies, which essentially meant that my own body rejected the egg fertilised by Mike's little swimmer, and the chances of any future pregnancies being successful were slim to zero.
The whole awful episode affected me more than I could ever have imagined, but I'd be lying if there wasn't a small part of me that wasn't a little relieved. Not about my inability to carry a baby to term – that kind of broke my heart – but because I really wasn't sure I wanted Mike as my baby-daddy. In all honesty, I was surprised he hung around – that is, until I worked out that he saw me and my store as his ticket to an easy life.
Jesus, but he was a lazy fucker.
After I lost the baby, I was too upset to do anything about our situation, and by the time I managed to shake myself out of my post-miscarriage ennui, Mike had pretty much parked his butt for the long term. When I suggested that I would have no objections if he wanted a divorce, he happily informed me that nothing could be further from his mind. Even when I told him that I was unlikely to ever be able to give him children, he just shrugged and said it didn't matter.
Had I known then that living with Mike would be extraordinarily similar to taking care of a huge, overgrown child, I might have been more insistent that our marriage was little more than a sham.
At first, I let myself believe that having someone – anyone – around was better than being on my own, but it eventually dawned on me that maybe living alone wasn't the worst thing in the world.
The two of us fell into a dull and unchanging routine – I ran the store, did the ordering, stacked shelves, kept the books, paid the bills, cleaned the apartment, cooked all our meals and laundered our clothes. Mike did some of the heavy lifting, helped out in the store when we were busy and… uh, well, that was about it – unless you counted staying out of my way and drinking with his buddies.
So, here I was, stuck with a business I never wanted and a husband I didn't much like, wondering where the last thirty years went and if this was all I could look forward to.
I figured a little harmless daydreaming about a certain sad-eyed, redheaded hottie couldn't hurt. In those dreary, empty hours between seven and ten o'clock when I closed the store, I let my mind wander the highways and byways of the reasons for his sorrowful demeanor – the end of a relationship; a family bereavement; a parental estrangement. There were a lot of permutations, none of them a possible conversation opener. And I really wanted to find a way to get him talking.
Oh, I'd made the usual storekeeper small talk – brief, stilted commentary on the weather, the price of eggs, the latest rash of burglaries in the local area. He rarely met my gaze, keeping his answers short and inviting little opportunity to draw him out without sounding pushy and desperate. Until, that is, the evening of The Smile.
Ironically, it was that useless waste of oxygen I called a husband who gifted me with that precious moment.
I'd stubbed my toe for the umpteenth time on a stack of boxes containing canned dog food which Mike was supposed to have moved because they were too heavy for me to lift. I usually managed to manhandle such items onto the small dolly I used to transfer stock from the storage area out back to the relevant shelves. However, one of the wheels had fallen off a couple of days ago, and I'd been too busy to fix it. I'd asked Mike to take a look, but he, of course, was too busy scratching his balls in front of the TV and talking trash on the phone to his deadbeat friends. I suspected that one of those deadbeats might have been the town bicycle, Jessica Stanley, but I was way past giving a flying fuck if he was knocking one out while she oohed and ahhed over the size of the cocktail sausage he called a dick. My only concerns were (a) that while he was spanking the monkey he wasn't moving the fucking boxes I needed to unpack and (b) whether he was making a mess on the couch. I mean, I had to sit on that fucker, too!
So, as I say, I must have yelled up at him a half a dozen times to get his fat, lazy ass downstairs to do his fucking job, when the automatic door slid open. Glancing over at the monitor behind the counter that displayed the feeds from my four security cameras, I saw that it was Mr. Hottie McSexypants himself. Being as his arrival had become the highlight of my day, I was understandably excited, and, in an effort to track his progress as he walked out of shot, I turned to look towards the liquor shelves on the other side of the store and, in so doing, stumbled against those damned boxes for the millionth time.
An involuntary curse exploded from my lips as I reached the limit of my patience. I grabbed the top box and hoisted it in my arms. I had pretty good upper body strength from the constant lifting I had to do in the face of Mike's congenital slothfulness, and my anger fed adrenalin into my muscles. With a grunt I swung around and tottered towards the pet supplies aisle, hoping to hell that I could not only keep a hold of my cargo but that I would be able to lower it to the floor without dropping it or fucking up my back. Unfortunately, I was barely halfway to my goal when I felt my load begin to slip, and as soon as it started to go, I knew I wasn't going to be able to prevent it from crashing to the ground. Even if I managed to jump back to save my toes from being crushed, I knew many of the cans would likely get damaged, which meant I'd have to discount those that had dents.
My frustration peaking, I couldn't stop the roar of rage that burst forth.
"Goddammit, Mike, you useless bastard!"
As the box began to slide inexorably earthwards and I prepared to jump out of the way, my burden was suddenly plucked from my arms. Gasping, I glanced upwards, only to meet the green-eyed gaze of the object of so much speculation on my part.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice full of a concern which had become so alien to me since Charlie's passing.
"What?"
Oh yeah, very smooth, Swan. And no, I had never been able to think of myself as Bella Newton.
"Did you hurt yourself?" he clarified, his eyebrows kind of meeting in the middle as his forehead scrunched up in inquiry.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine."
I became aware that he was still standing in front of me clutching a box of meaty chunks to his chest, and I reached out to take it back.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Oh, not a chance. Where do you want it?"
"Oh, uh, that's okay. Just put it down there," I said, pointing vaguely to a spot on the floor behind him.
He frowned. "Are you sure?"
I was desperate for him to be rid of that damned box and nodded my head vigorously. "Sure, down there is fine."
After a moment's hesitation, he sort of shrugged and turned to put the dog food down right where I had indicated and then turned back to me. But before he could speak, the door which led directly to the upstairs apartment flew open between us and Mike shot through it, moving a good deal faster than was normal for him – my husband had two basic modes: sedentary and what I referred to as 'the Walmart amble'. It was just his bad luck that he'd chosen that moment to notch it up a gear for once in his pointless existence.
As he charged through the door, his leading foot caught the edge of a certain carton of Blue Buffalo Chunky Stew so recently deposited there, and it seemed to my surprised eye that his pale, pudgy body took flight, scything through the air like a giant Minion, only brought up short by the shelves which comprised a comprehensive selection of female hygiene products. Hitting the ground with a sound I could only describe as a cross between a splat and a flump, his head and upper torso disappeared under an avalanche of tampons, sanitary and incontinence pads, vaginal itch creams, pregnancy kits and, finally, in a domino effect, hemorrhoid ointments, condoms and that lube stuff which apparently enhanced one's sexual pleasure.
"Holy fuck!"
My eyes flashed to Mr. McSexypants, his exclamation ringing in my ears. Meeting my gaze, his eyes wide with shock, I found myself praying that Mike's spectacular nose-dive into a part of the store he rarely visited had been caught on camera. That tape would be pure gold, keeping me entertained through many a dark night of the soul.
It was then, as the thought hit me of endlessly watching my husband's first – and probably only – propulsion-free flight, that I started laughing. Throwing my head back in an unfettered display of amusement, I laughed in a way I hadn't in what felt like a decade. As tears rolled down my cheeks, I glanced at my handsome savior, and a joy which felt like it might have the power to penetrate my very bones enveloped me, making my skin tingle, as a slow smile crept across his face, transforming a handsome visage into something truly exceptional. Like I said, it didn't quite make it into those beautiful eyes, but, oh, it was glorious all the same, filling me with an overwhelming and deep-seated desire to elicit that smile again and again, and maybe even get it to find its way back into the nicest eyes I'd ever seen.
That had all been over a week ago, and although I'd seen him every day since then, I still didn't know his name, and our 'conversation' – for want of a better word – had barely gone beyond polite and meaningless pleasantries.
Tonight, however, I was determined that the status quo just had to be broken.
I'd put up with the silent treatment from Mike in the aftermath of his hilarious fall, but two days in, I was done. Regardless of whether I ever got any more than a 'hello' and 'goodbye' from Hottie, if nothing else, that episode and my complete lack of empathy towards my husband had made it very clear to me that my empty marriage was a farce and Mike simply had to go. I needed to free myself of him for my own sanity and well-being because our non-relationship was making neither of us happy; and, in fairness, Mike needed to get his life sorted so he could meet someone who he could love – that certainly wasn't me, and I doubted it was Skanky Stanley either.
So a week ago I'd waited up for him to come home from O'Brien's. He'd been surprised to see me sitting at the kitchen table clutching a cup of coffee. He'd clearly had a drink, but wasn't as drunk as I'd expected him to be, and when I'd told him we needed to talk, he merely sighed and sat down. I think he was shocked when I asked him for a divorce, but after a moment's thought, a look of resignation settled over his face. After that, there really wasn't an awful lot to say. I asked him to move into the spare room until such time as he could find somewhere else to live. He'd agreed with surprising equanimity, and I had to wonder if he already had a place to go. If he did, I hoped to hell it wasn't the Skank's.
Since then, I'd been wracking my brains for an 'in' with Hottie and coming up blank. I had really hoped that our 'moment' the week before might have oiled the wheels of a more meaningful interaction, but it was as if he'd ventured a peek over the parapet, didn't like what he saw and had decided it was better to keep his head down.
But there'd been something there… a connection, a frisson, and I was convinced I hadn't imagined it. I still had no idea what to say to him, but I'd decided that today was the day, no matter what. I would wing it and hope for the best. If I failed, at least I wouldn't spend the rest of my life wondering 'what if'. With Mike already consigned in my mind to the dustbin of history, it was time to move on.
I heard the chink of glass in the liquor aisle and glanced up. As I did, he appeared from around the corner of the shelf unit nearest the counter and walked towards me in that sexy long-strided, loping walk of his that always made me want to drop to my knees and pant like a dog.
Yeah, maybe I had more in common with Skanky Stanley than I liked to think.
In his hand he carried a bottle of his favorite wine – an Australian Sauvignon Blanc which was from my premium line. I had discovered that he was a seasonal drinker – when he'd first started coming in last November, he always opted for a rather nice Californian Zinfandel, but when the weather started to improve in early May he had switched to the Sauvignon Blanc. A part of me wanted to believe that he shared it with someone else because it was too sad to think of him knocking back the whole bottle on his own – not to mention unhealthy. At the same time, I had to admit that I couldn't bear the thought of a significant other in his life, even though it was highly unlikely that anyone as hot as Mr. McSexypants would be on his own. Maybe he was gay?
Shit, that would be a massive bummer.
"Hi." His soft greeting drew me out of my depressing speculation on his sexual orientation, in turn prompting a blush to splash, unwelcome, across my cheeks. My first instinct was to duck my head and let my long hair hide my embarrassment, avoiding making eye contact at all costs.
But that was last week's Bella. This week's Bella was going to grab life by the ears and give it a good shake.
"Oh… hi."
Yeah, shake that fucker hard, B!
He held the wine out to me and, after a moment's hesitation while the cogs in my brain ground rustily into gear, I took it from him and scanned it.
"That'll be $17.95, please. Uh, you know we have a nice Californian Sauvignon, which is five dollars cheaper. It's had great reviews and, uh, I've tried it myself, and it's pretty good. Maybe not as good as this one, but very drinkable… you know, plenty of gooseberry and lychee and… and lemongrass, ya know? So, yeah, it's, uh, pretty good…"
I stopped talking. Frankly, he and I both knew I should have stopped at '$17.95 please' but, well, hindsight is a bitch.
"Oh, well, I, uh, really, like this one… but thanks."
I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded. When I opened them again, he was holding his wallet and staring glumly into the billfold.
"Shit, I thought I had a twenty. I'll have to pay with plastic… sorry," he said, pulling out a silver credit card.
"Oh… um, I'm really sorry, but I'll have to charge you $1.50 to use your credit card to cover the merchant fees. Or if you have a debit card there wouldn't be a charge."
I glanced up at him hopefully, but he shook his head and held out the piece of plastic. "I'm sorry, I don't. Can you just take this and I'll pay the charge?"
I shrugged and took it from him. As I did, I took note of the name on the front – E. A. Cullen.
And there it was at last – my opening. It was tenuous, and he could tell me to mind my own business, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Cullen, huh? What does the E. A. stand for?" I asked, trying hard to be nonchalant as I slid it into the card reader.
My inquiry was met with silence, and I chanced a look. He was staring at me with that furrowed brow, so I decided to backtrack.
"It's okay, you don't—"
"Edward Anthony." He spoke softly but his eyes never left mine.
"Oh… so do you go by Edward or Anthony?" I knew I was probably pushing it, but I reckoned it was a case of do or die now.
"Edward… my, uh, friends and family call me Edward."
"So, not Ed or Eddie, then?"
"God, no. It's Edward."
"Not Ted or Teddie either?"
And there it was. Oh, praise the lord, there it was – that beautiful, sexy, fucking glorious smile.
"Absolutely not. It's just Edward. And it's my turn."
"Your turn to what?"
"My turn to ask personal questions."
Again, I felt my cheeks heat as I let myself dwell on what he must have regarded as my impertinence.
"Oh, okay, fair enough. Fire away."
"Well, a name would be a good starting point."
I smiled, knowing we were finally getting somewhere.
"I'm Isabella Newt— uh, Swan, but my friends call me Bella."
"Newtah-Swan?" he asked, wrinkling his nose.
I chuckled, shaking my head. "It's Swan – my married name is Newton, but my husband and I are getting a divorce. You, uh, kind of met him last week – he was the guy who was looking for wings among the women's sanitary goods."
He stared at me for a moment, before a bark of laughter exploded from him.
Oh wow, he laughed… I made him fucking laugh! My grin was unstoppable.
"So, uh, which should I call you?"
"You, Edward, can call me Bella."
"Bella." He said it softly, as though he was trying it out before committing himself. After a moment, he nodded and smiled at me.
Oh, my cup runneth over – two smiles and a laugh in less than five minutes. I was delirious.
"Well, it's very nice to finally have a name to go with the face, Bella…" He trailed off, glancing at the card I still held in my hand.
"Oh, sorry, let me just…" I keyed in the store code and the amount, and then turned the reader for him to enter his PIN. As he did so, I desperately tried to come up with a reason to keep him there just a little longer. The machine whirred, along with my brain, and I toyed with the idea of telling him the transaction had been rejected so that I could suggest he make payment in kind. I felt there was some merit to my plan, but after a fully thirty seconds' deliberation I had to concede that asking him to fuck me senseless two minutes after finding out my name might not be the way to go. It was a mark of how desperate I was – and how impoverished my sex life had become – that I had actually given it as much as half a minute's consideration.
As slowly as possible, I withdrew the card and held it out to him, but as he went to take it from me, I found myself unable to release my grip on it. Thus ensued a strange little tug of war – he pulling on the card and me clinging to it with my thumb and forefinger. Our eyes met, and he stopped trying to wrest it from my clutch.
"Is there a problem?" he asked quite reasonably.
"Uh, no… well, yes… no…"
He cocked his head to one side, gazing at me quizzically; his lips twitched slightly, as if he was trying not to smile.
"I mean, I was just wondering…"
"Yes?"
"I, uh, wondered if you, uh, had someone to, like, uh, share that bottle of wine with you… I mean, it's okay if you don't… or if you do, of course… I was just thinking it would be a shame to drink it alone… although there's nothing wrong with that… don't get me wrong. I, uh… shit…"
Feeling like a prize idiot, I let go of his plastic and transferred my attention to the counter, knowing that my face was a hot, splotchy mess.
Oh, God, why did I even start down that road?
It seemed my sudden relinquishment of his card had literally wrong-footed him, and glancing up through my lashes I watched as he took what looked like an involuntary step back, a somewhat startled look on his face.
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping he'd maybe just take his damned wine and leave.
But he didn't.
"Bella? Hey, look at me."
I did as he asked, letting myself get lost again in those fabulous eyes. Was it just wishful thinking, or had some of the melancholy that had seemed ever present dissipated just a little?
"You want to share my wine?"
I stared up at him as I tried hard to form a coherent response.
"I, uh… do you want to share it?"
He glanced up at the ceiling and sighed, before looking back at me.
"I've been coming in this store every night for nearly six months to buy wine from you. I drink the whole bottle because it helps me sleep and because… well, I don't have anyone… Anyway, I could obviously buy it cheaper by the case or half case from a supermarket, or buy two or three bottles at a time, but… well, then I wouldn't get to see you every night before I go home, would I?"
"No, I suppose not – wait, you mean you come in here for your wine just to see… me? I-I don't understand."
"No, well, I'm not surprised. I'm not sure I understand either, but…" He sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. "Bella, I've spent the last couple of months trying to gather the courage to talk to you, but I thought you were married – I mean, like, happily – so I never said anything. I just couldn't stop myself coming in to pass a few minutes in your company. This has kind of become the highlight of my day."
Two spots of color bloomed in his cheeks and I clapped a hand to my mouth. He gave me a sheepish smile and then picked up the bottle he'd just purchased.
"So, what do you think? You wanna come back to my place and help me drink this very nice bottle of Australian wine that's just cost me nearly twenty bucks?"
I dropped my hand as my smile spread from ear to ear.
"I have to lock up and get my purse and coat. Give me your address, and I'll meet you there."
He nodded, taking a pen from an inside pocket and scribbling directions on the notepad I kept next to the cash register.
"I'll see you there."
Without another word, he sauntered towards the door, which slid open as he approached. Before he stepped across the threshold, though, he turned back to me and smiled.
"Don't take too long, Bella. I think we've both waited long enough."
And then he was gone.
Approximately thirty seconds later, I'd locked the door, set the alarm and was running upstairs. I started stripping before I even got into the bathroom, where I took the fastest shower of my life, shaving my armpits and my legs and slathering body lotion on every part of me I could reach. In my bedroom, which, happily, Mike had now vacated, I threw on clean underwear, my favorite maroon sweater, a pair of skinny black jeans and my knee-high black leather boots. I gave my hair a quick once-over with the hairdryer, but there was no time to do more than that, so I just pulled it into a high ponytail.
As I exited my room, Mike wandered out of the living room looking half asleep and stared at me, perplexed.
"Whazzup?"
"I'm going out, Mike. Don't wait up."
Without giving him time to reply or question me further, I flew down the stairs and out the back door.
I'd been on a road to nowhere for way too long, but now it really felt like I was on a different road… a road to somewhere.