Raine Miller - Cherry Girl

As Denny and Neil squared off, a wave of nausea so overpowering took hold of me, and I knew I’d be hideously sick.  I clamped a hand over my mouth and slammed myself toward the loo, so incredibly grateful the door wasn’t very far away from the bar.  Both men let me go.

Thank God for the little blessings.

As I heaved over the toilet, expelling all the wine and happy-hour veggies I’d consumed while drowning my sorrows, I pined over my pathetic love life.  How utterly revolting, wretched, and pitiful was I.  A guy who cheated, and one who saw me only as a little sister.  Fuck my life.

Once I was done puking, I made my way to the sink, where I leaned on it with both hands, panting into the mirror, and gathering the strength to splash some water on my face.  Neil beat on the door, and barged in a second later looking fairly dangerous.  In contrast to me looking like shit.

The scowl on his face told me he was not in the least bit happy with me.  But despite his opinions, he didn’t lecture or fuss; he just pulled out some towels, wet them, and pressed the wad to my face.  “Hold that to your head.  I’ll be right back.”

“Denny?” I asked weakly from behind the towel.

“Gone.  That fuckin’ twat won’t be bothering you again.”  I heard his heavy footsteps retreat and then the door of the loo shut with a click.

I groaned in my misery and tried to breathe, thinking if I could just crawl into a corner somewhere private, I could lick my wounds in peace.  Tearing the wet towel off my face, I looked around the small room for the best covert access.  I seriously considered hopping out the window as a means of escape.  How could I ever face Neil again after this debacle?  Embarrassed didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling right now.

“You’ll be leaving out the front door tonight, darlin’, and not the fuckin’ window.”  I whipped my head around to see he’d returned with a glass of water for me.  He was still wearing that frown too.

“I wasn’t going to,” I said meekly, mortified he read my shame as if it were a newspaper headline.

“You were thinking about it, though.”  He brought the glass to my lips. “Here you go.  Little sips.”  His kind attentions overwhelmed me to the point I had to close my eyes.  I just couldn’t look at him anymore and keep myself together.  I sipped the water instead and let him tend to me.

Selfish of me, I know.

“Better now?” he asked hopefully, in that low tone I recognized since as long as I could remember.  I loved the sound of Neil’s voice and I always had.  Listening to him talk was a beautiful sound to me.  Strong, but gentle.  Soft, yet firmly convincing.

I nodded weakly, wishing I could slip through a crack in the floor boards so he couldn’t see me in such a pitiable state.  Why was he here hovering?  Shouldn’t he be busy with Cora grinding his soldier’s edge off?

“Why are you doing this, Neil?”

He ignored my question and frowned at me instead.  “Let’s get you out.  You’re so finished here for the night.”

Then he put his hand at my lower back with a firm touch, and steered me out of the pub, completely taking charge of the situation.

I was far too weak to put up any sort of fight and I loved the feel of his hands on me, anyway.

Even if he were just being the concerned big brother tonight, I’d take what I could get.  Any little bit of Neil was better than no Neil at all.  I am not stupid.

While leaning against the window of his car, I welcomed the cold glass pressing into my temple, hoping it might cure my scrambled head. Not very effective though, when I could smell his deliciousness right beside me.

Neil just drove and stayed quiet.  He wasn’t a talker anyway.  He spoke if he had something to say, and I got the feeling he really wanted to say something to me now, but I’d forced things to become so awkward between us, he probably didn’t know how to begin.  Nor want to.  I felt like a complete and utter mess.  Scratch that.  I was most definitely a complete and utter mess.

I offered the first olive branch.

I’m—I’m so—sorry for ruining your night with…Cora—”

He snorted at me.  “I wasn’t there for Cora tonight,” he said, shaking his head.

He wasn’t?  This was news to me.  As much as I wanted to hope, I forced my fluttering heart to calm.  “You weren’t there for Cora tonight.”  I said the words slowly and deliberately, an edge of questioning sarcasm in my tone that asked the burning but unspoken, then why in the hell were you there tonight, Neil?

“Nah, I wasn’t.”  He looked over at me, his expression giving nothing away.

It was apparent he wasn’t going to tell me why he was there either and the realization annoyed me greatly.  “So, if you know about Cora then why do you stay with her?  She’s running around on you as soon as you go away.  She’s a cheater.  Every time, Neil.  She doesn’t love you like I—like—like she should do!”

Oops.

The silence in the car screamed in the small space between us.

“I’m not with Cora anymore.”

“You were when you first got back. I saw you with her more than once.”

He narrowed his eyes.  “But, I’m not with her anymore, Elaina,” he said with a bite.

“Really.”  I couldn’t say much more, I was so surprised at his declaration.  Neil and Cora were finished?  If I wasn’t sitting in a car and felt better, I might just jump up and do a jig in celebration, but my head continued to pound, and my stomach continued to storm.

“Really, there’s nothing there,” he sailed right back.  “I’ve known for a long time what she gets up to and it doesn’t matter anymore what she does when I’m away.”  He turned his head slowly to me, taking his eyes off the road.  “We were just using each other from the get go…”

We were just using each other? Lovely.  Picturing that twat getting even five minutes of Neil’s attentions made me insane with jealousy.  Images of him and Cora making love, touching each other, kissing passionately, flashed through my head until I couldn’t help but groan against the cool window of his car.  “Oh…I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.”

Insane jealousy wasn’t the only thing I felt either.  There was also the violent urge to be sick again.

“Pull over!” I managed to sputter.

The second round was mostly just a lot of mortifying gagging and retching.  There was nothing in me now except for the water I’d sipped.  Neil didn’t say anything once it was over.  He kept quiet, bundled me back into his car, and drove us away.  I closed my eyes and let him take care of me sure this was all a nightmare I would eventually wake from.

In the morning I would deal with facing up to the spectacle I’d made of myself in front of Neil, but not now.

Now I would pretend this was all just a dream…because it was the most my poor heart could manage to do.

I could smell him again.  The scent in my nose was so wonderful I didn’t ever want to leave where I was in my beautiful, Neil-scented dream.  I opened my eyes and saw darkness and unfamiliar surroundings…and him.

Neil was on his side watching me in the bed.  Well, more specifically, in his bed.

“Wakey, wakey,” he said softly with a smirk to go with it, not more than two feet from me.

I bolted up fast and found the blinking glow of the clock.  12:45 a.m. “I—I—I’m at your flat?  Mum will be—”

“—Just fine,” he cut me off smoothly.  “I rang your house and talked to your mum.  She knows you’re with me so you can relax.  How do you feel?  Any better?”

I brought both hands to my head and rubbed, realizing I was missing my dress as I sat up in Neil’s deliciously smelling bed.  Bra and knickers only.  I turned my head slowly to look at him in the dim light.  “You undressed me?”  I couldn’t imagine the scenario of what that must have been like, and was again annoyed with him, because damn it all, if Neil was undressing me, then I sure as hell wanted to be awake when he did.

He nodded and then gently tugged me down to where I’d been positioned when I’d first opened my eyes.  I settled back into my side arrangement and focused on him.

I decided to wait for him to explain.  No need for me to start blabbering out a bunch of nonsense if I didn’t have to.

“You fell deeply asleep after you were sick the second time.  I carried you in and when I laid you down I could see your dress was spotted with…ah…puke…so I took it off you.”  I had to give Neil credit for keeping it cool because he kept his eyes on mine throughout that entire awkward explanation.

But, what he did share embarrassed me so much, I couldn’t move, or speak.   My mortification paralyzed me to the point I could only manage one thing.  Cry.  I did it quietly but the flood was unstoppable once it began.  I couldn’t take my eyes off him this time as they spilled over with tears.

“Don’t cry, darlin’, it’s only me.”  He brought his thumb forward and brushed at my tears.

I just stared at him and kept crying.  I couldn’t look away and I couldn’t stop my tears.

“Are you kidding me?” he said.  “I got to see you in your knickers and watch you sleeping in my bed.  I should be the one crying…in gratitude.”

“Don’t tease me.  Please don’t,” I whimpered, holding up my hand, hating the sound of my voice and totally shocked at my predicament.  Surreal.  Nearly naked and in bed with Neil after being sick in front of him twice and passing out.  I clamped a hand over my mouth.  “I must stink to high heaven, and—and I need some water or something.”

He helped me sit up again and handed me a glass from the bedside table along with two Nurofen tablets.

One, I was impressed with his forethought, and two, his total calm with me in the absurd situation.  He said nothing while I downed the pills and sipped my water.  He merely watched with that intense expression of his.  I had absolutely no idea what he thought about all that’d been said and done between us tonight.

The covers slipped down to my waist, exposing me in nothing but a light blue bra, nearly all of me on display for him to see.

Oh, he saw all right.  Neil’s eyes roved over my skin and then flicked back up to my eyes and held them.  It was impossible to know what he was thinking in that moment of supreme weirdness.  I was unable to tell, and at a complete disadvantage with him.  Was he repulsed by me?  Turned on a little because I was nearly naked in his bed and he was a man?  A soldier home on leave, and more than a little horny, in need of a woman?  Did he even see me as a woman or just as a responsibility?  Who in depths of hell knew?  I surely didn’t.  Why had he picked me up and brought me to his flat in the first place?

“I can promise that you don’t stink to high heaven, and are the prettiest wino I’ve ever had the pleasure of smelling in my bed.”  He sniffed in my direction.  “Eau du Cabernet?”

“No bloody fair,” I said pitifully.

“Sorry, that was awful.”  He brushed my cheek with his thumb.   “I’ll be good now, I promise.”  Another sweep of his fingers took the rest of my tears away before he set the glass aside and faced me again.

I dug deep for the courage to ask him what he was doing with me.  I had to know or I knew I’d surely go mad.  “What was all that tonight, Neil?”

He shook his head slowly.  “I’m just in awe that you’re really here.”  He reached forward again, this time entwining his fingers with one of my hands, until he gently held them suspended between us.  “I can hardly believe it,” he whispered.  He stayed quiet for a minute, just holding my hand before he spoke again, his eyes carefully watching.  “You never answered my question back at the pub you know.”

I gasped and shook my head, pulling on my hand to unclasp it from his.  “No, that was bloody stupid and I didn’t mean it.”

My efforts at resisting were completely pointless because Neil wasn’t having any of it.  He just gripped my hand harder.  “Tell me, Elaina.  Who do you want that you think you cannot have?”  His voice was liquid soft and hard as steel, both the same time.  I couldn’t lie to him.  Not when he asked me like this, face to face.  The tension between us so raw, there was nothing to stop the hemorrhaging of my heart as it bled out all over Neil’s bed sheets.