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‘I love that,’ I tell him.
‘What? Being locked out in the cold?’
‘Very funny,’ I say with a nervous giggle. ‘I mean, I love serendipity.’
‘Me too.’
‘You know, fate … going with your gut instinct … believing that things are meant to be. In fact, you’ve just reminded me of my third resolution for next year, which is a pretty good one.’
‘And that is?’ he asks me.
I stand in just a little bit closer to him for effect, urging myself not to make it so obvious I’m still mad about him and have been for all this time. I so want to touch him, just his jacket would be enough. The attraction I have for him is intensifying more than I ever knew could happen and I’ve all sorts of emotions clogging up my head.
‘My resolution is to take more chances in life,’ I explain, my eyes widening at the thought, even though if my mother heard me, she’d go mental. In her eyes I’ve always been one to live life close to the edge. ‘I’m going to put things in the hands of chance and fate, you know. Take more risks in life. Go with the flow. Be true to myself and not suppress the real me to please others.’
He glances towards the door, and then looks behind him. There’s a gate at the back of the small yard we’re standing in but, apart from that, it’s just us, some bins, some steel barrels and a very snowy sky.
‘Would you like to go somewhere else to talk more?’ he asks, looking around him, as if for inspiration. ‘Like you said, it’s hardly our type of place, is it? Plus, we mightn’t get back inside again since the door is well shut.’
Oh my good Lord … did I just hear him correctly? He wants us to go somewhere to talk? Just the two of us? This must be a dream.
I can’t think of anyone else I’d like to talk to right now but then my heart sinks. I can’t really just abandon Emily, Kevin and Kirsty inside even if I do want to run away with him more than anything in the whole world. Could I? And what if I don’t go? Will it be something I’ll regret the rest of my life? Will I never see him again?
‘We could walk around to the front and knock the door to get back in?’ I suggest as a compromise. ‘I really should go back in to my friends. They’ll be wondering where I am.’
He looks deflated now. He licks his lips lightly in defeat.
‘No problem, Charlie. Respect to that. I’ll walk you round to the door.’
I so want to change my mind. What the hell am I thinking? Maybe I’m becoming sensible at long last.
‘Thank you,’ I say to him, but I don’t make a move to go. Maybe I’m not so sensible after all.
He is looking at my lips now, then my chest, then my hair. He is looking at me like he did that day in our student living room in our matching boots when the air was filled with awe and song and music. I feel the blood fizz through my veins, warming me up.
I can almost read his mind through the hunger in his eyes, and my stomach has now joined in on the ‘Boom Boom Pow’ dance. In fact, everything is a little bit dizzy on the inside when I’m standing so close to him.
I gulp. I don’t want him to go. I don’t want to miss this ‘one in a million’ chance again.
‘I’d like to get to know you better this time, Charlie,’ he says. ‘If tonight won’t work, could we meet up some time soon? No pressure, but just see what happens? See if it really is serendipity that we met again tonight?’
The dancing inside me comes to an almighty stop. My heart is thumping. I look up at him. He’s very sexy, especially up this close. He’s Tom Farley. I’ve spent so much time for the past few years fantasizing about this very moment and putting him in my songs.
I breathe.
He breathes too.
The snow is really pelting down now and seeping into where we’re standing under the half shelter.
I think of Emily, Kevin and Kirsty again inside. Kirsty is probably still talking to that group of strangers at the bar, and the nice-looking guy who bought me a drink just before I came outside might be still waiting for me at our table. Emily might be wondering where I am, but Kirsty will already be planning on a hot night with one of the doctors, not giving a shit that they’ve all only just met. So, if she can do it, why shouldn’t I have some fun too?
It is my third resolution after all, even if it’s not New Year for another couple of weeks. My mind swings like a pendulum – what should I do? Should I go? Should I go?
‘I think we could get into trouble, Tom Farley,’ I tell him. ‘A lot of trouble.’
‘I think you said that to me before,’ he whispers.
That’s it. I’m going.
‘Let’s get out of here then.’
He offers me his arm and I take a deep breath, laughing in nervous disbelief as we walk away, slipping and sliding on the white snow, giggling like two love-struck teenagers who are hiding from their parents. Or, in this case, my big brother who might not be so impressed that I’ve taken a chance with his ex-band-member.
‘I have to warn you though, you might have to listen to more of my country songs,’ I tease him as we plod through the cold winter night. ‘I’ve quite a few now for you to catch up on.’
He stops and looks at me. He turns me towards him.
‘I’ve wanted to do that for years,’ he says, and something tells me he’s serious. His thumb wipes a snowflake from my cheek. ‘I still know the melody to that one you sang for me, believe it or not.’
‘No, you don’t,’ I laugh in response but then he hums it, filling in the gaps with words he remembers, and I gasp at his recollection.
All of me, all by myself, longing for you, nobody else.
‘I can’t tell you how much you impressed me that day,’ he tells me, and we walk through the empty streets, the sounds from the bar fading into the distance and the cold biting our smiling faces.
‘I can’t believe you remembered my song,’ I say to him. ‘Wow.’
He takes my hand and the touch of his skin rushes through my veins, making my head spin a little. I can’t decide if I’m more terrified or excited with the decision I just made, but I’ve got a feeling, or so I keep telling myself, that this really is going to be a good, good night in a way that I would never have expected. That, or else I’m going to be in a whole lot of trouble for something I know nothing about.
Chapter Two (#u3bef4420-0626-5735-b5de-5581cef46422)
The box-sized bedroom I wake up in the next morning is so tiny that I can reach out and touch the wall from anywhere in the single bed. Navy curtains hang loosely on a long narrow window as condensation drips down on the inside, and a radiator below is lined with multi-coloured socks and white boxers that sit in a zig-zag row. I can smell burnt toast and hear muffled voices downstairs.
Where the hell am I?
I peep under the covers, afraid of what I might see, but I know by the heat in my body that I must be fully clothed. I’m wearing a Ramones T-shirt that is definitely not mine, a pair of old-school tracksuit bottoms and a pair of mismatched fluffy men’s bed socks, which explains why I’m so cosy and toasty. I check the time on my phone. It’s just gone ten in the morning. Gosh, I slept like a baby.
‘Knock, knock. Can I come in?’
Tom pops his head round the door, enters the room and sits on the edge of the single bed as I run my hands through my hair, trying to recollect coming in here in the first place last night. Everything about this room, everything about him, is so new yet so familiar.
‘Tom?’ I say.
‘Still me, Charlie,’ he replies. ‘You sleep OK? Were you warm enough?’
I go to speak but I can’t. He keeps calling me Charlie even though I’ve warned him it could get him a slap on the wrists if he ever meets my parents again.
‘Where the hell are we?’ I ask. He laughs a little, and then leans over beside me. I can smell his aftershave. It’s very … oh God, he looks even better in daylight.
‘You told me last night you’d wake up and ask me that,’ he says, resting his hand on top of mine. I want to move it, but I can’t. ‘Don’t look so scared, babe. We had fun, but nothing more happened. Well, lots of good stuff happened actually, now that I think of it.’
I take a moment and have a good long look at him, feeling myself relax a little now as the night before unfolds in my hazy hungover memory.
‘I remember,’ I whisper and close my eyes, recalling now his muscular strong arms and the musky smell of his soft skin, almost feeling again now the way he touched me so tenderly.
‘I practically carried you to bed here in my deluxe spare room,’ he says and we both burst out laughing. ‘I carried you right over the threshold and even gave you some clothes to sleep in. So much for a hot-blooded night of making up for lost time. You were very tired.’
I can’t help but giggle at the thought of it all.
‘So much for it all being meant to be,’ I say, covering my mouth with my hand. ‘Sorry to disappoint you but once a convent girl, always a convent girl.’
He lifts a pillow and pretends to fight me, and we wrestle until we fall into a kiss that brings me right back to the night before. I inhale every part of the moment, delighted for once in my life that I was too pissed to turn this into a shitty one-night stand, especially not with someone I’ve dreamed about for so long. All things considered, I’m very, very proud of myself. Sober me may not have been so resilient, but I’ll never admit that to him, of course. Plus, he’s an excellent kisser – his lips are warm, soft, gentle but firm in all the right places at all the right times.
‘Well I guess some things are worth waiting for,’ says Tom, fixing my hair round my shoulders when his lips part from mine. ‘You have been worth waiting for. I still can’t believe you’re here with me now.’
‘Me neither,’ I whisper. We didn’t end up under the covers together, but we had a very good night. A very, very good night.
‘Brunch?’ I say, remembering now how we had made plans.
He nods. ‘We’re a bit snowed in for now though and could be for a while,’ he says, his green eyes twinkling again just like they did last night. He reaches across and peeps out the curtains to prove it.
‘It’s coming down heavy,’ I say to him. ‘So, what do we do now?’
‘Well, it’s not every day you bump into the girl of your dreams in a dead-end pub in the backstreets of Dublin five years later, so why don’t we start the day off slowly with a really fancy instant coffee, some toast and just enjoy each other’s company?’
I smile in agreement, recalling how he played guitar last night while I danced in my bare feet drinking wine in the poky living room and singing into empty beer bottles. I sent my sister Emily and friend Kirsty a text at the time to say I was OK and told them I’d met Tom actual Farley and had gone to a ‘party’. I begged them not to tell Matthew but neither of them replied, meaning they were probably too busy having fun themselves to care. Now I’ve got missed calls, which means Emily is probably panicking. I’d better call her, but not just yet …
‘So you don’t want to ever perform your own songs, then, just write them?’ Tom asks me as we lie there on the bed, still chatting over an hour later, too warm now with the duvet draped around our legs. Two empty cups and a plate full of crumbs sit beside us on the floor. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed tea and toast as much in my whole life. We’re a bit squashed but it’s cosy and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.
‘I like the writing part better,’ I say to him, resting my arm over his hip. ‘Maybe I’m too shy and like to hide behind all the words and music, even though to some that might be hard to believe. You see, someone once planted a crazy dream in my head that I could actually be a proper songwriter one day.’
He is still standing by his claim and spent most of last night telling me so.
‘It’s not a crazy dream,’ he whispers to me. ‘I totally believe in you. I really think you should ditch the teaching and go on the road with your songs.’
He has no idea how much he is tempting me to do just that, but I know he is telling the truth when he says he believes in me. I knew it the first day we met that no one will ever ‘get me’ the way Tom Farley does. It’s like he can look into my soul and push me to live my life in the way that I should.
‘So what are your plans now, Tom? Please tell me you’re still going to follow your own dreams to make it big in music?’
He stares up at the wall behind me as if for inspiration. I stare at his face.
‘Ah, I dunno, Charlie. I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants guy when it comes to it,’ he says, then turns towards me again, leaning on his elbow on top of his half of the pillow. ‘I used to think I was going to be a real-life rock star, and I’d some really good opportunities that got me close, but I bailed out. I messed it up, so now I like to just go with the flow and see where it takes me. Right now, I’m bluffing around in some real estate but it’s not for me at all.’
‘Real estate?’ I say, laughing at the contrast of it all. ‘I can’t imagine you in a shirt and tie showing people round fancy houses.’
He sits up straight and puts on his best poker face, then laughs in return.
‘You know, it pays the bills for now, so I count myself lucky, I suppose.’
So, he messed it up. I’ve a feeling my brother could tell me exactly how if he wanted to, but he never did.
‘Tell me more about you, Charlie girl.’
He pushes my hair back and his eyes dart around my face. He has such a handsome face.
I shake my head. ‘You really aren’t going to drop that name, are you?’
He looks so blasé. ‘Why should I? It suits you. Charlotte is too posh.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘And you think I’m not posh?’
‘Are you posh?’ he laughs.
‘No way,’ I say to him. ‘But posh girls can be fun too, you know.’
He puts his arm around my waist and pulls me closer into the heat of his body. ‘I’ve a feeling we’re going to have a lot of fun, Charlie,’ he says with a wink, pulling the duvet up over us again. ‘So, go on. Tell me more about what you’ve been up to since I first fell for you and life got in the way.’
I take a deep breath. He fell for me? Although I’d always hoped he had, I never thought I’d hear it directly from him.
‘Well, I’m a big twenty-seven years old now,’ I say, getting the formalities out of the way. ‘I’ve been a brunette and a redhead since I saw you last and even a shade of purple but I got rid of that quickly. And then back to blonde.’
Now he raises an eyebrow. ‘I’d never have guessed, my little chameleon.’
I suppose that’s one way of describing my eclectic taste in fashion. My father would describe it in a totally different way, telling me some days I’m like a walking charity shop or a love child between Russell Brand and Mrs Merton.
‘As well as teaching in a lovely primary school where the kids are ace, I’ve been working the very odd shift when I can get it in Music City, a singer-songwriter-type cabaret club for about a year now, so I do sing stuff other than nursery rhymes when I get the chance,’ I tell him.
‘You’ve done really well for yourself so far,’ he says. ‘Is it a permanent post at the school?’
I nod and can’t help but smile with pride.
‘It’s just been confirmed. They want to keep me,’ I tell him, and he holds up a hand for a high five. Everyone knows it’s almost impossible to find a full-time permanent teaching post in Dublin, so it is something I’m very, very proud of. ‘But before I became Miss Taylor, teacher of dreams, I’d some adventures in Australia which was fun. My sister met her husband there – while I met a lot of real-life snakes, you could say. I think that’s about it.’
He looks impressed that I’ve travelled a bit, but what he doesn’t know is that he, or at least the idea of him, came with me every step of the way.
‘And Matthew?’ he asks, unable to look me in the eye when he mentions my brother’s name. ‘What’s he up to these days?’
My stomach flips. I suppose we should just get this part over and done with.
‘He’s living back at home with my parents,’ I tell him, feeling my brow break into a frown at the thought of what has become of Matthew. ‘They’re looking after him as well as they can, but it’s been hard on everyone. It’s been so hard on us all watching him lose interest in everything he worked so hard for.’
Tom lets out a deep sigh that sounds a lot like regret.
‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ he says.
It’s not Tom’s fault. It’s no one’s fault that this darkness has got such a grasp of my once so flamboyant big brother who was always bursting with life and energy, convinced that the sky was the limit when it came to chasing his dreams.
‘He’s got a job in the little corner shop, which takes his mind off his troubles a little,’ I continue. ‘Not exactly the architect or big star he dreamed of becoming, but it gives him a purpose and that’s what we all need, isn’t it? We need something to get out of bed for in the morning.’
