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Chelsea knew it wasn’t right, but something about it felt right. They did need help. They were at a disadvantage. And who was going to help them, two girls from the estate? What hope did they have for a life that was more than what everyone else got in Badgeley?
‘Life skills, babe,’ Ruby nodded certainly, pulling her hair free and taking off the ridiculous glasses. ‘Your education begins.’
Chapter Three (#ulink_18d81f09-fead-5f6b-ab95-9fead5a66c4d)
‘Wake up, sleepyhead.’
Kit was a morning person. Which Chelsea actually loved. When she had to get up early for work. Not when she was still emotionally drained from dealing with her family.
Before she even opened her eyes, she could smell the coffee. Kit had a thing about making coffee in a cafetiere. He loved the ritual of it all. He had a posh espresso machine on the sparkling kitchen counter but he said it was too instantaneous, too easy. Good things came to those who waited for decent coffee, apparently.
‘What is this?’ Chelsea blinked a little at the sunlight streaming through the windows of the bedroom.
His smile matched the sunlight. ‘I walked down to your favourite bakery to get those almond things you like.’
He wasn’t kidding. On a tray was a pile of almond croissants dusted with sugar, a cafetiere with two mugs, a bunch of sunflowers and a Kit Kat.
Chelsea smiled at him. ‘Is it my birthday?’
‘I’ve decided I want today to be your favourite day ever,’ Kit shrugged, bouncing in that way he had, the ever-eager puppy. ‘We’ll leave for the airport in a couple of hours, okay?’
Ah. That was the Kit Kat. Chelsea had said to him years before, maybe even on their first date, that she considered a Kit Kat an essential travel item. He’d made a joke about hoping he could be essential too. And whenever they travelled, he bought her the chocolate bar.
‘Do I get to know where we’re going then?’
‘I imagine you’ll figure it out pretty quickly once we get to the airport – let’s at least try to keep some of the magic, shall we?’ Kit arched a blond eyebrow, and Chelsea huffed.
‘You know –’
‘– that you hate surprises, you really dislike being out of control and that you’re going to bear it as best you can because you love me?’
Chelsea pursed her lip, said ‘Exactly’ and took a massive bite of her croissant so she didn’t have to seem like a selfish control freak.
The day was perfectly lovely, and Kit had spared no amount of thought or expense. He’d booked a town car to the airport, which felt as luxurious as it was unnecessary.
When they got to the airport he paused in front of the check in gates.
‘All right, so I assumed by this point you’d have to know so we could check in.’ Kit shrugged boyishly, his 6’4” frame somehow unsuited to it. ‘So I’ve given you some clues.’
‘Beyond what’s up on the departures board?’ Chelsea teased, getting into the game.
‘Well, if you want to sit here and guess for half an hour, but I thought you’d want to get through the gate to have a boozy lunch in the departures lounge.’
Chelsea’s eyes widened. ‘Okay, I’ll play.’
‘You’ve never been to this place before.’
That’s not hard, Chelsea thought to herself sadly, looking at the board. She’d been to Paris, Barcelona and Rome, all with Kit. She’d been to Iceland with a friend from uni, and LA for work. She was hardly well travelled.
‘I’m gonna need another clue.’
Kit grinned at her, apparently unaware of all the other travellers walking around them to look at the departures board. ‘The most romantic city on earth.’
‘Paris?’
‘It only thinks it’s the most romantic city.’
‘Well, thanks for correcting it,’ Chelsea rolled her eyes.
‘You said you wanted to go here almost two years ago when we were talking about bucket lists and you said that you’d never trust –’
‘– something that had a public transport system dependent on water.’ Chelsea looked up at him in amazement. ‘You remember that?’
‘I always remember those tidbits about your life,’ he replied.
‘We’re going to Venice?’ Chelsea whispered, a smiled already on her face and he nodded, grinning.
‘That’s amazing!’ she laughed, throwing her arms around him, breathing him in.
‘I thought you might say that!’
‘You, Mr Christopher…you’re just a bit wonderful you know.’
‘That’s the idea, Miss Donovan.’ Chelsea’s smile held, just a little tight at the mention of her surname as he kissed her softly. The only surname he’d ever known her with, the one she’d changed as soon as she left uni, ready for a new start separate from the father in and out of prison again and again.
She held him a little closer. ‘You really are too good for me, you know.’
It felt too intimate to be throwing around those truthful words in an airport terminal. The one time she’d expressed the exact fear, the exact love she felt.
‘Sweetheart, if you knew all the ways in which you’d saved me, you’d never even think of saying that.’ He swept a piece of hair back from her face. ‘Before you, I was an arsehole. As cheesy as it is, you’ve made me a better man.’
Chelsea snorted, raising an eyebrow. ‘Well, stop improving. I can’t imagine you being any more of an angel than you are now.’
‘Then let’s hurry up and get to that kingsize bed in the hotel on the Grand Canal so I can prove you wrong.’ His blue eyes gleamed and Chelsea grinned, kissing him.
‘Sorry bub, you’re always going to be a Prince Charming, no matter how much you want to play the bad boy. Some guys are just made that way.’
She took his hand and they walked through the terminal, him taking her bag from her without a word.
‘See?’
‘You want me to stop doing all the stuff I do automatically, because it’s too nice?’ Kit laughed, head tilted as he waited for her answer.
‘No, what am I, fourteen? Bad boys have nothing on the nice guy.’ She kissed his cheek, wondering how on earth she had managed that perfect transition, from the angry girl with nothing to the one who had it all.
***
‘What happened?’ Ruby’s eyes had this way of glowering.
‘It’s nothing. I gave as good as I got.’ Chelsea stood, hand on hip as Ruby seemed to suddenly take up the doorframe. ‘You coming in or what?’
‘You’re letting the cold in! Shut the fucking door!’ her mum’s voice called from the living room over the sound of the TV blaring.
Chelsea rolled her eyes, winced, and gestured for her friend to enter. She slammed the door loudly and pounded up the stairs, Ruby following her silently.
‘So?’
Ruby closed the door behind her and leant on it, as if afraid that her friend would make a run for it. Instead, Chelsea sat in front of the mirror, gently daubing at the angry purple bruise forming around her eye, ugly and angry.
She shrugged, eyes still on the bruise. ‘Tina Davies said something about my mum, so I started something.’
‘Naaah,’ Ruby made a buzzer noise, ‘try again.’
‘Tina Davies was trying to get Johnny so I decked her.’
Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘Chels, come on. You’re not even trying to sound convincing.’
Chelsea looked past her in the mirror. ‘One of mum’s fellas was drinking in the kitchen when I came down for water at 3am. Apparently Mum hadn’t worn him out.’
Ruby shot across the room to her, reaching for her shoulder.
‘Don’t crowd me, and don’t feel sorry for me.’ Chelsea’s lips were a thin line, and she refused to make eye contact, simply looking at her own reflection, the tightly pulled back blonde hair making the purple of her skin look even more painful. She loosened the ponytail and fluffed the hair around her face, covering her cheekbone on one side.
‘This is concern, bitch.’ Ruby’s voice was stone. ‘That’s what’s happening here. Look at me.’
Chelsea could feel the fight in her friend, and she couldn’t decide whether to stay mad and aloof, or crumple and let herself be comforted. She set her jaw as she turned around.
‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.’
‘I don’t,’ Ruby said, ‘doesn’t mean I can’t be angry for you.’ Ruby’s eyes seemed to be hollowing her out, trying to hypnotise her. ‘Did he –’
‘No,’ Chelsea shook her head, ‘I stopped him.’
‘Hit him over the head with a bottle or something?’
‘Didn’t need to.’ Chelsea laughed hollowly. ‘The bastard tried to stick his tongue down my throat so I bit down. Hard.’ She started to giggle, a little manic, eyes blinking rapidly. ‘I bit off the fucking tip of his tongue! He ran out of there screaming!’
Ruby watched as Chelsea collapsed into giggles, holding her stomach, wheezing as she tried to breathe. Somehow the shaky gasps became sobs, tears rushing down her cheeks and Ruby collapsed onto the floor next to her.
‘You know what the worst part was?’ Chelsea hiccuped, not thinking about where his hands had been or how dark his eyes were, breathing deeply and slowly until she felt calmer.
‘Almost swallowing a bit of someone’s tongue?’ Ruby made a silly face and Chelsea snorted.
‘No. It was my mum. Once I told her what happened she said, “You can never stop competing can you? You want to take everything I have”.’
Ruby’s eyes darkened and her fingernails dug into Chelsea’s arm. ‘Bitch.’
Chelsea shrugged. ‘That’s Carly.’
‘What’s Ty say?’
‘He doesn’t know what’s going on, I just said I got drunk and walked into something,’ Chelsea shrugged. ‘The old bag next door heard me scream though, keeps looking at me in horror and giving me all her fags. It’d be sad if it weren’t so funny.’
‘I think that’s the other way round, babe.’
‘Nope.’ Chelsea’s mouth set, lips pressed together. ‘I get to decide. And I have decided that this is one more horrific fucking adventure on Chelsea’s road to awesomeness.’
‘You get to decide,’ Ruby nodded, loosening her grip, ‘but someone has to make sure there’s justice.’
‘I’m not going to the police, Ruby.’
Ruby raised an eyebrow and looked unimpressed. ‘You know me, right? And I know a very important man named Jez.’
‘Jez who runs the estate? Who keeps the gangs sorted? I don’t even want to know why you know that guy.’
Ruby grinned. ‘He’s a sweetie really. All the oldies are. London gangsters, old school. They break the legs of bad men, but they look after their women.’
‘I’m not their woman. I’m no one’s fucking woman.’ Chelsea felt the rage building up, her hands shaking from anger or shock, she wasn’t sure.
They sat in silence, Ruby waiting for an answer, waiting for permission she was sure Chelsea was too proud to give.
Suddenly Carly’s shriek of laughter cut through the house, matching the noise from the television. Chelsea’s eyes hardened.
‘Give me his name, Chelsea. That’s all you’ve got to do.’ Ruby’s eyes held hers, wincing a little at the sound of that screeching laughter, like salt in the wound.
Chelsea gave her the name.
***
The flight was easyJet, and there was something immensely comforting about that. Kit apologised, said it was the only thing he could get last minute. She stuck out her tongue and called him a snob. In retaliation he ordered a bottle of Heisdeck, which Chelsea assumed must have been one of the few times anyone did that. Why pay half the price of your flight for a bottle of Champagne to drink it from plastic cups? And who’s the snob now, she laughed to herself, and thought about what Evie and Mollie would say when she told them about this trip. They were already convinced Kit was a Disney prince, and so far he was only adding fuel to the fire.
He wasn’t perfect, he had flaws, Chelsea had to remind herself as her eyes traced his face. He was human. He…ate noodles with a fork instead of even trying chopsticks…and he always called the waiter over in restaurants if she didn’t like something, even when it made her cringe…and she couldn’t think of anything else. Maybe that would change when they moved in together. Maybe the way he hummed the tune from Oklahoma! when he used the bathroom in the morning would start to grate. Maybe him insisting on making complicated dishes each night and refusing to drink five pound bottles of wine would start to irritate her. But somehow, she couldn’t imagine him being less than perfect. Which was terrifying.
He’d asked her to move in years ago, and she was there most of the time anyway. It would be the smart thing to do. But the idea of leaving her little dingy flat with the damp walls and mismatched furniture for his modern, sleek home seemed like the final step. She’d be leaving behind the last little part of Chelsea from the estate, leaving behind the last speck of proof that she wasn’t a middle-class London executive. And she wasn’t sure she was ready to let her go just yet. She didn’t want to forget.
‘Hey, where’d you go?’ Kit looked into her eyes, his finger stroking her cheek.
‘I just feel like I’m standing on a cliff edge.’
‘The altitude?’ he frowned.
‘No. I just…’ She struggled to find the worlds and downed her glass of Champagne. ‘I just have this feeling like everything’s building up. Like everything is about to change.’
‘Change can be good,’ Kit said carefully, topping up her glass.
She smiled at him. ‘In my life, it always has been.’
He looked at her, his head cocked to the side as if he wanted to ask more, as if he was storing that nugget of information for another day.
