Running Scared, page 10
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As happy as she was that she had seen Nicole and there had been none of the animosity she’d expected, Lexi really wasn’t looking forward to going back to that house, and she cursed herself as she reluctantly got ready the following evening for not thinking to ask for Nic’s number. If she’d had it, she could have rung her and made an excuse to call off their dinner date. But she didn’t, so she couldn’t. And thanks to Debs, Nicole now knew her address and was coming round to pick her up, so there was no way out of it.
Dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, and no make-up since it was only going to be her and Nicole, Lexi was leaving her room when Debs opened her door and gave her a sheepish smile.
‘Hey.’
‘Hi,’ Lexi said, taking in the dark bags under the woman’s eyes and the slight green tinge to her skin and guessing that she must have had a rough night. ‘You made it home in one piece, then?’
‘Yeah, Larry dropped me off,’ Debs said. ‘I, um, need to apologize for taking the piss out of your friend last night. I remembered it when I woke up and felt terrible. I know I was a bit tipsy, but that’s no excuse for being nasty.’
‘You weren’t nasty,’ Lexi assured her, resisting the urge to laugh at her use of the word tipsy when she’d been so drunk she could barely stand up.
‘So me and you are cool?’
‘Course we are.’
‘Thanks, hon.’ Debs looked relieved. ‘You off out?’
‘Yeah, Nicole’s picking me up and taking me to hers for dinner,’ Lexi said, glancing at her watch. ‘She’ll be here in a minute, so I’d best get going.’
‘If she heard me last night, please tell her I didn’t mean any harm.’
‘She didn’t hear you. Now stop feeling guilty and go get a bath, or something. No offence, but you look terrible.’
‘I think the kebab was off. I’ve been sick as a dog all day.’
‘You poor thing,’ Lexi said, momentarily wondering if she could tell Nicole that she had to stay home to look after Debs in order to wriggle out of the dinner.
‘Right, well, enjoy yourself; I’m off to bed,’ Debs said, knocking that idea on the head. ‘If I’m still alive in the morning, I’ll catch the bus to work with you.’
Sighing when Debs closed her door, Lexi headed down the stairs. Glad that it was already dark outside so Nicole wouldn’t see how rundown the house actually was when she arrived, she waited outside the gate. Ten minutes later, she heard the roar of a powerful engine and smiled when Nicole drew up in a silver Mercedes.
‘Christ, what a dump.’ Nicole wrinkled her nose as she gazed out at the house after air-kissing Lexi’s cheeks. ‘Why on earth would you choose to live here?’
‘I needed somewhere fast and it was the cheapest I could find,’ Lexi said as she fastened her seat belt.
‘If I’d known you were back in town you could have stayed with us,’ Nicole said, putting her foot down as she drew away from the kerb.
‘It’s fine for now,’ Lexi said, pressing her foot down on an imaginary brake pedal when Nicole turned the corner at speed.
‘Relax, I’m a really safe driver,’ Nicole said, chuckling when she noticed her friend clutching the sides of her seat.
‘Sorry, can’t help it,’ Lexi apologized. ‘I was in a crash a couple of years back when my ex took his eyes off the road to read a text and I’ve been a nervous passenger ever since.’
‘Men are such shit drivers,’ Nicole scoffed. ‘They swear they’re better than us, but they have way more accidents.’
‘Mmm hmm,’ Lexi murmured, wincing when Nicole put her foot down to get through an amber light.
Relieved to still be alive and in one piece when they reached Nicole’s house, Lexi unclipped her seat belt and followed her friend inside. She had always thought the house was beautiful, so the change of decor shocked her. The walls, which had previously been a cool cream throughout, were now hung with gaudy silver and purple wallpaper; and the laminate flooring had been replaced by a thick grey carpet. There were huge, elaborately framed mirrors on every wall, and most of the tables and cabinets also had mirrored edges, so the light coming from the enormous chandeliers bounced off every surface. The only room that didn’t appear to have been changed was the kitchen, but it quickly became apparent that it was next on Nicole’s hit list.
‘These units are so old-fashioned, I hate them,’ she complained as she waved for Lexi to sit at the table while she popped a frozen pizza into the microwave before taking a bottle of wine out of the rack. ‘I found some gorgeous red lacquered ones online, but Ryan says they’re too expensive. Like I need his permission,’ she snorted. ‘He might be running things, but it’s still my dad’s business so I’ll ask him for the money when I’m ready.’
Smiling when Nicole handed a glass of wine to her, Lexi said, ‘I honestly don’t know why you want to change it. I always really liked this room.’
‘Only ’cos yours was so shit,’ Nicole replied bluntly. ‘It was always freezing in there, as well. I remember when I came over once and you made me a brew, and there was actual ice on the inside of the window.’
‘The whole flat was like that,’ said Lexi, remembering the times she had been forced to get dressed under her quilt in the mornings, or worn her coat and gloves to do her homework.
Carrying the pizza to the table after roughly slicing it, Nicole sat down, and said, ‘Right, tell me what you’ve been up to. This ex of yours who had the crash, where did you meet him?’
‘Online,’ Lexi said, taking a swig of wine before reaching for a slice of the decidedly slimy-looking pizza. ‘He came across my Facebook page and started messaging me. We chatted on there for a while then he asked for my number. We’d been talking for a few weeks when he told me he was coming to Hebden for some work-related thing and suggested meeting up. We had a couple of drinks and I invited him back for coffee, and . . . that was it. He never went home.’
‘You mean you let him move in with you the first time you met him?’ Nicole looked horrified.
‘I know it sounds stupid, but it wasn’t meant to be permanent,’ Lexi explained. ‘He told me he was a writer and said Hebden was inspiring him. And he was really good-looking and interesting, so when he asked to stay for a couple of days I thought it would be a chance to get to know him better.’
‘And then you found out he was a top shag and begged him not to leave?’ Nicole teased, wiping tomato sauce off her chin with a napkin.
‘Not quite,’ Lexi said, rolling her eyes at the memory of the sob story Kyle had fed her. ‘He kept getting phone calls that he never answered, and when I asked what was going on he told me his ex had run up a massive debt with a drug dealer and they were coming after him for it.’
‘So he was using your place as a hideout?’
‘I guess.’ Lexi shrugged. ‘He said he needed a few weeks to sort things out and then he’d find his own place, but you know how it goes . . . a few weeks turns into a few months, and you sort of get used to having them around.’
‘So who finished it?’
‘Me. I lost my job and went home early, and caught him screwing my so-called best mate.’
‘Bastard!’
‘Oh, it gets worse. After I kicked him out, he moved in with her – in the flat above mine.’
‘Jesus, no wonder you wanted out of there. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.’
‘To be honest, I’d stopped caring by then,’ Lexi sighed. ‘But I couldn’t find another job and ended up getting into arrears with my rent, so when I was offered the job in Manchester with cheap accommodation, I decided it was time to cut my losses.’
‘Good for you,’ Nicole said approvingly. ‘So where are you working?’
‘In a residential care home in Didsbury.’
‘What, like, changing shitty nappies and washing old blokes’ bits?’ Nicole pulled a face.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ Lexi laughed. ‘But, yeah, that’s part of it.’
‘Ewww. I’d rather die.’
‘It was a bit freaky at the start, but you get used to it pretty fast. And it’s keeping a roof over my head, so I can’t complain.’
‘You need to find yourself a rich man to take care of you,’ Nicole said, reaching for the wine bottle to refill their glasses, even though Lexi’s was still half full. ‘Preferably one with his own place, so you can move out of that shithole. I’m not being funny, but I could smell the rat piss from the car.’
‘Well I’ve never seen any,’ Lexi said, shuddering at the thought. ‘Anyway, I haven’t got time for dating. But even if I did, I’d never let a man keep me,’ she added, conscious as the words were leaving her mouth that Nicole had been a kept woman her entire life: first by Daddy Big Bucks, and now Ryan.
‘You’ll never get anywhere with that attitude,’ Nicole scoffed, jiggling her breasts. ‘God gave us these babies for a reason, and it sure as hell wasn’t so we could work ourselves into an early grave changing shitty nappies.’
‘We’re not all as blessed as you in that department,’ Lexi laughed, relaxing as the wine began to soak in.
After finishing the pizza, Nicole cracked open another bottle and they chatted about old times and laughed about the situations they had used to get themselves into. Both a little tipsy by 10 p.m., Lexi said, ‘I’d best get going soon. I’ve got work in the morning, and I’ll never wake up at this rate.’
‘Wait, you haven’t seen my wedding photos yet,’ Nicole said, getting up and rushing out into the hall.
She came back with three thick albums and plonked them down on the table before opening the first. It was filled with pictures of her in various pre-wedding stages; from early morning champagne with her mum and her bridesmaids in a lavish hotel suite, all wearing snow-white dressing gowns which had their individual roles for the day embroidered across the backs in purple, to having her hair and make-up done, to descending the hotel’s sweeping staircase in her dress and train before joining her dad, who was waiting by a Rolls-Royce at the foot of the hotel steps wearing tails and a beaming smile.
‘You look incredible,’ Lexi said, studying her friend’s face in the shots and noticing that they’d been taken before she’d succumbed to the lip-fillers and Botox and was still a natural beauty. ‘And how handsome and proud does your dad look?’
‘If you think he looks good, wait till you see my Ryan,’ Nicole said, closing that album and opening the second.
The first few pictures were of the exterior of the church and the arrival of the bridesmaids, followed by Nicole and her dad. The next were of the interior, and Lexi swallowed deeply when she caught her first glimpse of Ryan waiting at the altar for his bride. He’d always been good-looking, but he’d matured into an exceptionally handsome man in the five years between the last time she had seen him aged seventeen, to his wedding day aged twenty-two.
‘The poor thing was so nervous he could barely get his words out when we had to say our vows,’ Nicole said. ‘My dad nearly took over at one point, but my mum made him sit back down. You’ll see it all when I show you the video. It was so funny.’
Heart sinking at the idea of having to sit through a video when they still had another album to get through, Lexi said, ‘It’s a bit late, so maybe we’d best leave that till another time?’
‘It’s not that long,’ Nicole said dismissively as she flicked the page.
Jaw clenching when she found herself looking at Adam’s grinning face, Lexi snatched up her glass and drained it. He was still handsome, and she totally understood why he’d been so popular with the girls when they were younger. But those girls had only seen the charming face he presented to the world, whereas Lexi had seen the true ugly heart of him, and her stomach churned at the memory of him groping her breasts and forcing his fingers inside her.
Almost as stomach-churning was the realization, after seeing that Adam was standing on the other side of the altar, that he must have been the best man – a privilege usually reserved for the groom’s closest friend. And the shots that followed, of Adam and Ryan with their arms around each other, clinking glasses and grinning like idiots at the reception, confirmed that Ryan was a snake who had lied to the police to get his buddy off the hook.
‘State of that,’ Nicole sneered, pointing out an uncomfortable-looking woman who was standing to the side in a group shot.
‘Who is she?’ Lexi asked, forcing herself to stop thinking about Adam.
‘Ryan’s mum,’ Nicole said. ‘Can you believe a gorgeous man like him came out of her? And she wondered why I didn’t want her in the family photos. Right miserable bitch, she was – and a proper cheapskate, an’ all. Know what she bought us for a wedding present? Plates! Can you believe that? My dad had paid for absolutely everything, and she turns up with a set of shitty plates. They went straight in the bin.’
‘Where’s his dad?’ Lexi asked, realizing that the only black or mixed-race faces she’d seen so far belonged to Ryan and some of his mates and their girls off the Kingston.
‘In prison,’ Nicole said, with another sneer. ‘He took off to Jamaica as soon as he found out Ryan’s mum was pregnant, so Ryan’s never even met him. But he doesn’t need scum like that now he’s a Harvey.’
Before Lexi could ask if Ryan had taken her surname when they married, the front door opened and a cold draught blew up the hallway and into the kitchen.
‘That you, darling?’ Nicole called out, jumping to her feet.
‘Who else would it be?’ a deep voice replied.
Seconds later, Ryan walked into the room, and Lexi’s heart started pounding so hard she could barely breathe. He was even more handsome in the flesh, but his expression was unreadable, so she couldn’t gauge what he was thinking as he stared at her.
‘Why are you home so early?’ Nicole asked, rising up onto her tiptoes to kiss him. ‘I thought you said you were working late tonight?’
‘I needed to pick something up,’ he said – subtly moving his head, Lexi noticed, so his wife’s kiss landed on his cheek instead of his lips.
‘Look who I bumped into,’ Nicole said, gesturing toward Lexi, as if she hadn’t noticed that he’d already seen her. ‘Can you guess who it is?’
‘I know who it is,’ he said. Then, to Lexi: ‘I didn’t know you were back in town. How you doing?’
‘Good, thanks.’ She forced a smile. ‘You?’
‘Can’t complain.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re looking well.’
Eyes swivelling from Ryan to Lexi and back to Ryan again, Nicole stepped in front of him, as if to block his view, and folded her arms. ‘So what did you need to pick up?’
‘This.’ He opened a drawer and took out a thick white envelope.
‘Why didn’t you take it before?’ Nicole frowned, watching as he slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘You know I don’t like you going over there at night,’ she went on quietly. ‘Can’t you leave it till morning?’
‘He wants it tonight,’ Ryan replied, equally quietly. ‘If you don’t like it, have a go at him, not me.’
‘You’d better not go inside.’
Ryan flashed an irritated look at her but didn’t reply. Instead, sidestepping her, he nodded goodbye to Lexi, saying, ‘It was good to see you.’
‘You too,’ she murmured, wondering what the hell was going on when he walked out into the hall with his wife on his heel. Nicole had spent the whole night banging on about what a wonderful marriage they had, but if looks could kill the woman would have dropped down dead after the one Ryan had just given her.
After a whispered but heated argument in the hallway, followed by the sound of the front door slamming, Nicole marched back into the kitchen with a face like thunder and snatched the bottle of wine off the table.
‘Everything OK?’ Lexi asked, watching as she poured a glassful and sank it in one before immediately refilling it.
‘Does it look like it?’ Nicole snapped.
‘I was only asking.’ Lexi held up her hands. ‘No need to bite my head off.’
‘Don’t sit there acting like butter wouldn’t melt,’ Nicole hissed. ‘I’ve got your number, lady!’
‘Sorry?’ Lexi was confused. ‘Have I done something to upset you?’
‘Have I done something to upset you?’ Nicole mimicked, slamming the bottle down on the table. ‘You think I didn’t see the way you looked at him? You might as well have come right out and asked him to fuck you!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Lexi spluttered. ‘I hardly said two words to him.’
‘You didn’t need to; your eyes did all the talking for you,’ Nicole shot back. ‘But he didn’t want you first time round, and he definitely doesn’t want you now, so jog on and find your own man, bitch.’
Lexi opened her mouth to argue that she had done absolutely nothing wrong, but Nicole’s blazing eyes told her that the woman was too far gone to listen to reason, so she snapped it shut again and stood up.
‘I think I’d best go.’
‘Yeah, you do that,’ spat Nicole. ‘But don’t bother running after my husband like the desperate little dog you are, ’cos he’ll be long gone by now.’
‘I knew this was a mistake,’ Lexi said, taking her jacket off the back of the chair and pulling it on. ‘You always were a paranoid bitch, and you obviously haven’t changed. I’m only surprised Ryan’s put up with you for this long.’
‘Get out,’ Nicole snarled, baring her teeth.
‘With pleasure,’ Lexi said, snatching her bag up off the floor.
Shocked that things had deteriorated so quickly after Ryan’s appearance, Lexi walked briskly away from the house without looking back. Nicole had always had a mile-wide jealous streak, and it clearly hadn’t improved with age, but her reaction to Lexi and Ryan exchanging a few awkward words had been so extreme it was crazy.
Glad that it had happened tonight and not further down the line when she might have wasted time investing in a friendship that had never been all that great in the first place, Lexi continued on her way, not realizing that she was taking the same route she had used to walk as a teenager until the all-too-familiar blocks of flats and shabby houses that made up the Kingston estate came into view. Hesitating when she saw them, she contemplated turning around and finding another way home. But something was tugging at her and, before she was even aware that she had started walking again, she found herself on the path facing her old block.
