Work for It, page 3
“…Why?”
“You have really nice forearms.”
My best friend is nuts. I do as she says.
Olu
I arrived in Fernley on Friday night and was promptly bored out of my skull. I remained in that state all weekend, dreadfully disappointed by the dullness of this rural eat-pray-love experience—then I looked up from my travel journal long enough to remember that, usually, in order to experience new things, one must leave the house.
It has been a while since I took a trip like this. Perhaps I’ve lost the knack of running away.
Whatever the case, I’ve finally dragged myself to the village’s only centre of entertainment. And from the looks of things, I am about to be entertained.
The dark-haired giant moving toward me doesn’t seem to fit in around here. Since meeting my hostess, Maria Hartley, and looking around the place, I’ve gathered that things in this village tend to be bright and quick and simply done. But this man is slow and steady and impenetrable, with eyes like black mirrors and a near-tangible reserve that makes me want to crack him wide open.
Not that I’d ever obey that urge. I’ve learned, courtesy of Jean-Pierre, that the more you know someone, the uglier they get.
But the giant is striding over with obvious intent, forcing me to wonder—if he starts something, if he flirts with me, will I respond? The old me adored flirting. The new me is tense, ready for familiar, creeping disgust to come along and ruin everything. If this were one of the London nightclubs I periodically haunt like a poltergeist, my skin would already be sticky with apprehension. For some reason, the feeling hasn’t come yet, but it will.
I wait for it and watch the giant. He has the stride of a minor god, and the pub’s patrons, with their muddy tweed and their well-trained dogs at their heels, part for him like he’s a rabid animal. Their worry is understandable: the glower on his suntanned, well-worn face can only be described as ferocious. Beneath a trimmed, black beard, his jaw is hard as iron. I wonder if he really is coming over to flirt or if he’s coming over to punch me. One blow with that meteoric fist and he might snuff me out like the dinosaurs, so I suppose I’ll have to dodge fast.
But when he stands in front of me like a brick wall, it’s not to throw a punch. All he does is look at me and say, “Hello.”
One word, two syllables, in a quiet, rasping voice that makes me oddly aware of my own skin—skin that still doesn’t feel heavy or sweaty or too tight for my body. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because this man isn’t staring at me with avid greed, as if I’m a dead work of art or a cold clutch of jewels. Which is silly of him, since I am all those things and nothing more.
I brush off my confusion and murmur, “Evening, handsome.” I’m misbehaving, since he’s not handsome at all, but I can’t help it. I’ve never quite known how to be good, and recently, I don’t even care enough to try.
He breathes out through his nose like a bull, and his glower becomes an outright scowl, but he doesn’t call me out. “I’m Griff.” His words are hard enough to qualify as brute force. I’m not sure why he’s still talking to me. Five seconds of conversation and it’s abundantly clear he doesn’t want to be here.
Maybe this is some sort of game. I like games. My emotions reach me through a thick coat of cotton these days, but the curiosity he’s stirring is sharp enough to prick at me. He’s like a little dose of the antidepressants I don’t take. “I’m—” Olu, that’s what I almost say, which is odd. Strangers don’t use that name. “Keynes,” I finish, my gaze steady, daring him to mention my hesitation.
Brazen it out, that’s always been my tactic. And who is more brazen than me?
Apparently, this man. After a moment, he asks, “You sure?”
Wonderful. A comedian. Though he’s taller than I am, I look down my nose at him—it’s a hard-won skill. “Quite sure. Are you capable of more than two syllables at once?”
A hollow pause, during which I study Griff. He looks… interesting. Oh, I don’t know why I’m being polite: he looks as if someone hammered chunks out of a mountain, saw a man’s likeness in the resulting craggy mess, and gave it life. He’s all weather-beaten skin, wild, midnight hair that falls into his eyes, and a nose that could be called a beak if beaks were crooked. His mouth is a grim, finely carved line that my own would suffocate, and his shoulders are like boulders. His knuckles are like walnuts. If I’m frank, he’s quite ugly, but there is something about him.
The fleeting urge to crack him open should have faded by now, but it’s still there.
Finally, he says, “Yes. I’m capable.”
“Well done,” I breathe, obnoxiously astonished. “That was five!”
The look he gives me says, very clearly, Go fuck yourself. No wonder he doesn’t speak much. His face does the job for him, when he wants it to.
“So,” I begin, leaning harder against the bar, starting to enjoy myself. “What are you doing over here?”
His jaw shifts and his eyes flick to the ceiling for a moment, as if he’s asking the heavens that very question.
“Am I in your way?” I prod, knowing that I’m not.
A tiny silence before he replies, “No.”
“Have you come to tell me that well-groomed facial hair won’t fly in this here village and I’ve got until sunrise to pack my bags and leave?”
His gaze spears me, exasperated. His eyes are dark, dark, dark. “No.”
I let a slight smile curve my lips, and notice him noticing. That gaze is on my mouth now. His hands curl into fists, just for a moment, a heartbeat, before he smooths them out. I purr, “Are you shy, Griff?”
Another of his little pauses. I finally realise that he’s simply slow to speak—as if he thinks carefully about each word that leaves his mouth.
My diametric opposite, then.
“I’m wondering,” he says finally, “which ale you chose tonight.”
The words are so unexpected, I almost miss the fact he dodged my question about shyness. Arching a brow, I ask, “Does my choice matter?”
“Yes.” It’s a single word in a flat-stone voice, but I think the silent giant is… teasing me. How thrilling.
“In that case,” I say, “I’m not sure I want to answer. What if I get it wrong?”
“You care?” he asks. Then adds, as if remembering full sentences are required: “Do you care what I think?” He has a gentle country accent that almost makes me want to smile. I’m not sure why.
“What you think? Not exactly. But you’re rather large, and I don’t know anyone here, and I’ve heard people take the strangest things to heart in the countryside. I’d hate to be driven out of the village with pitchforks because I’m drinking Rock Mild.”
“Rock Mild?” He blinks slowly, his lashes incongruously long and thick. “Hang on. My pitchfork’s out back.”
I laugh. It’s a short, awkward bark, more of a “Ha” than anything else, but it counts. I did it. I’m clinging to it. And I was right—Griff is teasing me. His own mouth curls at the edges, not quite a smile but the ghost of one, and I find myself wanting to see teeth. It’s natural that I’m curious about him: he’s displaying strange behaviour. Men never tease me at bars. They coax me, they catch me, they relentlessly desire me. And, even before Jean-Pierre, I never really enjoyed that. Being desired is such a dull sort of danger. I’m so used to eyes picking me apart.
But this? This is starting to feel like being with a friend, sans the added weight of hiding my recent… struggles. It’s an unobjectionable dynamic. Perhaps even a pleasant one. Maybe that’s why I tease him back. “So, are you as scary as you look?”
Through the messy fall of his hair, I see his eyebrows rise. “You admitting I’m scary?” He’s warming up to me. I do believe I like him warm.
“No. I said you look it.” I take a sip of my beer, which is indeed awful, and watch his eyes go to my throat. The action… isn’t awful. “I’m scary too, you know.”
His gaze flicks over me, not dismissively but quick, perceptive, as if he’s catalogued everything relevant in 0.25 seconds. Or maybe he already got an eyeful, checking me out from the pool table. He says, his voice dripping with scepticism, “That so?”
The cheek of it. “I may not be built like a lorry, like some people—”
“I prefer ‘brick shit-house’,” he interrupts mildly.
I refuse to laugh. “—but I’ve been told I have a terrifying aura.”
“Would be more terrifying,” Griff says, “if you didn’t talk about auras.”
“I’m beginning to see why your friend was hissing at you over there. You’re incredibly difficult.”
“Now you’ve hurt my feelings.” But he’s smiling again, that faint curve. I want to reach out and trace it with my fingers, which is such an unfamiliar feeling that it shocks me. And then, a second later, it excites me—because that feeling constitutes desire, and it’s been a long, long time since I experienced anything like it. My odd reaction to him sparks a reckless sort of hope, a wild taste of possibility in my chest.
“If I’ve hurt your feelings,” I murmur to Griff, “I’d like to apologise.” I am clinging to this hint of lust with both hands, desperate for it to grow roots, to bite deep into me, to make me myself again. Want him. Want him carelessly and carnally, and then you’ll be fixed. As if shagging him, someone, anyone, is a magic spell that will rewrite months of cold confusion.
“Bet you’re good at saying sorry.” Griff’s voice is low, slow gravel and my pulse warms tentatively, an experimental simmer. This is wonderful. This is excellent. I feel a tiny bit like my old self, but I don’t dare examine it too closely in case this miniscule change is a sham. Quick, quick, quick, I have to be quick, before the moment passes and the idea of human contact horrifies me again.
I wet my lips and realise I’m nervous, which is hilarious and ridiculous and perhaps a little bit good. “Would you like me to show you how I apologise?”
His gaze skims over me again, but it’s slower this time, steadier, spilling sensuality over my skin. Ah. Fuck. Too much. The strangeness rears its head, sloshing a puddle of acid in my belly, whispering vicious nothings in my ear. What are you doing? You think you can have him? Ask yourself why he’d possibly be over here with you.
I crush the voice with a firm fist. Griff is here because I’m gorgeous and he wants me.
Jean-Pierre wasn’t. Jean-Pierre didn’t. Your life is just as cold and false as you are.
Well, now, subconscious. That was hardly sporting.
Griff’s slow reply drags me, blessedly, out of my own head. “I think most people would like to see how you apologise.” A pause, one that zings like sharp, intense thought, before he speaks again. “Where are you from?”
He’s not dragging me outside? Astonishing. I tell myself I’m disappointed rather than relieved. I’m making progress, here. I’m not allowed to be relieved. If I’m really getting better, I should be desperate for some dick in a back alley, like I used to be. Shouldn’t I?
“I’m from London,” I say, hoping he isn’t going to ruin my grand sexual plans by asking where I’m really from. If he does, it won’t take the strangeness to put me off him.
He doesn’t. Instead, he asks, “What do you do?”
“Why do you care?” I shoot back.
“I’m a gold digger.”
My laugh is another brittle bark, but this one comes easier. Now I’m sparking off him, my throat feels less raw. “I’ve recently come down in the world, so your timing is off.”
“My timing?” Something’s happened to his voice. It still sounds like tires creeping over gravel, but now each rumble rolls through my belly. “You came to me, golden boy.”
Golden boy?! “I don’t even know where to start with that.”
“The beginning,” he says patiently.
I splutter. I actually splutter. I haven’t spluttered since the last time I argued with my father, although this doesn’t feel like that—there’s no helpless rage, or secrets like brick walls. Just confused amusement. “Fine,” I manage. “First thing’s first: I didn’t come to you. I came to Fernley.”
“And here I am.” He’s been standing in front of me as I lean against the bar, but now he puts a hand on the shiny, sticky-ringed surface to catch someone’s attention. The action brings his arm so close to my side, I freeze.
He doesn’t notice. He’s caught the eye of the older woman who pulls pints, and he makes a sound that can only be described as a grunt, but which she seems to understand. “Got you, Griff. Just be a sec,” she says, and spins away.
I suppose when there’s only one establishment in the entire village, everyone’s a regular.
Looking back at me—but not moving that arm—he says, “Second thing?”
Oh—I’d almost forgotten that I’m in the middle of telling him off. Sort of. “I’m still on the first thing. I did come to Fernley—”
“Because?”
I ignore him. “But I was minding my business over here when you approached me.”
His lips curve. This smile goes further than the previous ones, until he looks almost rakish and his eyes crease at the corners. “Did I?”
“Yes.” I should be irritated. I’m amused instead. Amused, and wanting him again, ever so slightly. “As for the second thing—don’t call me ‘golden boy’.”
“Why not?”
“So, so many reasons,” I say. “But the only one you need to know is that I’ll barbecue your balls.”
He studies me for a moment, like I’m a surprise, before saying, “You’re not how I thought you’d be.” There’s a little frown creasing his brow, like he’s thinking. Deeply. About me.
I should really nip that in the bud.
“Forget the drink,” I tell him, putting my own on the bar. “Let’s go.”
He hesitates, or maybe he’s just taking his time in that slow, heavy way he has. Regardless, I don’t have the patience for either—not when it comes to this, not when the thread of desire is back but could disappear at any moment.
I put my hand on his exposed forearm, which is all corded steel and fine, raised veins and crisp black hair. The contact sends an electric shock skittering over my skin. It must hit him too, because his muscles go taut under my palm while my nerves turn to water. I think I’ve miscalculated.
Then he calls, “Leave it, Moira,” and I lead him outside.
Olu
It’s dark, but the spring air is unseasonably warm, fragrant with the fresh scent of green things and filled with the sounds of night-time creatures. I barely notice. There are whispers of worry at the edges of my mind: You don’t know him. He’s a stranger. You can’t trust him. These things never used to bother me; now they trigger the disgust, slower than usual but undeniably there. The thick, toxic slime of it coats my skin, and I know I’ve missed my chance. I waited too long, or things got too real; either way, the desire is dead. My dick is apparently still attached to my body, but it might as well have flown to Australia. That’s how far removed it is from feeling even the slightest interest in this man.
For fuck’s sake.
The fact that this reaction steals my control, my choice to find pleasure, my favourite fucking hobby—it makes me angry. And, unusually, Griff seems to notice.
He frowns beside me, cocking his head. “Are you—?”
The moment I hear his voice, or rather, the concern buried within it, I decide to do this anyway. To make things between us as breathless and humid as the night air, now, because my pride won’t let this strangeness win again. Griffin may be a big man, but I’m no daisy myself, so I drag him down the nearest excuse for an alleyway without too much trouble. I suspect he lets me.
I press my own back against the side of the pub and feel rigid, crumbling bricks against my spine. They stick out so randomly, they must have been laid before geometry was invented. But it doesn’t bother me right now, not when my pulse is a frantic drumbeat of Do it do it do it before your brain catches up. I twine my fingers in Griff’s plaid shirt and drag him forward, and when his weight presses me into the wall, I know I should like it. I’ve always liked this. But my stomach tightens in the bad way, not the good.
You don’t know him. You can’t trust him. You don’t want him.
Ridiculous. I’ve been shagging strangers for over twenty years, and it’ll take more than a snotty Frenchman, some mild blackmail, and a forced outing to take that away from me. It’s not as if my heart is broken, or anything foolish like that. I never had one.
Maybe that’s why it was so easy for Jean-Pierre to turn on me. I had no heart to offer.
It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, because Griff is here and huge and hard in front of me. Focus on your surroundings. I take a breath and sink my hands into his hair, the texture a delicious surprise. He’s so grim, so tough, but his hair is so damn soft—like silk, like water, like sheer luxury. If he grew it down to his knees, I’d roll around in it like a blanket, or maybe wear it like a cloak. I tug him closer.
But this time, he doesn’t come. Firm and flat, he tells me, “Stop.”
I stiffen. The strangeness sings, triumphant. See? You can’t trust him. He’s made you show your hand, made you want and need, made a fool of you, and you fell for it.
It is entirely possible that I’m going to be sick.
“I’m not doing this,” Griff says. “You’re—”
Pathetic, spectacularly useless, worth less than a kilo of snow.
But what he says is, “You’re shaking. Keynes, you’re shaking.” His tone isn’t gentle, but his hands are. They curl around my upper arms, stroking up and down, as if to soothe me. My eyes flick open—when did I screw them shut?—and I stare at his outline in the darkness for a moment, floating between reactions, between moods, between decisions. For the space of a breath, I feel a warm sort of shock. Or maybe it’s awe. Or maybe it’s piss-yourself relief, or gratitude.
Then I take another breath and I’m fucking furious.
It crackles through my veins—and if it feels a little bit like shame, if its edges burn and twist like they’ve touched something corrosive, well, who’s to know? Who, except this dangerous man who has the audacity to notice things and say them out loud?
