CLEANER: Chapter Six - Part Six

DAHLIA

A long quiet hovered between Tommy and me.

He could pretend all he liked that he hadn't heard the set to between Katherine and me but he had to have. There were no barriers between the lounge and the front door and the time it would have taken, he would have heard it all. Hell, he must have driven up within a second or two of me letting her inside.

He knew and he knew I knew that he knew, but he didn't show it in his usual blend of sensitivity, tact and cowardice.

Thge connection between us fizzled. The biological shadows of my fury were still running through me.

 

He raised the wine bottle and cocked it thirty degrees to the right. "Fancy getting pissed?"

I laughed, much as I tried to hold it in.

"I'm serious," he said. "I already booked myself into a hotel in town. I can get a taxi down later. Where are your glasses? Usual place?"

I heitated then nodded, taking him through to the kitchen.

We poured two full glasses and took the bottle back through to the lounge. I put some music on. We chatted, knocking it back fairly swiftly, avoiding talk of modelling or Katherine. The second glass went down better. Tommy was up to speed on his story telling, reeling out an uncommonly new tale. He'd had years with other clients while I'd been out of commision so this had allowed him to rebuild his repetoire from the repetitious ones I'd heard for most of my adult life.

When we reached the bottom of the bottle he went and fetched another. I let him. The heat and relaxation stretched the bumpy ground around my temperament, smoothing it out. I hadn't realised I needed it but clearly I had.

I felt bad about Katherine. I felt really bad. But my frustration with her interference was still rattling loud enough to at least partially subdue my guilt or any resolution to act on it; to apologise. I was still at the point where she could stay away for six months or more as far as I was concerned, even as I also recognised that I wouldn't go long feeling that way. Katherine was far too close for me to ever hate for long, or ever truly get along with.

Tommy poured me another moreish quantity of wine when he got back and chucked a couple of bags of crips he'd found in the cupboard on the coffee table. "Hungry?"

I eyed them ravenously. "Not really. I didn't long eat."

"You 've gotta work to keep that figure of yours."

I stroked my tummy through the loose top I was wearing, registering his lack of attention. I'd already put on at least a couple of pounds. "It's nothing but work," I said.

"You don't need to tell me. Why do you think I've admired you for so long? From afar."

"You admire everything in a skirt."

"Only the gorgeous ones."

I smiled. "I've told you a hundred times Tommy. It's possible to be too smooth."

"Are you kidding me? My level of aptitude with the ladies is perfectly measured."

"Then why has it never worked on me?"

"Maybe it's just never been the right night... before."

We looked at one another. He winked, smiling, knowing exactly how dishy he was; how disarmingly charming.

"Why did you come all the way up here?" I asked.

That moment of sultry flirtation deflated, replaced with quiet reserve with a scratch of discomfort. Tommy smiled quickly and serenly, batting aside the awkwardness. "Well to put it bluntly, to apologise. To you. About the phonecall."

My neck felt hot and the heat rose to my cheeks and brow.

"You were right," he said. "It was out of order for me to push you so hard. It can't be easy going back to work after a break; especially into showbusiness, the land of the surreal."

I drank some wine, then a little more. I was very drunk now; way past tipsy.

"I don't give a crap what Leah thinks. You're my number one girl." He tickled my ear then lowered his hand to my shoulder, leaving it there. "It's you and me to the end of the world baby."

I smiled back at him, drawn into the seductive whirlpool in his eyes. "You're full of shit Tommy. Always have been. Always will be."

His own smile went wider, shining bright. He still hadn't removed his hand from my shoulder. He let it slip down to my upper arm, his eyes holding their connection to mine.

We stayed that way for a long moment.

"You have pretty eyes," I said and giggled.

"You're kidding me."

"Like a woman's. Really sweet. You just need a bit of mascara."

"You're honestly saying that to me under the full force of my mesmeric stare. You're supposed to be mesmerised."

"I am," I said, giggling. "I'm mesmerised by your profound level of bullshit."

He withdrew his hand, pretending to be hurt.

"You know why I never let you kiss me Tommy?" I said.

"No. It's something I've pondered over many a solitary bottle of scotch."

I laid my hand flat on his chest. "Because... you've never... tried... hard enough."

I stared into his eyes, which were the most gorgeous eyes I'd ever seen on a man, and I saw the confusion; the hesitation; the desire. He stalled like a car with too much clutch and not enough throttle, floundered inside while he struggled to restart his engine; get back on the road.

If he had reached forward and kissed me right then I would have let him. I would have let him carry me upstairs, or take me right there on the sofa or on the floor; anything he wanted. But the instant ticked on just a little too far and that inebriated momentum faltered enough for us both to regain our senses.

The puttering stop the conversation came to was sudden and complete; in its way even more uncomfortable than his initial appearance.

I went bright red. He stood up, turning away.

We... shuffled, like a deck of cards coming to an entirely new configuration: from two amorous people poised before a cavalcade of impetuous romance that they must surely come to regret, to two old colleagues who knew where the boundaries were and had known for seven years since the last near miss we'd had, no matter how much we might occassionally resent it.

I'd been wishing some magic could come into my life all week but we'd well and truly dispelled it now, the both of us. The fact we knew it made it worse.

"I'd... better get off really," said Tommy.

I nodded.

"I won't distrub you in the morning when I pop back for my car. I'll just slip off. It'll have to be early. I've got a ten thirty on the Thames."

"Sure. I'll be able to... lie in."

He gave me a guarded smile and I reflected it back on him, then he left. One second there, the next, gone, leaving me feeling deflated and dehydrated.

And lonely.

Very very lonely.