The Cure

Chapter 10

Lola wasn't one to deal with awkwardness. Life was too short.

And Nathaniel seemed intent on accentuating it, flashing her an uncomfortable smile if they had the misfortune of being in the same room together, before making a hasty excuse and leaving; he regretted it deeply, evidently, as much as she did, but for different reasons.

The way he had repeatedly apologised, looking with sorrowful contrition at the floor as if he had violated her, rather than showing her what an orgasm could really be like; as if he could barely believe he had fucked someone like her; that he had stooped so low.

And Lola hated that she had broken one of her most important rules and hooked up with a taken guy; it really wasn't her style.

Even if she had never met the girl. Even if it evidently wasn't serious. Nathaniel had never brought her back, after all. He hadn't mentioned her more than once.

But she had been that girlfriend, once or twice, in brief and badly-matched relationships, and had known the sharp sting of surprise when it first happened to her, then the sorrowful, dull ache of the anticipated when it happened again.

She just wasn't the one, for anyone.

There wasn't enough of her, about her, it seemed, to make anyone dream of her exclusively, lust only for her, blinding them to all other feminine approaches.

And if she couldn't control what actions her poorly chosen boyfriends had decided to make, she could, at least, limit the destruction that the male species seemed intent to wreak upon her own, and had always strictly vowed never to be the other woman.

But it had happened so fast, and it had almost been as though she had stepped outside of her body, watching with amazement as he brought his lips crashing down upon hers, the long fingers gripping at her backside – someone like him – and she had been so swallowed by her own desire that the idea of resisting had never even been contemplated, let alone a possibility.

Until her climax had brought her roaring into the present, of course, and the deed was done, and she was enrolled onto the register of bad girls, one in a long line of female traitors, the backstabber of the sisterhood; as if they didn't have enough trouble, as it was.

Of course, she was fated to make a mistake like this, Lola thought as she came back from work, the luckily liberated barmaid on a Friday evening, catching sight of Nathaniel leaning against the desk in his bedroom, talking on his phone; he stretched out a long leg and kicked his bedroom door closed, though not without a polite nod in her direction.

Two weeks had passed in a similar fashion.

Of course, she had doomed herself to this uneasy stalemate with her bad decisions, with her haste, throwing caution to the wind in the name of youth and a good time; a whirlwind supporter of the present, of the immediate, of the sensual and enjoyable.

She was destined to make any decent situation collapse, to be always overdrawn, to shake a bleary, regretful head in the morning.

He'd surely move out, and then what would she do?

She shook her head as she hung up her coat, trying to stop the swirling mess of negativity in her mind, and so she called Jared, relieved when he arrived for a twenty-minute reprieve before his shift; normal, comfortable, comforting, his presence swallowing the silent and uncomfortable air about him.

Jared pressed a chaste kiss to her neck, barely pausing when they heard Nathaniel crossing the loft, closing the front door discreetly behind him.

'Pill?' Jared whispered into her neck, smiling fiendishly when she replied in the positive, and Lola couldn't help but look over his dark blond ponytail towards the front door, hearing Nathaniel's steps disappear into silence down the stairs, wondering when Jared's gentle kisses at her collarbone had ceased to make her shiver.

Jared groaned when her phone started buzzing in her pocket, tapping his wrist meaningfully, indicating his imminent shift; but he stopped when Lola's face whitened, then reddened in the space of five seconds.

'What's wrong?'

She hung up the phone, breathless.

'I'm coming with you.'