The Cure

Chapter 11

It was Lola.

Her eyes were closed as the sweet sound slipped from her lips and flooded the room, and the guitar thrilled beneath her fingers and the air was still just to hear her.

Everybody had stilled just to hear her.

A skinny barman with a long beard leaned on his fist, propped on his elbow on the bar, entranced; the noisy stag do had been slow to silence, and loathe to calm, but calm they had, looking amongst one another with leering admiration.

A businessman in a threadbare suit stopped on his way to the bathroom to lean against a pillar, a small smile on his face, taking out his phone to start filming.

A middle-aged lady took her husband's hand, clutching at her chest with the other, as if her heart was failing and the soft, sweet vocals were to blame.

The song was gentle, sorrowful, a fresh, bluesy, Marling-esque folk and Lola's voice was as delicate, as turning and exact and understated and enticing as the chords she strummed.

Nathaniel was pretty sure she was floating above the crowd, away from them all, for she didn't see the barflies, or the awestruck crowd, or the sticky bar floor when she opened her eyes; they were glazed over, as she fell into in a memory, turned lazily in a dream, lulling herself with the tune.

Rosie was shifting in her seat, irritated, her last few sentences unheard.

'You like this kind of music?'

'No – I mean, yeah, but it's just – she's my flatmate,' Nathaniel replied hastily, falling back to earth, back into the Chesterfield leather perched pleasingly before their tiny round varnished table, and he watched the candlelight flicker in Rosie's eyes, glad to find something, anything, to focus on as he took a long, desperate draught of beer.

'That's her? She works here. See her all the time.' Nathaniel spluttered on his pint. 'You could've told me.'

'I didn't know.'

'I had no idea she sang.'

'Me either,' Nathaniel felt his voice rough, and he shrugged. 'Me either.'

'God, why do all of her exploits have to be so noisy,' Rosie muttered as she sipped at her martini, thin-lipped, plucking the olive from the clear liquid; he cleared his throat when she brought it to her lips, sucking the droplets from the plump green bead upon her tongue.

There was purpose there, Nathaniel thought, meeting her flame-filled gaze as he threw back the rest of his pint and signalled for another.

She hadn't been hasty in her approach to sex, although her interest had been palpable; perhaps her religious upbringing had begged patience of her, promised her heaven if she would only abstain.

And he was equally content with the delay of the next step; the closeness, the intensity of sex was naturally contrary to his character. Ordinarily, anyway.

And it often brought complications, and expectations, in its wake.

Generally.

No, waiting was fine.

He thanked the waiter for their third round of drinks, his attention sliding back to the musician perched self-consciously on the rickety stage.

Their encounter hadn't brought any complications, or expectations, at all. Lola had sauntered in from work the day after, talking on her phone, and he had frozen in the kitchen, the knife paused over the carrot he was slicing as she kicked her shoes off; but she had raised her eyebrow in his direction, as if he was just her roommate, just her grumpy roommate.

The flow of her chatter hadn't stilted for a second.

He would have even fleetingly doubted that it had ever happened, if he hadn't spent the morning sweeping up broken plates from the kitchen floor.

And now, two weeks had passed, and he kept his careful distance, reprimanding himself internally for his recklessness.

At least he had been released from the obligation of an awkward conversation when he saw the pill packet on the bathroom counter, dutifully diminishing as the days ticked by.

And she seemed to accept his presence as steadily, as readily, as she ever had, which, he argued internally, still lost in the sweet sound of her singing, was far preferable to the arguments.

Even if it did make him doubt the potency of the moment that they had unexpectedly shared, the burning urgency, the magnetic chemistry, the work of a second as soon as they had been within feet of each other.

He swallowed, jolted guiltily back into the present by the sound of applause, and even Rosie was clapping, begrudgingly impressed, and he watched Lola slip carefully off her guitar stool, make an embarrassed curtsey and hurry off the stage, where her bouncer-built barman boyfriend – was he her boyfriend? – swept her into his arms.

Nathaniel looked back at Rosie, who was tracing slow circles on the skin of his forearm, now, and with an unexpected emotion simmering darkly in his chest, was more than looking forward to feeling that carnal pull again, to replace the memory of the last.

He smiled, devilishly handsome, at the beautiful redhead before him.