The Cure

Chapter 40

Lola shivered. They could hear the party from the street below, the rhythmic booming and the wild cat calling echoing out from an open window upstairs.

They were celebrating her.

'What did you want to come out here for?'

'Get some air. Feel like I haven't seen you in forever.'

Her breath was coming thick into the air. 'It's fucking freezing.'

Jared leaned back on the bench at the foot of her building as he offered her a cigarette, looking her up and down. She took it with a small smile, sitting gingerly on the other side of the bench.

'Yeah, well. I fancied a smoke.'

'You didn't have to come outside for that,' Lola replied around her own cigarette.

'Cool party. Congrats again.'

She had received a call from an unknown number on the way home from dinner with Nate the night before, surprised to find the flat, bored voice of her boss on the line.

Offering her a weekly gig.

Every Sunday evening, God's Day, where the best of the godless hedonists, the sad, the lonely came out to play, and jobless warriors, the fangirls of festivity, the skint seekers of half-price sordidness would creep out from the cracks of society while the rest of the world slept, preparing to march towards Monday's blank and sleepy whiteness.

It was something, alright.

Nate had celebrated her win as if it had been his own, stopping in at 24-hour newsagents to get a bottle of bad champagne.

He had kissed her on the street like she was already famous, dipping her towards the floor while the whir of the industrial extractor fan roared its approval, the buzzing fluorescent light of the shop sign flickering like paparazzi in the night air.

The party had been his idea, too; Melissa's sleek black satin shirt, high-waisted beige trousers and higher heels should have clashed with the ripped jeans and piercings about her; Nate's soft linen shirt, the one Lola loved, should have looked strange against the worn leather jackets, the tattooed skin.

But it didn't, and they chatted effortlessly with Jules, and Frieda, well-oiled into easiness by beer and the joint being passed around; it was five A.M., and everyone was varyingly drunk.

Jared, it seemed, excessively so.

He slid half-way along the bench, looping a hand about the back of Lola's jeans and pulling her the rest of the way, his lips suddenly at her neck; she started, pulling back, her hand against the skin he had kissed as if it had burned her.

He sniggered.

'What are you doing?'

'Oh, come on.' One corner of Jared's mouth quirked upwards as his eyes flickered over her breasts, lightly evident over her tight checked shirt. 'Don't play coy with me.'

'Hey! What are you doing?' She repeated, leaning away from his lips that approached again.

'What, you not up for this any more?'

'No, Jesus, Jared, I thought this was finished, now.'

'You know how I feel about you.'

'Do I hell.' Lola's voice shuddered out with sarcastic irritation as she shifted out of his grip completely. 'You never told me.'

Jared paused, his swaggering smirk wavering. 'You're my endgame. I thought that was obvious.'

'I'm only your fucking endgame since Frieda made it clear she didn't want anything to do with you.'

His eyes lit up briefly, and his smile widened, proudly. 'Were you jealous?'

'Oh, for God's sake.'

'You were!' He jostled her with a taunting shoulder, and she smiled with difficulty as he leapt up, dancing about like a triumphant footballer. 'I fucking knew it. Go on, say it.'

'If you stop dancing like that – yeah, OK. Yeah, I was.'

'Knew you couldn't resist me.'

'Honestly?' She looked at him, wondering if the look in her eyes mirrored the strange distance that she felt, now, in her chest. 'I just wondered what she had that I didn't. Wasn't about you. Not really.'

'Aw, you got plenty going for you,' he murmured, pouting, mimicking a child's tremor in his lips; he didn't seem to understand her reasoning, nor care for it; Hell, he probably didn't even listen.

Lola shrugged, easing herself off the bench, finishing her cigarette. 'You could've had me, but you didn't want it. Shit happens. That's just how it is.'

He moved closer, tilting his head towards the alleyway between her building and Selfridge's. 'Let me have you now, then.'

Lola thought she must be looking disdainfully at him, now, as he stumbled slightly, holding out his arms. 'I've moved on.'

'Have you fuck,' he surprised her by reaching out a sudden hand, grabbing her roughly at the waist, pulling him flush against her, 'you want it as much as I do—'

She squirmed out of his arms, her body reacting automatically, and her thoughts streamed, panicked, as his face dropped, offended; it was better to keep the situation light, she thought, trying to smile; his returned smirk was cold.

'Thought you said you were jealous.'

'I was.' She was turning away, towards the door.

'What's changed?' He blocked the door with his tattooed forearm as she passed her key-fob over the scanner to let herself into the building; she felt him press his chest against her back, enclosing her in the tiny porch, and a surprising jolt of fear rose into her throat as his breath tickled her neck.

It was just Jared. Just Jared.

'I did.'

'You sure did,' he murmured, a hand passing over her backside, beneath her and between her legs, quickly enough to preclude her shifting, clenching at her through her jeans.

She tugged at the door, her jerking elbow making him stumble backwards out of the porch as she darted inside, breathless, swinging around to watch him trying to recover his balance.

'I said no, Jared.'

He glanced down at the crotch of his jeans, pouting again. 'Come on, baby, I'm dying here.'

Lola shrugged, a dark fear still tugging at her breast as she thought of the dark four-floor climb before her, as Just-Jared lurched towards her again.

She pulled the glass door of the corridor to, slamming it in his face, taking just enough time to call over her shoulder, her trembling voice echoing in the corridor before she started her hasty ascent.

'Well, Frieda's upstairs. But not sure she's up for it, either.'