The Function to Breathe

Fourteen

2015

I'm not able to see Ricky again until the Friday of the following week. He has commitments in London, not only is he working on The Voice again, but the band has started writing material for a new album and they have studio time booked. There's also the not so little matter of him ending his relationship with Lesley and trying to make a start on sorting out what they're going to do about the house they own together. I don't envy him that one little bit. It was hard enough for Gavin and I to sort out what was going to happen to all our commitments when we divorced, and that had been following a mutual decision to end the marriage. I feel for Lesley, I doubt she has any idea this is coming.

Ricky arrives at my cottage late on Friday afternoon; it's already dark by the time I hear the doorbell ring. I've spent the day shopping for food and tidying up, nervously re-arranging things that don't need re-arranging, changing my outfit several times and ending up back in the first one.

It seems like this weekend will be the big test; will things work between us, do we really have a future together? We'd been madly in love when we were nineteen, but a lot has happened since those days. I'm certainly not the same person I was then. I wonder if Ricky has been a bit hasty ending things with Lesley so quickly, but he's certain that it's the right thing to do.

He looks tired and a bit stressed when I open the door but immediately he sees me his face breaks into a huge smile. Dropping the bag he'd had over his shoulder he pulls me into his arms, bends his head to mine and kisses me deeply. His hand slides up my back, his fingers thread into my hair as he tilts my head back a little and moans softly into my mouth while we kiss. I wrap one arm around him, lifting the other hand and resting it lightly on his jaw.

"I've missed you Cat," he says as the kiss ends and our mouths part somewhat reluctantly.

"I've missed you too." I reply, leading him into my lounge. It's strange, in a way I've spent nearly half my life missing him so I should be used to it, but the last week and a bit have been harder than I thought they might be. We've talked daily – sometimes two or three times, sometimes for a long time – but my overactive mind has still had plenty of time to wonder if that one night would end up being all we had. If Ricky would decide once he was back in London that it was Lesley he really wanted to be with after all. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if he'd told me he wasn't coming back, but he has. He is really here in my little house. It's hard to believe.

"How was your week?" I ask as he flops down onto my cream sofa and closes his eyes, running his hands through his hair and sighing deeply.

He rubs his eyes and then opens them. I can see how tired he is, he must have had an awful week all in all. He confirms my suspicions. "Pretty grim, although some bits weren't too bad."

He has obviously told me some of the detail of his week when we've spoken each day, but its different talking about things on the phone rather than face to face. I want to hear everything again, with him sitting next to me retelling the week's events.

"Want to talk about it?" I ask, sitting down next to him and resting my head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I'll tell you the good bits first." He puts his arm round me and kisses the top of my head before sighing again. He seems so stressed and on edge that I'm worried. I wonder if he's just come back here tonight to tell me he made a mistake, that he doesn't want to be with me after all. But his next words reassure me somewhat.

"This is by far the best bit of the week, sitting here with you. But other than that we got some great stuff done for the new tracks. I'm really excited, it's sounding so good, and it's really different to what we've done before. I've got a couple of rough bits on my phone; you can listen to them later."