Someone's Someone

Someone's Someone - Chapter Thirty

Danny....

In this moment.

In this lightest of stupid moments.

It hits me just how incredible a person Henna really is.

I've just confessed to what happened between myself and Louisa. I confessed it, nervously allowing what I said to Henna to settle into her inquisitive mind, and she then proceeds to confess to me one of her own sins. It's only a little one. An almost laughable one, but I realise it is one that she's simply confessed to, to only make me feel better. Telling me that she once gave her number to an unhappily married man, is Henna's way of telling me that she's not disappointed in me. It's her incredible way of lightening the conversation. I love how this woman can simply flip my world into one that's so uncomplicated and so fun. "I also once snuck into a cinema without paying." Is my lighthearted reply to the truly wonderful her.

She now smirks, definitely game on for a little silliness. "I once bought a load of Christmas things from this shop, then found a pack of cards that I hadn't paid for at the bottom of the trolley as I was loading what I'd bought into the car...I didn't take them back." She teasingly gloats.

Feeling more relaxed, I smile. "I broke my brothers favourite toy when I was eight." Is the next dishonest thing that I playfully confess to.

"I broke my dad's favourite CD only a few months ago."

"Three weeks ago, I nicked an apple that rolled off a market stall."

Henna grins, her hazel eyes aglow with such mischief. "On my last shift at work, I borrowed my colleagues pen and never gave it back...I write really neat with her pen." Her naughty eyes lower, looking shifty yet angelical at the same time.

So, I laugh. I laugh at the ridiculousness of our silly conversation. Then Henna starts laughing, and we become united in laughter. Such stupid sweet laughter. Laughing like this still hurts my ribs, but I laugh anyway. "Who needs painkillers when there's you." Is what I affectionately tell her, because Henna Nolan really is the best medicine I have ever taken.

She clambers across me, reaching for the bottle of vodka and the two shot glasses she brought up to my room earlier. "And a shot of vodka." She gets me to hold the two glasses, keen to fill them up. Screwing back the lid onto the bottle, she then takes one of the glasses from my hand with a gregarious grin. "One...Two..." As I wait for a Three that never comes, Henna has already downed hers. "Oooooo, too slow, Danny Boy!"

Half-smirking, I down my vodka, wanting more and more of this woman. "Thank you, Henna. Thank you for not treating me any different after what I've just told you."

Henna reaches for the bottle of vodka that's propped between her legs. "Another shot, then you can finish what you told me." She waits for me to hold the shot glasses again, drunken desire so very there in her hazel spheres.

I watch her. I watch her filling the glasses. I watch her eyes. I watch her face. Drawn to her lips that are pursed with concentration. As soon as she has screwed the lid back on, I hand Henna her shot. I don't even wait for her to do her cheating countdown, I just knock back the vodka in one swift swallow. "Too slow, Noodle!" I tease, wondering when it would be appropriate for me to kiss her.

Henna grabs the pillows that were at the bottom of my bed, bringing them back by the headboard so we can sit thigh to thigh. "Okay, I'm voddied up...tell me what happened next."

No longer nervous to tell Henna the rest, I do. "Nearly two months after we slept together, Louisa asked whether we could meet. I said no, because I really just wanted to forget what had happened between us. She kept pestering me. If she called my mobile, I'd hang up. If she tried cornering me at home, I'd go out. In the end, she sent me a long and scathing text saying that she was pregnant. That the baby was mine. Basically, she wanted me to be with her. She wanted to leave my dad, to be with me."