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  She held a small footstool out to him with a shaky hand and he set it down next to her bare feet.

  “See we have something in common we both like to walk around barefoot.”

  She looked down at her bare feet and wished there was polish on her lacquer free toenails, “I guess so.”

  “Remember no questions allowed just do as I say, you think entirely too much.”

  She opened her mouth to speak and he silenced her with a finger to her lips and spoke again.

  “Just nod for me,” she gulped and gave him the briefest nod, it was taking all her will power to stand upright because she suspected what this was building up to.

  “Stand on the stool,” he ordered and took her hand to steady her.

  Jen stepped up, balancing on the stool a little precariously, it added a good few inches to her height bringing her forehead in line with Todd’s jaw.

  Todd looked her right in the eyes as he closed the gap between them. She was struggling with herself to obey him and he wasn’t quite sure he was playing this right but he wanted to try.

  “I’m not going to do anything to hurt you, or anything more than you want to do, but I think it’s a crying shame for a pretty girl to go her whole life without kissing somebody she’s attracted to.”

  Her eyes dropped so he couldn’t read her anymore, but he could swear he heard her heart pounding fit to burst.

  “First though just put your arms round my neck and pull me in close then I’m going to put my arms round you and we’re going to snuggle for a while.”

  Seconds passed and her body wasn’t going to give, so Todd took the initiative and circled her waist with his solid arms, then his hands gently stroked up the middle of her back to comfort her, he held off from pulling too close, he wanted to see what she’d do.

  Jen was concentrating on breathing deeply in through her nose and out through her mouth, just as she’d been taught to do by countless therapists, trying to bring her racing heart to heel.

  Todd was holding her steady and as she breathed she took in the scent of him, he smelled like sea spray and lime and all sorts of good healthy things. His fingers softly traced patterns through her robe.

  “Your turn,” he said softly.

  Todd didn’t know whose heart was beating faster, he was holding his breath now to see if she would meet the challenge he’d given her.

  Slowly but surely Jen lifted her arms from by her side and moved them up his arms, her hands tracing the path to his shoulders, over his t shirt sleeves until he felt them clasp behind his neck. Then before he had to prompt her again she drew him closer and rested her head in the crook of his neck, her chin settling on his shoulder.

  Todd stepped in and closed the gap between their middles.

  They stood there for how many minutes he didn’t know, eventually he realised he was rocking her slightly back and forth, and her hand was stroking the hair at the nape of his neck. He doubted she even knew she was doing it.

  “This isn’t so bad is it?” he whispered to her.

  “No, its ok,” she answered.

  “Hmm only ok, I must be losing my touch, you can give me a little more than that surely?”

  Jen’s breath feathered his ear as she paused to choose her words carefully, “It’s nice, I mean, you’re so big, there’s so much of you, I thought I’d feel scared and I do – feel scared I mean, but I also feel sort of safe. It’s disconcerting being near you, I’m afraid to like it too much, afraid of where that leads.”

  He felt her lips ghost accidentally against his neck as she spoke, he wanted to stay like this longer, but he also wanted to push her a shade further before he said goodnight. He waited while he felt her heartbeat drop and steady and then said, “Look at me Jen.”

  She didn’t question him but drew back and looked at him. She was still having trouble meeting his eyes, but she did it anyway he noticed with a little triumph then he took one arm from her waist and stroked her cheek softly.

  “I’m going to kiss you now, you don’t have to kiss me back, just accept it. Can you do that?”

  Her eyes flashed once, her emotions unfathomable.

  He left a thumb tracing the corners of her lips encouraging them to part slightly, his fingers followed the line of her jaw and throat, then he leaned in and said, “Close your eyes kiddo,” and she obliged him without resistance.

  Dipping his head, he kissed her full bottom lip softly, then her top, then repeated the kisses more firmly. Then he tilted her chin up to close her mouth and kissed her full on the lips staying in place for several beats of her heart.

  He stepped back, keeping his hand on her waist until she opened her eyes. Her hands rested on his shoulders, and her cheeks were pleasantly flushed.

  The devil in him couldn’t keep quiet any longer, and he gave her a wink, “we’ll save tongues for next time.”

  She gasped and spluttered and the spell was broken, she leapt off the footstool and had her door open in a flash.

  “I’m going before you say anything and don’t be brooding on this all night because I know another secret about you Jennifer - you’re not as scared as you’d like to believe.”

  He laughed as the door slammed and he heard her stomp away.

  ****

  Jen was on fire, everywhere.

  After she slammed the door, she didn’t know what to do with herself, she felt like crawling under her bed and pounding her fists on the floor, her senses were shot to pieces. She was terrified, electrified, there was no way she was going to bed early now.

  She touched her lips, she could feel his 5 o’clock shadow against her cheek and her chin, she could still feel the patterns he’d stroked on her back, she felt like she was going mad. She burst into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror, she tore her robe off, her skin was flushed from chest to forehead and she felt like she needed a cold shower.

  “Aargh,” she screamed at the top of her lungs, venting like a madwoman.

  Upstairs Sebastian dropped a copper saucepan on his foot in shock and started hopping around cursing the air blue, and Sean rushed in to see what was going on.

  Downstairs Lily looked up as Todd came in the door.

  “This dating thing’s going well for you two isn’t it?”

  “You heard her?”

  “I think the whole block heard her, what are you up to?”

  Todd looked confused, “I really don’t know, no matter what she tells me, and all the hurt she’s had in her life, I get the feeling that if I give her too much sympathy she’s going to find it easy to give me the brush off. The only time she opens up to me is when I bug the shit out of her, and god help me I really enjoy doing that.”

  “She’s been opening up to you?”

  “Yes,” he walked over and stood next to his outgoing and beautiful sister and stroked the back of her head. “I can’t tell you anything other than to say it made me grateful for our family, and how lucky we’ve been. I hope in time she’ll open up to you on her own Lil, but in the meantime give her a break will you, don’t force things on her, give me a chance to get to know her first.”

  Lily looked up and was taken with the impassioned look on her brother’s face, “Ok, but be careful not to treat her like a pet project, women don’t like that either.”

  Todd laughed and kissed his sister on her upturned nose, and was distracted by the sound of muffled thumps on his ceiling and strings of curse words.

  “If she has any teddy bears on her bed upstairs, I suspect she’s about to strangle them and rip their dead bodies to pieces,” Lily joked but only half kidding.

  “She swears a lot too - for somebody that claims she’s a wallflower I mean?”

  Todd grinned in agreement.

  Jen may try to deny it all she wanted, may have chosen to ignore it all her life, but every instinct Todd had about her said she had the potential to be a very passionate person, and he was every bit as strung up about it as she was.

  ****

  The
phone ringing off the hook woke Jen the next morning, she turned over stiffly to look at the clock and saw it was only 7, who could be ringing at that time? Her clients knew she only took business calls between nine thirty and four.

  Whoever they were they weren’t giving up, the message machine kept cutting in and they put down and just rang again.

  She pulled herself out of bed and to her feet; she knew only a choice of two people who would be willing to annoy her this much.

  “Good morning Jennifer, are you ok?”

  Of course it was Todd, “No, I’m emotionally shattered and the crazy man responsible is calling me at 7am,” she barked.

  “I’m sorry honey, I have to go out and look at some real estate an hour away and I wanted to talk to you before I left.”

  “Why?”

  He laughed, “Because I like talking to you, and I wasn’t sure you were ok after I left last night.”

  “You heard me stomping about?”

  “Jen everybody heard that, don’t look now but your invisible ninja powers are not working anymore.”

  There was quiet on the other end of the phone, so he changed tactic, “there was another reason for me to call. Lily asked me to tell you she’s meeting this guy at “Beans” around two, does that suit you?”

  “Yeah it’s fine.”

  “Please tell me what’s bothering you Jen,” he asked softly, giving her a long pause to respond.

  “It’s complicated - what happened last night I mean. You kissing me, that was nice, but it’s not as straightforward as that, there’s more I need to tell you, that I don’t really want to tell you, and I still don’t want you assuming I’m going to let this thing between us go anywhere.”

  He grumbled back at her, “Well its good news you liked me kissing you so let’s not stress about the rest just yet, instead I think you should tell me why you find me so attractive?”

  “What?”

  “Come on all this time so far we’ve been talking about you, now a few days ago you confessed that you find me attractive. I think you need to tell me exactly what you like about me.”

  “You have got to be kidding, the last thing your ego needs is boosting,” she laughed nervously.

  “Honey, everybody’s ego needs boosting from time to time. Come on, tell me and I’ll let you get on with your day. “

  He could hear the cogs whirring in her brain, “Come on kiddo you’re using up all my free minutes here,” he joked.

  Her breath came back soft, lifting the hairs on the back of his neck, “I think you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. You are the best combination of David Duchovny, Hugh Jackman and Bruce Willis while he still had hair and ran around barefoot in a vest. You’re the man every girl should dream of and would be lucky to get – You’re what the books mean when they say tall, dark and handsome and I don’t have a clue why you’re wasting any of your time on me.”

  She breathed in deeply, she’d said her piece all in one breath, as if that was the only way she could get it out.

  Todd gulped, “wow”, and he tried in vain to recover his swagger. “God when you decide to give a compliment, you really go for it don’t you? You need to scratch that last part, I need you to never ever say anything like that about yourself again because I just won’t tolerate it,” he bit out.

  “You have a good day Jennifer. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

  She pressed the end button and clutched the phone to her chest, did she really just say that? Talk about sending mixed signals - she had to get a grip on herself.

  Todd bumped into Lily coming out of her room, “Don’t you look smug mister?” she laughed. “What can I say? A hot woman thinks I’m God’s gift, what more does a man need in life?”

  He grabbed his keys and went out whistling, Lily rolled her eyes.

  ****

  Jen looked up from her magazine, and frowned again at the guy Lily was talking to a couple of booths in front.

  She’d got to the coffee shop early and settled in, and this jerk had turned up shortly after.

  Lily seemed to be doing her best to make polite conversation but it didn’t seem to be going well, added to that every so often Ben kept going over to offer them free refills, which she was pretty sure “Beans” didn’t offer.

  Jen looked at her magazine in disgust. Were women even interested in this kind of crap anyway? Who was dating who, whose ass looked fat in this picture and on and on, she kept looking at her watch wishing Lily would wrap it up so she could get away.

  Jen looked up as the guy laughed at a joke Lily made, god he sounded like Homer Simpson when he made that noise. She couldn’t possibly want to see him again after this surely?

  There it was again that noise, come on Lily kick him to the kerb already. She looked across at Ben who was trying to make himself look busy while keeping a close eye on the couple. He felt her looking at him and when their eyes met he put his hand behind his head and mimed being lynched. Then he stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes, she choked out a laugh and hid it behind her magazine.

  A second later Ben didn’t look so amused. The creep had his hand on Lily’s wrist and was trying to pull her towards him.

  Lily made a joke of it and shook free of him and Ben visibly relaxed. He came over towards Jen on the pretext of filling her cup, “Christ what is she doing, the guy is totally lame right?”

  “I know,” Jen agreed. “I guess he’s attractive though in that kind of blond preppy way. I don’t know Lily well enough to know what she likes in a date. I think she’s supposed to know some of the same friends as him.”

  “Really - he looks a little bit older than her, don’t you think?”

  “Jen looked again, I don’t know I’m no good at guessing people’s age, how old do you think he is?”

  “He’s around thirty to thirty two if he’s a day, how old is she?”

  “Twenty three I think, that doesn’t mean she can’t have friends the same age as him though.”

  “I don’t think Todd would be too happy if he walked in and caught his little sister with an old dude.”

  “Excuse me, if this guy’s 30, he’s younger than Todd according to Lily, and I’m 27. How old are you?”

  “Nearly twenty three – but I’m mature for my age.”

  Jen laughed, “Yeah I can really see that right now.”

  Ben grinned, “Well after this guy crashes and burns you might have to put in a good word for me with Lily, I’ve already got her brother on side.”

  “You’re moving on, huh?”

  “I was the minute I saw her,” he said simply, and Jen was shot with envy at the simplicity of his statement and the ease with which he obviously meant it.

  “Are you ok today?” he asked, noting the shift in her mood.

  “Just a bit envious of you,” she sighed. “Things weren’t that cut and dried for me when I was your age or even now come to think of it.”

  “God now who’s talking like their old, why don’t you just say, “it wasn’t like that back in the day,” Ben teased.

  Jen stiffened. Looking over Ben’s shoulder, she saw Lily get to her feet and heard her voice raised, “Do you even know Pete Cross?” she was demanding.

  “Of course I do babe,” her date replied, his hand was back on her wrist and he was trying to force her back down to the table.” Lily looked like she was grimacing.

  “Let go of me,” she seethed. Jen jumped to her feet but Ben beat her to it,” You look like you need another refill Sir,” he said, before knocking the creep’s cup into his lap.

  “Fuck! You stupid bastard you’re lucky that wasn’t hot, I’d fucking sue you.”

  Ben grabbed the guy by his tie and even though the guy had him by a couple of inches, he yanked him up and out of the booth and had him at the door before the girls’ could blink. “Good day to you sir, we don’t allow our customers to be mauled,” and gave him a boot out of the door for good measure.

  He turned round and came back to t
hem; Jen had her arm around Lily and was comforting the taller girl who was trembling in shock.

  “I don’t think he knew my friends at all,” she whispered, rubbing her wrist which was red raw where he’d gripped her.

  Chapter 5

  “Come here and sit down while I clean this mess up, then Floyd can cover for me while I walk you girls’ home. I want to make sure that asshole isn’t around to follow you.”

  Jen didn’t like the look on Lily’s face. It struck her for the first time they had something in common, she was innocent for her age too and she rubbed her arm trying to transfer some reassurance.

  “Lily you don’t need me to tell you that scum like him pull stuff like that over the internet all the time, they’re very good at it. You did exactly the right thing - you had somebody here to look out for you. Don’t blame yourself for this, ok?”

  Ben stood up from mopping the table and joined in, “You’re too pretty to be hooking up with jerks over the internet anyway.”

  “I’m so stupid, I was just trying to make new friends here and...” she started sobbing.

  Ben coaxed Lily into his arms as Jen stood watching them. They were a good match together. Both blond, although Ben was kind of a dirty blond, he was a nice size - about 5 ten maybe she thought, looking at him again. Lily in her flat shoes tucked neatly into his neck and looked like she belonged there. Jen felt a mix of envy and excitement for them, they looked right together. She and Todd must look like David and Goliath she thought, shaking her head.

  “Come on girls, let’s go.” Ben broke away and threw his apron to the guy behind the counter.

  During the walk back to the apartment block the tension eased a little and the three started to have a little joke between them at the creep’s shortcomings. Ben was easygoing and friendly and pushed between the two of them, looped his arms about their waists and squeezed.

  “Aargh, don’t do that,” Jen squawked. I can’t stand anybody grabbing me round the middle I’m ticklish,” which sent Ben off tickling the pair of them and chasing them up the pavement, until they were all breathless.