Just Between Us Read online

  Just Between Us

  Hayley Oakes

  Copyright © 2014 Hayley Oakes

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and for review purposes. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity.

  Copy Editor: Madison Seidler

  Cover Design by Helen O’Hare

  Dedicated to,

  My harshest critic and my biggest fan,

  My sparring partner and my confidante,

  My tormenter and my light relief,

  My pragmatist and my supportive dreamer,

  My teaser and my mediator,

  My ally, my partner and my friend.

  To the many roles of my Husband.

  Thank you for testing my patience whilst making our life into wonderful memories with many more to come, I love you.

  Content

  One – Just single

  Two – Just trying

  Three - Just awkward

  Four – Just speaking

  Five – Just kissed

  Six – Just civil

  Seven – Just chemistry

  Eight – Just irresistible

  Nine – Just confused

  Ten – Just happy

  Eleven – Just infuriating

  Twelve – Just Kyle

  Thirteen – Just friends

  Fourteen – Just stunning

  Fifteen – Just forgive

  Sixteen – Just couples

  Seventeen – Just reunited

  Eighteen – Just arrived

  Nineteen – Just contented

  Twenty – Just passed

  Twenty-One – Just out

  Twenty-Two – Just over

  Twenty-Three – Just petrified

  Twenty-Four – Just history

  Twenty-Five – Just miserable

  Twenty-Six – Just glimpses

  Twenty-Seven – Just hospitalised

  Twenty-Eight – Just listen

  Epilogue – Just Us

  ‘Was it such a tragedy, being you … being me?’

  Belinda Carlisle

  One – Just single

  Now

  It was supposed to be my wedding day. Instead, I sat in my old bedroom in my childhood home, eating ice cream and watching mindless television in bed, wishing that the day would pass without one person mentioning it. My bedroom hadn’t changed at all, the same flowered bedding was wrapped around me and matching wallpaper adorned the walls. The furniture was still the same white wooden set that I had always had. It was a shrine to my teenage years minus the Justin Timberlake posters.

  I didn’t live there anymore. I had no business being there, but I couldn’t face the prospect of living in the house that I shared with my ex fiancé whilst we waited to sell the thing. That house had been my heart and soul, every room meticulously decorated, every corner furnished with something chosen lovingly. He had it all now because I couldn’t stand to stay there; I no longer wanted to live in that house and see a lie everywhere I turned.

  It was no longer a happy place, the house we bought together excitedly, our first place away from our parent’s homes. We had laughed and cried whilst renovating it from a crumbling wreck to a glorious show home. We had been happy; I was sure of it. I could picture the memory of us laughing whilst painting each room and singing to the radio, eating fish and chips, covered in paint, shopping for furniture, and choosing carpets.

  We had been happy; we must have been, because 18 months ago he proposed in St Lucia. I said yes, and we had set a date. We planned, we argued about wedding menus, table plans, and our first dance. We had decided it all, we’d paid for most of it, and we were supposed to go through with it. Today was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. It wasn’t.

  “Sophie?” my mother, Maggie, said as she tapped on the door. “Are you Okay?”

  “Yes,” I replied and nodded as she approached my bed where I had laid vegetating for days.

  “Mick is ordering some pizza, love, do you want to come downstairs and have some?”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “Well we have to go out later, some bloody function Mick said we’d go to.” I didn’t want to remind her that up until a month ago she would have been at my wedding tonight, but her and my stepfather’s social life knew no bounds.

  “Good,” I snapped, “I just want to be on my own, I might watch The Notebook and cry myself to death.”

  “Oh, Soph.” She hugged me and kissed my forehead, “I can cancel and let him go alone, we'll cry together.”

  “No, go, really, I don’t want to be around anyone anyway.”

  “Oh,” she said with hesitation in her voice.

  “What?”

  “It’s Kyle, he’s coming home for the weekend, he was coming for the wedding and then just … kept it in his diary.” Great! I rolled my eyes. “He’ll probably go straight to bed,” she said, noting my lack of enthusiasm, and I bloody hoped so.

  “If you see him, tell him I’m sleeping,” I sighed. “I don’t want him in here making things worse.”

  “I’m sure he won’t bother you,” Mum said encouragingly as she slipped out of the room.

  Kyle was my step-brother. I had known of him from a safe distance since I was four, as we went to the same over populated primary and senior schools. We were never friends, we moved in different circles, in fact, we had never spoken, and I’m sure he hadn’t known I existed until our parents met when we were teenagers. I didn’t have much of an opinion of him in those days, always assuming he loved himself more than anyone else ever could because he behaved like an idiot, always showing off and playing up in classes to get laughs.

  Everyone knew of everyone in our town. It was a small seaside town in the North West of England called Lytham. The summers were not often hot but warm enough, and the winters were often cold, wet and blustery. It wasn’t the worst place to live, and I hadn’t experienced many other places to compare it to, so to me it was where I had settled.

  When we were fourteen, our parents started dating. A year later they married. My mother was single for a year after divorcing my father, and then she met Mick Hanson on a night out. He ran a local BMW car franchise, and she said he made her feel like a teenager again. They still acted like a pair of teenagers even now and complemented each other well. She adored him and fuelled his ego, she looked good on his arm and mothered him, and he loved it.

  It was awkward suddenly being related to the most popular boy at school, especially one who didn’t know I existed and with whom I had nothing in common. When they first married, Kyle and I only saw each other fleetingly every other weekend, and it was bearable, but his mother moved to Spain with her new man when we were sixteen, and so we lived together permanently after that as one big dysfunctional family.

  Kyle was popular, attractive, and he knew it. Girls flocked around him because of that, and Mick’s money. We never wanted for anything. We both drove BMWs as soon as we passed our tests at seventeen, and we lived in a beautiful home. Kyle let it all go to his head, and he was an aloof, arrogant prick. I, on the other hand, had some amazing close friends and stayed away from Kyle and his crazy followers. We lived together, but we barely tolerated each other and it was rare that we ever crossed paths. We were so different, even though we both wanted for nothing, he was spoilt and I was grateful.

  I certainly didn’t want to see him tonight. With a bit of luck the commute from his London home would be intense on a Friday evening, s
o he probably wouldn’t get back until midnight, and I’d make sure to be asleep by then.

  “We’re off now,” Mum said, popping her beautiful face around the door a few hours later. She was breathtaking for a fifty-year-old woman. Her blonde hair was tastefully tied back and her hazel eyes were shining. She wore a sparkling misty grey cocktail dress and held a pale pink clutch.

  “You look great Mum,” I sniffed.

  “Oh no,” she said, concerned, as if my sniff meant a waterfall would follow, “I can stay,” she said gliding towards me.

  “No,” I held up my hand. “Please, there is far too much misery in this room for you, go please.”

  “Right.” She kissed me again and left.

  Somehow in the depths of my despair I managed to fall asleep watching The Notebook and ice cream melted onto my pyjama top. I wasn’t sure what woke me, but I was glad, as I was uncomfortable and sticky from the ice cream. I turned the television down slightly, and made my way into my bathroom. It was shared with Kyle’s old bedroom, and fed by a door from each of the rooms. I made my way in to sort myself out, and as I did, the door from Kyle’s side was ajar slightly allowing me to see that the light in his room was on. I glared into the mirror and saw that I looked horrific. My face tired and worn, bags under my eyes, and my blonde hair lank and scraped back, I couldn’t deal with Kyle right now. I groaned, shut myself back in my room, and turned the light off.

  It was almost 2 am when I heard Mum and Mick come upstairs. I didn’t sleep very well anymore and so wasn’t disturbed by their drunken chatter, I was already awake, but it made realise that I couldn’t lie there and kid myself that I’d fall asleep any time soon. After I heard them disappear down the corridor I shuffled downstairs to get myself a drink and thought about which movie I would watch when I returned to bed to try and cure my insomnia. I stepped into the dark kitchen lit by moonlight and opened the fridge for some juice.

  “Hi.” I jumped back from the fridge, startled to see Kyle sat at the kitchen dining table, in the dark, illuminated by the light from the French Doors. A small squeal escaped my lips but not loud enough to alert anyone.

  “Kyle,” I said, my heart pounding, “It’s dark, erm, why? Erm.” I was stuttering like a fool and lit up like a Christmas tree from the fridge light behind me, highlighting my haggard state. It was awkward to be surprised by him after all these years, and I had no idea what to say.

  A smile spread across his lips as he rolled a glass tumbler of amber liquid between his thumb and forefinger, “Just finishing my drink,” he said deadpan, looking back to his glass. “I like the dark.”

  I nodded and took a deep breath, turning back to the fridge and grabbing the orange juice. I got a glass and continued to get my drink whilst I felt his eyes watching my every move.

  “You okay?” he asked, his voice was hoarse, maybe from the drink or perhaps tiredness, or maybe that was how his voice sounded now, it had been almost five years since I last heard it.

  I gave him a tight smile from across the kitchen, “I’ve been better.” I sighed.

  “You’ve looked better,” he said with a wicked grin. Only Kyle could make a joke when I was so close to rock bottom and actually make me laugh. I tried to fight the smile that spread across my face.

  “Very funny.” I said, looking down at my attire and feeling self-conscious.

  “That guy must be an idiot,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “How would you know? You never even met him.”

  “Your mum said.”

  I laughed again at his comment because my mum would never say that, and the way he was making me smile lifted me a little, the awkward fog seemed to be clearing. We hadn’t spoken for four and half years, since he was last home for Christmas. It had passed so quickly, yet it all suddenly seemed so familiar. Our parents visited him in London for weekends at a time, and I had always been too busy with my life to notice. He was usually away with friends at Christmas, and so he never came home to see any old school friends.

  “So how come you’re drinking in the dark at two in the morning?” I asked, leaning on the counter, facing where he sat.

  “Just thinking,” he sighed, “had a few drinks after the drive, then caught up with Dad and Mags when they got in.”

  I nodded, “Bet they liked that, it’s been a while.”

  “Sure has.” He said, looking at me with a pensive smile.

  I had forgotten how dazzling he was, always managing to win people over with that smile, and he seemed to bring out the giggles through the most serious of situations. We had been strangers for years despite school and our parent’s marriage, but in that last summer before university we became something more. Being here with him, ten years later, it was clear to me why. Many people didn’t see it, and for years I hadn’t, but Kyle Hanson had a softer side that was showing itself now.

  “I better get some sleep,” he said. Standing up, I stepped back instinctively as he walked to where I stood. “We can catch up tomorrow.”

  I looked up into his gaze and could see in his eyes that the alcohol had affected him a little. He looked obviously older but still devastatingly handsome, still all shaggy, dark hair that worked so well for him and piercing blue eyes. His features were so beautifully defined like a model and his skin had a rugged darkness so that he never looked pale. I was very aware of how dreadful I looked. “Okay,” I said meekly, leaning back onto the counter as he passed by to go upstairs.

  “Nice to see you, Soph,” he said, stopping in the doorway, “I am sorry about it all.”

  “Thanks.” I breathed; I couldn’t muster anything more.

  After he left I crept upstairs with my juice and fell back to into bed. It was as if the time hadn’t passed at all. He was the same self-assured Kyle, and I was heartbroken all over again.

  Two – Just trying

  Now

  The next morning I woke up and wondered if Kyle being home had been a dream, but I heard him humming in our bathroom. Kyle was always such a playboy at school, his father’s money allowed that and he had a different girlfriend every week. I had no doubt that that was his lifestyle now. He was a music producer in London these days. He had studied hard at Exeter University doing Music and Production, made a lot of contacts, did his time as the office donkey, and now he was a big deal. He was good looking, rich by anyone’s standards, and there was never any doubt that Kyle Hanson would be a success like his father.

  I made my way downstairs to everyone in the kitchen diner eating breakfast.

  “Morning, Sweetheart,” Mum crooned walking towards me and kissing my forehead. “It’s great to see you out of your room.” I rolled my eyes and Kyle stifled a smirk.

  “Jesus she’s not an invalid,” he said. Mum chuckled and went to put the kettle on.

  “Toast?” she asked, and I nodded..

  “You know,” my step-father Mick said, placing the paper he had been reading down on the dining table, “you need to snap out of this funk, it’s been a month, and you’re a pretty girl, there are plenty of blokes out there.” He nudged Kyle. “Tell her son, you must have plenty of friends who’d take her out, cheer her up.”

  “Nobody local.” he said, eating his toast.

  “Oh no she doesn’t need any of Kyle’s hooligan friends.” Mum said playfully, patting his arm, “London party animals.”

  “Hooligans?” He laughed. “I wish.”

  “Maybe Kyle should take her out and cheer her up.” Mum said.

  “Oh no,” I panicked shaking my head, leaning into the worktop on my arm, covering my face with my other hand. “I really can’t face going out. Look at me.” I motioned to myself, wearing week old pyjama’s, my hair like a bird’s nest, and my trusty old dressing gown finishing off the look. “I really don’t want to see anyone or go anywhere.” I also wasn’t sure a night out with Kyle was what I needed, he watched my panic with amusement.

  “Bloody nonsense,” Mum trilled approaching with my toast. “You’re thin as a lat after days
holed up in that room. Let’s go to the salon, get our nails done, and a spray tan. By seven you’ll be brand new and ready to hit the tiles, it is Saturday night after all.”

  Kyle smiled tightly at me, “Come on Soph, for old times sake.” He said, “I’ll take you out, let’s get wrecked, and forget about that arsehole.” I sniffed, smiling at him. He was trying to help, albeit with pressure from my mother, and perhaps it was time to get dressed and go out. She wasn’t going to give up on this, and maybe it was time to relent, after all Kyle was the first person to muster a smile out of me in weeks.

  The issue was that I didn’t want to bump into my ex, Simon, and I didn’t want anyone to see me or feel sympathy for my pathetic life. I was a teacher at the local primary school and lots of parents had known I was getting married and returning as Mrs Farmer for the new school year. I just dreaded telling everyone that it didn’t happen.

  “Sophie, for goodness sake if you don’t start getting dressed, eating, and living your life, I will call your father, and we will have an intervention,” We all laughed at her words, even Mick who had been engrossed in his paper again.

  “You’ve been watching too much Jeremy Kyle, Mags,” Kyle said laughing, “but seriously, Soph, you need to get out, and I could do with a night out myself.”

  I sighed and they all looked on expectantly. “You don’t have to take me out because Mum has put you up to this,” I said through a furrowed brow.

  “Trust me it’ll do us both good to get out of this house.” He sighed, darting his eyes between the parents for effect.

  “Sophie, I’m getting desperate,” she said, shaking her head, standing and muttering as she passed me to open the fridge.

  He caught my eye and smiled again, “Well?”

  “Fine.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Nails and tan then?” Mum said enthusiastically, spinning around excitedly at the prospect of me going out.