Chapter Ten

"I'll leave you to get yourself sorted"

His face was a blank canvas, devoid of any expression that would tell her what he was thinking so that she'd no bloody clue what was going on in his head, although she couldn't say the same about what was going through hers as he stood there not only looking bloody gorgeous, but like a grown-up. He was eyeing the pile of rubbish bags that were currently stuffed full of her worldly goods and the jumbled heap of her clothes still on hangers and covering most of the Arsenal cover on Sam's bed, before shaking his head in slight disbelief almost as if it hadn't been his bloody idea that she should arrive here like Little Orphan Annie with her life in bin bags.

"You get unpacked, there should be some space in the cupboard for that lot and I'll go and get us some food, Thai?"

"Thanks"

She was tempted to salute and say 'Yes Sir' both at his tone and because he had that 'look' of his on his face as he closed the door behind him and left her standing on her own in the middle of the debris of her life. Shit, shit, shit, this wasn't the way it was supposed to have been, admittedly she hadn't exactly done a whole load of thinking with her head recently, but still, and she hadn't for one single solitary bloody moment expected to end up sleeping on her own in some kiddie bed under a bleeding Arsehole cover of all things.

She'd obviously been suffering from a particularly nasty dose of advanced brain freeze the day that she'd decided she had the serious hots for Mr Bossy Bastard so that she'd let him waltz in and take over her entire life and had then ended up here, standing in his spare room like a wet weekend in Skeggie, as Nan would say, looking at the space where he'd been standing while she asked herself what the fuck she'd been thinking? Well apart from the obvious of course, and that didn't look like it was going to happen any time soon, if ever, judging from the way that he kept walking off. Oh shit, where had she got her special talent for getting things so bloody wrong? Mind you, it probably wasn't her fault, it was more than likely genetic.

She'd been happy ….. ish …. things at work had been fine, mostly and she'd had a really good mate to share a laugh with when things had been shit, someone who now hated her, and she'd had her own place even if she had had this tiny problem with going in through the door, but she'd lived with that hadn't she? And if she was being honest, which she hadn't been particularly, it wasn't all about Liam, well not completely, but what the fucketty fuck had she got now? She still had this difficulty with getting a bit anxious about ….. things …. and a bleeding enormous crush on some good looking bloke who was letting her squat in his kiddie's bedroom ….. and it weren't even as if he hadn't told her, warned her even, he had. He'd said he wouldn't stay with her at hers, which should have told her, and he'd said he wanted to wait out, whatever the fuck that meant, but she'd thought that he didn't mean it, that he were only saying, oh shit.

They were not even half way through their takeaway when Molly decided that she didn't like Thai curry any more than she would have liked the Lobster Whatsit he'd been banging on about the night before. Something else to add to the list of things that they hadn't got in common. She was bloody sure now that she'd never eaten it before and that hell would freeze over before she'd choose to eat it ever again, mind you she wasn't a bit hungry which didn't help …. .

"Leave that if you don't want it"

It would have been lovely to think that he'd gone all concerned and caring about whether or not she was enjoying her dinner as she put the tiniest fragment she could get on the fork into her mouth and did her best to swallow it without letting him see her shudder. She had this horrible feeling that she was irritating him beyond belief by pushing the food round her plate instead of eating it and that he was beginning to think she was about the same age as his little boy.

"It's fine, I'm just not very hungry, sorry"

She chewed at the corner of her bottom lip and looked at the congealed mess of sticky rice and bits of unidentified vegetables and … stuff .. chicken 'n that, which definitely wasn't any more appetising now she'd let it get stone cold as she'd pushed it around, so that the thought of actually eating it made her want to gag. But it had more than likely cost him a sodding fortune, this sort of stuff did, didn't it? so she felt that she'd need to apologise because she was now pretty sure that she wasn't going to be able to force any more of it past her throat, well not without spewing anyway, but as she looked up to tell him how sorry she was that she'd wasted it she was just in time to catch the smirk as it made a fleeting appearance on his face.

"What? What's funny?"

"You …. sorry"

He was now smiling in earnest as though something was thoroughly amusing so that Molly put her fork down carefully on the side of the plate before screwing up the paper napkin and putting it on top of the food that to her eyes looked for all the world like a plate of cold sick. She wasn't even going to pretend she was going to try and eat any more of it nor apologise as she muttered that she was glad she was amusing him, aware that she was behaving like one of her brothers when they were having a strop, in fact all that was missing was the foot stamp. One thing was crystal clear and that was that stopping here, with him, like this, even temporary was not going to work. All she had to do now was work out where the fuck she was going to go.

She could go back to hers of course, she'd done it before so she could do it again, or she could go to east Ham and she'd probably cope now as long as she kept telling herself Liam wasn't hiding under her bunk bed, or she could go to her room, her room for fuck sake? and look through her phone, see whether she could find a mate who'd let her sofa surf for a bit …..

"I'm going to go and finish ….sorting stuff and maybe go to bed early, been a long day"

"Right"

He didn't say anything else, just lifted his eyebrows in some unspoken question and looked pointedly at his watch to check the time so that Molly wanted nothing more than to go over and wallop him, this was already bloody bad enough without him smirking or expecting her to make everything worse by having to explain. They had been brain numbingly polite to one another the whole evening, at the same time as being exceptionally careful not to accidentally touch or get in each other's way when they'd loaded the dishwasher and Molly wished that she'd taken him up on his offer of wine. A lot of it. She'd thought it was a bad idea at the time he'd offered in case it loosened her tongue, or something, but now ….

"Good night then, sleep well, I've got a very early start so I'll see you tomorrow evening"

"I've gotta be up early too, you know, busses 'n that, get to work"

No-one in their right mind could have described it as a reasonable time for her to take herself off to bed but then she hadn't realised quite how early it was, it was no wonder he'd given her this look when he'd checked what the time was. But she hadn't been intending to go to bed to go to sleep, it was just so that she could make some phone calls and plan her escape, it'd be miles easier to do it when he wasn't around. It wasn't that she wanted to be ungrateful or nothing but any more evenings like the one she'd just had and she'd end up nicking Nan's Valium and washing it down with a pint of Vodka.

She didn't go straight for her phone, instead she flung herself on the bed with her head at the wrong end and her bare feet stuck up on the wall while she stared at this tiny little crack on the ceiling and tried to work out what had put him off. Obviously there was her nut job act the night before to consider because she was sure that he'd liked her before that, had fancied her when he'd kissed her by that bloody bus stop but he'd told her that her funny stuff didn't matter, that it didn't worry him and she'd believed that at the time, so what was it? Trying to work out what the fuck she could say to Lauren to get her back on side was just as much of a thankless task, although one good thing was that she wouldn't have to lie when she told her she was squatting and not sleeping with him.

-OG-

A resounding crash and the following loud yelp of pain or fright had him leaping out of his bed all bleary and rubbing sleep out of eyes that had been glued shut as he tore into the spare room, his subconscious telling him to expect to see the crumpled and tearful heap of Sam.

"What happened?"

He moved to where she was sitting on the floor looking up at him through a tangled mass of wild curly hair and tugging at the football shirt she was wearing before turning her attention to rubbing her shins where she'd bashed them, checking them closely for blood where she'd fallen over one of her bin bags and crashed into the bedside table. She was swearing loudly while she struggled not to cry, language that if he hadn't been quite so deeply asleep would have told him instantly that it wasn't Sam who'd just fallen out of bed, at least he hoped not because if it had been they were wasting a small fortune on his school fees.

"Are you hurt? Here, let me get the light so you can see what you've done"

He leaned across over her and picked up the bedside lamp from where it had fallen on the floor and then flicked it on making her screw up her eyes up against the sudden unaccustomed glare.

"I'm alright, I'm not hurt, there's no blood or bones sticking out or nothing, I'm just a bit bruised" She looked ruefully down at her reddened leg and rubbed it again "Bloody hurts though, sorry, think I might 'ave been sleep walkin' a bit cos I do that sometimes 'n I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you"

"Come on, here …"

He put out a hand to help her to her feet as she tugged at her West Ham top again, she was trying to make sure that it was covering her bum because she hadn't been able to find the sleep shorts she usually wore in the bin liner that she'd ended up tripping over and could only hope that there hadn't been enough light for him to see everything when he'd first come in, flashing him on top of everything else would have been the final bloody straw.

"Sorry"

"You don't need to keep saying sorry, you didn't do it on purpose did you?"

"Nah, I mean sorry about all of this, everything, I'll be getting out of your hair tomorrow you'll have your peace 'n quiet back"

Oh god, here she went again sounding like a petulant kid, telling him that he'd be sorry once she'd gone, why the fuck couldn't she just be her normal self around him?

"What are you talking about?"

"Think it might be best if I go, you know what with everything"

"Why? You can't go back there and why would you want to?" He ran his hand over his hair and then put it on the back of his neck tugging at his curls, a worried frown creasing his forehead "I don't want you to go, how about we talk about it tomorrow?"

"Look, CJ …. Charles …. Bossman" She lifted her eyebrows and grinned, trying her best to make it sound as if she was being light hearted "Well whatever we're calling you today" She giggled again to try and convince him that she was joking and that this was no big deal "You've been really, really kind to me 'n that and I really appreciate it, but …"

"I'm not being kind, look, it's been a bit …. difficult .. this evening, but I never meant you to feel that I didn't want you here and I'm sorry if that's what happened" He had this contrite look on his face that made her want to yell at him to stop doing it, to stop looking at her like that "How about I take you out tomorrow for something to eat, we can go back and see Shirl if you like and then we can have a chat, get to know each other a bit better?" He ran his tongue round his mouth and then moistened his lips which were suddenly and unaccountably dry as he looked down into huge green eyes and the tangled curls and felt a familiar tightening in his groin at the thought that she was naked under that over-sized football shirt.

"What like a date? I thought you didn't do dates?"

"Of course I do dates, so what do you say? And could you do me a favour and stop looking at me like that, I'm doing my best here but I'm not a bloody saint"

"Like what? What you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about" He ran his hands through his curls again and shook his head as if he was trying to clear away some sort of muzziness before he spoke again "I was trying to take this slowly, trying not to rush or I don't know, to take advantage ….. I wasn't trying to make you want to go for fuck sake"

"You're not, are you? Taking advantage I mean"

He sat on the edge of the bed and lowered his head so that he was looking at his feet as Molly sat down next to him and stretched her legs out in front of her to check again the red scrape mark on her shin. She was close but not actually touching and she wasn't sure whether the shake of his head was an answer to her question or whether it was in a general denial of the direction this conversation was taking, whether he was denying the attraction that was there between them.

"I thought you'd gone off me, that you didn't like me anymore or some'ing"

"How could I possibly go off you? It's just … for a start I'm much older than you are, probably far too bloody old, and you said it yourself I'll be old and grey a long time before you will"

"You're not that old ….. are you?" She giggled at the sudden feeling of happiness that was bubbling up and threatening to swamp her "How old are you anyhow?"

"I'm twenty nine, nearly thirty"

"SHIT, are you?" She giggled again "THIRTY?"

"Alright, I said I was old didn't I? How old are you by the way?"

"Not as old as you"

She giggled, she had no intention of telling him her exact age because she had the distinct feeling that if she admitted that she was only just twenty two he'd start freaking again and probably run a mile.

He lifted his head to look at her then shook it slightly laughing softly as she broke into the sort of grin that told him she was teasing so that without either of them saying another word he did her new most favourite thing in the entire world and started running his hand through her hair to collect it in a bundle and then twisted it round the back of his knuckles winding it as if it was a rope. He didn't pull her hair hard enough to hurt but he didn't pull it as gently as he'd done the first time he'd done it either, as he pulled her head back meaning she had no choice but to look up into his face. His kiss, when it came, was another of his not quite brush of lips against hers, a tiny touch that made her tremble with wanting more as her breath hitched in her throat, and this time he didn't pull away, instead he tilted his head a tiny fraction until he could look down into her eyes before smiling, one of his loving, stomach churning smiles that made her want to snog him senseless or wind herself round him and arch her body against his, as he tightened his hold and kissed her until they were both struggling from a lack of oxygen so that they had to stop and come up for air.

"You know, I were just thinking"

"God, that sounds dangerous"

He put out a hand and smoothed her hair back from her face as he smiled into her eyes.

"I was gonna say I think thirty's perfect" She put a hand up to touch his cheek so that he angled his head towards her touch "But I'm not now"

He got off the bed and pulled her up to her feet with him, then smirked and gave out a loud shout of happy laughter as he put an arm under her knees and swung her up into his arms as easily as if she was Sam.

"Fuck taking things slowly"

-OG-

A/N: Am busy trying to work out how to avoid Chapter 11 having to go into the 'M' section – will update ASAP – hope you enjoyed this.