Thank you so much for the reviews. I am indeed back and here's chapter 9 and a rather different chapter 10 (it's to distract you whilst I write up 12 onwards) Feed with your work, I'm sure I can't be the only one writing!
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Harry walks back through the building, past the people whose stories she'll never know. She thinks about the career that she trained for, now perhaps lost, even though she does love this job. And the wasted time with Robert. Months of her life taken from her.
Not every man is like Robert.
James has earned so much. His confession that he needed her when she was scared, invoked a completely different response to that of Robert who had crawled on his knees like a poisonous serpent hissing the same words in front of all their acquaintances. People who turned out to be viciously fickle about their allegiances, undermining any confidence she had. It's only Angela and a few others who had warned her that Robert was trouble who remained loyal. James had, unwittingly created a storm with his same words, on that sorrowful meeting when she had pushed him away. That storm had created her to take action, and here she is again. His invite, gently pushing her a little more from her comfort zone.
Staring over the balcony of the museum, Harry can picture Dempsey on the landing and considers what she feels not what what she should or ought, what protocol to follow, dictated by her upbringing.
She grabs her bag and coat. Bugger dead dinosaurs, she's got some living to do.
In the gift shop, she finds a bobble hat with a T-rex on it for Emily, and a small t-shirt suitable for a little boy. Then she speeds home, spontaneously stopping at the corner shop where she's seen a pot plant. It looks strange in her hands, does he even care about plants? Impulsively she also gets the ingredients and decorations for a chocolate cake, digging into her late mother's cookbooks for a recipe. It's the least she can do for his birthday. Robert didn't like anything homemade. Stupid arse, she thinks. As she cooks she puts on the radio and turns it up loudly. She's never had music on loud. Listening for strange noises and living on the edge has become a habit she wants to break.
Whilst the cake cools, she throws herself in the shower, and quickly dresses, pulling on some comfortable jeans and a light jumper, tying up her hair into a bun. She sings whilst she adds the decorations to the cake, sticking in a few candles and pops it into a tin. It keeps her busy until Dempsey knocks on the door. He pauses on the steps and runs gentle eyes over her, "What did I say, huh? Perfect"
Then he hears the music playing and grins. "I think we need to move the party here."
"Oh gosh, I'm sorry!" She runs ahead of him to turn it off, but he stops her.
"Don't. It's good." Dempsey dares to hold out his arms and is delighted when she joins him in a shambolic dance around the living room which has them both grinning like fools.
It's the perfect way for him to arrive into her home. The first time any man, apart from her father has been here. Harry keeps this secret to herself, and watches him relax into her space. Suddenly his eyes light up and he taps his face, "Somethin' smells amazing, the nose knows!"
"I've been baking." She laughs, "I heard there was a birthday going on."
"Who are you, Wonder Woman?" He follows her to the kitchen and then looks around for evidence.
"Some detective you are." She looks pointedly at the tin with a grin, but puts her hand on it before he reaches it, "Oh, no! Later."
"You're full of surprises," With a crafty look, Dempsey offers to carry it and she firmly, but playfully, disagrees.
As she checks the locks on the back door, he lingers by the kitchen window. "It's a beautiful place."
She pauses then and looks at him standing there, feeling a little overwhelmed. It's not fear, but maybe the trepidation that comes with moving from the old to the new. When she stands in the safe circle of his arms, she thinks nothing of the sort. She feels a kiss pressed to her head.
"You don't have to do anything you don't want to." He says quietly and then, in a lighter tone, "We can stay here, eat whatever you've been baking. I won't tell Emily if you won't."
"I had a bit of a wobble." She confesses, "Thank you. I just got a bit worried."
"'Bout me in here, huh?" Dempsey asks, reluctantly letting her go and watching her put her shoes on. "Hey, it's okay, I'd rather know so I can help."
She demurs, and then knows he's right, "Yes. Not because I was scared, but because it suits you so much."
"That's nice to know." Dempsey says softly. Harry nods carefully as she picks up the tin and he follows her out, feeling the imprint of her. He waits for her to switch on the alarms.
On the drive to his place, she points out some of the places she remembers from before her marriage. A pub she recalls, a club and shops she went to. Not to impress, but somehow to explain that she's not the sum total of her marriage. That she was once alive.
"That's where I've been doing self defence lessons." She points out the small studio to him and almost almost misses the look of pride on his face.
"How's it going," he says lightly, not wanting to patronise her.
"Good, I feel a lot better for it, a bit more confident." She says. "Chucked someone over my shoulder last week."
Dempsey chuckles at this, "I'd better watch myself."
When he pulls up outside St Mary's, where he lives, she gasps. "James, you said my place was nice! This places are as rare as hen's teeth."
"NYPD have been paying my rent. I've got a couple of months and then I have to move on." He looks up at the building. "I'll miss it but there's no way I can manage it alone… hey, Mr Foley." He raises a hand to an elderly gentleman who is tackling a roll of carpet.
"You need a hand with that?" Harry watches as Dempsey lifts the roll and drops it into the skip. "Ask me next time, huh?"
"Caretaker." He explains in the lift, allowing her some space to collect her thoughts, "Still thinks he can bench press and lift furniture. He can spin a yarn so long you need two cases of beer to get through it." He grins as she laughs.
Emily is waiting on the landing for them, "I saw your car." She announces without preamble and none of the shyness she had shown earlier that day.
"I should take you on stakeouts," Dempsey says mildly, "Somethin' tells me you're not out here to see me."
Emily shakes her head and says a cheery hello to Harry who kneels down to her level. "Hello again, I need your help with something later. Is that okay?"
At this the girl nods and then looks at her uncle who is lingering, "Is it a secret?"
"A really good surprise after the film, can you wait that long?" Harry asks.
Emily nods seriously and then shoves her hand into Harry's and leads her into the flat, and to Thelma's warm welcome. Behind her, there's a dark haired woman and a sandy haired man, who holds a squirming boy she assumes to be Tom. Harry can see the likeness between the aunt and siblings.
"Harry, I'm Gemma and this is Bobby, we're so pleased to meet you." Gemma takes her hand between hers. "Thank you for entertaining Emily this morning, she loved her visit."
After Emily has given Harry the tour of the vast flat and she's admired his bedroom which earns a loaded look between her and Dempsey, Harry pops the tin on the kitchen table and shoos him out. He's exchanged for his sister, holding Tom, and Thelma. With Emily, they ooh and aah over the cake.
"I don't remember the last time we did this." Gemma says, "Damm, I wanna stick my head in that tin and never come out." And they all laugh and plot when to light the candles.
"Jim had a bit of rough time growing up." Thelma begins as she orchestrates the birthday tea and hands Gemma two bottles of beer for the boys. "Not much in the way of birthdays going on then."
"He mentioned his father earlier today." Harry mentions tentatively wondering if she should say anything at all.
"He did?" Thelma looks surprised and then pats Harry's hand, "I expect he would…"
Harry isn't sure what to make of this, but assumes it's good. She watches his aunt pile up plates of nachos onto a tray. In the distance she can hear the theme tune of the show start up and Emily's giggles.
"Why the big sigh then?" Thelma asks gently.
Harry is surprised, unaware that she'd expressed her doubts so audibly. "I don't know if James has said anything about my ex-husband?"
"He only said that your ex was a louse and I'm gonna read between the lines on that. I'm so sorry, honey." Thelma leans on the counter waiting for Harry to compose herself. "My nephew is rough round the edges, brought up in a tough place full of gangs but he got his way out of it and found himself here through no fault of his own because he has values. He's been through a helluva a lot including a crazy ex-girlfriend, but he's got a big heart. He'll do right by you if you let him, honey. Have a little faith in him."
Then, as if cast by spells, Dempsey appears with his brother-in-law, holding the baby in his arms, "We're gettin' hungry in here." He ambles over to Harry, "You fine?"
"I'm fine." She agrees, he nods and she hears him say that she'll always be fine, affectionately before handing the child to his father.
"Be useful and take these." Thelma pushes the trays over to them. The action breaks Harry's quiet reflection in which she notices that Dempsey hasn't stopped looking at her, as if he is also trying to work through a puzzle of his own. Whatever it is, he looks happy at the conclusion he reaches.
"Can I look in the tin yet?" He asks suddenly jolting them all out of their thoughts, and Harry joins Thelma, with the cheerful protesting, much to his delight.
During the film, she sits between Emily, now resplendent in her T-Rex hat, and Dempsey. His arm is resting on the back of the sofa, around Harry and she finds herself nestled into the crook of his shoulder. Occasionally he tugs his niece's hat much to her bafflement until she sees him do it. His family try to match up relatives to puppets. Over popcorn, Gemma shares photos of their mother. Harry and Dempsey agree that Sam the Eagle is Spikings which has them both laughing.
"Can we do the surprise now?" Emily nudges Harry as the credits role. Harry wills herself to be calm, suddenly uncertain if she's overstepped the mark. Making a cake in her family was a special thing to do, an act of love and kindness. Either way, the eager faces of his family mean she has to go ahead. Her hands shake anyway, as she lights the candles.
"You gotta sing now," Emily tells her family when she's run down the hall, leaving Harry to carry in the cake to the wobbly singing of Happy Birthday and Dempsey's surprised face.
"Blow and make a wish." Harry tells him before her nerves fail her. She watches from the privileged position of 'too close' as he blows out the candles.
"I made a wish." He says obediently sharing a seductive grin. It's the first time he's openly looked at her like that. A demand for cake brings them both back to their senses.
"You made this, for me? It's amazing." Dempsey demolishes his slice in two bites and she can't resist wiping the crumbs from his grin with her thumbs. He puts out an arm, waiting for her to step towards him. It's a small thing she's come to love about him, as if he's read a manual that she hasn't, and she welcomes his presence and the light kiss to her hair. "Thank you."
"Worth the wait?" She asks lightly.
"Everything about you is worth the wait" He murmurs and for once, she doesn't feel afraid.