For all of you who have been patiently waiting...we're getting close now. Thanks for all your support.


Chapter Forty-Two

Sunday 14th July

I won't give up on us

Harry had been back for two weeks and in some ways it felt like forever but at other times he felt just as much out of place in London as he had done in America. Stupid things caught him out like trying to push open the front doors of buildings that had to be pulled, mistyping on an English style keyboard and looking the wrong way when crossing the road.

Thursday had been a case in point, they had talked on the phone on Wednesday night and Harry had complained about running out of boxes, so Nikki had promised to drop some round during her lunch break on Thursday. It was no doubt a peace offering to make up for her behaviour but he wasn't picky.

He opened Leo's door to a mass of cardboard, only Nikki's impossibly high shoes poking out at the bottom.

"There's another load in the car," she'd said as he squashed himself against the wall to let her pass. She had followed him down the drive as he prepared to cross the road to her car.

"Harry!" she had screeched, grabbed his arm and pulled him back onto the pavement, just as a cycle courier had zipped past yelling obscenities and calling him an idiot.

Harry stood dazed on the pavement; he must have looked the wrong way and not heard the cyclist coming. If Nikki hadn't have grabbed him he'd have been splattered in the road, along with the cyclist who had been flying along. The realisation of what had actually happened took a while to register and then he was stunned to find that he was still stood at the edge of the road with his arms tight around his friend, closer than they had been since he returned and that she was shaking as much as he was.

They had stood at the side of the road clinging on to each other long after the danger had passed. Both of them drawing strength from the other; the closeness of their bodies healing the wounds that their fight had inflicted. The sudden shock had broken through the barriers they had erected between them and for once the silence between them was filled with all that they wanted to say but couldn't find the words for.

"You don't want me dead," Harry had gasped with relief. Thinking how easy it would have been for her to stand back and do nothing, her actions assuring him that her words of the other evening were not true. He felt her shake her head against him.

"Thank you," he'd muttered quietly, his face still buried in her neck.

"I'm so sorry," she had said and he'd heard the shake in her voice. "I can't believe I did that the other night, I can't believe I hit you like that."

"I deserved it," Harry said simply. "You have every right to be angry with me, I'm sorry I missed that funeral. I should have come back, I should have just let NYU get mad at me for a couple of days, they'd have gotten over it. I should have been here for you."

"NYU?" Nikki questioned.

"Well Candy mostly. Until I left I didn't realise how much she was manipulating me. Jorge had told me. I just didn't see it myself. I'm sorry. She always had another agenda."

"Why didn't you stop me?" Nikki asked her face tucked against his shirt and the now steady beat of his heart in her ear. "You could have easily stopped me."

"I told you, I deserved it." He could feel her looking at him, asking another unspoken question without even seeing her face.

"Nikki, it will never happen again," he said in a stern voice, "but you do know that no matter how much you provoke me. I will not retaliate. I would never hurt you like that. Don't you think I've hurt you enough?"

"Harry," she whispered and pulled him closer.

"You really think this could be possible?" she whispered. He could feel her begin to tremble again in his arms.

"I have to believe this is possible."

"And you don't believe in fantasy."

"No I don't," he agreed.

He knew his trembling now wasn't anything to do with his near miss with a cyclist.

Eventually she'd pulled away and looked him in the eye and asked if they were alright without saying a word.

Then she had disappeared back to work and he had gone back to clearing Leo's house but he hated the mistakes. It was humiliating. He accepted the errors he made in New York as did everyone else. He only had to open his mouth and his accent gave him away but here on his home turf it was just mortifying. The feel of Nikki's arms around him holding him tight and keeping him safe was worth it. She'd shouted that she wanted him dead, but here she was pulling him out of danger and clinging onto him as if she was drowning and he was the only thing keeping her afloat. Finally it seemed as if they had taken a step forward.

##

He thought later about what he should do when they met up on Sunday. He knew she'd been busy at work that week; he wanted to give her a chance to relax when he took her out. He needed to do something, take her a gift of some kind but what could he take her? Flowers? He didn't want it to seem like a date. He didn't want to scare her off. The last time he had bought her flowers he'd taken her some cut sunflowers and that was as a peace offering after she had found out he was leaving and they'd had an almighty row. No he wouldn't take flowers.

He thought back to the Sunday before, she'd been on the phone and he'd had been wandering about trying to notice what had changed in her house in the year he'd been away. She had got a new picture, he'd not thought anything of it at the time, but now with all his thoughts about flowers it reminded him. The picture was a field of sunflowers. There was hardly space for sky just row upon row of sunflowers. Was it significant? He wondered. He hated to admit it, but Leo's dodgy car stereo music had even given him the idea.

'You don't bring me flowers,'

Had been the song that he couldn't turn off the first time he'd done battle with the radio.

He didn't want to give her something that was ending. He wanted a new beginning.

His plans were growing, his website was about to go live, Leo's house was getting clear. The loft was done, the shed and one of the spare bedrooms. There were still masses of books in the study waiting for a time when they could work on it together. The only thing that wasn't progressing was somewhere for Harry to buy and live. Every place he looked at was falling apart, or wouldn't be practical. The only one he'd liked had had paper thin walls and the kid next door was learning to play the piano. Harry had only spent twenty minutes looking around and he'd hummed that piano tune for the rest of the day.

"It's not the violin," the estate agent had said cheerily.

"I don't think it'll work."

##

He wondered about the reception he'd receive this week as his finger hovered over the doorbell. She could have staged the call last week to get out of spending time with him. However she had never been duplicitous in the past. He would have to trust her.

"Oh, lovely thanks Harry just what I wanted, a tub of mud," Nikki said sarcastically as he handed over the red plant pot and dish.

"Just you wait," he replied.

This one wasn't cut and just waiting to die. This one was planted ready to grow.

She placed the pot on her windowsill.

"What I just wait?" she asked.

"You might need to water it occasionally. You'll manage."

"It's a big responsibility!" Nikki insisted.

Harry laughed.

"What's all this?" Harry asked pointing at the pile of bed linen in the middle of the floor.

"Oh, my washing machine is on the fritz, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't."

"Oh," Harry paused. "Why don't I take it with me and use Leo's machine?"

Nikki looked at the pile. It was only sheets, there weren't any clothes. There was nothing intimate in there.

"That sounds like a great idea," she agreed.

"I thought we might try a pub for lunch? What do you think?" Harry knew this was a risk. Things were still unpredictable between them, the smallest thing could set her off and the tears often came. She would feel safer here, or in Leo's garden.

"Why not?" she replied decisively.

"Let's go then," Harry had replied and offered her his arm for the first time since his return.

Harry imagined Beto laughing at him for taking his time, but Harry thought if he did get this right, time was the one thing they would have plenty of. He could wait, not for much longer but he could wait for now.

"Nikki?" He asked as they drove along, his face studiously watching the traffic. "Do you remember talking to me about pear drops once?"

"Vaguely," Nikki lied. She'd known at the time it should have been their last ever conversation, she remembered every word.

"Why?"

"We were just talking about how to make decisions."

"We?"

"Your mother and I."

"Oh,"

Harry manoeuvred round a roundabout.

"She must have told you about my early childhood trauma at the pick and mix counter."

"Yes," Nikki agreed.

"And you thought you were my pear drop, the thing I always got but never actually wanted."

Nikki looked out of the window to the side, glad that Harry's gaze was on the traffic and not looking into her darkness and mire of insecurities. "I did."

"Believe me Nikki," Harry said, taking his eyes of the road for a second to meet hers. "I have always wanted you in my life, from the first moment I met you. You have never ever been my pear drop."

"It never felt like I was first choice," she said quietly to the window. "There was always something else, or someone else, or the case or…"

"That's all changed Nikki. Please don't think you're not my first choice."

"I'm not though…" she said grudgingly.

"No, you're my only choice. You're the only woman I want."

They travelled on in silence for a while and Nikki excused herself to the ladies as soon as they arrived. Harry fiddled with the ten pound note in his hand waiting to attract the barman's attention. He'd frightened her off again; she'd probably walked straight out of the fire exit at the back. They'd been at this pub years before, it hadn't changed that much. In fact it looked a bit sad and neglected, nothing like the sort of bar he'd go to with Jorge. Even the music was drab and non-descript. The barman was still ignoring him, Harry looked back towards the ladies but there was no sign of Nikki. He tuned into the music for the chorus.

I won't give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I'm giving you all my love
I'm still looking up.

He wouldn't give up. He'd had to promise his mother as much when he'd seen her that week. She'd avoided the topic of Nikki the first few times they'd seen each other, but the conversation had to come, just as the one about when he was going to remove the boxes of stuff from his flat that were still at her house did.

She'd not exactly asked what his intentions were, not with so many words. She'd asked how Nikki was first of all and Harry's honest answer had been, "A mess."

"Are you going to try and help her?" his mother had asked.

"I am."

"You're not going to make it worse?"

"I'm going to try not to,"

"She'll need time," his mother had pronounced wisely.

The barman had finally broken his conversation and asked Harry for his order, he'd asked for a pint and was about to say that was all when he felt Nikki brush against his arm.

"I'll have a white wine please," she asked, receiving the barman's full attention. Harry decided he was sending her to get the next round.

"What?" she asked as they sipped their drinks.

"I'd forgotten how beautiful you are?" he suggested.

"No you hadn't."

Harry shrugged and looked around, he couldn't really explain what he was feeling.

"You're missing it."

"Eh?"

"New York, You're missing it."

"I suppose I am."

"This pub's a bit different to that gay bar you took me too."

Harry laughed into his pint.

"You wouldn't even let me walk down the street outside it was so rough," Nikki continued.

"Too bloody right I wouldn't, No this place isn't quite like that is it."

"I had fun though," Nikki smiled.

"I did too," he said and returned her smile and for once she held his gaze.


I won't give up on us: Jason Mraz

Also if you need a laugh try 'The ukulele orchestra of Great Britain,' version of 'You don't bring me flowers.' I love Neil Diamond but this version is very funny.