It Takes Two Read online

  ‘You can get married if you want, but count me out.’ She stirred her coffee for the umpteenth time.

  Shifting in his seat, his voice took on a firmer tone. ‘It takes two, you know. I meant you and me. Why don’t you and I cut through all this unsuccessful dating crap and simply get married to each other? We’re best friends. We care about one another. It makes complete sense.’

  The man had clearly lost his mind. It was the only explanation.

  Ali glowered at him. ‘It makes absolutely no sense at all. I’m amazed you’d even suggest such a ridiculous thing.’ Coffee splashed over the rim of her cup as her spoon whipped through it. ‘You must be mad. Unless you’re kidding? You are, aren’t you?’

  Simon seemed coy and didn’t reply, so for want of anything better to do and forgetting that the spoon was probably hot, Ali used it to slap the back of his hand as he cradled his coffee cup in its saucer.

  ‘That hurt.’ He frowned at her.

  ‘Don’t be a wimp.’

  He licked his thumb and wiped at the red, oval mark on his hand and the remnants of cappuccino froth the spoon had deposited. ‘Forget what I said. I’m already having second thoughts.’

  ‘Don’t scowl, Simon. It doesn’t suit you. And please don’t ever make a joke like that again. I might just take you seriously, and then where would we be?’

  There was an odd glint in his eyes when he answered. ‘Down the aisle and on our way to wedded bliss.’ The faintest hint of a smile hovered on his lips.

  ‘Up the creek without a paddle, more like. You utter dingbat.’ She slapped his forearm and grinned, leaning back and relaxing once again now that the awkward moment was over. He must have realised she had been thinking about her new boss and had used the marriage thing to take her mind off it.

  Simon ran a hand through his hair and looked out the window. ‘Speaking of paddles, doesn’t your new boss arrive today?’

  ‘Oh yeah. I’d completely forgotten it was today,’ Ali lied. She grinned at him but his attention seemed fixed on a tractor ploughing one of the fields in the distance. She pushed herself upright again and glanced at her watch. ‘Look at the time. It’s almost seven-fifteen. I’ve got to get home, grab a few minutes’ sleep if possible, then have a shower and make myself look fabulously professional before the privileged git shows his face and waves his silver spoon in the air.’ She blew on her coffee and gulped it down as fast as the heat of it would allow.

  Simon gave her a soulful look. ‘You see. That’s why you should marry me. I know what’s on your calendar better than you do.’

  Ali tutted. ‘Will you please stop using such foul language, Simon Hart. Even jokingly. And especially on a Sunday. You know I can’t bear the M-word on a good day, and today is definitely not going to be one of those. Why did you let me drink so much last night? And dance until I couldn’t walk, knowing that I had to meet my new boss this morning? Some bloody husband you’d be.’

  ‘Marry me, and you’ll see what sort of husband I’d be. I think you’d be surprised.’

  Ali frowned and, trying to ignore the pain in her feet, stood to gather her belongings. ‘I know you too well to be surprised – although I am surprised that you’re still going on about it. A joke’s a joke, Simon. Don’t beat it to death. I mean it.’ She reached across the padded bench seat to grab her handbag. ‘Stop talking about marriage. You know how I feel about it.’ She bent down to retrieve her strappy sandals from where she had slipped them off, but they were too far to reach. ‘I am never, ever, ever, going to marry anyone. Not in this lifetime. Not if my life depended on it. Not if someone paid me a million, billion, trillion pounds to tie the knot.’ She stretched her back. ‘I can’t reach my shoes. Will you get them for me, please? They’re by your feet.’

  Simon sighed, bent down and picked up the sandals by the straps, dangling them towards Ali on his fingers. ‘Your shoes, m’lady.’

  ‘Thank you, kind sir.’

  She slid her feet between the straps, which felt more like razor wire than pale blue leather and the aches and pains of too many hours dancing on very high heels really came home to roost.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘These shoes weren’t made for dancing.’

  ‘Those shoes weren’t made for walking, either. Why do you insist on inflicting so much pain on yourself?’

  ‘Looking sensational comes at a very high price, but we women are made of strong stuff. And they’re absolutely gorgeous. Even you have to admit that.’

  ‘They’re sandals, Ali. OK, they’re a pretty colour, but the nails in my garden fence aren’t anywhere near as sharp and pointed as the heels on those things.’

  ‘Heathen. I have it on good authority that shoes are an art form. How could I possibly consider spending my life with a man who doesn’t understand that?’

  ‘There are far more important things in life than shoes – and far better reasons to spend your life with me than whether or not I like them.’

  Ali slapped her hand against her chest. ‘Nothing is more important than shoes – according to my mother. Except money. And you don’t have very much of that, either.’

  Something flickered across Simon’s eyes. He opened his mouth to reply, but obviously thought better of it and merely shrugged.

  Ali grinned at him. ‘If I were ever crazy enough to consider it – which I’m not and never shall be – I suppose, on reflection, it might as well be with you. You’re the best friend any girl could have. You’re not bad looking and you’ve got a reasonably well-paid job. Although I firmly believe you should be headmaster of that crappy school and not just head of the Shimmering-on-Sea River School, Maths department which, unless I’m sadly out of date, consists of you, you and you.’

  ‘Gosh, thanks. I think. But you’re forgetting my assistant, Miss Quinn, so that makes two of us in the Maths department. Although technically, Jane is the school admin secretary, so she assists every teacher there, but I like to think she’s mine, all mine. And, I firmly believe you should’ve got the job of manager of The Shimmering River and Water Sports Centre, instead of the position being given to the owner’s son. But as we’ve discovered this morning, we don’t always get what we want. Anyway, there’s clearly no way you’re going to be able to hobble home in those things. I’ll call a cab and drop you off on the way to mine.’

  ‘Call a cab? It’s Sunday, Simon. They charge a fortune on Sundays. Especially at seven-fifteen-ish in the morning. Don’t waste your money. I would suggest we call my mum, but we both know that would be like unleashing a wild tiger at this time on a Sunday. And Dad will be out on his now obligatory, three-hour, Sunday morning run. So the only option really is for you to carry me. It’s only a mile and that’s what friends are for.’ She threw him a cheeky smile and a wink.

  Simon arched his brows. ‘Now you’re definitely the one’s who’s kidding. Carry you? After being up all night and dancing for most of it I can hardly carry myself. And after that breakfast you’ve just eaten and the three coffees you drank, there’s no way I’m carrying you. Plus, you seem to be ignoring the fact that it’s a mile as the crow flies. On the ground, it’s more like three. Most of it, uphill.’

  ‘Humph! And you think you’d make a good husband? You’re clearly deluded, Mr Hart.’ Ali removed the vice-like sandals and sighed. ‘But OK. Calling a cab isn’t such a bad idea given the circumstances, I suppose. Not as chivalrous, but a very close second. I take it back. You may make someone a good husband one day. But it definitely won’t be me. And it’s just as well you were joking. If I turn out anything like my mum, you’d hate me.’

  ‘I’ll never hate you, Ali.’ Simon dialled the number for a cab as he grinned at her. ‘And your mum’s not that bad. In spite of her views on shoes … and money. She’s going through a rough time. Separation and divorce are never easy and it’s probably twice as difficult for two divorce lawyers. They know exactly what to expect.’

  ‘They know exactly how to bring out the worst in one another. Li
ving with them is increasingly becoming like living in a war zone.’

  ‘I’ve already told you the answer to that problem. To all our problems.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, shut up!’

  He ignored the face she pulled and spoke to the cab company instead.

  ‘They’ll be here in five minutes,’ he said, shoving his phone back in his trouser pocket. He took her arm and linked it through his.

  ‘Will you at least give me a piggyback to the door, please? My feet are absolutely killing me. I hope this new boss of mine lets me sit down to tell him everything he needs to know because there is no way on this planet that I can stand and talk to him. And showing him around the place is completely out of the question.’

  ‘That should get your working relationship off to an exceptionally good start. Here.’ Simon turned his back to her. ‘Jump on.’

  She clambered onto the padded seat and from there, onto Simon’s back. He wrapped his arms around her legs and she clung to his shoulders. ‘Giddy up,’ she said. ‘And d’you know what? I think I’d better go directly to the centre. I can shower there and I always keep some spare clothes in my office. If I go home, I’ll have to face Mum and Dad at some stage this morning, and I’m definitely not in the mood to be caught in the middle of one of their ongoing arguments today. Plus, I don’t think I’d make it home and back, seeing as how I’m virtually crippled.’

  ‘And whose fault is that?’ He marched towards the door as if Ali weighed no more than one of his Maths books.

  ‘Yours, of course. You should’ve stopped me dancing.’

  ‘As if you’d have listened to me.’

  ‘I might’ve.’ She rested her head against his shoulder. ‘I do love you, you know Simon. Oh! But not—’

  ‘But not enough to marry me. I know. I think we’ve established that.’

  ‘Well, you were joking anyway.’

  ‘Yeah. I was joking, Ali. You’re absolutely right. You, me and marriage. That’s an equation that would never add up.’

  Chapter Two

  How ten tiny men with massive sledge hammers had got inside Simon’s skull, he had no idea, but as his head was pounding and, he was sure, cracking from the inside out, they obviously had. Or something very similar. And clearly his understanding of the phrase: ‘fast acting’ was immeasurably different to that of the manufacturers of headache tablets. He had taken two of the puny-looking pills before he’d collapsed on top of his bed this morning, but more than an hour later, when his mum knocked on his bedroom door, it sounded as if she was using a battering ram instead of her hand, and a foghorn to announce that she was: ‘bringing a refreshing cup of tea’.

  Just as well he hadn’t brought a woman home from John and Sasha’s engagement party. Although, feeling as he did, he would have had to tell the woman – as he just had to tell his mum – to ‘Please get the hell out and let me sleep.’ Not that his mum had taken any notice. Neither would she have done so if there had been a woman in his bed. She would simply have brought an extra cup of tea, sat herself on the edge of the bed, asked if they’d both had a good night and whether they’d like anything for breakfast. As she was doing now, to him. He really must have another word with her about his privacy.

  She meant well, of course, and she had a heart of gold, but he was thirty-five years old, for Christ’s sake, and was perfectly capable of making his own tea. Although possibly not this morning. But more to the point, the reason he had paid for the house to be converted into two flats was so that he and his mum could lead completely separate lives but still spend time together without having to travel further than a flight of stairs and a dividing hallway. It was his own fault. He should not have given her a key to his flat.

  The problem was, she had never really recovered from the shock of his dad’s early death. Samuel Hart had been the love of her life and when he died, she devoted all her time to Simon in a futile attempt to get over her loss. Thankfully, she wasn’t the clingy type, but she was very caring. Overly so. She was happy to let Simon live his own life, go to university, go travelling if he wanted to, provided he kept in touch, but when he was at home, it seemed she wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, and thought doors were only shut to keep out draughts, not to keep out prying mothers. He hoped that having separate flats would set up some kind of barrier. At least one where she felt she had to knock and wait to be invited in; not simply tap on the door and enter. It hadn’t worked like that, unfortunately.

  When the conversion work was complete and he had given her a key to his flat he had tried to set up some ground rules.

  ‘This is for emergencies only. When I’m here you can knock on the door and I’ll let you in and I’ll do the same with you.’

  ‘There’s no need for that, sweetheart,’ Maggie had said. ‘Why would we need to lock the doors to our individual flats? We can simply make sure the main front door is locked.’

  ‘Er, no, Mum. We both need some privacy. I think it’s best if we lock our own doors.’

  ‘Why would we need privacy? Obviously I wouldn’t barge into your bedroom or the bathroom without knocking, but we’ve shared a lounge and kitchen for years. I can see why you want your own living space. You’re a grown man and I respect that, but locking doors is a bit unnecessary, isn’t it? We’ve never locked doors before.’

  ‘We’ve never had a door to lock, other than the front door. But now we do. And we should use them. I mean, what if I brought a woman home? I wouldn’t want you popping in if I was … otherwise engaged, let’s say. You might find it a bit … embarrassing.’

  It was somewhat disconcerting that she had laughed at that. ‘Bring a woman home? You say that as if it’s something new. You’re always bringing Ali home and neither of you have minded me popping in when she’s here.’

  There wasn’t much he could say to disagree with that. ‘But Ali’s just a friend. What I meant was, I might bring a woman home who was … more than a friend to me.’

  Maggie smiled and raised her brows. ‘Oh. To have sex, you mean. Well, why didn’t you simply come right out and say it? I wouldn’t find it at all embarrassing. I’d be pleased. If you were actually having sex with a woman it might mean you liked her enough to take things further, and that might lead to marriage and babies. I’d love to be a granny. You wouldn’t have to pay for outside help or hire a nanny or anything. I’d be on hand to look after the kids whenever you wanted, day or night.’

  Quite how the subject had gone so rapidly from bringing home a woman for sex to bringing home a wife and kids, was beyond his comprehension.

  ‘Yes. Thanks for that. Don’t start planning your babysitting schedule just yet. It may take me some time to find a woman I like enough to spend the rest of my life with.’

  ‘You like Ali. I’ve always thought the two of you would make a perfect couple. If only she could set aside her rather odd views on matrimony. I blame her parents for that. Ali could quote the divorce statistics for the year before she could do her times tables. Don’t get me wrong. Tabitha and Tom are lovely people, but the conversation in their house somehow always seems to turn to divorce. I know that’s what they do for a living, but still. It doesn’t seem right to me. And if what I hear is true, it seems they may be heading in that direction themselves. Such a shame. When we lived next door to them, they seemed so much in love. Just like your dad and I. But let’s not dwell on that. What Ali needs is to move out of that house and start a family of her own.’

  Perhaps that was when the seed of an idea – clearly an incredibly stupid idea – had formed in Simon’s head. Or maybe he was simply getting tired of comparing every woman he met to Ali and have the woman fall short. But marriage to Ali? Was that even possible?

  At least he’d now got the answer to that. A big fat no! And the stupid thing was, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to marry Ali in the first place. But at John and Sasha’s engagement party, John had slapped him on the back.

  ‘Do you realise you’re the only one of o
ur friends from school, who isn’t married or engaged? Apart from Ali, that is. But I meant you’re the last man standing, mate. Hold out for as long as you can. Some lucky woman will set her sights on you and before you know it, you’ll be having an engagement party just like this one.’

  ‘Lucky me.’ Simon was certain there would never be another engagement party like Sasha and John’s. Once word got out of the all-nighter, the Local Authority would possibly keep a much closer eye on who hired out the village hall, and probably have someone come and lock up at an appropriate time, no doubt.

  But John’s words, coming so soon after his own mum talking about marriage and Ali in the same sentence had got him thinking. And wondering. And drinking far too much for his own good. Like the idiot he knew only too well he could sometimes be, he’d only gone and asked her. At least she hadn’t laughed in his face. Well, not right away. But she had made it abundantly clear that there was more chance of him leading a school trip to Mars than there was of being her husband.

  Ali’s husband? Did he really want that? They’d been best mates for years and never once had he thought about kissing her, let alone having sex with her. How would that even work? He’d never felt the urge and yet they’d been in some pretty close situations.

  That wasn’t completely true. He had felt the urge. More than once, if he was going to be honest with himself. When she smiled at him in the way she did, or shoved her long blonde hair away from her incredibly pretty face. Or when she lost her temper with him and pursed her luscious-looking lips. Or when her blue eyes changed to an almost iridescent aqua. Or when she laughed. Or when she touched him. Or … Oh shit. Why didn’t he simply face the fact. He wanted to grab her and pull her into his arms at least once every single day for the last few years. But something always stopped him. She hated the idea of marriage. None of her relationships lasted more than a year. Some, far less. The second she thought things were getting a little too serious, she ran for the hills. Figuratively speaking. He loved her. He loved being with her. He couldn’t risk doing anything to ruin that. He couldn’t face the thought of losing her.