It was the Saturday morning after my date with Tom, a date that had been by far the best of my life. Despite this, I had vowed to myself on the journey home that I was going to tell him that I had had a good time but that this was just not going to work. He didn’t know everything about me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand the pain when he found out I wasn’t worth it and he didn’t want me anymore. If my ex put cracks in my self-confidence, then Tom had the power to shatter it into dust.
As with everything recently though, it seemed as if very little was actually in my control. After we arrived back at the flat and established that Lou was still out in town, he’d shuffled me inside, thrown the door closed, and wasted no time backing me up against it, cupping my face in both of his large hands, then kissing me.
It was fantastic.
So fantastic that I forgot my vow to break it off, and participated fully and avidly in the proceedings, plunging my hands into his thick soft hair and moaning into his mouth. At my small moan, the kiss, whilst hot, heated up significantly. One of Tom’s hands had reached up into my hair and released the messy knot so that he could run his fingers through it. The other slid around my waist, plastering my front to his.
When he finally broke the kiss, we both stood with our foreheads pressed together panting, with him still stroking my hair, and I said into his mouth, ‘I don’t think we should go out again.’ He stared at me for a beat, his eyes slowly coming into focus. Bizarrely, once he had registered what I said, he threw back his head and laughed.
‘Why are you laughing?’ I asked, still breathless from the kiss.
‘That was fucking funny,’ he informed me, sliding both his arms around me and pulling my face into his chest. Once there, he kissed the top of my head and muttered into my hair, ‘I’ll come over tomorrow, take you to lunch.’
What was he on about? I had just made a heartbreaking decision and he was casually making plans for lunch.
‘No Tom. I don’t think –’
‘Don’t worry about dressing up again,’ he interrupted, and I could tell by his voice that the infuriating sod was smiling. ‘We’ll only be going as far as the pub.’ He drew away slightly so that he could look into my eyes. ‘Now, honey, kiss me before I go, then I want to hear you double lock the door, okay?’
Yes, it was official; he was bonkers.
‘Tom you can’t just –’
‘Oh alright,’ he said in a mock-begrudging tone, ‘I’ll kiss you.’
Again it was thorough, but sweeter and softer than the last; and stupid, stupid me, I kissed him back just as fervently as before. I could not win. With one final sweet kiss on my temple he turned to go, and I stared dumbfounded as he moved through the door, closing it behind him.
Once he’d left I stared at the door for a minute before I heard, ‘Locks Frankie’ from the other side, which made me jump about a mile in the air. Then, after I had double locked the door (something I never did as it was completely unnecessary), I heard his heavy footfalls striding away.
So here I was. It was eleven, and I had spent the morning practising ways to convey my desire, in no uncertain terms, that Tom jog on. When I’d opened the door to frantic knocking, I was more than a little surprised to find a small, beautiful boy. We’d stared at each other for a minute, then he had informed me that I look liked Princess Jasmine, and thus began this stalemate.
‘I’ve lost Mummy,’ he told me happily, not seeming in the least bit fazed by this information.
‘And your daddy?’
‘Oh he’s in Som … som … som … la-la-la,’ he said.
‘Where is Som la-la-la?’ I asked, confused.
‘Oh it’s really far away,’ he informed me. ‘And Mummy says I can’t go there cause they havereal livepirates, and my daddy protects people from the pirates cause he’s really, really brave.’
‘Do you mean Somalia?’
‘That’s what I said,’ he told me impatiently. ‘Som-la-la-la.’
‘Right, um …’ I took another step into the corridor and looked around, but it was still empty. I appeared to have a mercenary’s son camped out on my doorstep, and no idea how to contact his parents, one of whom was evidently in a war zone.
‘Sweetheart,’ I said, about to usher him inside so that I could get him some cake and call the authorities, ‘I’ll just –’ I was interrupted by a clattering on the stairs and the pounding of feet.
Another small boy appeared in front of me. He also had blond hair and blue eyes. They looked so similar that I realized they must be brothers.
‘Ha, beat you!’ the smaller one shrieked, shoving his brother hard enough to knock him off balance.
‘You cheated! Youalwayscheat,’ the older one shrieked back at him, and then they leapt on each other and started wrestling on the floor of the hallway. I stared, open-mouthed. Why were children turning up unannounced and unsupervised on my doorstep on a Saturday morning? I watched them rolling around on the floor for a moment, and was just about to intervene when I heard a woman shouting from the stairs.
‘Boys! When I tell you to wait for meI mean it.’
I peered out of my door and saw a gorgeous blonde woman rounding the corner of the stairs. Strapped to her front was a tiny baby facing forward in a sling and looking surprisingly alert, and on her hip was a toddler-sized child with the same colouring as the other boys. I was hoping that all these children were siblings and that the mother could take control of the situation.
