I stretched my mouth out. ‘My God, that’s terrible. Sorry. Your ego must have been severely damaged.’
‘That was the hardest part to recover from, I must admit. But still, life goes on and here I am. Having a drink with you – two drinks so far – and you haven’t tried to leg it.’
‘Not yet. But if you switch to drinking Cinzano and lemonade and try to drag me to a karaoke bar, I may make a swift exit.’
Calvin laughed. ‘No chance of that.’
We carried on drinking and laughing, and by about midnight I was well and truly hammered. Although I hadn’t realised it until I tried to stand, and Calvin had to reach his hand out to stop me from falling.
We made it outside and I leant against the wall to catch my breath.
‘Oh sorry, you must… think… me… such… a lie way…’
Calvin leaned against the wall next to me. ‘Absolutely not, I think you rivalled me with your drinking. I’m sure you overtook me at one point.’
‘Shhhhor–ly not.’
Calvin stood up and pulled me towards him. ‘I should call you a cab.’
He touched my chin gently and began to slowly move towards me with his lips parted. I shot a glance over his shoulder and there he was, just behind Calvin, standing and staring at me with his black baseball cap pulled just enough over his eyes so I couldn’t see them. I jerked away from Calvin’s kiss and stumbled to the side, searching behind him for the figure, but there was no one there.
I slouched down against the wall. I could feel a hand around my wrist, the pain seared through my body, and as the panic set in and gripped my body I froze. It was how I had always remembered it, the hold around my wrist, pulling me until eventually I stopped all movement, closed my eyes and waited until I could open them again, to be told it was all a dream. But, of course, that never happened. It was never a dream. It was all so very real.
‘Sorry, it was too much – I’m sorry, you’re drunk, I’m drunk. I should know better at my age, for goodness’ sake. Please accept my apology, I’m going to call you that cab.’ Calvin started rooting about in his pocket for his phone.
‘No, it’s not you,’ I said, although I still wasn’t entirely sure if I could have gone through with a kiss.
‘I need to—’
‘Go? Yes, I know.’ Calvin was tapping away on his phone, then he put his phone in his pocket. ‘They’ll be here in a minute. Listen, Regi, I’m really sorry. I really like you and I shouldn’t have done that. It was really stupid.’
‘No, it’s fine, I… I…’ I looked around, trying to see where the figure had gone, he was just there. And so vividly. ‘I had a nice time, Calvin. I want you to know that.’ I spoke as slowly as I could so I could get the words out.
‘It’s fine, honestly. I don’t need you to say anything.’ He crouched down to my level. ‘You have my number, and if, you know, you ever do manage to think of that book-club choice, let me know – we can have a read-along.’
I tried to snort out a laugh, but it just came out like a painful cry.
‘Hey, look, your cab’s here.’ Calvin stood up and offered me his hand. I took it and he pulled me up to his level, our faces precariously close again, but whatever that had nearly been was gone. He pushed some notes into my hand. ‘Put it towards the fare.’
I looked at the kindness in his eyes, but then all I could see was the face of the person who was behind the black baseball cap, who seemed to be everywhere. Never letting me be. Never letting me forget.
Instagram post: 10th May 2019
Hi guys, I know some of you have been having a moan about me posting ads, and, well, I counted up the ads out of all the posts I have done and it works out at roughly two a month. Which I think is just fine. In my opinion, a few people need to think about the positives in life. I just wanted to clear that up.
And so on with the positive vibes.
We are almost into summer now, so I wanted to talk you through some of my favourite products that I have discovered recently. These are all super kind to the environment, so I think you will love them as much as I do.
There they are all lined up in the photo and I have tagged the company who makes them as well so you can head straight to their webpage and discover them all for yourselves.
Keep up the cleaning and enjoy this lovely weather.
Mrs C x
#summersnearlyhere #adsarenotbad #cleaning #mrsclean
89,445 likes
ninetoone Enjoy your day as well, Mrs C. Love your work.
empalmer09 Can we see some pictures of you please? What do you look like?
lucybest65 Some people want to remain anonymous cos they are obviously hiding something.
ktdonners It wouldn’t matter if she revealed every aspect of her life. You lot would still have something nasty to say. She can’t win either way, can she?
lucybest65 Maybe she should have thought about that before she started this whole thing.
20
Now
My hangover still hadn’t shifted by lunchtime the next day. So on top of a raging headache, I also felt empty after the date. Calvin was a nice guy and we had had fun. But in hindsight, there was no attraction there, and I was sure the feelings were mutual on his part as well. I had enjoyed feeling normal for those few hours until we got outside and then I can’t recall
