Not Another Happy Ending by David Solomons Read Free Book Online Page B

returned to the cottage. The weather closed in shortly before they reached shelter and they were both soaked through. When she entered the room, towelling her hair dry, she found him occupying his usual place in the armchair by the fire.
    ‘We need to talk about the sex,’ he announced.
    The sex.
Le
Sex.
Finally
, she thought.
    There were, however, cultural proprieties to be observed. A nice girl simply didn't acquiesce to such an indecent proposal. ‘I don't think we do,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘I am not talking about “the sex” with you. You've got some cheek, you know that? Just because I asked you up here doesn't mean I'm ready to jump into bed.’
    ‘The sex,’ he said evenly, ‘in chapter seventeen.’ He opened her novel to the relevant page.
    ‘Oh,’ she said, unfolding her arms. ‘Yes.
That
sex.’
    Tom stabbed a finger at a section halfway down the page. ‘I'm confused. What is going on here?’
    ‘What are you talking about? It's …’ She circled behindhim, craning her neck for a sight of the offending paragraph. ‘Perfectly clear.’
    ‘Are they having sex? Because if they are, you should know that it's improbable.’
    ‘Ah, well,’ she wagged a finger, ‘that's because I'm writing it from the woman's perspective—something you clearly don't understand.’
    ‘Right.’ He held the page at arm's length, rotating it first one way and then the other, as if looking at it from another angle would make the scene clearer. ‘So where exactly is her leg meant to be?’
    Oh, the man was maddening! Jane swatted him with her towel and made a grab for the manuscript. ‘Give that back!’
    He was too fast for her. He led her around the room, dangling the novel at arm's length, just out of her grasp. At first she requested him curtly but politely to desist in his childish behaviour, but when he ignored her she resorted to a tirade of foul language. He doubled up with laughter at hearing her swear. Which meant that he failed to notice the trailing cord of the standard lamp as he swept around the room once more.
    ‘Ow!’ He slammed into the floor, his knee taking the brunt. ‘I hate this place!’
    She stood over him to gloat. ‘Serves you right. It's a good scene. It's full-blooded, lusty—’
    Tom rubbed his knee mournfully. ‘—physically impossible.’
    With one final cry of irritation she lunged for the manuscript. He teased it out of reach and with his other hand swept her legs from under her. She crumpled, sinking down beside him. So near to him now she saw that he had kept his promise—no lover had ever looked at her this way.
    ‘It's not impossible,’ she said, swallowing. ‘You just have to be … bendy.’
    That raised an eyebrow. ‘This is drawn from personal experience?’
    They were close enough to breathe each other's air.
    ‘Well, that's not something you're ever going to find out.’ She let the words hang there. Just the two of them in the overwhelming silence of the cottage. Not a milk frother to disturb the stillness.
    A small part of her couldn't help but observe the situation from a distance: an unfairly attractive Frenchman, a hearthrug in front of a crackling log fire, a Highland cottage. If she'd written it, he would have struck it out. Infuriating, exasperating man.
    She waited. In all the romances she'd read people kissed adverbially. Hungrily, madly, passionately. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Wondered about the hardness of his bristles and the softness of his lips. Wondered if she should make the first move.
    And then she didn't have to wonder any longer.

CHAPTER 5
    ‘Why Does It Always Rain on Me?’, Travis, 1999, Independiente
    ‘Y OU STILL UP ?’ Bleary-eyed, Roddy surveyed the wreckage of the evening: a card table strewn with the last hand, a drained bottle of something in equal parts cheap and noxious, and Tom. He sat in the quiet darkness of his office with a supermarket brand cognac, swirling the dregs around