May Bank Holiday

Fiona dropped her rucksack in the hall and picked up the post. She sifted through the bills and letters for everyone else. She placed them into piles for each of them as she recalled the event of the weekend. Her break in Scotland had been great. Just what she needed to get her out of her funk and back to feeling like herself. She had gone on her cousin Karen's Hen Night and it had been a blast. They trawled around every club in Glasgow and that is a lot. They had a golf scratch card and made it to eighteen pubs for a drink. All of them dressed as golfers. It was fun and light hearted.

Her head still hurt and it was Monday, a new record of a two-day hangover. Heather created 'the round' and they both visited all of their old haunts they frequented as students. Gordon, Karen's fiancé 'bumped into' them at the last pub, but it was super sweet. Fiona saw Paul and managed a civil conversation with him, which in truth she did to wind Gillian up. It did, job done. Horsey Gillian nearly ate her face with jealousy. That was compounded by Fiona bending over the pool table in the last pub directly in front of Paul. She let him know what he let go. Heather checked her golf trousers for the two holes Paul's eyes had burned into the seat.

Fiona finished sorting through her own post on the kitchen table when she stopped. She took a large breath in. It was an airmail package with David's handwriting. She felt the outline of the package and she was sure it was a cassette. Had he sent her back her mixtapes? Her eyes filled at the thought. He had got with someone else and that was bad enough, however, to reject her mixtapes was a punch in the guts.

She immediately grabbed her bags and launched herself upstairs to the safety of her room. She carefully opened the package and shook out the tape. The letter and cassette plopped onto her bed. She looked at it as though it was a bomb and she was a detonation expert. She felt her stomach do a little flip and she hated herself for it. He had her dangling like bait on the end of a fishing line.

Fiona knew David had never made a tape before. She looked at the case and he had named it 'Momentus'. She laughed at the misspelling and the duality of the name. He had given this some thought. Was this an Olive Branch? Was she in the slightest ready for it? She took the tape out of the cartridge and placed it on her tape deck. It started with Peter Gabriel Solsbury Hill, she listened to the track and then took out the track listing he had made for her.

He had written it out in his neat handwriting

Side 1
Peter Gabriel Solsbury Hill
Wings Live and Let Die
ACDC Back in Black
Joe Jackson Different for Girls
Peter Green Man of the World
The Rolling Stones You Can't Always Get What You Want
Simon and Garfunkel Only Living Boy in New York

Side 2
The Small Faces Lazy Sunday
The Kinks Waterloo Sunset
Thunderclap Newman Something in the Air
The Who Behind Blue Eyes
The Beatles In My Life

She giggled as she read the tracks, knowing that he must have raided his mother's record collection for them, which made it very sweet. She hated herself for the second time. Bait now in the water. Drowning in him. Fiona knew he had no taste at all in music. She took out his letter and settled on her bed to read, sick with nerves.

Fiona
Like you, I have rewritten this too many times to mention, I cannot tell you how great it was to discover your first letter and then to receive your last one that I found when I met up with Grace again.

There it was. Her name. Written down. It was surreal. Fiona's fist balled up. She gave an involuntary frustrated groan.

I hope you like my first and no doubt last attempt at a mixtape, it was hell! The good part was that my mom and I talked about all the music at home and it let her talk about dad in a way I haven't heard in a long time. She is like you, insomuch as she uses music as a soundtrack to her life. Part of talking to my mom led me to write back to you.
Firstly I am so sorry for being an ass and hurting you, it was never my intention and if I did I cannot emphasise enough my deep regret at causing any pain. I saw how badly wounded you were last summer and I would never want to be the reason for your upset.
Secondly, I want to let you know how much I miss your friendship. I see, hear and participate in things on a daily basis that I am bursting to tell you about. I want your view, want to hear your opinion and of course your derision when I am ahead of myself.
Please accept this olive branch and if you can bear it, call me, I would like to hear your voice talking to me warmly as a friend.
I look forward to hearing from you soon
David
PS I have blisters from holding the pause button – what is that about!

Fiona lay back on the bed and laughed and sobbed at the same time. She lay there for half an hour collecting herself and then made the decision to phone David. It was better that she got it over and done with. She needed to get the first conversation under her belt. It was better that he was thousands of miles away. Then she wouldn't do anything stupid, like shag him.

David had just woken from a night shift and was eating cereal in the kitchen when his mother brought the phone over. She dropped it down in front of him, ruffled his hair. "It's long distance I think."

"Hi it's David!" he spoke as he chewed his breakfast.

"Always eating something Boston, you will be huge in your forties when your metabolism gives up!"Fiona said the first thing that came into her head. This was agony. His voice. The effect of it went straight to her groin. Thoughts of his mouth over her nether regions flooded back. Fiona placed her head on the wall and used the firmness of it to drive the images from her mind.

"No meat on a thoroughbred Ninj!" he quickly swallowed, "God it is too good to hear your voice!"David knew she had got his letter and present. It had the effect he had been searching for. The only way he could apologise in a way she would understand was to use the shorthand she used for her life. Music.

"Whatcha been up to then?" she laughed. The sound of his voice completing the circuit of her body. Fiona pressed harder against the wall.

"Man, I have been making myself an expert on gunshot wounds mostly hunting accidents that have gone wrong, who knew huh?" Indeed he now had seen so many that he could manage them in his sleep.

"Well, that is a transferable skill for the Chelsea set. You know the bumbling arty idiots who come into the goat and boats with hunting jackets on?" she laughed. He sounded upbeat like nothing had happened. She hated him.

"Arty, is that because you like to shoot them down with your laser-like wit? I think there is only flamazene for that type of burn." he giggled. He pushed his cereal bowl away and walked towards the patio. He felt the sunshine on his face like the thawing he felt now from Fiona.

"I missed this.." Fiona admitted. She did. She really forgot how much she liked him. As a person, human being he was great.  As a partner and romantic choice, he sucked. She also knew the effect he had on her was intoxicating. Like an addict, she needed her safe dose so that she could wean herself off before going cold turkey.

"I missed you, this, everything, sorry Ninj for the.." David sought the words. He needed to mend the unmendable and gain her forgiveness.

"Let's forgive and forget. she interrupted quickly, she had no idea how long she could keep this up before crying. She guessed not long. "We had a holiday romance and now it is over so let's get past it and on to other things." Fiona had to shut David down. She wasn't ready to unpick the wound just yet.

"Like what?" David was happy that she wanted to push past him being such an asshole.

"Like when are you back, when will we throw the party?" There she pushed the conversation back on to neutral territory.

"I finish on the 10th of July here, then I am back in Chelsea on the 4th of August, I was thinking of coming back say the 21st and then spending some time back at the house with everyone. What do you think?" What he really meant was I am coming back and straight into your bed.

"Let me get the calendar, Oh shit! The 21st me and Bill aren't here we are both at my cousin's wedding. The others are here though and I am sure that Reece and the Cardiff mob will be happy to come down. They can use my room, with caveats of course." she laughed. She felt the undertone of the conversation. Scotland would be good because he could come back be wild and that would let her ease back in. She would have time to adjust. David could get back to his normal womanising ways and she would move on slowly and quietly.

"Backup Ninj, are you taking Bill to your cousin's wedding?" Did he hear her correctly? A pang of jealousy rattled through him.

"Why are you asking?" she teased, fully understanding why he was probing. There it was. He was digging to see if she had someone else.

"Oh, nothing, I just thought," he sighed quietly, "I thought he was seeing Heather and.."

"Stop! I am teasing! He is going with Heather I am going all on my own, like the spinster of the parish. My whole family will be there, my ex-fiancé with his new girlfriend and I will be the topic of conversation for everyone. 'Poor Fiona, she should be married by now, she is the oldest and look at her!', I can hear them already, thank God I will have Heather and Bill. Though I will be like a spare wheel there."

"Why don't I be your plus one then?" he said. He could be with her even faster in a romantic setting. No woman on earth can go through a family wedding and not want to get romantic.

"Do you think that is wise?" she blurted out. It was not wise, it was not wise at all.

"Well, you won't be on your own, I am great company, we are good friends I think and it is the least I can do after all of this shit don't you think?" David knew it was true. It was the least he could do to make sure that Fiona didn't have to face the occasion of a large family wedding on her own.

"I am not sure David." Fiona weighed her words carefully, "I don't want you and I to get our feelings mixed up again." She couldn't cope with another humiliation. She hadn't given David's return much serious thought until now. How would she cope being his next door neighbour? How could she get over him with him bringing the other half of London back to his room?

"Ninj, I promise, no funny business, give me the name of the hotel and I will arrange to be there, I will fly to Scotland and then get a lift back with you and Bill to London." He fully expected a lot of funny business. He knew when they were together they wouldn't be able to keep their hands off one another.

"Separate rooms?" she enquired. There was no way she could trust herself, no way at all. She knew one look at him in a room where they weren't observed by others would be deeply unwise. Fabulous, long term dreadful.

"Of course! I will go into a new wing or something, just let me do this for you, it is what friends do for one another isn't it?" David crossed his fingers as he lied.

"Ok, please don't go there and shag someone else either David, I could not take the humiliation. 'Look, Fiona McDonald, can't hang on to a man for love nor money." If David was there she could rub Paul's face in her new pretend life. The real life she had planned before David had moved back to Boston.

"I wouldn't and I promise, just send me the invite details and I will be there, let's speak next week, tell me your shifts and I will call." David jotted down her shifts and said his goodbyes.

David hung up smiling and turned to find Laura with her arms crossed giving him her displeased look.

"What mom?" he asked. He wondered how long she had been listening to the conversation.

"Do not hurt that girl David, you are taking advantage of her nature and you know it!" she said flatly.

"Mom, I want her back, I realise that and I am going to have to take it very slowly with her so I don't scare her off." He couldn't lie to his mother. She could see right through him at every turn.

"Son, don't be so arrogant, have you considered she may not want you back?" Laura knew she had to give her son a dose of reality.

"Mom, I have to take the chance that she does. I was such an asshole, I made a mistake and I won't make another."

"You see that you don't son, now make sure that you don't give her any reason to regret inviting you."Laura was stern. she hadn't brought up her son to be manipulative and disrespectful of women.

David took his mother's words. He decided that he would never give Fiona any reason to regret being with him again.

Fiona sat in the kitchen at Grove Road. It had been nearly a year since she had moved in. She loved her job, her home and her friends. As much as she loved everything she could not see a way she could have all of this and David back in her life as a friend.

Getting over him was easy when he was at the other side of the Atlantic. What about at the other side of a wall?

So what would you do?

Would you give him another chance?