Seven Days: The Complete Story Read online

  But this isn’t just sex anymore. It can never be just sex, not when someone is whispering in my ear, telling me how beautiful I am, how much he wants me, while another has this tongue between my legs.

  During the second orgasm, brought on as one licked me and the other fucked me, spooning, I begged them to let me touch their faces or run my fingers through their hair. All I wanted was to hold them. One of them groaned, “Oh God, Sadie,” as he came and I wanted to see the emotion I knew was there. I wanted to feel it beneath my fingers and see the satisfaction on his face as I sucked him dry. I could sense it meant more than they’d ever tell. I’m not just a fuck. I mean more than that.

  They mean more than that to me. Somehow, in the space of a few days, I’ve managed to fall for them both hard. It should be impossible but it seems to have happened anyway.

  Now, as I lay here looking at Joel, I wish I knew which one of them it was. Who cried out at the moment of release? Which one of them twisted my hair in his hands as he thrust into me from behind and called my name as he came? That body was filled with more emotion than I’ve ever known in a man and I want to know who it was.

  I want them both. But not like this. There are too many emotions involved. It’s too hard. I can’t be a plaything. I can’t play the game of pretending. I crave their love.

  I sit up in bed and look sadly at the two men. Nicholas is still asleep. Joel is regarding me questioningly. “Where are you going, love?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Fuck and run, eh? I never took you for that kind of girl.”

  I wish he wouldn’t make light of me. I’m not in the mood. “I’m not.”

  “Then don’t go.” He reaches for me but I shrug him off.

  “I have to. I can’t do this. It’s too hard.”

  “I can show you hard, if that’s what you want,” he chuckles.

  “Can you stop joking, please? I’m being serious here.”

  I think he gets the idea that I am serious because he frowns and his face comes over all solemn like. “I thought you were having fun. You seemed to be getting off on it last night.”

  Geez, how do I explain? It’s gone way beyond fucking and having a good time. The sex was awesome, mind blowing. This is definitely not about anyone’s prowess in the bedroom. It’s about feelings.

  “I was. I did. But I can’t do it. I need more. I need to feel you, to know you. I need the intimacy of seeing your face when you’re inside me, of knowing who’s doing what. It won’t work Joel, it just won’t.”

  I scramble from the bed, and find my clothes on the floor. I slip into my knickers and shorts. I shove my bra in my pocket and put on my shirt. As I pull my hair back into a ponytail, I see Nicholas has woken. He’s sitting up in bed, his arms slung around his knees like on the day we met. He knows something’s up and his eyes are begging me to share whatever it is.

  “Don’t go, Sadie. Stay. I want you to stay. I need you to stay.”

  “I can’t Nicholas.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I stay, we’re going to get hurt. All of us.” And I turn and walk out the door.

  SEVEN DAYS LATER

  (Seven Days Part 2)

  CHAPTER ONE

  “You must be stoked—”

  Emily and I are sitting at the dining table in our flat. There’s tequila and lemonade in front of us plus a massive bag of Freddo frogs that Emily’s brought home from her new job at the supermarket. We’ve eaten half of them already and Emily’s twisted the wrappers and placed them around the bottle to make the shape of a love heart. Boy, has she got it bad.

  “—I mean,” she continues, “getting a placement at Hardwick & Lawson is like winning frickin’ lotto. If they like you, they might offer you a job when you graduate. How much coolness would that be?”

  A job offer from Hardwick & Lawson would be the icing on the cake after the hard work I’ve done. They’re the biggest and most prestigious building firm in the city and to work in their landscaping department would be a coup. I wouldn’t care if I were shovelling poo for a year if I got a job there.

  “I’m amped.” I can feel my face breaking into that huge grin that’s been there off and on since I got the news. I take a glug of tequila and fill up our glasses.

  I found out my original placement had pulled the pin early this morning. I was so devastated — suicidal actually — that I began to hyperventilate when I imagined the ramifications of having nowhere to go for my prac. I mean, the unit is my last before I graduate. I need it to complete my degree. I need referrals I can use at job interviews. And I can’t be a failure. I can’t. So you can understand why I was feeling like someone had chopped off my head and forgotten to tell me. Luckily for me though, it only took a couple of hours for the placement officer to find me another spot. I wasn’t hopeful it would be as good with it meant to start Monday and everything, I was simply grateful to have anywhere to go at all. Which is why, when she informed me the spot was at Hardwick & Lawson, I burst into hysterical happy tears. Hell, I’ve just stopped crying. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of a day. Literally.

  I pick up my drink and open another celebratory Freddo Frog, clinking it with Emily before biting a corner off its head. It’s as I’m nibbling that it dawns on me. My wardrobe is not equipped for a firm like Hardwick & Lawson. Most of the time I don’t think I’m equipped to step outside the front door. I bite my lip. I feel the panic begin to overwhelm me and the nerves kick in. I’ve been so good at trying new things in the last six months. Why are the doubts flooding through me now? And over an outfit choice?

  “What am I going to wear? A pair of overalls and a t-shirt would have been fine for digging about in the dirt but Hardwick & Lawson is uber glam. I don’t own anything remotely in that league. I’m going to look like a complete dick if I go prancing along the halls in a pair of King Gee work pants.”

  “Why don’t you raid my wardrobe?” Emily suggests. “You can suss out the dress code when you get there and hit the shops after work if you need to. I’m sure it won’t be that dressy. They’re builders. They won’t be knocking about in Armani.”

  “But what if I’m too dressy?” Emily’s sophisticated black look is way more formal than the ‘vintage chic’ I like to call my pre-loved op-shop wardrobe. And I’m not so sure auburn hair goes with black. Won’t I look even more like a carrot top? I want to fit in. The relief of walking in the door and knowing I look like everyone else will ease the first day nerves.

  “You won’t be,” Emily answers. “I’ve seen the women who come out of that building at lunchtime. They look more like an ad for Vogue than a bunch of secretaries—”

  Which is even worse. There’s no way I can look like something out of Vogue. Ever. I’m going to be sick. I am. I take another gulp of my vodka and push the glass away. At this rate I won’t even get to Hardwick & Lawson. I’ll be too hung over.

  “A simple skirt and shirt and you’ll blend right in,” Emily continues. She gets up and goes into her room, returning with a few office type outfits. I hold a couple up against me; unsure I can pull off her look. It’s so grown up.

  “Go try them on,” she says. “That black skirt, your white shirt and a bit of eyeliner and that Lawson guy will take one look and fall head over heels in love. He won’t be able to stop himself.”

  I give her a look. “Uh, I have a boyfriend, remember?”

  “How could I forget him? He’s here so often; I confused him with the coffee table and tried to put my tea on him last night. Hashtag awkward.”

  “Don’t be mean. Mason’s sweet when you get to know him.”

  “So is a cup of tea but I don’t want to have sex with it. Honestly, Sadie. I thought after you hooked up with that Nicholas on holiday you’d turned over a new leaf in the man department but you’ve gone straight back to your old ways. Mason hangs around here like a bad smell. He’s like a puppy the way he follows you around.”

  I roll my eyes. I know Emily has no time for Mason. She
thinks he’s bland and boring even though I’ve told her a hundred times he’s shy. I ignore her and concentrate on the outfits. I’m not having another discussion about Mason. I like him and that’s what counts. It’s not like she has to sleep with him. “I’m going to Hardwick & Lawson to get experience, in case you’d forgotten, not find a husband. Anyway, I’ll be lucky if I even see them. It’s a big firm.”

  “All the more reason to dress to impress. You want to be noticed, right? You’ll never get a recommendation if you never meet him.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to get one in a slutty, throw-me-over-the-desk way.”

  “Are you saying my clothes are slutty?” She gives me a look and sticks the remains of her Freddo in her mouth. A crumb of chocolate sticks to her lip and she flicks it off with her tongue. I watch as it disappears.

  “Not at all. On you they look glamorous and sophisticated. I’m just not sure how they’ll look on me. Like a ten-year-old dressing in her big sister’s clothes, I suspect.”

  “You won’t know if you don’t try anything on. Now shoo! Bedroom.”

  I do as I’m bid and after a few outfits and different shoe combinations, we arrive at a black pencil skirt, a white business shirt, a pair of pointed pumps and a black angora cardi to soften the outfit. I have Mum’s favourite necklace with the small horseshoe on it for luck and a bangle she always wore with turquoise stones. I look nice and totally ready to rock this job thing. But geez, I’m nervous.

  *****

  The next day I meet Mason for lunch after my tutorial. I never have to look to find him, his shock of red hair means he always stands out in the crowd, sort of like I do.

  Our matching hair is one of the reasons Mason and I started talking in the first place. We were at a birthday party for a mutual friend when he crashed straight into me, spilling his water all over my top. To this day I’m positive he did it on purpose because he didn’t know how to approach me. Anyway, I made a joke about him having to leave the party because the quota of redheads had already been filled by me and he countered by saying that clearly the research about redheads being a dying breed was untrue. He then offered to get my top dry-cleaned, which I thought was super nice. He didn’t even look at my boobs when he said it. I have no idea how he managed it seeing that they were wetter than if I’d recently competed in a wet t-shirt competition. The conversation led to a date and, well, three months later we’re still seeing each other, much to Emily’s disgust. She’d been annoyed enough with me when I hadn’t pursued the Nicholas thing — not that she’d known the truth of it — so when I started seeing Mason she almost had an aneurism.

  “Hey.” I sit down on the grass beside Mason and give him a peck on the lips.

  “Hey yourself. You’re looking happier than yesterday.”

  Mason knows about my prac placement woes. He was the first one I rang when the whole saga began. He doesn’t seem to care when I have one of my ‘meltdowns’ as he calls them.

  “I have a new placement.”

  “That’s great. Where?”

  “Hardwick & Lawson.”

  Mason does that licking thing he does with his lips when he’s impressed. Then gives a very slow, approving series of nods. Being an architecture student he’s well aware of who Hardwick & Lawson are. You’d have to be living under a rock to have not seen their work or at least heard of them. “How’d you score that?”

  “The placement officer said they jumped at the chance when they heard it was me. Must have been the award last year. I’d have thought they’d already have a student but the lady said they rarely take students so she hadn’t bothered to contact them before this. It was on the off chance because she was desperate to find me something.”

  “Worked out well for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When do you start?”

  “Monday.”

  “Great. Want to do anything later on?”

  I roll over on the grass, picking a few daisies from between the blades and weaving them into a chain. Somehow I thought he’d be more excited for me. That response sounded almost like a case of sour grapes.

  “I have a paper to finish,” I say. “It’s a couple of hours work, tops. I want to get it done so I can concentrate on the prac.”

  “I’ll come by yours, then. Cook you noodles for dinner.”

  My lip twists at the memory of what Emily said last night about Mason being at our house too much. I promptly dismiss the idea. “Sure. I should be done by seven. Come by then.”

  I’m a crap cook and Mason makes great noodles. Plus, Emily will be out. She’s having dinner with Alex again tonight. It’s been six months for them now, a surprise for everyone. Though nobody’s been more surprised than Emily, I think. She keeps waiting for Alex to grow an arsehole gene.

  “Awesome,” Mason says.

  We lay on the grass for a bit longer before getting up to get some lunch in the student café down the road. It’s cheap and I don’t mind eating there though Mason complains about the cost, as usual. If there’s one thing that does annoy me about him it’d be his whining about money. We’re both students. And even though I do have the benefit of a small inheritance from Mum that I try not to touch, I’m not exactly rolling in cash either. But I can still afford to buy lunch every now and then.

  As we sit eating our cheese toasties, Mason says to me, “So… special day for us.”

  I frown, trying to remember what day that could be.

  “It’s our three month anniversary,” he reminds me. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny blue packet secured with string. It’s very cute. “Happy anniversary, Sadie.”

  I feel a little bit like a fraud as I take the packet and open it. I thought only fifteen year olds did ‘three month anniversaries’. I certainly wasn’t counting the days that closely.

  Inside the package is a Stirling silver bracelet with one lone charm. It’s made to look like a book cover from my favourite book of all time, Far From the Madding Crowd. You see? This is one of the things I love about Mason… he’s thoughtful. He remembers the most random things that no other guy would ever remember.

  “I love it. Thanks so much.” I kiss him softly on the lips. “Happy anniversary,” I say, leaning over to hug him tight. “Sorry I didn’t get you anything.”

  “You like it then?”

  “It’s gorgeous,” I put the bracelet on and hold my wrist up to admire the teeny book dangling from it.

  “This would be the appropriate time to say I’d like to take our relationship to the next level. I like you so much, Sadie. I want to be more committed to each other.”

  Oh gosh. He sounds like he needs committing.

  “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “I think we should be exclusive. I know you weren’t keen to before but we practically are, anyway. Well, I am. We should make this official. I’d like you to move in with me.”

  This is not how I planned my Tuesday morning to go. I’m floored. Don’t get me wrong; I like Mason. I might even love him a little. He’s nice. But I never imagined myself living in the same house as him. He has housemates. Gross, smelly housemates who play X-Box all day and never do the washing up. They act more like twelve year olds than twenty-four year old men; they’re sooo immature. I’d end up being live-in housekeeper for a bunch of boys who can’t fend for themselves. And I certainly couldn’t have sex while they’re in the next room elbowing each other and tittering because they can hear me coming.

  “Um… er.”

  Mason seems to sense this hesitance. “I thought we might get a place of our own. I’m tired of living with the guys. It’s like being in a playgroup with beer most days.”

  He’s got that right. I’m still not sure this is what I want, though. Living together is a huge commitment; it’s practically being married. But it’s not that I’m stressing about. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking Mason isn’t Nicholas and he’ll never be Joel. The flipside, of course, is that nobody ever would be. I’ll
never meet men like them again. Is that how my relationships will be measured from now on? Will I always be comparing every man I meet and finding fault? Have I ruined any potential relationship before it can even begin because I’m reminded of them in the smallest of things? I give myself an internal slap. The fling with Nicholas and Joel was a one off. It will never happen again. I need to move on.

  “Can I think about it?”

  Mason chews on the side of his lip. “I sort of found us a flat.”

  “Already?”

  “It’s in the centre of town,” he continues. “Right where you told me you always dreamed of living. It has a little balcony big enough for a bistro table and chairs so you can sit and have your morning coffee. There are high ceilings, timber floors and it’s totally renovated. We can sell our cars if we live there. Ride bikes everywhere. Eat on the strip once a week. Go to that wine bar you love so much without having to catch a taxi home.”

  He’s making it hard for me to refuse, giving me the things I always wanted. Yet, something still doesn’t seem right. “How can we afford a place like that?”

  “I’ve done the sums. It won’t cost much more than we pay in our current places. About fifteen dollars more a week each. Best of all, it’s coming up for lease in a month. So you don’t need to make a decision straight away but we do have to move on it if we don’t want to miss out.” He leans over, the weight of his body crushing mine as he pushes me into the grass and kisses me. He’s sucking the life from me and for some reason I feel embarrassed, doing this here, out in the open. With Mason.

  “I love you, babe. I want this to work,” he whispers.