Chapter 46

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Wednesday 21st July 1999

 

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“You finally made it up before midday!” I greeted my sister between mouthfuls of golden toast. Rather than fearsome retort, the response I received was a brazen yawn. She pulled up a chair and sat herself down at the breakfast table… and then folded her arms up and rested her bedhead upon them.

 

“Thought I should get up and see my big brother off on his last day of his second-last year of school,” she muttered with her eyes closed, still managing to sound patronising despite the tiredness weighing her voice down.

 

“Of course,” I replied, “it’s a momentous occasion that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

 

“And I’ll probably not see you until summer ends after this, so it’s a farewell too!”

She accompanied that with a thumbs-up.

 

“I’m sure I’ll stop by now and then…” I told her. “How’s your long summer been so far, anyway?”

 

“I had this weird sword delivered to me and then I wound up forming a team with three classmates and this hot Scottish guy who I really wanna sleep with but I just don’t know how to tell him,” my sister told me with a matter-of-fact tone, followed up with a mischievous giggle.

 

“Huh, that sounds pretty exciting and also kinda familiar…”

 

“You probably saw a TV show like it somewhere.”

 

“Aaah, that’ll be it.”

I finished off that slice of toast while the sounds of Dad rummaging around upstairs echoed through the ceiling. Lucy remained as she was, looking like she’d dozed off.

“So… uhm… Kendal-”

 

“How’s she doing?” Lucy interrupted loudly. “She stripped lately?”

 

“No, I think that was a ‘me and Lucy’ thing for her…”

 

“Shows what you know,” she purred.

 

… still not sure if I want to dwell on that or not…

 

I tried to return to my point. Round 2.

“I don’t really get why…”

 

“Because it’s fun being nude! It’s different and-”

 

“Let me finish!” I urged her, frustrating rising (but that was par for the course when talking with her). Round 3…

“I don’t get why you broke up with her.”

 

She shrugged exaggeratedly, which in turn rolled her head forward on the cheek that rested upon her forearms.

“We had loads of fun but I dunno. It started feeling… empty? Like an itch that wouldn’t go away. Like maybe there was greener grass somewhere else? Like what if this isn’t worth my time?”

With a huge stretch, she reeled back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling.

“It’s a shame. I really miss hanging out with our friends-”

 

“Well, my friends…”

 

“Our friends, Alex, come on,” she asserted. “But I can make new friends easily enough. The sky’s the limit!”

 

And yet, I rarely ever see these friends of hers…

 

“What about you and Dakota?”

 

“We’re actually going on a date this afternoon…”

 

“Take her to the cinema and feel her up during the film!” Lucy recommended, looking at me with a great big grin. I responded by picking a grape from the fruit bowl and throwing it at her while she cackled giddily.

 

There’s not a whole lot for me to say about the handful of hours that followed… an abridged day of school where minimal effort was asked of us, chipper farewells to classmates, and, for the last time for a month and a half, the familiar journey from the school grounds to Dakota’s place. And then I was sent back home on orders to change into some casual clothes and meet up with Dakota in town.

 

Which seemed weird to me, considering I had some clothes at hers and we could’ve just walked to town together, but the lady gets what she wants.

 

Mum was home, so I managed to get in with ease; Lucy wasn’t, so I managed to get ready and leave without being bothered.

 

And after just a few minutes of waiting around in town, Dakota arrived in the denim jacket I’d bought her for her birthday, a colourful dress and sandals. She was beaming as she approached.

“You didn’t try to fix your hair?” she asked playfully once she was within earshot.

 

“Dakota… my hair is unfixable…” I reminded her, somehow managing to say that with my slack jaw. Even more than usual, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

“You look… absolutely amazing.”

 

“Aww, look at you, all loved-up!” she declared, pinching my cheek. “Thank you. You look so handsome. And you’re gonna take that comment and like it, because you’re my boyfriend and we’re on a date.”

I might have protested all the same, but the grin she underlined her instruction with blew my words away.

 

“Th-Thanks…!” I uttered instead, smiling back like a dope.

 

“Ready to go?”

She took my hand firmly in hers.

 

“I still don’t get what we’re actually going to do… but sure?” I replied, swinging her arm gently.

 

“We’re gonna go whatever we want. No pressure, no rules, no objectives; just you and me, together. And as much fun as we can handle!”

 

“Right!”

I faltered.

“Fun in town…?”

 

“I bet we’ll have loads of fun today and then you’ll see how right I was,” she smirked with pre-emptive victorious pride. I couldn’t help but laugh.

 

“Okay, okay, I’m holding you to that!” I noted, and began walking off in the direction we were facing. She skipped into a cheerful stride and we proceeded to spend three minutes wandering around with no clue where to begin our date. We wound up entering Marks and Spencer.

 

And to her credit, Dakota remained positive and confident.

“I bet you we’ll find three interesting things in here that’ll make it worth our while,” she told me as we passed the automatic sliding doors.

 

“You’re making an awful lot of bets today,” I pointed out, my eyes scanning the storefront all the while.

 

“And I’ll win every last one of them,” came her brash reply. I began to wonder if I was best off pretending that the most mundane things were mind-bogglingly entertaining, just to appease her competitive nature.

 

“I hope you do, otherwise I’m suing Marks and Spencer for not being fun.”

Joking, of course.

 

“And we could use the money we win to set up a fun supermarket!”

 

“What would that be like…?”

 

“Supermarket Sweep,” she declared. We’d strolled straight through the food aisles and appeared to be making a beeline for the clothes.

 

“A gameshow experience with every shop,” I smiled at that.

 

“That could be the slogan!”

 

“And each store has its own Dale Winton,” I riffed. “We’d clone him.”

 

“How much money are we winning in our court case, exactly…?” Dakota asked in amusement. Her attention then turned to the skirts we were walking past, inspecting them.

 

“One billion pounds!”

 

“Fierce!”

She took one of the skirts and held it against her body.

“How’s this?”

 

“Pretty nice!” I said, using up the entirety of my clothes-critiquing lexicon in one fell swoop.

 

“I should try and find some nice clothes for our holiday,” she mentioned while returning the skirt to its rack. “A couple new skirts or shorts, some tops… maybe I can get myself a new bikini…”

 

“They might have some upstairs, if you want to have a look.”

 

“Sounds like you wanna have a look,” she purred, staring at me with eyes full of implication.

 

“Can you blame me…? Not saying I do! But not saying I wouldn’t- just that it wasn’t why I said it-!”

And there I was trying to sound cool for a moment…

 

Dakota laughed.

“Let’s go look, then, lover-boy!”

 

Almost as quickly as we’d reached the skirts, we abandoned them, making our way up the flight of stairs that led to the upper floor and searching around for the swimwear.

 

Something else managed to catch Dakota’s eye before we could find them, though…

 

“Heeeey, Aleeex…”

I knew that tone of voice. I knew, before I even looked, that this was going to be something perfectly suited for teasing me.

 

And somehow, I was still taken by surprise when I turned to see my girlfriend leaning on a rack full of sexy lingerie.

“What d’you think? Should we?” she asked me seductively.

 

“Should we…?” I gulped back, not entirely sure where she was going with that…

 

“Buy some.”

She picked up a matched pair of lacy, racy women’s underwear, flaunting them at me. And she bit her lip lightly, as if the mere suggestion of her donning such enticing lingerie wasn’t enough of a turn-on.

 

“Uhm… I-I mean… if you’re comfortable with it then it’d be hot…”

 

“D’you like this pair?” she asked, waving it about a little like she was trying to goad a very small bull into charging.

 

I nodded. Any pair here would do just fine, I imagine, but this was the pair in her hands and it looked perfect for the job. Black and red, alluring, hitting the right balance of revealing and obscuring.

 

“Alrighty… I mean, I’ll have to check if they’re my sizes…” she muttered, turning the pair around to look them over.

“Uhm… okay, gimme a minute…”

With that, she began rummaging through the sets of lingerie on the racks.

 

For a couple of minutes, I watched Dakota draw out numerous pairs of lingerie, each somehow sexier than the last. I honestly don’t believe it was her intent – she was genuinely trying to find the best fit – but every new combination of bra and knickers flooded my mind with images of her wearing them.

 

And after all of that, with Dakota finding a suitable pair very similar to the first, we moved on to the swimwear and went through the whole thing again. With the addition of Dakota trying a couple of bikinis on. And then inviting me into the changing room to provide my opinion.

 

We returned to the ground floor with some new clothes and me desperately fighting to get my mind out of the gutter.

 

Dakota patted my back affectionately, as if to say “it’s okay, I don’t blame you”. Clearly, I’m an open book to her.

 

“Anything else we should look for in here…?” I asked her, looking around in the hopes of finding something that could be deemed fun.

 

“Uhmmm… let’s walk around and see what’s happening…” she suggested, sounding a little lost for ideas herself.

 

“Oh no. And you were so confident we’d find fun things to do…” I teased; her feathers were clearly ruffled by that, as she pouted at me.

 

“We will! You’ve just gotta trust me!”

 

“Alright, I trust you, boss-lady!” I said with hands raised in light defence. Her pout turned into another playful smirk.

“I remember they did some taster-sample-things here before,” I continued (ever-so-eloquently), “maybe they’re doing it now?”

 

“Worth checking!” she chirped, and off we went once again across the store.

 

Within thirty seconds, we’d found a counter staffed by a lady in apron and gloves, adorned with free samples of numerous types of food.

 

“Jackpot!” Dakota cheered, and then looked to the member of staff. “We’re not being cheap, we were just wondering if you had something like this going.”

 

“Don’t worry, it’s nice to see people be so enthusiastic about this,” the woman chuckled. “Makes my day a little brighter.”

 

“Then it’s a win-win!” my girlfriend nodded, before picking up a small cupcake, peeling back the wrapper and biting into it. An approving “mhmmm” followed.

 

“Guess that’s where we’re starting,” I smiled to the lady, taking a cupcake for myself and following Dakota’s lead. It was definitely tasty, with a soft texture. And while I was savouring my first couple of bites, Dakota had gobbled up her cupcake and was now trying a sample of fresh cherry juice to wash it down.

 

“Aaah, wow, that’s good too…”

No sooner had she said that than her fingers had taken a piece of cheese by the cocktail stick embedded in it and popped it into her mouth.

 

“There’s a café across the street if you’re that hungry,” the woman behind the counter mentioned, sounding amused more than anything.

 

“Jusht…”

Dakota paused, swallowing.

“Just wanna try everything!”

She picked up another piece of cheese, and turned to me as I finished my cupcake. Seeing that I was facing her, she proceeded to shove the cheese under my nose and waft it to-and-fro.

“Cheesy,” she spoke with such heavy implication and the most playful fearsome grin.

 

“Drhjpaieb-”

(Or at least, that’s one way of parsing my response.)

 

She laughed heartily, and popped the cheese between my lips, pulling the cocktail stick out once she was confident it was in my mouth.

“New record on how quickly you’ve turned red!” she claimed brightly. “How is it?”

 

I chewed past my flusterment and the concern over what the counter-lady was thinking.

“S’good,” I mumbled; not the best cheese I’ve ever eaten, but definitely nice.

 

“Yeah!” Dakota beamed back at me, before turning her attention back to the counter. “Ooh, chocolate!”

 

“You’re really gonna try everything, aren’t you?” I checked with her.

 

“Hey, it’s free!” she replied before eating a small piece of chocolate with relish.

 

And, ladies and gentlemen, she and I tried every single thing on that counter.

 

“God knows what that woman thinks of us…” I whimpered as we made our way towards the checkouts.

 

“She’ll forget us within a week,” Dakota assured me while licking her lips. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

“Easier said than done…”

We entered the small queue at one of the open checkouts, just a couple of shoppers between us and…

 

Oh.

 

“Oh wow…”

 

“What is it?” Dakota asked, concern lacing her curiosity. Perhaps I’d sounded a little uneasy…

 

“That’s Callum,” I spoke quietly while motioning towards the guy manning the checkout. “Y’know, my friend from Primary school.”

 

“Huh, well, there’s fun thing number 3!” she said with a triumphant clap of her hands.

 

“Yeah, and he’s about to serve us with the spoils of fun thing number 1,” I reminded her, looking down again at the bikini and lingerie that inhabited our shopping basket alongside a couple of hastily-chosen chocolate bars and drinks.

 

“He’ll survive,” Dakota winked. The queue moved forward.

 

“Sure. He can attend my funeral service,” I said; “‘Alex Matthews, died of severe embarrassment.’”

 

“You’ve survived monster fights, you can survive this.”

 

“Those monsters were made just to lose to us!”

 

“And yet they were way scarier than this,” she reasoned with me. “Come on. You get to show him your beloved girlfriend. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, right?”

 

“Mhmm…”

Not that I disagreed with her. But this wasn’t exactly the ideal way to encounter a friend I’d not seen in upwards of a year…

 

The man in front of us walked off. Dakota and I stepped forwards; Callum recognised me immediately, of course, with a big grin spreading across his face.

“Hey Alex!”

 

“Hey, Callum! It’s been a while,” I stated the obvious (why do we do that in conversation?). “How’ve you been?”

 

“Good, thanks! What about you?”

 

“Yeah, pretty good…”

I turned to Dakota, and felt a swell of pride in being able to introduce such an incredible person as my partner.

“This is Dakota, my girlfriend,” I told Callum as I looked towards him again.

 

“Huh, what happened to Paige? I was rooting for you two,” he chuckled to himself, before offering his hand to Dakota. “It’s a pleasure to meet you! I hope you’re manging with him, he’s a handful.”

 

“I’m a handful too, so it all evens out,” she told him, shaking his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, too.”

 

“And you’re Irish!” Callum proclaimed in joyful surprise.

 

“That I am!” Dakota giggled, placing the shopping basket on the checkout for him. His eyes, of course, went straight to the contents.

 

“Either this was a shopping trip of two halves, or you two are into some kinky stuff,” he quipped.

 

“Actually, it’s just a really weird improvised date,” I told him hurriedly, as Dakota tittered next to me.

 

“Hey, no judging here, you know me,” Callum smiled again, picking up the bikini and scanning the barcode.

 

“S-So, how long have you been working here…?” I asked in a sure-fire effort to change the topic.

 

“Since Christmas. Wanted a part-time job, and I thought where better than Marks and Sparks?”

 

“Heh, ‘Marks and Sparks’,” Dakota echoed in delight.

 

“Oh my god, your accent is the cutest thing!” Callum said cheerily. “How long have you two been dating, then?”

 

“Also since Christmas, funnily enough…” I began.

 

“He flew out to Ireland to confess,” Dakota interjected. “I’d gone back home for Christmas and he was so lovesick that our friends got him to fly over. On Christmas Eve!”

 

“Okay, okay, quick, pay for your stuff and go before you drown me in how cute you both are!” he laughed.

 

We did as instructed, and he waved us goodbye as we made our way out of the store with our bagged purchases.

 

“See?” Dakota nudged me as we returned to the street. “Three fun things, and being served by Callum wasn’t a problem.”

 

“I’m not saying you’re right because-”

 

“You just did, sweetheart,” she interrupted me proudly.

 

“… okay, well…” I trailed off purposefully just to provoke a loving laugh from her.

 

The next few hours seemed to fly by as the two of us visited numerous different shops, checking out all manner of things and enjoying each other’s company. We snooped around a music shop, visited the patisserie next to Cosmic Comics to bask in the smell of the baked goods, and popped into the little toy store where I pick up Beast Wars figures to see what new items may’ve made their way there. Utterly mundane and yet a whole lot of fun.

 

It was getting close to 6pm when we finally settled down on a bench with an ice cream each. I’d gone for strawberry while Dakota had, for reasons I personally can’t fathom, chosen mint. (I’m sorry, dear, but that’s toothpaste-flavour to me.)

 

“Paige is Lucy’s friend, isn’t she…?”

So I was asked, out-of-the-blue… or rather I’d foolishly assumed, with her not mentioning it as soon as we left Marks and Spencer, that it had been forgotten about. It had certainly escaped my mind.

 

“Yeah… she used to come over a lot when we were kids, and I kind of had a crush on her for a few years…” I told her sheepishly.

 

“You never told me this!” Dakota exclaimed in surprise, grinning. “That’s cute!”

 

“Nothing ever came of it, anyway,” I shrugged. “Like when I was crushing on Melody. Well, not like that, because Paige never found out, I just… gave up on it, I guess…”

 

“Well,” my girlfriend started after taking a lick of her ice cream, “on the one hand, I’m glad you did, otherwise maybe we wouldn’t be together… I mean, if you asked her more recently than when you were kids, anyway…”

 

“Nothing would’ve come of it.”

I said that with certainty.

 

“That’s what’s on my other hand,” she continued. “Is that really why you never told her?”

 

“We were kids anyway,” I insisted, “and even when I was, like, 13…”

 

“I know. So what?”

Suddenly, she was staring me down. I reeled back just a little.

“You… you never give yourself enough credit, Alex. I can’t understand why you think so badly of yourself. Why you only ever see the bad parts of yourself.”

 

“Because I’m crazy, apparently,” I grunted. “That’s what Harmony said.”

 

“Yeah… well…”

 

Dakota stopped there. Apparently, she had no words to fight that diagnosis back.

 

“You’re so much better than you think, Alex,” she finally spoke after several seconds had passed. “And you deserve so much love. I’m just grateful that I’m the one who won. I get to be the one to shower you with love.”

 

I looked at her. One of those moments where I really, really looked at her, and took her face in properly. I took her and that fearsome expression in, and I replied:
“I’m grateful too. I’m so, so glad it was you. I’m so glad I told you I love you and I’ll say it every day. I love you.”

 

A smile broke through, shattering her stern look and transforming her face.

“I love you too, you eejit.”

 

And we shared a strawberry-mint kiss.

 

“Hey, what’re we doing for dinner? Cos if we’re eating out, we probably shouldn’t have bought these ice creams…”

That dawned on me only then, of course.

 

“Eh, we’ll eat at home. Your cooking is the best,” she told me.

 

“I mean, it’s objectively not,” I countered. “I bet every chef in town cooks better than me.”

 

“Maybe, but their food isn’t cooked by you. It’s like… you could love looking at any lingerie model, but I’m the only one you’d really want to have in lingerie.”

And that smirk was back.

 

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, okay, you’ve got me there.”

 

“And maybe,” she continued, with that wonderful playful gaze of hers, “after I eat your amazing cooking, you can enjoy my amazing sexy-lingerie-wearing-body…?”

 

…

 

“Hello Dakota, Alex,” one Neil Henderson greeted the two of us in the hallway of Dakota’s… of his home.

 

“Hey Neil…! What’re you doing here…?” Dakota asked, trying to keep her evident surprise submerged.

 

“If you took your mobiles with you, you’d know!” Bao called out from the living room.

 

And then two kids – or, I suppose, young teens around Kitty’s age – raced out of the living room and sandwiched Dakota with a gigantic hug.

 

“Dakotaaaaa! Why didn’t you come visit us?!”

 

“We haven’t seen you in so, so, soooo long!”

 

“Hey Pete, hey Anna!” she greeted them. “Sorry, I’ve been busy busting monster butt!”

 

“Last-minute decision,” Neil told the two of us. “Cassie insisted we come down here for a couple of weeks. I phoned here but, obviously, the message didn’t reach you.”

 

“We were gonna send out a carrier pigeon,” Zahid’s voice resounded.

 

Dakota’s twin cousins dragged her into the living room, barely giving her the chance to slip her sandals off; I discarded my trainers and followed after her to find the room bustling. The Playstation was on with Bao holding one of the controllers, Kendal and Harriet were deep in conversation with Cassie, and Kitty was curled up in one of the arm chairs looking somewhere between lost and spooked.

 

“You’re gonna stay in my room!” I heard Anna tell Dakota. “And Kitty’s gonna have a sleeping bag and stay with us too!”

 

“That sounds fun!” my girlfriend smiled back at her, before giving me an apologetic look.

 

… Lucy laughed in my face when I returned home that night.

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