Chapter 31

Lucky was very nervous, they’d been on the verge of making love and he didn’t know a thing about her. David asked if she wanted a drink, he was having a whiskey straight! The way she was twisting her fingers together and cracking them, just like he did when he was nervous, made him think this was big. Lucky took a whiskey straight too, she needed something, and the tension in the room was palpable.

They settled on the couch, facing each other and sipping their drinks, Lucky swallowed, okay here goes she thought.

As she took a breath she looked into David’s eyes and started to laugh, the look of total fear in them left her giddy that what she was going to tell him wasn’t that bad, and as the tears flowed down her cheeks and laughter rang out David went from fearful to confused and concerned!

‘Lucky darlin you need to stop laughing your ass of at me and tell me what the hells going on!’ Now he was getting pissed.

‘Oh David I’m sorry.’ She inhaled, trying to catch her breath. ‘But the look on your face, well it looked like you were in front of a firing squad!’ she snickered again, but didn’t go into full blown laughter again.

‘It feels like it! Now tell me why we stopped where we were?’ He took a large gulp of his drink and waited.

Lucky collected her thoughts and dived in. ‘Well all you know about me is I’m a music teacher and a Jovi fan, nothing more. I know nearly everything about you that’s out there.’ She wondered how to broach this and really there wasn’t any other way than straight out.

‘I had been married for just under twenty years till four years ago. And for over five years I’ve not made love, and I’m bloody nervous!’ She rushed through her words and ground to a halt, she put her glass down before she dropped it with nerves.

David’s jaw went slack. She’d been married, well of course she would have been she was a warm and generous woman, twenty years? Shit! Then his brain registered the last part. ‘You’ve not made love to anyone in the last five years? Why the hell not?’

Lucky started to spill the rest of her past, like a dam breaking. ‘You need to know the whole thing, will you listen?’

‘Of course I will, tell me.’ He took hold of her hands to stop them from twisting, they were cold, and he scooted nearer her and waited.

‘I met Peter when I was twenty-two, by the time I was twenty-three we were married. He was the love of my life. When he found out I had a Jovi obsession, I’d found 7800 Degrees by chance and that was it; he teased me mercifully for weeks after he found out. Later in our marriage he used to refer to you as the second man in my life.’ She laughed and David squeezed her hands hoping she’d continue.

‘I told him if any man was second it was him, you’d been in my life way before he was. Life flew by and it was damn good! I used to drag him to Jovi concerts, but he really liked you guys, he said he’d been brain washed with all the music I played, if not records and cd’s, on the piano, he was the one who suggested my necklace, but I didn’t go thorough with it till last year!’ She leant her head on his shoulder and he hugged her close letting her tell their story with interruption.

‘One day not many years ago, he came home feeling rough, he went down hill fast. Up till then he’d been incredibly healthy, where I used to catch a sniffle at one hundred paces!’ She laughed again but he knew her heart wasn’t in it. He thought at first he’d left her for another woman, now he realised he’d just gone.

‘They ran test and informed us he’d got bowl and liver cancer, he was already in stage four, nothing could be done for him. I watched him go from a vibrant physically fit man, to a walking skeleton, doped up on pain meds within months. He lost his laughter, pain was all he knew. I couldn’t sleep in the same bed as he did because of the tubes and monitors about him.’ She took a deep shuddering breath; this was harder on her than she ever thought it would be she’d not talked about Peter, like this, in years.

David was stunned, she’d been with this man for nearly twenty years, and he could feel the love and pain in her voice to loose him like that must have ripped her apart.

‘He died in my arms, he asked me to hold him for the first time in over a year, just to be close to him. I crawled in behind him and slipped my legs around him so he was cradled to me and sat like it for several hours, stroking his forehead and I talked about the things we’d done, the places we’d been and people we’d met, he lay there listening. The nurse came in while I was telling him what the kids had been learning in school, she checked him like she always did; then told me he’d passed. He’d gone not long after I’d started to talk to him.’ A sob ripped from her throat, and tears she’d never shed for him streamed down her face.

David pulled her onto his lap and sat there, holding her while her grief over took her; his heart broke for this vibrant woman in his arms. His fingers automatically stroked her hair, just like he did for Gabby or Lily when they were in pain. ‘How long has he been gone?’

‘Four years last December twentieth.’ She buried her face into his warm neck and cried some more. She’d not cried as they buried him, she’d showed no emotions whatsoever, if she had done they’d never have stopped her. She’d buried her heart with him, the only time she showed emotion was at the piano, and there she’d pounded the ivory and cried silently, but not much, till now! As much as she wanted to jump into bed with David, she couldn’t without telling him her past.

He realised that she’d not made love to Peter since he’d been diagnosed, that was a hell of a long time to go without the warmth of another human next to you, holding you, keeping you safe. He held her tighter, talking nonsense at her till he realised she’d gone limp, she’d fallen asleep. He sighed, at least he understood now, she may have seemed to want to make love to him the first time, and just a while ago, they’d met and he’d walked away, but he really wondered now if they would have gone through with it; Peter would be in the back of her mind, and he doubted she had ever had a quick fuck before, and he sure wasn’t starting that with her now. He lay his head on the back of the couch, closed his eyes and prayed for some guidance, then he picked her up and carried her into his room and into his bed.

He quickly stripped her down the her underwear, trying, and failing, to treat her like his kids again, he couldn’t help himself as he looked at her laying there in her white silk panties and bra, prayin again for the strength to cover her up. He did, but he couldn’t bring himself to be a martyr and sleep on the couch, fuck it he was a man after all. So his stripped down to his boxers, and slid in next to her, she rolled to his heat and snuggled into his arms, she sighed deeply in her sleep and kissed his chest, he prayed like the devil was after him!