Blurb
Life was boring till I met her.
The raven-haired beauty on the train.
I spilled my coffee on her, and she cursed me out.
Two weeks later she was back. But she was different.
Instead of tearing into me, her sparkling green eyes begged me to make her laugh.
Her delicious, plump lips ignited my desire and made me forget the girl who got away.
But something’s wrong.
She doesn’t remember me. Acts like we just met.
I don’t know if she’s messing with me, or if it’s something deeper.
But I’m going to find out.
I was hurt once. Never again.
I’ll prove my love to Tamara and the twins growing inside her.
Life used to be boring, now it’s a roller coaster.
This time, the girl’s not getting away. This time, I’m chasing after her.
1
Logan
The usual sights whiz past the window as the train goes at its usual rapid pace, blurring into nothingness because of the speed. Greens, blues, grays, I can barely pick any of it out. The clackity clack of the wheels hitting the tracks makes my heart sink lower and lower in my chest because I know where it’s taking me. To work, the necessary evil which I really hate more than anything in the world. The office of doom.
I sigh loudly, wondering what dramas will befall me today. There’s always something, the complicated politics of the place makes my head spin. We’re all adults now, we should all just be friends. Or if not friends, then we should all be able to get along. It shouldn’t all be school girl bullying and bitching about who’s screwing who. The other week there was a massive mess because two women came in wearing the same top. It’s pathetic. And the guys aren’t much better too. Instead of keeping out of it as much as possible like I do, they relish it, loving every moment of it as if it’s a delicious playground and they’re pulling the puppet strings.
“Move,” a rude woman demands, pushing me out of the way. There’s plenty of room, she doesn’t need to be like this but I suppose she’s just another grumpy commuter just trying to get by. “Got bags here.”
I’m not even mad because of her attitude, I recognize myself in her down turned lips. She’s unhappy here, she wishes that she could be anywhere else in the world. Just like me. Me and my dissatisfied itchy feet.
The only way I can get through these journeys and the days that follow is by dreaming about my world wide trip, the time where all of this work will finally be worth it. I’m getting close too, my savings are getting healthier and healthier. It won’t be long until I can leave all of this behind. At least for a little while.
I don’t see the point in living on this big wide world and not exploring it. One day I’ll be dead, lying in the ground, and before I get to that place I want to see everything I can. I don’t want to spend my days existing in a crappy job, saving up for nothing. I need a journey to excite me. I crave adventure like crazy.
Ring, ring… I glance around angrily, wondering whose cell phone that is. Ring, ring… God, people are so obsessed with their technology. They cannot be disconnected. Ring, ring… And on public transport too.
It takes me a few moments of judging other people to realize that it’s actually me. My phone blaring out and disturbing the irritated silence of the morning rush hour commute. I yank my cell phone out of my pocket as quickly as I can whilst angling my take away coffee so it doesn’t spill. My cheeks flame a funny shade of red as a hearted embarrassment tears through my body at a million miles an hour, and I press it to my ear quick.
“Hey, Al, how’s it going?” I hiss into the receiver trying my hardest not to disturb anyone any more.
Alistair Berkley is the roommate I never expected to meet, and certainly the person I didn’t expect to become my friend. We’re total opposites in a lot of ways. He’s uptight, money obsessed, he loves his job in the finance sector. On first meeting he seems really arrogant as well, like he’s cock sure and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. If he wasn’t more than willing to pay anything to rent out the room because it’s near to his office I might have turned him away because I never thought we would be friends. I assumed it was going to be awkward.
Over time, things changed. I got to see that the arrogance is a mask he wears to cover up his insecurities. Surprisingly, we do have things in common as well. A love of reading and watching car racing. Small things that bond us together in a positive way, which is good because we live together. Now, he’s a good mate of mine.
“Hey, Logan, sorry I know you’re on the way to work…” He sounds much too bright for this time of morning. “I just wanted to check if you got the bank transfer I made to you. I know rent day is coming up.”
This is another thing I’m glad of. He’s got such a good memory for this sort of thing, I suppose because of his job, and he always reminds me when bills need to be paid. I’ve never had a late payment because of him.
“Oh right, I’m not sure yet because I’m on the train but I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll check when I get into the office.”
“Good, good.” There’s an awkward pause and I think I might know what’s coming. “I have a work night out on Friday if that’s cool with you. You know how it usually ends up and I just want to check it’s okay…”
It always ends up with me awake all night long listening to him and whatever woman he’s managed to pick up making banging and animal noises in the other room, leaving me hating him and hating myself more for not having any sort of sex life of my own. Ever since Laura, no one has caught my eye.
“That’s fine.” I curse myself for being so weak. “No worries on this end.”
I slide my eyes closed trying to push images of the blonde haired Laura from my mind. My first and only love, the woman I thought I was going to marry. The one I would have given up my bucket list for… that is until she decided that twenty three years old was too young to settle down and she started banging some guy from her office, effectively putting an end to us. Just like that, no conversation, no argument, we were just done in a poof of smoke. I think that’s the reason for the two very single years that followed. I didn’t get my closure, so it never felt fully done. I
’ve wanted answers for far too long, but I’m never going to get them.
Either that, or I just haven’t met the right woman to catch my eye.
“Okay, cool, mate. I guess I’ll see you later on then, yeah? Got to go, meeting about to start.”
With that, he leaves me with nothing but the dial tone and a pit of misery for company. There isn’t much point in me thinking in terms of romance these days, not when I’ll be headed out for a world wide trip soon enough, but the loneliness gets to me at times like this. I also get it when I’m eating yet more ramen noodles because I don’t want to blow my travelling budget on meals. I’d rather save it to taste foreign delights.
It’s all going to be worth it, I remind myself of my mantra when things get tough. Soon this will all be nothing more than a memory tucked in the back of my mind while I experience the world.
My desire to spread my wings and fly started when I was a child and my father would sit me on his lap to tell me about all the adventures he had himself. Now, as an adult, I can see that he glamorized all those stories because his travelling came while he was in the armed forces, but it still ignited the fire and that’s something I want to do it now. Even if his stories weren’t always accurate and didn’t always tell me the full picture, I still want to see what the world has to offer me. There has to be more out there than this small existence which leaves me hollow. I have to believe that I can have something like the experiences my dad laid out to me. I want to stand at the top of the Eifel Tower, to see the Great Wall of China, to see what the world looks like from the top of Mount Everest…
He died, just after my eighteenth birthday from cancer, and my mom went twenty months later. I think it might have been a broken heart which did it. She just couldn’t cope without my dad. I lost my foundation so quickly it did shake me a bit. Then, the following year my younger brother upped and left. He moved to England to be with some girl he met on the Internet. We email, every now and again, but there isn’t much contact between us. We’ve just drifted apart, that’s all. Nothing dramatic, no falling out, we just don’t have anything in common anymore.
I think because of all that loss, I’ve been feeling trapped, which is why this is just something I have to do. And the sooner I get away from this miserable life style, the better as far as I’m concerned. I’m done.
“He did not!” My attention is dragged from my thoughts by a red head talking much too loudly. Everyone turns to stare at her but she doesn’t look one bit embarrassed. “That is absolutely ridiculous, I’m shocked.”