Fun In The Sun by repgreece (read people like a book TXT) 📕

concern doubling.

He backed away from her. "Nothing Sal. Go to sleep," he said, abruptly turning away and heading swiftly to the bathroom.

She bolted out of the bed then, wanting to catch him before he got through the door, but failing. She tried the handle but he had locked the door.

"Nick, come out," she urged. Silence. "Nick, what's wrong? Come out," she repeated. Still nothing. Damn it, why wouldn't he speak to her? She banged on the door. "At least answer me for God sake!"

"Go to bed Sal," he finally shouted back.

"I'm not going to bed; there's something wrong and since we are supposed to be friends, you can come out and tell me what it is," she said with frustration.

Damn it! What was he going to do now? He took a deep breath, struggling to rein in his chaotic emotions, and running a shaking hand over his damp face, wiping the moisture away.

Nick unlocked the door and was faced with an angry looking Sal. That really threw him. He'd never envisaged Sal being really angry before, but the look on her face was real and serious.

"I just wanted to know what was wrong," she accused.

"There's nothing wrong," he lied, cringing at his words. But what else could he say?

"Like hell there isn't," she shouted back, placing her hands on her hips. Why was he lying to her? She could put up with a lot but lies and pretenses were her biggest bug bear. "Why do you always do this to me Nick? We are supposed to be friends aren’t we? Or is that all just a load of rubbish? Is this a big game to you, eh? Am i just someone you like to make fun of every now and then? 'Good old Sal is good for a laugh.'"

Nick was speechless and in shock, frozen to the spot. To see such anger in Sal and for her to get everything so totally wrong was so distressing for him but in his panic, he simply didn’t have the words to tell her just how wrong she was. He simply stared at her. Some of the anger left her then when she registered the look on his face.

"Nick, why can’t you talk to me about what really matters because I care about you."

That admission had them both brimming with tears.

"You went away for the whole winter and you promised that you'd keep in touch but I didn’t hear a thing from you, but you kept in touch with Adam and Fay and Ruth, because they clearly mean more to you. But when you left me, you didn’t even give me a contact number or e mail address or anything. I trusted that you'd contact me when you got back to the UK but you didn’t bother," she said, hanging her head as the tears dripped down her cheeks. This was more than Nick could bear.

"God damn it," he shouted back, with his own tears streaming from his eyes, "I didn’t want you to see me like this! I didn’t want you to know everything because I wanted you to think something of me."

Her head shot up then. "You think I don’t think anything of you? You think I will think more of you if you put on a big show for me Nick?" she replied incredulously.

His head was aching with emotion and confusion. "No," he replied, suddenly taking a seat on the sofa behind him and holding his head in his hands.

"What then?" she pushed; she had to know. "What then?" she repeated.

He growled, so frustrated with himself and the whole situation. Then it all came out in an angry rush, the whole sordid mess.

"My father is an addict and he's dying as we speak but I'm here because I can’t face him. I can’t face it Sal," he shouted, the shame of it bringing fresh tears to his eyes. "I'm so bloody terrified," he heard himself admit.

Sal thought her heart was going to break and her face just became a mass of tears. She went to him and took his face in her hands, kissing him on each cheek before wrapping her arms around him and holding his head to her midriff and he sobbed.

She kissed the top of his head. "I'm here for you Nick, just please don’t push me away," she begged. "And if and when you need to go back, I'll come with you and I’ll be right there beside you all the time...if you want me to," she added. "Because Nick," she said, crouching in front of him and placing her hands on his knees, "I'll be the best friend you've ever had, if you'll just let me."

His heart melted. "I know you will Sal," he said, stroking her face. "And I'm so sorry for hurting you. It wasn’t my intention. Come here," he said, taking her hand and urging her to sit next to him. He immediately took her in his arms and held her there, stroking her hair. They sat for a while as their tears subsided. "God, what are we like, the pair of us," he whispered against her. She giggled, releasing some of the emotion as a half laugh, half cry. He tightened his arms around her. "You're going to be absolutely exhausted tomorrow missy," he finally said. "I'm going to let you get some sleep now."

She pulled away from him then with a slight frown on her face. "Where are you going to sleep?" she asked.

His eyes flicked to the sofa they were sitting on. "Here," he replied.

It was so hard though, and she didn’t like the thought of him sleeping alone with all those thoughts that had been in his head.

"Look, you don’t even have any sheets on here. We are adults; we can sleep in the same bed without doing anything untoward," she said, standing suddenly.

He stood also, hesitantly. "What, even you Sal?" he joked, breaking the tension. "Well, as long as you promise not to seduce me, I guess we could."

She laughed. "Yeah, i do have some degree of control you know. I even brought my least sexy nightie," she added, plucking it from her pile of clothes and heading for the bathroom. "Just going to change."

Nick sat on the bed and stared at the closed door, his head in a whirl. What had just happened? And how on earth was he going to cope with a night spent sleeping next to Sal, least sexy nightie or not?
Chapter 29

As it turned out, Sal's least sexy nightie was nothing close to not being sexy. Nick was facing trouble. And what had made it worse, was that Sal had turned the light on before going into the bathroom, so Nick’s first glance of her when she came out had been well lit. First of all the nightie was short, and goodness knows what she had, or didn’t have on, underneath it. Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? It was also low cut, with tiny straps...one of which had slipped down off her shoulder as she'd emerged from out of the bathroom. Oh boy. He couldn’t imagine what one of her 'most sexy' nighties was like! This one, however, was a black satiny kind of wispy thing with lacy edgings. Its only saving grace was that Nick wasn’t actually able to see through it! But what he could tell as she moved towards the bed was...oh god, don’t look there again...it appeared that she might not have a bra on!

After Sal had disappeared into the bathroom, Nick had jumped into action, dived into his back pack and pulled out a pair of loose, grey shorts, which he had packed for modesty's sake; he rarely wore any clothes in bed. Pulling on the shorts, he'd proceeded to strip off his t shirt, but paused with the t shirt half way over his head. Maybe he should keep it on? He pulled it back down. But then again, it was quite hot that night. Maybe he should take it off after all? Hold on, right, if he took it off there would be more chance of him and Sal making skin to skin contact, which was not good, but kinda good. Was it good or not? A loud crashing sound came from the bathroom. Nick nearly jumped out of his skin, still desperately trying to figure out... t shirt on, or t shit off? Something was moving against the bathroom door. Sal was coming out, and Nick was standing in the middle of the room in a mild panic. Ok, think. Right, Sal was eyeing him up earlier when he'd stripped his top off, which must mean that she liked his body, sooo, therefore, he couldn't possibly put her through such temptation. For Jen's sake, he'd made a decision. Good.

The door handle began to turn. At the last minute, Nick yanked the t shirt over his head, threw it on top of his backpack and dived onto the bed, leaning against the headboard and pulling the sheet over him. Sal was struggling with the door handle. Nick eyed the sheet and thought for a moment. Sheet on, or off? The door was opening. Nick threw the sheet back, hitched his leg up and rested an elbow casually on his knee. Oops, perhaps he should be doing something; he grabbed the nearest object he could get his hands on, the remote control for the television, and studied it.

Sal emerged.

"Sorry, it's a bit small in that bathroom..." she began to natter on nervously as she slowly shuffled towards the bed. He registered the shuffling and briefly flicked his eyes from the remote control to Sal and back, anxious about getting too much of a first glimpse of Sal in her nightie, should it be sexier than she'd suggested. He only experienced a fleeting glance of her but clearly registered the slipping of one strap over her shoulder and the tell tale 'jiggle' of breasts, covered only by a thin layer of black satin. Something began to stir underneath Nick’s sheet. Oh hell! The shuffling was obviously Sal's way of not showing too much while she held her arms rigidly in front of her, grasping onto the hem of the nightie as she moved. Of course, the shuffling and hem holding simply drew attention to the fact that the nightie showed far too much for a 'least sexy' variety. She stopped when she reached the bedside, which Nick sensed in his peripheral vision, having resumed his scrutiny of the remote control. He was now studying it in minute detail, half dreading, half unable to wait, for the time when he'd have to return his eyes to Sal. "... I knocked over my perfume. it's okay though; I rescued it in time," she said. He should reply... look at her now... but he was still trying to cope with the excitement that just a few milliseconds of seeing Sal in that 'least sexy nightie' was doing to him. "Do you want to watch TV?" she asked suddenly and a little incredulously, considering that it had to be close to four o clock in the morning!

Oh hell. His eyes were burning through the buttons on the remote control.

"Err, no," he