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| SOMEONE SOMEWHERE SOON WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU by Enola PART 2 The first two weeks are pretty traumatic: alarm clock at 7; wake the children up at 7:30 and help the youngest to get ready; breakfast at 8; Mr Lewis drives them to school at 8:30. Afterwards, you have to do the housework: made children’s bed and yours, do the washing and hang it out, do the cleaning, do the washing up, do the ironing, cooking… when the kids back from school you have to help them with their homework and play with them a bit, then you cook dinner and put the kids to bed at 9! At this point, according to Shane, you should go out with him to drink something in some pubs, but you are so exhausted that you go to bed and fall asleep before 10!!! One Saturday night, he finally manages to persuade you to go out. He brings you to this nice pub where the 2 of you order a pint and play some pool. There’s a table pool in the playroom at ‘The House’, Shane and Mr Lewis are 2 masters of it. They challenge each other every evening before dinner, they have put up a true championship and who reaches 50 wins will win one thousand pounds. This is their 2nd championship, Shane won the 1st by 50 wins to 47, while at the moment Mr Lewis is leading by 19 to 18. You enjoy watching them playing because their matches always are really uncertain. They both are trying to teach you to play, but you aren’t any good! Meantime, Shane has just missed a pocket, so it’s your turn. You bend over the table and hit the ball with your cue, that ball hits another ball, but the latter stops several inches before to reach the pocket. “You know that the aim of the game are pockets?” says jokingly a male stranger’s voice behind you. You don’t even turn because you don’t care at all about his statement, whoever said that. You look at Shane and smiling he says, “Ignore him. James always jokes when he’s tipsy! But when he’s sober, he’s very kind” “On the contrary, you, sober or drunk, aren’t any kind at all! You could at least introduce me to your friend!” replies the stranger with a hint of irony, “Why don’t you do it by yourself?” “You stupid cunt!” mumbles the stranger playfully. A while later you hear the stranger saying ‘Hi’ behind you, in a very kind way, then you see his hand and a silver ring in his ring finger, so you turn and you see a hint of a smile in his face… “My name’s James” “Hi! Mo…Monica!” you say shyly while your hands get in touch. He shakes your hand holding it tight for some seconds till he finally lets it go, “You’re the new volunteer of ‘The House’ I guess” he says, you simply nod trying to look at him as less as possible. “So you live with Shane! Poor thing! How the hell can you bear him the whole day?” he says aloud so that Shane can hear him clearly. “Shane’s very nice” you say looking at Shane who smiles at you when you say that. “If you knew him for more than 2 years like I do, you wouldn’t think like this!” You keep on looking at Shane amused, he’s still smiling and he’s shaking his head, “Don’t worry, I’m just kidding! The truth is that Shane’s a nice guy and a great friend” says James in a different way and you understand he’s speaking seriously now. A while later you go to the toilet because you need to relax for a minute, you can’t believe that you’ve just met James and that he’s a Shane’s friend! You wonder whether Shane told him something about the things you told him the day you arrived. When you leave the toilet you don’t manage to see Shane anywhere, while James is sat in a stool at the bar, so you go close to him and ask him about Shane. “He’s gone out for a while” he replies, “he asked me to keep you company, hope you don’t mind” he adds kindly. Now you wonder whether Shane left you alone with James deliberately or he really had go away for a while, but in any case, you don’t know what to do! James invites you to sit next to him and he asks you if you want to drink something, but you refuse because you’ve already had a beer and you aren’t used to drinking, “C’mon, you won’t die for another pint!” he smiles, “I’d rather not to drink, sorry” you reply still avoiding to look at him, “Ok, I won’t insist. We might play some pool instead?” “Ehm, as you saw before I’m totally useless at it” you giggle, “Glad to know I’m not the only one!” he laughs in a nice way, then he holds your hand, “Just to kill time and to see who’s the worst!” he adds softly in your ear. You get up and follow him because, after all, he’s just asked you to shoot some pool! He hands you a cue and you start playing. After a couple of pockets he misses one, so it’s you turn, but obviously you fail, but James tells you to try again, and he says the same again each time you miss a pocket. After several failed attempts, he says that you hold the cue in the wrong way, so he comes close to you to show how to hold it correctly. You bend over the table and he bends over you leaning his arms over yours. His stubble scratches your cheek gently and you can smell smoke and alcohol on his breath. You’re utterly stuck for something to say and feeling his body over you embarrasses you deeply. He seems to notice that as he tries to reduce the pressure of his body on you, “Sorry, I know all this is pretty embarrassing” he titters, “but y’know, that’s the best way to show you how you have to hold the cue.” Then he says you have to follow his instructions to hit the ball, you do it and you finally manage to send the ball to the pocket. Afterwards, James goes away from you and tells you that you have to try again alone this time, so you choose another ball and you don’t fail. James claps his hands and you feel you cheeks burning, so you beg him to stop immediately. He stops, but after a while he asks you, “By the way, which brand of shampoo do you use? Y’know, it’s really good…it’s very pleasant to smell!” You keep on playing for a bit and when you glance at your watch, you realize that you’ve been playing for almost a couple of hours and you start feeling tired. “I wonder where the hell Shane is!” Damn him!” you say slightly upset, “If you wanna go away I can walk you home” he says kindly, “No thanks, you’ve been keeping me company for three hours by now, and you did even too much!” “Say what? It was nice to keep you company, and if you want me to be totally honest, I’m sorry you have to go. But I console myself with the fact you’re a Shane’s friend and that means we’ll meet again soon!” His words sound really nice and genuine, but you don’t know what to think about that. Let’s take it in this way: he’s been drinking for hours and he’d probably tell anyone else the same; Shane’s one of his friends and James probably did him a favour; the fact you are a Shane’s friend implies that James was kind to you. Meantime, Shane comes back at last. You say bye to James and you and Shane go back home. “Why didn’t you tell me you and James are friends?” you ask Shane while you’re walking back home, “I don’t know, are you angry?” “No, but you should have told me that” you reply quietly, “And you shouldn’t either have left me alone with him!” you add a bit upset, “Well, you did say you wanted to talk to him…so I thought I was unwelcome” he says jokingly, “You should have stayed, I felt really embarrassed.” After a short pause you ask concerned, “Did you tell him anything about those things I told you?” “Nope. I’d never do it, don’t worry!” he smiles, “Thanks!” you reply relieved, “I need to talk to you about that long story, remember? I’ll tell you everything on Monday when the kids are at school.” “Did you tell James you fancy Nicky?” You add a while later to provoke him, “Nope! Why should I?” he chuckles, “I was just kidding when I said that!!” On Monday you tell Shane everything about yourself. You didn’t expect speaking to him to be so easy because you didn’t ever talk about that to anyone, but as he’s a psychologist you know that nobody might understand you better than him. You feel a lot better now, even because Shane has told you that you can rely on him for anything, he’ll always be by your side. PART 3 >>> <<< Enola's stories |