Chapter Ten

Erin hardly saw Richie over the new couple of days as he’d seemingly thrown himself into his work. She’d taken coffee up as usual the afternoon after the night before and had found a note on the door of his study.

‘Erin

Sorry but I’m gonna be really busy for the next 48 hours so please leave food and coffee outside and just knock to let me know.

Thanks

Richie’

At first she’d sighed with relief but after two days of not seeing him she’d begun to miss him. Still it was a chance for her to get her head around what had happened. What had happened? One moment she was laughing and joking with him and the next he was kissing her. As the solitary hours dragged by she found herself reliving every moment. From telling him he’d looked like a pineapple to reaching out for his hair. Why had she done that? Up until that point everything had been fine. Sure there was an undeniable attraction between them.

Erin sat in the lounge mindlessly watching crap TV and thought about the attraction. Was it really there? Or was he just as lonely as she was? Was that all it was between them? With a heavy heart she sat looking at but not seeing the TV.

‘That’s it. That’s all that was; he’s just lonely, his divorce has just come through, thanks Gwen for telling me that, and he was just being nice.’ she thought.

‘Nice? So a handsome man like him is being nice by kissing you and making your toes curl?’ a voice in her head argued back

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to do it, it was just one of those moments. Maybe that’s how he says thank you to a woman, after all I did show him how to make coffee.’

‘That’s is such a lame excuse, go wash your brain out girl. No man thanks a woman by kissing her that way. Maybe a peck on the cheek but not a full blown prelude to a snog’ the voice said, suggestively

‘Shut up!’ she thought, warning the devilish voice.

‘OK, but I think he’s interested in you, and not just for your cooking skills either…’ the voice cackled, smoky and dark.

‘Great, I have two voices in my head and one thinks she’s in a jazz club. No, he was just being kind and got a bit carried away, that’s all. After all what would a man like him see in someone like me? Even my so called fiancé didn’t want me.’

With that final sombre thought she sank back into the sofa and sighed.

--------------------------------------------

Richie sat at his desk, the paper covered with doodles, not one of them looking remotely like a usable lyric.

‘Why the hell aren’t you down there talking to her? Telling her why you kissed her? She must feel like shit, and yet you’re up here hiding away like some fucking coward.’ he thought as he strummed away softly on his Les Paul ‘58. It was one of his prized possessions and he adored it. His calloused yet surprisingly soft fingertips picked at the strings lovingly and he smiled as a soft melody surrounded him.

‘Why the hell did you kiss her?’ he asked himself, ‘you knew she’d just broken up with someone, hell you listened to enough of her conversation last night to have gathered that you asshole’ he berated himself.

‘I’ll tell you why, because you wanted to.’ a voice in his head replied.

‘I did not.’

‘don’t lie to me’


‘ok, so what if I did? I’m a man, I’m not responsible for ‘him’, you’ve watched American Pie right?’


‘You liked kissing her.’ the voice almost purred

‘Yeah, and I reiterate, I’m a man! But, you don’t go kissing someone who’s just broken up with her fiance after ten years just because you wanted to.’

‘Why not?, she liked it. Didn’t you hear that little kitten moan she gave, deep in her throat, so soft that she didn’t even know she’d done it? I know ‘he’ heard it….’


‘Stop it.’

‘Only if you admit why you kissed her.’ the voice whispered, devilishly softly.

‘Because I wanted to, and I’m the worlds biggest shit.’

Richie put the guitar down and sighed.