Читать книгу A Taste of Passion - Ashley Lister - Страница 11

Trudy shrieked and pulled away. She lost her footing and came close to falling over. A strong hand caught her forearm and stopped her from tumbling to the ground. She felt a wrench pulling on her shoulder harsh enough to make her moan.

‘Slow down,’ Charlotte warned. ‘You need to be careful on this stretch of the run. The ground here is positively lethal.’

Trudy regained her balance. She tugged one of the buds from her ear and the loud music of the day was suddenly split in two. From one ear she could hear heavy metal. From the other there were the tentative calls of the morning’s first bird song and the sound of her own startled breathing. She pushed the brim of her cap upward so she could see her friend.

Charlotte was dressed in an immaculate navy blue running outfit, trimmed with white and scarlet piping. As always, she looked golden. Even without make-up she looked bright-eyed and fresh-faced. Her brown eyes were clear and there was only a small V of concern creasing her brow. Her retroussé nose was wrinkled as she assessed Trudy.

‘What the hell are you doing out here?’ Charlotte demanded. ‘Are you taking on the quad killer?’

Trudy shrugged and then nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. If she did open her mouth she was fearful she would blurt, ‘I fucked William Hart!’

Charlotte’s eyebrows inched upward as she waited for a response.

Trudy nodded again and then looked away.

‘Take it slowly and I’ll come with you,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve done the quad killer. It’s probably been six months or more.’ There was a knowing smirk in her voice as she added, ‘Didn’t we last do this run just after you broke up with Peter? Or did it happen after I introduced you to Terry?’

Trudy didn’t bother replying. She guessed Charlotte was trying to make a point. She turned down the volume on her MP3 player and left one earbud out. Slowing her pace she began to tackle the run without the hasty and manic energy she had been previously employing. The lack of swift progress struck her as maddening.

‘You missed a great night,’ Charlotte said, falling into step beside her.

Trudy did not respond. She had wanted to avoid Charlotte this morning. There was a strong danger Charlotte might ask questions that Trudy didn’t want to answer. Now she was here, Trudy thought it was best to let her friend chatter on in the fragmented way she always used when they were running together.

‘We went into town. Caught up with the class. Maybe half of them.’ Her speech fell into the rhythmic pattern of her sprint through the woodland trail. Her sing-song tones made the banalities of mundane conversation seem almost musical. ‘Just a few of us. Gemma and Daryl. Wendy and Henry. They were in Stanzas.’

Trudy nodded. She knew they had been planning to finish the night at Stanzas. Somehow that seemed appropriate. Stanzas was the local nightclub most frequently favoured by university students. Cheap beer and a reputation for tolerated decadence made it the essential place to visit off campus. She had spent several nights in Stanzas throughout the duration of her degree. Most of the memories were good ones. On any other occasion she might have smiled at the mention of Stanzas.

This morning she didn’t feel like smiling. Not whilst she was in Charlotte’s presence. There was always a danger that Charlotte might read something from a smile. Something that Trudy wanted to keep hidden.

She quickened her pace.

Charlotte tapped her shoulder and silently gestured for Trudy to slow down. ‘Donny pulled Gemma,’ Charlotte said. She didn’t add the word ‘again’. Trudy didn’t think there was any need for her to say the word. She could hear the note of reproof underscoring Charlotte’s voice.

Charlotte went on quickly. Trudy thought her friend was hurrying to speak before she said something that exposed her true feelings about the shameless fuckbuddy relationship shared by Donny and Gemma.

‘Two lecturers came. One got Wendy drunk.’

‘Which lecturer?’

Trudy wasn’t really interested but she figured, if she asked some questions about events in Stanzas, it would keep the focus away from what had occurred at Boui-Boui. More specifically, she hoped it would keep the focus away from what had occurred between her and William Hart.

‘Professor Simmonds.’ Charlotte sounded aghast. ‘It’s so disgusting. He’s in his thirties. He bought Wendy beer. He’s such an old lech. He plied her with –’

‘There’s only two years between them,’ Trudy broke in.

Charlotte snorted. ‘Are you sure of that?’

Trudy remembered Wendy mentioning it before their finals. Wendy had fancied Simmonds since the first year of their studies. Out of respect for him, and because she didn’t want to make things professionally awkward for the lecturer, Wendy had kept her distance. But, Trudy supposed, now that the woman had graduated and Simmonds was no longer her professor, Wendy was perfectly entitled to share a beer or more with the man. At the back of her mind she privately hoped that Wendy and Simmonds would get together and be very happy.

She liked to see people happy.

‘I’m sure of that,’ Trudy said flatly. ‘There’s two years between them.’

Charlotte jogged beside her in silence for a moment. ‘Still think it’s creepy,’ she said eventually. ‘If it is two years –’

‘Which it is.’

‘He seems more mature. A lot more mature.’

Trudy threw an extra effort into running. She didn’t want to hear any of this. Not this morning. She had wanted the solitude of the demanding quad killer. She had wanted the distraction of a muscle-searing, energy-depleting workout. She had wanted to lose herself in the exertion and excitement of pushing herself too hard and too far. She hadn’t wanted to listen to Charlotte passing judgement on what was wrong with every relationship that had begun last night.

‘Pete was in Stanzas.’

Trudy’s shoulders slumped. Great. Now it was time to have the conversation about her ex. She gritted her teeth and forced her tone to sound indifferent. ‘How was Peter?’

‘Dating a first year. What’s wrong with these men? Are they all perverts? Screwing young women.’

Trudy stopped running and rounded on Charlotte. Finally, she understood.

‘How did you know?’

Charlotte came to a halt and laughed. The mirth was made thin by exertion but it remained fairly obvious. Merriment shone in her eyes. She put her hands on her thighs and leant forward and chuckled softly before speaking.

‘I can always tell when you get laid. I’m a light sleeper. I could hear that you were in the shower at two in the morning when you got back. The fact that you’re doing the quad killer tells me you’re feeling conflicted about getting lucky. You did the quad killer after you broke up with Peter. You did the quad killer after that embarrassing night’s fumble with Terry.’ She paused to lean against a tree and stretch out her legs. ‘I think you see this run as the spiritual atonement for your imagined sins.’

Trudy glared at her. ‘That psychology module you took is still proving useful.’

Charlotte’s grin inched wider. ‘You really screwed William Hart? He’s pretty hot. What was it like?’

Trudy looked away. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘You didn’t screw him?’

‘Well …’

Trudy tried to think of how she could phrase her response. She wanted to be artful and say that they had made love. But she knew that wouldn’t be entirely true. She and William Hart had given themselves over to base, animal instincts. There had been an instant attraction and neither of them had let themselves be restrained by the formalities of propriety or common sense. She wasn’t sure that such an act could really be called making love. But she felt sure it had been more than simply screwing. On some level she felt sure it had been a lot more. But there was no way to shape that thought into a convenient phrase that would stop her friend from asking questions.

‘I don’t want to talk about this. I just want to finish my run.’

Charlotte pulled her into a hug. Her arms were cold from the morning mist but it was impossible not to feel the waves of friendship that were apparent in her embrace. She rubbed her hands briskly and reassuringly against Trudy’s back.

‘I was just teasing before,’ she whispered. ‘If you need to talk about anything. If you need an ear or a shoulder or just a friend, you know that I’m here for you, don’t you?’

Trudy thought about the words and realised Charlotte was telling the truth. Regardless of what else happened she believed the brunette would always be a friend she could rely on. Trudy returned the hug, ready to swoon with relief.

‘Did you find out the identity of that mystery ingredient?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you make them for Sweet Temptation?’

Trudy started to respond and then stopped. There would be ethical implications involved in stealing William Hart’s recipe for the benefit of Sweet Temptation. She hadn’t yet had breakfast and already she was trying to deal with quandaries like the semantics of sex and sexual politics and now the ethics of appropriating recipes in the catering business.

‘Let’s finish the quad killer,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t have the exact recipe to those muffins but I have my own interpretation of them.’

Charlotte shrugged and then nodded. ‘Even better. Stealing recipes from the shoulders of giants.’ Before starting to run again she jogged on the spot from one foot to the other. ‘You know we’re in the Admiralty Room this afternoon, don’t you?’

Trudy nodded. Charlotte had scheduled a meeting with her parents at a local hotel. She had made a point of booking the prestigious Admiralty Room at the Hadfield Hotel. Donny kept telling them he was anxious to get the business up and running as soon as possible and he wanted to demonstrate that Sweet Temptation was a perfect investment opportunity. Whilst it was known that Charlotte’s parents would have ploughed money into their daughter’s schemes without any supporting information, Trudy knew that Charlotte did not want to build her dream on handouts and charity.

‘It’ll be great if you can bring your interpretation of those muffins to the presentation,’ Charlotte said. ‘That way everyone will know what you’re capable of producing.’

Trudy considered this and nodded. Once she’d finished the run she would get ingredients from the market, prepare the muffins that were needed and then attend and support Donny’s presentation. Their joint commitment to making Sweet Temptation a success was important and that needed the focus of her attention this morning.

After the presentation Trudy vowed that she would allow herself some time to think about what she had done with William Hart and try to establish whether or not it had been a mistake.

It hadn’t felt like a mistake.

It had felt so good that she desperately wanted to repeat the experience. But the prospect of repeating the experience was something she wouldn’t let herself think about until after she had helped her friends.