What Goes Around...

Part Twelve

Chapter Twelve

The beers arrived and Coop leaned back smiling at the waitress as she placed them on the table. The young girl giggled then asked if he wanted anything else. He shook his head and thanked her, but when he looked up Freya was watching him, shaking her head.

                "What?"

She shrugged, "it's just like breathing to you, isn't it?"

He was baffled, "what?"

She reached for her beer and took a drink before offering, "that girl is hanging on your every word. She fancies you, and without even realising it, you're flirting with her, giving her hope."

                "I am not giving her anything." He was almost offended at her accusations.

She merely smiled, "that's the difference between you and me. The people we are. I saw it at every level in school, and college. The nerds were ignored, left to get on, no attention or intrigue. Something to be ignored. It was you...the jocks like you that pulled the girls, the pretty successful girls who pulled the boys; you 'lot' had the attention, the charm...and the conquests."

                "Really?" He hadn't had the best school years; he definitely wouldn't say that he was in the category she described. "I hated school, I lived to be at the rink...and I rarely had a girlfriend."

                "But you were popular...I expect you CHOSE not to date anyone. Honestly. You have no idea how it was for us geeks." When he gave a half shrug, then a nod, she smiled, "see? And you don't even know that you're doing it. Flirting, bonding...THAT's what I struggle with; I was never good at it. It's just the start of what I find difficult. It's what I can't do, that's where I lack experience."

He took his bottle and took a desperate swig out of it. "We have different lives, that's all. I think you're making more of his."

She shook her head, "on the contrary. I want to be as confident around men as you are around women, I want to be calm and as in control as you."

                "With this Simon?" He watched as she digested that.

Nodding she drank her beer again; "you might think that it's wrong, but I want everything to be perfect when I see him. I want him to realise that he's doing the right thing."

He thought she'd given up on her ridiculous plan, but as she stared up at him with big eyes, he could see that she was still considering it. "Leaving his wife? That's what you're worried about?" She nodded slowly and he sighed, "it's YOU that don't get it Freya. Really. You ARE perfect in your own way. If he doesn't see that he's crazy, and I said before, doesn't deserve you. He should accept you unconditionally." She flinched at that and he took a deep breath, "you still think that this Simon will benefit from me and you having sex? Because to me that sounds pure crazy."

She took a deep breath as the waitress laid their food in front of them, "he's coming to see me, things were a disaster last time. I want it to work this time. Why wouldn't I get a little rehearsing in?"

                "Because this is not a play, a rehearsal. This is life. If you love someone it's enough. It's not an issue of good or bad. I can't get my head around this, if he loves you, if he deserves you that's enough. If I was him I'd be furious that another man got his hands on you. Sex isn't something throw away."

Her eyes flashed at his words, "you saying that it's special between every girl you shag? I mean who had you dragged yourself off the other morning when I saw you coming home? You telling me that wasn't throw away?"