Never Again

Part Twenty Six

                “So what are your plans?” Erin asked after breakfast as Jack bundled her into his car.

                “Shopping! Then lunch, then...I don’t know...a movie? What do normal couples do on a day off?”

When he looked at her quizzically she laughed, “We’re not a normal couple Jack. You can’t pretend that we are!”

He closed the door after she’d climbed into the passenger seat, then wandered around to the driver’s seat. “We are two people living together, having a baby, that makes us a couple, even if you’ve made the relationship a little unorthodox.”

                “Me?” she spluttered. “I’m the only one thinking straight obviously. I’ll accompany you shopping, eat lunch with you, and I’ll pretend to whoever is listening that I’m your significant other, but that doesn’t mean I am, or ever will be.”

He leaned across to her, stopping his lips to a fraction from her ear, “we’ve got a connection Erin, we’re good together, and I KNOW that you relive our nights together as much as I do.”

Erin rapidly approached a state of meltdown, from a distance he could hold him at arm’s length and stay in control, but here, beside him, his words, his closeness, it was all smashing her defences to smithereens, any thought that she could resist Jack was evaporating by the second, and was that his tongue? On her earlobe? The moan that escaped her lips was completely involuntary, and she snapped her lips closed to try and disguise it. But Jack’s deep chuckle told her he knew exactly how he was affecting her. At some point she’d closed her eyes, but when she opened them, his hands were on the steering wheel, his eyes on the road and he was driving off into the distance.

Erin had heard about the Trafford Centre but never been there, and if the car park was anything to judge it by, it was a far larger shopping centre than she had ever imagined. Jack’s face lit up as he got out of the car, then he spotted her rather more concerned face.

                “You don’t like shopping?”

She groaned, “I don’t mind a couple of shops, but I’m not really up for hours of plodding around. And what sort of man are you to be so excited?”

He laughed, slinging an arm around her shoulder, “the type that wants to treat the mother of his baby to some special things!”

As they strolled into the brightly lit mall, he added quietly, “So I’ve got a confession to make...”

It was the sort of comment that caused one to stop dead in their tracks, glancing up at him slowly, Erin fought nausea and anxiety, “And that is?”

Jack grinned, and for a moment it made everything ok, “I brought you out for a reason, I want to buy you a really sparkly dress as Friday evening I have a charity dinner to attend and it’s about time we appeared together!”

With a smiled he carried on leading her towards the shops, but she dug in her heels, like a stubborn dog, and he was forced to stop and turn around.  

                “We’re not some romantic couple Jack, you are getting confused.”

He smiled, “we live in the same home, we are a couple of sorts. What’s the alternative? We both spend our time doing different things? I leave you home alone then attend these things on my own? It doesn’t make sense.”

None of it made sense, that was the problem, how had she ended up in this position? Yet again she was to be a fake trophy on a man’s arm at a charity dinner. Shuddering, she dropped her head and followed Jack. He was making her life secure, and she supposed she owed him something, but she wasn’t falling into this like she had with Max, she’d play her part, but that’s as far as it went.