Bad Decisions - Alex Turner

3. First Date With A Boyfriend Of Four Years

There were a hundred raindrops racing to the bottom of each of my window panes, trickling down and picking each other up along the way. Like a relay as the rain fell in sheets outside. Call me melancholic but I always found rainy weather more comforting than the steamy rays of yellow sunshine. It has always been more peaceful to work in and brings a kind of serenity to my often muddled mind.

I was soaking wet. I'd just run inside after making my way back from my college library where I studied, everything I owned was dripping and ruined. So I was hair drying all my books to preserve their pages when Christian showed up.

"Did you go out?" He asked as he stepped inside shaking out the umbrella that had protected his perfectly styled hair. His eyes were dragging up and down my body, picking up on my slowly drying hair and clothes.

"Got rained on on the way back from the library," I said and kissed him on the cheek as a hello.

"Are you not cold?" he asked, taking off his coat and tossing it onto the coat rack by the front door. It was a day colder than most in March. The inside of my house had no central heating so unless you were by the small heater in the living room, you felt like you were in the arctic. Fingertips purple and nose like an icicle. It got awful in winter. I'd usually spend the season at Christians place. Much more lavish and much much warmer.

My fingers were almost blue. "I've just been trying to save my books," I laughed off. I was fucking freezing and hadn't even thought about getting changed.

Christian furrowed his brows at me, confused and followed me into the living room where all my textbooks were sprawled out over my coffee table and beside them sat my hairdryer, it's end still warm.

"Oh I see," Christian nodded. "What's with the hair dryer?"

"Using it to dry the pages?" I smiled sheepishly. I shuddered as a cool breeze crept up my spine.

"You're shivering," Christian pointed out and wrapped his warm arms around me, bringing me into his toasty chest. "Go have a shower and put something dry on. I'll do the books."

  I looked up at him with these big doey eyes I'd always acquire whenever he offered to do me a favour. "Really?" His arms were like freshly baked bread — in the best ways, that perfect level of warmth sending radiations through by body.

  He smiled that soft, beautiful smile I fell in love with and nodded, leaning his face down and kissing me slowly, tugging on my lip as his departed from mine, leaving me wanting more and more. His small layer of stubble grazing my chin and letting the soothing sting linger as I tiptoed off to my bathroom. Vices aside, Christian really was lovely.

As I was drying my hair and sinking into fresh dry clothes, Christian crept in behind me and placed his hands on the bones of my pelvis, his warmth creeping up on my back.

"I have a proposition," he said and I soon felt those poisonous lips of his caressing my neck. He loved my body. "There's this Mexican place around Downtown that looks promising?"

I sighed and chewed on my lip as he grazed his up towards my ear. "I can't afford to go out again," I said guiltily, "I've had to cut down to two shifts a week at the gallery."

"It's my treat," Christian said and wrapped his arms to hug my waist. "C'mon, put on something nice and we can go."

The rain was still pouring as we drove in the blues of the early evening light. Those raindrops still racing down my passengers side window and having their race compromised on the windscreen as the wipers shoved them to and fro. I felt a buzz on my lap and looked down to see my phone glowing with my mother's contact shining onto my face.