Weirdly, my day isn’t as bad as every previous year.
I find myself watching movies and eating cake without really pondering anything of the past and
anytime I catch sight of my new pretty, it makes me feel kind of strange. I have no idea why. I mean, I
love jewellery as much as the next girl, but I have never been particularly attached to any I ever owned.
This one little bracelet is fast forming some strange attachment to my heartstrings so that anytime I
catch a glimpse, I smile. Stupid little inward bubbles I cannot explain.
Maybe it’s because in all the twenty-nine birthdays I have had, this is the first one someone bought me
a gift; Even if it was from him. It’s a strange feeling to think of it that way, yet it has somehow distracted
me from the usual routine of tears and low mood and lying in a depressive state. The dandelion
reference got me thinking and maybe I’m not done with it yet.
My tattoo had a meaning once, and despite the road I have travelled, I’m here. Safe and protected,
earning wages and doing something I can have pride in. No one touches me in ways that I don’t want
to be touched anymore, not even Alexi, and I’m no longer surviving on street smarts and wiles to get
by. I’m no longer stressing about where the next lot of money is coming from or dealing with the likes of
Tyler, sex, and drug distribution. My body is my own for the first time in a long time.
I may not have risen in any spectacular way or become someone normal people would aspire to be
like, but that dirty little child from the streets of Hackney, who was always hungry and cold and fearful of
the men who would creep into her room. She’s safe … she’s warm … she’s fed, and even though Alexi
is a tosser of epic proportions, I know he won’t let anyone hurt me. In his own weird fucked up way,
he’s always been my protector when it comes to the outside world.
That night in the club, he saw a man with his hands on me and I don’t know what his motives were
really. Be it that he thought he was hurting me or simply that I chose another man after refusing him,
the fact remains, Alexi will always protect me no matter what is happening between us. He could have
hurt me, or punished me, but he didn’t. He turned on someone who was touching me, even if it was
misguided. I don’t forgive him for his behaviour, but I am not as mad as I was.
In fact, since I have come back, he hasn’t tried to punish me at all. Controlling me is not high on his list
of priorities anymore either and I wonder if my novelty wore off. If it was no fun after he broke me, and
he’s victimising some other poor girl somewhere else. I don’t even want to think about that and as
fucked up as it sounds … the thought gives me a jealous pang of agony low down in my gut; Hating
some imaginary girl who may not exist, for starring in his sadistic games and monopolising his
attentions.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I guess I can live with the fact that I owe him something … even if it annoys me. He didn’t need to bring
me back here and he didn’t need to give me half the club either. I still don’t understand why he gave up
fifty percent so easily and I will probably never get an answer that is honest.
He’s a complete enigma to me sometimes and if I could just have a little tiny clue as to how his thought
process works then that would be grand.
I know I should probably thank him for the gifts but a part of me still doesn’t trust that I wouldn’t be
playing into his hands. I mean, I’m grateful and I do love them, it’s just … there has to be a reason.
He always has a plan.
On the upside, I have been so preoccupied with his reasoning that half the day has gone by with my
head on that instead of more depressing things. I guess I owe him for that, even if it wasn’t his intention
at all, and I now feel restless and bored instead of close to putting my head in the oven and I’m itching
to go buy a dress that my bracelet will look pretty with.
I’m a shopaholic. It’s a problem.
I think coming from nothing and having to scrape all I had to be able to afford nice things made me this
way. I have a serious addiction to owning material things because I never had any growing up. I guess I
have my mother’s addictive personality but seeing as it manifests in buying clothes and shoes I am
happy to indulge it. A lot healthier than the crap she would inject into her body or pour down her throat,
and I would never hand over a child to pay for a new Birkin bag or the latest Versace outfit. I like nice
things around me … whereas she liked to live on another planet and disconnect from the reality of the
world.
I’m also hungering for real food after that cake and nothing in the refrigerator is screaming to be eaten.
It’s all too healthy and wholesome for me today and I have a craving for takeout, or greasy and spicy
and completely not good for you, food.
I get up and head to the bedroom to throw on a face and some clothes, aware that I feel better than I
expected, and I wonder if my new circumstances and more positive outlook on life concerning my
current state of affairs have really been at the root of my different attitude to today.
I am a year older, a year wiser and a year further away from the worst kind of beginning. Maybe I am
finally learning how to let that go. Stop looking back and starting to look ahead.
Jackson is hovering by the door looking awkward, seeing as I have been in the lingerie department for
the best part of an hour, and it’s obvious he doesn’t normally go knicker shopping with his wife. I told
him not to come with me, I was quite happy to have a day going solo, but he got one sniff of me in the
lobby and that was it. With Alexi in the building, there was no way he was going to let me wander off
without an escort.
He’s my shadow for the day and as much as I told myself I needed solitude, he’s been pretty good
company; Carrying bags, making jokes, being a sunny personality in my outing. He doesn’t know that
today is any different to any other day, or so I assume. Although a couple times he has looked at me
like he wants to say something, and he is being way more amenable than normal. I mean, usually, by
now he would be looking fed up with my hours of retail therapy, instead of standing guard by the door
with a perma-smile on his face as though he is having the best time ever.
‘I won’t be long,’ I call over to him, and the shop assistant milling nearby looks to me, then him with a
strange look. She’s trying to summarise if he is a weird husband who has a serious avoidance of sexy
underwear or if I’m some sort of celeb with a bodyguard. Jackson does have that aura of security and
the trademark black suit and doorman jacket is a massive giveaway. He’s just missing the earpiece
today to finish off the bodyguard kit.
The reality is I’m nobody, with an overbearing Alexi who won’t let me out of Carrero sight for even a
shopping trip. Santagato has been at the club since that day and he hasn’t given me a second glance,
so I am not sure if he is still a threat anymore. I guess probably because the hostility between Alexi and
me is pretty obvious to anyone capable of watching us for more than five minutes. Santagato can’t miss
the fact we are not exactly cuddling up all cosy, and maybe has deemed me unworthy of interest. I
don’t want to ask Alexi about it in case it just gives me a reason to feel unsettled.
I wave the girl over and hand her my armful of purchases, tired of picking out sexy underwear that no
man is ever going to see, and yet I still want it all. Looking good for myself is one of the few high points
in my day. I follow her to the desk to get them rung up.
* * *
Outside on the street, Jackson toddles ahead to put the bags in the boot of our car, and the smell of a
hot dog vendor further along the pavement catches me. I haven’t had a street dog in so long and the
smell makes me instantly crave what I cannot see, waving to Jackson that I’m heading left and he
quickly rushes to throw the bags in and follows me at speed.
It’s not often I walk around the streets on a shopping trip; we normally head for my favourite stores, and
he’s very good at car to door transport when Wes is with us and can deposit and collect us without
parking issues.
Jackson spies the hot dog vendor too and gets that same face he gets when we visit the sorbet shop.
Wide-eyed childish excitement and I can practically see him salivating. The guy likes to eat and despite
great DNA he is a lot more padded around the midriff than his cousins. Family resemblance is strong,
but Jackson is just a lot cuddlier than most of the hard-bodied people in his family. I am guessing by the
fact he practically lives at the club he has never been to a gym in his life, and has a serious affliction to
junk food, is probably why.
My kind of buddy.
Mico and Alexi are definitely gym besties, I have seen the two of them come swaggering in with
holdalls and sports towels, smelling of shower wash and looking decidedly slimmer. It’s a ritualistic
thing with them and I can’t say I am complaining. Alexi has a body that melts women’s clothes off and I
enjoy the eye-candy even if he is a complete nightmare sometimes.
‘All the trimmings!’ Jackson is ahead of me already and gives me a questioning look as he turns for my
order.
‘Same?’
I nod in answer and move off to browse the tourist stall next to the hot dog stand, while Jackson chats
away to the street vendor as he makes us two fully loaded dogs piled with onions and relish and extra
mustard. The smells have me drooling too, but I don’t like standing over the steaming cart and stinking
out my hair with smoked dogs. I keep my distance and spin the nearby display tower to amuse myself
while we wait.
Distracted by lots of garish tourist tat on show, plastic Statues of liberty, foam hats and oversized
sunglasses, I turn the little turnstile and catch sight of something that makes me instantly giggle—
Ridiculously so. A smile plastering across my face and brightening up my mood tremendously.
It’s a pair of men’s socks, white, crisp and longish with a black silhouette of the New York’s skyline
around the base. Right above there’s a little black crown and the text in bold capitals ‘Kingpin of New
York’ around the ankle area.
I don’t know why I find this absolutely hilarious and Alexi comes to mind, but I do and laugh so hard on
seeing them that tears come to my eyes and blur my vision instantly; A bubbling and fizzing swirl of
inner amusement as I lose the ability to stand still and end up bending to stop myself getting a stitch
from too many hysterics. I couldn’t even imagine him wearing these but the thought of it is hilarious.
‘You okay?’ Jackson looks me over and the only explanation I can have for my complete overreaction
is my fragile emotional state today, but then I get a visual of Alexi wearing nothing but these socks and
I start hyperventilating with hysteria so intense it only makes my sides hurt more. Crushing ache in my
ribs and my stomach cramps up with the effort of exertion. Laughing so much I start choking on thin air.
‘Are you okay? Really?’ Jackson is by me in a flash, patting my back and trying to get out of me what is
so funny. All I can do is point at the ridiculous socks and laugh more, on the verge of dying because I
cannot stop long enough to take a proper breath and my chest is caving in on me too. Tears run down
my cheeks and that damn image of a naked ‘Sexy Alexi’ and these damn ugly socks is killing me.
Jackson doesn’t get it, which only makes me feel dumber, this thing funnier, and I cry laugh in pain
because it’s given me about five stitches now. I don’t laugh like this very often and I think my body is
having an all-out stroke from the experience.
‘You like those?’ He asks warily, handing me napkins for my runny face as I try to calm down and catch
my breath, but all I can get out is …
‘…. For … Alex … eee …’ and I set off again. Giggle overload, and Jackson starts laughing at me
because I must look so ridiculous. It feels so good to laugh this way and yet also extremely sore.
Jackson sees the funny side when he picks up a pair, examines them a bit more closely, and grins. He
shakes his head and hands me them as though that’s what he thinks I want.
‘I think he might suit them.’ He winks cheekily and I finally start gasping in air to stop myself before he
sets me off again, clutching my sides and straightening up to pull myself together.
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