Topsy Turvy Ch 02

Hi there, Sorry there's been a delay with this one - I was stuck for a loooong while, but hopefully I've got my mojo back - let's see.

I hope you enjoy this one. Please do comment and vote as I appreciate it and it lets me know if the journey is going in the right direction.

Many thanks

Elle x

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Michael Collins wasn't quite sure what woke him. He didn't know if it was the smell of the cakes baking wafting from the kitchen, or the little gnome who was banging his pick axe searching for diamonds in his head. Either way, all Michael knew was that he was awake, hungry and in pain.

Astounded that the children had let him sleep for a full night by himself, he opened his eyes, well one eye, with difficulty and peeked around the room. Michael was stunned to find that where the photo of him and Veronica shoving cake in each other's faces at their wedding normally hung, was now a poster of Pamela Anderson in her Baywatch days. He turned his head slowly and saw a large bag with what looked like a muddy football kit dumped on the floor surrounded by dirty plates and topped off with mouldy glasses. Mike shuddered in his delicate state feeling the vomit climbing up his throat and was only saved by his sudden panic -- where was he, and where were his kids?

Swinging himself out of bed and regretting it bitterly, Mike took the time to try and find his clothes but found that he was clothed only in his boxer shorts and those were decidedly damp. Racking his brain to remember if he had had a dream worth savouring, or if he had had an accident, he decided the best bet would probably be to find out just where he was, where his clothes were and what had happened. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that his phone and wallet were on the bedside cabinet so obviously he hadn't been mugged, so where the hell was he? He scratched his head and made a beeline for the door hoping that there wasn't a group of crack addicts waiting to pounce.

********************

Alanna was sure this time that she had heard movement. She glanced at the clock once more and found that her mysterious "Single Dad" guest loved to sleep. This propensity for sleep was now prohibiting her from going out shopping or doing the normal things she would do on a Saturday morning because, regardless of how difficult his life was - which frankly wasn't her problem - she was loath to leave a stranger in her house alone. And yet, each time she approached the door to wake him with her frying pan in hand intent on delivering the message of how irritated he made her, she would peek at him sleeping like a log and feel bad for waking him. This ended up in her resorting to stomping back to the lounge and making as much noise as possible in the hope of waking him.

The past fifteen movements that she had heard had been false alarms but number sixteen it seemed was the kicker. Hearing her brother's bedroom door creak open and the tentative footsteps that followed it, she prepared herself to greet her guest and was quite disappointed to find that it was simply Persia, her kitten, padding her way from the bedroom to perch herself on the lounge window sill and watch the birds that she constantly wanted to pounce on. Alanna huffed to herself at the sixteenth false alarm and went into the kitchen to check on her cakes, taking her cordless phone with her.

**********************

A tentative Michael pushed open the door to what he assumed was the lounge, and finding no one, made his way towards the back of the room which lead to what he thought was the kitchen, at least, that's where the music was coming from. As he reached the doorway, he found himself facing the back of a tall woman who mysteriously had Mickey Mouse winking at him from her bottom. She hadn't noticed his arrival as she currently seemed to be embroiled in a very detailed conversation which, it seemed, was about him.

"I don't know - yes I'm more than aware that it is eleven o'clock. No I don't know what time he's going to wake up - strikes me he is sleeping for England."

She stopped to listen to what the person on the other line was saying and wiped down the sideboard in the kitchen at the same time. He watched her long neck which was displayed by her short pixie cut nod decidedly and then heard her say,

"Well it's not my problem, and if he's not up in the next fifteen minutes I'll wake him up the same way I woke him before - the hose is ready."

She stopped to listen to the phone again and laughed,

"Shut up, I did feel bad, but then he swore at me so I kind of thought 'fuck him'!"

She listened and growled over the phone,

"No Tams, I had him take his clothes off and I put him to bed - What? No, Gabriel's bed! Dirty bitch - what do you take me for?"

Cackling at her friend's response she said,

"I don't know how big - no I was not tempted, after Helena had touched him up..."

Michael had heard enough. It seemed, according to this woman, that he had been attacked by a hose, assaulted by her friend and now her other friend was suggesting that she assess his crown jewels. He decided it was time to enlighten his host as to his presence. He cleared his throat angrily and she swung around caught like a rabbit in the headlights.

"Shit, I've got to go, it's woken up."

Michael bristled at the way she ignored him to finish her call but felt that he didn't have much authority when he was standing in a stranger's kitchen in a pair of boxer shorts with very little knowledge.

**********

Damnit, having spent all morning tip toeing around preparing herself for his arrival, Alanna was disgruntled to have been caught, unawares, in her pyjamas, gossiping about her temporary lodger. As she turned to face him, she watched him watch her from head to toe and doing so slowly, like he was taking her in bit by bit.

I thought he was mourning the loss of his wife. she grumbled to herself feeling naked by his appreciative stare. She decided it was time to even up the playing field,

"Sleep well did you?"

Alanna was startled to note that he responded to as her though nothing was wrong as he answered in a calm and relaxed manner,

"Yes, thank you."

She watched him take in the smell of the cakes baking and waited for him to ask. He didn't. In fact he looked very comfortable standing there in his boxer shorts, and she couldn't help but notice that he had no business feeling awkward as he looked like a man who took very good care of himself. He looked as though he was carved out of granite, his dark skin smooth like marble and the colour of milk chocolate. He had a tattoo on his left arm she noticed as he lifted it to rub the back of his head. She felt something flutter in her stomach, something she decided to ignore,

"I bet you're wondering where your clothes are?"

"Amongst other things - I'm more concerned about how I woke up damp in a stranger's house."

Alanna looked amused,

"Hey, lots of guys would love that -- you don't sound too grateful to me"

"Why am I supposed to be grateful? Last thing I remember, I was having a perfectly nice drink in a club on my first night out in months and then I'm here, again I say with no clothes on, with you a strange woman shouting at me."

"I'm not shouting, I'm simply a little perturbed that you drank yourself into such a stupor that no one could wake you up, then my lovely friend was so worried about you that she suggested we take you home, but then those bitches all passed out and no one knew where you lived so it was just easier for you to come back with me, the sober one, so that we knew you were safe. However, having met you conscious, I'm more disappointed that we didn't leave you there. You're much nicer passed out."

Alanna watched as a range of emotions crossed his face and then waited for his reaction as he lifted his hands to her,

"Can I have my clothes please?"

Alanna could feel her temper rising but kept it in check. She stomped to the tumble dryer and pulled out his trousers and his once white shirt which was now pink and threw it at him.

"You're ungrateful, and rude, and I hope that you stepped in my brother's mouldy plates and caught some sort of athlete's foot. And another thing, the next time someone..."

Her rant was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell and someone shouting her name from the street downstairs,

"La la, open the door baby." ******************************

Mike didn't know which was more comical, the fact that a complete stranger, albeit an attractive one, was arguing with him while he was half naked, or the fact that she had dyed a very expensive shirt in the wash and wasn't in the slightest bit apologetic about it, or the fact that she had stopped, mid rant, and was now staring at him, open mouthed while listening to the male voice shouting for her. Closing her mouth she turned to him,

"You need to hide."

"Excuse me?"

"Seriously, you need to just not be here. That dulcet tone that you can hear is my paranoid kind of ex- boyfriend who thought I was cheating on him and so finished with me. It's taken me six weeks to even get him to answer my calls and now he's here-"

She checked out of the window and turned back to him, "Here with my favourite flowers which means he knows he's been an arse and wants to make up. And here you are, ripped and gorgeous and damp in your boxer shorts -- God only knows what he's going to think about that!"

Michael raised his hands to her in placation and took a breath to speak but was interrupted by,

"Lanna, I'm going to use my key and come up."

Silence ensued and Michael was stunned that this was the first time that she had taken a breath. Rather than using the time to get dressed, he found himself studying her. She was tall, her eyes to about his chin so he didn't have to bend his head significantly which was unusual when he was so used to his ex wife's petiteness. Her skin was dark yet luminous, it looked soft to touch. Her eyes slanted like a cat's so she always looked sleepy. It was sexy, and now she was angry or worried or whatever emotion she was displaying right now, he could see the fire sparking in them. It made him wonder what else he could do to spark that kind of feeling in her. She was athletic it seemed. Willowy would be the best way to describe her. She didn't seem to have much in the breast department but her legs went on for miles and for the first time since Mike had woken up, he found that he was actually quite grateful to the Scotch that he had inhaled the night before which had led him here.

It seemed that during his perusal of her, Alanna had been studying him right back. And this prolonged studying of one another had shortened Michael's dressing time. This was confirmed by a faint knocking on the front door.

Startled and panicked, Michael watched Alanna, as her name had turned out to be, shake her Mickey Mouse slippers off (what was it with her and Disney) and make her way to him. He felt her cool hands push his chest and looked up to ask her just what she thought she was doing,

"No time to explain, you need to not be here."

Faint at the thought that maybe she was going to throw him out of the window or something, he looked over his shoulder to find that rather than being thrown out of the window, she was pushing him into what looked like the hall cupboard. And sure enough, she pushed him, murmured an embarrassed, "Sorry" and slammed the door. And this was how Michael Collins met Alanna Phillips. Trapped in a small space, half naked, in a stranger's house with burgeoning claustrophobia. ********************

Alanna had dreamed of her reunion with Simon in so many different ways, ever eager to prove to him that he had got her wrong. But hiding a half naked stranger hadn't ever figured in any of them. As she shut the door to the hall and leant against it, her heart racing, she watched the front door handle drop down and watched Simon make his way to her.

Simon had been the guy that she had wanted for so long. The kind of guy she never got. He was smooth, very sexy and exceptionally insecure. She had met him through her work when he had ordered a cake for his nephew, and she had raved about him for weeks to her friends and anyone else who would listen. How sexy he was, how polite, how he wasn't wearing a wedding ring and on it went.

She had hoped eternally that he would call again and ask her out. She had planned how she would answer, but when push came to shove nothing happened. So she decided that as a twenty first century woman she would make the first move. And she did and they went out and everything had been great. But then she had found out that the reason Simon was unbelievably single was because he had chased away every girlfriend he had as he always thought they were cheating on him, and Alanna was no exception. After numerous break ups and get togethers Simon had broken it off completely leaving Alanna heartbroken but refusing to believe that this was the end. So six weeks of calling and pleading and breaking down his barriers and it had worked. But wouldn't it have had to work on the day when she had a half naked and very attractive man in her house?

Simon made his way through the front door, beaming at her sheepishly through the bunch of flowers. Alanna's heart quickened, so delighted she was to see him,

"These are for you. I've been an idiot."

He held out the flowers to her and she pushed herself off the hall door to make her way to him.

"Thanks, and yes - you have been."

She held out her hand for him,

"Come and kiss me - I've missed you."

Simon made his way to her, kissed her forehead, her nose and then her lips very gently whilst wrapping his arms around her. Alanna relaxed into his embrace, closing her eyes and inhaling him - she had missed him so much. She felt his lips on hers gently seeking an apology that she was more than ready to give and sighed as his tongue gently slid into her mouth and caressed hers. As their kiss deepened, Alanna became aware of nothing but her and Simon kissing in her hallway until there was the sound of the hall door flying open followed by,

"Fuck! Sorry, sorry - I couldn't stay in there any longer. Sorry, I suffer a bit from claustrophobia - I didn't hear anything so figured you lot were in the lounge or something. Sorry."

Alanna felt her nirvana slip from her grasp like watching water swirling down a plughole. She wondered what this looked like from outside in. Paranoid ex boyfriend who's just forgiven you - check. Half naked gorgeous stranger bursting out of hall cupboard - check. Her in pyjamas with no bra on - check. She was almost scared to look at Simon but as she took a breath to explain, she was cut short by,

"Hi there, you must be Alanna's boyfriend, I'm Michael Collins - nice to meet you."