Friday Night Crush

*Author's note – I apologise to readers for the conspicuous lack of sex in this instalment. But there is plenty of it coming, pretty soon.*

*****

"I mean... you

would

, wouldn't you?"

Dan gave a quiet little sigh. It was hard to know what was more clinging, the shirt on his back or the man stuck beside his elbow. He knew he shouldn't have invited Terry in the first place, and that it was inevitable he would get saddled with him all afternoon. He looked across the yard, right in the direction of his unsubtle nod. It would be very hard to miss her, even as she stood there chatting shyly to another woman, clearly trying to be missed. He made an effort to spread his attention round a little, but his eyes kept being drawn irresistibly back to her as she fiddled with the strap of her summer dress in the heat.

Kelly had a childlike innocence that showed in her eager, sparkling eyes. She had long, shimmering dark hair that flowed down to her shoulders, right out of a commercial, and gleaming white teeth. But there was something gawky and self-conscious about her, an adolescent grin that became anxious when she was overwhelmed and trying to fit in, as was clearly the case now. Dan reminded himself that at the age of twenty-one she wasn't far out of adolescence anyway. He tried to think back to that age himself, to sympathise with how she was feeling, and was worried at how hard it was to recall already.

"Well... yeah, I would," he finally conceded. "But she's very, very off-limits, for obvious reasons."

"Does Tina have her over to the house?"

"Lots of times."

"And you've never tried to show her that 'new room' upstairs? Given her a ride home and, y'know... stopped off somewhere?" Terry gave a slightly drunken swivel of the head. The glass in his hand had somehow managed to remain half-full ever since he'd picked it up.

Dan shook his head. "Tina's not that dumb. And neither is Kelly. You think she'd find me so irresistible that she'd spread her legs the moment we were alone? They get on so well that I'd practically be breaking up the two of

them

."

"Well, seems a pity she's not spreading her legs for somebody. She got a boyfriend?"

Dan looked at him in bemusement. "What are you, matchmaker or something? Or are you gonna try and make a move on her?"

"Just curious."

"No, I don't think so. If she had Tina would have mentioned it." At that very moment, as though responding to her name, he saw Tina approach him on her way back to the house. He gave her a brief smile and she brushed past him with the thinnest of smiles in return, hardly glancing in his direction. He looked back at Terry, who raised his eyebrows.

"Amazing how all wives become great lip readers, huh Dan?" He laughed and drained his glass, and Dan scoped the area to make sure he couldn't refill it again.

As the last of the guests filed out of the front door that evening, Dan could tell he was in the doghouse already. Even as Tina smiled and said goodbye, all perfectly pleasant, there was a tension in her body which he had seen before. She closed the front door and as he gave a little exclamation of relief, she simply headed back into the kitchen. He followed in her wake, wondering how long it would last.

They set to work clearing up the chaos on the table and the counter. After a few minutes, Tina finally broke the awkward silence. "You know, you don't have to encourage him."

"Who?"

She looked at him scathingly. "Who do you think? Your pal from the store, Terry. I don't know why you wanted him here anyway."

"He's helped me out at work a lot recently. He's done me a few favours, I thought I owed him something. And he's not that bad."

"He's an ass, Dan. Just so you know." Tina bent down and jammed a plate into the dishwasher for emphasis. "I can't believe you just stood there with him ogling Kelly like it was nothing. Like I wouldn't notice!"

"I wasn't ogling her," he said calmly. "He was doing that all by himself. I just happened to be looking in the same direction."

"Right," she said softly, shaking her head. "You know if you really felt like it, there were plenty of girls there that you can letch over besides Kelly. You don't have to pick on her."

"Oh come on! You seriously think I was 'picking on' her?"

Tina straightened up, drumming her fingers on the counter top. She gave a sigh, throwing her head back on her shoulders. "No." She turned to look at him properly, her arms folded defensively across her stomach. "No, I don't. But I do know the way you look at her. I was never going to miss that."

Dan's mouth dropped open in disbelief. If he hadn't felt so under attack, he would have noticed that her tone wasn't as accusatory as it might have been. But his defences were up immediately. "Look at her, what do you mean, look at her? You have her over here all the time. I can hardly avoid her, can I? What do you want me to do?"

Tina stared at him, her face frozen. Her lip trembled, like there was something she wanted to say but couldn't quite summon the nerve. Eventually she shook her head again. "Forget it. Just forget it. Come on, let's finish this." She picked up a set of pans and started to fill the sink, and Dan was left with little choice but to follow her example. He stared at her as they worked, wondering what on earth her problem was. He didn't get an answer.

They spent a couple of hours in the living room watching TV, Tina sat on her own in an armchair staring vacantly at the screen. She made a couple of comments about what they were watching, but otherwise stayed tight-lipped. Dan sat awkwardly on the couch, knowing that she could get in a mood now and then but nothing quite as bizarre and enduring as this. He was relieved when she got up and abruptly went to bed early. He waited a long time before he followed, hoping that she'd calmed down and returned to normal.

When he got into the bedroom it was in darkness, faint light spilling in from the street outside. Tina was sat on her side of the bed, her knees pulled up to her chest underneath the covers. She was staring downwards, lost in her own thoughts. Dan walked over to his side, switched on the bedside lamp and sat down gently on the bed. "Look," he said eventually, after a long silence. "I'm sorry if I did something stupid. But honestly, I didn't mean anything. And I don't have any designs on Kelly, I promise."

Tina shook her head, curling up into an even tighter bundle. She spoke in a low, crushed voice. "You don't understand. I know you haven't got a crush on her, I'm not an idiot. It's just, seeing you standing there watching her... I mean God, it's not like I can blame you..."

Dan shuffled closer to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What is it?"

She turned to look at him, and in the light he could see her eyes were red-rimmed and glistening. "It's me, OK?" She ran a hand through her hair and gave a deep sigh. "I'm the one with the crush on her."

He was so floored that he didn't know what to say. He stared at her in silence for a moment, and she gave a sarcastic little nod. "Yeah. You weren't expecting that, were you?" That was the first sign of her old spark returning, but she was still hurting, and vulnerable in a way he had never seen before. She was not a woman who got downtrodden or disheartened easily, not in all the time he had known her. She was outspoken, confident, her features large and expressive and a personality to match. Now she seemed lost, and it was so distressing to him that his first priority was to reassure her, before he could even begin to digest what she was saying.

He knelt beside her and wrapped his arm round her as she continued, the words pouring out. "I didn't mean it to happen, I didn't," she pleaded, as though he had accused her rather than the other way round. "But you must know what it's like when you spend so much time with a girl... it was like that with me, wasn't it? I just looked over at her at work one day, and I thought... God, you are so beautiful it

hurts

. I guess I should hang out with the boys in the office more often, huh?" She looked down at the covers, her joke failing to disguise her anguish.

Dan held her for a few moments while there was nothing but silence. Then finally he spoke up. "Well... it's not like I can criticise your taste."

Tina gave a little laugh, rubbing her face. "Oh thanks honey. I'm glad I got your seal of approval."

"How long have you felt like this about her?"

"I don't know. A couple of months. I mean, it's not love or anything," she added quickly. "I'm not running off with her to get married."

"I kind of figured..." She turned to look at him and he shrugged helplessly, his words not adequate to the task. "What I mean is, if you really were... I don't think you'd have told me like this." He wondered if he was making any sense, and from the look on Tina's face it seemed doubtful.

"Look, I'm not making it up, OK?" she insisted, dabbing at her eyes. "I told you because it was just too painful to keep it a secret, I'm so sorry..."

He took her by the head and guided her into his shoulder. "It's all right. Just take your time."

"I shouldn't have said what I did, about you and her. I know you weren't creeping on her. But I wasn't wrong about Terry either," she added firmly. "I see guys like him circling round her every day at work, trying to get into her pants. I do my best to keep them away. I always thought I was looking after her, watching her back." Tina shook her head in disbelief. "She'd be so devastated if she knew."

Dan looked at her, remembering all the times he'd seen them coming out of work together rapt in conversation, like the rest of the world didn't exist. The times Kelly had come over for an afternoon and they'd been thick as thieves the whole day, laughing and chatting at the dining table and on the sofa. She was such a shy girl with everyone else, he knew that from meeting her himself, but she opened up completely around Tina. She was lively and quick-witted, and not afraid to tell her private things about herself. With the benefit of hindsight it wasn't hard to imagine how Tina could have fallen for her. But it had never occurred to him, not even when he was sitting there next to them; and it probably hadn't occurred to Kelly either.

His curiosity got the better of him and he tried to probe a little deeper. "Is she the first woman... that you've felt like this about?"

"Sure, the first that

you

know about!" Tina exclaimed, with a sarcastic tap of the nose. "I've kept them quiet, I've paid them off..." There was a pause as she searched back through long-buried memories. "Not quite. Not exactly. But the first time was different. It was a college thing."

She could sense that for all his quiet supportiveness, there was still an air of expectation about him as he sat there listening to her. Reluctantly, she continued. "I had a friend, not my best friend, but someone I was close to. She was in my room one night, we had a drink or two... no more than that, we weren't hammered or anything. We knew what we were doing. We started having the talk. The kind of talk that just goes on and on, and everything comes out. Like that time at your dad's place, when you were going to make a move on me and you got scared and bailed out, so we just talked instead. Remember that?" Dan smiled wryly. "Yeah, it was a nice evening, but I always felt like you owed me one there.

"We must have been there for three or four hours, just talking. Anyway, the subject came up; and neither of us went, 'Oh yeah, I'd go gay for sure!', but we didn't say never, ever either. She was tempted, the same as I was. We reached out and we just... touched each other's boobs." She shrugged. "Held them, felt what they were like. I had these puppies even back then, y'know!" She reached up and grabbed at her sizeable cleavage. "That certainly got her interested. We don't get to touch them the way you guys do. Someone's breasts. Mine are just... there. When I had my hands on hers, hers on mine, that was the first time I really appreciated what I had.

"Anyway, after that we just lay down on my bed and slept together. But that was it," she clarified. "We slept side by side. I don't think either of us wanted to go any further. But the next morning, when we woke up..." Tina sighed and took a deep breath. "I could tell she just wanted out of there. She thought she'd made a mistake. She was nice about it, but it still hurt. There she was, rushing out of the door, and I was thinking... I wish we

had

gone further. Just a little. I wanted to know what it was like."

"Did you ever get close to doing it again?"

Tina shook her head. "Nope. I barely even saw her again. She was never the same with me after that. Not surprising, I guess. I thought it was all my fault, and I put it behind me. I didn't start looking at every girl around me differently. It's not like it's been eating me up ever since then."

"Just for the last month," Dan said in the quietest of voices, and she looked up at him and gave an almost silent "Yeah" in response.

"This is so bad. I supervise her. I'm responsible for her work. This could be such a mess. But if I could stop thinking about her..." Tina swept her hair back from her head and took a deep breath. "I would. I promise I would."

Dan looked at her, wondering whether she'd been too quick to deny that she was in love. She might just have been able to dismiss a crush as a passing phase, and keep it safely stored inside her. It was obvious that she couldn't conceal this from him any longer. It was also pretty clear that she'd expected a stronger reaction from him, something to push her one way or the other. She regarded him cautiously, curled up in her protective ball. "You're not angry then?"

"Well I wasn't expecting it when I woke up this morning, that's for sure. Of course I'm surprised. But..." He waved his hands helplessly. "I can't tell you who to be attracted to, can I? If that's how you feel about her, you had to tell someone. Probably a good job it was me, too."

Tina nodded, then sighed in frustration. "Oh, why are you always so... reasonable? I thought you'd hit the roof." She gave him a long sideways glance. "Be different if I said I had a crush on a guy, wouldn't it? You wouldn't be so calm then."

"No. But if it was a guy, something tells me we wouldn't be here like this anyway." He turned her round to face him and addressed her directly. "Look, I know this is something new for you. And it's OK to feel weird about it. Be weird if you didn't." He planted a kiss on her forehead, and she slumped into his arms.

They held each other in silence for a good minute or so before Tina broke off, looking at Dan with a resigned little smile. "I guess if you ever come home one day and tell me you've fallen for a guy at work, I can't really get mad at you, can I?"

"Uh, I don't know about that. Seeing as in my case that would be Terry..."

She laughed out loud. "Yeah, good point. If I found out you had the hots for him I'd probably try to get a preacher in, save your soul, the works." She wiped her nose, and her face regained some of its old vitality. She slumped down on the pillow, and he settled beside her. "Please forgive me," she whispered, in the sudden quiet and darkness.

"You don't need forgiving, honey," Dan whispered back, and they huddled in each other's arms and finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning when Dan woke up he found that Tina was already up and about. He found her seated at the breakfast table, huddled in her robe, staring into the distance. He made a brief show of rummaging around the cupboards before he gave up and sat down opposite her. "You feeling better?"

Tina shrugged. "A bit." Realising that sounded a little ungrateful, she added hastily, "No, much better. Thank you. But I mean... I've still got the same problem, haven't I?"

Dan leant back in his chair, inspecting his hand on the table. "I was thinking about that last night. And this morning. I had an idea." She looked at him expectantly, her eyes widening. Unsure that it would go down well, he took a deep breath and said, "I think you should tell her."

Tina's face fell in dismay, and she shook her head. "I can't. I can't do that to her."

"Hear me out. I'm just thinking of the alternatives here. And it seems to me that they are, you carry on saying nothing and be miserable around her – and you can't exactly ignore her when you're spending five days a week together, can you? – or else you try to get away. Leave. Now you don't want to go that far, do you?"

"No, of course not..."

"It's not like there's a whole bunch of jobs going round here at the moment. Especially not this close to Joe's school."

"Yeah, I know that," Tina snapped, waving her hands dismissively. "I'm not an idiot, I'm not going to quit or anything. But I'd be putting her in a horrible position if I told her. It would just kill her."

"Would it?" Seeing her doubtful look, Dan reached out and placed his hands on hers. "Look, I've seen the two of you together plenty of times. You're not some predator, Tina. You care about her a lot, and she knows that. She's not going to forget it. She is twenty-one – a young twenty-one, for sure, but she's still an adult. She can make up her own mind. I'm sure she'll be surprised, but... it could be a good surprise. She might feel the same way as you. You'll never know unless you try."

"Is that what you're hoping, huh? That we'll jump into bed together straight away and you can get a nice view of the action, is that what you want?"

Dan looked her straight in the eye. "Do you?"

Tina couldn't meet his gaze for very long. Her eyes dropped to the tabletop and she stared at it in silence, her body tense with conflicted emotions. Finally she murmured, "So what do I say to her then?"

"Just tell her how you feel. Honesty is the best policy."

"That's not always true, y'know. Just saying." She was acting like their five-year old son, constantly playing devil's advocate; but Dan could see why. When you want something badly enough, you put obstacles in your way to try and minimise the disappointment of not getting it.

"It will be this time," he reassured her gently. "You just need to find the right moment."

"Well it won't be at work, that's for sure," said Tina, trying to rack her brains to think of what would be a good moment. "I guess... I usually go out with her for a drink on Tuesday night. Nothing too crazy, it's just the two of us sitting and talking. Maybe then." She gave a little laugh. "Seems like I'm going to need the booze to get it done, just like last time."

"Um, you're not the only one who's ever needed that, honey." That brought a smile to Tina's face, and a little bit of tension seemed to ease out of her shoulders. She picked up Dan's fingers and kissed them.

"Thank you."

There was a brief silence as they gazed into each other's eyes, before a thought occurred to Tina. "I'm going to mention you, though."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Not that you put me up to it exactly, but that I've got your blessing. I mean that's probably one of the first things she's gonna worry about, so I want to set her straight. Jesus, set her straight..." She laughed and shook her head. "But I think that would make her feel better. I know she likes you." She caught the expression on Dan's face and added quickly, "Easy, tiger. I don't know if she

likes

you, exactly. But she thinks you're a cool guy."

"I had no idea you even talked about me."

"We talk about lots of stuff, sweetie. We get round to you now and then." Tina stood up and moved round to sit on the edge of the table, still holding Dan's arm. She stroked it affectionately, her robe dropping open to her waist. "But I promise I'll only be saying good things about you."