Authors: Nerika Parke
He groaned as she stroked him.
“I don’t care about the pizza,” he said, capturing her lips again.
The intercom buzzer sounded. To his intense disappointment, she withdrew her hand. He lifted his head to look at her.
“Let’s just ignore it,” he said, his eyes dropping to her kiss-swollen lips.
He lowered his face to hers and she pushed against his chest, smiling.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Just get the pizza, then we can go back to what we’re doing here, then we can eat.”
He shook his head, smiling. He could never say no to her.
“You’re killing me here,” he said, standing up as she giggled and zipping his fly, pulling the front of his shirt down over his straining crotch. He walked gingerly to the intercom.
“Hello?”
“Pizza delivery,” a man’s voice said.
“Come on up.”
Denny buzzed him in and fetched his wallet, leaning down and lingering to kiss Laila’s sweet lips on his way back to open the door when the knock came.
“Took a while didn’t...” The door crashed open into him, hammering the breath from his body, hitting his head and throwing him against the wall. His wallet flew across the floor.
A huge man with at least three inches on Denny pinned him in place, his massive forearm across his throat while he used his free hand to shove the door shut.
“Denny!” Laila cried out, starting to rise.
“Stay there, bitch,” the man snapped, “or I’ll break his scrawny neck right now.”
He leaned his arm harder against Denny’s throat and he struggled to breathe as the man’s arm constricted his windpipe.
“No, please,” she said, sitting down again quickly.
Denny pushed against his assailant, trying to free himself, but he had no leverage. He looked at her helplessly, seeing the terror in her eyes.
“Thought I wouldn’t find you, didn’t you?” the big man said, his face inches away, garlic soaked breath almost making Denny gag.
“What?” he croaked. He had no idea who the man was.
“You thought you could take her from me,” the man growled, poking a finger into Denny’s ribs for punctuation, “but Chrissy’s mine. She loves me.”
“What? Who’s Chrissy?”
Without warning, the man rammed a fist into Denny’s stomach. He doubled over in pain, dropping to the floor. Gasping for breath, he clutched at his throbbing abdomen.
“Pathetic,” the man sneered. “This is going to be no fun.”
A heavy boot connected with Denny’s side and he cried out as something snapped. He blinked back tears of agony.
“No!” Laila screamed, leaping up.
She started towards Denny as the man reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. Her eyes widened and she froze.
“No,” Denny gasped, panicked, “I’ll do anything, just please don’t hurt her.”
“I was thinking of having some fun with her, but I think it will be much more fun to see you watch her die.”
Before Denny could react, the man turned back to Laila, lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
A muffled pop was the only sound to herald the tearing apart of Denny’s world.
Time seemed to slow as he watched an expanding spot of red appear on the front of Laila’s white top. She looked down at it, then back at Denny, her eyes wide with shock. He tried to scream as she crumpled to the floor, landing on her side and looking at him, but no sound would come out.
Her lips parted, whispering, “I love you,” before her eyes closed and she was still.
“Chrissy is mine,” the man growled. “She’d know that if pieces of shit like you didn’t keep lying and tempting her. Now I’m going to have to show her how much I love her. By killing you.”
Denny’s eyes flew open and he gasped in a breath. He stared up at the ceiling from his position on the sofa, his heart pounding in his chest.
“Damn it,” he said, his voice shaking.
He sat up slowly and swivelled his hips, placing his feet onto the floor. After sitting still for a few minutes, he stood and walked through into the bedroom, looking down at Laila sleeping peacefully in the bed. Raw images of his dream of her death sprang to the front of his mind and he looked away, wiping at his eyes. Carrying on past the bed, he walked through the curtains and glass doors onto the balcony.
The refreshing cool night air washed over him and he sat down and leaned back against the balcony railing, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.
Four and a half years. He had thought he was over it, but when he’d walked into the flat and seen Laila reading about his death, seen her crying again, this time for him, it had been devastating. The embrace he’d drawn her into had been as much for him as it had been to comfort her. But mixed in with that were the painfully intense feelings the knowledge brought that she cared for him enough to make her cry that way over his murder. Without knowing it, she was reaching into his chest and grabbing his heart.
He hadn’t had the dream of his death in a long time, more than four years, but even back then it had never felt like it did this time. The addition of Laila had taken it to a whole new level of horror. Seeing her die had made him feel like he was being ripped apart. Experiencing his own death felt benign in comparison.
But the beginning of the dream also haunted him, the feel of her hands on his skin, her body beneath him, his lips on hers. It was both exhilarating and torturous. Meeting Laila had felt like the best thing that had ever happened to him, but now he wasn’t so sure. He felt like he was being turned inside out.
But what was the alternative? Leave her? Unthinkable. Any scenario where he couldn’t be with her every day was inconceivable.
He was beginning to fear he would lose his sanity.
Denny remained on the balcony until the sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn then stood and walked back inside. Laila had moved in her sleep and her hair was draped over her eyes. He reached down and gently moved the few strands back from her face.
“I will keep you safe,” he said, looking down at her. “As long as I’m here, I will always protect you. And I will always love you.”
He had intended to go back to the sofa, but he felt unable to leave her. He needed to be close to her, knowing he wouldn’t sleep if he wasn’t. So instead he sat down sideways in the armchair by the window, facing the bed with his legs dangling over one arm and his head leaning against the back. Getting comfortable, he watched Laila’s face as his eyelids began to droop and he finally went back to sleep.
Laila didn’t know when she first started to think of the flat as
their
home rather than
her
home. One day it just happened.
A colleague at the library who was house-hunting told Laila she couldn’t decide if outside space should be a requirement of her search, and, without thinking, Laila replied, “The balcony makes our flat feel twice as big, just because we can get outside.”
When she realised what she’d said, Laila told her she was still getting used to living on her own away from her sister. But she knew that was a lie. When she said “our”, she meant her and Denny and later, when she thought about her mistake, it made her smile.
She’d thought about the whole situation a lot in the two weeks since getting to know Denny. It would make sense to feel awkward about him being there, suddenly finding herself with a flatmate she couldn’t see or hear. To feel uncomfortable would have been completely normal.
But it wasn’t how she felt. She wanted to be around him. Every day at work she was eager to get home. She liked it when he was around, when they could talk and spend time together.
She turned it over and over in her mind as she rode up in the lift, hanging onto five full carrier bags of shopping because she knew if she put them down she wouldn’t be able to wrangle the handles back into her hands. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to work out what was going on with her. She was falling for Denny. However strange it was, she liked the feelings she got around him, the skipping heartbeat when she felt his touch, the thrill when he laughed at something she said, the sensation of melting into him when he hugged her.
He’d hugged her six times now. She remembered each and every second of each and every one of those six times.
The problem was, she didn’t know how he felt about her. She wondered how deaf-blind people coped with reading other’s emotions. You never realised how much you relied on body language, facial expressions and vocal intonations until you no longer had them. Did he like her only as a friend? Was he attracted to her? Did he want to throw himself into her arms every time he saw her with the same level of wild abandon as she did with him?
She reached the door of the flat and lowered her bags to the floor, digging in her pocket for her door key and letting herself in.
“Denny?”
There was no answering touch when she said his name and she carried on in and placed her handbag and a couple of the shopping bags onto the kitchen counter. She fetched the rest of the bags and closed the door.
Turning on the radio, she began unpacking the bags. She hummed to the verse of a song she couldn’t remember the name of as she placed the food into the cupboards. When the familiar lyrics of the chorus started, she sang along with it, returning to humming for the verse.
Fingertips touched her shoulder. There was no hiding her instant smile.
“Hello Denny.”
His hand took hers, lingering for a few seconds before letting go. She tried to hide her mini swoon as she continued putting her shopping away. The pad dropped onto the counter next to her, the pen beginning to write.
You should sing more often. You have a beautiful voice.
She shook her head, blushing. “I don’t. It’s just ordinary.”
He turned the radio off.
Not true. Sing something for me? Please?
“I can’t. I’m too self-conscious, I can’t sing in front of other people.”
You’ve sung in front of me lots of times.
She playfully pushed his shoulder. “But I didn’t know you were there. It’s a whole other thing to do it when I know.”
He paused before writing.
I used to sing with you.
Her eyes widened. “You did?”
If I knew the song. It made me
... He stopped.
“It made you what?” she said quietly after a few seconds.
...
feel closer to you
.
Laila was quiet as she absorbed his words. He wanted to feel closer to her. He
wanted
to feel
closer
to her.
“I’ll sing if you sing with me.”
I would love to sing with you
To her surprise, she felt a huge smile break out on her face. “What would you like to sing?”
There was a pause. When he finally wrote, her breath caught at his choice.
You Light Up My Life
Suddenly unable to speak, she just nodded and wondered how on earth she would manage to get anything beyond a croak past her throat.
He took her hand, leading her to the middle of the room and facing her, placing her palm flat onto his chest.
The deep breath she took to calm herself shook more than she would have liked.
Hesitantly, she began to sing in a trembling voice, and a moment later she felt the vibrations in his chest through her hand as he sang with her. After a few lines, she began to relax and closed her eyes. She’d sung the song many times before, but the lyrics had never meant so much to her as they did at that moment. Without intending to, she poured her heart into each word as though they had been written for her.
They reached the end of the last line and Laila fell silent, her hand still on his chest. For a few seconds she simply stood. And then she felt a gentle touch on her face.
Overwhelmed, she threw her arms around Denny’s neck, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her face into his shoulder. His arms enveloped her, his chest rising and falling against her as his breathing deepened. She couldn’t think. All she could do was feel, everywhere they touched, feeling him against her. Then his hands left her back and gently took hold of her head, tilting her face up to him. His warm breath caressed her lips, betraying how close he was, and she brushed her fingers down his face and touched his lips. He took hold of her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm.
“Denny,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
His lips brushed against hers, barely touching. She felt them move, felt him speak one word against her mouth.