Hope a Little Longer

I arrived fairly early at the office and buried myself in work for a while. It quickly became apparent that Miss Popular was block booked for the day so I intercepted her in the kitchen mid afternoon and suggested she come for a quick post work drink with me in the pub around the corner where I was meeting Sarah. This wasn't something which would usually happen as Sarah worked in a completely different part of town but she was in the area for some kind of training course for a couple of days so we had thought we would take the opportunity to break the routine and do something different.

Initially I thought Angela was going to decline, and I wouldn't have blamed her really, she hadn't had a moment to sit down all day from what I could see. But actually she caught me by surprise and jumped on the chance which just went to show that I was no expert judge of human behaviour.

By the time we got to the pub I was really questioning whether this was a good idea although it was far too late to do anything about it now. I'd essentially put myself in a position where i still couldn't have a decent conversation with Angela and where she and Sarah were about to meet. I was definitely nervous and there was a strong temptation to fidget although I thought I was doing a reasonably good job of keeping it under control.

When Sarah arrived Angela was very quick off the mark and leapt up to greet her. I supposed she must have seen her coming over but it was odd to see them essentially doing the introductions without me. Then Sarah surprised me completely by leaning down and kissing me on the cheek when she said hello. That was new. The soft flesh of her lips against me, her hand on my shoulder and her warm breath, collectively they all triggered a sensation of belonging, or security. For a good five minutes afterwards the nerves in my skin where her lips had brushed against me kept tingling and I had to make a conscious effort not to reach my fingers up to touch the spot.

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I was sitting with Ray in the pub after we'd finished for the day. It had been my first day back after my post-Christmas skiing trip and I was knackered what with trying to fit all the social catching up in around the, not inconsiderable, backlog of actual work. When she had suggested coming out I had been on the point of turning her down and then she had dropped in the fact that she was meeting up with Sarah too. Well of course how could I miss that opportunity.

We were having a drink while we waited for her housemate. I'd heard a little about Sarah but now that our paths were going to cross my curiosity was through the roof. I'd got a ridiculous mental image of her being a carbon copy of Ray, down to the same haircut, and I knew she did something in social work. Also I was kind of aware that she was connected to that mysterious first half of Ray's childhood about which she has never told me anything whatsoever, but that was about all I had. That last point had me almost as intrigued as Sarah herself. I had made some decent progress in peeling away a couple of layers of the Ray enigma as I had got to know her (and incidentally had learned more about apples along the way than any sane human being needs to know in one lifetime) but this next shell had been impervious so far.

I looked across at her and she was as tense as I had ever seen her. I was acutely aware that letting these different parts of her life touch each other was a really big deal for Ray and I desperately didn't want to fuck it up. She had just sat down again after bringing over our three drinks (she had wanted to buy Sarah's at the same time rather than needlessly brave the queue at the bar again). Ray was fiddling with a beermat, twiddling it around in her fingers, and was obviously just about resisting the temptation to shred the whole thing onto the table, while she chatted about some kind of issue with one of the client accounts. I was pretending it was the most interesting thing in the world and ignoring her nervousness.

I noticed she was checking me out like she always did which could have been creepy if she wasn't so sweet. Her eyes settled occasionally on my tits as a man's might but if I wasn't mistaken she was making more of an effort to be discreet about it than she usually did. Then I caught her staring into the mirror at the back of the bar and realised she was using it to get a good look at a dark haired woman who was leaning there waiting to order a drink. Something was definitely up, this kind of subtlety was not typical Ray at all.

I'd lost track of what she was saying and ended up trying to figure out what was going on with the way she presented herself. She'd changed her hair, slightly shorter at the sides, slightly spikier on top. She was wearing the same general look she always did but somehow it had changed. Good though, it really showed off the way she worked out. Shit, was I ogling? My gaze snapped away across the room and landed on an absolutely stunning woman who had just come in through the door.

She couldn't have been be an inch over five feet tall, skin very pale and her thick chestnut hair curled down way below her shoulders, her figure was generously curvy. Even in understated workwear with a battered looking jacket she was drawing attention as she made her way across the room.

The odd thing though was that she had already spotted me and was looking right at me. I was astonished by the expression on her face. I couldn't tell whether it was anger or fear and if I hadn't had my back to the wall I don't think I would have been able to prevent myself from looking around to see what the hell was behind me. As it was I spent a moment wondering how I knew her and what I could possibly have done to trigger this reaction.

Then she turned her gaze on Ray and her face softened as she smiled and bloody hell it was like the sun had risen inside the building. I swear it was all I could do to prevent my jaw from falling open and I hated to imagine the dose of radiation the people she was walking past must have absorbed. I put the pieces together and, oh wow, well that explained everything didn't it.

Time to sort out the misunderstanding then. I stood up as she reached us so that she turned toward me. Again I was obviously unwelcome but at least now I knew why and I could do something about it.

"Hi you must be Sarah, it's nice to meet you." I rushed out quickly. "I'm Angela, I'm a friend of Ray's from work. I can't stay long though, I have to get home to my boyfriend."

I held out my hand, smiling, and there was a bit of a pause, just heading toward awkward, while she processed my bullet points and Ray looked up at us bemused. Then apparently Sarah reached a decision and as well as taking my hand she reeled me in for a quick squeeze which to my astonishment felt genuinely warm. She was obviously a hell of a lot more touchy feely than Ray and who knew maybe she even sensed an ally.

"Angela, good to meet you too. I hope we can be friends."

Sarah said hello to Ray, and received her own little dose of solar radiation in return. Then, resting her hand gently on Ray's shoulder as she did so, she leaned down to give her a little peck on the cheek, casually marking her territory. It was still mainly for my benefit I would imagine but half the bar watched her do it. I sat back down almost in shock for the second time in as many minutes. She took the third seat we'd kept aside for her. Ray seemed to have accidentally torn her beermat in half at some point.

Sarah went out of her way to be nice now. She shared a couple of amusing stories about her clients but sympathetically, without mockery, and I could see from her manner that she must be very good at her job. We finished our drinks and I let her encourage me to have another although I did make a point of messaging Andy to let him know about the delay.

Ray was looking a lot more relaxed now as the conversation settled. Hence it was my duty to relate my embarrassing stories about her to her friend. All I had really was her occasional tendency to start singing along, horribly out of tune, when she had her headphones on in the office. This on one memorable occasion, had resulted in two of the other devs dancing around behind her before she had noticed what was going on. That one went down a treat though as Ray wasn't too mortified and Sarah laughed appreciatively.

All told I was having a great time actually, they were really good company, and watching their body language together was seriously just fucking magnetic. It was a miracle there weren't people spontaneously tearing each other's clothes off all around the room. Before I knew it my drink was finished again and that was definitely my excuse to say goodbye this time. Leaving the bar I looked back and they were already shuffling their chairs closer, I was forgotten. I honestly couldn't have told you which of them made me more jealous - innocent Ray with that sweet discovery still ahead of her, or patient generous Sarah with the promise of what was to come.

Part 10 - Warm bread

It was Thursday evening before I was forced to face up to how badly I had dropped the ball on this one. Mike was due to show up tomorrow afternoon and stay over for the Friday night so that he could have a full Saturday at the boat show at the ExCel. When he had first mentioned this back in the autumn I had planned to give him the spare room but seeing as the spare room was no longer spare i'd sort of had this idea in the back of my head that he'd sleep on the sofa instead.

And so it was that I came to be standing there in the living room looking at our sofa which, if I was feeling very optimistic and frankly I was not, was six feet long including the arms. I was contemplating Mike's height of about six foot two. There wasn't a chance he'd be able to sleep on that so I guessed i'd have to give him my bed and sleep out here myself.

When Sarah got in I explained all this to her. She'd known Mike was coming up to London but I think she'd assumed he was going to be staying somewhere else given our conspicuous lack of space for him. I filled her in on my plan while we sat on said sofa. She was unconvinced.

"You'll barely be able to stretch out here yourself Ray, you're pretty tall."

This resulted in a little practical experimentation and it turned out i'd end up with either my feet or my head up on one of the arms and hence raised quite a distance above the rest of my body. This might be ok for watching an hour or so of telly but for actual sleeping it was a definite recipe for a restless night as well as aching muscles the next morning. As it turned out Sarah being quite a lot shorter than me fitted into the space snugly.

"Well," she said, looking up at me from where she was still lying there on her back, as cute as anything I had ever seen and testing the very limits of my self control.

"You'll never be able to sleep here. I've got a much better idea."

I saw it coming, she was going to offer to sleep out here on the sofa instead of me. I queued up my words ready to turn her down. I could deal with a crappy night of sleep if I had to.

"It'll be much more comfortable for everyone if Mike takes my room and I sleep in with you." she went on.

She was so obviously pleased with the elegance of her solution and yet it was beyond doubt the single worst idea I had ever heard in my life. What transformed it from the mundane to the spectacular of course was that there was literally no way I could say no without insulting her on two entirely distinct levels.

"Brilliant." I heard myself say, "That should work."

I took an early finish from work the next day, picked Mike up from the station and brought him home. He was a big boy now and i'm sure he would have made it on his own but it was quite a trek across town to our place and if nothing else he'd have been bored. On the way I told him that he was borrowing Sarah's room for the night and he was kind of vaguely horrified that she was having to do that for him but I explained that Sarah hadn't had a problem with it at all. She seemed really pleased by the prospect in fact and if anything I actually thought being able to lend out her room for the weekend had made her feel more as if the flat itself was shared between both of us rather than it being mine and her just having a room in it.

When we got in I gave him the tour and he dropped his bag off in his room. Sarah wasn't home yet so we sat around chatting for a while after that, then I heard the key in the door and in she came to say hello. I did the introductions and then let them talk and start to get to know each other. From what I could see this largely consisted of Mike enthusing about the farm, a subject on which he was very confident and happy, and Sarah prompting him on with questions.

This seemed to be how Sarah got to know people. As far as I could tell the subject matter to begin with wasn't really that important it was more about learning how to have a conversation with that particular person and then sorting out the details of what you wanted to talk about later. I left them to it and and went to make some cups of tea.

I was away no more than five minutes I'm sure but somehow by the time I got back they were already partway through The Great Tale of the Time Ray Kicked Tom Rigby's Front Teeth Out. Look it could have happened to anyone it was an accident ok. We were both wearing the equipment but he turned his head at exactly the wrong moment and my heel was headed in precisely the wrong direction at the time and so it hit him in the mouth. Yes he was wearing a mouthguard but it didn't seem to help much, maybe it wasn't fitted very well but they just snapped off inside it rather than him swallowing them or them flying off somewhere. Turns out you can't glue them back on though, the poor boy had to have some serious dentistry afterwards, and on a personal level i've never felt as comfortable with that particular kick since.

The two of them seemed to have a whale of a time all evening as Sarah winkled out more and more information about me. I was just happy to see them getting on well, so I was pretty much content to stick around for the ride, adding a bit of detail here and there and occasionally correcting his more unreasonable exaggerations.

After a dinner at the local Italian (Mike had insisted he would treat us while he was staying) it was time for an early night. We'd had a few drinks with our meal and they brought us free grappa with the bill too so we were all sleepy. The other two took their turns in the bathroom first so when I got into my room Sarah was already tucked up on one side of the bed. I'd assumed she would turn away while I got changed but she was faced toward me, eyes glittering in the semi-darkness, and showed no sign of doing so. It was awkward but sensual being watched as I stripped off my top, the chill of the air doing little to make my nipples any harder than they already were. I put on the huge tee-shirt I was sleeping in and then stripped off my lower half but left my knickers on. I slipped into bed and straight into Sarah's warm enthusiastic hug.

"Goodnight Sarah." I whispered

"Goodnight Ray."

But today neither of us had to go anywhere and neither of us made the first move to finish the hug so we stayed like that. I was so turned on it seemed seriously possible for a short while that my arousal was going to keep building and building until I came, silently and motionless in her arms, but eventually it died back to a lower less insistent throb and I drifted off to sleep in previously unimaginable luxury with my arms still around her and her holding me.

I woke early in the morning. I'd turned in the night and I was facing away from Sarah but she had snuggled up against my back and thrown an arm around my waist. This was a different kind of comfort, and I felt cosy and relaxed. There was the heady intimate scent all around me of the warm healthy woman sharing my bed with me. I supposed I had been only a few weeks old when I last experienced that. There are scents like warm bread which are inherently comforting and this was the same. I could probably have lain there forever if I hadn't heard the sound of the shower in the distance letting me know Mike was up and I should go and attend to my duties as host.

Part 11 - Crisis Management

I couldn't forget the feeling of sleeping next to her, of waking up with her. Throughout the following week each night I lay there in the dark and imagined she was there beside me. Then on the Thursday night as we were about to go to bed Sarah announced that she had left her window open by mistake and it was far too cold in her room so she was going to sleep in with me.

Once again I got to fall asleep in her arms and once again I woke up beside her but this time on the Friday morning I found it was me who had snuggled up against Sarah's back in the night. Her top had ridden up somehow too and as I woke I gradually realise that my right hand was cupped over one of her breasts. As I drew my hand away slowly I felt her nipple was hard and as it dragged across my hand, from heel of thumb to fingertip, she moaned softly in her sleep. Just hearing it made me moisten and the thought that I was, even if inadvertently, the cause of that wonderful sound was torture. I couldn't go on like this.

Having decided something needed to happen the next step was obviously to solicit the advice of an expert in human relations.

"Angela I need someone to talk to. Can you spare time to go for a coffee?"

"Sorry Ray." she said looking stressed out.

"It's one thing after another all day today, can we call it another time?"

This really didn't work for me.

"Is there anything you can cancel?" I found myself saying.

She looked up abruptly and for a split second I thought i'd pushed it too far, assumed I could ask more of her than she was willing to give, but she stared at my face for a second or two and whatever she saw there made her decision for her. Right away she segued smoothly into action hero mode.

"Give me fifteen minutes to put some stuff on hold and i'll see you outside."

When I suggested coffee I had assumed I was talking about our usual late morning slot and I had been kind of relying on the next couple of hours to put my thoughts in order. So although it was a long quarter of an hour it was somehow far too short as well. Almost before I knew it I saw her shoot past my desk with her coat on and, to preserve the vague illusion that she hadn't just rescheduled a meeting with her boss to go for coffee with a junior developer, I gave it a couple of minutes before I followed her out the door.

We'd got our routine now and that meant we both knew where we were going and we didn't talk in transit. I had called the event so I queued to buy the coffees and she staked out the table. It was a good time of day for table staking but a bad one for coffee queuing so it was a few minutes before I joined her.

"I'm sorry you had to, with your day so busy." I mumbled vaguely.

"That is totally fine, there's nothing that can't wait. What's on your mind Ray?"

I struggled with my thoughts for a moment longer still searching for the right loose end from which to start unravelling my troubles for her. I concluded that the only place to start was with Sarah. So I told her perhaps more than I had a right to. I told her Sarah didn't have any contact with her family and about how sad it had made me feel when she moved in, to see all of her in one place like that, and how I had made my promise to myself to provide a home for her, not just a room or a flat. I told her how happy we'd been. I told her how wonderful it was to come home and find Sarah there, or to come home and not find her there but to know that all I had to do was wait and she'd appear. I think I spent quite a while telling her in a great deal of detail all about how lovely Sarah was and I stopped when I noticed I was repeating myself.