Old Friends in Paradise Ch. 02

There was a dash to the window and a sudden desire of my friends, including the bride to be, to go out to either of our two cars to collect something. The general feeling was definitely 'not impressed', and a few 'he dumped YOU??'

So it was a change out of our travelling trackies and leggings, into the shower, hair done and into our tightest high-cut Daisy Duke's, printed hen weekend T-shirts tied up under boobs, sunglasses and Mum's make-up which as always was bloody good.

Then seven of B Flight's finest, made over to the nines and looking shit-hot and shaggable were heading out to our cars both with the tops down, all girly and chatty with Mum shouting from the doorstep 'Bye Christina! Bye Darlings! Have a super weekend - don't do anything I wouldn't do!' just in case Simon might have been looking in another direction. I saw him look and shade his eyes as I opened the boot of my car to put my bag in."

"Guessing you bent over?" said Christian with a smile and I rolled my eyes at him, "You were wearing Daisy Dukes!"

I grinned cheekily, this was going well again.

"Of Course I did," I whispered back, "along with the bride to be. I was wearing sunnies of course and he couldn't see me checking to see if he was checking. It was just the perfect 'look what you almost had dickhead' moment."

Christian smiled and nodded in appreciation.

"Yeeeeeah," he said, "Proud of you Chrissie!" He sipped his Coke and our empty plates were cleared.

I felt I'd made suitable amends about my ex-boyfriend and a change of direction was needed and I grinned through half closed eyes at him.

"And what ever happened with you and my mate Rachel Taylor?" I knew that he had 'something' going on with Rachel as we'd stayed in regular touch on Facebook through college then as she went to University and I started basic it eased off. We still followed each other's progress of course, birthday wishes, sent congrats after passing-out parades and graduations, 'likes' and the occasional comment on a post, that kind of thing.

He grinned back, the same sort of grin he'd given when I told him I hadn't slept with his arch enemy and nemesis Simon.

"We both went to the same college for our A' levels," he said, "We'd chat in the refectory, passing in corridors, and we were both doing psychology so at the end of a lesson I asked her to come to the college Halloween and fireworks party and it started from there. We went out lots and had some good times, but we were already applying for University places and we started to drift in the second year, I was going up north, she was going south west."

"Shame," I said, "I thought she was quite into you." At least that's what she'd told me after he first asked her out!

"Yeah, we both were for a while, but we both knew that we were heading for university - I was heading to Loughborough and her to Exeter - hundreds of miles apart. She's a schoolteacher out West - Cornwall, somewhere like that."

*

Rachel became my girly bestie when we were made partners on a school project in Year Seven.

Rachel was the opposite of me, I was curvy and blonde while she was dark and Hepburnesque and as soon as my Mum saw her in our conservatory surrounded by our project she just wanted to make her over.

Rachel's Mum came to collect her after tea and Mum made coffee and said how gorgeous young Rachel was. She had flawless skin, perfect straight white teeth, dark brown almost black eyes surmounted by long thick lashes with matching brows, a perfect nose and straight dark brown hair.

"You, sweetheart," said Mum to the girl she thought a bit quiet, "you're going to be a heartbreaker, I can't WAIT to get my hands on your hair!" and ran her expert fingers through her it and making shapes as she did with the ladies in her salon and saying what she would do if it was her.

"We just never know what to do with it," said Rachel's Mum with an embarrassed sigh. She was a dentist and had very short hair that didn't get in the way or 'caught up in her work'.

"I'll show you," hissed Mum triumphantly.

Forty-five minutes later a beaming Rachel is looking at her hair in our hallway mirror as her Mum tried to foist a twenty-pound note on my Mum as she continued to mess around with the loose curls and bangs she'd done with her tongs, a comb and small scissors.

The next day she was a hit at school and begged my Mum to teach her how to do it. In the holidays before the start of Year ten Mum had Rachel in our kitchen again and taught her how and where to apply the right colour make-up, how to shape her eyebrows and apply just the right amount of mascara to those long lashes.

We became a bit of a contrasting pair, dark and light - and we played on it all through school and nights out while we were college. She didn't like or approve of Simon though, which I think is why she liked Christian so much - lots I was to discover later.

*

"And did you?" I said, knowing full well that he had.

"Did I what?" he caught on, "Oh sorry," he spluttered, "getting out of military mode there for a moment; yes, a few times. I will confess that she was the lucky girl that took my cherry," he smiled. I raised my eyebrows as if I expected more. He continued, "It was early summer the next year, after a long walk in the woods near the river and a few weeks after her eighteenth, just before the exams started." he looked into the distance, "We sat on the grass, lay down on the grass, kissed, and the rest, as they say..."

I looked down at my dress and straightened it a bit. I'd asked the question so really couldn't complain when my old best friend told me how he lost his virginity to my other best friend in a lovely romantic way I was really quite jealous of.

She'd known Christian in a way I never had and still might not despite my best efforts. They'd lost their virginities 'making love', my boyfriend of the time just wanted to 'have sex' with me.

I caught my breath and watched as Christian picked up on my discomfort and gave a little shrug.

"Just so you know, you had hers as well!" I said with a smile to let him know it was OK, as much as it could be.

He raised his eyebrows a bit, me asking a question I obviously knew the answer to, but he still smiled.

"I was far too much of a gentleman to ask!"

"She told me that too!" I got in quickly with a compliment.

"I used to see her older brother Richard when I was in the Police Troop in Plymouth occasionally, he's a specialist diver in the Navy, she was getting married he told me some time back, must have happened by now."

"Yes," I said, "I'll show you the pictures, her hubby is a surgeon at Truro Hospital. I didn't get an invite to the wedding but fair play, I was on my first Afghan at the time. One child and one on the way at last count."

He smiled and leaned back in his chair knitting his fingers behind his head,

"I'm pleased," he said with a smile, "she's a lovely, gorgeous girl and thoroughly deserves her happiness." Christian had known Rachel for almost as long as me as she was such a regular visitor to my house, and occasionally his.

"But not with you?"

"It was a pre-university thing... we could have made it work I suppose but neither of us did," I tried to work out how badly he felt about that and he helped me out, "I had a couple of girlfriends at Uni..."

"It's where she met her husband," I threw in.

"And that was it. University is just that kind of experience and everyone tells you how great it's going to be - the parties, the new friends, the events, living away from home, the freedom and all that stuff, and neither of us wanted any baggage I suppose."

I grimaced my standard non-graduate 'imposter syndrome' frown when I spoke to mates that had done University.

"Never went," I said, and was saved more discussion as the next course, a most wonderful rice and fish combination arrived, and we tucked in. We carried on talking about old times and old friends from the town and school and we had a really relaxed mood about us.

We didn't bother with a sweet course both being quite full now,

"Shall we head back to camp?" I asked him looking at my watch, "Sometimes the squaddies go a bit mad at the bar across there, would hate to have to wade in to prevent a punch up - never really off-duty you see."

Chris grinned and looked across seeing a few young men with short hair cuts, jeans a desert boots, grunts without doubt.

"Absolutely," he said and paused and shook his head, "wouldn't want us to have to arrest someone - not in those shoes at least." He nodded to my heels obviously getting another good look at my long legs, and we both laughed, "we can still hang out though can't we? This has been so nice catching up."

"Yeah," I said, at last comfortable that whatever had happened before, Christian was still being extremely sweet with me and I wanted him all to myself for a while longer, "let's not go back to the bar, we can sit by the pool with some wine?" That was something a few of us had done before when not wanting the hard-drinking, military Friday night.

"Yeah!" he smiled a very real smile back at me.

"Nice," I said, raising the bottle we'd recently finished and waving it to the barman and holding up two fingers.

Despite my protestations he paid the bill, and I carefully drove the car back to the base, parked it and locked it, returning the keys back to the Police station and getting a grimace and a shaken head from the Snowdrop behind the counter when he saw it was the marine sergeant I was with, and dressed for a night out.

I gave him a 'and why shouldn't I' look, and signed the keys back in.

The thing with police is we tend to stick to our own; we only socialise with police and that's by order, which means we go out with police, and party with police and not hang out with anyone else. Christian was trained as Royal Marines Police, but still my colleague seemed a little put out.

"What's with the Bootneck?" he grinned again but not in a nice way, "after a bit of rough Christina?"

"He's more than that Sean," I said, pushing the daily occurrence book back to him after I'd filled it in and signed it, "he has a degree in Sports Science and Nutrition and a Masters in Sports psychology, so not THAT rough," I pursed my lips and looked thoughtful, "I forget Sean, what GCSE was it you had again?"

"Hmmm," said Sean shaking his head, himself a newbie acting-Corporal who I later found out was pissed because he'd had a bit of a thing about me himself, "he's only been here a week," he said in disgust, as if that made me some kind of slut. He sipped at his bottled water on the desk.

"For your information Sean, we were at school together OK?" I growled with folded arms, "We're old friends, his mum knows my mum, his Uncle was the man that made me want to be a cop?"

He pursed his lips, shook his head again and broke eye contact as if that was enough to end the conversation with a win for him, when it was just the green-eyed monster in the room.

"Fuck you Sean," I gave him a contemptuous look and turned on my heels accentuating my bottom wiggle as I knew my short skirt would show it so well.

Outside, Christian had obviously picked up on the body language,

"Trouble with the fighter pilot?" said Christian reading my look as I trotted down the red brick steps.

"What?"

"The spitfire pilot in there; sorry," he grinned, "keep forgetting that you're one of 'The Few' as well."

I looked sidelong at him, not wanting to laugh at his joke at the RAF's expense.

"Do me a favour," I asked.

"Of course," he said.

"I think the newbie in there is jealous," I said turning round to look at the offender who quickly dropped his eyes realising I was telling my dinner companion just what had been said about him, "and he's just looked at me like going out to dinner with a Royal Marine is something I should say ten "Hail Marys' for. He said and I quote, you were my bit of rough..."

Christian looked over my shoulder at my knobbish colleague now working hard not to make eye contact with the giant marine PTI, staring hard at the book I'd just filled in.

"Reeeeally?" said Christian, "Name?"

"Acting Corporal Sean Jordan - nickname 'Huss' as in Hussein', another six-month boy like you, came here straight from Cosford on his second tour out of phase two. Smug little fucker hasn't even got his boots dirty yet and thinks he's all that."

"EXCELLENT!" he grinned rubbing his hands together, "I'm re-training him on Tuesday and Wednesday." He smiled and waved at Sean who nervously waved back, "I'll look forward to it."

I moved closer to my dinner companion,

"While I know you probably want to get all commando and tear off his arm and beat him to death with the soggy end, I'd much rather make him glow green with envy!" I moved right up to him and play-acted all giggly and girly and slipped an arm through his.

Christian got it and laid a hand on mine and we walked away towards the pool gardens with our bottles of wine and staring at each other with beaming smiles.

We didn't have to try that hard and even once we were out of the sight it carried on. He grinned, I grinned, it was so lovely being that close to Christian again.

In no time we were in the gardens and hidden from the world and my colleague Sean, walking along the pathway to the poolside terrace. By the time we got there though it was to find another two couples already there and it had very much the make-out-place feel to it.

Shit.

My shoulders slumped and I yawned, and Christian saw this and smiled at me.

"Look, you had a disturbed night last night so how about we meet for breakfast tomorrow?"

"That'll be fine," I could feel the heat in my cheeks as I blushed uncontrollably.

"Thank you so much for a lovely evening Chrissie," he said.

"Oh you're most welcome, Christian..." I said hesitantly, "err... you... you do forgive me, don't you?"

"Of course," he said.

"I'll do anything to make it up to you, really," I said, not having thought that statement through, "I couldn't bear it if..."

"Well, can we start by doing this again sometime," he said, "like tomorrow?"

I would have liked to have just hung out with him but didn't fancy sitting with him at the Cyprus version of 'Inspiration Point'; he was banned from my block, I was banned from his and there was no getting around it and sitting in the mess on a Friday night surrounded by our pissed companions commenting didn't appeal to me either.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm weekend off, so if you have swimming trunks we can go to the beach, like when your Mum used to take us."

"I have, and that sounds fantastic," he grinned, "so Corporal Christina, let me escort you to the safety of your front door at least."

"Thank you Sergeant Christian," I held his hand and we walked back dreamily to the block of rooms the girls all shared, and he took and kissed my hand as I made to press the combination code for the main entrance and I was just waiting for him to make the move when Jo, the car-supplying Chief Petty Officer Regulator mate of mine appeared for the short few hours' sleep she could have before she would have to be back at her desk for 0600.

"Goodnight Chris, Goodnight Chris," she said grinning at us and our slightly embarrassed expressions.

"Goodnight Jo!" I said, turning away from Christian for a moment, "thanks for the loan of the car!"

"Glad you... err... had a nice... time?" She had a raised-eyebrow questioning tone, and with a blushed grin from me headed into our block.

I giggled at her suggestion and thought about how we'd been interacting over the last few days and how that had changed since. Time to up the ante.

"Christian?" I asked moving closer, "that evening when you were playing basketball, did you take your vest off to impress me?"

"Hell yeah," he said, "I'd seen you making eyes at me for a few days and wanted you to know that the feeling was mutual." His voice lowered, "and thank you for joining in, your bottom is perfect by the way."

I mouthed a very shy 'thank you' back to him.

"Did you know I was... well... me?"

"I knew that I recognised you from somewhere, but what really gave it away was the big smile you gave me and when you laughed at something that Matt Hodge said and the way you moved your head. Came to me that night and when I read the crew sheet for the training it just confirmed it. I was waiting for you to recognise me."

"Oh come on Christian, you've gone from bespectacled spotty skinny schoolboy to man-mountain - gorgeous man-mountain I must confess, but last I heard you were at college training to be a PE teacher and screwing my old mate Rachel, not one of the nation's finest - finest OUTSIDE of the RAF of course!"

"Well seeing as we're being honest here, you have to be one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, STILL one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen."

This was looking good and I smiled, waiting for him to lean in and kiss me.

As if on cue, there was some shouting and a clutch of CJPU girls appeared coming back from the bar.

"Oh and here's two more look!" said Army MP Kath, "We've just walked past the pool and you can only tell who's who there by the colour of their suntans and the names in their shirt collars!"

Kath took the half open door from my hand and stepped inside followed by another two girls. She smiled at us still holding the door open for me.

"See you tomorrow Chrissie!" he said adding a bow and, "Until tomorrow ladies!"

I kissed him on the cheek, and there was a howl!

"Goodnight Christian!"

He hugged me so tight, it made my head spin,

"Call me Chris, if you like?"

"I'll try that." I pecked a last kiss on his cheek and turned to the door still held by Kath who waved a very girlish goodbye to him.

That was enough and he stepped back into the shadows. I was still buzzing but just starting to feel tired and once in our shared kitchen I was pestered about the marine and admitted we were old neighbours and had been to school together. Kath pointed out that our history didn't mean we couldn't take warm showers in the wee hours and surely there was enough of the big man to go around.

I made a fruity tea and took it to my room laying back on my bed in just my knicks and bra against the heat of the night, my roomie Penny was sound asleep and I sipped the drink coming down from the night's intrigues and events, looking forward to tomorrow and telling her about my night out.

I flipped open my laptop and prepared to add some stuff to my Mum's weekly email; it was more of a diary that I sent to her each weekend and figured I might tell her I'd met Julie's hot war hero son.

I read what I had added the night before and my guilt and shame and tried to re-write it. In the end I just deleted it - I realised that writing it had done me some good and I had somehow shifted some guilt, some worry about the girl I'd been and I felt so much better.

"Back again; well it's Friday night and you'll never guess who I've just had dinner with. You remember Christian Tucker, the skinny fella lived two doors from us before his Dad ran off with that bitch and took all of their money, Pete Finlay's nephew? You were mates with his Mum Julie, you did her hair until she moved?

Well, he isn't skinny anymore Mum, in fact he's extremely fit IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD!! Little Christian got so sick of being pushed around and having sand kicked in his face at school that he joined the Royal Marines from University and is now 'Commando Sergeant Chris'. He's our new PTI and running all of our six-monthly personal safety, restraint and equipment tests. I recognised him over lunch and we got chatting."

I thought hard on how to put it, without making it sound like a huge love affair but I wanted to let her know I liked him!

"We went to the nice restaurant I sent you pictures of and had a meal and chatted about old times.