Freeze

Chapter Sixteen

Holly closed her front door behind her and fell back against it. She flicked the wall switch and the ceiling light illuminated the living room. Holly slid down the door, sinking to the floor. Her fingers grazed against her bottom lip, she could almost still feel his kiss. A torrent of emotions rushed through her. Surprise that he'd kissed her. Guilt that she'd kissed him back. Giddiness because it really was that good a kiss. Holly exhaled slowly. If she'd had it bad already, now there was no hope for her.

Panic suddenly griped her stomach. What the hell was she doing? Gary Barlow had just kissed her and she'd run away, leaving him stranded on her doorstep.

"Fuck" Holly said scrambling to her feet and hurrying back through the front door, almost forgetting her keys.

She took the stairs two at time before bursting out into the cold, dark evening, her breathing laboured. She ran out in to the street. Gary was gone. She looked both ways up the road but his car was nowhere to be seen. Of course he hadn't hung around. Why would he? He'd no doubt determined that she didn't like him, that she hadn't wanted him to kiss her.

"Fuck" Holly said again, cursing her own stupidity, as shrew her hands up in the air. She wished she knew how to get hold of him to explain that it wasn't him. It was her; she was a mess. It wasn't like his number was going to be in the phone book. Double fuck.

Gary watched as Holly dashed up the garden path. He hung his head; he'd pushed too far too soon. Shit. His mouth opened to call after her but he closed it again without even an utterance tumbling from his lips as she disappeared in to the building.

He lingered on the pavement for a moment, considering going after her to explain, to apologise, but a tall lanky man emerged from the identical building next door carrying rubbish bags in his hands. The tall man looked quizzically at Gary as he lifted the lid on the bin and placed the rubbish bags inside.

Gary retreated to his car. He fidgeted in the drivers seat, not able to get comfortable. He glanced up to the flat Holly had pointed out and a light flicked on in the depths of the flat, it's glow just managing to reach the street. Disappointment settled in his stomach. He thought they'd had a connection, he'd felt it, and he was sure she'd felt it too.

Gary glanced in his rear view mirror. The tall man next door was still stood by the bins, eagerly watching Gary's car.

"Alright, alright I'm going" Gary said grumpily as he turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the kerb.

***

Gary pulled into his allocated parking space in the underground car park of his apartment building. He turned the engine off and say for a moment, he'd driven home almost on autopilot, unable to shake Holly from his thoughts.

The word she'd uttered before she'd fled played on a loop in his head as he retrieved his case from the boot, closing it heavily.

Sorry.

Sorry for kissing him back? Sorry for making him think this was the start of something? Sorry.

Gary sighed heavily as he entered the lift and hit the button labelled with a number 12. The lift ascended although it did nothing to halt the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Gary opened the door to his apartment sullenly and dropped his suitcase on the floor. His fingers tapped instinctively at the keypad next to the door as he turned the alarm off. Silence enveloped him, the only sound resonating through the apartment was the low hum from the fridge in the kitchen.

The apartment glowed with the light cast from the city sprawled out beneath him. Gary discarded his coat by the door and walked over to the wide floor to ceiling window in the living rooms The river snaked through the city below, street lights that clung to the curve of the river twinkled up at up, the city sparkling like a ostentatious Christmas decoration in front of him.

Gary turned his back on the window. Usually he enjoyed the view. Not tonight though. He paced to the kitchen not bothering to turn the light on. He made a beeline for the cupboard in the corner. The cupboard he kept the whiskey.

Gary unscrewed the lid and drank deeply from the bottle, the amber liquid scorching his throat as he swallowed. The first woman he'd felt something for since Jennifer. The first woman he'd thought more of than just a meaningless shag and she'd run away. Maybe he was destined to be alone. Maybe he was only ever supposed to be happy in one aspect of his life at one given time; career or personal. Maybe he couldn't have it all.

Holly curled her legs underneath herself as she sat on the sofa, the TV practically playing to itself. A small tabletop Christmas tree glowed in the corner. It was a poor excuse for a Christmas tree if she was honest and it did nothing to lift her now deflated spirits.

She felt even worse when she thought of him. Of Gary. His fiancé had walked out on him and now Holly had done the same.

Holly drank deeply from her wine glass to numb the guilt she felt, a bottle courtesy of her secret Santa at work. Holly pulled a face as the White liquid slid down her throat. She was no wine connoisseur but the more she drank the more it became increasingly obvious that Doris in Accounts knew nothing about a good bottle of wine.

Placing the nigh empty wine glass on the coffee table in front of her, Holly reached for the laptop that sat amongst a pile of old magazine on the bottom shelf of the coffee table. She opened the lid and immediately the screen sprang to life with a harsh glow.

Holly blinked at the screen, her hands hovering hesitantly over her keyboard. She probably shouldn't be doing this, it wouldn't make her feel any better but she was curious; she wanted to see the face of the woman who had once had his heart, the face of the woman who had left him. When Gary had told her in the car, Holly hadn't been able to comprehend how someone could have just up and left him but given her current situation she understood more than she would have liked to. She wondered if the one-time fiancé regretted it as much as Holly did right now.

Holly's fingers typed swiftly in the search bar and quickly pressed enter before she could talk herself out of it.

Her finger clicked on images and her screen was populated with images of Gary, some of him alone and some with a pretty blonde by his side.

Holly clicked on the first image and it filled her screen. He looked like pure perfection in a brown velvet jacket, crisp white shirt and thin black tie. His eyes shimmered, his lips a delicious pink colour. His hair was a styled mess; the front formed a peaked that slanted to his right and was fairly neat but the back of his hair looked wild and shot out in all directions, like the woman standing next to him had knotted her fingers in his hair in the throes of passion only moments earlier. Much like she had done herself earlier that evening. Regret hit Holly hard in the stomach.

Holly forced herself to look at the woman stood on his left. They looked good together. Too good Holly thought bitterly to herself. Gary's hand gripped her slim waist. Her figure hugging dress clung in all the right places. Blonde curls cascaded down over her shoulders. She smiled with perfect white teeth and immaculate make up.

Holly leaned forward, her nose close to the screen as she studied this woman. Gary had loved her enough to ask her to marry him. He'd wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And she'd run out on him.

Holly snapped the laptop closed and discarded it on the sofa cushion next to her. She picked up the remote and began cycling through the five TV channels she had. After she'd been round twice and still couldn't tell you what was on, she reached forward filling her glass with more of Doris's wine.