Heather wanted to go somewhere warm and lie on a beach with a book. BB, even though he was managing to spend twenty minutes a night reading to keep her happy, didn’t like the hot bit.
“I don’t tan, I burn. I don’t want to spend ten days melting into the sand somewhere. Come back all pink and peeling.”
He’d always wanted to go to New York. It wasn’t that she didn’t, she just didn’t want to spend her holiday somewhere urban. She wanted hills and beaches, rent an open top jeep and cruise around somewhere warm and beautiful. Wildlife and cocktails, but not at the same time.
“That does sound kinda boring,” BB told her.
“You love driving around.”
“Aye, but I can do that here. I want to do something else on holiday. I want to go see stuff, have stuff to do. Sitting on a beach isn’t doing something. It’s, well, it’s the opposite of doing something.”
“That’s the point,” she told him, her voice rising. This shouldn’t have been so hard for him to understand. She wanted to do nothing. She wanted to sit back and relax and pretend that that was her whole life. That was the appeal.
Truth was she wasn’t going to push it. She wouldn’t say no to New York, or some compromise destination if that’s where they ended up. She wanted a beach, but she knew that he was paying for about ninety per cent of the holiday. He never mentioned that, never allowed money to be an issue, but she knew.
They each had their own bank account, but they had set up a joint one as well. That was mostly to cover household bills, direct debits, that sort of thing. It was where they put money to make sure that they didn’t get tripped up by regular expenses. They didn’t talk about how much money they put into that account, but it was bleeding obvious that BB put more money into it than Heather. He earned more than she did. He would clear thirty grand this year thanks to Marty deciding he was the best collector available. He wasn’t, technically, the best, but Marty had trouble trusting some of those who were. Issues that went a little way back, and that put cash in BB’s pocket.
The money was an issue to Heather, who cleared a little over ten grand a year working part-time, but not to BB. He earned more money because he was older, had been working longer. It seemed obvious and innocuous to him. She was still technically at college. Of course he earned more. But money’s always an awkward subject to settle on, so they stayed away from it.
“Alright, how about this,” BB said as they were preparing for bed. “This year some beach. Somewhere nice, not somewhere with a billion screaming kids taking a piss in the pool. Somewhere decent, and we’ll do some driving around as well, because that’s better than getting sand up the crack of my big arse. Then, next year, we go somewhere that we can do stuff.”
He was often quick to compromise, but that wasn’t a weakness. He could judge where the value in an argument was, a skill honed during his work hours. If it was worth arguing then he would argue, but sometimes the profit lay in backing out early, avoiding conflict and building goodwill.
“You think we can afford two foreign holidays in two years?” she asked him, getting into bed.
“Sure we can, for now.”
“For now?”
“We’re young now. Young, rich and full of sugar. We ain’t going to be young forever though. There’ll be stuff to pay for. Stop renting this flat and buy a place maybe, somewhere big enough for, well, you know.”
She smiled, sensing and enjoying his discomfort. The talk of the future was what she wanted, it excited her, but it was always fun to watch him stammer and blush. He took it in good spirit.
“You think a lot about us having you know what’s?”
“Well,” he said, sitting on the bed and pulling off his boxers and flinging them at a chair on the other side of the room. “You know. No more than anyone else. I mean, no more than… Fuck it, you know what I mean. You never think about any of that stuff?”
“No,” she said. She kept a straight face, but there was a squeak in her voice where the laughter was trying to get out.
“Oh shut up,” he said, and leaned across the bed to kiss her. “A beach this year, next year somewhere different, and we don’t talk about embarrassing shit like kids until after that.”
She laughed, grabbed him and pulled him on top of her. Seemed like a sensible way to end this conversation.
YOU ARE READING
BB & Heather
Short Story"They had met a few times before. Parties, dancing in the same circles, that sort of thing. It was obvious they liked each other. Dancing close, a few drunken, slurpy kisses but never anything further than that. They were young and life was fast. So...
