Flying on the wings of Dragons - Book 3, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Seven

Simon was the first person to welcome me into my halls of residence at university. He was tall and handsome, and he gave me a handkerchief to wipe away my tears. I was eighteen and had never lived away from my domineering fussy mother and sister Amy before. I was red eyed and snotty, and there was a hunky young man smiling sympathetically at me and offering to show me round the city of London. He helped me settle in my room, and he took me out that first night for curry at the best Indian in the city.

     Simon was a year older than me and studying a business course at Roe Hampton. I was a freshman ready to start a nursing degree at Roe Hampton and St.Marys hospital. There was little to link us except my first day in Halls, yet we became inseparable in our free time. He introduced me to his friends and took me out all round London at the weekends and I grew to love the city he had grown up in as much as he did. Sometimes Sue came up to visit me and the three of us went to the cinema, bowling or drinks with Simons' friends. Her visits became more frequent once Simon introduced her to his friend Andrew, and by the time my first summer term rolled round in London we were making plans for the four of us to share a flat for my second year at university.

     Sue got a job as a secretary in an accountancy firm, and she moved into Andrew's room in our flat. The four of us went out together all of the time, but Simon and I had not crossed the line into a relationship. He had lots of different girlfriends; all of them desperate to snap up handsome eligible Simon Reynolds, all of them jealous of me. As hard as it was for people to believe, I never looked at Simon that way those first years of our friendship. Why would I waste my time fantasising about my playboy friend? He never knowingly hurt his girlfriends but within six weeks they hopelessly loved him and he breezed on with what he laughingly called college romances.

     Andrew, Sue and I got used to different women around the flat at the weekends and all of us delighted in teasing Simon when they had left. Sometimes he climbed into my bed on a Sunday morning and we would sit drinking coffee, reading the papers and discussing his latest girlfriend. There was nothing between us except friendship until my twentieth birthday. Nothing to indicate that Simon saw me as anything other than his friend.

     We were out on the lash, celebrating my birthday when everything changed between us. Sue and Andrew were smooching in the corner, Simon and I were doing shots at the bar, giggling at the tipsy middle aged woman who had been making eyes at Simon all night.

     "As if I'd bother," he scoffed quietly to me when the barman handed him a note from the woman at the end of the bar. "No thanks mate, I'm here with the prettiest girl in London so I don't need that offer." The barman winked at me, grinned and took the note back to the crestfallen woman.

     "Fat lot of good sweet talking me does you," I laughed at Simon and nudged him playfully.

     "That's why I never sweet talk you, Julia," he replied suddenly serious. "Anything I say to you is the truth, you are the prettiest girl in London, and can you believe I'm actually nervous? Me of all people!"

     "Shut up!" I giggled.

     He took hold of my hand and pulled me up to look at him. "Stop laughing at me," he complained. "I'm trying to tell you I love you."

     "No wonder I'm laughing at you," I shrieked and tried to pull away. "Andrew, Sue, he's gone mad!" I called.

     "Is he finally confessing his feelings?" Andrew asked me.

     I stared suddenly confused at my flat mates who knew something I obviously didn't. Simon grabbed my arm and yanked me from the pub out into the summer sunshine and kissed me as if his life depended on it. He pushed me against the wall and kissed me, murmuring over and over again he loved me.