Wendy Jones - The Songbird and the Soldier

“-Katy. A pleasure, as always.” An uncomfortable tension prickled between the pair of them.

“Come on,” Kate said, urging Sam back to her friends.

“A date then?” Dean called. “Dinner? A drink, just a drink?” Sam stopped and turned back toward Dean. “Give me your number. Come on, you know you’re tempted. Come on… for me?”

Sam sighed and, smiling, she walked back up to him. Dean whipped out a pen and rummaged for a piece of paper. Sam took the pen and wrote her number down on his hand.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

“No you won’t” Sam told him.

“I will. You’ll see.” Sam walked away with her friend, deep in conversation. “Goodbye, Gorgeous,” he called and then slapped Andy on the back and walked back into the corridor. “Come on, Prof, the guys are waiting.”

Sam retook her seat to a round of applause.

“Well?” Chloe said. “What was he like?”

“Gorgeous,” Kate said, “But Doofus here was too busy being chatted-up by Dean Fletcher, my pillock of a next door neighbour.”

Sam blushed. “But he’s lovely.”

“He’s an arsehole, Sam. You’ve just never seen past his twinkling blue eyes, that’s all.”

“I didn’t recognise him. He’s… fitter. And taller, and he’s got a bit of a tan.” Sam sighed.

Kate stuck two fingers down her throat. “Yes, well maybe he has got better looking with time, but it’s still… him.”

Andy followed Dean back up the corridor and the door to the back room shut behind him. They took some stick from the rest of the lads about how long they’d been. Dean took out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and scribbled down the number next to the word ‘brunette’, and then he licked the back of his hand and rubbed hard to erase all sign of the phone number Sam had written there. The lads sighed in groans of understanding and he popped it away back in his pocket and grinned. The last of their pints were emptied and they filed outside in happy union, in search of the next drink of the night.

Outside it was dark. Plumes of mist sprang from their mouths as they walked down the back road to the King’s Head. In the streets not far away, Andy could hear people laughing and calling, their voices punctuated only by the echo of their footsteps from the quiet, cobbled lane.

Andy thought about how casually Dean had treated Sam. As soon as he had her number he seemed to lose all interest. He quickened his step to walk alongside him. “So are you going to ring that girl?” he asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.

“Yeah, I might.”

“But I thought you were seeing Sophia?”

“Soph? Right, yeah… and Jules.”

“Jules?”

“Yeah. Nice girl. Met her a few weeks ago at Hacker’s bird’s do.” He opened the pub door and gesticulated. “Great tits.”

Andy shook his head. “I don’t know how you keep up with them all,” he said.

“It’s a gift. You’ve either got it, or you haven’t.” Dean looked around and beamed. He searched among his friends for the one he was looking for. “Right, Smithy, it’s your round, I believe. Get ’em in, boy.” He turned around to look for a place to sit. “Shit.” He tried to hide his face.

A girl walked across, dressed up to the nines and not looking at all pleased. “Soph. I didn’t know you were going to be out tonight?”

The group around them quietened, waiting to see how Dean was going to handle the situation.

The girl raised her eyebrows. “Well you wouldn’t, would you?”

“Ah, you know how it is. We haven’t had much time off recently, have we lads?”

A general murmur of agreement went round.

“You could have rung. You didn’t even answer any of my texts. I was beginning to think you’d gone out already.”

“And miss seeing you again? Never.” He pulled her toward him and kissed her full on the lips. The girl struggled for a moment, pushing him away with the palms of her hands and then all was forgiven. The odd cheer went up, but mostly it was a resigned sigh.

He’d done it again, thought Andy and his mind went back to Sam. What a stark contrast there was between her and the girl currently being won over by Dean. That delicate songbird had been far more sensual, naturally beautiful, without all the glitz and war paint that this girl was wearing. He cursed his timing and lack of faith. She had seemed just the same as the last time they’d met, but what could he do about that now? If only she had seen him a few minutes earlier, or Dean had found them a few minutes later and given them the chance to actually speak before Romeo had got his claws into her, then maybe he could have been the one with her phone number in his pocket right now. Some guys just didn’t appreciate what they had. But that’s how it was with Dean. No matter how badly he treated them, he was always lucky with women. Still, all was not lost. He would find a way. He had to. Andy knew how she could be traced and Dean had her phone number. All he had to do now was be patient. He had no doubt Dean would mess it up soon enough and then he would make his move. But what if he didn’t? What if Dean actually realised how wonderful she was? And did he have the time to wait? But first things first. Sam hadn’t recognised him.

Andy thought about Sam more and more over the following weeks. She possessed him, invading his mind and tormenting him every time he was alone. Dean never spoke of her in the mess with the lads, although his other women came up again and again, so Andy made the decision to break cover and to do some recce for himself.

“Did you ever call that brunette from the pub?” he asked, when they happened to meet whilst walking into barracks early one morning.

“Which one was that?”

“You know, the one who was singing. When we hit the pubs the other week. Sam, was it?”

“Oh, Sam. Yeah.”

“And?”

“What?”

“What’s she like?”

Dean turned a curious expression on him. “Okay. Why do you wanna know?”

“No reason. She just didn’t seem your type, that’s all.”

Dean let out a big breath. “Yeah? You may be right. She’s a schoolteacher. Not a vision I’ve ever fantasised about myself, a bit of an ice maiden actually. But I’ll give it a bit longer before I knock it on the head. Why, do you want her?” They showed their passes and walked in through the gate. “You two would go well together, thinking about it. You’re both as dull as each other.” Andy went to cuff Dean around the head, but he ducked and punched him back in the ribs, chuckled and jogged off to find the rest of the lads.

It was her. It had to be. He remembered Sam had told him she was just about to go off to train as a teacher. It had been the summer after her A-levels, when he had just finished university. He remembered how he must have looked different then: not as much meat on his bones and longer hair. They were both on holiday with their friends in Tenerife and he had spotted her one day in a café not far from their apartment. She had been sneaking bits of food into her napkin. Andy had wondered what she was doing, until he saw her later outside their complex, feeding a frail-looking dog. That’s when he met her. He watched her tenderly gaining the poor dog’s trust and feeding it the scraps from her plate, then a sudden sound had made it skit away and he emerged from where he had been watching and started talking to her. They spent the rest of the night together, first chatting around the pool, and then later in the evening they met up again at the party put on by the owners of the complex. They had talked until dawn, when they had, he thought, reluctantly parted, with the most amazing kiss he had ever experienced. They arranged to meet up later that day to spend the last of their time together before his flight left that evening. And that was the last he had seen of her.