Acting on Love

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Lisa

I sent the text and then I left the house and got ready to drive to my mother's where I'd be staying for the foreseeable. I'd given up my previous rental property when Ezra had bought the house next to his brother Milo's and near to his family home. When he'd asked me if I'd move in and take care of the place until he returned, I had of course said yes.

I'd spent most of my life saying yes to Ezra Waite.

Even though he'd rejected me time and time again.

But now he was coming back to Willowfield to stay for a while he'd said. Returning because he'd begun to repair the damaged relationship with his father, and to get to know his half-brother Eli.

There'd been no mention of him coming to see me. Of us even having a catch-up coffee. A thank you for the fact I'd looked after his home. Then again, I'd lived here rent free, so I guessed that was the thank you.

Once again, Ezra was done with Lisa McKenzie. She'd served her purpose. Anger coursed through me at the fact I kept a flicker of hope burning inside me even though over the years the man had gone between pouring accelerant on the flames or buckets of ice-cold water.

Enough, Lisa. I told myself. And this time I thought I really meant it, because I was twenty-six years old, and Ezra and I had been playing this game for a decade now. If he'd ever really been serious about me, we would have had a happy ending in this long running show of our on-again, off-again love affair. Yet, I was worthy only of a text message.

I picked up my phone and went into my texts.

Ezra: I'll be back shortly, if you can leave the keys in the box Milo fitted. Thanks for everything.

I'd chosen to ignore his thank you, and instead just sent a text informing him I'd done what he'd asked.

I placed the last of my belongings in the back of my car and shut the boot with a firm bang. Yep I was pissed off. Pissed off and frustrated. He'd played with my emotions for years. Cost me relationships that could have potentially given me a family and a future if I'd not fallen in love with Ezra Russell Waite.

I climbed into the driver's seat and with a final look at the house, I drove away and headed to my mum's house. It wouldn't be so bad. My mum and dad had a place in Spain and they'd be there for the next couple of months. That gave me a little time to ponder my future, because being a barmaid at the local Half Moon pub was no longer enough.

No more waiting for miracles.

No more living half a life.

This was my time to step into the spotlight.

My time to shine.

20 September 2010

I had my books spread out across the kitchen table. It was my first term at Hodern College where I was studying catering and hospitality and I wanted to make a good impression with my tutors. I'd messed about a lot at school and had left with only maths and English qualifications to my name. Over the summer I'd grown up a lot. Mainly due to having noticed my elder brother's new friend.

My brother had just started university here and at eighteen he was studying art as he loved to paint and was very talented at it. He was the golden boy, and I was the second child who'd got away with everything because my parents were too busy focusing on George's brilliance.

While he was out drinking in the summer holidays before term started, he'd bumped into Ezra Waite, who he'd apparently hung around at school with when he'd been younger. Ezra started hanging around at ours a lot and when I'd asked my brother why, he'd said Ezra didn't like being at home. All I knew was that Ezra Waite was the cutest boy I’d ever seen in my life.

Tall, with short blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes, when he'd smiled at me and said 'hello' that first time, I’d thought I was going to die on the spot. I’d not even managed to get a 'hello' out before he'd followed George into the kitchen. George said Ezra was going to the same uni to do theatre studies. He'd been in a mushy peas advert when he was young and acted in a local drama group, he told me.

I knew he was going to be famous. He just carried a different vibe to anyone else I'd ever met. I practised saying hello and looking friendly, but all I ever got for my endeavours was a cursory nod, an occasional mumbled ‘hello’ and that was it.

But I learned over the summer. Saw photos on my brother's phone when he'd left it lying around, of the girls who they hung around with. Girls who knew how to look amazing and sexy and got my brother and Ezra's attention.

I'd had my seventeenth birthday the previous week, but this was the first time I'd seen Ezra since.

He walked in the kitchen and went to give me his cursory nod and he did a double-take. I smirked inside. Had it actually worked?

My birthday money had funded a makeover. No longer would I have my hair in the ponytail I'd been wearing for years. My hair had been lightened and I'd learned how to style it to hang in soft waves. I'd visited the MAC counter and got them to show me how to make my eyes stand out, how to give my cheeks definition, and how to enhance my natural pout with gloss.

New clothes meant I was sitting at the table with faded blue jeans and a casual cream blouse, of which I’d left the top few buttons undone so it revealed cleavage courtesy of the push-up bra around my boobs.

When he'd walked through the door, I'd made sure I was bent over my books so my t**s would be saying hi. Then I'd looked up, placing my index finger in my mouth as if I was deep in thought.

And then all I did as I met his dumbstruck expression was wave a general hand in his direction before I went back to what I was doing. This is what my best friend Amy had told me to do. Treat them like s**t and they lapped it up, she'd said.

It took him a few extra seconds to move on, mainly spurred on by my brother shouting back to him wondering why he wasn't in the living room yet. They'd never stay indoors for very long. Usually, George would get changed and get them both a drink and then they'd be on their way out to some uni event or social gathering.

Today, Ezra walked back into the kitchen.

"Just getting me and George another drink," he said.

"Yeah, okay." I commented while willing myself to not look up again.

He made the drinks and then asked me if I wanted one. Neither of them had ever bothered with me before.

This time I looked up. "Sure, you can get me a drink," I said.

"Happy birthday for last week. Did you have a good time?"

"Yeah, it was okay. Just need my parents to realise I'm growing up though, you know? They still sang happy birthday to me over a pink cake. I'm more a 'let's clink a glass of wine in celebration' now. I think they're in denial."

He passed me my drink. "Sorry it's just Sprite. Haven't got any wine."

"Maybe next time, hey?" I winked as if I was saying it just in good fun and then I put my attention back into my studies.

He left the room, but it turned out that that was the day Ezra Waite began talking to his friend's little sister.

24 September 2011

It had been my eighteenth birthday on the 19th and I'd done all the family celebrations. Now it was time for me to hit the pubs and clubs for the first time legally. Amy's birthday was two days before mine thank absolute God, so I had someone to party with as we went out together to jointly celebrate.

I'd already had quite a few beers and was feeling pleasantly mellow. We'd gone into the main nightclub in town BEAT! and were doing what we thought were sexy dances near each other. It was working on some males because they kept dancing next to us and occasionally coming up against us to grind behind us. One of them was quite good looking and I'd decided I might just have a make-out session with him in a dark corner later. Amy started snogging the boy who'd been dancing with her and shouted that he was buying her a drink.

"I'm going for a wee," I shouted back to her and I walked off the dance floor.

It was coming out of the bathroom that I walked smack bang into Ezra.

"Birthday girl! How are you?" Ezra gave me a hug. He was also clearly inebriated. It was the first time he'd been less than two feet away from me, despite giving me his attention more regularly over the last year.

"I'm good. I'm celebrating being able to legally drink."

He looked at me. "But you don't have one. Come on. I'll buy you that wine you said I should get you some time."

I couldn't believe he'd remembered I'd said that.

"I'm on beer, so I'll have that instead, if that's okay?"

"Sure. Tastes change, right?" he said, looking at me a beat longer than he needed to before I followed him to the bar.

"Who are you with?" I shouted over the music. I knew he wasn't with George because George had met Bronwyn six months ago and Ezra had been doing a lot more acting, meaning they'd grown apart a little.

"I'm with some uni friends. They came out to help me celebrate. I've won a role in Westside."

My mouth dropped open.

"Westside, the top soap opera that's on BBC1 four times a week?"

"The very one. I'm about to be their new resident troubled manchild."

"Oh my god, that's incredible. I'm so happy for you." I jumped up and down and then I hugged him. As he hugged me back, this time I felt his hard c**k pressing into me. I became aware my breasts were squashed up against him.

We were interrupted by the barman asking what Ezra wanted to order. I knew what I wanted to order. A taxi to a hotel where Ezra could take me to bed and do wicked things to me. But I had to remember, to him I was just his friend's little sister.

When we both had our drinks, I stood awkwardly. Did I say thanks and leave? Did I stay next to him and continue to shout over the music?

"Who are you with?" he asked.

"My friend Amy. She's over there. The one with her lips locked onto that guy, so I need to keep an eye on her."

"There are some seats a little way behind her, shall we go and sit there?"

"What about the friends you came to celebrate with?" I queried.

"I've found much better company, and anyway, I want to celebrate your birthday with you."

My stomach fizzed with excitement. He was just being friendly, wasn't he? He couldn't possibly be attracted to me, right?

I took a seat on a sofa at the back of the club and he slid in alongside me, so close his thigh was pressed against mine.

He raised his glass. "Cheers, and happy birthday. May all your dreams come true." I clinked my beer glass with his, took a sip, and then put my glass down on the coffee table in front of me.

"Close your eyes and make a wish," Ezra commanded.

I giggled. "There isn’t a cake with candles to blow out," I protested.

He held up an index finger. "Pretend." He made his finger sway from side to side.

"You're mad."

"You're beautiful."

My breath hitched and feeling uncomfortable under his intense gaze, I closed my eyes to make my wish.

And then I felt his lips against my own and realised that within two seconds of my wishing it, Ezra was kissing me.

I opened my eyes and his lips left mine. He looked at the floor. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

"Are you crazy?" I asked. "What do you think I just wished for?"

"Yeah, I'm crazy. Crazy for you." He grinned and his mouth came back to mine.

We continued making out on the sofa until it was time for Amy and I to leave. I didn't think me or my friend wanted to part from the guys we were with, but it was always travel together and safety first.

"I'll share your cab," Ezra told me and I nodded my head.

All the way home I felt my body was coiled like a spring. The s****l tension between Ezra and I hung like smog in that cab. A drunk and happy Amy chatted excitedly about the guy she'd met the whole way back to her house, and we watched her open her front door and move safely inside her own house with a final wave in the direction of the car.

I gave the cab driver my address.

Ezra's foot tapped against the taxi floor and I wondered if he was regretting kissing me. When the cab pulled up outside my house, I went to pay the driver, but Ezra beat me to it and insisted on paying.

I thanked him and got out of the cab and he followed me.

"You should have taken the taxi to yours."

"Should I?" He paused in front of me. "I mean, I can walk back to mine from here. Do you want me to do that now, or do you want me to walk you up to your porch?"

I grabbed hold of his hand and smiled.

We walked up to the front of my house and dipped into the shadows of the corner of the building. And he kissed me, again and again and again. His hands trailed up my back, fisted into my hair, and ran up my top, cupping my breasts over my bra. It wasn't enough. I pushed my body against his, against his hard on, wanting to get off against him. I remembered I was dry humping my brother's best friend at the front of my parents’ home, and panting, I broke our kiss.

"Can I take you on a date? We could go a bit further afield, so we're not likely to be gossiped about by everyone in Willowfield."

"I’d like that."

"I'll call you? Maybe we could go somewhere Friday night?"

We both looked at each other, excited but nervous. I like to think we both felt the weight of what was possible between us.

I nodded and then Ezra walked away down the street, waving to me before he went out of view and I thanked God for the best birthday present of my entire life.

As I walked into the house and headed upstairs, I felt dreamy. I went into my bedroom and flopped onto my bed, still fully dressed and with my coat and shoes on. The door opened slowly and my mum's head appeared around the corner. She quite often didn't sleep until I got home.

"You had a good night?"

"The best." I smiled.

"I always knew that boy liked you." She winked. My cheeks flushed but I couldn't help it, I grinned from ear to ear.

"My birthday celebrations have been perfect," I said. "But don't tell Dad or George yet, Mum. I don't want Ezra held at gunpoint."

She mimed zipping her mouth. "It's your life. You make the choices," she whispered.

I was so happy that night, blissfully thinking that Ezra and I would be perfect and those choices would be easy.