She swings toward Mike as he grabs her, falling to the easy chair and breaking her fall. Shaking she hugs him, whispering, “I need you. You are the ...an of my dreams and you know how to do these things. I was wrong to let my mother’s ideas and feelings sneak out of me.” He looks at her for the longest time as he watches her about to speak in a desperate plea for him to say something. He stands up, holding her and sets her in the easy chair saying, “Let a man do this.” She smiles that seductive. Ian also fancied himself a cook and liked to show off to his friends with lavish meals plated with amateur pretension. But I've never been one to turn down a free meal either, so I held my tongue and enjoyed the good food and great wine he'd paired with it. That guy really could pick a good bottle of wine, which also happened to be the secret to his oft-rumored sex life. Finishing our meal, basking in the cool breeze blowing through the patio area, we all relaxed and chatted for a while. "You. Later in the year there would be Whitethroat, Sedge and Reed Warblers and other summer visitors, but not yet. The first spikes of yellow Coltsfoot showing, leafless as yet. Back to the boat for a sponge down and breakfast, perhaps in the café if it was a weekend, but today cooked in the neat little galley on board. Then off for the day's odd jobs – perhaps a sticking door, a faulty lock or a shelf bracket coming away from the wall, a loose tile or two, or a blocked gutter; maybe tidying a. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" No." I giggled. "Not bad at all." You take this with you, okay? There's two grams there, a little more," he said, giving me that small plastic bag."But ... How much is it?" I asked, knowing that stuff had to be expensive."Don't worry," he said with a reassuring smile. "We're friends, remember? Let me get your pills."I stared at the baggy in my hand and it didn't weigh anything, but it felt heavy just the same. Cocaine. That was a real drug, not a pill. It was.