Skip to the End

by Molly James

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

In this joyful romance, one wild night results in three kisses—only one successful—and leaves a perpetually single Amy searching for her perfect match so she can find a happy ending.

Amy Daniels has a pretty nice life. Her career is on the up, she loves her friends, and she's about to buy her very own flat. On a good day, Amy could be described as a catch—so why is she perpetually single?

The trouble is, Amy can see something no one else can: the end. As soon as she kisses someone, she knows, in intimate, vivid detail, how their relationship will finish. A screaming argument in the middle of the supermarket over milk. An explicit email sent to the wrong address. A hasty escape through a bathroom window on the second date. At the altar—runaway-bride style. There seems to be no end to the unhappy endings.

After years of trying, and failing, to change a pre-written future, Amy has given up. But then she drunkenly kisses three men at her best friend's wedding and sees three possible endings: two painful, one perfect. The problem is, Amy can't really remember who she kissed, and worse, what ending belongs to which person—the only thing she knows for certain is that she's determined to find out...

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

We’re lying face to face, pillow to pillow, heart to heart.

The lights are dim and I can hear the faint sound of waves dragging and sighing over the sand.

His kiss is just a breath away. And yet I must resist. It’s crucial that I don’t venture beyond this tantalizing, tingly “Will-he-won’t-he?” stage. I’m attending a wedding on Saturday with a school reunion element and I have to be able to sound convincing when my former classmates ask, “So, Amy, are you seeing anyone?”

My plan is to give an enigmatic smile and confide, “There is someone but it’s very new, so I don’t want to jinx it.”

If I kiss him, I won’t be able to say that.

“Well?” he husks, eyes flitting around my face, looking so amorous I can almost feel the sensation of his eyelashes, lips and fingertips glancing over my skin.

I take a breath, hyperaware of the exaggerated rise and fall of my chest, giving away my attraction. I want to tell him yes. One word and his face would light up; he might even whoop. But I hold back, needing to be absolutely certain. This is a big commitment. I can’t afford another bad decision.

He sighs and rolls onto his back, sensing I need a bit of space.

My eyes linger on him, studying his profile, thinking how amazing it would be to get to know this man from every angle.

“This does feel really good,” I concede.

He nods, turns his head toward me. “Firm but yielding.”

“Mmm,” I say, snuggling deeper. “I could lie here all day.”

“Do you want to try the memory foam one again, just to be sure?”

I’m just a girl, lying on a bed, asking a guy to sell her a mattress.

And I want to buy one, I really do. I’ve been searching for the perfect fit, something that will prompt a contented exhale when I recline at night, something that responds to my contours and cradles and supports me, something that gives me sweet dreams. I would also prefer one that doesn’t require a rope and pulley system to get me upright in the morning. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, just that one perfect mattress. Sold to me by Mr. Right.

This may be an unconventional way to find romance, but it turns out few men are as attentive as mattress salesmen, especially when you’re in the market for a luxury, hand-tufted number.

I was going to wait to make my purchase until I was in my first flat as an actual owner but my quest for a characterful yet airy nook hasn’t progressed as I’d hoped. When a coil pinged through the worn fabric of my old hand-me-down mattress and skewered me like a corkscrew, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer to sort out my bed situation. But even that has proved quite the trial.

The first place I visited, the middle-aged salesman was way too creepy and hovering. When he eyed my boobs and said he could tell I wasn’t a stomach-sleeper I headed for the door, but en route he caught me looking enviously at the couple spooning on the Sleepeezee.

“We do offer body pillows.” He hurried after me. “Studies show that by replicating the emotions associated with hugging you can allow your mind to stop racing and enjoy a sense of peace.”

I looked at the long, cotton-covered columns waiting for a human companion and then back at him.

“Do they come in the shape of Jason Momoa?”

The second place had more pine bed frames than mattress options so today I went straight from work to a superstore a little way out of town and that’s where it all came together: a spacious showroom flooded with natural light, soothing ocean sounds playing in the background, a female salesperson already with a client but cheerily letting me know her colleague would be out any second. I just wish she’d given me a heads-up about his eyes so I could’ve been more prepared: Just so you know, they are really blue. Like, Bradley Cooper blue.

I didn’t hear the first thing he said because they were so jewel-bright they put me in mind of the phrase, “If you’re going to rise, you might as well shine!”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I’m Matt,” he repeated.

“As in mattress?” I replied without thinking.

He burst out laughing and it was a lark from that moment on. To him, mattress construction was a form of wizardry—when he led me over to the display cubes to show me a cross-section of the inner layers, I found myself peering with genuine interest, while also trying to guess at the full form of the tattoo playing peek-a-boo with his shirtsleeve.

One minute I was learning about the medical explanation of dead arms, the next we were discussing Stephen King novels (of course, his favorite is Misery). Between the bed samples we did impressions of our morning zombie walk to the bathroom and shared the weirdest things we’ve cried out in our sleep. (“I can’t, I only have three legs!”)

“Did you know that swear words feature eight hundred times more often in sleep talk than daytime talk?”

“Really?” I gasped. “That totally plays into my fear of falling asleep on a plane and shouting something X-rated.”

“You should probably travel with a roll of gaffer tape.”

“Yeah, that’s always a good look. Hostage chic.”

He handed me a different pillow to try. “There’s even cases of teens sleep-texting now.”

“Like they don’t have enough problems,” I said as I stared up at the ceiling. “If I had a kid, I’d bring them up in the wilderness. Though I’d need to pack a stack of these pillows—how come it’s so springy?”

“That one’s talalay latex—breathable, hypoallergenic. It’s actually made from the sap of the rubber tree—perhaps you could become our supplier, if you do end up moving to the wilderness?”

It was all so much more fun than the usual date treadmill of, “Sooo, what do you do? Where are you from? Any restraining orders I should know about?” I didn’t know what he was going to say next and, like a deft doctor distracting a patient before a jab, instead of feeling self-conscious as I tested the mattresses, I found myself lying comfortably on my side, chatting away as he sat on the edge of the next one along. When the female salesperson clocked out and turned out the lights in the other sections, I felt excited by his proximity, not intimidated.

“Have you ever had a customer ask a bed-related question that made you blush?” I asked, knowing full well I was inviting a sexual reference.

“There was this one eighty-year-old woman who was concerned that memory foam might impact sexual performance, since it lacked the trampoline qualities of a traditional mattress…”

I chuckled along. “What about… has a customer ever asked you to lie down beside them, you know, to help them judge if they would be disturbed by their partner’s movement?”

He nodded. “Karen prefers not to, but I don’t mind.” His head then tilted to the side. “Why, do you require that service?”

Did his voice just get lower?

I bit my lip and then said, “I suppose it would be good to know, for future reference…”

So here we are, lying face to face. And it just feels so natural, like we’re under an invisible duvet and he might at any moment reach over and switch off the bedside lamp. This is what I’ve always wanted—someone I can talk to after all carnal desires have been sated. Someone whose eyes dance when they look at me. Someone who gives me best friend security and a bountiful heart.

I don’t know how it’s possible to feel more comfortable with this stranger than any of the men I have ever dated, but I do.

Now all I have to do to preserve this charmed feeling is slide off the mattress, take his card and tell him I’ll be back on Monday to make the purchase. I’d buy it right now but it’s already past closing. Besides, I want the excuse to return after the wedding.

“I’ve definitely found what I’m looking for,” I say as I get to my feet.

“Excellent choice,” he confirms. “I actually have the same one at home.”

It’s a sign! Or a line… Either way, it gives me a kick to think our bodies have similar taste. Perhaps we too will create the perfect blend of plush and firm…

I smile back at him, so happy to be sent off to the wedding with a little pocket spring in my step. “See you Monday!” I sing-song.

As I move toward the exit he calls after me, “Actually, I think Karen probably locked the door when she left. Hold on while I set the alarm, I’ll walk out with you.”

My heartbeat quickens. We’re about to cross from the workspace into “anything goes” territory. I look out across the empty showroom.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if people were allowed to test the beds overnight and this became one big dormitory?”

No reply. I think he’s out of earshot.

Clunk.

The last light shuts down, the soothing ocean soundtrack ceases and the alarm begins beeping as he makes his way toward me.

My nerves flair. What will I do if he asks me to go for a drink? I don’t think I can resist.

Be elusive! I tell myself, stepping to the side so he can unlock the door. Keep him waiting a few days more…

“After you.” He ushers me through.

As he jangles his keyring and secures the building, I look down the street toward the tube station. “Which way—”

I don’t even get to finish my sentence. He’s swept me into the adjacent alley.

I go to speak but his eyes tell me everything I need to know. My legs feel weak with lust and I fall back onto the wall for support.

His lips are warm and ardent, triggering mini fireworks all over my body. I’d forgotten how thrilling this could be! As I respond I hear him moan lightly and I pull him closer, clasping him to me, feeling his belt dig into my hip. I dial up the passion, desperate to ward off the inevitable but it begins, as it always does when I experience a kiss with someone new…

Blackness, a warp-drive surge as my mind gets catapulted from this delicious, heady, all-things-are-possible moment to the very end of our potential relationship. There are times when the visions are muddled or take a moment to decipher but this one is crystal clear.

I struggle to prize myself out of his grasp but he mistakes my wriggling for ardor and leans heavily into me. I wish I could just go with it and sate my cravings but I go the other way and slap him. Hard.

“Wh—what was that?” he reels.

“You’ve got a girlfriend!” I exclaim.

He looks horrified. “What?”

“You heard me!”

“Oh my god.” He looks stricken. “Did she send you here?”

“No, I…” I fumble for a response. Usually I pass off these flashes of insight as female intuition, mostly because premonitions are such a hard sell, especially in amped-up moments like these when I’m welcoming a man’s attention one minute and rejecting him in the harshest manner the next. They already think I’m half psycho. When the truth is, I’m half psychic. Well, not even half. And not exactly psychic. It’s complicated.

In this instance, Mattress Matt and I were in a bar, he was nuzzling at my neck, whispering in my ear and then a petite brunette appeared on the other side of the table, angrily tipping it forward so the cocktails crashed and spilled into our laps, all the while howling, “How could you?” over and over again.

I know this sounds absurd, coming from someone who gets sneak peeks of future events, but I did not see this one coming.

“You seemed so nice,” I sigh, crushed to my core.

“I am nice!” he protests, hand rubbing at his smarting face. “You were just so…”

“What?” I snap.

His shoulders slump. “So lovely and funny and… unexpected.”

The way he looks at me, so sincerely, I can’t help but wonder—was there anything in the vision that could suggest he was not meant to scramble up and beg forgiveness? Anything to hint that his girlfriend was awful and snarky and dragging him down? I close my eyes and re-conjure the vision, reliving the profound hurt in her eyes and the way her hand instinctively went to her belly. And then I blanch.

“Oh my god—is she pregnant?”

“What?” he startles. “How do you—”

“Is she?” I cut in.

He looks terrified and then hangs his head. “Yes.”

I feel stunned. Yet how can I be surprised? There’s nothing new here. If I had to sum up the last twenty years of my love life in one word, it would be disappointment.

I shake my head and then push past him, catching sight of a black cab as I stumble out into the street.

“Taxi!” I yelp at the yellow light.

It duly screeches to my side, the closest I’m going to get to a knight in shining armor. Better yet, the driver is a woman.

“Thank you so much for stopping!” I say as I climb into the back, reciting my address before glancing back at Matt. He emerges from the alleyway, looking emotionally beaten to a pulp.

The cabbie gives me a sympathetic look in the rear-view mirror as we pull away. “You two just break up?”

I nod.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. Were you together long?”

I sigh as I slump deep into the seat. “Just a few minutes.”

Ah, home sweet place-I-can’t-wait-to-move-out-of.

I first viewed this low-ceilinged, squeaky-floored one-bedroom on a winter evening, thinking it was just the January miseries making it feel dingy. I pictured throwing open the windows come spring and setting a little vase of flowers on the sill, but the sun never seemed to find me. I didn’t know about prioritizing south-facing and natural light back in those days. Still, the low rent has helped me save up over the years, and as soon as I find the right spot to buy I’ll be out of here.

I drop my bag on the pink velvet chaise and head for the kitchen. Much as I’d like to slug back some rum, I’m saving all booze consumption for the wedding so I reach for what’s left of my blackberry gelato. My hand lingers on the fridge door handle as I take in the photos held in place with retro housewife magnets.

“Hello, friends!” I smile at my two best girls—May and bride-to-be Charlotte—and two best boys—Gareth and Jay (May’s twin brother).

Though Jay has been threatening to move to New York since Pose first aired, we’ve been a pack since school. Charlotte and May were first to pal up, making an unbeatable goal attack and goal shooter combo on the netball team. To this day May is all attack while Charlotte personifies seal-the-deal precision.

Jay and I bonded when we were cast in the drama department’s interpretation of The King and I. Jay still loves to be the center of attention, while I’ve never been known to turn down a spin on the dance floor.

Gareth became our unlikely fifth musketeer a year later, coincidentally combining physicality with dramatic flair. I’m just about to relive his scene-stealing moment in PE when my phone rings, making me jump.

“Kiss Me, Honey Honey, Kiss Me!” Shirley Bassey entices.

I must remember to change my ringtone before the wedding. May put it on as a joke and I never got around to updating it. I think some part of me kept hoping that one day the right man would hear the invitation and respond accordingly.

“Hey, May!” I say, balancing the phone on my shoulder as I reach for a spoon from the drawer.

“I DON’T WANT TO GO!”

Excellent. Someone in a worse mood than me.

“Neither do I right now,” I concede.

“You’ve finally seen the light about Marcus?” She brightens. “There’s still time for Charlotte to cancel, should we go to her now? One hour and this nightmare could be over!”

“May.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to let this go,” I say as I put her on speaker and recline on the chaise. “The poor guy has done nothing to warrant your distrust.”

“Poor guy?” she sneers.

“Okay, rich guy. This rich guy has done nothing to warrant your distrust. Nothing.”

“He’s going to take her away from us. We already see less of her.”

“We saw less of you leading up to your wedding.”

“And too much of me during the divorce.”

“I liked having you to stay!” I protest.

“Anyway, it’s a slippery slope,” she continues. “He’ll have her pregnant before we know it.”

“And then we get to be aunties!”

“Of a human that is half his DNA.”

I set down my gelato and unclick the speaker button. “Can’t you just be happy for her?”

“He’s not good enough!” she rails.

“No one would be good enough for her in your eyes.”

“What’s your point?”

I sigh.

“Anyway,” she huffs. “I know why I don’t want to go, what’s your excuse?”

I wasn’t going to go into details about Mattress Matt but I feel any distraction from Marcus is probably a good thing.

“Woman!” May reels after I bring her up to speed. “That is a zinger!”

“I know. And before you offer, I don’t need him to be punished in a cruel and unusual way. I just want to know how to face a dozen of our schoolfriends when they introduce their beloved husbands and wives and I stand there alone.”

“Being single is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I know that, of course,” I sigh. “I just can’t carry it off like you. Plus, I’ve always been associated with romantic failure. I wanted to surprise everyone by being squared away.”

“Maybe by Charlotte’s next wedding…”

“Oh May!”

We veer off topic for a while and then as we go to wrap up, her voice softens. “I really am sorry about Matt. There has to be one non-dick out there for you.”

“Yes, that’s my goal—to meet the non-dick of my dreams.”

“All you need is one good premonition,” she reminds me. “I know it’s been twenty years of disappointment but that light at the end of the tunnel is no use unless you keep moving toward it.”

I was fourteen when I first heard about our family legacy, for want of a better term.

Mum and I had just watched the final episode of some Sunday night period drama when she abruptly turned off the TV and came and sat beside me on the sofa. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Yes?” I said, a little unnerved by the look on her face.

“Do you remember kissing Tommy Turner in the playground when you were seven?”

“Random!” I frowned. “Yes, vaguely. Little Tommy Turnip.”

“Do you remember what you told me about it?”

I thought for a moment and then suggested, “That he smelled of apple shampoo and Plasticine?”

Mum chuckled. “Actually, you probably did say that. But do you remember what else?”

“No.”

She took a breath. “You told me that when you kissed him, the sky went dark and you had a dream even though you were standing up.”

I gave a shudder. “That sounds a bit Sixth Sense.”

“You said you saw him with metal on his teeth and that you didn’t like him anymore because he reminded you of Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me, which you’d watched with Dad the weekend before.”

“That rings a bell.”

“Well, it wasn’t a dream, it was a premonition. You had a premonition of him when he got braces.”

I shifted positions. “I don’t think I’ll set up my Madame Zaza tent just yet—he had gappy teeth, just like me. It’s actually one of the things I liked about him.”

“Okay, that probably isn’t the best example,” Mum conceded. “What I’m trying to tell you is that all the women in our family have a particular ability and that was your first experience of it. When we kiss someone for the first time, we get a flash of how the relationship will end.”

I looked around for a half-drunk bottle of Baileys—she must surely be tipsy.

“I know it sounds far-fetched or delusional but it’s true. It’s been going on for generations, as far back as anyone can remember.”

I studied her for a second. “Did it skip a generation with you?”

“No, I had it too.”

“So you saw Dad leaving when you first kissed him?”

She looked sad and a bit uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“But you married him anyway?”

“I had my reasons. The point is that the premonitions don’t lie. You need to pay heed.”

“Should I also beware the Ides of March?” I tried to lighten the mood.

“Amy, darling, I know this is a lot to process.” She reached for my hand. “I’ve put it off for as long as I could because I didn’t want you worrying, but I feel it’s important for you to be prepared.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” I withdrew my hand. “What if I don’t want this to happen to me?”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. This is our family gift.”

That night I stayed up fretting, swinging between “It’s all a load of nonsense” and “What if it’s true?” Which led me to three key questions by daybreak: how long does the premonition last? Do I see myself in the premonition or am I looking out through my eyes? What will the person I’m kissing think is going on?

My mum had replied calmly: “They are fleeting. Sometimes you are looking onto the scene like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, other times it’s more emotion-based—you’ll see the other person and get a strong feeling of sadness or regret or anger, et cetera. As for the person you are kissing, they won’t know anything—except that one minute you’re receptive to them and the next minute you might be pushing them away.”

“Right,” I had replied. “So it’s basically a big spoiler alert for the relationship. And I have to decide whether I want to experience the full movie based on a few-seconds-long snippet of the ending?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way but yes, it’s exactly like that. You still get to choose what you do about what you see. You just don’t get any say in the outcome.”

This sounded super depressing to me so I shared the burden with my friends. Charlotte said it was like having a direct line to destiny and insisted I wait for someone I really liked to test it out. May and Jay were all for unleashing my “superpower” that day. I was equal parts terrified and curious but agreed it would be best to start with someone I wouldn’t be hoping for a future with, so I wouldn’t have to add crying to the mix. I really just had one criterion—I wanted it to be someone I could trust not to blab all round school if I started screaming or passed out. I studied each guy in our class and couldn’t find one candidate. At least not one I actually wanted to physically kiss. An uneventful year passed and then new boy Gareth arrived. I never pictured myself with an outdoorsy type—compared to the techy stringbeans and cool-coiffed pretty boys I’d been eyeing across the school cafeteria, he looked as burly as a lumberjack—but I did notice that he never got sucked into any gossip or drama. If May demanded an opinion from him on a . . .