by Laura Tait
I look over too, seeing Danielle with her arm around Jamie’s waist and Jamie with his arm slung around Danielle’s shoulder.
‘Nah, they’re just the world’s two biggest flirts. Jamie’s probably the only man in here who doesn’t fancy Danielle.’
He looks confused. ‘I don’t.’
We eye-lock again, the tension thick.
‘Ben?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Your drink is dripping on your shirt.’
‘Arggghhh. Crap.’
He straightens the straw to stop the flow.
‘Want me to go get you a napkin? I owe you one.’
He laughs that lovely laugh again, then pauses and says: ‘I do if it has your number on it?’
It’s spoken as a question and his eyes are looking for mine again so I know I’m meant to answer, but I freeze. I can’t reply how I’d usually reply to such a cheesy line, because my standard ripostes are designed to make the guy run away, and I don’t want that to happen.
What would Danielle do?
She would calmly take a pen out of her bag and write her number on to a napkin, kissing it to leave a red imprint of her lips before handing it over and shimmying away.
I laugh inwardly. No way I’m pulling that off.
The silence is growing.
‘You’ve finished your drink,’ Ben says, nodding at my empty as if the last thing he said wasn’t a question after all. He’s making it easier for me not to answer, and I hate myself. ‘Can I get you another?’
Out of the corner of my eye I see Danielle retreating towards the door with her coat on. Why is she leaving? ‘Sorry,’ I tell Ben. ‘I just need to check in with Danielle quickly. I’ll be back in two minutes.’
I rush towards the exit, bumping into Jamie on the way.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I didn’t realize you were still here. I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to you all night. How’s work going? Are you all ready for Monday?’
‘Getting there,’ I say, mentally groaning when I remember how much I still have to do tomorrow. ‘Where’d Danielle go?’
‘Shane called earlier and said he was running late. He asked her to meet him outside when he gets here. Seemed he isn’t in the mood for a party.’
I sigh. Danielle wouldn’t leave a friend’s party for anything usually, but Shane is her weakness. The kryptonite to her Superwoman.
Jamie is still talking but I’m only half listening. I position myself to face the room so I can look for Ben without Jamie realizing. Eventually I see him standing by a booth, chatting to his friends.
‘Anyway,’ Jamie is saying, ‘I need to nip back behind the bar while Erica takes her break. Are you sticking around?’
‘Er.’ I glance at Ben again. He’s deep in conversation – there’s no way I can go over and interrupt. ‘I should really head off.’
‘What is it you keep looking at?’ asks Jamie, twisting his neck. ‘Ah ha. That’s Ben,’ he tells me, lowering his voice. ‘He keeps looking over at you, I’ve noticed.’
‘He does?’ I try to keep the keenness out of my voice but fail, and I can see Jamie is taken aback.
‘You like him!’ Jamie says incredulously.
‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’
‘Nothing, he’s a legend. It’s you – you never get doey-eyed over anyone.’
‘I’m not doey-eyed, you knob.’
I go to slap him on the chest but he catches my arm and laughs.
I glance over at Ben one last time. He’s whispering something to Russ. There really is no way I can butt in. And it’s even more awkward now Jamie has cottoned on.
‘I’m off,’ I say, a cheery smile covering my disappointment. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Will you be OK getting home? Shall I get you a cab?’
‘Don’t be silly, I’m only round the corner.’
‘Fine,’ he says, knowing there’s no point arguing. ‘Text me when you’re home. And good luck on Monday.’
That’s that then, I think as I turn on my heel and start making my way out. Who knows, I might even run into Ben again at some point. He’s friends with Jamie, after all. Even though he’s lived in London a year already and tonight’s the first time I’ve met him. And maybe by the time I see him next he’ll have a girlfriend in tow. Someone like him won’t stay single for long.
I’m passing the pool table when I make up my mind, in a moment of madness that I can only blame on drinking whisky on an empty stomach, to turn back around, march up to the bar and grab one of the red napkins.
‘Erica, do you have a pen I could borrow? Thanks.’
I scribble my number on it, wondering if Ben is watching me now but not daring to look because I know I’ll bottle it if he is. It goes against every instinct I usually have, but I’m scared this will be my only chance to let him know that . . . I felt it too.
‘Give that to Ben,’ I say, returning to Jamie, who takes it with a smirk. ‘And shut your face!’
‘I didn’t say a word.’ He holds up his hands with a laugh after he’s tucked it into his shirt pocket.
‘Good, because if this goes tits up and he doesn’t call, I’m going to need you to unfriend him so I never have to face seeing him again.’
I have a feeling, though, as I walk out the door and pull on my jacket, that it won’t go tits up.
It feels like something has just begun.
Eleven Months Later
Chapter One
BEN
Tuesday, 23 September
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I say, as Rebecca lays knives and forks on the dining table.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ she says. ‘My first building to design.’
Her company is overseeing the rebuilding of a cinema in Hackney, thanks in no small part to her pitch eleven months ago. She found out yesterday they’re making her the lead architect, so I’ve come round to her and Danielle’s place to cook a celebratory meal.
‘It was never in doubt,’ I say.
How could they not give it to her? It was one of the most attractive things about her that night we met – her passion for what she did.
I kind of hoped it would rub off on me.
I still am hoping it’ll rub off on me.
The intercom buzzes, but Danielle is in the shower and Rebecca is still setting the table, so I answer it myself, planting a kiss on Rebecca’s temple as I go. I glance back from the door and see her smiling.
‘All right, Nicholls,’ Jamie says to me, once he’s conquered the two flights of stairs.
‘All right, Hawley,’ I say, stepping aside to let him in.
Jamie’s eyes are immediately drawn to the bathroom.
‘Jeez, what’s that noise?’
The three of us stop and listen as Danielle adds an unscheduled key change to a Black Eyed Peas song. Rebecca and Jamie share a knowing look.
‘Remember at uni when we ended up in that karaoke bar?’ Rebecca says, shuddering at the very idea.
‘You mean 2 Unlimited-gate?’ Jamie puts down his gift bag and addresses me. ‘She thought people were singing along but they weren’t, they were saying, No, no, no, no.’
Danielle pads out of the bathroom in her dressing gown, a white towel Mr Whippied on her head.
‘Rebecca was just saying how much she’s going to miss your singing when you move out,’ Jamie calls over.
Danielle’s cousin has bought a place in Blackheath and offered her a room for bugger-all rent. Which I’m secretly pleased about.
‘She’ll get over it,’ Danielle says. ‘Just like I got over not being able to steal your facemasks after living with you at uni.’
She vanishes into her bedroom with a smirk while Jamie turns his attention to my shopping bags.
‘What’re we having?’ he says.
‘Cambodian beef curry.’
I learnt the recipe from a hostel owner in Phnom Penh.
Jamie nods. ‘Nice, anything I can do?’
I pluck the red onions f
rom their bag, kicking a basket of wet washing out of the way to make space before handing him one of the knives from the set I bought on the way here.
‘The box says this bad boy can cut through the sole of a shoe,’ I say.
‘That’s an everyday problem solved.’ He laughs. ‘I thought you were skint, though?’
‘Overdraft.’
Rebecca tuts, but I think she gets why I’m suddenly buying stuff for this place. We haven’t talked yet, but with Danielle moving out, it makes sense for me to move in. That’s why I was happy when I found out she was going. I mean, I like living with Russ and Tom, but I’ll be twenty-eight in a couple of weeks, and I’ve had enough of wondering who stole my cheese.
I keep imagining cooking for Rebecca every night, always giving her the best portion, and I can’t do that with the single, blunt kitchen knife that she and Danielle have been getting by with for years.
‘Bastard onions,’ says Jamie, burying his eyes in his elbow.
‘It’s weird,’ says Rebecca, ‘chopping onions never had any effect on me.’
‘Shocker,’ I say.
She gives me a curious look. ‘What do you mean?’
Seriously? I turn to Jamie for help.
‘To be fair, Becs,’ he obliges, ‘you’re the only girl I know who didn’t cry at the end of Titanic.’ He cackles to himself. ‘Actually, Ben is the only lad I know who did, so . . .’
‘I wish you’d stop telling everyone I cried at the end of Titanic.’
Jamie and Rebecca are clearly amused.
‘Hold your breath near the onion,’ I say, ignoring them. ‘Then it won’t make you cry.’
I can tell he’s sceptical but he does as he’s told, and a minute later the onions are chopped and Jamie is tearless.
‘Maybe you should have tried that trick in the cinema?’ he says.
Jamie rejoins Rebecca at the dining table while I chop ingredients for the marinade in front of the kitchen window. I can see Natasha and Angus strolling around the perimeter of the green.
‘Tash looks like she’s about to pop,’ I say.
‘Who’s Tash?’
‘Natasha and Angus, your neighbours, from downstairs,’ I say, but Rebecca looks none the wiser. ‘Have you never spoken to them?’
‘What would I speak to them about?’
‘The weather? The fact she’s having a baby? European fishing quotas? It’s a bit strange you’ve never—’
‘Yes, but you’re the guy who gets into random conversations on the Tube – that’s strange.’
She’s never got over the fact I did this on our first date. We’d been to Vertigo 42 in the City for champagne and panoramic views, and while Rebecca checked her work emails on the DLR back to Greenwich I got chatting to a fella wearing a Man City shirt with Kinkladze on the back. She has since told me that this cancelled out any points I’d earnt for being a gentleman and not trying any funny business.
‘Only Danielle could be late for a dinner party at her own house,’ says Jamie, peering towards her bedroom door.
Rebecca picks up one of the napkins she has transformed into swans. ‘What’s the rush?’ the swan says.
It was our second date when I discovered her talent for origami. We’d gone for tapas, and before the first dishes arrived she made a rose from her napkin and handed it to me with a smirk. I told her I’d contemplated bringing flowers on the date and she laughed a worried laugh and said she was glad I hadn’t.
When Danielle finally appears she is several inches taller and has the white towel scrunched in her hand.
‘High heels for dinner in your own flat?’ says Jamie.
Danielle chucks the towel at him.
‘I’d be careful around Ben and his new toy in a nice pair of shoes like that,’ he adds.
Danielle looks confused but no one tries to explain.
‘You look stunning,’ says Rebecca instead.
‘Well, if I can’t make the effort to celebrate my bessie mate getting her first big project, when can I?’ She and Rebecca trade a smile. ‘Though to be honest,’ she adds, turning to me and Jamie, ‘the real reason I’m wearing heels is because I feel like a dumpy little midget next to her.’ She points to Rebecca, then clops back to her room. ‘One second!’
When Danielle reappears she is carrying something in her right hand. ‘I made something for you,’ she says, handing whatever it is to Rebecca.
‘This is brilliant!’ says Rebecca.
It appears to be a crumpled crisp packet with a hole punched through to make a keyring. Rebecca sees that I’m not quite understanding why it’s brilliant.
‘Danielle once said the only thing she found annoying about me was discovering empty Frazzles packets around the house.’
‘But if you put them in the microwave for five seconds they shrink and turn hard,’ adds Danielle.
Fair enough.
‘I got you something too,’ says Jamie, reaching for his gift bag.
Rebecca draws a wrapped bottle from the bag, her decisively green eyes broadening. She is wearing a dark blue dress that she knows always reminds me of the first time I came back, when I ripped it off. Not like the Incredible Hulk. More unbuttoned it really fast and threw it recklessly on the floor, where she seemed to keep all her other clothes.
Rebecca tears the paper, catching my gaze for a split second to communicate that she’s hating the attention, but when she sees what it is . . .
‘Jamie!’ she gasps. ‘This is, like, three-hundred-pound whisky.’
‘Not at wholesale it’s not.’
Danielle pouts. ‘All right, Jamie – way to outdo me.’
‘Wasn’t difficult,’ he replies, draping an arm around Danielle’s shoulder. ‘You literally gave her rubbish.’
With my ingredients chopped, I measure soy and oyster sauce on instinct and add the steak pieces to the marinade for about twenty minutes. I hope they like it.
‘I couldn’t care less about the sofa,’ Rebecca is saying when I start listening again. ‘But, man, I’m going to miss this dining table.’
I join them.
‘Yeah, I’ve got happy memories of this table too,’ I say, giving Rebecca a look to see if she’ll play along.
‘It’s just so versatile,’ she obliges, and the other two look puzzled, oblivious to the fact that under the table I’m sliding the tip of my foot down Rebecca’s shin. The corners of her lips are starting to crack. ‘I mean, it’s great for spreading all my work sketches out,’ she says, ‘and eating, and—’
‘Oh yeah, versatile,’ I chip in. ‘It’s perfect for dinner parties, and reading the Sunday papers, and—’
Having mad sex while the Sunday papers are strewn across the room. It was a few weekends ago while Danielle was visiting her dad and stepmum. Rebecca was finally better after a stomach bug, and when I got out of bed to make us ham and cheese toasties, she followed me in here, hoisted her arms around my neck and, well, we never made it back to the bedroom.
‘OK, we get it,’ says Jamie, raising his palms to stop us. ‘Jeez, anyone would think you’d had sex on it.’
Danielle laughs until she realizes that neither Rebecca nor I are saying anything, and that both of us are gazing around the room as if we hadn’t even heard Jamie.
‘Eww!’ she moans, and I flee to the kitchen to fry the beef.
‘Well, Nicholls,’ says Jamie, laying his knife and fork on his empty plate, ‘that was the best Cambodian beef curry I’ve had in ages.’
I laugh.
‘Seriously, though, Becs,’ says Danielle, ‘you should keep hold of this one.’
‘He’s pretty hard to get rid of,’ says Rebecca, before directing a private smile my way.
I have to stop myself from asking her here and now: Shall we live together? But I learnt that night at Arch 13 that Rebecca doesn’t like being put on the spot. Sometimes it’s better to be patient, and so with this, asking her to live with me, I’ve waited, because I want her to know that I’m serious, and that it�
��s not another one of my whims.
I’m going to do it on Friday, after I’ve finally met her dad, which is another thing I’ve had to be patient about, what with Rebecca working every hour God sends to bag the cinema project.
I’m not even worried living together will change things. We managed to spend a week together in Rome for her birthday without killing each other, and a holiday is the first of the relationship tests, isn’t it? Come through that and you can probably live together; come through the living together test and the next step is marriage; then you get a dog to see if you’d be good parents.
Maybe I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
‘How’s Markus?’ Rebecca asks Danielle.
Sadly for Markus, the only test Danielle seems to set is: are you Shane? He dumped her on the night Rebecca and I met, but she still isn’t over him.
‘Why do guys always think I want a relationship?’ she says.
‘You sleep with them,’ says Rebecca. ‘You can see why they’d get confused.’
‘It’s just two people rubbing body parts together,’ Danielle whines. ‘How come Jamie can have mindless, meaningless sex and everyone understands what it is but when I do it men assume I’ll want to date them?’
Danielle chucks her crumpled swan on to her empty plate and helps me clear the dishes. She checks her phone for the umpteenth time as I fill the sink with water.
‘So how is Shane?’ says Rebecca casually.
Danielle turns and puts her phone against her chest, blushing. ‘No, I haven’t . . . We haven’t . . .’
‘I know that look!’
Danielle makes a show of slapping her phone on the sideboard. We work wordlessly for a minute or two while Jamie wipes down the table and Rebecca puts away the condiments. We’re a well-drilled team.
‘When did he get back in touch?’ Rebecca asks.
Danielle has been drying the same plate since Rebecca caught her out. The pots are starting to pile up.
‘A few days ago,’ she answers guiltily.
Rebecca doesn’t say anything.
‘We’ve been texting all day and then suddenly he’s gone off the radar without warning.’ Danielle scoops up her phone. ‘I’m thinking my last text might not have got through.’