If We're Not Married by Thirty

by Anna Bell

I don’t tell him that I’m thinking about the fact that we’ve only got a short time left together.

  ‘It’s not just my work. I think it’s just been a funny year. You know we’re at that age, aren’t we, where everyone is settling down and getting married? My best friend Lucy’s wedding is in August and my friend Caroline recently had a baby. I guess it makes you think about your own life. I just expected to be settled by now, or at least to know what I wanted to do with my life.’

  Danny stops dipping his churros and looks at me seriously.

  ‘We don’t have to have all the answers in life. You know my mum and dad were settled in Petersfield and then moved up to the lakes in their fifties, as they thought there had to be more to life. And look at me, I realised that I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing and I moved continents.’

  ‘And do you now think you’re living your best life?’

  ‘Oh, I hate that hashtag. What does it even mean?’ he says screwing his face up.

  ‘Ha, exactly! But are you?’

  He shrugs his shoulders. ‘I’m on holiday and I’m eating fried dough dipped in hot chocolate, and I’ve had more sex than I thought was humanly possible in three days, so I’m pretty sure if I could Instagram a photo of us right now, that would be the hashtag. I mean, I don’t think life gets better than this, does it?’

  I stare at the chocolate moustache he’s got and I can’t help but laugh at him.

  ‘You’ve got a little something,’ I say pointing at his face.

  ‘Oh have I now,’ he says grabbing a churro laced with hot chocolate and popping it on my nose.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, slapping at his hands.

  He leans over and kisses my nose as he licks it off.

  ‘I was wrong, it can get better,’ he says.

  I can feel my heart burning in my chest. He’s right; at this moment in time, we are absolutely living our best lives.

  ‘So, do you want to take a slow walk back to the apartment after these? Do you think you’ve done enough sightseeing for the day?’

  I look up at the clock on the wall and see it’s almost 3 p. m. We’ve been out of the apartment for at least six hours now. I think that’s respectable.

  ‘Let’s head home.’

  ‘And perhaps we could stop by one or two of those underwear shops to find out why everything in the window is red,’ says Danny.

  ‘Uh-huh, just out of curiosity, or to make a purchase?’

  ‘Curiosity, of course, but I did think one or two things I saw would look rather good on you.’

  He has the same glint in his eye that seems to have got us into so much trouble over the last few days. I realise that we’ve finished our drinks and Danny gets up to pay.

  ‘I can’t believe that tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve,’ he says as we walk out. ‘Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to go to Barcelona?’

  ‘Positive, unless you want to see your friend after all?’

  ‘Nah, I’ve emailed him and said I’m not coming. Shall we just book a table at Los Toros?’

  ‘Yeah, why not. That sounds great. Something low key and chilled.’

  I don’t want to think about tomorrow being our last night together before Danny flies home and I certainly don’t want to think about New Year’s kisses and what I think they mean. For once I’m not going to overthink things and I’m going to live in the moment, pretending that we’re going to be in this holiday romance bubble forever.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was so lovely to see you last week! I’m so sorry we didn’t get more of a chance to talk but I’m glad you got to meet Ross briefly and to see how nice he is. He asked me to move in with him last week and it seemed silly not to say yes. So here’s my new address - I wouldn’t want my Christmas decoration getting lost!

  Email; Lydia to Danny, November 2014

  Danny grabs my hand and tries to pull me into a run up the hill.

  ‘I can’t,’ I say, my stomach like a lead weight anchoring me to the ground.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he says, laughing as he pulls me harder. ‘We’ve got to get back and get ready before midnight.’

  ‘We’ve got plenty of time,’ I say, protesting. Although in truth I’d lost track of time somewhere after the restaurant had cleared away the tables to make way for the dancing.

  ‘No, we haven’t. If we want to see the new year in on the roof terrace, we’ve got to get a wriggle on.’

  I don’t know whether I’m drunk on all the cava or on love, but my head’s in a lovely spin and I honestly don’t care where we see the new year in, as long as I’m with Danny.

  The plan had been to have a quick meal at Los Toros before heading back for the rest of the evening on the roof terrace. Only the sleepy tapas restaurant had woken up and the whole town seemed to have descended on to it, resulting in a party atmosphere. I would have been happy to have stayed for the whole party, but Danny’s on a mission to get us back.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, scooping me up, and I scream as he starts to run up the hill with me.

  ‘You’ll put your back out,’ I say, unable to stop myself from laughing. ‘Are you sure you’re all about New Year and not just wanting to see the red underwear on?’

  We’d popped into one of the lingerie shops and it turns out that Spanish women wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve if they want some good loving in the year to come. Of course Danny was fully in favour of supporting this tradition and bought me some and it’s been driving him crazy that I haven’t modelled it for him yet.

  We finally make it to the stairs of number 76 and he plonks me down on the ground.

  ‘Great. Eleven forty-five,’ he says, looking at his watch. ‘Made it just in time.’

  ‘With plenty of time to spare,’ I say waltzing in. I’m about to collapse onto the sofa in the living room, full from the food and knackered from the run up the hill.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ says Danny grabbing my hand. ‘Come on.’

  He leads me up onto the terrace and I stop dead. There are loads of little tea lights lit around the terrace and a string of fairy lights down one side of the wall.

  ‘When did you?’

  ‘When you were salsa dancing with Steve’s dad.’

  ‘I thought you were in the loo,’ I say, realising that I’d been having so much fun I hadn’t noticed how long he’d been gone.

  On the centre of the little table is a bottle of fizz in an ice bucket. Although it’s cold enough for it to have stayed chilled without it.

  ‘This is lovely,’ I say, leaning into him and giving him a kiss.

  ‘I wanted our last night to be special.’

  ‘It’s all been special,’ I whisper.

  I’ve loved our lazy days spent walking hand in hand around the little town of Roses, ambling along the beach and stopping off for churros, and our nights spent up here on the roof terrace, staring up at the stars and chatting about anything and everything.

  My stomach turns into a sharp knot at the thought that it’s our last night together. It seems to have gone by in an instant. I know it’s a cliché and cheesy as hell, but these last few days with Danny have been the best of my life. I never knew I could be as comfortable, that I could laugh so much or that sex could be that good. I don’t want it to end, but holiday romances always do, don’t they?

  ‘So, do we pop the cork now, or after midnight?’ I ask, not that I need any more alcohol.

  ‘I think we should wait,’ he says, wrapping a blanket over us, and we snuggle up together. It feels perfect and it makes me want to cry.

  ‘I wish we could stay here forever,’ I say, wistfully.

  ‘I know, me too.’

  ‘Could we pull a ginormous sicky and stay here for another month?’ I say.

  ‘Wish I could.’

  ‘Wow, when did you become Mr Responsible?’ I think back to when he was trying to get me to quit my temp job and go travelling with him.

  ‘When Gaz and I set up the company.’

  He
squeezes me that much tighter and he starts to trace patterns on my leg over the blanket.

  Neither of us have said anything about what’s going to happen when we get back. It’s like the invisible elephant that’s sitting in the room, only he seems to be growing bigger and bigger and he’s starting to sit on us and suffocate us.

  ‘So,’ Danny says, checking his watch again. ‘Ten minutes to midnight.’

  ‘Have you thought about any New Year’s resolutions?’ I ask,

  ‘I’ve been a bit distracted of late,’ he says, grinning. ‘Let’s see: drink less, eat less crap, go to the gym. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?’

  ‘I meant, what do you want from the new year? I always love making a plan in my head for what I want it to hold.’

  ‘And what is it that you want the next year to hold?’ he asks, turning to me with a serious look on his face.

  I don’t know if I’m brave enough to say what I’m really thinking, but I lost him once before and I can’t do it again.

  ‘I’m hoping it’ll hold a future for you and me,’ I say, hoping his feelings have changed over the last few years.

  He smiles and takes hold of my hands. ‘I’d like that too.’

  ‘You would?’

  ‘Lydia, why are you so surprised? We’ve been inseparable for the last four days.’

  ‘It’s just that you said you only ever wanted to be friends with me.’

  ‘When did I say that?’ he says, furrowing his brow.

  ‘At your flat in London. When I came down for that interview at Eventualities and we were going to dinner. Remember the night you told me you were moving to Tokyo?’

  I can still feel the pain in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘But I never said—’

  ‘You did, to Gaz. You were talking to him whilst I was changing and I heard you say that we’d kissed once but it was a mistake and that you only thought of me as a friend.’

  Danny laughs and shakes his head. ‘I told Gaz that because we’d noticed that he used to make a special effort to hit on women that the other guys in our group were after. It was as if it was a challenge or something. In fact, he still did until he got married – I went on a date with Victoria originally and then he met her and I guess the rest is history.’

  My jaw drops open as I realise what this means. All this time I thought he wasn’t interested. All this bloody wasted time.

  ‘Is that why you were so weird that night? You barely stayed to eat dessert before you ran off for the train.’

  ‘One of the main reasons I went for that job in London was so that I could be near you.’

  ‘Really?’

  I nod. ‘I’d lied to you then when I said that the company in Newcastle had only given me a temporary contract. I quit the job to move to London, in part because of the job, but more because of you.’

  ‘I had no idea. I never would have gone to Tokyo.’ He wipes a tear away from my cheek. ‘Hey, don’t be sad. We can’t change the past but we can change the future. When I get one of your letters . . .’ he says, a smile creeping over his face.

  ‘I know, it’s . . .’ I don’t know how to express it. ‘I feel it too.’

  ‘Lydia, we can’t go on pretending anymore, not after this week. We’ve got to give us a go.’

  ‘How can we? You live in the Lakes and I live in Southsea. I know exactly what would happen. We’d see each other a couple of times and it would be great, but then it’d become too much effort. We’d use excuses – “I’ve got too much work” or “I’ll come next week” – but we wouldn’t and it would all fizzle out. No more emails. No more parcels.’

  Danny takes my hands in his and he’s got that look on his face. His pupils are wide and he’s blinking rapidly.

  You see, this is the problem with knowing someone forever. I know what that face used to mean when he was a child.

  ‘Oh no. What’s your crazy idea, Danny Whittaker?’

  ‘How do you know that it’s going to be crazy?’

  ‘It’s that twitch you get in your eye.’

  Danny laughs as he starts scrunching his eyes up, only it makes him look more ridiculous.

  ‘Better?’ he says, now looking as if he’s doing a zombie impression.

  ‘Much,’ I say, giggling. ‘So what’s your grand plan?’

  ‘Well, remember when we made that pact – at Kerry’s wedding?’

  My mind starts to run away with itself. The candles. The fairy lights. Him racing to get us back here before midnight. The cava on ice. What if he’s going to ask me to marry him? I’m being ridiculous. It’s far too soon for anything like that. Isn’t it?

  ‘The “if we’re not married by the time we’re thirty”,’ I say, and he nods encouragingly and I can’t stop myself from thinking that I was too quick to dismiss the idea. I mean it all fits – the setting, him bringing up the pact . . .

  I get flashbacks as if we’re in some movie of us when we’re kids, when we were teenagers; that kiss at Kerry’s wedding and then the parcels and letters, and then this week. Only the montage doesn’t stop with us, it shows me the rest of my life – stuck on a loop and stuck in a job that hasn’t changed and in loveless relationships. Danny’s right. We should totally get married. ‘YES!’ I scream a little too loudly.

  ‘Yes, what?’ asks Danny, a bit confused. ‘What was the question?’

  ‘Didn’t you just ask me to marry you? I mean, it wasn’t the proposal of my dreams or anything. It didn’t exactly knock me off my feet, but—’

  ‘I didn’t actually ask you, I was just asking if you remembered the pact? That’s what I was going to lead with in relation to us trying long distance, but, hang on a second, you said yes? You’d say yes?’

  ‘Well, no,’ I say mortified that I got it so wrong.

  ‘No? You shouted yes, I reckon everyone at Los Toros heard it too.’

  ‘Yes, I said yes. But only because I thought that was what you wanted to do. I thought it was your idea. So if I wanted to get married to you, you’d marry me?’ I ask. My mind’s in a maelstrom. Does he want to marry me? Do I want to marry him?

  He grins at me and takes my hands in his again. ‘I’d marry you if you wanted to marry me. Lydia, it’s not as if we haven’t known each other forever. We get on great. You know I’m not an axe murderer or a con artist and I know that you’re not deranged or a bunny boiler.’

  ‘Important considerations,’ I say, nodding mockingly.

  ‘I mean, we know each other. We’ve got lots of shared memories. My mum loves you, and your mum loves me, or at least I think she does. We have amazing sex. We’d have cute-looking kids.’

  ‘Woah there, hold your horses,’ I say suddenly breaking out into hives as he plans our lives. ‘One minute it’s marriage, the next it’s kids?’

  My voice is all squeaky and my heart is beating rapidly. All I wanted was an extra week or two of blissful holiday romance and somehow I’m almost at the stage of coming away with a mortgage and 2.4 children.

  ‘I’m sorry, kids was probably a little much. But seriously, I’ve dated a lot of women over the years.’

  ‘I don’t really want to know about them,’ I say, feeling prickles of jealousy.

  ‘Why is this so bloody hard? What I’m trying to say is that I never felt like this with any of them. Have you felt like this before? Honestly?’

  I’m looking straight at him and I know I can’t lie. ‘No, I haven’t,’ I say, the jokes fading away. ‘It feels like—’

  I stop myself. I can’t say that. No one says those words after four days together. Even if it is different with him.

  ‘It feels like you’re falling in love with me?’ he says slowly, and I nod. He’s a mind reader on top of everything else. He moves my hands gently up and down and stares me straight in the eyes. ‘That’s what I feel too.’

  ‘You’re falling in love with yourself,’ I say, trying to lighten the mood, only there’s too much tension in the air and it falls flat.


  ‘I love you.’

  Those three little words floor me.

  ‘I love you too,’ I say without hesitation. I’ve never been surer about anything in my life.

  ‘Don’t you think the timing of it all is perfect? Us here at the countdown to midnight. It feels like the right thing to do. The right way to see in the new year.’

  ‘I thought you’d planned it all. Getting me back here, the tea lights, the fairy lights, the bubbles on ice.’

  Danny laughs. ‘I just wanted it to look nice. The fairy lights have been here all week; I just haven’t switched them on, and as for getting you up here, I just wanted to have you all to myself at midnight and not to have to share you.’

  ‘Trust me to jump to the wrong conclusion,’ I say, feeling flushed.

  ‘But why? I can’t imagine that I could have planned anything better. This is our place and the start of a new year: the year of us.’

  He lets go of my hands and gets up off the sofa and crouches down on one knee.

  ‘Lydia Stoker, sexiest woman in the world, will you marry me?’

  He slips a tiny ring off his little finger and holds it out to me.

  For a second I’m speechless. I know I just said I’d marry him, but the whole proposal – him on one knee with a ring. Oh my God. This is actually happening.

  ‘Yes, Danny Whittaker, nicest guy in the world, I will.’

  I hold out my hand, wondering what the hell has come over me. I feel a rush of emotion and it feels good; it feels right. Only Danny pulls the ring back.

  What is this man doing to me?

  ‘Hang on a second. I tell you that you’re the sexiest woman in the world and I get that I’m the nicest guy? The nicest?’

  ‘Everyone wants to marry a nice guy,’ I say, genuinely confused.

  ‘Do they? Do they really? Don’t they want a Stark in the street but a Wildling in the sheets?’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  Danny looks shocked and I’m sensing this marriage might be off before it was ever on.

  ‘Um, Lydia, please tell me you watch Game of Thrones.’

  ‘Is that the thing with the dragons and all the shagging?’

  ‘Um, there’s a bit more to it than that,’ he says, shaking his head. The ring’s almost going back on his own finger.