No, We Can't Be Friends: A totally perfect romantic comedy

by Sophie Ranald

  Who needs EastEnders when you’ve got a couple airing their dirty laundry eighteen inches away from you in Caffè Nero? It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so mortifying.

  Myles said, ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Okay, there might have been a thing, a bit of a flirtation. But there was nothing more than that. Honest to God, I never laid a hand on her.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, Myles. I’ve been through it over and over in my mind, and I just don’t.’

  ‘You said that about Bianca!’ he burst out, like it was some kind of ‘gotcha’. ‘You said you knew something was going on, but you were wrong, weren’t you, Sloane? Deluded and wrong. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now.’

  I leaned in even closer to him, getting a waft of his coffee and his cologne. The scent was almost cloying, I realised for the first time. I’d always thought I liked it, but now I reckoned I’d hold my breath if he got in a lift with me.

  ‘I wasn’t wrong, though,’ I hissed. ‘I just got the wrong person. I suspected something was going on. Bianca tried to warn me, and after that I knew. And I wasn’t wrong. I was right. Myles, this can’t go on. What do you think you’re going to gain by lying to me? You’re not going to keep me in this marriage under false pretences. You’re not going to keep me in it at all. I’ve made an appointment to see a solicitor. That’s why I wanted to meet you today. To tell you that. Not to have some massive argument where you try and convince me I’m imagining things.’

  Myles took a final sip of his coffee and put the mug down.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So I slept with Charlotte. There, I said it. That’s what you wanted to hear, right? I had a thing with her. It lasted maybe four months in total. Just four. During that time I probably saw her a dozen times, if that. She didn’t know about you. I did it because I was lonely. Lonely in our marriage. I did it because you don’t support me, you don’t appreciate me. You’re so busy organising your own life. I felt like you didn’t give a shit about me, and Charlotte did.’

  Next to me, the grey-haired lady gave a little gasp. I’d have gasped myself, only I could barely draw breath. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Sure, I’d had suspicions. Sure, Charlotte had confessed to me what had happened, and I’d believed her. But still, a tiny, stupid part of me had been hoping that, somehow, it might all turn out to be a mistake.

  ‘But we were trying to have a baby.’ My voice sounded thin and desperate.

  To my left, the woman with the laptop stopped typing, her hands suspended motionless over the keyboard.

  ‘You were. It consumed you, Sloane. You couldn’t talk about anything else, half the time. And when it didn’t happen – how do you think that made me feel? Like shit, is how. Men want to be wanted, Sloane. Wanted for themselves, not as some kind of glorified sperm donor. Charlotte wanted me for myself.’

  ‘Right.’ I managed to get the word out even though my lips felt numb and my tongue too large for my mouth. ‘So you felt like you were entitled to some kind of last hurrah? Like a dude sleeping with a hooker on his stag night? Is that it?’

  There was another sharp intake of breath from the elderly woman.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Myles said. ‘I’m not continuing this conversation with you. You’re not rational; you’re not listening to me – unlike the rest of this bloody coffee shop.’

  There was a brief pause. Laptop woman started frantically typing again.

  Then the elderly lady put her knife and spoon together on her plate, very correctly, next to her half-eaten scone, and said, ‘Actually, yes, I have been listening. And I have to tell you, Myles, I’m not on your side.’

  ‘Nan!’ her grandson protested.

  ‘You know what, I agree with her,’ said laptop woman. ‘It sounds like you’ve behaved disgracefully and your wife’s had a lucky escape.’

  ‘What they said,’ muttered the boy.

  Myles turned absolutely scarlet. ‘My solicitor will be in touch,’ he said, and stood up and did what I guess he intended to be a flounce out the door.

  But, with the eyes of everyone around us following him, it was more like a furtive skulk.

  Twenty-Two

  It was Thursday and I was alone in the office. Sam was out looking after Carly Matthews, one of our mumfluencer clients, at the launch of her new book. Because Carly insisted on taking her Fruit-Shoot-fuelled four-year-old twins, Richie and Ralphie, absolutely everywhere with her to bolster her perfect-mother credentials, I knew that his role would largely consist of charging around Waterstones after them, trying to stop them eating all the cupcakes and tripping up old ladies.

  Isla was off on holiday, having headed to Croatia with a bunch of mates the previous weekend, and Rosie had taken the afternoon off to go to her nan’s seventieth birthday afternoon tea.

  Which meant that I could take my time getting ready to go and meet Edward Reeves for what I firmly told myself was definitely, categorically not a date.

  I looked at myself in the full-length mirror we kept in the corner of the office for our obsessively image-conscious clients to check that they looked the part before braving the legions of fans they imagined were waiting for them on every street corner. I was wearing a full-skirted red dress with a sweetheart neckline and a white ditsy print of daisies on it, and bright yellow high-heeled shoes. My hair was up in a French twist on the back of my head, and I was wearing my usual bright-red lipstick.

  It was my look, I supposed. It was the way I dressed, and had been for years. Myles liked it, it felt like me, and I’d never really bothered to change it. But it had become more than a habit – it had become a burden. Like how when we first slept together I’d been wearing lace-topped hold-up stockings and Myles had been so overcome with lust when he saw them, I felt obliged to wear them all the time. And of course the Brazilian wax I’d had before that first time, which I’d felt obliged to maintain throughout our marriage, telling him that honestly, having hot wax applied to my bits and then ripped off barely hurt at all.

  Now, though, my outfit felt frumpy, almost self-consciously kooky. I felt like I needed a change.

  It was half past four, and I was meeting Edward at seven. The day had been quiet, the phones silent and my email inbox obligingly allowing me to clear it without filling up again straight away. No harm would be done if, just this once, I snuck out of the office to start the weekend early.

  Feeling like a kid on the last day of term, I switched off my computer, picked up my bag, set the alarm and headed out into the street. I’d just see, I told myself, if anything caught my eye. If it didn’t, I was fine as I was. After all, this really wasn’t a date, or anything to get excited about at all.

  So why was my stomach suddenly full of an absolute swarm of butterflies?

  An hour and a half later, I found myself standing in front of a different mirror, looking at my reflection with something that was almost bemusement. I’d taken my hair down and brushed it out, so it fell in natural, beachy waves down past my shoulders. The lovely girl in the Charlotte Tilbury store had applied a full face of natural, neutral make-up that made me look fresh and glowy and about five years younger. I was wearing silky wide-legged trousers and a cropped top that showed off an inch of skin around my waist.

  In the mirror, the person looking back at me could have been one of the cool older girls I’d looked up to with such awe when I was just starting high school in the late nineties. I could hardly believe that she was me.

  To be fair, earlier I’d tried on a white button-through dress that had made me look like a nurse in a porno movie. But still, now I felt transformed, as if I’d shed a skin I hadn’t known I’d grown out of. Still gazing at my reflection, I took my wedding and engagement rings off my left hand and tucked them carefully away in my wallet. My hand felt strangely light without them, as if a weight far greater than the two small bands of metal had been removed.

  I happily handed over my credit card to pay for my new outfit, got changed back into it in the fitting room, and stuf
fed my old clothes into a carrier bag. For a second I considered ditching the lot in a rubbish bin on the street, but then I remembered the state of the planet and decided to do a charity-shop run instead, at some point over the weekend. There were plenty of other garments that would be joining these ones, after all.

  The cool breeze tickled my skin. My flat shoes made me feel like I was walking on a beach. I practically skipped to the Tube station and couldn’t help noticing heads turning to look at me, people catching my eyes and smiling.

  I remembered Megan’s words: ‘You’ve still got it.’

  Maybe I did. But I’d almost lost it, somewhere along the way.

  Edward was already in the bar where we’d arranged to meet. And it wasn’t just any bar – it was the glass-walled space at the top of the Shard, London’s tallest building. I’d never been there before, and I couldn’t suppress a little gasp at the amazing panorama of the city spread out below us, vast and beautiful in the evening.

  Edward himself didn’t look too shabby either. He was wearing a suit, a sort of silvery grey that made his eyes look very blue, and a dark green shirt. His hair was brushed back from his face, dark brown and glossy like expensive chocolate. He was drinking a Manhattan, and when he saw me he put the glass down, stood up from his chair and kissed me on both cheeks.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I got here early, so I could nab a table by the window, and I’ve been sitting here on my own checking my phone every five minutes like a total prat. I was worried you’d change your mind.’

  ‘Why would I do a thing like that? I wouldn’t pass up the chance to look at this view.’

  But when I said it, I was looking right at him, not out through the window.

  ‘I’m glad you like it. I wanted to impress you.’

  He smiled. For such a hot guy, he was quite touchingly eager to please.

  ‘Consider me impressed.’

  I ordered a drink for myself – a dry Martini, which I wouldn’t normally have chosen. It was a glamorous drink – Vivienne’s drink – and I’d never felt glamorous before. Edward wasn’t the only one trying to make an impression, I supposed. If I was going to play the part of the sophisticated older woman, I wanted to nail it right from the beginning. And the drink surprised me with its icy, bone-dry hit of alcohol, just as my own appearance had. Maybe, I thought, the Sloane Cassidy who wore flats and bared her waist to the world would be a dry Martini woman.

  I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know who the new, single Sloane was going to turn out to be. But, I realised, I was starting to look forward to finding out.

  We drank our cocktails and Edward ordered a plate of salami, and we ate that and then ordered another round, and I asked him about his job.

  ‘I used to work in the City,’ he said. ‘But I left a year ago. I’d had enough of the corporate world, of being a suit.’

  ‘But you’ve still got great taste in suits,’ I said, and he smiled that sweet, almost shy smile again, like my mild compliment was the best thing that had happened to him all day. I wondered if his slightly puppyish eagerness was an act – if it was, I bet it worked like a charm on every woman he dated. I could feel myself relaxing, becoming a bit flirtatious, starting to enjoy the evening.

  ‘And how about you? Tell me all about yourself,’ he invited.

  I wasn’t about to do that. But I did tell him about Ripple Effect, and living in New York, and that I was newly single, although I didn’t mention that I’d been married. I thought about my wedding ring, carefully tucked away in my wallet. The empty place on my finger where it had been for so long still felt strange; I wondered if he could see the indentation it had left on my finger.

  Then we moved on to more general conversation, telling each other about places we’d travelled to and places we hoped to go. I heard all about his gap year travelling around South America, and I wondered exactly how much younger than me he was. Three years? Five, maybe?

  I wondered, but I didn’t particularly care, because it was so obvious that he didn’t and a few years wasn’t exactly cradle-snatching.

  ‘Another drink?’

  I opened my mouth to make the sensible suggestion that we call it a night, but instead I heard myself saying, ‘How about that bottle of fizz I owe you?’

  A feeling of giddy irresponsibility washed over me, and it wasn’t just down to the two large cocktails I’d drunk. There was no way I was going to have a relationship with this man. There was no point pretending that we were going to be friends, or be useful to each other professionally.

  And that meant we were there for one thing. I knew it now and so did he, and thanks to the booze, the spectacular panorama of London spread out below us, the lights gleaming along the river like a necklace of precious stones thrown casually down, and Edward himself, with his sharp suit and his perfect teeth and his compliments, it suddenly seemed like a totally great idea.

  Before ten o’clock, we were in a cab together, snogging each other’s faces off like teenagers. Half an hour later, we’d arrived at his flat in Clapham and he was fumbling to get the key in the lock with one hand, the other firmly gripping mine. His skin was warm and dry, he kissed like an expert, and so far I was feeling entirely happy with my life choices at that moment.

  He got the door open and led me in, closed it, then turned and kissed me again, his hands on the bare skin of my waist, his mouth eager yet somehow also tender. It had been more than five years since I’d kissed anyone other than Myles and it should have felt like some kind of massive watershed moment, but it didn’t. I’d forgotten the thrill of anticipation, the knowing but not knowing what was going to happen, what we would be like together, and the excitement of it was intoxicating.

  At that moment, it was like Myles had never existed.

  The kiss ended, we looked at each other in the dark of the hallway, and he said, ‘Can I get you anything? A drink or something? I’m being a crap host.’

  ‘I’m not here for your hospitality,’ I replied, and he laughed.

  ‘Come on then.’

  I followed him the few steps to his bedroom, which was pleasingly neat, everything squared away, not like the room of a single guy at all. I wondered if he’d made the effort to clear things up in anticipation of me coming home with him. I figured he probably had, but I didn’t mind if he’d taken the outcome of the evening for granted.

  After all, I’d done the same myself, pretty much from the moment I’d seen him sitting there at the table with his Manhattan.

  He reached out for me again, and this time he took my face between the palms of his hands and looked intently at me, before lowering his mouth to mine. His kiss was intense and hungry, but also tender and almost reverent. I slid my hands up his back and felt his body beneath his suit jacket – he had the lean frame of a man who ran or cycled rather than someone who worked out in the gym. I slid the jacket off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor, broke off our kiss and stepped back to undo the buttons of his shirt, slowly, one by one.

  As my fingers brushed his bare skin for the first time, I heard him gasp with pleasure and the anticipation of pleasure to come, and I felt an answering surge of excitement in my own body, hearing my breath come faster. His hands reached for the buttons of my top, too. He had it easy – there were only three, and he undid them quickly and expertly, before dropping the garment to join his on the floor. I stepped out of my shoes and felt his hands on my waist again, fumbling to find how to get my trousers off.

  ‘There’s a zipper on the side,’ I whispered, and we both laughed.

  ‘Of course there is. I knew that.’

  His own trousers came off with less difficulty, and we stood there, lit only by the glow from the light in the hallway, looking at each other, delighted by what we saw.

  He cupped my breasts through my bra, and I felt my nipples spring to attention, loving the way his strong hands looked on the lacy fabric. His own chest was hard and smooth, a thin band of soft hair running down over his flat abdomen.

&nb
sp; Our bodies came together again and we kissed, more eagerly this time, moving towards the bed and lying down together before kissing again, on and on. Involuntarily, I found myself twisting one leg over his, pulling him close, feeling the hardness and size of him against me. He unhooked my bra, with no fumbling this time, and it fell to the bed between us. I felt his lips move against mine as he murmured, ‘Oh my God.’

  There was no slowness after that, no more tentativeness. I hooked a thumb into the waistband of my panties and pulled them off, and he did the same with his boxer shorts. My hands reached for his cock and I stroked it, then gripped the hot, pulsing length of it. I kneeled above him, looking down and seeing the desire on his face, along with something like adoration.

  In that moment, I could have sworn undying love to that sweet boy. I had no intention of doing so, of course – if I had, he would probably have legged it out of there screaming in horror, and rightly so. But everything about it – his tidy bedroom, his smooth, lean body, the dark hair that spilled over his pillow like a tangle of silk – was perfect. And the way he looked at me, I felt perfect, too. I felt desirable and desired, turned on as much by the knowledge that this was okay, I could do this with no fear and no consequences, as I was by his hands, now gently exploring me and discovering how eager I was for him, how ready.

  There were a few seconds of awkwardness while he slipped on a condom, and then he was inside me, our bodies moving together, slowly at first then faster and faster until I flung back my head, arching my back and letting pleasure fill every atom of me. Seconds later, I felt him shudder to stillness inside of me, and I flopped down on top of him like a puppet with the strings cut.

  ‘My God, Sloane. I can’t – that was amazing. You’re a goddess.’

  I laughed in pure, easy happiness, getting a mouthful of his soft hair. ‘You’re not so bad yourself. I should pick men up in the queue at Jerusalem Falafel more often.’