My heart was hammering and my legs were shaking a bit as I pushed open the door, and I was greeted by a shout of, ‘Surprise!’
‘We thought you were going to fuck off in a huff,’ Sally laughed, hurrying over and hugging me. ‘Kris was about to chase after you down the street.’
‘Happy birthday, beautiful.’ Kris hugged me. He was wearing a rose-pink satin slip dress and high-heeled silver mules.
‘Beautiful yourself,’ I said, and he grinned in delight. ‘But I can’t… How did this even…?’
I gazed around the room. There were Lisa and Lucy and their husbands, Lucy’s tiny baby in a sling on her chest. There were Maddy and Henry, Charlotte’s friends who’d spent New Year’s Eve with us. There were Fawzia and Faaruq, my old friends from school. There was Odeta with her boyfriend, chatting away to Yelena the waitress. A little group of my former colleagues from my previous job were chatting in a corner and my old housemates, who I sporadically kept in touch with on social media, were standing at the bar. Chelsea was drinking beer with Jed and Boyd, the couple from across the street, whose housewarming party we’d been to. Luke was serving pints and Hannah was circulating with glasses of sparkling wine on a tray.
On a table at the back of the room I could see a big bouquet of flowers, a pile of presents and a cake, and next to it…
‘Perdita!’ I dashed over and hugged my sister. ‘What the hell? How are you even here?’
‘I left the baby with Ryan,’ she said. ‘I’ve had two glasses of fizz and I’m already shitfaced. Your lovely housemate says I can sleep in his bed and he’ll crash on the sofa, but I should really get the overnight coach home.’
‘Which housemate?’ I demanded. Then I looked around and saw Josh and Adam standing together, identical smug grins on their faces.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Which one of you did this?’
‘It was him,’ Adam said, at exactly the same time as Josh said, ‘He did.’
‘You guys. Seriously. I can’t believe this.’
Someone put a glass of prosecco in my hand, and I downed it almost in one go, and it was immediately replaced with another. Feeling as if I was in some strange dream, I looked around the room again, trying to figure out how Adam, or Josh, or the two of them together, must have contacted people through my social media, figuring out who I would want to come to my surprise birthday party, inviting them all, booking the venue – organising this whole wonderful thing for me without me knowing a thing about it.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I said again, and hugged them both tight, even though it made Adam squirm a bit. Then I took my glass – which seemed to have had some kind of magic spell cast on it, because every time I emptied it it was either refilled or a fresh one appeared in my hand – and I mingled.
It was wonderful. Everyone seemed so excited to be there, so thrilled that I hadn’t found out and spoiled the surprise. I felt like brides must feel on their wedding day, basking in attention and affection. I was too happy to care that I hadn’t dressed up, too happy to worry about eating the samosas and pakoras and bhajis that had been ordered in from the Queen of Kashmir next door, too happy even to mind when I saw Felicity and Renzo together, talking intently.
‘Hello.’ Felicity enveloped me in a fragrant hug. ‘I’m so sorry I had to fib to you at work today. You looked so gutted, it was awful.’
I laughed. ‘I was having a bit of a pity party. But now I’m having an actual party, so it’s all good.’
‘Your bloke is quite the mastermind,’ she said. ‘He got me to send emails to everyone who I thought you’d want to come, and kept track of the numbers, and your other housemate did a Doodle poll with everyone’s dietary requirements. They ought to go into business together.’
Renzo kissed me on both cheeks and wished me a happy birthday, and I thanked him, the smile on my face feeling quite natural, before turning away and mingling some more. But I found myself gravitating back to the main table, where Josh was on his phone, turning up the volume on a Spotify playlist that seemed to have all my favourite music on it.
‘This was the most amazing thing you and Adam did,’ I said. ‘Seriously, thank you so much.’
‘It was nothing. Seeing your face when you walked in was so totally worth it.’
I looked up at him. My cheeks were hurting a bit, and I realised I hadn’t stopped smiling for what felt like hours. Lots of people had hugged me that evening, of course, but it felt like more than the sum of all the arms in the room was around me – like I was caught up in some lovely, massive group hug, buoyed up by kindness and friendship and love.
I realised, quite suddenly, that I didn’t hate Josh any more. What he’d done, and why he’d done it, was a question I’d ask him another day; now, I was too happy for there to be room for any bad feelings in my heart.
And this time, I didn’t even think about whether Renzo was watching when I put my arms around Josh and pulled him close against me into a kiss. Like the last time he kissed me, it felt good – great, even. His body was strong and warm against mine. His hands caressed my back gently, then moved up and stroked my hair back from my face. This time I didn’t break away from him, because I didn’t want it to end.
But he said, ‘I mustn’t monopolise the birthday girl. Let me get you another drink. Have you had enough to eat? Do you want me to turn up the music so people can dance? Or cut your cake first?’
‘Let me go and chat to Perdita for a bit. I haven’t seen her in so long, and I must introduce you and Adam to her properly. And then cake and then dancing, I think.’
So that’s what we did. I noticed my sister size Josh up appraisingly, telling him he hadn’t changed a bit since school, although I knew perfectly well she must be thinking that he had, in all the ways that mattered. Then he made some excuse about going to pop next door for some more samosas, and she and I sat down and had a good old catch-up, but when I tried to quiz her about how Mum and Dad were managing – really, not just ‘okay’ like Mum told me when we talked – she insisted that everything was just ticking over and I wasn’t to worry.
And then I did cut the cake, which was a ridiculously rich chocolate one with real chocolate truffles cut in half and stuck all over the outside and a layer of marzipan underneath the buttercream.
‘Where the hell did you get this?’ I asked Adam, who was hovering over it, glowing with anxious pride like a MasterChef contestant waiting for Jon and Gregg to deliver their verdict – although of course he hadn’t made it himself. No way. ‘It’s insane. It’s a total cake-gasm.’
‘I designed it,’ Adam said. ‘And Hannah and I made it together. Well, Hannah mostly.’
And then of course I had to give him and Hannah huge hugs and thank them both all over again.
After everyone had eaten as much as they could hold, and there was still a huge slab left on the cake stand, which I noticed Adam loitering over, Josh picked up his phone again and tapped the screen. But instead of turning the music up, he turned it off.
Kris shouted, ‘Speech!’
‘What?’ I said. ‘I can’t.’
‘Of course you can,’ Josh said. ‘Look, all these people here love you. You can do it.’
‘But I…’ And then I stopped and looked around at all the expectant, happy faces. Fawzia, who’d travelled down from Manchester where she ran an anti-FGM charity, and Faaruq, who, as a junior doctor, must be both run off his feet and permanently knackered. Lucy, breastfeeding her little daughter on a chair, a plate of cake next to her. Perdita, who was going to make the eight-hour journey home overnight, having already made it in the other direction earlier. Adam, holding his phone in his hand but not retreating into the screen as I knew he must be longing to do. Chelsea, who must have sacked off a shift at her part-time job or a precious opportunity to work on her collection to be here. And Josh, looking so proud of the surprise he’d helped plan for me, yet so chilled about hosting this gathering of people he’d never met before.
So, unaccustomed as I was, I s
aid a few words. ‘This is the most amazing birthday I’ve ever had. If this is what being twenty-seven is like, bring it on. Thank you all so much for coming. Thank you, Luke and Hannah, for having us all. And thank you especially to Adam and Josh, for being such amazing people. I love you both.’
Then, because I’d drunk so much fizz I was practically floating up to the ceiling on a cloud of bubbles, I added, ‘I love you all.’
And, because I realised it was true, I had to sniff and wipe away a tear or several before Josh finally pumped up the volume and “Feel the Love” blasted out, and I could stop feeling self-conscious and go back to having fun.
We kept the Daily Grind properly banging until almost one in the morning, when Luke tactfully approached Josh and reminded him of their ‘We’re a local coffee shop first and foremost, so please be considerate of our neighbours and friends during late opening’ policy, and Josh turned the music right down.
By then only a few of us were left. Felicity had said good night some time before, perhaps to go on with Renzo to somewhere far more fashionable and fabulous – although there was no way it would have been more fun. Adam had slipped away almost immediately after my speech, and I knew that the excruciatingly awkward conversation I’d have to have with him about how he couldn’t possibly pay for all of this himself would have to wait. Lucy had got an Uber back to Finsbury Park with her baby. Perdita was hopefully having a good old nap on the coach back home.
So it was only Kris, Chelsea, Sally, Yelena and a hard core of others who spilled out into the night with Josh and me, exchanging yet more hugs and swearing eternal friendship before people hurried to get the Tube or lit fags while they waited for their taxis to arrive.
And then, quite suddenly, I found myself walking down the familiar road towards home with Josh. His arm was loosely around my waist, and that felt like the most natural thing ever, so much so that when we passed either side of a lamp post, my arm slipped around his afterwards.
And then, when he unlocked the front door because my key didn’t seem to want to function in my fumbling fingers, I took his hand in mine and we walked up the stairs together. And instead of him going one way into his bedroom and me going the other into mine, I kept hold of him until we were sitting next to each other on my bed. And even after that, I didn’t let it go. Our fingers were still intertwined when we kissed again, with no chance of an audience this time.
I only let go when the intensity of the kiss became too much for me and I flopped down on my back on the duvet, feeling absolutely sober and in control all of a sudden, and smiled at him, my hands reaching up for his face.
Twenty-Two
The thing I remember most clearly about that night is thinking, at the moment when Josh and I had fumblingly removed all our clothes and our bodies were lying together, skin against skin, for the first time, I want to remember this moment, and what happens next, always.
And the funny thing was that, afterwards, when I was desperate to forget what had happened that night, the memories kept intruding, pushing themselves into my brain even when I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my hands over my face to try and keep them out. I remembered the moment when he lay down next to me and we carried on kissing and I knew that this was going to go further and further, up to the point of no return and beyond it. I remembered wondering if I ought to ask him to stop, whether this was the wrong thing to be doing – but how could I, when it felt so very right?
I remembered how, even though no lights were on in the house, the glow from the street lamp outside illuminated his face, and how he looked down at me with tender concentration as he touched me, and how he smiled when he heard me gasp with pleasure. And there was the thrill of touching him for the first time, the hot hardness of him, that made me want to taste him and have him deep inside me and at the same time never take my hands off him.
I remembered him saying, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to… Is it okay?’ and thinking that if he stopped I would literally die, and how I wrapped my arms and legs around him as tightly as I could, his back slick with sweat underneath my thighs, pulling him closer and closer until it felt like our bodies would melt into each other like butter in a microwave, and feeling him tense and shudder and then suddenly go still again, at exactly the time I did. At the time, all I felt was bliss, and I wanted to hold onto that feeling forever. The night was still warm, and we lay next to each other, sweat sheening our bodies as our breathing gradually slowed. I didn’t care how hot we were, I just wanted to be close to him. So I turned over and rested my head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around me and we kissed again, and soon I felt desire surging in me once more as he ran his fingers lightly down my arm, up again over my ribs and around to my breast. He leaned up on one elbow and smiled at me in the near darkness, still touching me, and he said, ‘You’re so beautiful, Tansy. You always were the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’
And I felt too shy to accept the compliment, but just giggled and said, ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’
And then we started to kiss each other again, and hardly said anything at all, apart from, ‘Do you like it when I…’ and ‘Please, more.’
I’d thought, just a few months before, that I could never bear to have sex again with anyone who wasn’t Renzo, but in those moments I didn’t think of him at all, not once. It was as if he’d never even existed – as if no one else in the whole world did, apart from me and Josh. It was like everything outside my bed and our bodies had disappeared and there was only him and me and the pleasure and happiness that flooded over me.
I suppose at some point we must have fallen asleep, because the next memory I have is of the sun streaming in through the window, far brighter than the street lamp and warm already, even though it was only six in the morning. We’d pulled the duvet halfway over ourselves at some point, and our legs underneath it were nested together, fitting perfectly.
I turned over as carefully as I could so as not to wake him, and felt my face break out in a huge smile as I looked at him lying there, one long arm folded under the pillow, the other reaching out to pull me close. I kissed the hard swell of his shoulder, then tickled his cheek with my eyelashes until I saw his lips twitch in the beginnings of a smile and his eyes open, blurrily close to my own.
‘Good morning,’ I said.
‘Hello.’ He pulled me over on top of him, and I loved how strong his arms were, how his hair looked all messy and tousled on my pillow, how his cock sprang instantly erect when he touched me.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
It hadn’t occurred to me that by rights I ought to have the mother of all hangovers.
‘I feel great,’ I said, surprised.
‘Me too. We dodged a bullet there.’
‘Maybe we’ve found the secret to hangover prevention, which has eluded medical science for generations.’
‘Maybe we have,’ he said. ‘It was certainly loads more fun than taking two paracetamol with a pint of water.’
‘Much more fun.’ I pushed the duvet back and looked at him. ‘Shame one of us isn’t feeling rough, or we could test whether it works as a cure, too.’
‘But maybe the preventative effect will wear off,’ he speculated. ‘Perhaps we should have an extra dose, just in case.’
‘That sounds like a sensible strategy,’ I agreed, and then we didn’t say anything more for a long time, because after we’d had sex we drifted off to sleep again, the sunshine warming our bodies like we were lying on a beach somewhere.
The sound of the door knocker woke me a couple of hours later, and Josh sat up next to me.
‘Want me to get that?’
‘Nah,’ I said. ‘It’ll be the postie. If Adam isn’t up he’ll leave it next door. I should get up anyway, though.’
I needed to wee and clean my teeth, but I didn’t say that to him. Daft as it sounds, even though we’d shared a house for the past two months, now that things between us were different I wanted him to perceive me as some sort of
permanently fragrant sex goddess.
‘I’ll stick the kettle on,’ Josh said. ‘And I’m starving. Fancy a fry-up?’
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Suddenly, this gloriously sunny Saturday seemed replete with possibility. Josh and I would have breakfast together. Then we might have a shower together, and see where that led. And after that we could hang out in the park, where there would be baby geese and ducks and maybe even cygnets swimming on the lake. And I’d be able to enjoy it all with him, and maybe we’d talk about what had happened; maybe I’d explain to him that the way I felt about him, and about Renzo, had changed. Or maybe that was a conversation to have another day, and for now we could just bask in the newness and excitement of being together.
I imagined lying with him under a tree, my head in his lap while he stroked my hair, the leaves casting dappled shadows over our faces. I imagined walking with him hand in hand, stopping for ice creams somewhere, whiling the day away together until we drifted home and back to bed. At some point, we’d need to pop into the Daily Grind and pick up the pile of presents that were waiting there for me, and I’d open them slowly, one by one, saving his for last.
Maybe later on, I supposed, we’d have to talk about what had happened – not just in the past few weeks, but all those years before. But for now, I longed for the little happy bubble we were in to stay just how it was.
‘That sounds…’ I began, and then I paused. ‘That sounds like Adam.’
We could hear feet pounding up the stairs, and Adam calling, ‘Hey, Tans, you won’t believe this.’
‘Shit.’ Josh and I looked at each other, starting to laugh. We were both stark naked, sat next to each other on my bed. There would be no hiding from Adam what we’d been up to. Together, quick as we could, we lay back down and pulled the duvet up to our chins, just as Adam burst into the room.
His arms were full of flowers.
‘Look what came for you! Roses and… pink things.’
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 25