Our Stop(29)

Romeo flung a copy of that morning’s newspaper from the welcome desk over to Daniel, who thumbed immediately to the right page, read her note, and then stood, grinning, at Romeo.

‘Daniel?’ Romeo said, eventually.

‘Yes?’ Daniel said, dreamily. She’d looked for him! On the train!

‘Don’t just stand there – go write her back!’

Daniel smiled even wider, if that were possible.

‘On it,’ he said, pointing a finger at Romeo with his thumb in the air, which he bent slightly like a trigger. ‘ON. IT.’

He went back to his office and wrote back to Nadia, first-time perfect:

You’re funny. Do you get told that a lot? Funny and cute. How lucky am I?! Listen, if you ever made the train on time I’d happily make my move. I’m pretty eager to meet you properly. Love, Train Guy.

He read and reread it several times, and with a nod of satisfaction hit ‘Send’.

Daniel’s good mood lasted until just after 7 p.m., when he stood in the middle of the Sky Garden, London’s highest public garden, in a huge tower in the shape of a walkie-talkie, with views across London.

He was surrounded by strangers, vaguely aware of Lorenzo telling his somewhat embellished story about the time he spent as a stripper to pay for his Master’s degree, and how he once got his penis stuck in the trunk of the elephant sewed to the front of his G-string. The girls – women, although they all seemed quite young, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three – were lapping it up, laughing loudly and touching his arm and teasing him so that he retold parts, making them laugh even more. As Daniel was wondering which of them he was trying to sleep with, knowing that with Lorenzo he wouldn’t have limited himself to just one, Gaby pulled on his sleeve.

‘You made it! I’m so pleased!’ she said, going in to kiss both of his cheeks.

‘I did,’ Daniel said, issuing air kisses back. ‘Though I’m afraid it looks as though my plus-one is more popular than I am.’ They both gazed in Lorenzo’s direction, where he had moved on to telling his joke about the crab at the bar, and as he reached the punchline his audience collapsed, once more, into flirtatious giggles. One of the women, holding her throat as she tipped her head back, made eye contact with Daniel as she regained her composure. She held it for a moment, pointedly, and then just as quickly looked away.

‘You’ll be popular with the only person who matters, though,’ Gaby said. ‘The woman of the hour should be here any minute. She was going to walk from the office to get her steps in.’

‘Very sensible,’ said Daniel, not sure of what else to say. The pair stood, suspended in the awkwardness of not really knowing each other, and not really in the mood to feign wanting otherwise. Drink. He decided on drink. ‘I’m going to go to the bar – can I get you anything?’

‘No, no,’ Gaby said. ‘I just need to go say hi to someone over there. ‘I’ll come find you in a minute. I’m so glad you came.’

Daniel held up his hand in Lorenzo’s direction, as if guzzling an imaginary pint, the universal sign for ‘Do you want another?’ Lorenzo held up his empty glass in response, the universal sign for ‘Yes, I do!’

It was four or five drinks later when Daniel realized he’d somehow, at some point, draped his arm around a woman’s bare shoulders, and that it had dropped to dusk outside. Gaby had never come back to introduce him to anyone – in fact, he hadn’t seen her in ages. But it didn’t matter. He’d had his second pint to steady his nerves, and his third because the second had tasted so good. Once the penny dropped that there wouldn’t be a big introduction to a stranger to navigate, he supped at the pint Lorenzo handed him a bit later too. He was accidentally quite drunk by then, and hadn’t really said much as he’d continued to watch Lorenzo’s performance to his audience of admirers – but he hadn’t needed to. He knew his role when it was the two of them out together: in the handful of times they’d gone to a bar Daniel often became the silent one, which, he’d been told by women more than once, made him seem brooding and mysterious.

That was laughable to him – not least because they’d all have no idea he was tipsy instead, not brooding – and his mum would soon set anyone who thought that of her son straight, but on occasion it had worked in his favour. The woman he’d made eye contact with earlier on had continued to catch his eye across the group of them, eventually leaning in as he headed to the bar again to say, ‘Order me a large red, would you?’ He’d looked at her and nodded. She was pretty. He was thinking about what the dating guide had said about having options, about not putting one person at the centre of your affections, about shopping around to take the pressure off. It was around that time he’d put his arm around her.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said to him, not long after, hot and breathy in his ear. Daniel looked at her. Somehow, they had peeled off from the group and were pressed into a corner together. Her hand was suddenly on his chest, the flat of her palm cool against the cotton of his shirt. He knew if he looked down, she’d be looking up at him and it would be an invitation to kiss. She was offering to go home and have sex with him.

In another life, ten years ago – five years ago! Or, to be frank, even last year – he would have said yes. He would have taken her home and had sex and seen her for a few dates afterwards, both of them trying to make the pieces of themselves fit, even if they didn’t. But after his dad, he knew life was too short to waste it on people he wasn’t crazy about.