Our Stop(58)

‘Get your bag, Becky. We’ll wait outside.’

Daniel and Becky waited outside, neither of them knowing what to say. The Uber pulled up, and Daniel opened the door for her.

‘Get home safe.’

She nodded.

Inside, Lorenzo had tidied up the mess they’d made. The cushions were back in place and he’d sorted out the rug and coffee table. There was just a single lamp on, and his bedroom door was closed. Daniel thought about knocking on it, but didn’t know what he’d say. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, really. He just knew he was relieved the girl wasn’t behind that closed door with his flatmate. He just … Lorenzo shouldn’t have brought her home, and that was the end of it.

He leaned in close to the mirror, and even in the dim light he could see the bruise, already deeper and brighter. It hurt to touch.

‘Fuck,’ he said quietly, a sentiment he’d continue for the next four days, when the bruising looked worse before it looked better.





33


Nadia


Nadia had ended up seeing Eddie earlier than planned, on the Saturday instead of the Sunday. They’d texted all of Friday night, with Eddie giving Nadia a blow-by-blow account of what he thought about first You’ve Got Mail, and then when Nadia said she was going to watch Sleepless in Seattle because she loved Meg Ryan, he timed it so that he played the same movie in sync with her from his house. They messaged back and forth, unpacking the plot in real time, talking about their lives and cracking jokes in between talking about the movie. It was 2 a.m. by the time Eddie had said: This is nice. You. Me. Us.

And it had been. Eddie was good company, even via a phone screen, and in the end Nadia took a breath and typed, Hey – I don’t suppose you’re free tomorrow, are you?

For you I might be … he’d said back, and so at 11 a.m. the next day they’d met for coffee at Granger & Co. in King’s Cross, and coffee turned into brunch, and brunch turned into a slow meander down to the Wellcome Collection, which neither of them were particularly bothered about, but it was an excuse to be together, to keep talking. After the exhibition they walked some more, and Nadia hadn’t realized she was guiding them towards the direction of her flat, until it was 4 p.m. and Eddie had said, ‘What now?’

‘We could stop at Tesco,’ Nadia said, ‘and then go cook at mine?’

Eddie pulled her in for a kiss, then – the first time he’d done so all day, to the point where Nadia had found herself wanting it to happen and convincing herself that she’d misunderstood and they were only spending time together as friends. Or strangers who’d slept together once. Their hands had brushed as they’d walked, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed when Eddie had found the exact spot of the curve of her hip to guide her around the corners of the gallery. Knees had knocked as they ate and he’d put his arm around her neck, across her shoulders, a few times. But until then, no kiss. Body contact but no kiss, and when it finally happened Nadia found herself wanting more of it.

They’d got supplies for a simple pasta and pesto dish at the Tesco Extra on the corner, and a bottle of wine and some fizzy water, and kept kissing as they drank on her patio, and boiled water for the noodles, and once they’d eaten the kissing got deeper, and deeper, and then, come Sunday morning, Nadia woke up next to him again, convinced he was the guy for her. You might have been right … she texted Emma, to no reply. He’s pretty awesome …

They’d spent all Sunday together, going out to read the papers over breakfast like they’d been a couple for years, and this was their normal, weekly routine, before taking the overground across the city to take a big walk up the heath and stopping for roast beef in the beer garden of a pub nearby. It was nice to belong to somebody for a whole block of time: not to be hurtling across London to do a workout with one friend and then lunch with another and head home alone after somebody’s Saturday-night birthday dinner or drinks. Nadia felt rooted that weekend, spending time with one person – a person who seemed to like her an awful lot. The ‘couple behavior’ that had bugged her on Friday, by Sunday night felt comforting and welcome.

I like how this feels, she’d told him, snuggled into his neck on her sofa in front of a David Attenborough documentary.

And she did.

Train Guy who? she smiled to herself. In three days, her life had changed completely. Now that she’d let herself entertain the idea, Eddie was actually almost everything she wanted.

On Monday morning, when she saw Train Guy had written back to her in the paper, she decided to ignore it.

I screwed up, Coffee Spill Girl. I left, and I shouldn’t have, and now I’m worried I blew it. I know you don’t get a second chance at a first impression, but how about a first meeting on the second try?

No, she thought. Not when there’s a man right here who shows up when he says he will. Sorry, Train Guy.





34


Daniel


On Monday, when Daniel got home from work, he hesitated at the door before he put his key in the lock. Lorenzo was home. Daniel didn’t want to see him.

Pushing open the door, smells of garlic and salmon wafted through the hallway. Daniel’s first thought was that if Lorenzo was hosting a date in their living room – a date with no warning, no less – he’d go straight back out again, probably to his mother’s. His second reaction was to think, How dare he impose on the house this way? In theory Daniel didn’t care who Lorenzo had over, but it was fucking poor form to have somebody over two nights after they’d thrown punches at each other over his treatment of another woman.