Our Stop(69)

Daniel and Nadia looked at each other.

Daniel repeated: ‘So, this is yours.’ He handed over the phone. He couldn’t help but notice it was open on notes. He wondered what she had been writing.

Nadia took the phone, and grinned.

Daniel’s heart raced. His breathing got faster. This was it – this was his chance. His opportunity to say something smart and charming and clever that would make it okay to then say: It’s me. I stood you up after writing to you in the paper. Can we try again?

Don’t fuck this up, he told himself. Come on!





41


Nadia


Nadia’s heart beat twice as fast as it had been. Had he read what they’d been typing? She took the phone off of him.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘And this,’ he said, giving her the meal vouchers she’d been holding too. She hadn’t realized she’d dropped them as well.

‘Ah. Cheers. It’s my meal voucher.’ What was wrong with her? Why was she being the most boring, ineloquent person on the planet? She needed to say something charming and disarming! This man was beautiful, with deep eyes that twinkled in mischief. He was just her type, physically, but more than that: from listening to him, even just for a minute, she knew he was emphatically A Good Man. A Good Man with good friends and a good moral compass and … oh god, he was so fucking sexy. Those arms!

‘VIP perk?’ he said, gesturing to the tickets.

Nadia nodded. Were they really going to make small talk this way? She needed to pivot the conversation, to somehow open up the chit-chat to a little flirting. She was doing a god-awful job of giving him the right signals. And why wasn’t Naomi helping, for god’s sake? She was just stood there, watching, like somebody lost in a dogging spot.

‘Well – it’s Naomi’s VIP perk. She’s an Instagrammer.’

Waistcoat Man smiled at her. ‘Nice,’ he said.

Naomi was Nadia’s most Conventionally Beautiful friend. Emma and Gaby, her friends from back home, all the women Nadia knew – they were all beautiful in their own way. But the reason Naomi’s Instagram had taken off was because she was conventionally beautiful, with petite features arranged symmetrically and with straight, white teeth and skin that wasn’t just clear, but glowed. That Waistcoat Guy didn’t let his gaze rest on Naomi for longer than a millisecond – he’d barely noticed her at all in fact! – was unusual to Nadia, because as confident as she generally felt in her appearance – occasional acne issues aside – she was contentedly invisible when Naomi was around. Except – not to this man, she wasn’t. This man seemed as transfixed by her as she was by him. It was like there was an invisible piece of cotton from his wrist to hers, a connection that was bone-deep. That tugged. They continued to look at each other, Nadia mentally berating herself for not being able to say something to start a proper conversation.

The man in front of her opened his mouth and took a big breath and seemed about to save them both from the lack of words between them. But then he closed his mouth again and simply broke out into a huge grin, that made Nadia grin, and there they were, two idiots, grinning.

Where do I know him from? thought Nadia, wondering if feeling like you recognized somebody was all part of the feeling of unparalleled attraction.

‘I’m pretty excited about this movie,’ he said, eventually, and it made Nadia laugh. The simplicity of it. He used his thumb to gesticulate towards the big screen at the other end of the field. ‘I remember the first time I saw it. I’d never understood why Shakespeare was good before Leonardo DiCaprio.’

‘Is love a tender thing?’ Nadia quoted, ‘It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.’

The man nodded, impressed. He got the reference, and countered with a quote of his own: ‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea.’

‘Oh. Shit. I don’t remember any more,’ Nadia laughed. This was it. They’d cracked it. This was the gateway she’d been grappling for. He was laughing too. Nadia could feel the rise and fall of her breath in her chest, and bit at her bottom lip anxiously.

‘Nadia?’

It was a voice Nadia recognized. She turned around.

‘Eddie!’ she said, shocked but happy.

‘How are you?’ Eddie said, opening up his arms for a hug. He’d been like that from the night she’d met him: open, warm, loving, affectionate.

Nadia turned to Naomi, ‘Naomi, this is the guy I was just telling you about. Eddie – this is my friend Naomi.’ She paused for a second, to where the guys in front had been stood not ten seconds ago. She may as well introduce them too. But they were ahead now, at the booth, ordering their food. Nadia hadn’t realized they’d made it to the front of the line.

‘How’ve you been?’ Eddie said. ‘This is Alya, my girlfriend. Alya, baby, this is Nadia.’

Alya stuck out a hand. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she said, smiling.

‘You have?’ Nadia said.

Eddie laughed, ‘All good, Nadia, don’t worry.’ He turned to Naomi. ‘Your friend broke my heart a little,’ he said. ‘But then I met Alya, and realized why it had never worked out with anybody else.’

Eddie smiled at his girlfriend and put his arm around her again, pulling her in close. He was reassuring her. Marking his territory. Making his allegiances clear. Nadia was genuinely thrilled he seemed so happy, and told him so. It was easier to see him with somebody else than to think that in any way she’d hurt him and that he still hurt. It let her off the hook.