Perfectly Ordinary People(24)

I woke first, and for a while, as I came to, I looked sleepily around his bedroom. I’d been too drunk to take much notice of it the previous night, but now I saw that it was very much a lad’s room, but tasteful, arty and cultured with it. There were stripped varnished floorboards, a hi-fi with an expensive turntable and shelves filled with vinyl. But there were also books, which is always a good sign, plus a great Bowie poster and a full-sized reproduction of Hockney’s The Splash.

I rolled on to my side and studied Dan’s features for a bit, making the most of the fact that he was still asleep. His mid-length brown hair had fallen across his eyes and he looked quite angelic.

As I was sighing at my thoughts – at how disappointing it was that the sexy, pretty, good-in-bed ones like Dan never work out – he opened his eyes and smiled at me.

Then he stretched and yawned sexily, if such a thing is possible (which it is) and said, ‘God, I was dreaming. I was dreaming about you! Can you believe that?’ If I’m honest, I couldn’t really believe that, but I made a determined effort to try.

In the battered kitchen of the apartment, he cooked me poached eggs and spinach on toast. He was sharing with two girls and a guy but we had the place to ourselves that morning. And then he asked me what I was doing for Christmas. That threw me a bit, I must admit, because asking about Christmas breaks every rule of the game.

His parents lived in Portugal, he explained, and his co-renter friends would all be elsewhere for Christmas. He was going to have the place to himself, and was wondering ‘even though it was perhaps premature’ if I fancied spending Christmas Day in bed. ‘I cook a mean nut roast,’ he told me, ‘if you’re into that. Or we could just drink champagne in bed.’

Jake and Abby had just got officially engaged and Christmas – by then only four days away – was to be the first since The Great Falling Out when everyone would be together. So I explained that, though champers in bed and nut roast sounded fabulous, Christmas with my family was non-negotiable.

‘How many of you will there be?’ Dan asked.

‘Tom and Tracey, Harry and Suzie, Eirla and Pippa . . .’ I started to count on my fingers, but then paused. ‘Including or excluding kids?’

Dan shrugged. ‘Include ’em,’ he said. ‘Let’s go crazy.’

I counted to ten and then Dan offered his own fingers to help out. ‘Sixteen,’ I said, finally.

‘Sixteen!’ he repeated. ‘Sounds amazing. A family Christmas dinner for sixteen! Who the hell does your catering?’

I laughed. ‘Are you angling for the job, or to be invited?’ I asked, then, ‘Oh, you are, aren’t you? You really do want to sample Mavaughn’s burnt turkey.’

Dan shrugged again cutely and sipped his coffee. ‘I really like you,’ he said, and I suspect that I failed to keep the surprise from reaching my face.

‘Oh, I know, I know . . .’ Dan said. ‘I’m supposed to play it all cool and disinterested, but since I hit thirty I just can’t be bothered.’

‘OK,’ I said, then, ‘Gosh.’

‘You see! It’s true,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve scared you off. If I’d said something like “Maybe see you next summer” you would have been all over me.’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I tend to assume everyone’s got Christmas booked. Especially this late in the day. Plus, most men I meet turn out to be married or something. So a Christmas request . . . Well, that’s a surprise.’

‘I’m not,’ Dan said. ‘Married.’

‘Or otherwise involved?’

‘Nope. Free as a bird.’

‘Or confused about your sexuality?’

Dan laughed and grinned salaciously. ‘Nope. Totally clear about my sexuality as, hopefully, you noticed last night.’

‘OK!’ I laughed.

‘And you?’

‘Which one?’

‘Any of them,’ Dan said.

‘Nope. I’m available,’ I said. ‘And equally unconfused about shagging.’

‘So, do I get an invite or not? If there’s already sixteen of you, what difference can one more make? Plus this particular “one more” can cook.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But you don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. The food’s terrible and my family are out of control.’

‘Mine are very much in control,’ Dan said. ‘Which is why yours sounds like fun.’

‘We’ll see,’ I told him. ‘Maybe.’

‘Right,’ Dan said. ‘OK.’ His lovely smile had begun to fade.

‘Let’s see how well you perform over the next few days,’ I offered, attempting to reinject a bit of humour into the proceedings.

Dan laughed again and crawled on top of me. ‘Oh, I have to perform, do I?’ he asked, straddling and starting to tickle me.

And though I was telling myself that this was silly; though I was telling myself that I’d only just met him and that falling for him on a first date was utterly ridiculous, I was also thinking, God, I could maybe fall in love with you.



Other than the fact I surprised everyone by bringing Dan along, Christmas ’96 was pretty normal. Everyone was present and with the exception of some heated discussion about kids and passive smoking due to the fact that it was raining too hard to smoke outside, everyone got on just fine.