Someone Else's Shoes(108)

“Here,” he says, and places his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She can feel the warmth of his body through his T-shirt, and as she rests her head against him, she can just make out the beating of his heart. She closes her eyes, hearing the distant sound of doors, the endless drone of the alarm. He is the calmest person she has ever met . . . and this soothes her. It is all going to be okay. She is safe here. Ari will not find her. She has the shoes.

But.

In the near-silence, above the hum of the refrigerator, she becomes aware of his heartbeat. Surely it’s faster than a regular heartbeat. Her hands are cold and he takes one in his own and brings it to his lips, breathing warm air onto it, closing his fingers around it to warm her up. The heartbeat speeds up a little. Nisha slides her other hand under his T-shirt. “For warmth,” she murmurs, and his heartbeat speeds up a little more. And something in her shifts. She lifts her face and he is looking straight at her, and something has gone a little blurry between them.

“It’s so cold in here,” she says quietly. A pause. And then her lips are on his and his hands are in her hair and they are up against the rack, their kisses hot and endless, his hands gripping her to him, and Nisha has forgotten about the temperature completely.



* * *



? ? ?

The door is opened twenty-eight minutes later, the alarm silenced and the staff are finally filing back in, muttering and joking, making their way to their stations. Nisha and Aleks are waiting beside the door, she still wearing his chef’s white jacket over her shoulders, their expressions suspiciously blank. André opens it and stares at the two people in the doorway.

“I was keeping her warm,” says Aleks, when he keeps staring.

“Right,” says André.

They are halfway down the side alley before they realize Aleks has left his belt and Nisha has the remnants of two broken eggs sliding down her back.



* * *



? ? ?

They leave the hotel through a side exit from a large store room for banqueting chairs and tables, somehow emerging onto an alleyway on the other side of the hotel, far from the crowds and chaos. They walk the last half-mile arm in arm to Jasmine’s apartment, barely speaking, but the lengthy silences do not make Nisha feel anxious or uneasy. Perhaps for the first time in her life she is experiencing a deep peace, a calm that feels drugged, almost alien to her. Her whole body is charged, hyper-aware of the man walking beside her, but at the same time honeyed, and completely relaxed. Aleks has the shoes stashed safely in his backpack, which is slung over one shoulder; he walks swiftly through the night streets, his stride matching hers, and she speaks only to give him directions. We need to turn here or It’s just by that corner and occasionally he squeezes her slightly to him.

It is a pleasurable thing, that squeeze, not possessive, just comforting, a reminder of his presence. It also sporadically prompts an echo of their half-hour in the refrigeration room and when she thinks of it something at the core of her turns molten and liquid. So this is what it feels like. There is something almost sad about it, the revelation of what she has normalized for the last twenty years, the way she had assumed she was in something equal, respectful, when everything Carl had done had actually reinforced his basic disrespect. He had admired her, yes, desired her, often. But loved her? No. She wasn’t sure he was capable of that emotion. Stay with me, Aleks had murmured, his eyes inches from hers, and in that raw moment she knew she had spent half her life with a man who had failed to connect with her at all. It wasn’t even in his vocabulary. I have been a possession, she thinks. I have been an object. A prize, an appendage, then an inconvenience. She closes her eyes, wishing away the shame and sadness that come with understanding.



* * *



? ? ?

“She’s here!”

Jasmine throws open the door, letting out a warm burst of scented air, and as she steps inside Nisha can see that Sam, Andrea and Grace are waiting in the kitchen, their faces joyful and expectant.

“You did it!” Jasmine is laughing, hugging her emphatically so that Aleks steps obligingly to the side. “You bloody did it! You rock star! Oh, my God, I do not know how we got through that last half-hour. My heart! Did you know what you were doing to me? I thought I was going to pass out fifty times.” She shepherds them into the kitchen, closing the front door and bolting it. “Honestly, Nish, when you were sending me those texts I didn’t know whether to laugh or have a bloody panic attack with you.”

Nisha has been so locked into the quiet pleasure of her walk with Aleks that it takes her a moment to switch to their frequency.

“We’re having champagne,” says Andrea, who is pulling the top from a bottle. “Well, prosecco—I didn’t have the money for champagne—but it’s basically the same.” There is a whoop and Jasmine is reaching into one of the cupboards for the glasses, while Grace busies herself emptying a family bag of crisps into a large bowl.

“Do another bowl as well, baby. Those tortilla chips. The cheesy ones. Shall I get dips? Anyone want dips?”

Aleks and Andrea make their introductions over the music Jasmine has put on. Grace hands round the bowl of crisps, sneakily taking some for herself with each one offered. Jasmine hugs Aleks two, three times, quizzes him about where they ended up and her gaze slides sideways knowingly toward Nisha when he tells her. The little room is full of noise and relief and laughter. Nisha takes a sip of the prosecco. It is cheap, too sweet and absolutely delicious. She spies Sam, who is standing as she habitually does, in the corner of any room. She is watching them all with a vague smile, but there is sadness, wariness around her eyes.