The Flatshare(64)

I stare at the message for a while. What are you like. As if I’m such a klutz. Yesterday Leon pulled me out of the sea, and yet this is the first time all weekend I’ve felt like the girl who needs rescuing.

Fuck this. I hit block and delete all the voicemails from my phone.

*

I hop to the bathroom. It’s not the most dignified method of travel – the chintzy lamps on the walls are vibrating a little as I go – but something about the general stompiness is quite therapeutic. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Stupid, bloody, Justin. I slam the bathroom door with satisfying force.

Thank God Leon went out for breakfast, both because he avoided witnessing this mess of a morning and because he will hopefully return with something highly calorific to make me feel better.

Once I’ve showered and redressed in yesterday’s clothes – which, because they’re covered in grainy, shingly grit, also ticks exfoliating off my to-do list – I hop back to the bed and launch myself on to it with a thud, burying my face in the pillow. Ugh. Yesterday was so lovely, and now I feel all horrible and mucky, like the voicemails left a taint on me. Still, I blocked him, something I would never have been able to bring myself to do a few months ago. Maybe I should be glad of all those voicemails for pushing me to do it.

I sit up on my elbows and reach for the note Leon wrote me. It’s on hotel stationery; The Bunny Hop Inn is traced in jaunty letters across the bottom of the paper. The handwriting is just the same as ever, though – Leon’s neat, tiny, rounded letters. In a moment of embarrassing sentimentality, I fold the paper in half and reach to slip it into my handbag.

There’s a quiet knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ I call.

He’s dressed in a giant T-shirt with a picture of three sticks of rock on the front, and BRIGHTON ROCKS in big letters underneath. My mood immediately improves about tenfold. There’s nothing like a man in a novelty T-shirt to brighten up your morning – especially when he’s holding a very promising paper bag with Patisserie Valerie written on the side.

‘One of Babs’s finest?’ I say, pointing at the T-shirt.

‘My new personal stylist,’ Leon says.

He passes me the bag of pastries and sits down on the end of the bed, smoothing his hair back. He’s nervous again. Why do I find his nervous fidgeting so adorable?

‘You made it to the shower OK?’ he asks eventually, nodding towards my wet hair. ‘With your foot, I mean?’

‘I showered flamingo style.’ I curl one knee up. He smiles. Getting one of those lopsided grins from him feels like winning at a game I wasn’t aware I was playing. ‘The door doesn’t lock, though. I thought you might walk in on me, but it seems Karma was busy elsewhere this morning.’

He makes a strangled sort of mmhmm sound and busies himself eating his croissant. I suppress a smile. An unfortunate side effect of finding his nervous fidgeting adorable is that I seem unable to resist saying things I know will make him fidget.

‘But anyway, you’ve basically seen me naked,’ I go on. ‘Twice. Already. So you wouldn’t have been in for any huge surprises.’

He looks up at me this time. ‘Basically,’ he says emphatically, ‘is not the same as actually. Some key differences, in fact.’

My stomach flips. Whatever that awkwardness was last night, I definitely wasn’t imagining the sexual tension. The air is heavy with it.

‘It should be me worrying about the lack of surprises,’ he says. ‘You’ve actually seen me naked.’

‘I did wonder . . . when I walked in on you in the shower, did you . . .’

He disappears in the direction of the bathroom so fast I barely hear the excuse he makes as he goes. As he closes the door behind him and turns the shower on, I smile. I guess there’s my answer. Rachel will be delighted.





46


Leon

Have never thought this hard about the notes before. Was much easier when I was just scribbling random thoughts to friend who I had not met. Now am carefully crafting messages to woman who has taken up residence in most of my waking thoughts.

It’s terrible. Sit down with pen and Post-it and suddenly forget all the words. Her messages are cheeky, flirty, noisily her. This was the first after the weekend in Brighton, fixed to the bedroom door with Blu-Tack: So, hey, roomie. How’s the transition back to nocturnal life gone today? I see that Fatima and family went through the bins again while we were away – little minxes.

I wanted to write and say thanks again for whisking me out of the sea. Just make sure you fall in a large body of water at some point so I can return the favour, you know, in the name of equality. Also because I feel like you’d really own the whole Mr Darcy just-out-of-the-lake look. xx Mine are stilted and overthought. Write them when I get in from work, then rewrite them before I walk out the door, then regret them all night in the hospice. Until I get home to a reply and feel instantly better again. Thus the cycle repeats.

Eventually, on Wednesday, I muster the courage to leave this one on the kitchen counter: Weekend plans? x Was paralysed by self-doubt as soon as I’d left the building and got far enough away for going back to be inconceivable. In retrospect, was a very short note. Perhaps too short for meaning to be clear? Perhaps insultingly short? Why is this so difficult?

Now, though, I’m feeling better.

Well I’ll be home alone this weekend. Do you fancy coming over and cooking me your mushroom stroganoff? I’ve only ever had it reheated, and I bet it’s even better fresh out the oven. xx I reach for a Post-it and scribble my reply.