The Other Woman(6)

It was way too early to tell, but there was a growing part of me, the part that no one saw, that hoped this was something. I wasn’t brave enough, or stupid enough perhaps, to be singing from the rooftops that Adam was ‘the one’, but I liked how it felt. It felt different, and I had all my fingers and toes crossed that my hunch was right.

We were comfortable with each other, not to the point where I’d leave the bathroom door open, but I wasn’t obsessing about whether my nail colour matched my lip shade either, and not many guys had been around long enough to see them clashing.

‘Are you sure it’s not too early for the Seb-o-meter?’ Seb asked, wiping his eyes as we walked out of the same cinema twenty-four hours later. ‘I mean, it’s not even been a month yet, has it?’

‘Well, thanks for your vote of confidence,’ I said. I was snivelling again too, but as I was with Seb, it didn’t matter. I put my arm through his, uniting us in our sadness at how the film had ended.

‘I don’t mean to sound negative, but it’s all a bit full-on to last, don’t you think? You’re seeing him almost every night. Are you sure it won’t just fizzle out as quickly as it started? Don’t forget, I know what you’re like.’

I smiled, despite feeling a little hurt at the insinuation that what Adam and I had could be just a fling. ‘I’ve never felt like this, Seb. I need you to meet him because I think this might be going somewhere. And it’s important to me that you like him.’

‘But you know you’re going to get a very honest appraisal,’ he went on. ‘Are you ready for that?’

‘I think you’re going to like him,’ I said. ‘And if you don’t, just pretend you do.’

He laughed. ‘Is there any topic that’s off-limits? Like the time you asked me to marry you, or when you threw your knickers at Take That?’

I laughed. ‘No, it’s all good. You can say whatever you want. There’s nothing I wouldn’t want him to know.’

‘Hang on,’ said Seb, as he bent forward and made a retching sound. ‘There. That’s better. Where were we?’

‘D’you know that you’re a right royal pain in the arse when you want to be?’ I laughed.

‘You wouldn’t want me any other way.’

‘Seriously, he’s pretty laid-back, so I don’t think you’ll be able to faze him that easily.’

That was the only thing with Adam: if he was any more laid-back he’d be horizontal. In his world, everything is calm and under control, like a sea without waves. He doesn’t get exasperated when we’re stuck behind a painfully slow driver. He doesn’t call Southeastern trains every name under the sun when leaves on the track cause delays, and he doesn’t blame social media for everything that is wrong with the world. ‘If you don’t like what it represents, why do you go on it?’ he’d asked, when I moaned about old school friends posting every burp, fart and word their child offered.

None of the trivial stuff that had me spitting tacks almost every minute of my day seemed to touch him. Maybe he was sitting back, carefully navigating his way around my own waves and currents before revealing his own, but I wanted him to give me more. I needed to know that blood coursed through his veins and that he’d bleed if he cut himself.

I’d tried to provoke a reaction from him several times, even if just to check he had a pulse, but I wasn’t going to get a rise out of him. He seemed happy just ambling along, with no real need or desire to offer anything more. Maybe I’m being unfair, maybe that’s just the way he is, but every now and again I like to be challenged, even if it’s only a debate over an article in the Daily Mail. It wouldn’t matter what it was, just anything that would give me an insight into his world. But no matter how hard I tried, we always ended up talking about me, even when I was the one asking the questions. There was no denying that, at times, it was a refreshing change, as the last guy I’d gone out with had prattled on about his video-game obsession all night. But Adam’s constant deflection left me wondering: what did I really know about him?

That’s why I needed Seb. He’s the type of person who can get right in there, burrow his way through the complex layers of people’s characters, and into their souls, which they are often baring within minutes of meeting him. He’d once asked my mother if my dad was the only man she’d ever been with. I’d immediately put my hands over my ears and la-la-la-ed, but she confessed to having had a wonderful affair with an American she met, just before her and Dad got together. ‘Well, it wasn’t the type of affair that you youngsters talk about nowadays,’ she said. ‘We didn’t have clandestine meetings and illicit sex, and neither of us were married, so it wasn’t an affair in the sense that you know. It was just a beautiful meeting of two people who were utterly in tune with each other.’

My mouth had dropped open. Aside from the shock that my mother had obviously had sex more than twice, from which she’d conceived me and my brother, it had been with someone other than my father? As a daughter, you so rarely get to discover these golden gems of times gone by, and before we know it, it’s too late to ask. But when you’re with someone like Seb, every little nugget is teased out, without you even realizing.

The following weekend, Adam, Seb and I arranged to meet in a bar in Covent Garden. I didn’t like to suggest dinner, just in case it felt a little forced and awkward, but I was hoping that’s how the evening would end up, organically. We’d not even finished our first drink before Seb asked Adam where he grew up.