The Passengers(108)

Chapter 4





NICK


‘Oh, you guys should totally do it,’ Sumaira urged, a wide grin on her face and a devilish twinkle in her eye.

‘Why? I’ve found my soulmate,’ Sally said, entwining her fingers with Nick’s.

Nick leaned across the dining table and reached for the Prosecco with his other hand. He poured the last few drops into his glass. ‘Anyone want a top up?’ he asked. After a hearty yes from the other three guests, he extricated his hand from his fiancée’s and moved towards the kitchen.

‘But you want to be sure, don’t you?’ Sumaira pushed. ‘I mean you guys are so good together, but you never know who else is out there …’

Nick returned from the kitchen with the bottle – the fifth of the evening – and went to pour Sumaira a glass.

Deepak placed his hand over his wife’s glass. ‘She’s fine, mate. Mrs Loose Lips here has had enough for one night.’

‘Spoilsport,’ Sumaira sniped and pulled a face. She turned back to Sally ‘All I’m saying is that you want to make sure you’ve found the one before you walk down the aisle.’

‘You make it sound so romantic,’ said Deepak and rolled his eyes. ‘But it’s not really up to you to make that decision for them, is it? If they ain’t broke, don’t try and fix them.’

‘The test worked for us, though, didn’t it? I mean, we knew anyway, but it gave us that added bit of security, that we’d always been destined to be with each other.’

‘Can we not turn into one of those smug, sanctimonious couples, please?’

‘You don’t need to be in a couple to be smug and sanctimonious, sweetheart.’

Now it was Sumaira’s turn to roll her eyes. She swigged the remainder of the contents of her glass under her husband’s watchful eye.

Nick rested his head on his fiancée’s shoulder and glanced out the window at the glare of cars’ headlights and figures milling about on the pavement outside the pub. They lived in a converted factory apartment and the windows were floor to ceiling – no escape from seeing the busy street outside, and what his life used to look like. Not so long ago, his usual evening would’ve been made up of bar crawls around Birmingham’s hip, up-and-coming areas, before falling asleep on a night bus and waking up many stops from where he lived.

But his priorities had changed almost overnight when he met Sally. Sally was in her early thirties – five years his senior – and he knew from their first conversation about old Hitchcock films that there was something a bit different about her. In their early days together, she’d got a kick from opening his mind to new travel destinations, new foods, new artists and music, and Nick began to see the world from a fresh perspective. When he glanced at her with her impossibly sharp cheekbones, chestnut-brown, pixie-cropped hair and grey eyes, he hoped that some day their children would acquire their mother’s good looks and open-mindedness.

Quite what Nick offered Sally in return he couldn’t be sure, but when he’d proposed to her on their three-year anniversary in a restaurant in Santorini, she’d cried so hard that he couldn’t be sure if she’d accepted or declined.

‘If you two are the best example of what being Matched is about, I’m quite happy for Sal and I to remain just how we are,’ teased Nick, and slipped his glasses down his nose to rub his tired eyes. He reached for his e-cigarette and took several puffs. ‘We’ve been together for almost four years now, and now she’s promised to love, honour and obey me, I’m a hundred per cent sure we’re made for each other.’

‘Hold on, “obey”?’ Sumaira interrupted, raising an eyebrow. ‘You should be so lucky.’

‘You obey me,’ added Deepak confidently. ‘Everyone knows I wear the trousers in our relationship.’

‘You do wear them, hunny, but ask yourself who buys them for you.’

‘What if we’re not, though?’ Sally asked suddenly. ‘What if we’re not made for each other?’

Until then, Nick had listened with apparent amusement as Sumaira attempted to talk them into Match Your DNA testing. It hadn’t been the first time she’d raised the subject in the two years they’d known each other, and Nick was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Sally’s friend could be both belligerent and persuasive at the same time. But Nick was surprised to hear Sally say this. She’d always been very anti-Match-Your-DNA, as was he. ‘Excuse me?’ he said.

‘You know that I love you with all my heart and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but … what if we aren’t actually soulmates?’

Nick frowned. ‘Where’s this coming from?’

‘Oh, nowhere, don’t worry, I’m not having second thoughts or anything.’ She gave him a reassuring pat on the arm. ‘It’s just that I was wondering are we happy to just think we’re right for each other or do we want to know for sure?’

‘Babe, you’re drunk.’ Nick dismissed her and scratched at his stubble. ‘I’m perfectly happy knowing what I know and I don’t need some test telling me that.’

‘I read something online that said Match Your DNA is going to break up around 3 million marriages. But within a generation, divorce will barely be a thing any more,’ Sumaira said.