Maame(36)

I have to ask. “Are you single, Ben?”

He doesn’t waver. “I am. Are you?”

“Of course I am. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

Ben tilts his head. “You have this real innocent thing about you.”

I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not; I don’t know whether I want him to think I am or not. So I sit and eat my ice cream.

“I think the opposite of you,” I finally admit. “Not that you’re not-innocent, but rather … experienced.” I twirl a finger around the kitchen. “You’ve done this before. It’s been such a smooth night, there’s no doubt you’ve done this before.”

“I don’t deny it,” he says. I have to wait for him to swallow his ice cream before he continues. “Last year, I came out of a four-year relationship.”

Four years? “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“We grew apart,” he says. “It took me a while to accept that, sometimes, nothing is wrong.” He looks calm as he says it, maybe a little sad even. “Growing up and apart—it can happen.”

“Growing up” catches me off guard because he’s thirty-four. He’s already grown up, but then I realize how naive that sounds. I don’t think you turn thirty and become immune to mistake-making or lesson-learning. You grow wiser (supposedly) but never omniscient. There’s always something you need to be taught, and so you keep learning and you keep growing up—until you’re dead.

But I don’t know that feeling and I’m having difficulty imagining it. Ben has experienced real love, having a partner, another half. He’s grown older with someone, experienced life with them, years, milestones, celebrations as well as lamentations. It’s a mature response to the end of all of that, to the end of four years with someone you no longer see.

“Do you date much, Maddie?”

I don’t want to tell him my last date was eight years ago at Nando’s and that my ex had brought his friends along so we could all share the platter. But his response was so honest I can’t find it in me to lie.

“No, not much at all,” I admit. “I am … or was a homebody.”

Ben puts down his spoon to listen to me; I feel quite trapped by how warm his stare is.

“I spent a lot of time with my dad. My mum travels…”

I hear her voice before I say anything else. Our matters are private, remember? You tell one person, they tell another and the next thing you know, important people are asking all sorts of questions.

“My mum travels a lot, so it was just Dad and me for a while,” I say slowly. “She’s back now and so I moved out and…” I shrug, not sure of where I’m going with this, if I should be going anywhere with this. “I guess I’m finally living a little.”

Ben smiles softly, firstly to himself and then at me. He holds up his sundae glass. “Cheers to living a little,” he says.

I clink mine against his and whisper, “Cheers.”



* * *



Ben kisses me again at the end of the night. He orders me a cab home and kisses me on his doorstep until it arrives. He uses his tongue and because he’s slow and gentle, it gives me time to learn how to use mine. I can tell when I’m doing it right because Ben will sigh deeply, and I can feel his heartbeat; it moves hard and fast and I like that I’m the reason for it.

When I get home, Cam’s door is shut and she’s playing music. She rarely plays music. I tiptoe past and up the stairs but pause on the landing when I hear voices coming from Jo’s room, of which the door is not completely closed.

When I ascertain Jo’s “Oh, fuck, Sam … fuuuuck” isn’t her response to being murdered on a bed that isn’t structurally sound, I attribute the noises to her having sex with Casual Sam.

Jo’s moans make my ears burn, and I don’t know if I can move without being heard. Somehow if I’m discovered, the embarrassment will definitely be mine to bear.

I take another step and the landing creaks, but they don’t stop. I take the opportunity to run to my room and close the door behind me.

Great.

I need to use the toilet.





Chapter Thirteen


I’m nervously tapping my foot on Tuesday when, during our catch-up, I ask Kris, “How was last week’s Creative?”

“It was all right.” She shoves her hair back with a headband. “It was shit, actually.”

“What happened?”

“I think we’re all in a bit of a creative funk,” she says. “We don’t have any fresh ideas and all the new stuff we keep losing.”

“Ideas?” I repeat. “So the team can come up with ideas instead of waiting for agents to bring us their titles?”

“It’s something Penny started when we were really struggling,” Kris answers. “Instead of continuously trying to outbid other publishers, we’d focus on food writers already on our list and come up with exciting things for them to write about. For example, getting Carmen to write about her stay in Italy was Penny’s idea.”

Wow. Carmen Loremo’s Sardinia is one of OTP’s bestsellers.

“I didn’t know that was an option.” I write down: What do we want and which of our writers can do it? “It’s a good idea.”