The Things We Do to Our Friends(43)

The information that Tom Landore learned about me was limited, of course. He knew I was young. He knew I lived nearby, but he didn’t know exactly where. He didn’t ask, not really, and when he edged toward a question, it was easy for me to divert attention away from myself and back toward his bank of miseries.

His anxieties washed over me as we poured water on the coals, and I listened. I noted that he would stop talking if someone else came into the sauna, and we would sit in a charged silence. When strangers left, he would start to speak again. I listened to it all and I didn’t understand, of course. I couldn’t understand. The problems were nothing like mine, they were so far from my life or anything I’d ever experienced, but listening was easy. I had become very good at it.

Listening was nodding and agreeing and coaxing the rest of a story out of him. The sheer act allowed him to be the protagonist.

When he leaned in to kiss me, as we stepped out of the sauna and into the spa corridor, I kissed him back. His mouth was surprisingly yielding, his tongue probing then hesitant. It was a kiss that went on for a while, a nice kiss, and I let my damp body press into him.

It lasted until he pulled back and looked at me, and it was like he was seeing me properly for the first time. “I never do this,” he said. He seemed shaken, and I walked away.

I felt like it had been comparable to a cold shower for him—a shock that had sent him running back to his wife.

A job well done, Tabitha announced. Nice positioning in the corridor too for the photos.

As far as I knew, Tabitha wasn’t surprised by how the job had gone. From her perspective, we’d done exactly what we’d set out to do, and Tom Landore had responded appropriately. It was simple cause and effect. We had footage from the spa to show Mrs. Landore—grainy video from the security cameras. I was impressed by this and had no idea how we’d managed to get it, but Samuel was so well connected that we seemed to be able to get anything we wanted, or at least anything we were willing to pay for. I asked what would happen next. Would I come with them to tell Mrs. Landore what had happened?

Tabitha and Ava exchanged a look.

“I don’t think that would be for the best…” Tabitha said. “It’s probably not in anyone’s interest. Think of the emotional state she’ll be in. Just me and Ava.”

It was odd, walking back that day after it was over, and I left the spa to go home.

I remember the intense heat of the sauna and the icy cold shower I’d had afterward. Any vestige of tension—the tightness in my shoulders and the stiffness in my back—had left. My whole body tingled with adrenaline. Every muscle and ligament aligned. Everything was performing at its peak. If I jumped in the air, I knew it was the highest I would ever jump, so I did, right there on the street, ignoring the passersby.

I felt powerful.

Finn noticed the difference in me that night when I suggested that we meet for a drink. He arrived looking rushed yet happy to see me. I got the impression that he’d moved his schedule around to accommodate the date at the last minute.

He went to get lager and crisps for us from the bar. So sluggish in ordering, so methodical about it all, and usually it calmed me—made me slow down and not rush so much—but I couldn’t be calmed that night; I was impatient and the time it took him to reach his seat from the bar was annoying.

“You seem…well,” he noted. “You’ve been hanging out mainly with them?” he asked, bringing his drink to his lips, and for some reason it was maddening, the way the foam settled on his upper lip and he took forever to wipe it off.

“Mainly,” I said.

“What about those girls you live with? You should hang out with them more. They’re nicer. More normal.”

I just sipped my drink and rubbed at the side of my neck as something to do with my hands. It was almost laughable that Finn thought he could dictate what I did.

He continued as if he saw my silence as an invitation to plow on. “And there are plenty of other posh girls to be friends with. Girls who are less…odd.”

How lazy to settle on odd! It was so far from how I viewed them all. He didn’t understand that they were different. He was too mediocre to comprehend it, but I didn’t say anything. Nothing could take the moment away from me.

I did not allow him to probe deeper. Instead, we talked about nothing much. Work, his brother’s upcoming stag party. We finished our drinks quickly and, outside the pub, I pushed him up against the wall. In that moment, I had to, and I kissed him hungrily. He pulled me in and bent to fit my body, tasting of beer and oil. Then he took my hands in his and squeezed them so hard it hurt. My roughness thrown back at me, and I enjoyed it. When he pulled away—because he pulled away before I did—he seemed surprised.

“You are doing well, aren’t you? Very well indeed.”

It was a moment when I was fully with him, with no thought of anything else, until he started telling me an in-depth story about a traffic jam. Then his voice became calming background noise, which I tuned out of instantly so I could replay the events of the previous few days in my head.





35


And then, after Tom Landore, we were so confident.

The city was full of visitors for the Festival, and there were other men, of course. Men who I met over the summer as the days got longer and longer, until it stayed light until midnight.