41. Nell
41
NELL
In the darkness, I reach for my phone on the nightstand.
I touch the screen and squint as it lights up. It’s just gone 6 a.m. I lay the phone back down, not bothering to check the thirty-six new messages on the group chat with Mica and Chloe. I know I should probably try to get some more sleep. My alarm isn’t set to ring until seven, and I need to be as fresh as possible for Kay DeBlue.
But there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep now. Not after what happened last night.
In the bed next to me, Charlie snuffles and turns over. He drapes his arm gently across my waist and carries on sleeping. I lie here for a moment, watching his arm rise and fall in time with my breathing.
This is really not where I was expecting to wake up this morning.
But after that kiss by Tower Bridge, all expectations just flew out of the window. After that kiss, all bets were off.
I didn’t realise kissing him would feel like that. I can’t remember it ever feeling like that, with anyone. That whole walk along the river, I was wondering how I could kiss him. Hoping that he might kiss me.
As I listened to him speak about his childhood and his mum and his dad, it just reaffirmed everything I’d felt when I overheard him talking to Will. That Charlie Francombe is far from the douchey spoilt nepo baby I thought he was. He’s kind and caring and sensitive. He’s confused and lost. He’s funny and self-deprecating. And when he smiles, he gets a perfectly circular dimple in the centre of each cheek and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.
And when he told me about the Ed Sheeran video – that had just sealed it. That moment in the edit suite was the one thing that always nagged at me whenever I found myself warming to him. The fact that he played that ‘power move’ over me in the very first week of the internship – I just couldn’t get past it. But then I found out it wasn’t Charlie’s power move at all. It was his dad’s. Charlie had been just as mortified by it as I had been.
I don’t know how long we kissed for. I just know I didn’t want us to stop. And when he suggested we go get a drink somewhere, the words just spilled out of me: ‘We could get one back at your flat?’
I was actually surprised at how much – how badly – I wanted him in that moment. I’d spent the past fortnight building a dam against my feelings for Charlie Francombe, and now that dam was down, they just came thundering through. He raised his eyebrows at my suggestion, looking half shocked, half delighted. I blushed and jabbed him in the chest. ‘Well . . . you’re in Peckham – my Kay DeBlue interview’s in Brixton. I’ll be much closer if I stay at yours . . .’
It was a pretty poor excuse, and Charlie knew it. He put a hand to his chest, mock-offended. ‘So, that’s why you want to come to mine? You’re just using me for my geographical location. I feel so . . . cheap, Nell.’
I laughed and pulled him back in for another kiss.
Thank God his flatmate was out. By the time we stepped off the train at Peckham Rye, I was almost hungry with how much I wanted him. We speed-walked back from the station, grinning at each other with the excitement of what we both knew was about to happen, stopping only when the desire to kiss again got too overpowering.
Up in his room, I pulled his T-shirt over his head and asked if he had a condom. I don’t really know what came over me. I’m not normally that forward. Normally, in this kind of situation with a guy, I’d be silently fretting about whether or not he’d notice the cellulite on my legs – not yanking his clothes off and ordering him to get a Durex. But nothing about last night was ‘normal’.
Charlie’s eyes went wide as he kissed me softly on the neck. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘We don’t have to . . . right now. We can wait.’
But I found that I couldn’t wait. I didn’t want to. I reached for his belt and whispered, ‘Please, Charlie, get a condom.’
I’ve never been able to fully lose myself during sex. Even with Sean, I was always so aware of what I was doing or how I might look. But with Charlie, none of that seemed to matter. It was like we were totally in sync.
Afterwards, I nestled into the crook of his arm and we talked and kissed until sleep finally took us. It felt so good.
And it feels just as good right now, as he shifts gently in the bed beside me, nestling his legs against mine. I almost wish we could sack these interviews off and spend the rest of the day like this.
Almost. I mean, Charlie’s great and all, but Kay DeBlue is my hero. No way am I missing the chance to meet her in person.
As Charlie’s cold toes brush mine, I realise I need a wee quite badly. Very gently, I lift his arm off my stomach and lay it back on the bed. I’m only wearing my knickers and one of Charlie’s T-shirts, so in the darkness I fumble around on the carpet, trying to find something to cover up a bit more. I grab a random jacket, then my phone, and open the door as quietly as possible.
I creep along the corridor to the bathroom. As I sit on the loo, I open the group chat. I messaged Chlo and Mica at about eleven last night to tell them I wouldn’t be home – I was staying at Charlie’s. I then added three rows of shocked-face emojis.
I do realise that dropping a bombshell like that and then not looking at my phone again all night was probably breaking several sub-clauses of the Best Friend Code. But I didn’t want to spend all evening texting. I wanted to spend all evening wrapped up in Charlie. Which is exactly what I did.
I scroll through the messages with my hand over my mouth to stifle the laughter. They’re predominantly in all caps and full of increasingly desperate pleas for me to explain what – to use Mica’s eloquent phrasing – ‘THE ACTUAL LIVING FUCK’ is going on.
I type back: So sorry I didn’t reply last night. Just woke up. I really like him, you guys. Really, really, really . . .
I know they’ll already be up at this time – they leave for work way earlier than I do – and within seconds I see that they’re both typing.
Mica
Nell, what the fuck??!!
How did this happen??
Why did this happen??
Chloe
Did you SLEEP
together??????
Maaaaybe . . .
Mica
DETAILS RIGHT NOW OR
WE CHANGE THE LOCKS
I snort with laughter.
Will provide all details
tonight. Right now I need to
get ready for Kay DeBlue!
I step back out into the corridor. We still have a while until my alarm is due to go off, and the thought of another hour wrapped in Charlie’s arms makes me light up from the inside. I slip my phone into the pocket of his jacket and go to open the bedroom door. But there’s something else in the pocket already.
I pull it out. At first, I think I’m seeing things – that my eyes haven’t properly adjusted to the lack of light. But no, I’m seeing just fine.
My stomach actually clenches, as if I’ve been hit.
Four identical photographs. Each one showing Charlie kissing Daphne.