You Belong With Me

chapter013

A wait with no end in sight was a baptism of fire for new acquaintances. Edie and Declan had hour upon hour of conversation to find after they arrived at AE and no reference points for the other beyond sharing an employer.

Edie had kept herself to herself at Ad Hoc, with one dismal exception, and it had left her unprotected by a clique when scandal hit. She’d not expected to make friends since. She didn’t have managed expectations so much as very low ones.

Yet she and Declan seemed to share a wavelength. If he was acting in bad faith, he was an even better actor than Edie’s love interest.

Once they’d compared general notes on the agency’s most colourful and trying clients, she learned he had vivacious twenty-five-year-old twin sisters on whom he clearly doted. He was evidently very close to his family in his Dublin suburb of Drumcondra. He had a thing for climbing mountains, shared Edie’s love of Adam Buxton podcasts and Twin Peaks, and laughed easily and often.

Edie liked a generous laugh: her forays into online dating had taught her that men who could only assess and compete were absolute chores.

‘Why did you accept the Nottingham gig?’ Edie said, cracking the ring pull on a Diet Coke. ‘I heard it was a very tough sell to the Ad Hoccers.’

‘Ah well, I’ve never been here before, so I thought it’d be exploration.’ Declan sipped his 7UP. ‘A chance to discover a new realm.’

‘Hahaha. Like those Winter Wonderland experiences where the headline says BLUNDERLAND. The elves are all swearing and smoking, there’s a dads’ brawl in the Gingerbread House and Rudolph is a depressed Alsatian in a tiara. Kidding, obviously – I’m very fond.’

‘Hahahaha. “Santa’s on the sex offender” register. Nah, I’m not a London person,’ Declan said. ‘Been there two years and the experiment had concluded. I like fewer people and open spaces. Do you like being nearer your family?’

Declan had unwittingly passed a tiny yet matterful character test. He’d have been well within his rights to ask: Why did you move back here? and play innocent, despite the fact there was no way he didn’t know. Nevertheless, he’d skipped the phishing attack in favour of something uncontroversial for Edie to answer.

‘I live with my younger sister, so I must do! Yeah, it’s been great, actually. It wasn’t London’s fault, but my life there didn’t have much authentic goodness in it. It wasn’t very real. I needed the factory settings reset.’

Declan nodded.

Edie drank her drink and thought the elephant in the waiting room probably needed addressing.

‘We should maybe get this out of the way – I know you’ll have heard bad things about me, regards weddings and ex-colleagues and a general dog’s picnic. I’d say “it’s all true”, except, apart from there being a kiss, it isn’t. I got turned into a conniving whore who plotted to steal a married man. In reality, it was a split-second moment of terrible judgement that cost me a lot. It was horrible for his wife, but she took pretty major revenge on me, not him.’

‘Yeah, Jessica told me of some uproar, and I said he was the one getting married and you’re a nice-looking girl. Seemed obvious to me he was being audacious after too many black velvets. No one tries to kiss a groom on the off-chance he’s up for it, do they? It had to come from him.’

‘Thank you, exactly!’ Edie said.

‘I don’t like gossip or judging people on one side of a story,’ Declan said, and Edie sensed him recalling things that had been said about her he’d rather not repeat. ‘I like to make up my own mind.’

A far better analysis presented itself of the Declan decision to join her. They’d attempted to poison Declan, yet he hadn’t drunk it. Declan was a long drink of antidote.

‘I told Jess I don’t know why you copped the flack you did,’ he concluded.

‘I think blaming the succubus woman is too appealing to a mob,’ Edie said. ‘People like straightforward bad guys. Or rather gals. Not that I’m saying feminism should clear my name – it was still wrong.’

‘Yeah, I caught a big stench of sexism to the whole thing. I’ve seen plenty of that double-standard shite thanks to my sisters. Also, to be frank, did you not do this man’s bride a fucked-up kind of favour? If he’d do that on his wedding day, imagine the hijinks by the golden anniversary. Probably find him cardigan off and dick loose with the whole bridge club.’

Again, Declan’s accent rendered this observation funnier, and Edie snorted.

Richard said they’d have an affinity, and Edie had doubted him. He was not only vindicated; she was flattered. If Declan was the male equivalent Edie, then that was fine by her.

Declan, for the fifth time, urged her to go home. ‘I’ll be grand, honestly – this is such an imposition!’

‘Hush,’ Edie said. ‘It’s a Friday skive.’

Admittedly, the sentiment was promptly undercut by a very short man smelling of beer and damp cigarettes doing a moonwalk past them, singing ‘Smooth Criminal’, punctuated by barking like a dog.

‘Should’ve known my ex would turn up,’ Edie said, making a such is life face and offering Declan a Haribo worm.

‘Am I out of line in asking if the dragons series guy is your boyfriend?’

‘I don’t mind, and yes, he is,’ Edie said. This must be the first time she’d acknowledged it outside of her close circle. It felt really good.

‘That’s incredibly cool,’ Declan said, taking it in. It obviously had the status of quasi myth at Ad Hoc, and he’d not expected a straightforward confirmation. ‘I loved that show. For the blades of my brothers!’

Edie laughed. She allowed herself to enjoy it. In the captive tedium of an antiseptic-smelling room with plastic chairs, it was a talking point – and why not? There was only the looming risk of it becoming the most interesting thing about her.

‘I may be speaking out of turn …’ Edie said.

‘We’re into hour three – I want nothing but speaking out of turn,’ Declan said.

‘I don’t think your pal Jessica’s the biggest fan of my relationship. She called Richard on Boxing Day to tell him about a picture with Elliot on my Instagram.’

Edie didn’t want to force Declan to take or change sides, but she didn’t think it would hurt to make it abundantly clear there were sides.

‘Really?’ Declan said. ‘Wait, I saw the photo, I think? Did it have a Taylor Swift song playing? My little sister loves her and loves him, so I showed her.’

‘Oh God, the song was on it.’ Edie put a palm over her eyes and groaned. ‘I am SUCH an indiscreet twat.’

‘I wish my twattish moments involved me looking super glam with some famous lad. I mean, maybe not a lad. You take my meaning.’

‘You’ve not left anyone in London? A significant other, as they say?’

‘Oh, nah. Was with my first girlfriend back home a long time, school sweetheart thing. Fell to pieces at the end of our twenties, really messy split.’

‘I can’t imagine you as a bad breaker-upper,’ Edie said, knowing she was being over familiar and also thinking, needs must. They could be here ages.

‘Messy in that it devastated both of us. She wanted me to move home and settle down, have kids. I knew I wasn’t ready. Sometimes it’s not that you love someone any less than they love you, but you can’t give them what they want, you know? You’d make yourself unhappy trying to do it and that means you’d make them unhappy. But I don’t want what you want only ever sounds to the other person like I don’t love you enough to try. Or I’m looking for a reason to justify leaving you.’

‘Yes,’ Edie said. ‘Know what you mean.’ That summary hit hard.

‘Declan Dunne!’ came the call from the desk, and Edie patted him on the arm and wished him luck as he was shepherded away.

She blandly checked her phone for the umpteenth time and saw: @elliotowenofficial has requested to follow you on Instagram.

Edie clicked to a blue ticked account and thought with surprise that it must be real. The profile picture was a black and white one from the Guardian that she could imagine Elliot signing off, and it had already collected hundreds of followers, the count whirling upwards every time she refreshed the page. She accepted him, followed back, and WhatsApped Elliot.

Edie

Are my eyes deceiving me, or are you, the ultimate refusenik of social media, on Insta?

Elliot

Ugh, I know. Been persuaded it’s a useful platform/counterweight to the made-up things. Bonus: I get to stalk you.

Edie

Maybe now I’ll stop getting @elliotowenswife in my suggested accounts.

Elliot

Please don’t follow my wife. It really wouldn’t be comfortable for any of us.

A bashful-looking Declan was back in front of her in no time, a youthful blonde nurse in blue scrubs accompanying him.

‘Hi, is it Edie?’ she said. She had the 1990s Meg Ryan hairdo where you tucked it behind your ears and it immediately sprang free again. ‘I’ve come to speak to you myself because I don’t trust this one.’

‘Oh?’ Edie said, pushing her phone into her bag and standing up.

‘No broken bones, some bruising. But he can’t be on his own for twenty-four hours after a concussion.’

‘Sure I’ll be fine …’ Declan said, clearly one of many similar exhortations he had made.

The nurse held a silencing hand up. ‘Would you be willing to stay with him? Or vice versa. He needs rest, no caffeine or alcohol, and someone able to call us if his symptoms get worse.’

‘Of course!’ Edie said reflexively, amid Declan’s continuing protestations. ‘It’s no trouble. I’m not leaving for my trip to Derbyshire until early afternoon tomorrow. You can crash at mine? I have nothing planned and a spare room.’

Not only did she have one, but it was well furnished, nicely decorated and devoid of lingerie on clothes horses, sensitive teenage diaries, or dildos. Edie had promised herself she’d always run a respectable room for her dad.

‘As the lady says!’ said the nurse, who seemed to have taken a shine to Declan, an arm around him as she propelled him towards the prescription bay.

As they walked out into the car park to their taxi, Edie thought, Declan was very welcome, but all in all it was bloody lucky they’d hit it off.