You Belong With Me

chapter050

She and Declan exchanged a look of mute alarm, witnessed by Elliot.

‘Oh boy, that’s enough from you. Help me get the next round in,’ Declan said, propelling Kieran up and off to the bar. Unfortunately, the swift intervention only increased the impression that she and Declan had done something wrong.

‘Why would you know that?’ Elliot said to Edie.

She steeled herself. ‘When Declan cycled into work on the first morning, he got hit by a car. He was concussed, so he had to stay over at my house as he couldn’t be left alone for twenty-four hours afterwards. The nurse asked me to look after him.’

‘OK,’ Elliot said. ‘Why would you know anything about the size of his wang? Did you give him a bath?’

Edie cringed. Some part of her had intended this to be amusing, if ever retold, and it was very much not that. ‘He went sleepwalking.’

‘Without his clothes?’

‘Yup.’ Edie gritted her teeth, but Elliot wasn’t reacting. ‘Poor sod.’

‘Where to?’

‘Er, the kitchen. Was confronted by Meg with a bread knife.’

‘Also by you?’ Elliot said, and Edie had an unease in her stomach she pretended wasn’t there.

‘Yes. Meg screamed, and I came running. I worked out Declan was catatonic and woke him up.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘He was about to piss in the bin, and I yelled.’

‘Right,’ Elliot said, swigging from his beer bottle. ‘And is he?’

‘What?’

‘Hung like a horse?’

Elliot wasn’t sparing her. What was she meant to say? Comparison is the thief of joy? Edie knew there was no version of this going well.

‘I guess so – it wasn’t the pressing issue at the time.’

Elliot shot her a look that said ‘I guess so’ was three words of agreement too many.

There wouldn’t have been a good way for Elliot to learn about this, but Edie reckoned this might be one of the worst. Declan and Kieran returned with more drinks, but things never recovered, and they soon called it a night.

On arriving back at the hotel, Edie’s phone buzzed with a WhatsApp from Declan. Elliot saw her see it arrive. She palmed her phone swiftly back into her bag. Declan no doubt meant well, but pissed alerts when he knew she was with her boyfriend were hardly likely to help.

‘You can read it,’ Elliot said.

‘It’ll keep,’ Edie said.

‘If you don’t want to open it in front of me, I’m not going to feel great about that,’ Elliot said.

‘I’ve not got anything to hide!’ Edie said.

‘Then read it.’

Edie pulled her phone out with her heart racing, and Elliot’s point was being made. She felt sure it’d be nothing and at the same time, worried as hell.

Edie opened it.

Tommo, I’m so SO fucking sorry, and I have absolutely blasted Kieran for that tactless remark, totally inappropriate. He was drunk (obviously). I will always be grateful for the way you rescued me from jumping off a cliff over that escapade. I really hope it didn’t cause you any trouble. Elliot seems a lovely bloke. Night. X

‘Tommo?’ Elliot said, taking his jacket off and throwing it over the back of a chair.

‘Thompson.’

‘Yes, thanks, I got that far – I didn’t know you were at the stage of special nicknames. Or him messaging with your sister. How did you rescue him?’ Elliot said. He was maintaining his threatening calm.

‘I talked about how I knew what crippling shame felt like after the wedding incident. That it passes, and it doesn’t stay that acute forever.’

‘He didn’t do anything wrong on purpose, did he?’

‘No! He was a victim of a couple of misadventures. I feel really sorry for him. Do any of us want to be naked in front of someone we just started working with? Apart from, y’know, Ines Herrera.’

A cheap shot that tumbled from Edie’s mouth before she’d vetted it, a clumsy and obvious attempt to level up.

She threw her coat over Elliot’s, as the temperature became even more frigid.

‘That scene was intimacy coordinated and its precise detail haggled by our representatives to every last gesture – there was no room for it turning into anything spontaneous,’ Elliot said. ‘Also, I don’t know that Ines wanted to do it, exactly. She was prepared to do it, which isn’t the same thing. It’s much worse for actresses with all that stuff.’

‘All right, I was only joking. I’ve not been impressed by her boundaries in the past.’

She had twinged at him white knighting his exquisite co-worker, though she knew it was only his innate decency speaking. Edie had got what she’d deserved, using it against him like that.

‘I don’t get why she’s being dragged in at all,’ Elliot said, again with a hint of protectiveness that sent Edie secretly spiralling.

‘… Nothing spontaneous was going to happen with Declan either. Except maybe Meg removing his ability to have kids.’

‘His genitals have probably taken up enough of our evening now,’ Elliot said. ‘I’m going to have a shower. Oh, your dress is on the bed.’

Edie didn’t know what he meant. She found a black-gold designer bag and recalled the conversation in New York. She unpicked the tissue paper and shook it out. It was perfect – the timing of receiving it, distinctly off.

She couldn’t fathom or combat Elliot’s tactic of determined equanimity when he was obviously annoyed. She got into pyjamas, then bed, and waited it out, sat hugging her knees and listening to the water running in the en suite.

He returned, unsmiling and in jogging bottoms, rubbing wet hair with a towel. It was a sure sign of passive aggressive fighting when you avoided getting undressed around each other.

‘The dress is beautiful, thank you,’ she said.

‘Welcome. Glad you like it.’

‘Look, Elliot …’ Edie said, in a diplomatic tone.

He cut her off: ‘It’s six a.m. my body clock time on a day that’s lasted thirty hours. Would it be all right if we saved conversation for the morning? I’m fit for nothing.’

Edie said: ‘Sure,’ and it turned out that he really meant nothing, rolling away from her so she couldn’t see if he was awake, chest rising and falling steadily.

The exhaustion was one third true, two thirds convenient alibi – of that she was sure.

Edie lay in the dark, trying to work out why it felt like Elliot was disappointed in her, somehow.