You Belong With Me

chapter051

Edie woke before Elliot in the morning and decided on a long shower herself to scour away the night before. Also, if there was going to be more sullen bickering, she’d rather do it looking presentable.

When she emerged from the noise and the steam, Elliot was sat up in bed, scrolling on his phone.

He put it to one side. ‘Come back to bed.’

Edie lay down next to him, pushing wet hair out of her face.

‘I meant without the towel.’

‘Oh, did you?’ she said, insouciant, with concealed relief.

Elliot gently tugged at the fabric’s edge above her knees, failing to make any progress. ‘My God, you’re not so much mummy-wrapped in this – it’s like a sarcophagus,’ Elliot said, making her squeal as he wrestled with the bath sheet.

Edie was grateful at humour returning, and other things, too. They were fixing the distance that had developed in a way that therapists probably didn’t recommend but appeared to have worked.

‘Are we not going to talk about last night?’ Edie said, lying in his arms afterwards.

The incendiary device was safe for defusal and disposal now, and it was safest not to leave it there.

‘What about it?’

‘About you going Jeremy Paxman when questioning me about Declan crashing at mine.’

‘I didn’t?’ Elliot said. ‘I asked questions that I think any boyfriend would ask. You explained. Subject ended.’

‘When we talked about Ines climbing you like a monkey on a car at a safari park, you said neither of us needed to know about anything completely insignificant that might be unsettling.’

‘Yes?’

‘Then why do I feel like Declan staying at mine and me not mentioning it was a fail?’

‘I haven’t complained about it?’

‘No, but you’ve been very … quiet. Like a hit man when he unpacks the gun from the bag and screws the pieces together.’

Elliot shifted away from her a little and picked at embroidery on the duvet. ‘I think I feel something akin to what you did about the Ines story. I didn’t like finding out about it through his mate, like that. I didn’t like the way it felt like a secret you and him were sharing. I caught all the oh no, not in front of her fella flapping, which didn’t make it seem innocent. Obviously, I don’t like that you have intimate knowledge of him. But you can acknowledge nothing out of order’s gone on while still not feeling great about it.’ He paused. ‘I should probably admit I’m not a Cool Boy, capital C, capital B.’

‘Fair,’ Edie said. His eloquence meant she understood him perfectly, if slightly painfully. She added: ‘I’m more sorry if it’s any obstacle to you and Declan being friends, because I think you’d really get on.’

‘I don’t think that’s very likely anyway, Edie.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s in love with you,’ Elliot said, looking up at her.

A crystalline moment of dread-silence followed.

‘… Or something on the way to love. I don’t pretend to be able to mind-read him to that extent, and thank God I can’t, frankly,’ Elliot said. ‘I’d probably have to Blood Gold disembowel him for the pornographic thoughts he’s had about you.’

‘Declan?Me? No!’ Edie said, stunned. ‘Absolutely not, no … I’ve literally overheard him telling people he doesn’t fancy me!’

‘In what context?’

‘A colleague accusing him.’

‘Call it confirmation bias, but I’m going to say the colleague accusing him of it is more significant than him denying it, because of course he fucking did.’

‘This is insane …’

‘Edie, I’d picked it up by the time the guacamole arrived. You haven’t, in how long? Why is that.’ He phrased it not as a question, but as if there was a probable answer.

‘You’re not accusing Declan … me … of …?’

‘I’m not suggesting either of you have done anything.’

There was an intimidating edge to the way Elliot said this. Either of you. He was already grouping them together.

‘How can you know this for sure about Declan? You knew this at the start of the evening?’

‘I noticed it at the start and was absolutely sure by the end. I don’t think he was trying that hard to hide it from me, which is another lovesickness symptom. Pushing your luck.’

‘How?!’

Edie scoured her memory and could only come up with excitable, innocent chatter, gregarious Declan being himself, and trying to rein Kieran in. No improper wooing.

‘Where do you want me to start? His ardour was swirling around us like fog and practically making me cough.’

Elliot’s articulacy was extremely uncomfortable when deployed against you.

‘I’m going to need specifics.’

Edie’s assertive tone belied her thumping heart rate. Apart from anything else, it was upsetting to suggest she’d unwittingly subjected Elliot to this display.

‘The way he looks at you. Like there’s no one else in the room, or possibly the world. The way he brings every conversation back round to you. The moment when the strap of your dress slipped down your shoulder, and he stared at your bare skin like it had a narcotic effect on him. Then he twitched to put the strap back, before remembering himself and meeting my eyes. The way he couldn’t look at me directly at all for the first hour, and then once he’d had a few, was giving me these sidelong glances all the time.’

‘You’re a famous person who people don’t look at in a normal way,’ Edie said, in a tight voice that she was effortfully trying to normalise.

‘I am, but as a result, I am well used to those looks and know the difference – not least because he wasn’t interested in me. He was interested in what I could tell him about you.’

‘He was looking at you, but you could tell he was thinking about me? This does feel a bit clairvoyant.’

Edie was walking a fine line: not wanting to mock Elliot when he was upset, while firmly dissuading him this idea had any merit. However, it was obvious he’d made up his mind.

‘When you’re madly into someone who isn’t single, their partner becomes a ton of clues about the object of your desire. Then after the assessment, it’s competitive, what you’re up against. They’re covertly figuring out your strengths and weaknesses, running sums, sussing where they have advantages. Whether they could take you in a fight. Metaphorically speaking.’

‘Declan’s not at all aggro or macho. He’s a goofy adopter of stray cats who’s probably never exchanged blows in his life.’

‘I said metaphorically, but you rushing to defend him isn’t really likely to improve things here, is it?’ Elliot snapped, with a sudden flash of temper.

She understood now: he’d not broached it because he didn’t trust himself.