Chapter Eleven
Now
‘H ow are you really?’ Ethan asked.
He had fiddled with the panel on the wall of the master suite, so the window was frosted, blocking out the intense glare of the evening sun. Cool air snaked around me, taking some of the heat out of my cheeks.
‘Really, I’m fine.’ I had to leave. I couldn’t be swayed by this decadent room and the man standing in it. He was a stranger now, anyway. So different to the boy I’d been in love with.
‘Are you getting lots of work at the paper?’ He had brought up two fresh glasses of champagne, and he held one out to me.
Despite my firm plan, I took the glass. ‘Don’t you know how much I’m getting, if you’ve been looking out for my byline?’
His smile flickered out, and he was back to being inscrutable.
‘I should go.’ I downed half my bubbles in one swallow. ‘The open house is over, so—’
‘I’m glad you’re here.’ Ethan leant against the chest of drawers. ‘I know it’s strange – it feels really strange – but I’m still glad you came.’
I shrugged. ‘Why?’
He looked surprised. ‘I … wanted to see you. I’ve thought about you a lot, while we’ve been getting this place done.’
‘I’ve been in the village,’ I said. ‘In the same house. I haven’t gone anywhere.
’ He could have knocked on my door when he’d been visiting the site.
Even if he hadn’t known I was still there, it would have been a good starting point, because Alperwick was small and most people were eager to pass on gossip.
‘I know, but I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me. I thought you might slam the door in my face.’
‘Thirteen years is a long time, and we were teenagers.’ That was the sensible answer, something my mum might have said.
I didn’t add that I would have let him in the day after our last argument, that by then I was already sorry for the things I’d said, and that I’d wanted him back above everything else.
‘Do you want to …?’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘There’s too much,’ I said. ‘And you need to get back to Bristol, don’t you? Sell this place to some business executive or hedge fund manager, someone who’s only going to live in it for two weeks a year.’
Ethan’s shoulders slumped. ‘I will have some say over who buys it.’
‘Is Sarah managing that side of it?’
He held my gaze. ‘She’s changed a lot. She knows the Sparks system inside and out, but she can also put on a shiny exterior, say all the right things, when I have no patience for it.’
‘I’m glad she came through.’ I meant it, even though the shock of seeing her hadn’t quite faded.
‘I’m wondering how much you’ve changed,’ he said quietly.
‘I’m surprised you’ve been wondering about me at all.’ I paused to finish my drink. ‘Or I would have been, except I saw that interview in Home Style , where you talked about the house’s name. “It was never going to be called anything else.”’
He closed his eyes for a beat. ‘I didn’t know if … in my speech – if you’d want me to talk about us.’
I nodded, then gestured to the frosted glass. Beyond it, the sun was sinking, shifting from soft glow to burning embers as it neared the water. ‘I need to go. It’s going to be dark soon and I …’
‘You don’t want to stay here with me.’
I swallowed. ‘A whole lot of time has passed, and we’re such different people, Ethan.’
‘You’re as beautiful as ever,’ he said, his gaze confident and assessing. ‘More beautiful, if anything.’
‘Wow.’ I tried to ignore the flutter in my stomach. ‘You must have been working with some shady estate agents if you can say that and not wince at how cringy it sounds.’
He let out a surprised laugh. ‘I was just being honest.’
‘So was I.’ I folded my arms. ‘But thank you. You look very … dapper.’
He frowned. ‘ Dapper? ’
‘I love how you matched your tie to the furnishings.’
Irritation flickered across his face. ‘I wanted today to go well. If I’d known I was coming across as dapper, I would have rethought the whole plan.’
‘How did you want to come across, then? The genius, nerdy architect? The mysterious, unknowable man behind the Sparks system? Is dapper too commonplace for you?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Does Sparks really control the whole house? Do you need to be set up as a user so it recognizes you?’
His nod was wary, as if he didn’t know whether I was teasing him or not.
‘OK.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Sparks, please turn on the disco lights in the shower.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know who’s speaking.’ The soothing female voice bounced off the walls. I could barely tell she was electronic.
‘Sparks,’ Ethan said, ‘I want to add a new user.’
‘Good evening, Ethan,’ the voice replied. ‘Who would you like to add?’
‘Sparks, please add Georgie to Sterenlenn.’
‘Good evening Georgie,’ the voice said. ‘I will need to learn your voice to add you to Sterenlenn. Please say: Sparks, what’s the weather like today? ’
I glared at Ethan and he gazed back at me, amused. ‘Sparks,’ I said, ‘what’s the weather like today?’
‘The humidity is high, at 74 per cent, with a chance of thunderstorms overnight. Now please say: Sparks, turn on the underfloor heating .’
‘Sparks, turn on the underfloor heating.’
‘The underfloor heating is activated,’ the voice said, then she made me run through a few more questions to get the timbre of my voice. ‘Thank you, Georgie,’ she said when I’d obeyed all her commands. ‘You have been added to Sterenlenn. I am here to help you with anything you need.’
‘Very impressive,’ I said to Ethan. ‘Can she bring you breakfast in bed, too?’
‘That’s one of the few things I haven’t got her to do yet.’
‘Shame. What about a back massage?’
He shook his head, smiling at me.
‘Fine. Sparks, please turn on the disco lights in the shower.’
‘Shower lights activated.’
I glanced behind me and saw the rainbow glow emanating from the bathroom doorway.
I thought of one night when we had come up here as teenagers, when the rain had been relentless and our path from the broken wall to the front of the house was a quagmire, the stones slippery and the vegetation slick, the earth turned to sludge.
We’d let the mud dry on our jeans while we talked and drank inside, then had to face the same obstacle course on the way out.
We’d walked down the hill with our clothes plastered to us, mud mingling with rainwater so we looked like swamp monsters.
‘My dad isn’t going to be impressed when I turn up like this,’ Ethan had said.
‘He’ll still be awake?’
‘Yeah. He always has a beady eye on us when he’s home.’ He’d sounded defeated, which was so unlike him.
My mum would be sound asleep this late, and sometimes took pills to ensure she slept through. ‘Come back to mine. You can have a shower, or …’
‘OK,’ he’d said immediately, then grimaced at how eager he’d been, but I’d laughed and leaned into him.
We’d slept together by that point, and he’d sneaked into my room more than once.
That night we’d peeled each other’s clothes off in my tiny, humid bathroom, and got into the shower together even though it was barely big enough for one person.
I remembered urgency and gasping, slippery skin, falling onto my duvet still damp, and Ethan scrambling for a condom in the pocket of his ruined jeans.
It had been this house, in its dark, horror-film incarnation that had led to us being pressed together in my cramped, dated shower all those years ago. Now it was a gleaming masterpiece with an en-suite bigger than my bedroom.
‘It was important that the shower had a lot of space,’ Ethan said, and from the gravel in his voice I wondered if he was remembering the same night I was.
‘I don’t know,’ I said lightly, ‘we achieved quite a lot with limited room.’
He cleared his throat.
‘Who needs disco lights in their shower anyway?’ I said, trying to dispel the tension.
‘Who needs separate beer and wine fridges, alongside their giant, American-style fridge-freezer?’
‘Those are essentials,’ I said with a laugh.
‘It keeps a record of everything inside and updates your shopping list automatically. And it has a self-filling water dispenser.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Check this out.’ There was a gleam in Ethan’s eyes as he walked to the bed, toeing off his polished black shoes without bothering to untie the laces.
‘What?’
‘Come on.’ He held his hand out.
I hesitated. He was tempting me, just like he’d done when I’d fallen for him at eighteen. He had that look of quiet amusement that told me I was about to be let in on a secret, and it was impossible to resist.
‘George.’ He waggled his fingers.
I reached my hand out and let him pull me onto the bed. Then he crawled up it as if he was going to lie down.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Come up here.’ He lay down, his head on the pillows. Frowning but intrigued, I copied him, and as my head hit the pillow the female voice said, ‘Nightlights, activated.’ The wall lamps on either side of the bed came on with a slow glide, and I shot up to sitting.
‘How did she know?’ I looked up at the ceiling. ‘Are there cameras in here?’
Ethan sat up beside me. ‘The lights are pressure activated. When you lie down in the right place, they turn on. If the main light is on, it turns off at the same time.’
‘Does it pull the cover up for you too? Tuck you in at night with a teddy bear and a lullaby?’
He shook his head, but his lips tipped up.
‘What if you’re not going to sleep?’ I asked. ‘What if … what if there’s pressure on the mattress for an entirely different reason? Do you have to say, “Sparks, we’re having sex now, don’t bother with the nightlights and please avert your eyes”?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand your request,’ the soothing female voice told me.
‘You might want the nightlights on if you were having sex,’ Ethan said. ‘You might want to see every inch of each other.’
I raised my eyebrows, my cheeks flushing despite the air con.
‘You can ask her to turn them off,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘Or change the settings in the app, obviously. You can set it up exactly how you want it.’