Chapter 7
SEVEN
I shouldn’t be here. I mean, I should be here because this is a nice cosy café with its scents of gingerbread and its jingly Christmas folk music, and I have a cinnamon bun in front of me that’s bloody delicious, but I shouldn’t be keeping the company in front of me.
Nick Coles. With his cool blue-grey eyes like a cat, his strong jawline and intriguing smile.
I really thought he belonged in the deepest recesses of my history.
Why did I agree to this? Is it because he bought me a teapot?
But despite my best efforts to ignore it there is something that sits here between us, a strange energy.
We can’t stop looking at each other and grinning.
‘Good buns?’ he asks me.
Oh dear, don’t try and do that. Don’t throw around these puns that could be vaguely sexual, because innuendo was the foundation of how we got together the first time round, and that’s both rude and unfair.
‘They’re very good, thank you,’ I say, nodding.
I stir the cocoa into the whipped cream on top of my hot chocolate and put a spoonful into my mouth. He smiles to himself. ‘You still do that?’
I will assume he’s referring to the cream thing. I also do it with the foam on my cappuccino. I’ve done it for years. This is better as there are sprinkles on the cream. He remembers that? ‘Yes.’
‘Funny the little things you remember,’ he says.
I don’t know what to make of this. Why are we here?
To debrief what happened nearly a decade ago?
But I can’t deny there’s something mildly sexy about this.
To be here with someone from the past that I once cared so deeply about.
There is mystery here, and my thoughts are full of what-ifs and memories.
Is there a chance to rekindle something?
No, Kay, he dumped you. Have some self-respect.
Look how well you thrived without him. Look at what he missed out on.
Revel in that power. That said, I am under no illusion that he seems different now, with his sharp haircut and the suit that fits well at the shoulders and cuffs.
I’m glad I had my agent lunch so I also look half presentable.
We grew apart, that’s for sure, but in opposite directions.
In that way, I just always assumed he was a placeholder relationship, a lesson, shaping the way I looked at myself, the world, love.
But now we’re here. And strangely, I remember Dave in the pub telling me a corny line about setting someone free.
That’s what happened. And now he’s back.
‘So how was New York?’ I ask him.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. He’s taken off his suit jacket so he’s sitting there in his shirt and tie. Don’t look at the curve of his shoulders. ‘Intense. A good place to call home for a while. I did a lot of growing up there.’
‘I bet the bagels were good,’ I say. I don’t know why.
He grins. ‘They were pretty amazing.’ I take a bite of my cinnamon bun so there’s something in my mouth which will prevent me from saying anything else really stupid. ‘What are you up to? Are you still writing?’ he asks.
I look at him as he says this, my mouth full, surprised. I didn’t write when we were at university, so this is something he’s researched or discovered through the internet. ‘I am.’
‘I bought that book about the bears. I gave it to my niece,’ he says. ‘It was cute.’
‘That’s kind, thank you.’ So he’s been keeping tabs too.
‘And are you still working with the library service?’ he asks.
He really has been looking, eh? Was he watching from a distance? Comparing our journeys? Was today even a coincidence at all? Because if not, that’s weird. I pull my drink closer.
‘I am.’
‘Then you’re still Kay with all the words, all her books. That’s a good thing,’ he says, looking genuinely pleased for me as he tilts his head to the side. I find myself looking at the line of his neck, wondering what’s underneath that shirt. I shake my head to scold myself.
‘Well, it’s not as if I was going to leave university with an English literature degree and suddenly become an accountant,’ I say.
‘You’d be surprised. I bet many of your year copped out and became teachers, lawyers… you always wanted to write books. I’m glad you’re doing that.’
The kindness and support in his words make me melt a little in my seat. ‘And you became a finance person…’ I say.
He chuckles under his breath. I hope he knows that it’ll take a lot more to impress me.
‘Yes, a finance person. That’s what it says on my name badge.
’ Please don’t try to be funny. I watch as he takes a sip from his latte and a bite out of a gingerbread snowman.
He leans back in his chair, beaming at me.
There is eye contact briefly and I have no choice but to return the gesture.
I’ve forgotten how a smile transforms him, how it makes his eyes crinkle, how it is instantly magnetic and charming.
‘So how did you know about my books?’ I ask him curiously.
‘I checked in. It was good to see you doing so well. Don’t tell me you didn’t do the same,’ he says, smirking.
‘Of course I didn’t. That was a very long time ago.
I moved on and pretty much forgot about you.
Actually, when I saw you in that market, I almost called you Rick.
’ He laughs, loudly. You bastard. ‘I saw you with someone else in your pictures?’ I ask, not knowing if that’s perhaps a step too far because, yes, I did look once. Maybe twice.
He stops for a moment, that smile hiding away from me.
‘We were together but not anymore. Her name was Neve.’ The way he almost spits out her name makes me think it didn’t end well.
I won’t dig. He sighs but then returns to the conversation.
‘For a few months there was a musician fella, you went to his gigs.’
‘Doug. He played the drums.’ He had questionable political beliefs and I once saw him kick a cat. ‘We weren’t together long. Stalker.’
‘Takes one to know one,’ he says.
We gaze at each other over our mugs, sitting there in silence for a moment, sipping at our drinks, the windows of this place misting up. ‘We were super young when we went out, eh?’ he says, breaking that silence. ‘I’ll always be sorry about the way I ended it all.’
‘In the pub, during the quiz,’ I say, remembering the pretty savage way that pub turned on him.
He grimaces to remember it. ‘I mean, it was particularly spectacular though. Someone threw a packet of nuts at me. I got a bloody lip. Every time I went in there after, people would heckle me.’
I try not to laugh. ‘There were positives. I won a meat hamper that night.’ It’s true.
After he left, I was persuaded to get quite drunk and finish my night helping three middle-aged men win a pub quiz.
They gave me the hamper as recompense for my very public shaming. The chipolatas were outstanding.
‘I can’t excuse my behaviour. I was a dick back then.’
I take a sip of my hot chocolate because I don’t know how to react. He’s right, but I wasn’t expecting him to own his behaviour with such clarity and magnanimity.
‘Then I am grateful for the apology. We were young,’ I say.
‘And whatever happened, I had a lot of affection for you. We had a good year.’ I sit incredibly still as he says that.
I guess it’s easy to say in hindsight, but he’s right; there are good memories, and they are the ones I return to when I think of him.
‘And I regret never telling you that much, just walking out that day.’
I feel a surge of emotion. This is the sort of closure we all need at the end of a relationship, but I’m unprepared for it, today or at any time. ‘You missed out.’ He missed out on someone who would have been his biggest champion, a hilarious sidekick. I also make the best cookies.
‘Yeah,’ he says wistfully, taking a deep breath. He looks totally at ease in my company. ‘Seeing you now, I totally get that.’
It feels wildly lifting to hear him say that. ‘I appreciate the sentiment and the gesture.’
‘That’s very formal,’ he replies jokingly.
‘It’s because we’re grown up now. I’m trying to be mature. You’re in a suit.’
His smile broadens. ‘I am.’
‘Do you have plans for Christmas?’ I ask.
‘And that’s a very mature line of conversation.’
‘Well, that’s me now. I’m not that same girl who used to live off pasta and sauce and water down my juice.’
He grins again. ‘I didn’t think that for a second. I’m spending it with my family.’
‘And how are Marjorie and Lester?’ I ask.
His eyebrows lift again, as if he’s impressed that I have remembered their names.
He forgets that’s what I do. I remember the names of all my primary-school teachers, the names of mums of friends I used to have tea with.
It’s my pub trick. ‘Has your mum made her Christmas pudding yet?’ It was a family recipe with a mountain of dried fruit soaked in a whole bottle of rum.
I was invited to a strange ritual at their house where I was asked to stir it.
‘She has. They are well, thank you.’ He leans over the table. ‘And your parents? Your nana?’
‘All good. I won’t tell Nana you bought that teapot for me,’ I say. ‘She wasn’t a fan at the end.’
He laughs heartily, gaining the attention of a table next to us.
I sit back in my chair, running my hands through my hair.
‘Christ, Nick. What are we doing here?’ I look over at him in his chair, sitting back so I can see how well that shirt really fits him.
Both of us still in a state of complete bemusement that we’ve popped up in each other’s lives again, at this precise moment. ‘Are you dating anyone?’
He pauses for a moment. ‘No. You?’
‘No.’
‘So maybe that lady at the stall with the plates had a point,’ he says.
‘That you’re a wanker?’
Again he laughs, and for a moment I feel that emotion too.
The idea that it is slightly ridiculous to have bumped into each other after all this time.
I’ve had a decent eight years without him.
OK, I didn’t fall in love with anyone, but I thought my time with Nick was done.
He was a stepping stone to a greater purpose when it came to my love life.
He wasn’t the one. Could we have a second chance at this? Did we grow apart just to grow up?
‘God, you look great…’ he says again, slowly.
‘You look OK too,’ I say, pulling a face to take away the intensity of his stare.
‘You said I looked healthy before,’ he jokes.
‘That’s a positive adjective.’
‘You could use another adjective,’ he suggests.
‘You look well.’
‘And wellness is everything.’
‘There are industries dedicated to wellness.’
‘I am aware.’
He leans forward across the table and I feel his leg against mine and I don’t move away.
There’s a feeling emerging that I don’t mind it there.
That I like it. I watch him staring at me.
I almost encourage it. Because despite any bad feeling I may have had towards this man, to be here now, opposite him, listening to his compliments, hearing him say he’s missed out, feels strangely powerful and I want more of it.
Do I reject him now, go nonchalant, or do I lean into this?
But then I also remember a feeling I once thought was love.
A deep feeling of liking, wanting him. You and I had sex.
We were intimate. And maybe another feeling joins the mixer now.
I think it’s lust and, well, that trumps it all sometimes.
I lean in. This could be a really big mistake, couldn’t it?
Or maybe the lady with the plates did have a point.
I rest my hand over my mouth. ‘You look very well,’ I say, staring him in the eye.
‘You want to get out of here?’ he asks me.
Have some fun. Bones. Hell, why not?