Chapter 9
One week out
George
“Stop!” Kirsten shouted, barging in through the door, not even apologising for interrupting our meeting. Not that this was unusual in any way because this was how she usually operated. And just on cue, here was a flustered Alastair hot on her heels.
“The wake-up married in Vegas theme has been done. We need something fresh. We need something new. I am rehashing our entire concept.”
“Okay,” I said, slowing my voice down to try to make the screeching in my brain stop. Like tyres against wet asphalt, and the hairs at the back of my neck were already standing straight up.
“We’ll mismatch all the couples from the start. Then somehow make them re-couple. Break people up on purpose. You know, George. You know what I’m talking about.”
Did I? Apparently, I did as I nodded weakly.
“The ratings for the first episode of Singles Bar were abysmal,” Kirsten continued on, not even out of breath, flicking her bob out of her face. “Alastair!”
“Ehhr…Channel 4 released partial stats, but it seems the public is overdosed on the dating concept…”
“Singles Bar is seriously dated. The vibe gives me two-years-ago. We need new and fresh. We need to skip dating completely. Straight in there.”
“But that isn’t what…” someone piped up. Brave. Braver than me.
“Make it happen. Make it big, bold. Brash as anything. Don’t hold back.”
And just as boldly as she had entered the room, she was once again gone, leaving a dishevelled Alastair in her wake, wringing his hands and then wiping them down the side of his suit jacket.
“You know what she’s like,” he half whispered. “Make it happen.”
Across the table, someone tore up a piece of paper. Someone else carefully rearranged their clipboard. I closed my laptop, letting the distinctive click break the silence.
“Any ideas?” I said weakly.
“We have one week,” someone whispered.
I knew. I bloody knew.
I’d worked here for the past six months, and it already felt like a lifetime.
If I’d known at college what I knew now?
Perhaps I would have made wiser career choices.
Taken math seriously and become a teacher.
Sat in a little secondary somewhere out in the sticks, talking about algebra instead of losing my marbles and prematurely going grey in some temporary central London shared workspace building.
We didn’t even have a proper office.
Going home was a relief, every bloody day, and it was almost nine in the evening when I shuffled up towards the entrance to my run-down block of flats.
The life of a junior production assistant.
First paid job. I was way in over my head here, and I knew it, all the enthusiasm and confidence I’d started off with now long gone.
I was tired. So bloody tired. I’d even been too tired to check my phone, which was surprising, because that was usually what I did first thing, stepping on that bus at the end of the day.
Today, though?
“Georgie.”
I liked how he said my name. Soft. Almost a whisper. Like he still couldn’t bear to say it like he meant it. My name. I’d also clocked him on the pavement, getting out of his car, then walking slowly towards me. Hands in his pockets. So effortlessly perfect.
“Hey.” I tried to be composed when I just couldn’t.
“I texted. You never replied. But I…”
“Still stalk me on Find My Friends.”
“Busted.” He smiled.
“You coming up?”
Stupid question as I unlocked the door and stood aside, letting him inside.
Him. My stupid best friend from college. Still the same. Calm. Quiet. Reserved.
Beautiful. Even standing with his back to me, waiting for the lift. An old hoodie. His hair all mussed at the back from where he’d probably been sat in a car for too long. I’d known him…years now. And he was still here. Spending time with me. Messing with my head.
“Want a drink?” I offered, watching him toe his shoes off in the hallway. Always polite. My small one-bed studio in its usual state of disarray.
“Nah. I need to drive.”
“You okay?” He didn’t look it. He looked rattled.
Normal state of him, lately. Every time I saw him, he was a little weirder in the way he behaved. Today, more weird than usual.
I loved his weirdness. His quiet. The way he threw himself on my unmade bed and just stared out the window.
It was almost too dark for this time of year.
The start of summer. A fly buzzed in the corner of the open window that I’d once again forgotten to close this morning.
I liked how it broke the silence. I needed to get better at looking after things. Including him.
“You know you can talk to me,” I offered. He nodded.
Not that we didn’t talk. We texted every day, pretty much non-stop.
He was the highlight of my waking hours and the…
keeper of my dreams. I didn’t tell him that.
But yes. I had been in love with him, pretty much constantly.
So in love that I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t monopolised my wanking sessions.
When I hadn’t doodled his name in the corners of papers.
He had such a beautiful face. Sharp lines and edges. Small freckles at the tip of his nose. I probably knew every little mark on his face. The small scar at his temple. All of it was mine. Mine to keep in those dreams.
I could read him pretty well by now, the way he was slightly curved into the middle of the bed. Like he was expecting me to fill the space he’d created.
Sometimes he let me cuddle him. Hold some parts of his body close. Not close enough, but today I let my head fall onto his shoulder. My arm bent up towards his chest. Just a small amount of body contact, but I took everything I could. Every little scrap.
My love for him was ridiculous. Oh yes, I was well aware of that. I just couldn’t help myself.
“Hey,” I said, leaning my head up to look at him. Check where he was. Sometimes, he was so deep in his head I felt I had to drag him back out. Sometimes, like now? He was present. Far too present.
Almost raw.
“Georgie. It’s fucked up. It’s all so fucked up in my head.”
“No, it’s not,” I said sternly. “You’re great. You’re good. And you have me.”
“I know.” He sighed, turning his head away.
“Hey,” I said again, letting my fingers gently grab his jaw. Turning him back to me. I loved it when he looked at me. Loved how he made me feel in those small stolen moments.
He wasn’t mine. Never would be. But this? This was mine. This second right here. And the next. And the one I stole when he looked at me. Really looked at me.
“I don’t know why you let me,” he whispered. “Why you let me come here and spill my shit on you. Why you’re doing all this for me when I give you nothing back.”
“You do,” I said. I couldn’t admit what. But I got…everything.
“You’re… Why do you do this?” He laughed into the ceiling. “You. You’re so bloody messy.”
“I’m overworked and stressed out, and the company I work for is… Fuck. You have no idea.”
“Yes, I do. You tell me all the time.”
“So why am I still working there?”
“Because you love it. You love the stress and the gossip and the weird bosses, and you also have this obligation to feed it all to me on a daily basis so I can get my hit of Georgie.”
“Hit of Georgie.”
“It’s a thing.” He smiled. “Makes me happy.”
I didn’t dare tell him how happy he made me. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Ever.
Maybe that was a cowardly way of thinking. But I didn’t ever want to lose him. What we had. What he made me.
He made me soft. He made me warm.
He made me happy. And that was a horrible, awful way to describe him.
“I give you nothing back,” he whispered. “And one day you’ll get sick of this.”
“Never.” I meant that. I was an awful person too.
“Tell me what you want. How… I don’t know. Georgie. You listen to me and let me come here and just exist in your space, and you let me text you at four in the morning when I freak out, and you’re always there for me.”
“I am,” I agreed. “Because I love you.”
He smiled. I told him that all the time. He said it back. It wasn’t weird. It was probably the least weird thing between us.
“You’re always there for me too.” Not a lie. There was not a time I could remember when he’d told me I couldn’t talk to him. Text him. Come over. Ask him things.
And here he was again. Looking at me. He had green eyes, surrounded by a ring of brown. Freaky. Like everything else about him. His smile. The one front tooth that was a little crooked still, despite years of braces. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.
“Do you mind if I say something really freaky?” He smiled. It made me melt. Right through the bed. His hand moved and landed awkwardly on my shoulder. Fingertips against…fabric. Then movement. A soft brush of a finger against my neck. My…chin.
I said nothing. All of me suddenly on mute.
He took that as a yes then.
“I wish…” he said. “That things like this were easy with other people. But they’re not, because you’re you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“No, I know. Just trying to be honest here.”
“Freak.” I grinned.
“Yeah. I know.”
He shifted his hips so we were now on our sides. Face to face. His fingers still on my skin. Stroking my cheek.
“I like when we’re like this.”
“Sleepy?” I smiled. Deflecting. What was I doing? My self-sabotage game was on high alert. Don’t do this. Please don’t.
I don’t want to lose you.
“No. Night-time. When you’re just exhausted and your game is down.”
I spluttered out a weak protest.
“I have no game.”
“You have game,” he whispered.
I didn’t know why that triggered me. His stupid insinuation that I was something I definitely wasn’t. I was small. Not built. Not a muscle visible anywhere on my weird body. My glasses were…
And then all of a sudden, he was too close. Far too close. Right there in my face, his nose touching the side of mine. His breath on my skin. My stupid glasses riding up my face as his nose pushed them aside.
I met him halfway on the last centimetre. Where our lips crashed together and he kissed me.
It wasn’t just a kiss. Not a soft brush of lips. It was hard and wet and disgustingly full of bodily fluid. His and mine. My cheek caught the cool breeze from the open window, coldness against skin that then burned with the brush of his tongue.
A kiss. A kiss that seemed to go on forever.
Then it didn’t, and he got himself sat up. As quickly as it had started. Shrugged his shoulders in that hoodie he was wearing. Stood himself up before I could react.
“Don’t you dare.” My voice was a mere growl.
He said nothing.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” I shouted.
He still left. And I didn’t know what was more devastating. The fact that he’d kissed me? Or the fact that the door slammed shut behind him and I did nothing to stop it.