Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
SUMMER 2011
I don’t think I’ve ever felt as horrible as I did that Sunday morning. I had a hangover, obviously – not the worst one ever, but a strong contender. I woke up with my mouth tasting disgusting, smears of make-up all over my pillow, my hair matted and sticky and a banging headache.
But all that was nothing compared to the guilt. All the elation of last night had faded – the rush of joy and excitement that had carried me through that first kiss, and the one after, and the one after that. I remembered the feeling of Patch’s hand in mine as he’d walked with me to the bus stop, slowly because of my shoes and because we kept stopping to kiss each other again – it had felt so right at the time, like our hands had been waiting for each other, all these years, and now they were linked together at last. I remembered thinking that no one had ever kissed as well as he did, and I’d never kissed anyone as well as I kissed him. I remembered us singing The Walk and how the lyrics – midnight, the rain, the kisses – felt like they’d been written just for us.
I remembered seeing my bus approaching, leaning into Patch for one final kiss, gazing into his eyes, made almost luminous by make-up, and saying, ‘I have to go home.’
He pressed me close against him and I pressed back, wishing I never had to leave the warmth of his body, the strength of his arms.
‘Don’t worry.’ His voice was gentle. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
‘Really?’ My face was pressed into his chest, my words muffled. ‘How will it be okay?’
‘It will. Trust me.’
And I had trusted him. I’d allowed myself to relive those kisses over and over, all the way home as the bus crept through the rainy streets. I’d imagined us having a future together, our friends saying they’d always known it was meant to be, Zara magnanimous as she embarked on a relationship with someone new, admitting that she’d never cared that deeply for Patch.
What a fool I was. What a duplicitous, horrible person. What a bad friend.
I spent the rest of that day wallowing in misery. Part of me longed for Patch – to speak to him, find out how he was, get reassurance from him that what we’d done wasn’t that bad, it would never happen again and no one would ever find out. Part of me wanted to confess to Zara, to Rowan or to everyone en masse, and receive some kind of absolution – but I was too ashamed to do that. And anyway, I knew it would do no good – what had happened had happened; telling anyone would only help assuage my conscience while hurting Zara terribly. So I kept quiet, clinging to the knowledge that eventually the pain would ease and perhaps, with time, I’d be able to see Patch as just a friend again.
For a couple of days, I heard nothing from him. I knew it was for the best, but the pain was awful. I couldn’t concentrate at work; every time my phone buzzed I grabbed it with wild hope that it might be him, immediately turning to horror when I realised it could just as easily be Zara. I couldn’t sleep at night. I could barely eat.
Tortured with guilt, I thought again about confessing – to Rowan, to Zara, to someone. Then, on Tuesday, I received a text from him. When I saw his name on my screen, my heart leaped and then plummeted again. She’s found out. He blames me. Everyone will hate me.
But the message said only:
PATRICK HAMILTON:
I broke up with Zee. You don’t need to worry. Xxx
Naomi:
What?
I texted back, my fingers fumbling on the keypad.
Naomi:
When?
PATRICK HAMILTON:
It doesn’t matter. It’s been over for a long time. I haven’t seen her in about six weeks and it wasn’t working long before that.
It’s been over for a long time – what did that even mean? That kissing him had been okay? That the way I felt about him was okay? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.
Naomi:
I’m sorry
Is she all right? Are you?
PATRICK HAMILTON:
Honestly? I’ve never been better. I’d love to see you. I’m back in London in a couple of weeks.
My heart went, Yesyesyesyes! But my head said, No way, Naomi. Too soon.
Naomi:
We could meet for a coffee, maybe?
So we met for a coffee. I told him how bad I felt, and he told me I’d done nothing wrong; it was him who’d been in a relationship and that relationship was over. He said he wanted to be with me. I said I wanted to be with him, too, but I didn’t want to rush into anything. He said he respected my feelings, and we’d take things at whatever pace I wanted.
Six weeks later – waiting for him to return from Aberdeen, it felt like an eternity – we met up again.
This time, I suggested he come round to my flat. Amina was away for the weekend, and I knew what the invitation meant – I couldn’t have been more obvious if I’d said, ‘Netflix and chill,’ instead of, ‘I’ll cook.’
I spent the day making a lasagne – the kind of proper, home comfort food I reckoned he’d have missed while working away. I cleaned the flat to within an inch of its life and shaved every bit of superfluous hair off my body. I lit scented candles and put fresh sheets on my bed.
When Patch turned up with a bunch of roses and a bottle of champagne, I knew he’d understood the message just as clearly as I had. As soon as he walked in the door, we hugged each other as if we were nothing more than friends, but the tension was as palpable as the relentlessly fluttering butterflies in my stomach.
‘This is nice,’ he said, looking around the tidy living room and inhaling the smell of cooking. ‘It feels… homely. I never thought of you as a domestic goddess.’
‘I’m not any kind of goddess,’ I said. ‘But I cook a mean lasagne.’
‘Music to my ears.’
‘Shall I open this?’ I took the champagne from him.
‘I think we could both do with a drink.’
I poured two glasses and we sat on the sofa, a polite few inches of fabric between us. We clinked our glasses and drank. He asked me about work and I did the same. We talked about the weather – how boiling it was in London but Aberdeen was still cool during the day and chilly at night.
I began to panic. I was shy and awkward around him in a way I’d never been, with none of the easy companionability I’d felt before. It felt like there wasn’t just one elephant in the room but a whole herd of them, waving their trunks and stomping all over my carefully curated romantic evening.
‘Have you heard from Zara?’ I asked carefully.
Patch shook his head. Then he said, ‘Look, is that lasagne almost ready?’
I thought, Shit. Now he can’t wait to eat and get the hell out of here, and I don’t blame him. ‘Just a couple of minutes.’
‘My mum reckons it’s best if you leave it to rest for a bit. Like, half an hour or so.’
‘Really?’ Now we were exchanging cooking tips. There’s no coming back from this , I thought.
But when I looked at him, he met my eyes with a smile that suggested food was the last thing on his mind. The butterflies sprang back to life inside me.
‘I’ll take it out of the oven,’ I said.
My legs suddenly seemed to have been replaced by strands of wet spaghetti. I got up and opened the oven door, leaning my face into the blast of hot air to hide the fact that I was blushing. I lifted the dish out and put it on the worktop, then turned off the gas.
Patch poured more champagne into our glasses.
‘This is all kinds of weird,’ he said gently. ‘It is for me, anyway, and I reckon for you too.’
I nodded, taking a gulp of my drink, the bubbles tingling my nose.
‘I care about you, Naomi,’ he went on. ‘I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t feel right for you.’
‘Same,’ I muttered.
‘Come here,’ he said.
I put the oven gloves down and stepped towards him, into the warm circle of his arms. He held me tenderly, stroking my hair. And then I felt what I’d felt before, by the canal in Camden – a steady flame of desire like the pilot light on a boiler that burns unnoticed in the background until you turn up the heating.
I turned my face up to his and kissed him on the lips, hesitantly at first and then more passionately, remembering what it had been like that night, the feel of his back and shoulders under my hands both familiar and exciting.
His hands moved from my hair to my face, down to my arms, round my waist, touching me like I was made of glass. But I didn’t feel fragile – I felt suddenly powerful, ready, sexy.
‘Come on.’ I broke off our kiss and smiled up at him. ‘Bedroom. Let’s do this.’
He laughed. ‘Wow. No messing about, then.’
‘Lots of messing about,’ I promised, reaching up to undo the buttons of his shirt. ‘All the messing about you could possibly want.’
By the time we reached my bed we were both naked, a trail of garments following us from the kitchen, up the stairs and to my door. There was no need to close it because no one would see us.
The light from the landing illuminated his perfect body – the kind of physique I’d thought didn’t exist other than on Greek marble statues and the cover of Men’s Health magazine. But now I could see that – although breathtakingly desirable – he wasn’t flawless after all. There was a mole on his right shoulder, a tiny egg shape of darker skin. He’d missed a bit on his jaw when he was shaving, and I could feel the roughness of it when he kissed me. On his left thigh, right up near his hip, there was a scar – an irregular bit of white skin where no hair grew.
I ran my thumb over it. ‘What happened there?’
‘Gunshot wound,’ he murmured, his voice muffled by my hair. ‘You should see the other guy.’
‘Really?’ I was almost sure he was joking, but not quite.
‘Nah.’ He raised his head and grinned at me. ‘Wiped out off my BMX when I was eight.’
I laughed, my nerves vanishing as I remembered that we were friends – we’d been friends before all this, and we’d still be friends after. I didn’t care that I was far from perfect myself and hadn’t been near a gym in months – I knew he wanted me just as much as I wanted him.
I pushed him gently down on the bed and straddled him, smiling down at him, my hair brushing his chest. Then I lowered myself on to him and kissed him again, feeling us begin to move together, fitting together perfectly.