Chapter 52
We spend the whole night cocooned in a duvet as soft as a cloud, limbs entwined as we make love endlessly, pausing only for sweet nothings and minibar biscuits.
Throughout the whole time, I have the title of that old John Meyer song humming in the back of my head.
‘Your Body is a Wonderland’. There isn’t an inch of him I don’t want to explore.
The skin beneath his bicep. The gentle warmth of his scalp.
The contrasts of his torso, taut muscle fibres concealing soft organs beneath.
By the time shards of early sunlight push through the curtains, the streets below still empty and silent, I am starving.
‘I wonder what time we can get breakfast?’ I ask.
‘Can’t imagine what’s made you suddenly so hungry,’ he whispers, as his lips meet mine for the thousandth time.
‘I’m going to be exhausted today,’ I sigh, stepping in. ‘I wish I was getting the train straight back. You don’t mind the fact that we’re going back separately, do you? It just makes more sense than me making a separate journey to see the letting agent. I need to sign a few papers.’
I kick off my shoes and head into the bathroom to get some lip balm. All this kissing takes its toll.
‘It’s a nice apartment, just around the corner from where we used to live in Balham. Close to the tube too. We should put a date in the diary for you to come and stay, you know. Once I’m settled, I mean.’
I walk back into the room and slide my hands around his waist, pressing my face against his back.
I am expecting him to turn around and kiss me.
Just like we have been doing all night. But when he doesn’t move, I am already starting to loosen my grip as he removes my hands from his waist and heads into the bathroom.
I watch with an uneasy feeling as he closes the door.
I consider starting to undress again, but the idea that the sight of my bare flesh might have the same effect as last night suddenly feels like an assumption too far.
I unbutton the top of my shirt instead and arrange myself in a sexy but hopefully subtle enough way.
When he returns, he doesn’t look at me.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Hmm? Yes. Sure.’ He smiles, but not with his eyes. He unplugs his phone charger.
‘Sam?’
When he turns around and I see his expression, my stomach twists. I instinctively rise to my feet but as I go to step forward, something stops me.
‘What’s the matter?’ I ask softly, reaching out to hold his hands.
He looks at them for a moment before giving them a gentle squeeze. Then he releases them and backs away. He sits on one of the chairs by the window as I lower myself onto the edge of the bed opposite.
‘I’m going to lay my heart out here,’ he says. ‘I wish you weren’t leaving.’
Spoken in a different way, this might be another sweet nothing. But there is a nuance in his tone that sends a prickle of defensiveness up my spine.
‘Sam, I have to go to London,’ I point out, gently. ‘I’ve got no choice. That’s where my job is, and I have a daughter to support.’
‘I know,’ he says.
‘And it’s not like you can’t visit. It’s only two hundred miles.’
‘Two hundred and twenty.’
‘What’s another twenty between friends?’ I say lightly.
He looks up. ‘Between friends?’
‘It’s just . . . a saying,’ I shrug, but my face heats up.
His expression is enigmatic.
‘Thing is, Jules, I just don’t know how this is going to work once you move. You say it won’t affect anything, but I think we both know that’s just not true.’
‘I didn’t say it won’t affect anything. I just said . . . look, it’s not like I’m moving to a different continent,’ I argue. ‘We can still come and see each other. There are trains. Weekends. We’ll never get bored.’
I throw in an optimistic smile that clearly has zero effect on him. A defensive ring of heat begins to spread around my neck. ‘What else is it you want from me, Sam? What are you asking me for? To stay in Roebury? Because I can’t. You already know that.’
He presses his lips together and nods. ‘I know I can’t ask anything of you, Jules. But I do think this whole thing has shone a light on something, that’s all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I sometimes get the impression that your ideal scenario would be to just . . . I don’t know, get together for sex once every six weeks.’
‘Well, it could be more often than that,’ I blurt out. I know the moment the words are out of my mouth that frequency is not the issue.
‘It’s not a booty call that I’m looking for at this stage in my life, Jules.’
I feel a sudden gust of panic, followed by a need to defend myself.
‘You are making out like I’ve led you on in some way, Sam, but I never have,’ I say, my voice rising.
‘I enjoy spending time with you. I like you very much. We go way back and being together is fun and easy and nicer than I ever imagined anything could be after Ed died. But I never said I was looking for something . . . huge. And if you’ve been thinking there is any chance of me ever getting married again then I need to stop you right there because that is not on the cards for me and it never will be.
If you’ve got some big, mad idea about—’
‘No,’ he interrupts, silencing me. He looks up and shakes his head. ‘No big mad idea.’
I swallow a lump in my throat. ‘Well then.’
There is a small, loaded silence before he says: ‘I know I’m not your first choice, Jules. I wouldn’t ever try to be. I’ve been trying to convince myself that’s okay, that I could live with that. But now . . . I don’t think I can. I like to think—’
‘That there’s someone out there for you,’ I finish for him, as pressure builds behind my eyes. He’s said it before. And I should have realised. Sam’s been single for years and he wants someone to spend the rest of his life with.
He looks down at his hands. ‘I think under the circumstances, with your big move . . . it would be easier on both of us if we just had a clean break.’
Something behind my breastbone cracks.
‘Are you really splitting up with me, Sam?’
He looks as if the next words are almost too painful to say out loud.
‘If that’s what you want to call it. Then yes.’