Chapter 19
NICO
Playing happy families is the only way to describe this evening. Emphasis on the word playing.
It’s like being in a weird simulation, Sammie and I acting like a couple, cooking dinner for our parents – admittedly, it didn’t go all that well, but look how well we worked together. We got the evening back on track. And now here we are, the two of us, tucked up in bed like an old married couple.
There’s something strangely domestic about it all. Stranger still, I don’t hate it.
‘Well,’ she says to the ceiling, ‘that was a lot.’
I turn onto my side, resting my head on my hand.
‘A lot of fun,’ I reply. ‘I thought you said you could cook.’
‘I thought you said you had a perfect fire safety record…’
I can’t help but laugh.
‘Yeah, I guess I’ll have to take that one off my Matcher profile,’ I joke – not that I’m on Matcher. No thank you – never again.
‘Well, I don’t think it would stop me swiping right if a man didn’t mention his fire safety record, so you might be okay,’ she replies.
‘Are you much of a swiper?’ I can’t resist asking.
She shakes her head.
‘No – well… I have, in the past,’ she corrects herself.
‘I’ll go on, swipe a bunch, get some underwhelming messages, go on a couple of even more underwhelming dates.
But it always builds to a point – a moment, where I spot someone who is married, someone sends me a dodgy pic I didn’t ask for, someone says something in person that offends me to my core.
And then I swear off it – delete my account, uninstall the app, never again. ’
I smile because that sounds so familiar.
‘And then?’ I say with a smirk, already knowing the answer.
‘And then, an amount of time passes, and I download it again,’ she confesses with a laugh.
‘I can’t say anything – I do exactly the same thing,’ I reply. ‘I always think it will get better. But don’t they say the biggest waste of time is doing something again and expecting different results?’
She laughs.
‘It’s funny, everyone says that, but in my line of work, we just call that practice.’
‘I have never thought about it like that…’
‘Not that I’m suggesting Matcher will get better,’ she quickly adds.
The cabin lights are off apart from the reading lamp near the bed. As Sammie rolls to face me, there’s just enough light for me to make out her smile.
I think she’s had a good day too, you know. It might be the first time I’ve seen her actually happy, having a nice time, not looking like she’s got too much on her mind to think straight.
She looks comfortable here, even here in bed with me. I feel comfortable too. Like we’ve been sharing a bed for years.
‘Your emergency takeaway strategy was brilliant,’ she tells me. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’ve done that before?’
‘I haven’t, I swear,’ I insist. ‘But I do know where the best takeaways are from here, and I may or may not have got the idea for recovering dinner with a takeaway from an episode of The Simpsons.’
She snorts.
‘You’re joking?’
I shake my head.
‘Well, credit to The Simpsons then, because it saved the day.’
She exhales contentedly.
As successful as dinner was, it was sort of a failure too. Our objective, to bring about an end to our time on this holiday, got lost somewhere in the four of us having a good time. Our parents loved their dinner, and they seemed genuinely touched that we had gone to all that trouble.
‘It went a little too well, didn’t it?’ I say.
‘Hmm,’ she replies. ‘Yeah, if anything, they’re enjoying having us around even more, like they think we’re double-dating.’
She playfully shudders at the thought.
‘I thought my dad was going to shake my hand.’
‘Look at my mum,’ she replies, widening her eyes. ‘She was “first grandchild” levels of over the moon.’
I laugh softly.
‘Maybe we’re approaching this wrong,’ she suggests.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Maybe the goal shouldn’t be making them uncomfortable with us together – maybe the goal should be making them uncomfortable generally,’ she says, a grin spreading across her face.
‘And how do we do that?’ I ask curiously.
‘I think the only way for us to get kicked off this holiday is to get kicked off together, we weren’t wrong about that, it’s our approach that was off,’ she explains. ‘We’re not going to get kicked off for seeming loved-up – that’s good behaviour.’
Her grin is catching. I feel one creep across my own face, as I realise what she’s proposing.
‘We need to get kicked off for bad behaviour,’ I finish her sentence.
‘Exactly,’ she confirms excitedly. ‘And I know just how we do it, because this is our holiday too, right? It’s only fair that we do things we would like to do…’
‘We hijack the holiday!’
‘Exactly! So we keep pretending we’re together now – strength in numbers – and we say we want to do things, knowing they’ll hate them, and maybe they’ll give one or two things a go, but I know my mum, she’ll hate it.
They seem pretty comfortable with each other, enough to not need us around, so they’ll definitely ask us to leave. ’
‘I’d gone on a few nights out with my dad, to help him meet people, and he hated loud clubs – I mean, I hated some of them, to be fair, but I can stick it out long enough to drag my dad to a couple.’
‘My mum hates noise too,’ she says. ‘One trip to a club, and the suggestion we want to get rowdy every night, and she’ll pack my bags for me.’
‘Then we have a plan,’ I say. ‘It sounds sort of evil, but it’s for their own good.’
‘It really is,’ she echoes. ‘Because they want to be together, we don’t. They want to be here, we don’t. This way, everyone gets what they actually want. Plus, they’ll have a much better time without us. It is nice to see them so happy.’
‘Definitely – I wasn’t sure my dad would find anyone he liked.’
‘Mum lost Tony, my stepdad, two years ago,’ she says softly. ‘And obviously my dad before that. I think sometimes I forget how brave it is to keep trying after that. She once said how lucky she was, to have found love twice. I don’t know how high her hopes were for a third time.’
I stay quiet – not because I don’t know what to say, because I do. I’m just not used to talking about it.
‘Makes sense,’ I say.
‘It’s strange. After my dad died, I never really imagined her with anyone else.
Then Tony came along and it was weird at first, seeing another man in the house and hearing someone else make her laugh, and then moving in.
But after a while it just became… nice. Seeing her happy mattered more than anything else. ’
‘I lost my mum,’ I say quietly. ‘Dad’s never really been with anyone since.’
Sammie’s expression softens instantly.
‘You must miss her,’ she says, placing a hand gently on my arm.
‘Every day,’ I confess. ‘It feels like forever ago now. But I think after Mum died, parts of Dad went with her – especially his romantic side. That’s why, when he said he wanted to get back out there, I was happy to help.
I didn’t see it working out – I definitely didn’t imagine him meeting someone as lovely as your mum. ’
She smiles.
‘I do really like your mum,’ I say, making sure she knows that. ‘And I think she’s perfect for my dad.’
‘I think your dad is great for my mum too,’ she replies. ‘I trust him, I trust he won’t hurt her.’
I can’t help but laugh.
‘Isn’t it weird how we’re sort of like their parents?’ I point out. ‘Taking care of them, vetting their dates, micromanaging their love lives…’
‘Well, when you put it like that, yeah,’ she replies.
‘But I do think the loss, the grief, it makes them vulnerable again, in a way they haven’t been since they were kids.
My mum was so strong for me, while I was growing up, so as soon as I was old enough to take some of that weight from her, I was happy to do it – and she was happy to let me. ’
‘She’s lucky to have you,’ I point out. ‘And for you to let her move in…’
She bats her hand.
‘Anyone would have done the same,’ she insists.
‘They wouldn’t – that’s the point.’
We fall silent for a second.
‘Blurgh, sorry, I feel like I really killed the mood,’ she says, trying to laugh it off. ‘Back to the plan – we get ourselves kicked off this holiday once and for all.’
‘That’s the plan,’ I confirm.
I can tell she wants to change the subject, so I’m happy to, but I don’t feel like she killed the mood at all. To be honest with you, it was nice to talk to someone who gets it.
‘So, if they both hate noise – do you know any good clubs here?’
I smile.
‘I do – really, really noisy ones,’ I confirm.
‘Perrrrfect,’ she says, rubbing her hands together like the world’s most adorable supervillain.
‘You’re enjoying this far too much,’ I tease.
‘Funny,’ she replies. ‘I was thinking the same thing about you.’
I am – it’s been ages since I had this much fun. I thought this holiday was going to be a dud, when I realised Sammie and Chrissy were here but, I don’t know, all this scheming, it’s kind of exciting.
She exhales, long and smooth, in a way that is relaxing to hear.
‘Well, I’d better try to get some sleep, if we’ve got a big, noisy day tomorrow…’
‘Me too,’ I say with a laugh.
‘Night, Nico.’
‘Night, Sammie.’
Our arms knock together lightly as she makes herself more comfortable.
I stare up at the ceiling for a while, forcing my brain firmly into neutral territory.
I will not have sex dreams about Sammie tonight, I will not have sex dreams about Sammie tonight.
If I repeat it enough, then try to think about other things, maybe that will do the trick.
I can’t have sexy dreams about her, not because I don’t want to – that’s not the problem – but because I do.