Chapter Fifty
‘I always forget how tall you are,’ Sam says when he gets out of the lift and enters my flat.
‘Er, thanks?’ I laugh and pull him in for a kiss. We’ve been doing this for about eight months now and it never stops feeling strange.
‘I’m so jet-lagged,’ he says as he kisses me as if he’s not seen me in a few weeks. Which he hasn’t. ‘What I mean is: hi, how are you?’
‘I’m fine. More than fine.’
‘I missed you,’ he says.
‘I missed you too,’ I tell him.
Because we see each other so infrequently, it always feels fresh and new every single time.
We’ve been to so many restaurants – as long as they have a private dining room, as Sam’s really weird about eating in public – seen so many movies together on a projector that he bought me for my flat and he’s shared so many roast dinners, courtesy of my mum’s cooking.
It’s like one never-ending honeymoon period.
The sex is good too. The kind of sex you have with someone you really fancy, but are starved from seeing for weeks on end.
Perhaps all relationships should be like this.
Perhaps we should hardly see the people we date and then it stays fresh, new and easy for ever.
While I’ve been waiting for Sam to show up today I’ve been playing the inevitable game of compare-and-contrast – thinking back to how Ben and I slept together, built trust, built love, and then we didn’t sleep together again until he’d made me fall in love with him.
That was Ben’s goal. And it worked. Whereas Sam and I are just going with the flow, the L-word not mentioned at all.
Not even once. Sam and I dating like this has been an unexpected outcome of sleeping together in LA.
What is also unexpected is that the next evening when we walk through the door of the restaurant, Ollie is at Liv’s party.
I know they’re friends again, but I didn’t know they were ‘cosy, intimate-dinner birthday-party friends’.
Liv didn’t say. And I didn’t ask, I suppose.
And Ollie’s here, across the other side of the room, holding a glass of champagne and dressed very nicely in a navy suit and even a tie.
He’s the only one wearing a tie. He looks very lovely.
‘Hmm,’ I say out loud, without realising it, as I take in Ollie’s presence.
‘Hmm, what?’ Sam mutters as he adjusts his watch. He’s wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans and, despite the fact it isn’t that sort of dinner, he’s making this effortless get-up look full of effort. It’s quite an art.
‘Someone’s here who I wasn’t expecting to see,’ I explain.
Going to a restaurant with Sam Charlton is a total nightmare.
When he agreed enthusiastically to come along and enjoy what he described as a ‘normal night out’, finally meeting one of my friends, I had to abide by his usual list of demands, which aren’t unreasonable, given how recognisable Sam’s becoming since he started presenting a new entertainment TV show.
We didn’t grab a taxi. Instead a private car picked both of us up and delivered us to the back entrance of the restaurant.
But prior to that, Liv had to move her party to a different restaurant entirely, because the one she’d chosen didn’t have a private dining room.
While Sam doesn’t mind being spotted drinking in a bar in the wild, he doesn’t like eating in public.
I’m getting used to all of this, but switching restaurants for someone else’s birthday felt a little off.
But when I tentatively asked Liv if it was OK to change restaurants so that Sam could come, she was over the moon. And now we’re here and Liv bounces over, eyes wide and lashes flickering excitedly at Sam’s presence. Heads begin to turn.
‘Thank you so much for coming. I’m so excited you’re here,’ she tells Sam, without introducing herself. ‘I’m such a fan. Such a fan.’
‘This is Liv,’ I say as my friend completely ignores me.
‘Hi, Liv, it’s lovely to meet you. Happy birthday. Thanks for having me,’ Sam replies, oozing charm.
‘I’m so excited you’re here,’ Liv blurts again.
‘Hi, Liv,’ I say pointedly, ‘happy birthday.’
We give each other a tight hug and I hand over her present, a Breitling watch that Sam helped me choose.
I instruct Liv not to open it in front of other guests, because it’s ostentatious, but I know she’ll secretly love wearing it.
I’m lucky I can afford it, but I know not everyone can.
Sam didn’t bat an eyelid at the amount I put on my Amex.
That kind of money is a drop in the ocean to him, clearly.
I hope he realises how lucky he is to be making silly money. I realise how lucky I am.
Sam came with me to buy Liv’s gift yesterday. He booked a driver and we crawled through traffic to get to Bond Street, whereas I’d have jumped on the bus or the Tube. He was having none of that. Life in the fast lane can be insanely slow with Sam.
Liv introduces us to her other friends – work colleagues she’s close to and people from her course that I recognise but haven’t seen in years, so I’ve obviously forgotten most of their names.
Sam shakes hands with the men, who eye him with a mix of admiration and wariness.
I can tell no one wants this man near their wife or girlfriend, especially when Sam kisses the girls – who can’t get enough of him – on the cheek.
Ollie shakes his hand stiffly, mumbles a hello and moves off so that others can swarm around Sam. I can’t work out if Sam’s enjoying the attention or if he’s hating it. But he knew there would be about twenty people here tonight, as he made me ask Liv what he should expect from the evening.
Liv instructs us to take our seats and there are name-place cards to show where we’re sitting in this elegant space.
High chandeliers and huge gold baroque-looking candlesticks adorn the space.
The menu is French as Liv couldn’t find an Italian place with a private dining room at such short notice, and I feel for her having to coordinate a fresh venue at the last minute.
This is probably not even remotely the menu she wanted, but she said it didn’t matter because ‘It’s not a special birthday. Not thirty. Not yet.’
Thirty! God, I can’t even comprehend how we’re all turning thirty in a couple of years. I feel like five minutes ago I was eighteen years old and falling down the stairs on that first day at uni. Falling with Ollie, being caught by Ollie. Meeting Ben. All of it.
The door opens and Ben enters, late as usual, and I notice he’s alone.
He gives Liv the biggest hug, accompanied by the largest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen.
The entire bunch is white and is littered with huge hydrangeas.
Ben is ridiculously smooth sometimes. Liv’s positioned him next to a woman who I think is also flying solo, and Ben looks overjoyed to see that Liv’s mate is a tall, attractive blonde.
He introduces himself, glancing around briefly as we settle in with small talk, acknowledging me and giving me big, wide, excited eyes as he jolts his head twice to indicate that he’s just spotted Sam, who is now busy talking to Liv on his right.
I give Ben a brief wide-eyed glare that says, Don’t say anything silly.
Ben retracts his neck a bit and returns the look with his own frown: As if I would.
I’m too wrapped up in my silent communications back and forth with Ben to notice Ollie sitting down next to me on my other side, until he says a simple ‘Hi’. He looks at his champagne glass rather than at me.
‘Hi,’ I reply slowly and turn my attention to him, although he won’t look at me.
The strange feeling hasn’t gone away on seeing Ollie.
Instead it’s intensified. Anger that he hung up on me; hurt that he ignored me for so long the first time and has done so again; and confusion as to what is going on, to have made us so uncommunicative with each other when we used to be best friends.
‘Fine,’ I say in a huff when he still won’t look at me or say anything else.
Ollie sighs his own huff of frustration, but we’re saved by a waiter taking drinks orders. I order a gin and tonic and glance over at Ben, wondering if he’s going to be OK among so many people drinking. I can’t see what he’s ordering from over here.
I notice Ollie watching Ben, though.
‘Ben told me he’s quit,’ I say, because I need to say something and we can’t sit in silence all night.
‘He has,’ Ollie confirms. ‘He’s doing well.’
‘Great,’ I reply stiffly. Silence. Oh, this is odd. To my right Sam’s in full conversation with Liv and I’m pleased they’re getting on so well. I probably didn’t need to buy her the watch. I could have got away with bringing Sam as her present.
‘How have you been?’ Ollie asks.
I give him my full attention again and he turns to look at me properly.
He’s so close; his dark eyes look tired and I notice he’s got two little lines at the side of his eyes that weren’t there when I last saw him.
We’re ageing. Slowly but surely. Or maybe Ollie is.
His days are hard. Mine are not. Or maybe he smiles so much that he’s forced laughter lines into the creases of his eyes. Maybe I don’t smile enough.
He’s not smiling now, though. He doesn’t smile around me.
He just looks intense. What was Liv talking about: worrying about how he looks at me?
Almost every chat we’ve ever had has been Ollie trying to offer me advice about something.
Often it was advice I didn’t want to take on board, but I always needed to hear it all the same.
He looks at me seriously now, as if I’m an inconvenience.
He has always looked at me like that, I think.
‘How have I been?’ I repeat incredulously. ‘Are you joking? You’d know, if you’d talk to me.’
He swallows. ‘I’m talking to you now,’ he says quietly.
‘Whatever,’ I reply, like a teenager with an attitude problem.
‘OK,’ he answers.
‘It’s not OK,’ I say quietly. I don’t want anyone else to hear what is about to be an awkward conversation, so I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve missed you,’ I say, because I can’t lie to him.
‘Have you?’ he whispers back.
‘Yes.’
We’re turned towards each other. The woman he’s with is talking to the person on her other side, and I don’t think Liv’s going to let Sam talk to anyone else all night, although directly opposite them people are straining to catch his every word. No one’s paying attention to us.
‘I’ve missed you too,’ Ollie says. Something flickers between us as his eyes read mine.
‘Aurora?’ Sam asks.
I turn. ‘Yep?’
‘The advert is due to start broadcasting next week, I was just telling Liv. In a few days’ time you’ll be on TV screens everywhere.’
‘You’re already everywhere,’ Ollie says to himself and then picks up his drink, downs it in one and rests his hand on his leg, which is jiggling up and down.
‘No, I’m not.’
‘I feel as if you are. I can’t move around London without seeing you on posters.’ He says this as if it’s agonising.
‘Sorry,’ I apologise, although I’m not sure why. The moment is broken.
Ollie does indeed look agonised. I put my hand on his, instinctively, because the jittering is driving me nuts.
His hand is warm and he needs some lotion on it – I assume because he spends all day in a hospital using sanitiser or washing his hands.
At my touch, his leg stills and it’s as if it’s solely us in this room, it’s as if it’s only ever been just us.
Slowly he lifts his fingers and interlaces them through mine.
Neither of us speaks and I look down at our hands connected together.
He breathes in slowly, then breathes out equally slowly, whereas I’m not breathing at all. My lips part as if I’m going to say something, but I don’t know what to say, what to do. And then Ollie moves first, away from me, unlocking his fingers from mine and reaching for his glass, which is empty.
Further down the table, Ben lifts his water glass and taps it with his knife, making a sonorous noise that draws our attention. Then he makes a toast to Liv, which I barely hear. But I say, ‘Happy Birthday, Liv’ in unison with everyone else, drink champagne and wait for this night to be over.