Chapter 3
The door jangled as we entered. The crêperie was busy, which wasn’t surprising with everything else seemingly closed. But there were a few tables free and a waitress directed us over to one.
‘Of all the things to be open,’ I said, picking up the menu, my eyes lighting up as each line seemed to add something more delicious and naughtier to the crêpes.
‘How’s your French?’ Noah squinted at the menu.
‘Good enough to order a pancake. There’s ones with Nutella.’
‘Even I could translate that one,’ he said, with a mock roll of the eyes. ‘Ooh, this one’s got rum on it, has it? Rum and potatoes?’
‘Apples,’ I corrected.
‘Right, sounds good to me.’
He closed his menu and put it down.
‘Just like that?’ I peered over my menu at him. ‘There’s all this choice and you’ve picked already.’
‘What’s the point in spending ages looking when I’ve found something that sounds great?’
I stared at him, my mouth dropping that much more.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, folding his arms and resting his elbows on the table. ‘You’re one of those people. Always looking for something better to come along. Too scared to make a decision in case it’s the wrong one.’
I put my menu down.
‘I can make a decision.’
‘Uh-huh, what are you going to have then?’
I blinked, trying to do a mental coin toss between Nutella and Chantilly cream, and bananas with chocolate. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, I changed my mind.
‘Bananas,’ I said, eventually. ‘See, decisive.’
‘Hmm,’ he nodded. ‘And to drink?’
‘Beer?’
‘Beer’s a solid choice; I’ll go for one too.’
We stumbled through ordering in our rusty French and I was pleased when our drinks arrived and they were indeed beer. It gave me a bit of hope that we were going to get the food we thought we’d ordered.
‘Cheers, to us.’ Noah raised his beer glass. ‘To our big birthday. Happy fifth?’
He raised an eyebrow and I nodded back.
‘Happy fifth birthday to you too.’ I chinked, making strong eye contact with Noah in order not to anger the gods of bad sex.
I sipped my drink, which was the best beer I’d ever tasted.
‘So, is your boyfriend on the rugby team?’
‘No, why?’ I couldn’t think of anyone less likely to play such a physical contact sport than Will.
‘Because we’re on a rugby team booze cruise?’
I blinked, trying to process the information.
‘We are?’
‘Uh-huh. Didn’t you feel like you were on the team bus on the way over?’
‘I didn’t know.’ I closed my eyes in disbelief and sighed. At this point nothing about this trip surprised me. ‘So, does that mean you and Paul are on the team?’
‘No.’ He spluttered a laugh. ‘I’m far too uncoordinated for that. Our housemate Bruce is on the team and they had a few spare tickets.’
‘Right, I guess Will got us each one of those too.’ It was all starting to slot into place. ‘Bloody Will.’
‘So let’s get this straight: you were supposed to be going to Paris and you ended up on a rugby team booze cruise? There’s a bit of a difference between the two; how did he mess that up?’
‘He didn’t exactly mess it up. I mean, he never said Paris. I just kind of assumed … ’
‘You just kind of assumed?’ His eyebrow was raised and it made me feel even more ridiculous.
‘Will was surprising me and he said I needed my passport.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘And you thought that because you needed a passport, you were going to Paris, out of all the possible places you could go.’
He started to laugh and I noticed a little dimple appearing in his left cheek. If he wasn’t so infuriating, it would almost be cute.
‘It’s actually a very logical assumption. Ashford is only a few stops on the train from Canterbury, and the Eurostar stops there on its way to Paris.’
Noah stopped laughing.
‘Actually, that is logical.’
‘I know,’ I said a little too loudly. I attracted glances from the nearby table and I pulled an apologetic face. I leaned in closer and lowered my voice. ‘That’s what Caz and Amy thought.’
I was getting used to his eyebrow raising now.
‘My housemates,’ I added. ‘They thought I should make an effort, hence the outfit. But we didn’t factor in the weather. Do you have any idea how awful wet tights are?’
‘I don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘But if it makes you feel any better, my jeans have gone cardboard-like from the rain too.’
I laughed and he smiled back.
‘So, what happened to the boyfriend then? Why isn’t he sitting here instead?’
‘He’s buying cigarettes to sell.’ I shook my head. ‘He wouldn’t even come into town to try and make it a little more special.’
‘He sounds like a great guy.’
Noah reminded me of Amy and Caz.
‘To be fair to him, he never pitched this as a big romantic day out. He just told me he’d booked something for us. It was me and the girls that got carried away with our imagination.’
Noah shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know, if it was my girlfriend’s birthday and she only got to celebrate it once every four years, I’d want to celebrate with her, do something special.
I mean, my girlfriend’s at uni in Aberystwyth so we couldn’t make it work this weekend, but we met up last weekend and celebrated then. ’
My body tensed when he mentioned his girlfriend and I couldn’t understand why. We were discussing my boyfriend after all.
‘What did you do?’
‘We spent the weekend at my parents’ house in the South Downs. Country walks, romantic meals. Normal couple stuff.’
It bristled when he said normal couple, like me and Will weren’t.
Before I could respond, the waitress put our crêpes down in front of us. They looked and smelt amazing.
‘Merci bucket, I mean, merci beaucoup,’ said Noah, cringing. The waitress tutted as she walked away. ‘We always used to say that when we were younger.’
‘Glad you said it after we got the food with the look she just gave you.’ I pulled a face.
‘I know.’ He picked up his cutlery and pointed at mine with his knife. ‘Yours looks good.’
‘Hmm, yours too.’
I didn’t want to admit that his looked and smelt even more amazing than mine. We were both silent for a while whilst we enjoyed our pancakes.
‘So how did you end up with a girlfriend in Aberystwyth?’ I asked him just as he put another fork full of crêpe into his mouth.
He had to chew as quickly as he could to answer. ‘I met her during my gap year.’
‘You took a gap year? You’re a first year?’
‘I did, and I am. You know, I think this is the longest conversation I’ve had with anyone since coming to uni where we haven’t established that in the first sentence.’
‘Along with where are you from and what are you studying,’ I said, remembering the monotony of fresher’s week.
‘The typical Blind Date questions.’
‘Please don’t talk about Blind Date; I’m still in mourning about Cilla leaving.’
‘Yeah, it won’t be the same without her.’
‘It definitely won’t. So where did you go?’
‘Where did I go where?’
‘On your gap year. Let me guess … you did the backpacker trail in Thailand.’
‘Actually, I taught primary kids in Ghana.’
‘Oh.’ I was surprised by his answer. ‘That must have been amazing.’
‘It was. It made up for the six months before that where I had to work as a temp in a fish finger factory to pay for it.’
There was something about the way he spoke that drew me in. He had such an easy-going manner that it felt like he was spinning a story.
‘And before you ask, no, I have no desire to ever eat fish fingers again.’ He shuddered. ‘But then I went to Ghana, and it blew my mind. I made great friends and the kids were brilliant. They taught me so much.’
He looked a little glassy-eyed as he told me about his year. I asked questions and he took thoughtful pauses to consider them before answering.
‘You’re making me wish I did a gap year. Beats listening to someone telling me how they bummed around Asia. There are only so many times that I can hear about ping-pong balls and Khaosan Road.’
‘Is this a bad time to mention that I did spend three weeks in Thailand at the start of my year? Before the fish finger factory. And I tell you what, I’d go back to Khaosan Road in a heartbeat. I take it you haven’t been?’
I shook my head. I hadn’t really been very many places.
‘You should go, if you get the chance. I want to go back and explore more of Asia. I want to go to Vietnam and Cambodia.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got the bug.’
‘Yeah, and luckily so has Hayley.’
‘Hayley.’ Despite knowing nothing about her, in my head she was some sort of adventurous Lara Croft type. ‘She’s the one you met in Ghana?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you think long distance is going to work?’ Now it was my turn to do one of his eyebrow raises.
‘Seems to be working so far.’
‘Three years is a long time.’
‘Oh, I see,’ he said, taking a final bite of his crêpe. ‘You’re a pessimist.’
‘I’m a realist.’
He put his knife and fork down and took a sip of his beer.
‘So am I. And I met the woman that I can imagine marrying, so why wouldn’t we try to make things work?’
‘You’re going to marry her?’
‘Well, not now, obviously. I just mean one day. I feel like I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Isn’t that what relationships are supposed to be about? I mean, what’s the point of being with someone if you don’t think you’re going to end up with them?’
I thought of Will and my heart sank.
‘I just think that we’re only twenty – ha, doesn’t that sound weird – and twenty is so young and now’s the time to be dating unsuitable people.’
‘Well, your boyfriend certainly sounds unsuitable.’
‘He’s not as bad as I made him out to be.’ There wasn’t a lot of conviction in my voice, but he didn’t know Will and perhaps I’d not painted him in the best light. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I’m sure that I’ll date loads of Wills before I settle down. If I settle down.’
I took a last mouthful of crêpe, wondering if the waitress would judge me if I ordered another one.
‘At least it’s real with him. I know what I’m getting.’ I put my cutlery on the plate. ‘It’s not just fake romance.’
‘Fake romance? What does that even mean?’