Chapter Twenty-Five #2
How did I end up here? thought Lucy, looking out the window as the south Bristol suburbs flew by.
By coincidence and happenstance, as it turned out – Kristoff had been signed up to the same dating site as Lucy, and had spotted her profile and sent a friendly message to say hello and What are the chances?
Nothing more than that, but it had instigated a friendship where occasionally he’d send a photo of whatever glamorous setting he was currently enjoying a glass of wine in.
Then Lucy had responded by messaging him reports on her dates, which were largely disastrous and seemed to make him laugh.
After a few weeks of increasingly depressing encounters with men whose egos far outweighed their ability to communicate with a woman, the post-match WhatsApp exchange with Kristoff became the thing she looked forward to more than the date.
In late March it was announced that Lucy was leaving the Titan team to head up Shine, and Kristoff invited her for dinner in London as a farewell.
They both knew it was anything but, and it turned out to be one of those heady evenings of eating and drinking and laughing in the corner of a cosy bistro that she hoped would never end.
He’d kissed her on the doorstep of her hotel like a romantic hero, then left her wanting more, just as she’d known he would.
The following day a plant had been delivered to her new desk at LUNA’s London office in a wooden box – a tiny succulent with a single heart-shaped leaf.
The note read, I could have sent flowers, but I thought you might like something that sticks around for a while.
Free this weekend? She’d sent him a message saying yes, and on the Friday he’d picked her up from Bristol in a silver Aston Martin and taken her to a beautiful boutique hotel in the Cotswolds.
It was, without exception, one of the most special weekends of Lucy’s life.
Apart from . . . the other one, which she tried not to think about more than fifteen times a day.
Lucy told Sasha about Kristoff a week or two later, and she’d taken it well – but then Sasha was hardly in a position to lecture Lucy about inappropriate workplace relationships, so that was no surprise.
There’d been some grumbling from the Exec about conflict of interest, professional integrity, blah blah blah, but they also knew that Titan would drop LUNA in a heartbeat if they punished Lucy for dating their CEO.
So they agreed that everyone would pretend it wasn’t happening, which suited Lucy just fine.
She caught some looks and whispers in corridors occasionally, but that was nothing new either.
‘You OK, babe?’ asked Kristoff, unplugging his AirPods and twisting round in his seat so he could take her hand.
‘Yeah, I’m good,’ said Lucy with a smile.
In truth, the conversation with Jonno was still playing on her mind.
She’d been brushing how she felt about Kristoff under the rug for weeks, which was easy to do when you were being whisked off to a house on the banks of Lake Como for your birthday weekend.
Obviously it had made her think about her other birthday weekend, back in January, but for the most part she’d been able to file that under ancient history and have a wonderful time.
So what’s your problem? Lucy asked herself, as Kristoff casually kissed the back of her hand, prompting Jonno to duck down behind the seat and mime being sick.
There was no denying that, on paper at least, Kristoff was a dream boyfriend – attentive and handsome and emotionally intelligent.
He took her to beautiful places, but was also happy to hang out in her flat in Bristol and eat M her mother was already dropping wedding hints even though they’d only been seeing each other for three months.
I don’t love him, thought Lucy. I love his company and I’m having a great time, but it’s a superficial connection.
I’m living in the moment, but this relationship doesn’t have a future.
I don’t long for him when he’s not around, I don’t want to live with him, and I don’t want to grow old with him. And I think he feels the same way.
‘Hey, J-Dog, can you join this call too?’ said Kristoff. Jonno tried to look enthusiastic about working on a Saturday, pulling out his phone and plugging in his headphones so he could dial in.
‘How are you?’ whispered Sasha stiffly.
‘I’m good,’ said Lucy. ‘Looking forward to today.’
‘Are you planning to watch Nate?’ It was a perfectly normal question to ask one of his former colleagues, but Lucy glanced at Kristoff and Jonno anyway. Both were absorbed in their call and paying them no attention.
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Lucy. ‘How is he?’
‘Fine, I think,’ said Sasha, then paused for a moment. ‘I haven’t seen him in a while.’
Lucy looked up at her, blood suddenly pulsing through her veins. ‘I thought he was living with you?’ She barely mouthed the last few words, just in case Jonno had one ear tuned in.
‘No,’ said Sasha breezily. ‘He moved out a while ago. He’s got his own place in London now.’
Shit, thought Lucy. Have Nate and Sasha split up? How do I ask that without . . . asking that? ‘Is . . . everything OK? Between the two of you?’ she whispered, like she was a concerned friend.
‘Of course,’ said Sasha briskly, brushing non-existent dirt off her white jeans. ‘We still talk all the time. It was just time for him to move on.’
‘Right,’ said Lucy, her brain going at a hundred miles an hour. Kristoff reached out to take her hand again, like he could sense that she’d mentally just bolted into someone else’s arms. The car stopped at some traffic lights, then took the right-hand turning towards Backwell.
‘Where are we going?’ said Lucy, leaning forward to talk to Andy. ‘This isn’t the way to Glastonbury. You need the Wells road.’
‘It’s the way to Urchinwood Manor,’ said Andy, not taking his eyes off the road.
‘What’s at Urchinwood Manor?’ asked Lucy, thoroughly confused.
‘A helicopter,’ said Andy, like this was the most normal thing in the world.
Lucy sighed and flumped back into her seat, revisiting her assessment of Kristoff not being into grand, overblown gestures.
Oh God, this isn’t me, she thought, wishing she could get out of the car and thumb a lift with a camper van full of normal people.
She’d been to Glastonbury once before – in 2007, when she and Leo were seventeen.
Arctic Monkeys headlined, it poured with rain, and they’d dragged their trolley of cider through a river of mud.
Lucy’s main memories of that year were her and Leo drinking themselves stupid in the Dance Village, and both trying Ecstasy for the first time.
It was also the last time for Lucy, but for Leo it was just the beginning of his relationship with a new type of mood-altering chemicals.
They’d come home exhausted and filthy and euphorically happy, having made a sibling vow to go every year for the rest of their lives.
But by 2008, Lucy was getting ready for uni and Leo’s life was taking a different path, and she’d never been back.
I’m in a chauffeur-driven Range Rover, about to get into a sodding helicopter, thought Lucy.
In the last few years of his life, Leo had been a regular on anti-capitalist marches, raging against economic inequality and the ravages of climate change.
The clouds broke and the sun came out just as they turned off the road signposted for Urchinwood Manor, a shaft of sunlight pointing at Kristoff’s car like an accusatory finger.
I’m sorry, whispered Lucy to Leo, acknowledging that this wasn’t quite the scale of life-change she’d imagined back in February.