Chapter 6 #2
Just as I’m about to admit defeat and get up, Elliot suddenly leans towards my body.
Elliot and I are not huggers. We’re not high-fivers, or back-slappers.
We don’t touch. It’s one of our silent rules, a bedrock of our friendship that’s never been spoken of but agreed in action since we spent the night together, as if we’re both scared that physical contact will send us right back to too many glasses of wine in a candlelit pub.
At first, I stay still, mild panic at the situation flaring in my mind, but I figure he must be grateful about being set up with Teddy.
Given that setting him up with someone is so far out of the bounds of our usual friendship, he must have decided he might as well keep going with the things we never do by giving me this hug to say thanks.
Tentatively, I put my arms around his broad back, feeling the muscles under his shirt even with the lightest of touches.
I breathe in and smell the aftershave he wears every day but something else too, something clean and masculine that’s maybe shower gel or deodorant.
The top of my head rests just under his chin.
I remember this feeling. I remember lying in bed next to him thinking how well our bodies fit together.
We haven’t been this physically close in over a year, not since that night, and I’m shocked at how familiar touching him feels. What am I playing at?
It takes a second or two before my senses die down and it hits me that he’s not, in fact, hugging me back.
‘Erm, Lizzie, I was just reaching for my laptop.’
Shit.
I drop my hands, and he pulls back. He reaches over my lap to get his computer from the seat next to me while I stay frozen, my face on fire. As he’s straightening up, he looks at me, and I can tell from his wide eyes and pink flush he’s just as embarrassed as I am.
‘Sorry, I thought—’ I start.
‘Don’t worry,’ he interrupts. ‘I was just … laptop.’
‘Yeah.’
He sits back in his seat but doesn’t move, and there are a painful few seconds where we’re side by side in silence. It’s so excruciating, I scramble around for anything to get us past this, before settling on the best option: to pretend it never happened.
‘Thanks again for going out with Teddy. You’re the best, Elliot, and this is going to be so much fun,’ I say, my voice all over-enthusiastic and squeaky.
‘Yeah. It will be,’ he says. ‘I’m late, I should—’
‘Yeah, sure, course. See you later.’
He rushes out the staffroom, and once the door has shut behind him, I take a furtive look around the room to see which of my esteemed colleagues might have witnessed our exchange.
Sitting at a desk in the corner, I spot Eloise giving me a death stare.
I hurry past her and scuttle back to my classroom, where thirty children will only be judging me on how boring I am teaching figurative language for the next hour. I know which I prefer.
The best thing about Tuesdays is what comes after school: my weekly cocktail catch-up with Teddy and Karina in The Drawing Room, a tiny bar in West Didsbury that’s a short walk for me and a shared Uber for Teddy and Karina.
We try to stick to it religiously, and over the years, we’ve all come to look forward to a few hours sitting together over drinks more than big nights out in clubs or loud pubs where there might be lots of fit men, but we can’t hear a word each other says.
When I arrive, Karina is already sitting at our favourite table in the window, with three negronis waiting to be drunk.
‘I’m late, I know. I had reports to write, and I might have been watching Married at First Sight at the same time,’ I say, sitting down and taking my coat off.
‘It’s fine. So, are you sorted then?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say, knowing what she means. ‘I asked Elliot today.’
She sits back in her chair and studies me with her wide, heavily lined eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re OK with this?’
‘Yeah. It’s annoying that I’ve had to go for my fourth choice, and that he’s not really an ex, but this is about setting Teddy up with someone decent for a change, and Elliot fits the bill.’
‘I see that, but I mean, are you OK with Elliot going out with Teddy? I know it was kind of my suggestion, but I was only winding you up. I don’t know, when I was suggesting Elliot, well … maybe I shouldn’t have suggested Elliot.’
I laugh at this so that I don’t have to answer right away.
I can feel uncertainty still bubbling in my stomach and worry that if I speak too soon, she’ll hear it in my voice.
I take a long sip of my negroni to cover the pause, but Karina’s eyes never leave mine, so I force a swallow and say, ‘Karina, I’m glad you suggested him. It’s fine.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, you still see Elliot all the time. It’s not like me choosing Jordan for you and Teddy choosing Matthew for me. They’re both exes in the real sense, as in there’s no relationship between us anymore. It’s different for you and Elliot.’
‘It’s absolutely fine,’ I tell her again as I’ve also told Teddy and myself multiple times over the last week.
‘Elliot’s a friend, that’s all. He’s always been that apart from one pissed mistake of a night, so there’s nothing to be OK or not OK about.
Teddy will have a great time with Elliot, and that’s the main thing.
It might not last forever, and I’ve told Teddy everything I know about Elliot’s recent dating life, but I figure Teddy won’t mind all that much.
As long as she gets a break from online horror dating for a while, she’ll be pleased. ’
‘OK,’ she says, holding up her hands. ‘I mean, Teddy’s delighted.’
‘Is she?’
‘Oh my God, yeah. She thinks he’s gorgeous – like a buff Timothée Chalamet. She’s never told you that?’
It’s strange to think that Teddy’s said that to Karina, that the two of them have talked about Elliot like this without me.
Hearing it now is another reminder of how blurred I’m making the line that has separated my friendships until now.
It’s something I suppose I’ll have to get used to hearing once the dating begins. I swallow and smile at Karina.
‘No, I don’t think so. Elliot will love the comparison, though. His head won’t fit through the door if she tells him.’
‘Hmmm. Maybe she thought she shouldn’t say it to you, you know, in case you ever got together again after that night. But hey, I guess there’s no need to worry about that now.’
Karina’s face breaks into a smile. ‘You’re right, Lizzie. Teddy deserves this. I bet she’ll be made up when she comes in.’
Right on cue, the door opens, and Teddy bounds in, her hair bouncing against her shoulders as she rushes towards us.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she says, sitting down next to me and putting an arm around me. ‘I can’t believe I’m going out with Elliot on Saturday. He texted me earlier, and in, like, three messages, I knew he was going to be the best date I’ve had in ages.’
‘Yay,’ I say, smiling so hard my back teeth press together.
OK, maybe Karina might have been right. It is different for me having Elliot as part of this.
I’m sure my stomach wouldn’t be whirling so much if it was Jay she was excited about.
This definitely feels weird. I should be happy to hear this, delighted – and I will be, I know that – it’s just going to take a moment to adjust.
‘He’s so funny, isn’t he? He was calling you the puppet master bringing us together, and then he sent a gif of Kermit the Frog with the message latest pic of me in case you forgot what I look like underneath.’
She waits for a reaction but being met only with mine and Karina’s blank faces, continues. ‘You know, because Kermit is in The Muppets, and The Muppets are puppets.’
‘Good one,’ I say, deadpan, putting my thumbs up, but I can’t help smiling at how animated she is, how Elliot’s crappy jokes have brought out this lighter side in Teddy that most men she dates fail to find.
It’s what tells me that I was right to do this, despite how strange it might feel at the start.
Teddy rolls her eyes, like it’s a great shame Elliot’s sophisticated humour is lost on mere mortals like me and Karina before her wide smile lights up her face again. ‘I really owe you for this,’ she says.
‘You’re very welcome,’ I tell her.
And with that, I pick up my negroni and neck it in two sips.