24
I WAKE UP in his bed, and he’s still asleep. I get up, pee and brush my teeth with my finger and his toothpaste. I spray on a bit of his deodorant. I use his hairbrush to brush my hair, and then pull my telltale long strands out of it. I use moisturiser on a tissue to remove last night’s smeared eyeliner. I look okay. Still jet-lagged. But cute enough. I snoop through his bathroom cabinet and drawers a little. Just light snooping. Nothing creepy. He has a lot of skin-care products, which makes sense for his job. He needs to look after his skin.
He’s still asleep when I crawl back into bed. I check my phone. Hayley has sent me three messages this morning.
Wake up!
I need the gossip!
You are not ditching me on my first non-conference day!! We have a plan!
That’s a lot of exclamation marks. I did briefly consider staying in Mac’s bed all day. Last night, I thought, I’ll get Hayley to send my things over in an Uber and I won’t leave this apartment until I fly home. In the light of day, the reality of being in New York with only a few days left and a lot to see hits me. I’m not lying in bed all day.
I write back to Hayley, telling her I’ll meet her at the diner in half an hour.
I’m already here! Please tell me you aren’t still in bed.
I nudge Mac.
‘Morning,’ I say.
‘Mmmmmm,’ he murmurs.
‘Not a morning person?’
‘No,’ he mumbles.
‘Well I have to go and meet Hayley.’
He opens an eye.
‘You have plans without me?’
‘I did consider staying in your bed all day.’
‘Yes. Yes. Let’s do that,’ he says, pulling me down on top of him.
‘Hayley is waiting for me,’ I say. I am already sinking back into him, physically into him, but also into a Mac bubble of sex and movies and delicious snacks and warm bed.
But I slide out of his arms and into yesterday’s clothes. I turn and see him watching me with a look on his face that makes me want to forget everything and kiss him.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘This is my looking-at-Anna face, sorry.’
‘I’ve got to go. Hayley is at that Sarabeth’s diner place waiting for me.’
He sits up. ‘I’ll come too, to make sure you get there safely. Have breakfast with you.’
‘I would love that but I’m leaving right now.’
‘Give me ten minutes.’
‘I can give you two minutes.’
‘Five.’
‘You’re wasting a whole minute on this argument,’ I say, but he’s already out of bed and in the bathroom.
‘There’s no time for a shower, I didn’t shower,’ I shout when I hear the water running.
‘Come in here with me then,’ he shouts back. I am very tempted, but the thought of Hayley sitting alone, guarding a booth table for us, gives me restraint. A minute later, he’s hopping into his clothes, water droplets falling from his hair and body.
He comes up behind me and pulls me into him, kissing my neck from behind. ‘This is definitely wasting time,’ I say, turning in his arms.
‘I assigned thirty seconds of my five minutes for this,’ he says.
It’s the sex haze that makes everything he says unbearably cute—that’s what I tell myself. It’s just a chemical in my brain telling me I feel like this. I don’t really feel like this. I can’t even afford to interrogate what this is.
In the cab, I lean my head on the seat and look at him beside me in the backseat.
‘Why did you wait until now?’ I ask.
‘To what?’ he says, but I know he knows what I’m talking about.
‘To invite me to your place. To make a move.’
‘Because’—he pauses—‘it’s complicated.’
‘Oh god. You have a girlfriend, don’t you?’ I say, my stomach clenching, because in my experience ‘it’s complicated’ means ‘I’m cheating’.
‘No,’ he says, frowning.
‘Then what?’
‘Because. Because it’s messy.’
‘Messy how?’
‘You know how. Everything we said last night. We live in different countries.’
‘Right.’
‘My plan was just to have a nice dinner with you and Hayley, and have that be that. I didn’t want to like you. And I had no idea if you were interested. I thought you might be engaged to Patrick by now.’
‘Patrick and I didn’t pan out.’
‘Huh. That’s a shame.’
‘I was flirting with you that first night. And you were shutting me down.’
‘I know,’ he says.
He knows. Well, that’s embarrassing. I hoped maybe he was just oblivious. ‘But then you suggested hanging out again. So what changed?’ I ask.
‘Despite my best efforts, I really like you. I couldn’t not see you. But I—’
‘You what?’
‘I promised Luke nothing would happen between us.’
‘You, what!’ I feel like my brain just broke. He promised Luke ? ‘I don’t understand. How is Luke involved?’
‘He and I were talking about you and Hayley visiting, and he told me not to be with you.’
‘ Why would he say that?’
‘In a “don’t be gross and try to sleep with my friend” kind of way.’
‘Oh.’ Luke isn’t normally the kind of guy to be all protective and patriarchal about these things. I’m not sure how I feel about that. ‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t follow his advice.’
‘Me too.’
I take out my phone and look at my email as the cab is pulling up at the diner. There’s a reply from Marco. I quickly put my phone away. Tomorrow’s problem.
‘Tell me everything!’ Hayley practically screeches with delight when I slide into the booth. ‘Every single detail of the se…Oh. Hi Mac,’ she says, suddenly registering him behind me, lowering her voice and attempting to look calm and sensible.
He smiles at her. ‘Hi,’ he says, eyes twinkling.
‘I didn’t see you there,’ Hayley says.
‘I assumed.’
‘Mac thought he’d have breakfast with us,’ I say.
I’m not sure if Hayley will be okay with this or not. But she smiles.
‘Oh Mac, stay with us for the whole day if you want, we need a tour guide,’ she says immediately. I smile at her gratefully.
And so, we all spend the day together. Or most of the day, until Mac has to go to work. I decide I will keep some distance from Mac so Hayley doesn’t feel like she’s stuck hanging around with a loved-up couple, but that idea quickly falls away as I realise I can’t keep away from him and we sit with our legs pressed together in the booth. We’re like magnets, always finding ways to touch, at the hip, the arm, his foot touching mine under the table, his eyes always seeking me out, his hand slipping into mine. I lean back into him when we’re standing looking at art, and he wraps his arms around me. He sneaks a kiss when Hayley’s not watching. He runs his hand gently across my back.
I see Hayley noticing us, and I avoid her eyes. I think she’ll have a lot to say about it, even with just her face, and I don’t want to open any of those comments until after we’ve left. I am in the bubble. I have just a few hours left of this.
Hayley is determined to see as much as she can in one day, and so we walk from one thing to the next, from MoMA to Central Park back to Grand Central Station, with a focus bordering on manic. I want to complain that my legs are sore, but I dare not.
Then Mac has to go, and we’re faced with that goodbye moment again.
‘Come back to my place tonight, after your show,’ he says to me.
‘Okay,’ I say, as if it’s reasonable and sensible and practical to catch a cab across the city at 11 pm, and then back to my hotel early the next morning to fly home.