CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
October
‘That’s what I like about him,’ I tell Scarlet as we dissect each other’s news over a Thai takeaway and a bottle of cheap red. I’ve missed glugging cheap wine rather than delicately sipping the expensive stuff with Josh. ‘He’s so easy to be with. Everything about Josh is so … nice. When I tentatively told him I was making plans to go home, he said he’d miss me. I reminded him that it was always part of the plan that I’d only be there for a short while. He looked sad and just said, “Oh, OK”.’
It does make me wonder if I’d outstayed my welcome a bit, though, and Josh was too polite to say so. It can’t be easy sharing your precious space with someone in the long term. I ponder that while Scarlet tops up my glass.
‘Were you having sex regularly?’ she asks, and I blink a bit at that.
‘Yes.’
‘Then, trust me, he was fine with you being there.’
I laugh.
‘When are you seeing him next?’
‘We’ve been in each other’s pockets, so I’m going to give him a few weeks to miss me,’ I tell her. ‘We might not see each other again until I’m back from New York!’
‘Winter in New York,’ Scarlet whoops. ‘You lucky thing.’
‘I know,’ I squeal. ‘I feel lucky. I still feel as if it’s not real. Although I’ll be stuck in an office every day, learning the ropes before they cast me loose back here, which means I’m not sure how much of New York I’m going to see. But just getting on a plane and going somewhere new, meeting new people and earning money while doing it is unbelievably exciting.’
‘I’ll cheers to that,’ Scarlet says and we clink glasses, before she excitedly tells me she’s booked our spa-day treatments already as they were having a sale, so we get two hours of treatments for the price of one.
‘I’m looking forward to the Edinburgh trip, now I’ve got the job,’ I reply. ‘I might be able to pay you back some rent, my train ticket and half the room rate by then.
‘Let’s not go wild,’ she deadpans.