CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“Well, that’s a treat, isn’t it? Rather boring if we knew everything about each other already.” I hear him shift, but there’s silence again a moment later. I imagine him reaching out to touch me but resisting. “You’re my advent calendar with thousands of lovely little doors.”
The door to the lift scrolls shut. I still haven’t moved.
Rain pummels the skylights overhead. Sniffling, I look down at my feet. “I bought these boots at Costco.”
Jake clears his throat. Hesitantly, he says, “OK. I don’t know what that—”
“Yes you do, Jake.” Slowly, I turn to face him.
He tips my chin up with a knuckle, smoothing away tears with his thumb. He stares at me for a long time.
“Your reality and mine aren’t compatible.”
He chuckles. “Christ, you’re litigious.”
I shoot him a fragile half-smile. “Is that your professional opinion?”
Jake’s eyes go wide. His laugh is abrupt and loud, echoing off the high ceiling. “I think you missed your calling, Miss McClane. You could argue the wheels off a bloody bike.” His tone is playful, but underlying frustration gives it an edge.
“Fine, then. Tell me something real. What’s the deal with the bed out here?” I say.
“I like the view.” Jake sends a rueful glance towards the windows. Rain still falls in a solid sheet. Zero visibility. “Usually.”
My answering laugh is small, but it’s something. “I sort of figured you were loaded when you picked me up in an Aston Martin for a date at your friend’s private man-cave museum mansion, Jake. But this is unreal.”
I meant it to be tongue-in-cheek, but he actually looks embarrassed. Quietly, he says, “There’s more to me than a fancy car and who my friends are.”
Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed. “Fair.”
He stares at me for what feels like minutes. At one point, he even opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he closes it again before he does. Then, with a determined nod, he says, “Right. Let’s get out of here. We’re going out to do something real.”
* * *
We brave the rain again so Jake can take me to a spot he calls a “chippy.” I smell the place well before I see it.
Hot oil, frying potatoes, succulent battered fish.
As we get closer, I catch the tang of salt and malt vinegar, too.
A long strip of illuminated signage comes into view, reflecting across the wet pavement like afternoon sunshine on a stream.
Jake takes the umbrella and ushers me inside, getting drenched while he shakes off as much water as he can before following me in.
It’s not glamorous, but it’s tidy and bustling, with a brightly lit interior and tiled walls.
It reminds me of a no-frills Manhattan greasy spoon.
We wait twenty minutes for a table. By the time we’re seated, I’m shivering.
My jeans are soaked to my knees from the slanting rain and splash-up from the pavement.
Jake is even wetter than I am, but if he’s cold, he doesn’t show it.
As much as I love an icy draft beer to complement the richness of fried fish, the weather calls for hot tea instead.
Chamomile for me, English Breakfast for Jake.
The steam from the tea lifts and curls in the air in front of my face, and I greedily breathe it in.
Thankfully, our food comes fast. For me, cod and chips—the fat kind with a crisp crust on the outside and soft potato perfection inside.
For Jake, massive fried prawns, chips, a few bowls of different sauces, and something that looks like pureed baby food.
“What’s the green stuff?”
Jake laughs. “Mushy peas. Try them.”
“I can’t think of a thing I’d rather do less.”
Jake gets a bit of the pea purée on the end of his fork and extends it across the table. “Trust me.”
Reluctantly, I accept the bite. And it’s delicious.
“OK, I stand corrected. That might be the best-tasting thing with the worst name.”
“Just wait until you try spotted dick.”
“Spotted what, now?”
We laugh.
I learn that Jake’s only real food aversion is mayonnaise, and he tells me he thinks the person who first invented it should be charged with a hate crime.
He likes pineapple on pizza, but only if it’s fresh, not from a can.
Jake offers me a prawn, and I decline. I tell him my two main food hang-ups—eggs are almost always a no for me, and prawns are out because I hate the thought of eating a creature’s entire body.
He thinks this is hilarious and laughs so hard he almost chokes on the bite of prawn he has in his mouth. “See?” I say. “They’ll getcha.”
“But you ate oysters at Borough,” he says, tapping his chest with his fist.
“Thanks for the reminder, I hate myself now,” I laugh. Around a mouthful of fried potato, I say, “I’m calling this chiplarking.”
“I like it.” He’s hoarse from coughing. “Add it to the Evie-Jake lexicon.”
“Oh, we have an Evie-Jake lexicon?” I say, arching an eyebrow.
“Don’t all good relationships?”
“But this isn’t a relationship. It has to be … I don’t know. Limerence.”
“Limerence is only when it’s one-sided. I don’t think that’s the case between us.”
I laugh. “How do you know the definition of limerence?”
“Why would you use a word you weren’t sure I knew the definition of? Are you gatekeeping mental health literacy, love?” He sips his tea. “I go to therapy too, you know.”
It might be the sexiest thing he’s said to me since we met.
“Fine.” I pop a chip in my mouth and mumble, “A temporary crush.”
“Right, then. I’ll play along. Tell me, clever clogs, how does one test whether something is temporary, or lasting?” When I take a sip of tea instead of responding, he says, “I’ll wait.”
“God, you are so insufferable when you say that.”
Jake slaps two fingers against the face of his wristwatch.
“Time, Evie. It’s time. The only way you can know if something lasts is by giving it time.
Calling something temporary without giving it time is like …
” He waves his hand around in front of him.
“Like making a batch of banana bread batter, pouring it into the loaf tin, and then walking away from it on the worktop, saying, ‘Well, bugger it, I guess we’re not eating banana bread tonight.’”
I reach across the table with my fork to steal another bite of his mushy peas. “Nice work bringing banana bread into a completely unrelated conversation.”
“See? Evie-Jake lexicon.”
I stare down at my plate. “We don’t have time for time, Jake. I’m leaving in ten days.”
He sets his fork on the edge of his plate. “Sorry—are you going to the moon, or New York City?”
I shoot him a bored glare. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually. There are these contraptions called planes—”
I chuckle. “You’re an ass.”
“—and video calls, and texts—”
“OK, OK. Stop.” I try to look stern, but my chin wobbles and tears well. “Point taken.”
“All I’m saying is—” Jake reaches across the table to take my hand, smoothing his thumb over my knuckles. “I don’t think we need to decide where this is going right now. We can simply enjoy it for what it is.”
We huddle under the umbrella on the walk back to Jake’s.
He’s got an arm around me, tucked under my coat with a thumb through the belt loop of my jeans to keep me close.
Through every storefront and pub door that opens and closes, warm air smelling of pine candles and gingerbread and the smoky char of roasts and winter veggies wafts over us, mingling with the crystalline cold of the rain.
An older man bumps our umbrella with his as we pass in opposite directions, saying, “Terribly sorry, loves. Happy Christmas!” The response is so different than anything I’ve ever experienced in New York, I instantly soften.
This is a river of merriment and goodwill, and I’m caught in its current.
My hinges have been rusted closed for so long, they ache now that they’re trying to open. But I can’t deny it. I’m falling in love with London.
I might even be falling in love with Christmas.
And I think, most worrying of all—I think I’m falling in love with Jake Frost.