Page 51 of One Night With You

Dammit.

There’s a beat where neither of us seems to know what to say after that. She’s clearly side-tracked, and it makes my stomach drop. I should probably wish her a good day and get to Boots, if she wants to be alone. I get the feeling she does. It’s just, less than twelve hours ago her tongue was in my mouth and my hand was pulling at her knickers. There’s a bit of a yin-and-yang going on here. A bit of oh-this-is-awkward-in-the-cold-light-of-day.

‘Why are you here, anyway?’ she says, coming back to herself. I’m relieved she’s making the effort to keep me talking. We’re both hungover, but I don’t care. This is a bonus bump-into. I don’t want to waste it.

‘Family party,’ I say. ‘Mum and Dad – my stepdad, really, but he’s always been Dad to us – are celebrating twenty-five years together. Ollie should be around here somewhere, but knowing him he’s in a ditch somewhere. Hey – did he hook up with Candice?’

‘If he did, he doesn’t take up much room in bed. I slept top-to-toe with her last night.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s good, then. Be weird if there was some sort of foursome happening. You and me, him and Candice.’ She screws up her face in a way I cannot decode so I change the subject. ‘Hey – I’ve got a rail replacement route because of works on the line. You’re not on the 10.03 by any chance, are you?’

‘Actually,’ she says, glancing up at the departure board. ‘Yeah. I am! Oh, that’s so strange. What are the odds?’

‘That should be the tagline of our whole relationship,’ I quip, immediately regretting sayingour relationship.I know we don’t have one of those. I just mean, her and me. Me and her. We’re not anus, but after last night we’re undoubtedly a something, even if that something is just a couple of hornybastards who snog whenever they happen to be in the same place as each other.

‘Calm down.’ She giggles. ‘Last night was … nice.’

‘A gentleman never kisses and gloats,’ I say, grinning. How do we get sointo itevery time? It makes me chuckle to think of how daunted I was by her that first day. All of that has gone, now. As soon as we chat again, all my doubts evaporate. She’s soawesome.

Ruby pulls a face and I laugh.

‘Are you boarding now?’

‘I was just going to grab some snacks, first,’ I say. I look at my watch. ‘Except … Oh, I probably don’t have time. Dammit. I’m starving.’

She opens the paper M&S bag she’s carrying.

‘Lucky for you,’ she says, ‘I have more than enough to share. Check this out.’

Her bag is loaded with sandwiches, sweets, drinks, and …

‘Are those eyedrops?’ I say, almost excruciatingly enthusiastic.

She raises her eyebrows. ‘Yeah …’

‘Ohmygosh I could kiss you,’ I say. ‘My eyes feel like sandpaper!’

She takes a step back from me and pulls a face again. ‘Please don’t kiss me,’ she says. ‘I’m not even sure I’ve brushed my teeth. I’m mortified you’re seeing me like this, truth be told.’

I laugh again, and it’s everything I’ve got in me not to sling my arm over her shoulder and call hermineas we head to find our carriage.

‘You’re beautiful to me,’ I say, and she makes a gagging sound even though she’s smiling.

She’s got the snacks, the eyedrops, some headache pillsandthe Sunday papers – although, as we settle them out on the table between us, I can’t help but hope we don’t read in silence and get to talk instead. But then her phone rings and after texting Ollie to check he is, indeed, alive, I pick one up as she takes the call from her mum, so I don’t simply sit and stare at her – as much as I want to. (That face! I just want to look at that face!)

‘That movie is really good,’ she says, hanging up and seeing that I’m reading the culture section. ‘It’s a hard recommend from me.’

‘This critic says it misses the mark, and far more experienced screenwriters have addressed the same issues with more nuance and aplomb.’

‘What!’ she exclaims. ‘Can I see?’

I hand over the paper and feel vindicated that whilst I couldn’t openly stare before, it feels appropriate to now. Her face crumples and expands as she reads the review, and by the end she’s shaking her head and says, ‘What an idiot. He’s only been so harsh because she’s a woman, and because it’s already been nominated for an Academy Award. Why do middle-aged blokes have to hold young women starting out to a higher standard than they do their own peers? It drives me absolutely potty!’

‘Fear and worry,’ I say. ‘Nobody likes to think they might be irrelevant. Especially not the demographic of society that has been told the world revolves around them their whole lives.’

Ruby blinks slowly and looks at me like I’m a dog that just started explaining the theory of relativity.

‘Well, that’s astute,’ she says.

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