Page 29 of Love at First Sight

All of this must be written all over my face, because Cal says, ‘It’s none of my business. Sorry. I was just trying to be helpful. But to reiterate: I won’t tell her, okay?’

Before I can reply, Ali’s key sounds in the door, and a wave of relief washes over me.

‘You really do look great,’ he whispers before she walks into the kitchen, and I hate how happy that makes me feel, how much taller and prouder I stand, buoyed by his words.

11

I do not understand how it is possible to enter your own father’s engagement party and not recognise anyone, and yet that is exactly what happens when I arrive at the Soho venue Dad and Simone have hired for the occasion. The hotel is sleek and polished, with layered fabrics in lots of different prints that make me think of rich people who believe it is crass to buy furniture rather than inherit it. A man in a suit at the door enquires if I am here for the ‘Cameron-Highville celebration’, and a bolt of surprise shudders down my spine that if my father gives Simone his name, it won’t be nearly as bad as if he double-barrels it and takes her name, becoming a Cameron-Highville himself. To think he wouldn’t have the exact same surname as me makes me sad, and reinforces the notion that he is choosing Simone over me. It’s what Mum did: remarried and took a new name. It turns my stomach to think Dad could do the same.

Anyway. Everyone here is a stranger, with the exception of a man I recognise from Simone’s band. They’re all around my age, and nearly all holding coupes of champagne that staff deftly refill from yellow-labelled bottles. I linger, looking over the heads of everyone, panic buildingin my chest, and then the crowd parts as Leo walks through holding two bottles of beer and says, ‘Fuck me, you look gorgeous!’

I am so relieved to see him, so relieved that he is who he is, that I laugh, taking a beer and hugging him sideways on, so we smash cheeks and make kissing noises without our lips touching any skin.

‘This is quite the do, isn’t it?’ Leo asks, standing beside me to survey it all. ‘Not being funny but it feels like a thirtieth birthday. As in everyone is so …’

‘Young,’ I say. ‘I know.’ I don’t see Dad’s sister, my cousins, nobody we actually know. We’ve got a small family, but I assumed they’d be here. I half wonder if Simone has even met them, and if she has … Well. Do they think the same about her as I do? It’s never occurred to me to find out. I don’t see Dad’s sister, Auntie Carol, much because she lives in Newcastle. Perhaps she didn’t want to travel. ‘I think these are all Simone’s friends.’

‘The wicked stepmother.’

I scrunch up my face in disgust. ‘Don’t,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘It’s one of those laugh-or-cry situations, if you get what I mean.’

‘Well then,’ Leo declares. ‘Let’s laugh. Sup up, slowcoach, and let’s do a couple of shots to really get into the swing of things.’

I can’t, in that moment, think of a reasonnotto do shots, so I follow Leo, and let him take my hand as we weave through the crowd towards the bar, where he tells the barman we want two of his smoothest tequilas. I searcharound for Dad so I can say hello properly, and locate him across the room talking to somebody I don’t recognise. He must be yet another friend of Simone’s. Dad waves and makes a motion as if to say he’ll be over in a minute, and I give him a thumbs up.

Once we’ve been served, Leo and I cheers, down our shots, pull tequila faces and wash it down with our beers. At some point Leo’s hand finds its way to the middle of my very naked back, his thumb gently rubbing my bare skin, and by our second shot I am leaning in to talk to him, our faces close, even though it’s not really that loud. It’s just nice to be with him, to feel part of a team against the world – against Simone and Dad. Thank god he’s here, is all I can think.Thank god for you, Leo. Looking very attractive, I might add: he’s got two-day stubble and is sun-kissed from all this warm weather we’ve been having. It makes his eyes seem bluer, somehow. I grin at him, in that slow way that happens after three drinks.

‘So, go on then,’ Leo says, eventually. ‘What’s your story?’

‘My story?’ I repeat, pulling a face.

‘Yeah!’ he says. ‘You know, why you’re single, why you hate Simone, how your mum feels about all this? Throw in any extra details as you see fit.’

I laugh. ‘So just the superficial first-date questions, then?’

Leo arches an eyebrow. ‘I’m very interested in you calling this a date.’

‘Are you?’

‘I enjoy the clarity of it,’ he says, and he is so utterly charming I could melt. See, this is how it should be. Unambiguous. Easy. I might have had one great afternoon with Cal, but already the confusion and baggage is too much. I don’t need it, even if it does kind of feel like I know him on a cellular level, like my soul recognises his soul or something. I was so obsessed with the big bang of our instant connection, so caught up in the romantic narrative of meeting somebody and falling in love at first sight, but this is nice too. It’s easy.

‘What about you,’ I bat back to Leo. ‘What’s your story?’

He shakes his head. ‘Nah. You first.’

I sigh, flipping through a mental list of where to start. I’m keen to keep things light. ‘I’ll start with Mum – she doesn’t feel any way about all this, I’m sure, as she left to live in Australia when I was eighteen and I’ve seen her only a handful of times since. She’s not the maternal type. At least she waited until I went to uni to leave us, I guess?’

Leo absorbs this. ‘Well, that’s shit,’ he says. ‘Everyone deserves a mum who adores them.’

‘No prizes for guessing why I’ve gone into professional childcare, really, is there?’ I say. ‘I think the same, so I suppose I made a job out of it.’

‘I didn’t know you worked in childcare,’ he says. ‘Teacher?’

‘Career nanny,’ I say. ‘Happily so.’

‘Do you feel like you have to qualifycareer nannyby sayinghappily?’

‘I’ve never been asked that before,’ I say. ‘But yes, Isuppose I do. For some people it’s a stopgap, but for me, working with kids is my life. I studied childhood development at university, then worked for two other families before the one I’m with now. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do and all I’ve ever really cared about. There’s a kids’ club idea I’m in the process of developing, but that would be extra, not a replacement. I love my job.’

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