Page 76 of Glitterland
Eventually, he did. He shook his head. “Not entirely unwantable. Be still my beating heart.”
“Oh, leave me alone.” I stared at the flagstones between my feet. “There’s…there’s one more thing.”
“My hooks are tentered.”
I’d always been certain this would be an admission of weakness, that it would lessen me somehow, or that it was a truth so fragile that utterance would shatter it. But the words slipped out, as they had in my whispered confession to Darian some days that felt like a lifetime ago, effortless as honey.
“Thank you for, you know, everything. And I’m glad you came back that day.” They did not break. I did not break. And I felt not mortified, but free.
Niall stared at me. And then began to cry.
“Will you stop it, you big nancy?” I patted him awkwardly between the shoulders. Typical, really, that I’d fucked and been fucked by this man six ways to Sunday and I didn’t have a clue how to comfort him. “No wonder you can’t get a boyfriend.”
“I know you won’t believe me,” he said, sniffling, “but going out with you was okay. When we broke up, for ages afterwards, all I could think about was the bad stuff. But there was good too, wasn’t there?”
“Yes. You saved my life at least twice, once literally.” I took a deep breath. “You’re kind of a muppet but I meant what I said.”
“You mean all that deeply sentimental, mushy stuff about you maybe caring about me just a little bit?”
“Look, I need to stop having this heart-to-heart before I throw up. My heart gets claustrophobic.”
He smiled in such a soggy way that I felt obliged to give him my pocket square. “I can’t blow my nose into this.” He held it up in the moonlight like it was a pricelessobjet d’art. I sensed he was mocking me, which was a vast improvement on crying. “It feels like sacrilege.”
“Gucci will never know.”
Niall snuffled into my handkerchief. And then tried to hand it back to me.
“You can keep it. Really.”
“Well.” He somehow contrived to smirk, even with a red nose and swollen eyes. “Little Timmy won’t starve this winter.”
“Fuck you. I’m clinically depressed. I’m allowed to buy nice things.”
“You mean you’re a vain git with too much money.”
“That too.”
There was another silence. It was oddly comfortable. I let my shoulder rest against his, just a little bit, and we leaned against each other.
Eventually, he asked, “So, it’s definitely a no to theNotting Hillmoment?”
I nodded. “Even putting aside what an almighty fool I’d look, he deserves better than me. All it needed was a crowing cock to end the scene.”
Niall choked. “Did you just draw a direct comparison between you being a bit rude at a wedding and Peter’s denial of Jesus Christ?”
“I…might have gone too far there.”
“You think?”
“Well, I’m an atheist. They’re both just characters in a book I haven’t read.”
“Stop trying to dodge the issue.” He poked me in the leg. “Ash, I’m not trying to be your conscience or anything, but you can’t just ditch Darian in the middle of Cambridge.”
I hunched over my knees. “He’s probably already gone.”
“Then go check. Seriously, it’s the least you can do.”
“I can’t face him, I can’t. And, look”—my voice rose—“can you stop fucking judging me for five fucking seconds? It’s practically our whole relationship.”
