Dominic was sitting on his sofa in just a pair of old tracksuit bottoms that had been cut down into shorts, doing research for his free-diving project on his laptop. He’d found a site outlining some of the training procedures and had become fascinated with it. He’d ended up following the instructions, just to see what it felt like, and had been doing prep exercises for the last half an hour: breathing in deeply and holding it briefly before ‘purging’, blowing it all out again. He was now ready to see how long he could go. He set his laptop aside, brought up the stopwatch on his phone and sat it down next to him on the sofa.
Keeping his body relaxed and positioning himself so he could stay still, he breathed in deep and filled his lungs to eighty-five per cent.
His efforts at holding it were ruined when, forty seconds in, an alert for an email from Claire popped up on his screen. Chips! The subject line read. He let the air out so fast that he felt a bit dizzy afterwards. He didn’t care, though. He swiped his phone to pull up the message.
From: clairebixby@farfaraway.com
To: nica453@monstermail.com
Subject: Chips!
Okay, Nicholas … Is your name Nicholas? I suppose I’ve assumed it is, but it could be something entirely different, couldn’t it?
Dominic stopped breathing again, but this time it was for a very different reason. She was getting a little too close to the truth there, wasn’t she?
Anyway … I’ve decided to put you out of your misery about the chip thing, although I’m still holding you to that promise of a glass of wine!
He was counting on that. They’d been emailing back and forth for almost a week since that first chat where he’d told her he didn’t want to book a romantic trip. They’d lost all pretence of keeping it business-related now, even if a bit of travel chatter slipped in quite frequently. There was joking, there was banter. Plenty of flirting. There was more than that too.
There’d been talking. Well, typing. Proper communicating. The way he’d never been able to do before. He’d told her all sorts of things he’d never told anyone else, not even Pete. Well, maybe, especially not Pete … Somehow it was easier when it came out of his fingertips instead of his mouth, when he wasn’t looking at an angry female face that was expecting him to come up with the perfect answer right here, right now.
They’d also graduated from email to texting, although when they wanted to discuss longer subjects email was still their preferred medium. It was like they had their own private little universe going where no one else existed, no one else mattered.
Maybe that was why he’d told her about Erica. Not everything, but bits. The start of the truth. In return, she’d begun telling him about her ex-husband. The guy sounded like a real wet fish and Dominic was endlessly grateful to him for that, because if he hadn’t been such a waste of space Claire would still be married to him and he’d never have got to know her.
A part of him knew he should hold back, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. That same part knew this was dangerous. Usually he played it safe in relationships, leaving the daredevil stuff for his job. Now, however, with an absence of anything but office-based work, it seemed he was letting his daredevil urges seep into other areas of his life. Somehow he couldn’t seem to care about that either. He was having too much fun.
He shook himself and realised he’d yet to read on about these now infamous chips. He rectified that immediately:
I’m afraid after all this build-up, it’s going to seem a little bit tame, but I’ll tell the story anyway:
My friend’s husband was not the romantic sort at all, of which she complained frequently and loudly. He was also rubbish at cooking and she got fed up having to do it night after night for the pair of them.
Anyway, one year he decided to up his game. Not only did he go an a secret cooking course on the run up to Valentine’s Day, but on the day itself he cooked her favourite meal – steak and chips, with Béarnaise sauce and everything – and the crowning glory was his artistry with the potatoes.
He didn’t just cut them into strips or wedges. He saved a few back and carved them into letters, so when he presented her with her plate of gorgeous food that she hadn’t had to lift a finger to prepare, the words ‘I love you’, were spelled out in hot, crispy potato letters across her plate.
She told me she cried for ten minutes and her steak went cold!
So there we go … There’s my ultimate example of how something as unromantic as potatoes – especially if they’re muddy – can be turned into a romantic experience to top all others. It’s all about knowing the person you’re making the gesture to and the amount of thought and effort that’s gone into it.
You’re going to tell me that’s really lame now, aren’t you?
Sigh.
Claire x
Dominic smiled as he read the end of the email. In a funny way it did make sense, but only if he thought about it very hard.
He shook his head as he read through it a second time and then let out a long, drawn-out breath. He needed to tell her, didn’t he? And he’d been planning to, but somehow all these emails had been stalling him, probably because he didn’t want it all to end.
However, he knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer. He’d had a couple of close calls in the last week, moments when he’d only just slipped inside his flat in the nick of time, or had almost run into her in the street and had to duck into someone else’s garden. He knew he was playing Russian roulette, that it was only a matter of time …
He’d made the mistake of letting the deception drag out way past its sell-by date.
If this thing was going to go anywhere between them, it had to move beyond emails and texts. He was going to have to do this communicating stuff face to face eventually. He just hoped he could take what he’d learned and turn it into actual, real live conversation.
A thought dropped into his brain, cool and simple and perfect.
He wanted to tell her the whole story in person, but that didn’t mean he was restricted to email. After all, he had her phone number …
He picked up his phone and started to dial, but then he realised there was something else he needed to do urgently. He flipped open his laptop and logged onto Facebook. Once there, he searched for ‘Erica Conway’ and, as soon as her profile page popped up, he clicked on the button that said ‘Friends’ and chose ‘unfriend’ from the drop-down list.
*
Claire had been glancing at her phone on her bedside table while she’d been reading, hoping it would ding with a reply from Nick, but when it actually rang she almost dropped her book. She picked it up, heart beating.
‘Hello?’
She knew it was him from the caller display, but she could hardly believe it.
‘Hey.’
Claire closed her eyes. It was him all right, with that rich, warm voice that always held a hint of laughter. ‘Hey,’ she breathed back, cradling the phone with both hands and hugging it to her a little. She was only sad it was a thin little sliver of a thing, not one of those big chunky phones with a curly wire that Doris had used in Pillow Talk. This moment felt just like that.
She knew she was being a total and utter sap, but for some reason she just didn’t care. She imagined her grey vest top and shorts away and envisioned herself in a filmy blue negligee the colour of a summer’s sky.
‘You got my email about the chips, then?’
He chuckled and the sound seemed to curl right out of her phone and wrap itself around her. ‘Yes, I got it, but I also “got” it, I think.’
‘Good.’ She sat up a little. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you phoning me? Is there a problem?’
‘No problem,’ he replied casually. ‘Just wanted to hear your voice.’
Oh, good answer.
She draped her arm on the pillow above her head as they started to chat about anything and everything.