Four
Stay
“So, your sister said you’re a writer.”
Only six short days since that morning in Tash’s kitchen, when I made my decision to stay in Shoreley, and she’s already telling the world that I write for a living, which really couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’m meeting Dylan’s friend’s dad Ivan at Pebbles & Paper before it opens for the day. According to Ivan’s spiel, it’s an award-winning gift shop that’s featured in numerous magazines—though it’s unclear exactly what award a gift shop might win, and I don’t believe for one moment his claim that Kate Winslet stopped by last summer to buy fifty quid’s worth of vegan soap. His outfit is kind of setting the tone—he’s wearing off-white chinos, loafers, and a striped shirt of the kind most often seen at Henley Regatta.
The shop’s interior is all very beach chic, making liberal use of bunting, seashells, and nautical stripes. I’ve popped in here just a couple of times before, only to balk at the prices before legging it empty-handed. I don’t tell Ivan this, of course, a man who’s spent the last five minutes bragging about his profit margins.
“Sort of,” I say meekly, in reply to his half question, as I breathe in the fug of essential oils, scented candles, and handmade drawer fresheners. “I mean, that’s the plan.”
Ivan frowns, like my life goals could do with some serious unpacking right here among the inspirational driftwood signs. “Well, anyway, we’re expanding next year,” he says. “Lining up a couple of little premises in Suffolk and West London.” He pushes his fringe out of his eyes. “So, look, we’d mainly need you to do weekday mornings. Me or my wife Clarissa will take over in the afternoons. But we would need you to work all day on alternate Saturdays.”
“Perfect,” I say.
“All right. Let’s go over how the till works, shall we?”
I nod and follow him to the counter, where there’s a computer screen, a goldfish bowl full of artisan soap, and a complicated assortment of tissue paper and ribbons that I sincerely hope I won’t be expected to touch. It’s long been my opinion that gift bags were invented for a reason.
“So, what’s your novel about?” Ivan says, logging in to the till on the touchscreen.
I hesitate. “Well, it’s sort of . . . a love story, I suppose.”
“Ah,” he says, knowingly. “One of those books, is it?”
“One of what books?”
I can tell he’s trying to resist waggling his eyebrows. “Racy.”
I clear my throat. “Not exactly. It’s loosely based on my parents, actually.”
He looks faintly disappointed and not at all convinced. “So, what were you doing before this? Tash said something about advertising.”
“Figaro,” I say, the word sticking unexpectedly in my throat as I try not to picture the expression on Georgia’s face as I told her I was leaving. No matter what had gone down between us, I’d always considered her a friend. “Do you know it?”
“Sorry, never heard of it. Right. Punch in this code here to log in. And then we’ll do a few dummy scans using the alpaca-wool bedsocks.”
When I get back to Tash’s around lunchtime, the house is empty and utterly still, shrouded in the type of silence I’ve only ever really encountered this deep in the countryside. If the house is full, I’m usually able to tune it out, but whenever I’m alone, it hits me like a waterfall. At new year, when Tash, Simon, and Dylan went skiing to Chamonix for a week, I had to turn the sound system on in every room—exactly as I’m doing now—just to feel a bit less like an apocalypse survivor. To drown out that all-too-familiar drumming in my chest.
The job at Pebbles & Paper looks like it will work out. Ivan seems okay, if a bit ridiculous. He’s asked me to start a week from Saturday. But for the whole bus ride home, I couldn’t stop wondering if I’ve made the right decision, staying in Shoreley.
I mean, really—who do I think I am? I’m actually nothing more than a wannabe writer who’s never even had so much as a paragraph of fiction published professionally. Maybe I should have gone to London, moved in with Jools, got a job at that Soho agency. Maybe I still can.
But as I’m tipping Worcester sauce all over my cheese on toast, a message from Jools flashes up on my phone. She says Cara’s room has been taken by someone called Nigel, who works in financial auditing. Apparently, he brought an actual basket of muffins with him when he turned up to view it.
Well, I could never have competed with that.
I look again at the flyer Tash showed me last week, pinned up now on the kitchen corkboard, and feel a fresh and unfamiliar rush of conviction. Come on. You can make this work.
I just need to take a breath, and put my trust in the universe. It’s an approach that’s worked pretty well for me in the past: I got the job at Figaro because Georgia happened to drop a bag full of shopping in front of me on the street and, as I helped her pick it up, I cracked a joke about the poorly written pack copy on her box of granola. A mere twenty-four hours before I met Max for the first time, I opened a fortune cookie that said Love is on its way. I have an excellent track record with four-leaf clovers and double-yolk eggs.
My faith in all this stuff is partly hereditary—my mum and dad met on holiday when they were twenty after the travel agent messed up and sent my dad to Menorca, not Mallorca. They even have the words What’s meant for you won’t pass you by stenciled onto the wall of their kitchen. I’m willing to let the cringe factor slide, because I’m so onboard with the sentiment.
Once I’ve finished eating, I head up to my bedroom and take another look at the only item I brought home from my travels nine winters ago. A single notebook, bound in leather. I’d bought it specially before I left the UK, intending to fill it and return with at least something to show for the disaster that had been the preceding three months.
Flipping through it again now, I’m transported back to every place I was sitting while I was scribbling across its pages—a beachside café in Morocco, a park in Singapore, a bar in Kuala Lumpur. And then I’m confronted once more with what happened in Australia, the sour and uncomfortable reality that just a few hours after writing this last paragraph—I finger the page now in regret—a man would flash a double-take smile at me in a bar, and tell me his name was Nate.
And what about Max? Reacquainting myself with this book has reminded me just how much I loved him back then, how he hovered in my mind as I wrote. I remember how long it took me to get over him. How many times I’ve thought of him in the intervening years, wondering if I’ve missed out on being with my soulmate.
Have I been monumentally stupid in opting to stay here? Should I message him—or is the fact he’s now on holiday a sign to forget him? Might I have missed a second shot at lifelong happiness?
As I’m shutting the notebook with a sigh, my gaze alights on something else, something that startled me when I happened across it this morning.
A beer mat, with Caleb’s number scribbled on it.
Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t hung around in The Smugglers last week, after I sprinted off to chase after Max. I felt bad about it—just up and leaving, abandoning our conversation like that—but I never got the chance to apologize.
It was only today, as I got ready to meet Ivan and put my work coat on for the first time since quitting, that I discovered Caleb had slipped a beer mat with his number into the pocket.
I flip the beer mat now between my fingers a couple of times, recalling with a smile the gentle probe of his eyes, his friendliness, how his laughter made my stomach fizz. And before I’ve even really thought about what I’m doing, I find myself dialing his number.
He takes me by surprise when he answers, somewhat curtly. I’d assumed he’d let an unknown caller go to voice mail. “Yep?”
I feel my stomach plunge. “It’s . . . It’s Lucy. From the pub. The Smugglers, last week? You wrote your number on a beer mat?”
His gruffness turns instantly to brightness. “Lucy. Hello. I did. Nice to hear from you.”
“I only found it this morning. The beer mat.” I falter, wondering if perhaps I should have messaged him instead of calling. Nobody calls anybody these days, unless they’re the wrong side of fifty, or a member of the emergency services.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says, with a hint of abashment. “I think that might be just about the cheesiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Oh God. He’s changed his mind. He regrets giving me his number. I knew I shouldn’t have called.
“I’m really pleased you called,” he continues.
“You . . . You are?”
He laughs. “Yeah. I was starting to think I might have to go back to The Smugglers tonight on the off chance you’d be at the bar again.”
A little eddy of pleasure rushes through me. I smile. “Well, as it happens, I am free tonight.”
I can hear him smiling too. “Excellent.”
Caleb was at work when I called, so he suggested we meet at his studio, in town. It’s inside a converted terraced house, one of those old whitewashed ones tucked down a cobbled side street, all sloping walls and creaking floorboards and beams low enough to head-butt.
After he buzzes me in I climb a narrow, winding staircase and pop my head around the door marked with his name.
I don’t know what I was expecting—lots of lights and tripods, maybe, and some of those weird white umbrellas—but the studio is in fact just a small room, with stripped wooden floorboards, white walls and white furniture, along with a potted plant, coffee machine, and massive Mac computer. I can’t even see Caleb at first, until he pokes his head out from behind the monitor, which is about the size of your average cinema screen.
Smiling, he gets to his feet. “Hello again.”
He’s even more handsome than I remember, casual in a pair of dark jeans and faded navy blue sweater.
“Nice studio,” I say, feeling slightly shy suddenly.
He laughs. “Thank you. Although I do realize I must have come across like a bit of a tosser, suggesting we ‘meet at my studio.’ ”
I laugh too. “Honestly, I didn’t even think about it.”
We both pause for a couple of moments, taking each other in.
“You look nice,” Caleb says.
God, so do you, I want to say. Where did you spring from?
I agonized this afternoon over what to wear (is this a date? Isn’t it?) before eventually aiming for the midpoint between comfort and style in a gray cotton smock dress, sheer tights, and heeled boots. And some bright red earrings, for a pop of color.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Um, I got you something.” He passes me a paper carrier bag.
I peer inside, and laugh. The bag is filled with packets of Scampi Fries. He must have gone out specially this afternoon to buy them.
“Wow. Thank you. That is a truly superior gift.”
“You’re welcome. Hey, have a seat. Just need to press send on one e-mail, then I’m all yours.”
The nearest chair is one of those wire-basket-type affairs of the kind that frequently feature in interiors magazines. I’m slightly worried it’s going to have a sausage-factory effect on my backside, but I flip down the cushion propped up against the back of it, whereupon it becomes much comfier than it looks.
“So, Lucy,” Caleb says, showing no interest at all in attending to his e-mail. “You were in the middle of telling me why you quit your job, when I saw you.”
I wince, recalling the way I sprinted out of the pub to chase after Max. “Listen, about that—”
“You really don’t need to explain.”
“But I want to.”
I meet his gaze. His brown eyes are kind. “Okay,” he says.
“The guy I saw . . . was an old friend. I hadn’t seen him in years. I was really enjoying talking to you, but—”
“Likewise.”
“I just had to . . . run out and say hi. Sorry, though. You must have thought I was pretty rude.”
He laughs, affects agreement. “Oh, absolutely. But weirdly . . . I still wanted you to have my number.”
I smile. “Well. Thank you.”
“I would have waited for you to come back actually, but I had to meet someone.”
I hesitate for a moment, confused.
“I was waiting for a mate when I saw you,” he explains, “but I’d got the wrong pub.”
Serendipitous, I think but don’t say.
“Anyway. Your job . . .”
“Oh. Well, essentially, they promised me a certain role, then hired someone else for it.”
“Ouch. So, what’s your plan now?”
I release a breath. “You know how you said suggesting we meet here might make you seem like a bit of a tosser?”
He laughs. “Yep.”
“Well, I can probably top that.”
“Go for it.”
“I’ve decided to . . . write a novel.”
“What are you talking about? That’s cool.”
I bite my lip. “Thanks. Have no idea if I can even do it, though.”
He leans back in his chair. “How long are you giving yourself?”
“Not sure,” I say, realizing as I’m speaking how little of a plan I actually have. “I’ve got a part-time job at that gift shop to tide me over. Pebbles & Paper.”
Caleb’s face lights up when I say this, and all at once he looks like he’s struggling to hold back a laugh.
My eyes widen. “What?”
“I’m barred from that place.”
“How can you be barred from a gift shop in Shoreley?”
“I had a sort of . . . heated debate with the owner.”
“Ivan? About what?”
“Oh, he was selling these wooden trinkets that he claimed were handmade by a local carpenter. Unique, bespoke, all that bollocks.” Caleb makes liberal use of air quotes as he speaks. “So I bought my mum a couple of bits for her birthday. Came to seventy quid. Except it turned out my stepsister had a load of stuff from the exact same range. Bear in mind she lives in Newcastle and has never set foot in Shoreley.”
I smile. “Oh no. What did you do?”
“Well, I went down there and politely suggested he stop lying to his customers. And I might have mentioned Trading Standards, which was when he got all sweaty and defensive and barred me.” He laughs. “I mean, it’s not even like I’ve been barred from a pub or a cool nightclub. It’s Pebbles & Paper.”
I shake my head, start laughing too.
“Sorry. Being a bit tactless, aren’t I?”
“Not at all. It’s good to be prepared.”
“So.” He’s still not touched that e-mail. “What kind of novel are you writing?”
I hesitate, wondering if I should even really be describing what I’ve written as a novel at this point. Over the past week, I’ve managed to inch my way through a sum total of fourteen pages. A few thousand words. But as for being able to call it a novel quite yet . . . well, that feels like a bit of a leap.
My shyness notches up a touch. “Oh, just girl-meets-boy stuff. Fairly standard.”
“Since when was girl-meets-boy ever standard?” Caleb says, and then my eyes meet his, and for a moment we are just looking at each other, and it feels weirdly lovely and comfortable in a way I can’t quite define.
I clear my throat. “So, how long have you been a photographer?”
“Um, over a decade now. Eleven years.”
“Nice.”
“Dropped out of art college,” he says quickly—I’m not sure why at first. Maybe he thinks the numbers have made him sound older than he is.
I smile. By my calculation, we must be nearly the same age, give or take a couple of years. “Rarely meet fellow dropouts.”
“You too?”
I nod. “English literature.”
“What’d you do instead?”
I swallow, skirt the full truth. “Went traveling.”
“Really?” He leans forward. “Where did you go?”
“Oh, just the usual gap-year kind of places. Europe, Morocco, Australia.” I keep talking, before he can ask me more. “How about you—why did you drop out of college?”
He laughs. “Impatience.”
“What kind of photography do you do?” I get to my feet and wander over to the back wall, where there’s a tiny, stiff-looking sofa and a large black folder on top of a small coffee table. “May I?”
Caleb nods, so I lift the cover and peek inside.
“That all needs updating,” he says, as I start to turn the pages. “But . . . lifestyle and portrait, mainly. A lot of corporate work. Weddings, occasionally. Whatever comes my way, really.”
The photos are incredible: some striking images of a red-haired girl sipping coffee in a café, dogs whirling on a beach, a couple walking beneath an umbrella on a gray, wet day that Caleb’s managed to make look spectacular, the rain like glitter in the air. “These are amazing.”
“Thanks,” he says, sounding as self-conscious as I did when he asked about my writing. “I’ve been meaning to frame a few. Jazz this place up a bit.”
I look up. “You’ve not been here long?”
“Well, long enough. Six months.”
“Where were you before?”
“London. I moved back here when I separated from my wife. I grew up in Shoreley, so . . .”
Separated, I think. That’s not quite divorced, is it?
I feel him watching me. “That was my clumsy way of telling you I’ve been married.”
I shut the folder carefully. “Happens all the time.”
He lets loose a breath. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Go
Just a week after walking out of Figaro and making my decision to give London a go, I find myself moving in with Jools.
The house is on a quiet street in Tooting—or at least, quiet for London. It’s just off the high street, bookended by the hospital at one end, and a pub at the other. I happen to know from previous visits that the pub excels in the three essential criteria of any decent public house: quality quizzes, live music, and a cracking Sunday roast. Jools and her housemate Sal, who’s a midwife, go there for food if they can’t be bothered to cook.
I’ve had a knot in my chest for the past few days, wondering if I’m doing the right thing, moving to London; if I should have taken some time out to think before jumping straight back into another job. If staying with Tash and working in that gift shop and writing a novel might actually have been a better way to go.
It would have been a lot less stressful, for a start.
Earlier this week, I called the Supernova recruiter and explained my situation, and I’ve been invited for an interview, a week from Friday. Not that I have the faintest clue how to persuade them I’m a talented writer—other than my makeshift portfolio, I don’t have an awful lot going for me. Hardly any real-world writing experience. A degree I dropped out of, six months before graduation. I mean, this is Supernova—solar systems apart from anywhere else I’ve worked.
At the house, Jools shows me up to the double room Cara’s vacated. It’s identical to Jools’s, only this one looks over the street at the front—plus it lacks the stylish artwork and hip furnishings, of course. The space is bare except for a bed and chest of drawers, but it feels pleasingly blank-canvas. Somewhere I can make my own. It’s roomy and high-ceilinged, with a bright wash of April daylight spilling in through a large bay window. I’m weird about light, can’t stand gloomy rooms.
I look out over the street, my ears adjusting to the background hum of buses and cars and reversing vehicles. So different to Tash’s place and its canyon-grade silence. Here there’s always something moving, someone nearby. I find it comforting, but it still feels a little like culture shock.
Jools loops her arms over my shoulders from behind. She’s freshly showered after her shift, the familiar scent of her body lotion comforting as cashmere. “Welcome home,” she whispers, and I feel the tightness in my chest loosen slightly.
It’s going to be okay. Jools is here. You have an interview for your dream job. This is a clean slate, a fresh start. Time to make the most of it.
Sal and Reuben, Jools’s housemates, are out, so Jools and I head to the pub to celebrate my first night.
“This is definitely the best place you’ve ever lived, Jools,” I remark, as we settle down in a corner—white wine for Jools, sparkling elderflower for me. The pub’s busy, and the air is laced with that strangely comforting scent of hops and frying food. It’s a proper pub, albeit with a slightly gastro vibe, reminding me a bit of The Smugglers.
“Oh God, by a mile. Remember Camden?”
I smile at my friend, her hair still damp from the shower. She never blow-dries it—she doesn’t even own a hair dryer—and in about thirty minutes’ time it will have magically lifted into thick, glossy waves. She’s completely makeup free, the day scrubbed clean from her face. Jools is a natural beauty, the type of girl who wakes up with whipped-butter skin, her molasses-brown eyes newly brightened by sleep.
It would be easy to resent her for this. But Jools is the best person I know. Always has been.
“You mean the garage,” I say. It actually was a converted garage, and not a very good one at that.
“And that landlord in Bethnal Green.”
“Yeah, Mr. Don’t-Mind-Me.” Her landlord would let himself in unannounced with alarming frequency, until Jools reported him, whereupon she was instantly evicted.
“I’m sure I heard someone say he was arrested recently,” Jools says.
I shudder, think of Nate. “Oh, don’t.”
Jools sips her wine. “Yeah, I’ll definitely look back fondly on this place.”
“How’s the saving going?”
“Slowly. Be another couple of years at least. Hey—I forgot to tell you,” she says, setting down her glass. “When Cara said she was leaving, Reuben arranged for a friend-of-a-friend to come over and see the room. Without telling us, of course. But he forgot to let him know you’d got it. So this poor guy turned up on the doorstep with a basket of muffins, to view the room.” She clutches a hand to her chest. “Can you imagine?”
“Oh God. What did you do?”
“Well, Reuben was out, and me and Sal were mortified, obviously. And bless him—he tried to give us the muffins, but we felt too awful about it. So now I’ve just got this image of him walking off down our front path with his little muffin basket swinging from his hand . . .”
“Now I feel guilty.”
Jools shakes her head. “Please. It was Reuben’s fault. You know what he’s like.”
“He doesn’t mind me moving in, then?”
“Reuben? Of course not. Actually, if he didn’t have a girlfriend, I’m pretty sure you’d be his type.”
I laugh. “Why’s that?”
She looks thoughtful. “His last two girlfriends have reminded me a bit of you. But I’d never recommend him. He’s too much like my ex. I’m pretty sure he’s on something more often than he’s not.”
Jools would know: she’s from a family of loving but self-declared, permanently wasted hippies. Her childhood was somewhat chaotic, so her approach to adolescence essentially involved pedaling as far and hard in the opposite direction as she could—becoming the neat, organized, and fashionable adult she is today, with a penchant for stylish interiors involving no tie-dye or dreamcatchers whatsoever. She says it’s why she’s drawn to “normal” and “sensible” men, the ones with steady jobs and minimum baggage. Her most recent boyfriend was shaping up to tick all the boxes—banker, mortgage, no significant exes—until one night he confessed to moonlighting as a naked waiter and a growing reliance on class A drugs.
But every now and then, I am treated to a delicious glimmer of the person Jools used to be, before she became a fan of practicality and pragmatism. A person who believes in fate, trusts in gifts from the universe, and loves to indulge the idea of meant-to-be.
She puts a hand over mine now. Given the amount of handwashing involved in her job, I’m always struck by how staggeringly smooth her skin is. “So. When do we mention the elephant in the room?”
I blink at her. “What elephant?”
“What elephant. Max, of course.”
Max. We met on the first day of moving into university halls in Norwich. I was studying English literature, Max was studying law, and we bumped into each other in our shared kitchen. Neither of us was in there for a specific purpose—like making tea or filling up the fridge—but we were the first to arrive, and Max seemed as eager as I was to start making friends, to not be left behind.
If love at first sight exists, I’m sure I felt it right then. Max said afterward he felt it too. When my eyes met his, for a few delicious moments, instead of either of us speaking, our gazes simply danced.
“Hello,” he said eventually, like he’d had to remind himself how to speak. “I’m Max.”
“Lucy.”
He smiled. Casual in jeans and T-shirt, he looked as though he’d had a good summer. He was broad and tall, with skin that was deeply suntanned, and blond hair grown out enough to carry a kink.
I’d put a lot of thought into my moving-in outfit, eventually opting for a green dress that showed off my own tan, the likes of which I haven’t achieved since.
“What are you studying?” he asked, leaning back against the sink.
For a few ludicrous seconds, I couldn’t remember. What am I studying?
At my hesitation, Max laughed. I can still conjure up the sound of it, all these years later: easy and loose, as though he were the happiest person in the world. Straightaway, it put me at ease.
“Sorry. English literature. I’m a bit nervous.”
“Me too,” he said. He must have been being kind, because he didn’t seem nervous at all. “Hey, would a drink help? Got beers in my room.”
“Sounds good,” I said gratefully.
We decamped to his room, just down the corridor from mine—me on the single bed and Max sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. He’d already tacked up some pictures—friends, I noticed, he had lots of friends—and he’d had the foresight to bring a little fridge with him, so the beers were already cold. Over the next few hours, we got through all six of them.
Beyond Max’s closed door, we could hear other students moving in, parents leaving, the pump of music. The growing swell of conversation and the clinking of bottles. But neither of us suggested venturing out of his room to join in. Right then it was just us, and Max’s bedroom was the whole world. It felt beautifully illicit, hiding away in there together when we were supposed to be mingling and being our most outgoing, gregarious selves.
He was relieved to have finally left his hometown of Cambridge behind, he told me. He’d never known his dad, wasn’t close with his mum, had no siblings.
I decided it would be insensitive to regale him with the story of my parents’ fairy-tale romance, once he’d said that. But then he asked.
“It’s kind of a crazy story,” I said, fingering the label of my beer bottle.
Max leaned his head back against the wall, but kept his eyes on me. I was enjoying the feeling of it—him watching me. Intense, but in a good way. “Aren’t the crazy stories always the best?”
“Well, they met on holiday when they were twenty. Dad was supposed to be going to Mallorca, but the travel agent messed up and sent him to Menorca instead. So my parents ended up in apartments next door to each other.”
Max smiled.
“Long story short, it was love at first sight, and my mum fell pregnant with my sister on that holiday.”
Max straightened up a little. “Seriously?”
“Yep. Classic holiday romance.”
He caught my eye. “Not quite classic . . .”
I laughed. “Okay, maybe not quite. But they were head-over-heels.”
“Did they . . . I mean, was the pregnancy planned?”
“No. But they just . . . knew how they felt about each other. So they came home, got married, had Tash—my sister—then a couple of years later, I came along.”
“That’s amazing. They’re still together now?”
“Married twenty-two years and counting.”
Max ran a hand through his hair. “That is nuts.”
I beamed. I loved telling that story, subverting expectations. I would relate it as proudly as if it were my own.
“I mean, that’s setting . . . a ridiculously high bar,” Max said then.
“For who?”
“Only anyone you ever meet.”
Our eyes locked, and I felt a blush of heat spread over my cheeks.
But Max hadn’t seemed to notice. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t got pregnant on that holiday?”
“You mean, would they still be together?”
“Yeah. I guess I just . . . What if they’d each gone home, and lost touch, then met other people, and . . . ?”
“I know. I might not even exist.”
He winced. “Sorry. Haven’t offended you, have I?”
I knew already that nothing Max said could offend me. Or if it did, it wouldn’t have been intentional. He seemed too nice for that. I shook my head. “Not at all. Actually, my mum and dad have talked about that loads. The what-ifs.”
“I mean . . . if they were each other’s first loves . . . how do they know? That there’s no one else—”
“They just do.”
Our eyes met again then, but this time, Max got up to fetch us each another beer. “So, what do you want to be, Lucy? When you graduate.” He passed me a bottle, then sat next to me on the bed, our shoulders touching like we’d known each other for years.
I thanked him and swigged. “A writer.”
“What kind of writer?”
“I want to write novels.” I smiled. “Do you know what kind of lawyer you want to be?”
“Commercial,” he said, without hesitation.
I tried to look as though I understood, then gave up and laughed. “Sorry. That means absolutely nothing to me.”
“Let’s just say,” he said, “commercial law pays well.”
I nodded. “Is that why you’re doing it? For the money?”
“Kind of.” He shrugged. “My mum never had much, so—”
“Sorry, it wasn’t a criticism.”
“No, I know.” He waved my apology away.
By now the light had more or less vanished from the room, and we were sitting in the gloom.
“Do you want to go out and join the others?” I asked him. “Sounds like it’s getting rowdy out there.”
“Actually,” Max said, “I’m really enjoying just sitting here with you.”
I’m enjoying sitting here with you, too, I thought.
Eventually, we fell asleep together on his single bed. I woke up several hours later in the middle of the night. Our bodies were curled up against each other, big spoon and little spoon. We hadn’t kissed, we hadn’t even really touched, but I had the strangest feeling, as I crept back to my room at three in the morning, that I’d met the man I was destined to be with.