I heard the back door open and close and the rattle and smash as Freddie heaved the huge bags of bottles into the recycling bin. Then he stuck his head back into the bar and said he’d head off, if I didn’t mind, because the last train was in five minutes and he’d be stuck on a night bus for ages otherwise.
‘But aren’t you…’ I began. As far as I knew, Freddie lived about ten minutes’ walk away. But who knew – maybe he’d moved and not said anything. Maybe he was staying at a girlfriend’s place or something. It was none of my business and the work was almost done, anyway, so I said goodnight and he hurried out of the door, leaving Adam and me alone.
I stacked the dishwasher and restored everything to order in the kitchen, while Adam wiped the tables and bar top. Frazzle perched on the chaise longue, supervising and getting scratches behind the ears whenever Adam passed him. As we worked, we chatted, having to raise our voices to be heard through the propped-open kitchen door. At last, we were done, the dishwasher humming, the lights dim, Frazzle’s eyes closing and his head sinking down onto his paws – the whole pub settled down for the night.
‘Thanks, Adam. You’ve been a massive help.’
‘It’s been a pleasure.’
‘How about a final drink?’
Adam put the bottle of cleaning fluid away in its cupboard and dropped the cloths in the bag ready for the laundry.
‘Seems a shame, after we’ve got the place all sorted.’
I hesitated for just a second, then said, ‘You could come up to my flat?’
Adam didn’t reply straight away, and I filled the silence by saying, ‘You know, it was really funny, all your mates kept coming up to me tonight and telling me how great you are. You’ve got quite the fan club going there. Either that, or there was some hidden agenda going on. Or not so hidden, haha.’
And then, all at once, everything changed. The friendly intimacy that had been there while we’d worked together was gone. The electric hint of… something, that had been there while we were dancing, was extinguished so totally I knew I must have imagined it. Adam was just Adam again, his shoulders slightly hunched under his jumper, his face expressionless, apart from a flush of bright red spreading upwards from his collar.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I should go.’
Twenty-Eight
You had your chance and you blew it, Aquarius. Better luck next time.
‘So that was it,’ I said. ‘He said goodnight and he’d see me at the next D&D game, and fucked off.’
‘That’s so weird!’ Dani sat up on the weights bench, wiping her face with her towel. ‘To just leave? To say no to an offer of a drink in your flat? When there’d been all that chemistry between you two.’
‘I guess I must just have imagined it. Maybe he was a bit more pissed than I realised, and while we were cleaning up and stuff he sobered up.’
‘But what about all his mates bigging him up to you?’
‘Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they’re just nice people and they like Adam and they talk about him like that to anyone who’ll listen.’
‘Hmmm.’ Dani moved off the bench and I took her place. ‘It doesn’t sound that way to me. It sounds like it was the biggest wingman – wingwoman, whatever – operation ever. And it worked, didn’t it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘They made you fancy him.’
I didn’t say anything for a bit, because I was moving the weight up and down, to my chest and then up as far as my arms could reach, then back again. It felt a lot heavier than usual.
‘They didn’t make me fancy him,’ I said, once I’d finished.
‘No? Then how come you…?’
‘Adam did that,’ I said. ‘He made me fancy him. But there’s no point thinking about it, because clearly he’s not interested.’
‘Not necessarily. Maybe he’s just shy. Some blokes get that way around a woman they like. They’re fine until crunch time and then suddenly they get all awkward.’
We swapped places again.
‘He wasn’t acting shy though. Not at all. Pulling his MC Hammer moves on the dance floor.’
‘That’s different. If dancing’s something he’s good at, then he could just crack on and let you admire him. It’s like you – you cooked up a storm, right? And I bet he admired that. But you didn’t feel shy doing it, did you?’
‘Of course not. Adam wasn’t even there when I was cooking. And I wasn’t there when he was eating. So it’s not the same at all. But anyway, I’m over it now. It was just a one-off thing, heat of the moment, had a few drinks, and I thought something might be going to happen. But it didn’t, and I’m cool with that.’
Dani raised her eyebrows. ‘Course you are.’
I pushed the weight up and lowered it again, then tried to raise it back up, but my arms were having none of it. I felt them start to tremble and wobble and the bar got all unbalanced, threatening to drop back down onto my chest. But Dani was there to lift it and replace it safely back on the rack.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’m not.’
I sat up, and suddenly my eyes were burning not just with sweat but with tears, too. I thought of everything I’d been through since that spring morning when I’d woken up, suddenly and inexplicably free of the yearning for Joe that I’d carried with me for so many years it had long since felt more like a labour than like love. I’d tried. I really, really had. I’d put myself out there. I’d dated lots. I’d had sex with a near-stranger. I’d had a relationship and given it my best shot and ended it when it wasn’t working, like grown-ups are meant to do.
And at the end of all that, there should have been a reward for me. Some sort of prize, like the way Mike high-fived me when I did a perfect press-up, or the time a table at the Ginger Cat asked for the chef to come out into the bar so they could tell me personally how great their meal was, or even the imaginary treasure we were hoping to find in the D&D game.
But there had been nothing. Only my friendship with Adam, which I’d fleetingly thought might become something else. Until it hadn’t.
‘Hey.’ Dani slipped her arm round my shoulder. ‘It’s only a bench-press.’
I choked out a half-laugh. ‘It’s not that. It’s me. No one is ever going to love me and it’s all my fault.’
‘Wait, what? Zoë, you know that isn’t true.’
I let out a sound that I’m sure hadn’t ever been heard in the gym before, not even the time Fabian tried to deadlift double his body weight and pulled a hamstring.
‘It is.’ I’d buried my face in my towel, so I was pretty sure Dani couldn’t hear my words, but she kept on stroking my heaving, sweating back anyway.
‘Shhh.’ Dani helped me to my feet. ‘Come on, we mustn’t hog the equipment if we’re not using it or Mike will tell us off.’
She guided me to a corner of the gym, behind the racks where the plates were stacked neatly in order of weight, sat me down on the rubber mat and passed me my water bottle and a wad of blue paper towel.