“Why are you pulling up? Say if the owners come out,” I’d flapped.
“She doesn’t move in until next week. This,” he said, clicking open the car door and nodding toward the house, “is my latest baby.”
I followed him, stepping out of the car, and laughed, looking up at the vastness of it; the pure Grand Designs–ness of it. “This? You—you designed this?”
“Certainly did. Well. My firm did. I was the lead.”
I stood back, gawping, my chest puffing up. “Luke. This is… amazing. You used to draw shit like this on envelopes when we were kids.”
Lucas laughed, coming to stand beside me, muscular arms folded. “I know, right?”
“And here it is. In real life.”
The pride I felt for him surged through my body, like sunlight. He dreamed of this. Of this job and of houses like this, and here he is, before it, within it, something he imagined, brought into existence. Nothing but fields and dust had been here before, and now, it was a house that is someone’s to-be home. I’ve only seen the hallway so far though, a huge, sweeping staircase dominating the center of it, winding up to a mezzanine balcony. Doors, white and rectangular, with huge panes of glass inside. Modern. Much too modern for me, but beautiful. It’s things like the clock: a clock that’s just a shadow on one of the walls, that screams Lucas to me. It’s all so him. “You’re so Austin Powers,” I’d said to him once as he’d fawned over gadgets—things with buttons and codes and contraptions appearing from kitchen counters with the click of a switch.
We reach the top step now. Lucas moves so he is beside me, but he doesn’t take his hands from around my waist. I hear the squeak of a door handle. The air smells like wet paint and new wood, but swiftly, I am hit with fresh, late-winter air.
“Are we outside?”
“Wow. All that Diagnosis Murder certainly paid off.”
“Fuck you,” I say, and Lucas laughs. “Remember, I’m your eyes right now, Em. Don’t bite the hand that feeds.”
He takes my hand in his now and says, “Keep coming, keep coming.” Then he lets go. “Hold your hands out,” he says, and he places them to grasp what feels like a cool, steel pole, his warm hands on top of mine. I feel him beside me, my eyes still scrunched shut as I promised.
“There better not be a dungeon on the other side of my eyelids.”
“You wish,” he says, amused.
“I would run so fast…”
“Go on. Open ’em up.”
And when I do, I am winded at the sight of the view. Stretches of nothingness, of heathy grass, and just at its edge, the sea. Turquoise, glittering with winter sunlight.
“That’s the port,” he says. “Remember? Where we’d walk and talk, when we were kids.”
“Oh my God, I do. Way back, when for a while we thought my dad lived around here.”
“In a house like this.” Lucas smiles.
“A bed shaped like a drum set.”
“Roadies guarding the gates like trolls,” Lucas says, and we both laugh. We stand close. Arm to arm, the fabric of our jackets touching.
“Reality is a bit different,” I say, gazing out to the port.
“But at least you know the reality,” says Lucas gently, and I nod and tell him he’s right. Gulls swoop overheard, and we watch tiny boats bob, like in souvenir pens, on the horizon. It’s quiet up here. Calm.
“I really miss it,” I say. “The surmising. The dreaming.”
Lucas leans, forearms moving to rest on the balcony. “We still can, can’t we?”
“Hard to dream up drumming, cool fathers when you know your real father is probably a hack.”
Lucas nudges me and says softly, “It’s his loss, Em. Totally. He has no idea what he’s missing.”
“I know,” I say.
We stand, looking out to the sea, side by side, and I look up at the sun; the same sun that shone down on us, all those years ago, as we planned and dreamed out loud, speculating where we’d end up, never once doubting that we wouldn’t be there together.
“You made this,” I say after awhile, looking behind me at this beautiful house—this design—and back to the view; the blue distant sea, the blankets of green, the tufts of pure white cloud.
“And there’s many more where that came from.” He smiles at me, and moves closer again, the tops of our arms pressing together.
“You did it,” I say, and he presses a cheek to mine, our skin warm from the sun.
“Just the Lamborghini left to get now, eh? Oh, and to actually own a place like this. It’s Ana’s, you know.”
“Ana? As in Eliot’s Ana?”
Lucas nods, gives a heavy shrug. “Well, she isn’t Eliot’s anymore, but yeah. That Ana. She’s not due to move in for a week or so. We’ve got some stuff to straighten out before she does.”
I nod, unconvinced, and can’t help but think she would rather anyone here but me. “What happened with her and Eliot?”
Lucas brings his hands together, eyes on the horizon. “He ended it. And to be honest, I’m not surprised. He’s not been happy for a while.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but then… he reached his scary age, you know?” he says, as if it’s fact, as if it’s common knowledge. “The same age as his dad was, when he died. And I think El’s thinking life’s short. If it doesn’t make him happy…”
“And she didn’t? Make him happy, I mean.”
Lucas looks at me again. “I’m not sure anyone’s ever made Eliot completely happy.” Lucas looks over at me then. “What? You thinking you do want mates’ rates after all?”
I clear my throat. “Actually, I was just thinking that I can see you and Marie here, in a place like this.” I change the subject. Because now I can’t get Eliot’s face out of my head. The disappointment—the hurt—in his face when I told him I was coming here, instead. And Canada. He told Rosie about Canada. He might go back. How would I feel if he went back? If I didn’t see Eliot again for… I don’t know how long. “Yeah, I can see you raising a couple of kids in a place like this,” I carry on. “Couple of dogs. Or horses. Marie strikes me a horse type.”
“Really?”
I look at him. “Yeah. I mean, in my opinion, if you want all those kids Marie keeps going on about, you might need a few more carpets. Make it a bit more kid-friendly. But apart from that. Looks like your perfect marital home, if you ask me. Very you two.”
His face falls a little and he looks down at his hands gripping the bar of the balcony. “Marital home,” he repeats. “Can you really see that, Em?” It isn’t a question, it’s more of a scoff.
“Why do you say that?”
He sighs, doesn’t answer, and looks up to the sky.
“What happened, Luke?” I ask then. “When you called, you said you’d had a big fight. Is everything okay now? I didn’t want to pry straightaway but…” I trail off. “It’s why you called me in the first place.”
Lucas groans, rubs his face with his hand. “Ah, man, it was stupid. We were a bit drunk and talking about exes and… I told her about Holly. Do you remember Holly? At uni? It was like a million years ago.”