We have a breakdown of scenes we have to write and as we complete each one I mark another tick on the list. Mum used to mock me for my insistence on tick-boxes on every kind of list. But it makes me feel like I’ve achieved something – however small. It’s the completionist in me. I like everything done and accounted for. Leaving stuff half-finished does not put me at ease.
I tick another box with a flourish and grin at Otty. ‘Five down, five to go.’
She laughs. ‘Ooh, we’re at the midpoint twist!’
‘Okay, here’s one: Laura and Gus run out of coffee because one of them forgets whose turn it is to buy the next round?’
‘Rubbish. That’s not a twist to get people talking on Twitter.’
‘It’s unexpected. And everyone can identify with the horror of an empty cup…’
She shakes her head. ‘Loon. What we need is something…’ She breaks off, her smile vanishing, her eyes wide.
‘What?’ I ask. It’s not unlike Otty to stop mid-sentence because an amazing plot point has shocked her into silence. But then she ducks her head down behind her screen. That’s not what usually happens.
‘Down here,’ she insists. When I don’t respond, she grabs the collar of my shirt and pulls me down, until my face is an inch from hers.
‘What are we doing?’
‘Don’t look.’
‘Don’t look where?’
‘Over… by… the… door,’ she hisses, which of course makes me try to see what I’m not supposed to be looking at. But there’s just a random bloke standing there, scanning the room for a table.
‘Otts, you’re hurting me,’ I yelp as she yanks my head down again.
‘Just… Hang in there.’
‘You’re being weird. What’s going on?’
Her sigh could cool everyone’s coffee on the tables around us. ‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t look!’
‘Ow, would you stop grabbing my neck?’
‘Sorry. I just can’t let him see me.’
‘Who? The chap by the door?’
She gives me a look like I should have worked this out ages ago. ‘He’s my ex.’
‘You had a date with him?’
Otty closes her eyes, her jaw tight. ‘No. My proper ex. As in the guy I broke up with before I got this job?’
‘Oh. Long-term?’ She nods. ‘How long-term?’
‘I started going out with him when I was sixteen.’
‘Bloody hell…’
‘And every time I’ve seen him since it ended I’ve just broken up with somebody else. So Chris thinks I’m lying about dating other people. He thinks it’s only a matter of time before I admit the truth and take him back.’
I stare at her. ‘Would you take him back?’
‘No. Were you even listening?’
My neck is beginning to ache from the unnatural angle Otty is holding it at. And this sudden revelation is messing with my already post-beer-hazed brain. ‘You don’t need to hide, Otts.’
‘Yes, I do. The place is packed, he’ll be gone in a moment.’
I raise my head and see that she’s wrong. ‘Well, actually…’
‘Ottilie? Is that you?’
At close quarters to my housemate I can practically feel her heart sink. Slowly, she lifts her head and I follow.
‘Chris. Hi.’
‘I thought I saw you.’
‘You did.’ Her smile pulls her lips into a thin line.
‘Glad I did.’ His eyes make a super-creepy slow drop as he takes her in. Like he’s eyeing up his next meal. It makes me feel sullied and I’m only sitting by its subject. ‘You didn’t reply to my text.’
‘No, sorry. Work and stuff.’
He shrugs. ‘I thought that was what it was. So, I guess you heard I’m back?’
‘Dad told me. Birmingham won over Oxford, did it?’
‘What’s in Birmingham did.’ He smiles a too-wide, too-white, definitely icky grin and I instantly dislike him. ‘Also I got offered a great job with a tech agency start-up.’
‘Great. Um, congratulations.’
‘It’s less money than I was on in Oxford, but with house prices cheaper here it’s practically a raise.’ The dark smudge of his shadow passes over my tick-box list of scenes as he leans in. ‘Perfect job to build a home on – support a partner… and kids…’
‘I’m happy for you.’
‘I knew you would be. So, you seeing anyone?’
Otty cringes beside me. I’m offended for her. I mean, I’m a fan of directness when it’s necessary but this bloke is off the scale. Was Otty really saddled to that for all those years? She’s visibly shrunk into her chair now, a diminutive scrap of what I know her to be.
This is horrible. I can’t just sit here and let my lovely friend and writing partner be subjected to Captain Creepy’s subtle-as-a-brick leering. She doesn’t deserve such blatant disrespect.
Otty is about to reply when I clear my throat and Creepy Chris’s attention slides to me.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you had company.’
‘We’re working, actually,’ Otty says, her smile the weariest I’ve seen. ‘This is Joe, my…’
‘Boyfriend,’ I rush, before I have time to think it through.
Otty’s mouth hangs open and I smile brightly at her, hoping my rapidly developing plan is instantly conveyed through my expression. For a horrible moment I think she’s too shocked to understand, but then I see her cotton on. ‘Yes, he is… Chris, meet Joe Carver.’
Creepy Chris looks like he’s swallowed a bucket of eels. ‘Hey,’ he manages, extending his hand. ‘Chris Wright.’
‘Hi.’ I shake his hand warmly and then slip my arm around Otty in a move so smooth Daniel Craig’s Bond would be in awe. I feel her shoulder tense briefly before she leans into my half-embrace. The line where our bodies meet becomes deliciously warm.
‘I didn’t know…’ Chris splutters. ‘I mean, when I spoke to your dad he told me you were single.’
‘Your dad, always the joker,’ I say, grinning a little too enthusiastically at Otty. Considering I’ve never met her father, will this look convincing?
‘But he said…’ Otty’s creepy ex gives a laugh that’s more his nerves leaking than the carefree sound he wants it to be. ‘Oh right, I get it. Good joke, Otty. You almost had me there.’
Otty blinks at him. ‘It’s not a joke, Chris.’
‘But he’s…’ His hand gives a vague wave as if we should all know what it means.
‘Gorgeous?’ Otty finishes.
Blimey.
I fix my smile.
‘No – I mean, it’s just a surprise. He’s not the kind of bloke you usually go for, that’s all.’ He shifts from one foot to the other. ‘So, how did you meet?’
‘We’re working together,’ Otty says. ‘On the TV drama I got the job writing?’
‘Oh, so you did that?’
‘I did.’