‘No. No. Don’t spin that “he’s out there if you keep looking” line. You might have options, but I don’t. And I don’t want to waste my life chasing a mirage. If the only person who wants me is Chris bloody Wright then I hereby choose the three-cat single life.’
She isn’t joking now, is she? Indignation wells up within me. She can’t think like that. She has no idea how wonderful she is. And tonight I might just be drunk enough to say it.
‘Chris is not the only person who wants you.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I mean it.’
‘Oh and you know this because…?’
I twist a little so I’m facing her, every nerve firing within me. ‘Because I do.’
It’s a sucker-punch of emotion, a sudden sobering revelation that shakes me. I feel the room drawing in around us, a dolly shot pulling the entire world towards two lonely souls on the sofa.
Otty is looking at me now.
Is she smiling? I can’t tell. I don’t want to see but I need to know…
And then, she kisses me.
It’s there before I know it – and over before I can respond.
Otty pulls back, shock and surprise and horror and amusement passing across her face in alternate waves. She makes to speak – but I’ve already made up my mind.
I want this.
I stop thinking. My hands find her face, my fingers tracing the curve of her cheek to the contour of her jaw. Her eyes search mine as I edge towards her. It’s new and startling but as old and certain as time. I feel the warmth of her skin as her hands rest on my arms and move, slow as a sleeping breath, up to my shoulders. My heart crashes in my ears, Otty’s breath hot on my lips in the delicious pause before we meet…
In that moment, I am exactly where I want to be. And I don’t ever want to leave. The die is cast, the decision made.
We stop fighting.
And we give in.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
OTTY
The first thing I see is light.
Just a white blur at first, shifting and dancing through water as I blink. I feel like I’m emerging from a frenetic tumble of movement and noise into stillness. I blink again.
The next thing I see is that nothing is where it should be.
The window isn’t at the foot of my bed; it’s to my left. The sheets are different. The space doesn’t seem to be my space.
I turn my head and see clothes that aren’t mine draped across the back of a chair, a pile of books I don’t own on the desk that doesn’t belong to me, either. I try to sit up, but that’s when the pain hits.
The crushing ache sends my head back into a pillow far lower down than I’m used to. I can’t think past the pain, or reach round to drag the fragments of consciousness together to make sense of it all. With one hand clamped to my forehead, I reach out the other to anchor myself to the expanse of mattress beside me. My fingers find the ridges of the fitted sheet, the slight indentation cool where the duvet has been thrown back. As if someone was there until a little while ago…
Joe.
Joe’s bed.
This is Joe’s bed.
I sit bolt upright, suddenly numb to the screaming pain in my head. The books are Joe’s, the clothes his, too. I glance down at the side of the bed and recognise one piece of clothing he definitely doesn’t wear.
I snap my eyes shut. I don’t need to see any more.
How did I end up in Joe’s bed?
My mind is a stubborn blank, my hangover too fierce to salvage any memory that might remain.
Think, Otty!
Okay.
My eyes fall on the corner of the duvet pulled back in the space beside me. If Joe had tucked me in, he wouldn’t have left it like that. And it’s the wrong side for me to have thrown it back myself. I let my gaze travel from the duvet to the space where the fitted sheet is crumpled, up to the single pillow. The indentation in it makes my heart drop.
Right.
So maybe we crashed out together, Joe too tired to think of doing the gentlemanly thing and taking my bed when I was in his. Perfectly understandable. Completely innocent and sensible.
Except that doesn’t explain the item on the bedroom floor. Or the lack of items I’m wearing…
Who am I kidding? It’s obvious what happened.
Why can’t I remember it?
Tears flood my vision and I turn my head into the pillow to sob soundlessly. I don’t know how I got here and I don’t know what happens now. And if Joe isn’t here, where is he? Did he wake before me, realise what we’d done and get himself as far away from me as he could? We had such a good thing here, in this house, living and working together. How did we throw that all away?
It hits me then, wave upon wave of revelation. What if we don’t survive this? What if we can’t write together? What if I lose the home I love? What if I lose Joe? Whatever else has happened, he’s my best friend. What if this ends us?
I don’t know how long I stay there, paralysed by fear and pain. I can’t hear Joe and I’m pretty certain I’m alone. Which makes everything better and worse at once.
And then I see the photograph.
It’s identical to the one stuck to the fridge in the kitchen with a Blame It On The Writer magnet. We’re in Purnell’s on the day of the season one completion lunch, crazy-posing for Rona’s camera. Cheeks pressed together, locked in a wild embrace, wearing identically idiotic grins. I didn’t know Joe had another copy. It’s propped up on his desk against the stack of thesauruses and dictionaries I’ve never seen him use, right next to the spot where his laptop lies. We look so happy…
A memory arrives unannounced, startlingly bright in my mind. Lying in darkness, a single trail of moonlight seeping from the gap in the curtains illuminating my hand where it lies against Joe’s naked chest. I feel the warm brush of his breath on the top of my head, the gentle stroke of his fingers on my hair, the soft, sure pad of his heart against my ear.
I stare at the photo, trying to match that image with the newly arrived memory. Is it possible…?
My breath stalls. What if this isn’t the disaster it might be? What if Joe wants this?
The way he stepped in when Chris came back, and how he spirited me away from the aftermath of my family’s row at the cricket yesterday – were those the actions of a friend or…?
And before that, all the weirdness when I dated Jas. Was it the awkwardness of the situation or the beginnings of something else?
And all the hours we’ve worked and lived and argued and cried and laughed together; every easy silence between the words; every moment we’ve settled into the familiarity of being Otty and Joe, here, in this house of light and welcome. Has every moment been leading us to this?
Otty and Joe grin back at me from the photo, eyes bright.
I want to draw them close to me and never let go.
But until I see Joe, I won’t know what happens next.
A hot shower will clear my head, I hope.
Once safely there, I stand in the stinging flow of water, the steam obliterating my view. When it’s done I go back to my room, my still-made bed accusing as I pull on a T-shirt, jumper and jeans and rub a towel against my head as I walk barefoot down the stairs. I’m stepping onto the cold hall tiles when a sound makes me freeze.
A drawer banging shut. The clink of a teaspoon in a mug. A muted buzz of music from the radio.