Here’s to stolen moments – J x
As much as John and I couldn’t decide what we were, I loved that he bought me the occasional bouquet. Especially when it involved opening my front door last night to find him in his suit and tie looking like he’d just stepped out of the courtroom. I’d already stripped down to my pyjamas and drunk the first glass from a bottle of wine, which is enough to tell you how different we are as people. As he tried hiding behind the oversized bloom of foliage, I’d clutched a fistful of waistcoat and pulled him through the door.
Adam plucks the card from my hand.
‘Who’s J?’ His head bobs about in an impression of the chicken from Moana as he tries desperately to make eye contact with me.
‘Somebody.’ I snatch it back. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘Well, if you had opened the email I sent yesterday, you would know Dad has asked us to come home for lunch today.’ He looks at me, wide-eyed. ‘Complete with a robust “Are you two workaholics still alive? Or do I need to have a stroke before either of you make it up for a visit?” message attached.’
‘No,’ I say slowly. ‘I noticed your email there, it just kind of slipped my mind.’
‘Slipped your mind in the middle of the night.’ Adam tips his head towards the bathroom. ‘So, come on. Who is he?’
My brain does an Olympic level of gymnastics trying to work out how I’m going to get around this situation.
I could sneak into the bathroom and leave a spare key while bundling my brother out the door, using the excuse of needing breakfast to get him moving. Adam is always up for a full English and a pot of coffee at a greasy spoon. God, he’d been banging on about his favourite café for months before I first moved to London. When I did finally get there, let’s just say he was more in love with the congealed bacon than I was.
Naively, I hope he’ll drop the subject altogether, but there’s currently another man in my flat and my brother is a lawyer which means that, as far as this was concerned, there’s blood in the water and he’s circling. Never mind the box of belongings sitting by the phone, the same box I dragged home from work last night; these flowers are much more exciting.
‘Come on, you can tell me.’ He crosses a finger over his chest. ‘Pinkie swear.’
‘Really?’ I narrow my eyes and cock my head. ‘Because that’s not a pinkie swear.’
‘It’s not exactly a state secret though, is it?’ He finally pours himself a coffee. ‘Jeremey, Jason, Jarrod, Jared, Jarryd, Julian, Julius?’
I shake my head quickly, my eyes set towards my bathroom door. Yes, I can leave John the spare key, send him a text. He did it once for me at his flat. That’s exactly what I’ll do. ‘Come on, let’s go. We should go get breakfast.’
‘Oh, no, no you don’t.’ He stops. ‘Is it a she? Jennifer? Julie? Jessica?’
‘Stop,’ I grumble.
‘Because it’s okay if it is.’
‘I know it’s perfectly okay,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I’d just—’
‘Can I buy a vowel?’
‘No, you cannot buy a vowel,’ I snap and stamp my foot.
‘Katharine?’ John’s voice curls itself into a question as he appears from the bathroom. ‘Do you think my penis ascribes to the golden ratio?’
Adam’s eyes grow wide and his face lights up like the Blackpool Illuminations. Right now, I want to remind him of how much he looks like our father, with his brown hair full of salt and pepper fleck and dark eyes crinkling in horror at the edges, but I don’t.
I clear my throat beneath a mortified chortle. ‘That’s not … no, that’s not quite how that works.’
‘What about my arse, then?’ He stands in the small passageway, seemingly bracketed between the bathroom and my bedroom. Right as he’s about to pivot like a runway model and show me his backside, he spots my brother in the kitchen. The towel drops slowly from his ruffled hair to his crotch. For the first time ever, I’m sure I see John blush. ‘Adam. Hello.’
Adam turns to me, slack-jawed, full of brotherly repulsion. ‘That is officially the second worst way he could have used the word “golden” in this flat.’
‘Adam,’ I scowl, feeling my cheeks douse in embarrassment. Strike a match of inappropriate brotherly comments, and I may well light up like a grassfire.
Silence stretches out between the three of us and my attention swings in a pendulum, back and forth between the two of them, waiting for something, anything. Eventually, John steps forward, fire-engine red Egyptian cotton the only thing protecting his modesty, and he extends his hand.
‘Good morning,’ he says.
Hesitantly, my brother accepts and shakes his hand. ‘Ah, yep. Hello.’
‘Much on today?’ John asks casually.
Listening to him talk, anyone would think he was in a regular office environment, not standing in my flat dripping wet and under the increasingly heavy scrutiny of my brother, who’s dumbfounded. But John’s just so damn nonchalant about it all; cool and calm and confident, as if this were so ordinary and everyday.
‘More than you, by the looks of things,’ Adam says slowly, wiping a not entirely inconspicuous hand on the back of his trousers as he mumbles about hand sanitiser.
‘Yeah, about that. I’m going to go get dressed.’ John presses a kiss into my hair and the bedroom door closes behind him.
If the foot of God were to appear from the sky and squash me in some Monty Python-esque skit right now, I would not be upset. In fact, I’d welcome the sweet victory of death. Beneath the silence that stretches through my kitchen, we listen to John yawn as he dresses.
Though Adam is silent, I can almost see his thoughts playing out above him in comic book speech bubbles. He’s shocked but, when John announces that he’s leaving, that gives way to concern.
I follow John and pull the door closed behind us as far as I can without wedging my neck between the frame and the door and cutting off my own air supply. He blows his cheeks out and offers up a silent, anxious laugh.
‘That’s one way to make a man disappear up into himself,’ he says with a smirk.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I mouth, cringing, before I whisper, ‘I didn’t realise he was going to be here this morning.’
‘It’s okay.’ He takes a step closer and draws a finger down my cheek, sliding a lock of wayward hair behind my ear. It’s slow and it burns, and it takes me right back to last night. ‘Cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?’
That may be, if he would finally agree that we were something halfway serious. Hope sinks with the reminder that we still have not sorted things out. Again.
Pressing a hand to his chest, I can feel the heat of his body through his expensive shirt and smell my cheap and cheerful apple-scented body wash against his skin. Would it be wrong to kick my brother out and drag John back to the bedroom? I want to. A brief flicker of sanity stops me.
‘About that. Can I see you during the week?’ I venture tentatively. It’s not our normal thing. We’re strictly weekends and Friday nights only, but a girl can try. ‘In light of today, I think there are a few things we need to talk about.’