by Dunn, Matt
Chapter 34
Lisa carefully towelled herself dry, then she wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror, checked her reflection again and readied herself to go and face Simon. She knew there was a chance he might not ever want to see her again, realised he was probably feeling guilty after last night, and understood the best she might get out of him this morning was an embarrassed mumble, but that was fine. They’d talk about this another time, if that was the case, when they’d both had time to process what had happened. Perhaps even on a second, less frantic, less pressurised date. Or even just as friends.
She’d already decided she’d leave the ball in his court. He had a lot to deal with, after all. Much more than her. It was no wonder he’d been behaving how he had, given what he was carrying around with him – if that had happened to Lisa, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get out of bed, let alone go on a date with someone. And if he needed a little time . . . well, that was fine. Though she suspected that what had happened between them last night wasn’t just a one-night stand. When things were that good (and she’d been pretty sure Simon hadn’t been faking it – she certainly hadn’t been, and surely neither of them had it in them to fake it twice) you wanted to repeat them another time. And, hopefully, more than once! Then again, Simon might be the kind of person who’d prefer to put it down to being ‘one of those things’, or who felt that the circumstances that made it special couldn’t be repeated. Perhaps that was how he felt about him and Alice. And, if that was the case, he and Lisa had no hope.
She glanced down at her phone and noticed the message light was flashing – Jess, no doubt, texting her to see how things had gone – and when Lisa checked it, the one-word message from her friend simply read: Well? Hurriedly, she began composing a text in response, then she remembered a technique she’d seen in some spy film she’d watched on Netflix the other night, turned the shower back on to muffle the sound of her voice, and dialled Jess’s number.
‘He’s still here!’ she said, when Jess answered with her customary ‘Babe?’
‘What?’
‘Simon,’ whispered Lisa. ‘He’s asleep.’
‘On your sofa?’ said Jess, in a tone that suggested she already knew that wasn’t the case.
‘Not exactly . . .’
Jess let out a scream so loud that Lisa feared Simon could hear it despite the running water.
‘Long story short, he and I—’
‘I want the long version,’ interrupted Jess. ‘All the details, and in glorious technicolour!’
Lisa laughed. ‘I can’t right now. Suffice it to say, he stayed the night.’
‘And?’
‘It was amazing!’
Jess screamed again, louder this time, so Lisa moved her phone away from her ear and reduced the volume a few notches.
‘Can I be your maid of honour? Then Will can be Simon’s best man and . . . No, scratch that. We can do a double wedding. It might give Will a kick up the backside to—’
‘Steady on, Jess. It was only one night. You’re being a bit premature.’
‘I take it he wasn’t?’
‘Jess!’ Lisa was surprised to feel herself blushing. ‘And no, he wasn’t, if you must know.’
‘Are you going to see each other again?’
‘In about two minutes. I’m in the bathroom.’
‘I mean romantically.’
‘I . . .’ Lisa hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. I suppose we could go on another date, if he wants to, just to see if anything might happen between us.’
‘From what you’ve just told me, it’s already happened.’
‘Yes, but . . .’ Lisa paused, trying to put her thoughts into words. ‘A lot happened yesterday. I kind of feel everything’s been . . . accelerated, so far.’
‘So take your foot off the gas,’ said Jess.
Lisa thought back to Chris’s comment. ‘I’m not sure I know how. Which is possibly why we ended up in bed last night.’
‘Even so. You might want to take it slow where Simon’s concerned.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s just . . . Simon . . .’ Jess cleared her throat. ‘The reason he hasn’t been out with anyone for a couple of years is . . . Well, the reason he moved down here, actually, is because . . .’
‘Jess . . .’
‘He used to go out with this girl. Alice. And . . .’
‘He told me.’
There was a pause, and such a long one that Lisa began to think Jess had hung up. ‘He did?’ she said, eventually.
‘He did. Though why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Will told me not to. That sort of thing really needs to come from Simon, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose.’
‘But you’re okay with it?’ said Jess, tentatively.
‘We’ve all got exes, Jess. We were probably in love with some of them. They leave us for a variety of reasons, a lot of times beyond our control. There’s not a lot I can do about it anyway, so as long as he’s over her . . .’
‘That’s good. Because Will was worried he wasn’t.’
‘Well, he certainly seemed to be last night!’
‘Even so. Imagine. You were in love with someone and they died.’
Lisa felt the first fingers of nervousness clutching at her stomach. ‘Can we change the subject, please?’
‘Of course!’ Jess laughed again. ‘I just think it’s amazing. Yesterday Simon didn’t even know he was going on a date, and today . . .’
‘I know. We . . . wait. What?’
‘Simon didn’t know he was going on a date yesterday.’
‘He didn’t?’
Jess laughed a third time, though a little nervously. ‘Will sort of . . . tricked him into it.’
Lisa began pacing around the bathroom – something made a little tricky by the fact the room was only a couple of paces wide.
‘Explain, Jess.’
‘Well, Simon hadn’t been on a date for a couple of years, since you-know-what happened, and Will was getting more and more worried about him, so he arranged to meet him for lunch yesterday, except . . .’
Lisa felt a knot form in her stomach. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out what was coming next. ‘Simon was actually meeting me.’
‘Yeah!’ Jess had pronounced the word in a ‘great plan’ kind of way, then evidently realised perhaps she shouldn’t have. ‘Although he did actually tell him. About five minutes beforehand. And Simon obviously decided to go through with it, and then what happened happened, so . . .’
‘Go through with it?’ Lisa lowered the toilet lid and sat down heavily on it, wincing a little at the feel of the cold plastic against her bare backside.
Jess sighed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘How did you mean it, exactly?’ hissed Lisa, conscious she’d been ‘in’ the shower rather a long time now, and Simon might be wondering what was going on.
‘But it kind of proves that Simon’s over Alice, doesn’t it?’
‘Does it?’
‘Yeah. If I hadn’t wanted to go on a date with someone, and ended up spending the next . . . what’s the time?’
‘Five to eleven.’
‘Almost twenty-two hours with them, then it would suggest I was rather keen. Don’t you think?’
‘So he takes one look at me, and suddenly all his . . .’ Lisa struggled to find an appropriate word. ‘Issues are gone.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Just like that?’
‘Why not?’
‘You’re suggesting I . . . fixed him?’ Lisa reached across to turn the shower off, then lowered her voice. ‘I’m not sure it’s that simple.’
‘Well, it should be!’ Jess went back to her trademark tinkling laugh. ‘Now, stop wasting time on the phone with me, and go back to him. And Lise?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t let this one go! And more importantly . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t scare him off!’
Lisa opened her mouth to protest, but Jess had already ended the call. Surely she didn’t scare men off? She hadn’t with Chris . . . Or had she, being too keen? She felt her earlier confidence starting to evaporate. This needed thinking about. You’re in love with someone, they die, then you start dating again . . . How could any new partner possibly live up to the tragi-romantic idea of what life could have been with the old one? Especially because it was sudden, Simon never getting a chance to say goodbye, left with a vision of . . . Lisa didn’t want to think of what. It had happened to someone from one of the group therapy sessions in Cancún, his girlfriend meeting her end courtesy of a bungee jump that went wrong, a fact Lisa had only discovered after she’d made some comment about him being ‘on the rebound’, which had sent the poor guy into floods of tears and meant Lisa had spent the rest of the week avoiding him.
She took a series of slow breaths – a technique she’d learned at the retreat – and tried to centre herself. She couldn’t imagine how Simon had coped. If he had coped. Because this kind of thing damaged you, didn’t it? And Lisa wasn’t sure she’d have been strong enough to pick up the pieces if it had happened to her, let alone anyone else. But Simon didn’t look all that damaged. Hadn’t sounded too distraught. Maybe he was ‘over’ Alice. Perhaps spending the day – and the night – with Lisa had made him realise that.
In any case, there was only one way to find out, so with a final check of her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Lisa pulled on her dressing gown, took a few breaths to ready herself, unlocked the door and made her way back to the bedroom.
‘Simon?’ she said, knocking lightly on the door as if it wasn’t her room, then smiling at her own ridiculousness. But when there was no sign of him there, she checked the rest of the house – finding nothing – then returned to the bedroom. Perhaps he’s hiding, she thought, peering into the wardrobe and even under the bed (finding, to her horror, what looked like a pair of Chris’s discarded boxer shorts) – then she noticed the bed had been made.
‘Simon?’ she said again, looking suspiciously around the room, as if this might be one of those pranks she’d watched on YouTube and there was a hidden camera somewhere.
Her gaze returned to the freshly made bed. Perhaps it was Simon’s attempt to atone for the previous evening, or a way of pretending it hadn’t happened. Either that, or he suffered from OCD. Whichever it was, Lisa feared it wasn’t good.
She retrieved her phone, sat down on the chair in the corner of the room and hesitantly unlocked the screen, trying to work up the courage to call him – but what would she say? ‘Where are you?’ might sound a little judgemental, assuming he even answered. And as for ‘Are you okay?’ – Lisa already suspected she knew the answer to that particular question.
She knew she’d been too forward. Simon hadn’t been ready, and she’d virtually frog-marched him into bed and forced him to have sex with her. He’d just been too much of a gentleman to say no.
Twice.
All of a sudden, she felt cheap. Used. And pretty unloved, now she thought about it. Of course Simon had done a runner. Who’d want to go out with her? Chris hadn’t – though he’d been perfectly happy to come round and try to sleep with her. Now it looked like Simon had done exactly the same – and Lisa almost marvelled at how clever he’d been to turn her down in the first place, giving him the perfect ‘out’ this morning.
And yet he had come back last night, desperate to explain, to make her understand. That wasn’t the action of a man who was simply after a shag. One he’d already been on the verge of getting, before he’d made a bolt for the door. So why had he . . . ?
Lisa froze.
His car keys. She’d found them by the dryer – which meant he’d come back for them, not her. And in all the confusion with Chris, and then Simon’s sob story – cover story, more like – she hadn’t put two and two together. Instead, she’d fallen for it, just like she’d promised herself she wouldn’t with anyone ever again . . .
Lisa felt her throat tighten as a creeping feeling of despair began to spread through her. She thought the way she’d responded to Chris last night had been progress, and yet now she could see that history had repeated itself. And despite Cancún, despite all the changes she thought she’d made, it would probably always repeat itself . . .
She set her phone down beside her, put her head in her hands, burst into tears, and sobbed until she had nothing left inside. This couldn’t be happening again. Simon hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place. He quite evidently wasn’t ready for a relationship. Everything he’d done had been . . . Well, because he’d been forced to, not because he wanted to. And as to whether he was over Alice – well, hot-footing it out of the house while Lisa was in the shower, even making the bed to cover his tracks, as if he’d never even been there . . .
Suddenly angry, Lisa snatched a tissue from a box on the dresser and blew her nose loudly. The weeks of uncertainty after she’d split up with Chris had been a nightmare (once she’d eventually understood that they had split up), and that wasn’t something she wanted to go through again. No, this time she wanted closure right away. To ‘get her retaliation in first’, as she’d once heard someone say. She wasn’t prepared to wait for Simon to be ready. Simply because there appeared to be a big chance he might never be.
With a steely determination she didn’t know she had, she picked her phone back up, scrolled through to Simon’s number and began composing a text.
Chapter 35
Simon made his way back to Lisa’s house, with something of a spring in his step. It certainly felt different to when he’d walked there the previous night, and although that might simply be the fact that his trainers had dried out, he doubted it. No, he’d unburdened himself last night, and it had felt – well, not good exactly, but a relief, at least. He certainly felt – what – lighter? Freer? And he had Lisa to thank for that.
Instead of doing what Simon had feared every woman would do when he told them about Alice – running a mile – she’d done the exact opposite; which was a credit to her, he knew, especially after what she’d been through. No, if he was going to move on – and by that he meant move on with someone – Lisa might just be the one. She wasn’t Alice, but no one was. No one would be. And comparing was a futile task – therapy had taught him that. But yesterday – or, rather, Lisa yesterday – had made him believe it.
The petrol station on the corner of the next street had provided him with fresh milk, a packet of Lavazza ground coffee, some freshly squeezed orange juice and some just-baked pains au chocolat. (Or was it pain au chocolats? Simon couldn’t remember. Despite his doorstep exchange with Chris the previous evening, French had never been his best subject. And, besides, his degree had been a long time ago.) Now he was heading back to Lisa’s, sure she must have an appetite – he certainly did, especially after last night.
There’d been a bucketful of bouquets of cut flowers by the till, and he’d considered getting one of those too, but in the end he’d thought better of it. Breakfast, in particular a good cup of coffee (he’d noticed a moka pot – still in its box – in Lisa’s kitchen cupboard when he was looking at the tea last night, and if he was going to start educating her as to how good coffee could taste, a cup made in the traditional stovetop way wasn’t a bad place to start) accompanied by the sweetness of a French pastry, would do. Flowers were a bit presumptuous. And Simon didn’t dare to presume anything where Lisa was concerned.
He had paid an extra five pence for a plastic bag, though. He didn’t want Lisa to think he was cheap. Which was why he’d nipped out to get breakfast, so he could impress upon her he wasn’t the type to do a runner after . . . well, after what had happened.
But what had happened? Had it just been one amazing night between two lonely people, or was there more to it than that? Simon suspected there was only one way to tell – and that was a second date. As to whether he had the nerve to ask Lisa for one . . . He needed a coffee first. Maybe even two.
Fo
r a moment, he wondered if he should run it by Will first – after all, if he hadn’t set yesterday’s events in motion, then none of this would have happened. Then again, what was there to run by? He and Lisa had obviously taken things to – as Will would call it – the ‘next level’ last night. Simon could surely handle things from here on in. Plus Will would get even more of a surprise when Simon and Lisa turned in their interviews – and it would make a nice change to be able to get one over on his friend.
He strolled down Lisa’s road, swinging his plastic bag, realised he was whistling, and almost burst out laughing. He hadn’t felt this happy since he didn’t know when . . . Actually, strike that. He knew exactly when. He pulled out his phone and composed a quick text to Lisa, typing – then deleting just as quickly – breakfast in bed? and replacing it with a slightly more reserved on my way back with breakfast!, though almost the moment he pressed ‘Send’, his phone beeped with a reply.
Simon grinned – so she was keen – and clicked on the message, then his face fell. He knew a fault with text messages was that they were open to different interpretations (and don’t get him started on emojis) and the meanings weren’t always that clear, though even with his lack of experience he suspected that Lisa’s final sentence – I think we should just be friends – was, as the characters in Alice’s favourite soap EastEnders might say, ‘crystal’.
He hurriedly ran through the events of last night in his head, wondering how he’d got it so wrong. Perhaps it had simply been a sympathy shag, along the lines of what Will had told him he might get if he trotted out the Alice story, but twice?
Then again, maybe the second time they’d had sex wasn’t because he was that good, but instead because Lisa couldn’t believe the first time had been that bad. Or perhaps, after her experience with Chris, the text was her defence mechanism springing into action. A test, to see whether he really was keen. Push him away and see how he responded. After all, she might have listened to Chris’s advice the previous afternoon – especially that bit about her diving in and swimming frantically – then woken up this morning and realised she was doing exactly that, and this was her way of slowing down to a leisurely breaststroke. If you excused the phrase.
