Summer in the City: The perfect feel-good summer romance

by Emma Jackson

  And realised that they were falling in love.

  Chapter Eleven

  Once Noelle’s sister and brother-in-law returned, I called us an Uber. Noelle fell asleep in the back, slumping into my shoulder, her arms folded protectively around her big handbag, the notebook she’d been scribbling into tucked safely inside. Her hair smelt of sweet smoke and sunshine and it was a wrench having to nudge her awake and lose the warmth of her pressed up against me.

  She was still half asleep when I saw her to her door and she hesitated a moment as she was saying goodnight, before reaching up on impulse to give me a kiss on the cheek that stayed on my skin like a burn long after she’d gone inside.

  It had to be because she was tired and had been with her family. All the affection she had for them spilling over onto me. I walked home feeling more restless than made any sense following a platonic kiss.

  For the first time in a long time I didn’t look forward to going back to work on Monday. Patrick was panicking and absentminded when it came to updating me on matters he’d dealt with and then expecting me to know what he was talking about. He was obviously stressed, and I didn’t want to add to that but with only two weeks to go before his paternity leave, I had to ensure he wasn’t going to drop me in it. He’d still not arranged a number of key client meetings and I hoped I wasn’t going to have to take up Georgina’s offer to step in. I was avoiding her as much as I possibly could. Every time she cornered me in the office, I could feel dozens of pairs of eyes trained on us, ready to pick up any little detail they could gossip about.

  I decided to ask Patrick to meet me in the mornings to go for a run. He was so enthusiastic I felt guilty that I’d ever doubted his sincerity when I first started working in New York. It turned out his wife’s blood pressure was on the rise and they were thinking about doing a caesarean to deliver the babies early. His wife was worried, he was worried, and my first thought was whether Noelle would be able to help, given her experience both as a midwife and with having twins in the family.

  I picked up the phone a number of times, ready to call her, but something held me back. She had work to do and even though she said she wanted to be friends, and I wanted to try, was I really capable of suppressing my attraction to her? I wasn’t sure I could deal with her disappointment in me if I slipped up. When she received word from her dad about Trevor, she’d let me know. That’s what I needed to focus on, and all I had to do was wait.

  But as the week drew on and I didn’t hear anything, I began to wonder what was the worse torture? Being in her company or not having her around me at all? Work served as some distraction but Thursday was Independence Day, a national holiday. I had nothing to do but stay at home, do more work and catch up with the friends and family back home.

  After ringing my nan, I braved contacting Nick. I’d been giving him small updates about the search, to reassure him things were in hand but not getting into in-depth discussions about it, so I arranged to talk to him while we played GTA across the network on our PS4s.

  ‘Wow, so this could be it? Will you go straight to see him, or would you like to wait until I’m over, so I can come with you?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I hedged; a flat-out ‘no’ would just open myself up to an argument. ‘I have no idea how long it will take Ken to find an opportunity to do the search. He’s a detective so he obviously has higher priorities.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Nick was trouncing me in the game, constantly blowing my head off the second I’d respawned, but since his job relied on his being able to hit the right buttons at the right time, with superior hand-eye coordination, I had to take it on the chin. When I caught him off guard, blasting his avatar into a building and crowed in triumph, he groaned.

  ‘Beth just came in. I was distracted.’

  ‘Excuses, excuses.’

  ‘Oh, hang on a second…’ I could hear Beth in the background and Nick answering her, his voice muffled against the mouthpiece. ‘Yeah, I’ll ask.’ He came back on the phone. ‘Beth says Noelle sent her a message at the weekend about needing to speak to her, but she’s not been able to get hold of her since. She was wondering if you’ve heard from her?’

  ‘No. She’s probably just busy. She has a deadline coming up.’

  Nick relayed the information and there was some back and forth, some rattling, a little giggling and then Beth came over my earpiece.

  ‘Hey, Stephen.’ I could hear the smile in her voice. ‘She mentioned about her book; it was just funny because the message she sent me sounded so urgent. She never usually does that and then doesn’t get back to me. I’ve even tried calling her and it’s like her phone is permanently switched off.’

  I chewed my lip, my stomach tightening with concern. That didn’t sound like her. Even if she was busy, she always either answered or sent a message to say she’d be in touch soon. I’d seen her do it often enough when her family were inundating her with messages.

  ‘D’you want me to go over and check she’s okay?’

  ‘Oh, would you?’

  ‘It’s no problem. She doesn’t live far from me.’

  ‘You’re a star, thank you.’

  I smiled at Beth’s reaction. God I was glad we’d repaired the damage I’d done at Christmas now it was looking likely she was going to be my sister-in-law.

  My mind stalled on the thought. I’d told Noelle that Nick was planning on proposing. Was that what Noelle had wanted to speak to her about so urgently? The last time I’d given her some personal information about Nick, she’d hightailed it straight over to Beth.

  ‘I’ll head over there now.’ I forced my voice to sound light.

  ‘Oh no, finish your game with Nick.’

  ‘He was beating me anyway and I’m sure he’d prefer to spend some time with you than play video games. Tell him I’ll speak to him at the weekend, and I’ll text you when I’ve seen Noelle, okay?’

  We said goodbye and I pulled off the headset and threw my controller down beside me on the sofa. I’d thought I could trust Noelle with Nick’s plans, but why? Of course her loyalty to Beth was going to outweigh any obligation she felt to me. She probably thought that by telling Beth about Nick’s potential proposal she would scupper any ideas I had about convincing him otherwise. I’d thought we’d stopped being at war, but maybe she’d just hoodwinked me again.

  I needed to get over there and have it out with her. Whatever I had to promise her, whatever favour I needed to offer her, I just had to stop her from ruining Nick’s proposal. But would she even be home? She’d probably be with her family celebrating Independence Day.

  Well, it was worth a try. I couldn’t sit in and do nothing.

  I heard the door buzzer in a distant way, like it was coming at me from the other end of a tunnel, rather than the other side of the room. I had a feeling it had been ringing for a while. I unglued myself from the chair, bare legs peeling away from the seat, and dragged myself over to the door, pushing hair out of my face and unsticking an empty packet of chips from my elbow.

  I tiptoed up and peeked through the peephole. Stephen was outside, the shoulder of his white shirt and the edge of his ear and dark hair just visible as he stared at the crack in the doorframe like a cat waiting to be let out.

  I passed my hand over my clothes again and then shook my head. What was the point? He was going to look like a movie star, and I had more important things on my mind.

  ‘You are home,’ he said by way of greeting.

  ‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Well, I thought you might be celebrating with your family. It’s the Fourth of July.’

  ‘It is?’ My eyes widened, both because I couldn’t remember if I’d told my family I wouldn’t be there for our annual picnic and because that meant I only had one more day before my editor expected my manuscript in her inbox.

  ‘Are you all right?’ His brow furrowed as he took in my dishevelled appearance. ‘Are you ill?’

  I forced a laugh. �
�Some people might call it an illness, but it’s not contagious. You wanna come in for a coffee?’

  He nodded and followed me into my kitchen. I could see him throwing side-eye glances at the state of the place and I knew his fingers must’ve been itching to start tidying up. I got to the sink and found there were no clean cups. There was a row of them along my desk behind the laptop but I got side-tracked from collecting them because I remembered I needed to save and back up.

  ‘So, what’s going on, Noelle? Beth asked me to swing by and check on you because she was worried.’

  Oh. Beth had been worried. Not him. I slumped back down on my desk chair. I mean, why would he be worried? It was Thursday, we’d only seen each other at the weekend. There were some clattering noises and I realised he’d taken over coffee-making duties. I forced myself to close the lid on my laptop. My eyes were sore and barely able to focus anyway.

  ‘It’s no biggie, I just hit pay dirt on the edits for this novel and I thought I better get some actual words written. It can’t all be Pinterest boards and aesthetics.’ I drummed my fingers on top of the laptop. That night babysitting after the barbecue had unlocked something and new scenes had flooded me when I woke up at 4am on Sunday morning.

  The first day and a half had been a crazy flow of ideas, and when that ended, I started the work of trying to figure out where they fit. Some had, some hadn’t. The bones of the novel ended up being replaced and it was all I could think about.

  His dark eyes flicked between my drumming fingers and my face. ‘Why do you always do that?’

  ‘Hmm…what?’

  ‘Make out your writing is no big deal.’

  ‘Do I? No. I don’t do that, do I?’

  ‘You do to me. Whenever I ask you about it, you make a quip about procrastinating and move on. Apart from when we were talking about your dating break and having kids. What’s the real deal here? What do you need in order to get this done on time?’

  ‘Oh. Well, my editor is expecting me to send her the revised manuscript tomorrow and…’ I blew out a breath. ‘I might be able to get it done in time. It’s going to need revisions again, but that’s okay, because it’s better now. Or at least, I think it is…’ My brain was a muddle.

  Stephen frowned, tugging at the collar of his shirt. ‘You sound like you’re up against it… Where are your family?’

  ‘What? Who knows, I know we have some similarities to the Weasleys but I don’t have one of those clocks.’

  He half laughed but his eyes were sober enough. ‘I just mean, why aren’t they helping you out through this. You could do with someone…er…looking after you while you’re working this intensely.’

  ‘Who looks after you?’

  He sat back. ‘No one. I don’t need looking after.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘I beg to differ.’

  ‘Look, they would. My mom would be dropping off mac ’n’ cheese every evening and calling me every morning. Then Lucy would come over to pick up my laundry, but of course she’d have to have the baby with her, and I couldn’t ignore the baby. And Tim would call me up and try to give me advice on what to do. Sam would want to look into why my laptop was making such a loud whirring sound… It’s too much. I can’t breathe when they are all trying to help me at once, and the one thing I really, really need is space.’

  ‘Do you need me to go?’

  ‘That wasn’t a hint.’ I chewed my lip. I did really. I was barely able to believe he was actually there anyway; I’d spent far too much time on my own, inside my own head with my characters.

  ‘But you do.’ He gave a short nod. ‘I’ll finish making you coffee and get out of your hair.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just—’

  ‘Noelle, you don’t need to apologise. I’m not offended. I wouldn’t think twice about kicking someone out of my office when I was trying to work.’

  When he brought a coffee over, I realised I’d been staring at my notes again and he’d cleared away all the dirty mugs. Stephen stepped over to the window.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Huh?’ I looked over. Crap, I’d left the blind open. How long had it been like that for? ‘Oh, that’s Mr Biggins.’

  ‘Does he always stare at you like that?’

  ‘Only when I leave the blind open.’

  I watched Stephen glare across the narrow alleyway at my neighbour until Mr Biggins actually retreated. Satisfied, he went back into the kitchen and brought out a sandwich.

  ‘Oh wow, is that for me?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Judging by the packets of crisps and chocolate bar wrappers everywhere, I’m guessing you haven’t been eating too well.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s fuel.’

  ‘It’s terrible fuel.’

  ‘Don’t judge me please.’

  ‘I’m not judging, I’m…’ He paused. ‘I’m speaking from experience. When I first started trading, I used to eat terribly. Picking up burgers on my way home before I fell into bed and then a muffin on the way to work. It feels easier but it leaves you sluggish and you don’t work as efficiently.’

  I nodded, a little too freaked out by the way he was comparing the demands of my career to his, like it was of equal importance – not just a hobby. I couldn’t think what to say in response, so I picked up the sandwich and took a massive bite. Cheese and tomato. My favourite. Was I dreaming?

  ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you come over to my place for the day?’

  ‘Why?’ I mumbled around a mouthful of food.

  He folded his arms and sat on the arm of my sofa. ‘It’s ridiculously hot in here, Noelle. If you’re not eating and drinking properly and you’re sitting in this heat, you’re going to get ill. Come and work in my air-conditioned apartment. I have work of my own to do too. I’ll make sure you are fed and watered. You’re making your brain work twice as hard this way.’

  Good Lord, the thought of being ten degrees cooler was very tempting. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. I hate to think of you sweating yourself into dehydration over here, existing on nothing but Hershey kisses and coffee, whilst your perverted neighbour leers at you. Beth would kill me if she knew I’d left you here like this. What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Beth was the reason again. He just wanted to keep his soon-to-be-sister-in-law happy.

  The smile slipped from his face as though he was reading my mind. ‘See it as a sign of appreciation for how much you’ve helped me. I swear I won’t bother you.’

  I tugged the crust free from my sandwich. He was pretty good at keeping to the rules and he seemed to get how important it was for me to get back to work. If he started distracting me, I could always come back home again. It would be so amazing to get out of this heat; now I wasn’t concentrating on my writing, I felt so tired. I had to keep going and a change of scenery would really help.

  ‘Okay.’

  I knew burnout. I’d suffered it on occasion and so did many people I worked with. I was thankful that Noelle wasn’t ill, but this was hardly better. In some ways it was worse, because despite being exhausted, she would keep going until the work was done, and suffer the consequences later.

  I carried her bag with her laptop and notebooks and folder as we walked through the busy streets. I would have grabbed a taxi, but I thought she could do with the fresh air – I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been at home working since I walked her to her door on Saturday night.

  The streets were even more crowded than when I walked over to her apartment earlier. There were flags hanging out of windows, people walking around with faces painted red, white and blue, and when we neared my place, streams of people were camping out on cordoned-off roads facing the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Noelle was uncharacteristically quiet in the face of all this excitement. Ordinarily I would have expected her to be insisting I took part in some food-related ritual but there was a glazed look to her eyes, her mind whirring, a million miles away. I took her arm be
cause I was concerned she was going to step out on the road without checking both ways.

  ‘Here, you can set yourself up at the table,’ I told her when we arrived at my apartment. I put her bag down and went to fetch some iced water for her as well. Her place had been sweltering – it couldn’t be healthy. I knew the rent in New York was high and living alone meant she had no help with the bills, so I was wondering if she couldn’t afford to fix her air conditioner and if I should offer to pay for it for her. Just as a thank-you present for helping me out. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything.’

  She was standing in the middle of the lounge turning slowly, examining the space. She shook her head and focused her eyes back on me. ‘What? You don’t want to chat or something? Show me around?’

  I tilted my head. ‘I thought you needed to get on?’

  ‘I do…’ she said slowly. ‘Most people hear that and still talk to me for half an hour though.’

  ‘I’m not most people.’ I winked at her.

  ‘No. You’re not.’ She gave me a small smile, her eyes warm and wondering, and I thought there was a possibility she meant it in a good way.

  ‘Go on then. That book won’t write itself.’ I hesitated, wondering if I should bring up my concerns about her spilling the beans to Beth but…no. Even if she had been going to do that, she wasn’t going to be calling her anytime soon. I could wait until she’d finished her work and her mind was clearer. There was no guarantee she’d even remember the conversation if I spoke to her about it while she was in this state of intense single-mindedness.

  She sat down at the table, started pulling out her laptop and notebooks. I went into the kitchen to make sure I had enough food in for us both or if I needed to pop out to the shops. When I looked over, she was opening her laptop, chugging back the glass of water like she hadn’t realised how thirsty she was, her eyes already darting over the screen before her, and I felt intense relief that she’d agreed to come back here, where I could look after her.