The Wake-Up Call(85)

“Look at me,” I whisper.

And she does. The phone rings out, and she gasps against my lips just as I gasp against hers. She grips me so fiercely, and I hold her just as tightly, and for a moment I wonder if she might not want to let me go.

The phone rings again, and this time she groans, loosening her grip and rolling away to answer it.

“Grigg,” she says, reaching for her dressing gown. “Do you mind if I answer? You can just chill here if you want.” She hesitates. “Or go, if you’d rather . . .”

“I’ll wait,” I say quickly.

She disappears into the living area, then I hear the door to her spare room closing behind her. I look around her bedroom. I’ve never been in here without her before. The colour scheme matches the living area, and matches Izzy: soft pastels, faint polka dots, and fluffiness.

I catch sight of the bath through the bathroom door and wonder. There is no specific rule about baths, but running her one would feel like a step up from leaving the minute we’re done, and she did say I could stay here. What was her plan for afterwards?

I head into the bathroom. There is a gold-edged mirror above the basin, and make-up cluttered across the surfaces. I’m just turning on the taps when I hear her voice.

“The sex is incredible,” Izzy is saying.

It is almost perfectly clear through the bathroom wall, even with the water running. I retreat to the door after a split second’s hesitation, but then she says, “But I’ll never be his girlfriend, will I?”

I freeze. I can’t hear Grigg and Sameera’s response, just a tinny rattle of voices.

“I mean, the sex doesn’t really change anything. He’s still . . . Lucas. That guy.”

I should leave. I don’t. Horror settles quietly in my stomach.

“Who, Louis?” she says.

I bite down on my lip.

“Oh, yeah, I guess so.”

More echoing, indistinct voices.

“Yeah, he’s still a contender,” she says. “Still in the game. That’s how he’d put it,” she says, and there’s something in her voice I can’t identify—a sort of fondness, maybe, or wryness. “Ugh, it’s been such a mad couple of weeks. Anyway, how are you two? How did Rupe manage the journey?”

I withdraw, clicking the bathroom door shut.

I leave her flat, walking blindly to my car. I think about all the ways I’ve tried to show her the sort of man I am. How I’ve treasured every moment with her, and tried to make her feel treasured, too, and yet still I’m “that guy.” Good enough to take to bed but not a contender. Not like Louis.

Before this winter, she would just have been proving everything I already felt about myself. But these last few weeks have changed me. I’ve changed me. Now, through the chorus in my head telling me I’m not good enough, there is a small voice saying, Actually . . . I deserve better than this.





Izzy


What the fuck?

I stare down at the bath, water still glugging down the overflow pipe, and then around at my empty flat.

He just . . . left?

I know I was gone a while chatting to Grigg and Sameera, but surely he’d pop his head in to say bye if he had to shoot off?

I call Grigg back. He looks unperturbed.

“What did you forget?” he says.

“Lucas left.”

“Left?”

“He’s . . . gone. Without saying bye. He left the bath running . . .”

Grigg blinks a few times and then says, “Maybe he’s passed out somewhere?”

“God, maybe,” I say, heading out of the bathroom to check for collapsed Lucases behind sofas and doors. My flat is small—this doesn’t take long. “Nope. Just not here.”

“It must have been an emergency. Have you rung him?”

“No,” I say, feeling stupid. “I rang you.”

“Call him, then call me back, OK?”

He’s gone. I flick to my WhatsApp with Lucas. Above our last exchange—Come to mine later? I’ll be there at eight—is this:


You left your pink socks with fairies on them here.


Are you sure those aren’t yours?


. . .


Ha OK bring them next time you come over. Or wear them to work? Good conversation-starter?


I actively avoid starting conversations. Conversations find me more often than I would like as it is.


You are so ridiculously grumpy for a man in hospitality.


I warm up sometimes. For some people.



I swallow. It looks . . . flirty. Coupley, almost. That’s exactly what Sameera and Grigg said on the phone, too. So are you dating now? Sameera had asked, nose wrinkled. When does having nonstop sex become a relationship?

But it’s not a relationship—it can’t be. There are rules.

I gnaw the inside of my lip as Lucas’s number rings and rings. No answer. I hang up and message Grigg, and then sit down on the edge of the very full bath.

I am more unsettled than I would like to be. Lucas and I are . . . a fling. We’re flinging. I shouldn’t care if he’s acting like a dickhead, walking out without saying goodbye. But I do, and that’s scaring me a lot, and the overfull bath is making the whole thing feel especially dramatic.