He meets my eyes, startled and staring. ‘Oh no, what?’
I laugh. ‘It’s nothing, it’s silly really. You’ll find it funny.’ I can’t say for sure he’ll find it funny but I want him to relax and stop worrying about the village tattletales. I’m from a town just big enough to generate some pretty low-key scandal and small enough for gossip about it to spread fast, so maybe I’m more used to this kind of thing than Elliot is. He did say he grew up in the countryside though, didn’t he? He must know how this kind of thing works? ‘The thing is,’ I say, feeling my cheeks colouring a little in spite of myself. ‘Mrs Crocombe has a long-running village sweepstake on single people coupling up, and I… I think we’re in her book.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ His shoulders visibly sink with relief.
‘Why, what did you think was going on?’
‘Nothing.’ Elliot eats again with renewed interest in his plate, but still he’s chewing slowly, contented.
‘You don’t mind them betting on you?’
He shrugs. It says,I can think of worse things.
‘Who do you think Mrs Crocombe’s money’s on?’ I push, wishing I had some kind of filter between my brain and my mouth.
‘No idea,’ Elliot replies.
Icouldsay what I’m thinking, that she wants to see Elliot and Anjali together but I’m leaving Anjali out of this. It’s not fair to talk about her when she’s not here. ‘Who do you reckon Izaak’s money’s on?’ I say instead.
‘Definitely you and him,’ Elliot says, and this time he does laugh, but it’s gentle. I don’t mind him teasing me, not when his amber irises are sparkling in the candlelight and directed intently at me.
‘Who do you think Jowan’s betting on?’ I say, feeling increasingly warm and hazy from the wine.
Elliot nods at the candles. ‘Us, I’m guessing.’
We both smile down at our plates for a while. After that, things seem easier. Ella Fitzgerald is singing about the summertime fish jumping and the cotton being high, and I feel myself relaxing at last, for the first time since I encountered Elliot on Saturday night, in fact.
I’m sure his eyes are on my mouth as we talk and drink. That doesn’t stop me looking twice to check, and yes, his eyes keep falling, fixing on my lips, and I’ve seen him getting lost and his own lips parting a little as he looks.
When it happens again, I smile and he jolts a little, blinking, and our eyes meet and I am certain we both feel the shift between us. I let myself sink deeper into the warm, relaxed atmosphere, even though a tiny, frightened part of me is half-heartedly looking for a way out.
Elliot’s asking me a lot of questions and I’m happy to answer every one. I tell him about my parents and the Facetime we had earlier (at last, I caught them at home) when Mum showed me round the new house, dodging cardboard boxes and looking happy but tired.
I talk about their holiday plans. I think he’s looking at me a little quizzically at one point and it makes me self-conscious, like I’m talking too much, like I only have my parents’ lives to talk about and no real experiences of my own to share. I talk on, trying to drown out my worries that I’ve no anecdotes of my own because I’ve done so little with my life so far.
We’ve finished eating and the wine bottle’s somehow empty, and when did it get dark outside? That’s when I throw his questions back to him. ‘Tell me about where you’re from. Tell me about being at uni, and doing a doctorate.’
‘What exactly do you want to know?’ he says, laying his cutlery down and cradling his glass close to his face in both hands.
‘I want to know everything about you,’ I say, and it’s true. I really do.
Elliot’s eyes leave mine for a moment and it feels like winter coming, I’d been so warm under his gaze. He gets up, reaches for his phone on the counter and skips a few songs.
‘Or, we could stop talking?’ he says.
I draw my neck back, trying to work out what he means.
‘We could… dance?’
I think I see the little flash of inspiration pass over his eyes when he blurts these words. It makes me laugh, it’s so unexpected.
I don’t let myself think about how something feels a tiny bit off, as though I’d been meaning to say something but it slipped my mind, or maybe I’d been waiting to hear something? But, it’s gone now, whatever it was. Elliot’s reaching his hand out to me, standing there in the middle of the candlelit café. Marvin Gaye’s singing satin-sheets soul now, and even if I could find the strength to refuse Elliot, no one alive can refuse Marvin.
I’m on my feet and stepping close to Elliot. We’re holding hands with elbows bent like we’re ten-year-olds at a disco and for a moment I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do next. I have a vague notion of the Hokey Cokey and the choreography to ‘Tragedy’ by Steps (who doesn’t?) but I have the good sense to know it’s justnotthe occasion for either of those.
I’m searching my brain for dance moves,anymoves, when Elliot draws me closer with a hand placed firmly on the small of my back. I instinctively slip my arm around his back too and he changes his grip on my hand, bringing it to his chest and holding it there tucked up inside his grasp, and somehow we both know to start to sway.
I’m just going to breathe through this.
