The chocolate torte was a mistake. I know that now. Going to the pastry shop, choosing the best-looking slice, watching them box it up. My heart was hopping so hard the whole time, I never even stopped to think.
I just want to do nice things for her. Bring a smile to her face, a small lift to her day. I’m not even sure why. But I’ve felt that way since we first met.
So I was disappointed when she didn’t answer her door. Felt a little bit crushed that I had to write a note.
I only acknowledged the truth minutes later, back in my flat. Reminded myself that if I had a single shred of decency I would throw whatever it is that’s unfolding between us up to the wind. Because nothing has changed since my mum died or Vicky left, or I broke up with Kate. And nothing ever will.
But the fact is, we’re separated solely by floorboards. And the following morning, just as I’m thinking I should try harder to keep my distance, there’s a knock on my door.
I stand in the middle of my living room, ready to answer. But then I remember all the reasons I shouldn’t and shut my eyes. Wait for her to leave.
•••
Walking the dogs through the park midafternoon, I contact Dad to say I can’t make lunch this Sunday.
I feel a sting in my throat as I send him the message. One more relationship crumbling, because I know too much. Yet another moment I can never rewind.
I play it all back now in my mind. Picture his face as he said the words.
You’re not even my son! I’m not even your father!
Is that why I never quite saw eye-to-eye with him? Why I constantly felt I was a disappointment, somehow? It always seemed like Doug was the son he’d been waiting for, which for a while I put down to their shared passions. Everything from model trains and red meat to rugby and numbers (Doug took over the accountancy firm from Dad when he retired).
But maybe, for the first time, there’s an indication it ran deeper than that.
Would it not make a strange sort of sense if it were true? Even though that would bring with it another life-altering question: who, and where, is my real father?
19.
Callie
The morning after finding the chocolate torte, I make the mistake of mentioning it to Dot. She becomes animated with strategy, giddy with tactics, the self-appointed line commander of my love life.
But I don’t want to apply tactics to Joel. Tactics were what I needed to handle Piers, when even at the beginning time spent together always came with a flip side—like burning your tongue on something lovely, or trying on a gorgeous outfit only to feel slightly fat.
By contrast, being around Joel is always so straightforward, so enjoyable. He warms me through, rather than leaves me cold. Added to which, ever since that night I heard him with Melissa through the floorboards, I’ve been in no doubt as to just how hot I think he is.
I stopped at his flat on my way to work this morning, but when I knocked there was no response, or audible movement inside. So I slipped a note under the door.
It simply read:
That chocolate torte made me smile (a lot). Thank you.
C
P.S. I’ve applied for the job.
20.
Joel
Steve’s invited me to join him for some sort of healthy juice. He’s asked me three times now. Frankly, it’s the kind of invitation I’d usually decline, but I still feel guilty about how things turned out between us. So, a few days after Bonfire Night, I meet him in the café at the gym where he works. I expect this to be a form of atonement in itself.
I was right. A speaker above our heads discharges a migrainous throb of house music I’ve fled nightclubs in the past to escape. And that’s before Steve’s slid a juice across the table to me that looks worryingly like tomato soup.
“What’s in it?” I’m pretty tired today, and I’m hoping that, against all odds, it might contain some caffeine.
“Carrot and beetroot. Kale. Orange juice. It’s cleansing,” he says. Like that justifies the part where they liquidized raw vegetables and flogged him the output for nearly a fiver.
