At least nothing I wanted to talk to him about.
My house in Primrose Hill looked amazing from the street, but inside it was a shell of empty rooms and sparse furniture. I bypassed the ground floor and went straight upstairs to the only room in the place I’d got round to completing—the bathroom. With the shower’s fierce double head, I’d miss it when I finally moved out, and the reality that I was more attached to a domestic appliance than a building that had been my home for a decade was fucking galling.
I hadn’t even finished the kids’ bedrooms, though I had grand, grovelling plans for their new ones—plans I extended as I lingered under the hot spray, enjoying the pummelling jets on my skin. Doing shit for my kids made me feel marginally better, but the reality was however magical I made Delilah’s canopy bed, and however many snakes I painted on Tam’s ceiling, they’d still only be there every other weekend.
Being alone had never bothered me.
It bothered be now, and I didn’t like it.
I got out of the shower and padded to my bedroom. My unmade bed greeted me and I turned my back on it in disgust and slumped on the only other piece of furniture in the room, a leather chaise-longue Mina had bought me as a joke. Sitting on it with shower-damp skin wasn’t fun, but that was life, and obviously I had my phone in my hand. Where else would it be?
Water dripped onto the screen as I turned it on. I sent Dom a quick text to let him know I wasn’t dead, then, as had become another sad habit, went straight for Jude’s messages. More disquiet burned my belly as I read through them. I didn’t want to talk about cake and balloons, damn it, I wanted—craved—something real.
I clicked out of the messaging app and opened Grindr. Instinct told me the Jude I’d accosted online wasn’t that different to the dude in the shop, but somehow, relief tempered the strange panic I’d brought with me from the house of love in Tottenham.
Don’t text him. Don’t text him. Don’t text him.
But seriously. Fuck that noise.
stacked81:hey
I didn’t expect a reply to my eloquent opening, or, frankly, a reply at all. I made to toss the phone down beside me, but it buzzed in my hand a split second before it slipped out of my fingers.
Cursing, I scooped it up again, and my pulse jumped when I saw that Jude had replied.
dragon89:hey
Wow. It was hardly an essay, but it was a start. I forced myself not to deliberate over my response and let the truth roll out. Fuck it. He already thought I was a loaded dickwad adulterer. How much worse could it get? The fact that I was pretty rich was beside the point. If Dom’s friendship had taught me anything, it was that privilege didn’t have to come with a side of wanker.
stacked81:I was hoping we could talk some more, on here, after tomorrow
dragon89:after the party?
stacked81:yeah
dragon89:why?
stacked81:why not?
dragon89:lots of reasons
stacked81:one will do
He didn’t reply straight away. Before I’d met him, I’d have clicked out of the thread and moved on, scouring the grid of profiles for someone—anyone—to stoke the fire boiling in my blood. Being successful in my professional life didn’t have to make me a prick, but it had left me used to getting what I wanted—on the surface, at least. As I sat there, naked and alone, waiting, I was finally coming to realise that what I wanted was Jude.
Fuck, I wanted him.
My phone buzzed again.
dragon89:until Monday, this conversation never happened
I could live with that.
Eight
Jude
I usually persuaded Shaqueela to help me with kid’s parties, but I’d forgotten to ask her, so when Sunday morning rolled around, I was on my own.
