‘And you won’t?’
‘I’m a big strong man,’ he says jokily, walking along beside me, hovering protectively.
I feel strangely safe and Ineverfeel safe. Not really. And then I check myself, because safe isn’t always safe. My brain runs its circuit of checks and it still comes back to the same answer, this is OK. Finn is good, he isn’t going to hurt me, I can tell.
‘Thisis your car, really?’
We stand in front of a rather old, battered Mini. It’s small and he’s tall. A vision of getting a certain number of clowns into a Mini comes to mind.
‘How do you even get into it?’
‘With the seat pushed all the way back,’ he says. ‘I think I have made a sort of bump in the ceiling where my head is,’ he adds gravely. ‘It is not the ideal car for someone of six foot three, but I have the motorbike, and I couldn’t exactly drive you home on that.’
‘You didn’t know you were going to be driving me home?’ I counter.
‘I sort of hoped I would be. Have I messed up with the friend thing?’ he says, looking me straight in the eye when we are both in the car, and I have stopped laughing at how amusing it is, watching a man of his size folded up into a Mini.
I look down at my lap.
‘No, you haven’t messed things up,’ I say, ‘not one bit.’
I direct him to my apartment, and I know absolutely that I could invite him in, but I’m not going to. I’m not ready, not yet.
Gallantly, after unfolding himself from the car, he helps me out. He then walks me up the steps to theapartment-building door.
‘You’re still innineteen-twenties mode,’ I say.
‘It’s you,’ he says, ‘you do that to me.’
‘Really? Anineteen-twenties gentleman would not have made a lady go on atwenty-kilometre hike,’ I point out, and he laughs.
‘It wasn’t twenty kilometres.’
‘It felt like it.’
I slip the jacket off my shoulders and reach up to him, put it around his, but I can’t quite make it. Instead, he balances his jacket over one arm and then two hands with their long fingers catch my face.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Thank you, Sid. Tonight was lovely.’
His lips come down on mine, warm and soft. I’m not afraid. It just feels right. I feel a pooling of warmth deep in me, and I think, oh right, yes. Then the heat of his lips is gone and he’s standing up.
‘Go in,’ he says, ‘you’ll get cold. Is it safe in there?’
‘Security cameras all over the place,’ I say.
‘Text me when you’re in your apartment.’
I nod.
‘I’m not saying that in a crazy, possessive stalkery way,’ he adds, as he shrugs back into his jacket. ‘But just text me.’
I nod and I slip in. As the lift doors close on me, he’s still standing outside watching, like a knight.
After I bolt the third lock on my apartment, I send him a text.Thanks for a beautiful night, I’m home, Sid. I don’t add a kiss or a funny emoji, I’m not afunny-emoji sort of person, except for Vilma and Mum.
The lovely glow inside me continues, something I don’t know if I’ve ever felt before, something soft. But I do know I don’t want it to go away.
31
