I agreed. She spent several minutes trying to call Ade, but seemed to be ringing everyone else in her phone instead.
Eventually, I called a taxi, which miraculously turned up on time. I poured her in. “45 Summer Breeze Gardens, Compney,” I told the driver and handed him a £20 note as I took my seat beside Son, who promptly leaned on my shoulder.
Sonia yelled at the driver to turn the radio up as she loved that song. I frowned. The radio wasn’t on.
We arrived at her house ten minutes later, and she woozily walked up the path to her front door. I made the driver wait until I saw the door close before I let him drive off.
Once home, I stripped off, made a fuss of Kennedy for half an hour, then showered and ate cereal in my boxers. As I ate, sitting on the kitchen floor, I threw a ball for Kenny.
People said things about me? I was the weirdo?
How?
The next morning, my head had a construction crew living in it, and they were on a deadline.
Work harder, and louder seemed to be their motto. I stumbled into the kitchen in a fog of regret and let Kennedy out for his morning run around the garden. Then I tried to decide on a course of action. A cat miaowed at me from near my foot.
“Hush, beast of an animal,” I whispered.
It miaowed again. “Cruel villain,” I snapped and poured some biscuits into its already overflowing bowl.
I looked up. There was a man at my kitchen window.
I gave a deep exhale and steadied my nerves.
“Give me five minutes,” I said to him and went back upstairs. I threw on last night’s jeans and found a T-shirt from my floor and put it on. It smelled, but it wasn’t as bad as the shirt I’d worn out to the club.
When I got downstairs, after another deep breath, I opened the door. Simon was standing in my garden. Hewas in a bright red running shirt that someone must’ve bought him for a joke and a pair of tiny, tiny shorts.
“Okay, my phone is on this time, so what’s your excuse for turning up unannounced?”
He shrugged. “Trying to see you in your pants again.”
I glared.
Kennedy came up to him and demanded his crotch to sniff, and while Simon was distracted, I opened the door wide and let him decide if he wanted to come in. I went back to my hunt for ways to pacify the men in my head.
I was downing paracetamol like it was going out of fashion when dog and man came inside. Simon stood awkwardly in the doorway, looking me up and down. His eyes seemed to be taking me in and assessing me.You saw me a week ago, I don’t age that fast, I was tempted to say, but didn’t.
“You went home,” I said instead.
He nodded. Once again like the act was painful. “I hadn’t been in some time. It was nice to be there. See people from the past. It … grounds you.”
I pretended I could empathise with that, but I’d never been back, so I had to imagine it.
“You left without saying goodbye.” I cringed as I said it. I turned to face the other way and drank a pint of water.
“Were you annoyed with me?” he asked. His voice was closer to me, but I hadn’t heard him move.
“Concerned.” I tried to keep my voice even. I turned back and there he was, six inches from me. I could feel the heat pulsating off his body. His face red from being in the sun, the sweat running down his neck onto the hem of his shirt. Those blue eyes.
He ran his fingers ever so lightly over my arm. “I could take you with me next time I go home. My parents loved you; Mum would be happy to have someone to fatten up with her cooking.”
“I’ve never been to Aberdeen.”
He turned his hand around, brushing the back of his knuckles over the curve in my arm at the inside of the elbow. The hairs there were standing up, and every time his hand swept across them, I felt a zing in my body jolt from my chest to my toes.
“It’s a nice place, but the countryside around it is much more beautiful, you’d like it.” His eyes were on me, maybe searching for something. Whatever it was, I wanted to shout the answer was yes. Yes, Simon, I want you. Yes, let’s go to my bedroom and lock the door and not come out for days. Yes, move in and let’s get married and adopt some dyslexic Azerbaijani orphans. You can be Daddy, and I’ll be Papa; you can teach them how to fish, and I’ll teach them Polish folksongs while we make pierogi. At night, we’ll make love until we pass out in each other’s arms.
