I settle myself back into the passenger seat, as we head past Sandymount and into the city. Nick smiles the whole time. His handsome profile is illuminated by the passing streetlights; his tousled hair, the ends glinting with sand and salt; his ruffled beard. His hand grips the gearstick confidently, his tense arm painted with tattoos.
“Are you staring at me?”
I laugh. “Just making the most of the view.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not fair, I can’t look at you.”
“You have to drive.”
“Trust me, it isn’t easy to concentrate on my driving with you sitting there next to me, wearing my wet T-shirt, knowing that you have nothing…”
“So you were staring at me, too.”
“Maybe a bit. And I’ll be thinking of that image when I get back to my lonely, empty apartment…”
“Stop! I don’t want to know.”
Once we get closer to my house, I start to feel an unbearable weight press down on my chest, and my good mood immediately morphs into something like sadness. Nick pulls up silently next to my house and switches off the engine. He takes a deep breath, then turns towards me. I notice that his smile isn’t the same as before.
“Safe and sound,” he says, attempting to be cheerful.
I nod, because I suddenly have no idea what to say to him. How can I already feel like this, as if he’s dumping me? As if I’ll never see him again? As if I’m scared that he’ll jump on the next flight across the world? Surely one night can’t make me feel this stupid, this insecure.
“Well. Thanks for tonight,” I say, reaching for the door handle.
Nick grabs my arm and pulls me back towards him. “Not so fast.”
His hand slides down to my butt; his smile brushes against my lips, before his mouth meets mine once again.
This kiss doesn’t taste like goodbye; it tastes like goodnight, like good morning and like he can’t wait to see me again, all together.
40
Nick
Iget home just as the sun is starting to rise and jump straight into the shower, trying to rinse the sand and salt from my hair. I stand there under the tepid water for way longer than necessary, my mind running over and over the events from the evening.
She wants me. It wasn’t just sex. It was pure, uncontrollable passion – an unstoppable desire to have each other, to finish off what we left behind. But there was something more.
And we both felt the same way.
I’ve never wanted something so much in my life; never felt that desire to have another person inside me. To smell them, taste them, to enter into them and stay there – and I don’t just mean physically.
If I thought before that I’d lost the most beautiful thing in my life, then now I’m certain. Just like I’m certain that I’ll never let her go again, that I’ll do everything in my power to avoid any more disasters. I just hope she can accept that: that her heart will understand, and won’t leave me behind.
I turn off the water, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist, heading towards the mirror that hangs above the sink. I wipe my hand over the glass, trying to get rid of the steam from the shower, and I study myself for a moment. My face is beaten. I haven’t slept, and I’m shattered just from the thought of her in the water, on the sand, on top of me. Of the two of us, one inside the other. And in a few hours, I have to get dressed and go to the centre; I have to face the day ahead, face Jamie, counting down the hours until I can see her again.
I step out of the bathroom and go to make some coffee, trying to concentrate on one thing at a time, and forget about this feeling: the feeling that, for once in my life, I have everything I want. And I don’t think I’m capable of keeping hold of it.
* * *
I getto the training ground slightly late, finding Jamie already there, bursting with energy.
“Good morning,” he says, scrutinising my face. “Someone was up late last night.”
“Someone didn’t sleep at all.”
“Don’t you think you’re a bit old for that now?”
