‘Then you’ll have to get used to it, I’m afraid. Pictures – pictureseverywhere,’ she says, signalling for the waitress so that we can get another round.
‘Maybe Sam and I need to start hanging out in secret.’
‘Juicy,’ Liv says. ‘Can I meet him this time?’
‘Let me see how I feel, after I meet up with him again. It’s very, very early days.’
‘It’s been six months. Andyou’reweighing up ifyouwant to keep seeinghim? You know you’re living my dream scenario, don’t you?’
I can’t help but laugh, because it is mad. All of this is totally mad. But now not only do I have to contend with people getting snappy with their phones when I’m trying to eat bar snacks, but I also keep thinking about Ollie. What Liv said has really got to me. She was worried about me and Ollie back then. And back then I’d have been absolutely appalled at the idea of me and Ollie. But now. Oh God, why do I keep thinking about this? What is it that’s doing this to me? Why can’t I control this weird, weird little feeling of … of I don’t know what.
‘So you’ll come along? You’re in the country?’ Liv asks.
I have no idea what I’ve missed. ‘Sorry … come to what?’
She inhales impatiently. ‘To my birthday party. I’m planning nice and early. It’s going to be at a gorgeous Italian restaurant.’
‘Lovely. Count me in. Send me the details and let me know what’s on your birthday wishlist.’
‘A heap of the cosmetics you’re currently advertising.’
‘Oh, I get loads of that for free. What can I actuallybuyyou?’ I ask.
‘You get it all for free?’ she asks, shaking her head slowly. ‘Really?’
I nod. ‘You can come over, make a night of it, try everything on and take whatever you fancy. They’ll send me more, if I ask.’
Her mouth hangs open in disbelief. ‘I either really want tobeyou right now. Or I want to hate you. I can’t work out which.’
‘Please don’t hate me. Love me for ever,’ I beg with huge puppy-dog eyes.
‘I will love you for ever. But only if you bring Sam Charlton to my party. Otherwise you’re dead to me,’ she replies mock-seriously.
‘Consider it done,’ I say, somewhat reluctantly, as I have absolutely no intention of bringing Sam to a cosy dinner party and I wonder, only seconds later, how I can get out of it.
CHAPTER FIFTY
‘I always forget how tall you are,’ Sam says when he gets out of the lift and enters my flat.
‘Er, thanks?’ I laugh and pull him in for a kiss. We’ve been doing this for about eight months now and it never stops feeling strange.
‘I’m so jet-lagged,’ he says as he kisses me as if he’s not seen me in a few weeks. Which he hasn’t. ‘What I mean is: hi, how are you?’
‘I’m fine. More than fine.’
‘I missed you,’ he says.
‘I missed you too,’ I tell him.
Because we see each other so infrequently, it always feels fresh and new every single time. We’ve been to so many restaurants – as long as they have a private dining room, as Sam’s really weird about eating in public – seen so many movies together on a projector that he bought me for my flat and he’s shared so many roast dinners, courtesy of my mum’s cooking. It’s like one never-ending honeymoon period. The sex is good too. The kind of sex you have with someone you really fancy, but are starved from seeing for weeks on end. Perhaps all relationships should be like this. Perhaps weshould hardly see the people we date and then it stays fresh, new and easy for ever.
While I’ve been waiting for Sam to show up today I’ve been playing the inevitable game of compare-and-contrast – thinking back to how Ben and I slept together, built trust, built love, and then we didn’t sleep together again until he’d made me fall in love with him. That was Ben’s goal. And it worked. Whereas Sam and I are just going with the flow, the L-word not mentioned at all. Not even once. Sam and I dating like this has been an unexpected outcome of sleeping together in LA.
What is also unexpected is that the next evening when we walk through the door of the restaurant, Ollie is at Liv’s party. I know they’re friends again, but I didn’t know they were ‘cosy, intimate-dinner birthday-party friends’. Liv didn’t say. And I didn’t ask, I suppose. And Ollie’s here, across the other side of the room, holding a glass of champagne and dressed very nicely in a navy suit and even a tie. He’s the only one wearing a tie. He looks very lovely.
‘Hmm,’ I say out loud, without realising it, as I take in Ollie’s presence.
‘Hmm, what?’ Sam mutters as he adjusts his watch. He’s wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans and, despite the fact it isn’t that sort of dinner, he’s making this effortless get-up look full of effort. It’s quite an art.
