‘Can I stop it?’
‘The wedding?’ He sounds totally horrified.
‘No! Of course not the wedding. You were right, earlier I mean, with what you said about this Helen and this Cesca having something good. I mean, can I stop skipping?’
‘Oh.’ He makes this adorable face of overacted relief and I’m forced to bite my lip to stop myself giggling likean infatuated teenager. But then he turns serious. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you think it’s possible?’
‘Well …’ He draws out the word as he thinks.
‘I don’t mean forever, just … maybe until after the wedding, you know. I’d like to be there.’
‘You always skip while you’re asleep, right?’
I make anahumnoise that passes for affirmation.
‘So … what if you don’t go to sleep?’
It’s such a simple and quite frankly inelegant solution from one of the greatest scientific minds in the UK that for a moment I’m shocked. But maybe … ‘You think that would work?’
‘It’s worth a try?’
I nod.
‘I’m coming over there to help,’ he announces, putting his phone down on the kitchen counter so all I can see is his ceiling and the very top of his head.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Doing my coat back up. I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. Get some coffee brewing.’
And then he cuts the call, leaving me standing in the hallway with my mouth open. It takes me a full minute before I galvanize into action and realize that he is coming here. Right now. And I’m wearing novelty PJs, I already took off my make-up, and there are toast crumbs all over the kitchen from where I made myself a midnight snack.
I’m just flicking the last few crumbs from the kitchen counter when the doorbell rings. He’s standing on my doorstep with the biggest bar of chocolate I’ve ever seen in my life and a smile I can’t quite decipher.
‘That is a big—’
‘Yep,’ he interrupts, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘That’s what all the girls say. I bought a huge Galaxy too.’ He raises both eyebrows at me and motions to the chocolate. A lot of guys would make that line sound crude and a little gross. But Tyler makes it sound endearing, almost like he’s trying on the big kids’ jokes for fun without fully understanding the context.
I grab the Galaxy, and motion him inside.
‘I figured the sugar would help us to stay awake.’
‘Not a bad plan. And I’ve made coffee.’
‘I assume you have a chess board.’
Of course I have a chess board; I was Devon under-twelves champion.
I beat him. He humphs.
I beat him a second time. ‘I guess I’d better start actually trying,’ he says and begins to set up to play another game.
‘Well, it would be nice to actually feel like I have an opponent.’
‘Ooh. Trash talk. I like it.’
There’s a moment in the middle of a game where I falter and he beats me.
