Chapter 17
Itidy the apartmentfrom top to bottom, change the sheets, dust the shelves, open the windows to let the warm spring breeze in. I guess it’s a cleanse of sorts, one of those things spiritualists on Instagram warn you to do before you get stuck with another ten years of bad luck. In my head, the deep clean means that if I make the place look like the home of someone who has their shit together then it might eventually come true.
By the time the buzzer finally goes at three o’clock I have been sitting on the sofa, waiting for an hour and a half. I practically fly down the stairs.
‘Hi.’ I smile as I open the door onto Archie. He looks so wonderfully familiar: his face, tanned, clean shaven, his eyes bright and glistening.
‘Hi.’ He has that smile tattooed onto his face, the knowing one, the one that feels like it’s our little secret, that in that moment we both know why we are here.
‘Hi,’ I say again as he bites his lip, bridges the distance between us.
‘We’ve done that bit already.’ He chuckles and then kisses me, re-writing the last time my lips touched someone else’s, returning me to comfortable territory.
I don’t notice the steps up to my apartment this time, there is a delightful knot in my stomach that distracts me. When we reach my front door, I look back at Archie, lugging his bag behind him.
He screws his face up a little at me, looks down. ‘What?’
‘I just can’t quite believe you’re actually here.’
‘Yeah well, needed a holiday.’ He winks.
He sets his bag by the door and surveys the apartment, hands on his hips, inspecting each and every corner.
‘It’s cute,’ he shrugs. ‘Bigger than I thought it’d be. Could do with a bit of modernisation in places.’ I feel a little surge of protectiveness inch its way up my spine.
‘No it doesn’t! Not everything needs to be white and grey and shiny.’
‘Alright, alright, didn’t mean to touch a nerve.’ He reaches out for my hands; I hold them close to me until he has to physically untangle them, and then we’re standing there palm to palm, looking at each other, that same knowing grin occupying his face.
‘What?’ It’s my turn to look confused.
‘I’ve missed you.’ He reels me in until there’s only a few centimetres between our heads. The guilt floods in, because I know that he means it and I can’t say it back. But here he is, just off a flight, without a second thought, all because I asked him to. I’ve forgotten how handsome he is, how his smile is so entirely infectious, how he drips with security and comfort. He guides my hands around his neck and I let him mould me into him.
I kiss him again before he can say anything else. He tastes fresh, like he’s got through half a pack of chewing gum in the taxi here. I press my hips to his, start to pull at his shirt but he laughs at me, shaking his head.
‘Not yet.’
‘Oh, come on!’
‘We have all weekend.’ He pulls away from me, his hands held up in the air. ‘We should at least get dinner first.’
‘Why?’ I try again, reach for him, stroke his cheek. He looks like he might fall for it for a moment, reassess his priorities, but he stands firm.
‘What’s got into you?’ He’s laughing but there’s an edge.
‘Nothing. I just missed this,’ I rephrase.
He takes the smallest step back, assesses me. ‘Me or the sex?’
I falter. ‘Am I allowed to say both?’
He swallows hard and then shrugs, his hands squeeze me and then he reanimates.
‘Let me have a shower and then I’ll take you out for dinner, wherever you want. You can show me around and then we can grab some drinks, come back later, and I promise you can do whatever you want with me.’ He winks as he says it and then reaches for his luggage. ‘Which door for the bathroom?’
‘Through that one and then left,’ I point, and when the door closes, I collapse into the sofa slightly deflated.
I pick L’Auberge for dinner, it fits the bill as somewhere that is quintessentially French and also a place I never visited with Ettie. I appreciate that I’m not cheating, that walking through the place Ettie and I met is no worse than the handful of times I’ve slept with Archie before coming here, but the boundaries are blurring.
