Page 123 of Read My Lips

Up the steps, near the back, I slumped down on a bristly double seat, swiping sweat out of my eyes. Someone had etched into the glass of the grimy window. When we rounded the corner at the traffic lights, the sun hit just right, and thinly scratched initials turned visible, ghostly inside a scrawny cartoon heart.

Some school kid had more guts than I did. Well, this was it. I had half a dozen stops to figure out what to say.

I lied. I like you a really inconvenient amount. And I think you like me too. Please don’t never speak to me again.

The light in the bay window where Simon had kissed me was off. The whole building was quiet, like visitors were no longer welcome. Funny how he didn’t have a crowd of journalists on his front door step. They probably took him seriously when he told them to piss off.

I made myself lean on his doorbell with all of my body weight. As though the over-loud chime going off inside would be audible to Simon if I leaned hard enough, or maybe it’d stop him ignoring the alert rumbling in his pocket.

The main door didn’t budge. The house stayed dormant. Shit. What if he wasn’t in? I rattled the handle, in case the intercom had silently unlocked it. No such luck. On the other side, a door clattered, and footsteps crossed the tiled hall.

The latch clicked and the door pulled in and there was Simon, filling the gap, arms folded tight across his chest.

Bang went my fantasy he’d pull me in for a kiss with swooping violins as the soundtrack, and I’d never have to explain anything at all.

“Hi?”

Oh what an excellent start.

“Hi.” Simon very much did not invite me inside. “Can I help you?”

Every word I’d meant to say crumpled into a wet heap, like I’d mentally written my speech on a napkin that had got soggy in the rain and now my handwriting was blown out and blurry.

“I don’t know?”

“Are you looking for PR representation?”

I wanted to tell him about the initials circled on the bus window, and how all the pictures were fantasy but if he really liked tortoises, I could be okay with tortoises too. Because I was never going to be a bloody leopard. Or a fox. I didn’t want it all to be a meaningless fumble on the back of a pack of lies. And thinking how real it could be between us, if either of us let it, scared me witless.

My face flamed. I opened my mouth to try to explain. And closed it, because I didn’t know how to. “No.”

“Then you’re in the wrong place. That’s the only thing you might want that I can offer you. You’ve made that exceptionally clear.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“Simon. Can you—Stop being a dick for five minutes. Please.”

His eyebrow flashed upward. “You won’t take my calls, and now you’re standing on my doorstep calling me a dick.”

Oh kill me now.

“Look. The truth is”—I tugged a hand through the sweat-sticky ends of my hair at the nape of my neck hard enough to hurt—“I… Lied. Earlier.”

Simon stepped closer. Next to him, his front door throbbed dark and vibrant and solid and wrong. Tilting his head to meet my eyes his fingers shot out, solid and smooth on my chin, tugging me into line with him where I’d been instinctively trying to avoid his gaze.

“Better.” I probably imagined him lingering as he drew his arm back. But I wanted him to. “Keep going.”

“It’s – not convenient sex. Is it?”

Simon’s arms went back to bracing around his chest. The fantasy that this was what he wanted to hear stuttered like a skipping disc.

“Convenient wasn’t the word I’d use, no.”

“No.” I swallowed, locking every muscle in my body tight against the urge to look at my feet instead of holding his eye contact.

“So, I thought you should know I’m an idiot, and⁠—”

Simon’s smile pulled tight. “You really didn’t have to come all the way out here to tell me that.”