Somewhere Only We Know (14 page)

Nadia

In true Alex-fashion, he had thoughtfully and truthfully answered each of the questions; it turned out his favourite sandwich filling was ham, cheese and red-onion chutney.

It wasn't Nadia's first spin at speed dating. She and Caro had gone twice before. Caro excelled at this hard-and-fast sort of flirting, where Nadia was more in it for the complimentary drink aspect. She'd thought Alex might chicken out or sit there like a startled rabbit while strangers filled the five minutes with desperate chatter. He'd certainly seemed incredibly unconvinced right up until the moment they separated for the start of the event. The men remained sitting at their little tables-for-two while the women rotated clockwise around the room, five minutes with each guy, that blonde one chasing an indefinable spark; that red-head for a man for her immediate needs; that brunette, something in between.

Nadia kept a weather eye on her friend, watching him smile politely as each girl settled herself opposite him, remembering how she'd received that same cautious greeting as she'd sat down at his table at the Bellevue quiz. It wasn't hard to imagine what these girls were thinking. Alex was looking his best, wearing a V-neck in a shade of green that brought out the redder warmth in his brown hair, paired with dark, well-fitting jeans and had allowed a little stubble grow in, all at Nadia's gentle direction. He'd followed up his glass of free champagne with a sophisticatedly dark-looking glass of red wine, every inch a gent.

"Well hello, number 12," he drawled as Nadia finally rotated his way; it was her favourite number and she'd requested it specially.

"Hello yourself, 19," she retorted as she scooted her chair closer to the table. "How's it going? Have you met Mrs Right yet?"

"No," Alex replied stoically, picking up his glass and cheering the air with it. "But the girl behind the bar pours a fair old measure."

"What more do you need?" Nadia agreed dryly. "True love."

"Is that what is meant to be accomplished here? I feel like I'm slowly boring the women of London to death in five-minute increments."

"Bloody hell, what are you talking about?" Nadia asked, alarmed. "You're not talking about work or football are you?"

"No, nothing like that. They're doing most of the talking. I seem to be basically just nodding in agreement. I feel like the Churchill dog."

"Well, that's no bad thing." Nadia relaxed. "Women like to talk about themselves!"

Alex eyed her. "You're not exactly talking about yourself, though, are you?"

Nadia waved her hand dismissively. "Semantics."

Alex lowered his voice. "I heard you tell that last guy you invented courgetti."

Nadia shrugged again. "Someone must have." She helped herself to a sip from Alex's glass of wine. "Anyway, stop complaining. I'm here for
you
."

"You're here for the free champagne," Alex immediately retorted.

"That too," Nadia agreed.

"I just think you should take a little of your own advice," Alex continued after a moment. "You never know when you're going to meet someone, and you should be open to it and all that. Remember all that? The lecture you gave me for the entire bus journey here?"

Nadia shifted uncomfortably in the thinly padded chair; that clock-countdown feeling ticking through her, little knocks to the heart. What good would it be to meet The One now?

Alex drew back slightly, mistaking the reason for her hesitancy. "Oh wait. I suppose I forget about you and Matt."

"Mmm, Matt," Nadia agreed; it was as good a reason as any, she supposed. The timer on the wall went off, making her jump. Their five minutes was up. To her right, number 20 was bidding a reasonably disinterested farewell to the departing number 11, already looking over at Nadia to see what the next offering was. "Well, catch you in the interval I guess, unless you meet Mrs Right in the meantime. Or want to hook up with that barmaid."

"Nadia, hold up." Alex had also got to his feet, taking his wine glass in one steady hand and Nadia's now-empty champagne flute in the other, pouring in some red for her to take onward.

Nadia squeezed his fingers gratefully as she took back her glass. “Good luck, soldier,” she winked, before leaving her gent to the attentions of lucky number 13.

Chapter 11

Nadia

It was embarrassingly
When Harry Met Sally
, but lately things were starting to feel tense with Alex in a way she couldn’t articulate. He’d been a bit like a kid brother (albeit older than her, fine), lost and sad, someone who appealed to the philanthropic side of her nature (as well as the side of her nature that liked to goad people until they snapped) – but she couldn’t reconcile that Alex with the Alex she got glimpses of now and then; the Alex who’d once built illegal bonfires on Brighton Beach and sat around them with his smoking hot bitch of a girlfriend; the Alex who was starting to feel tall and important as he walked beside her; the Alex who bit down on his bottom lip in an impossibly suggestive way when he was trying not to laugh at her; the Alex that – okay, she’d admit it, but only to herself – she was starting to develop the smallest, tiniest crush on.

She’d so far been able to pass off the warmness, the excitement she felt at getting to see him as mere anticipation at getting to spend time with someone who’d become a good friend. But the night before she’d been in bed with Matt and caught herself thinking of Alex, over and over, again and again, and there really wasn’t any misconstruing that…

Nadia jumped as a wadded-up takeaway leaflet hit her squarely on the forehead.

“Paging Nadia!” Ledge called from the doorway to the kitchen. “Are you receiving? Over!”

“What?”

“You’ve got a text message. I’ve told you, like, three times.” Illustrating his point, Ledge waved the mobile that she’d left on the kitchen side at her.

“Oh. Sorry.” Nadia cupped her hands in front of her and Ledge lightly tossed the phone into them. The text was from Alex. She felt a little quiver of embarrassment before wondering why he was texting her; he and his friends should be on their way over by now.

“Everything okay?” Holly asked, bending down to place a shallow bowl of plain Doritos on the coffee table.

“It’s just going to be Alex and Lila tonight,” Nadia explained as she digested the message. “His flatmate Rory has to work.”

Holly raised an eyebrow. “On a Saturday evening?”

Nadia shrugged. “Some big client emergency, apparently.”

“We’re not going to be even-numbered for the games,” Holly complained.

Nadia did some quick mental arithmetic. “Yes we are. There’s six.”

Holly gave her a hard look. “Nads. Have you not invited Matt?”

“No, why would I have invited Matt?”

“I thought things were going well between you two?”

Nadia shrugged. “Things are going fine. That doesn’t mean he needs to become surgically attached to me.”

“There’s a world of difference between getting an invite to your girlfriend’s game night and becoming a conjoined twin, sweetie.”

“I don’t really feel like I’m his girlfriend yet.”

“Well considering the walls in this place are paper-thin – I can definitely confirm you
sound
like you’re his girlfriend,” Holly teased.

Nadia groaned. “Get out of the fifties. There is such a thing as sex without love.”

“Heaven’s above!” Caro cried mockingly as she entered the room to place a strong-looking pitcher of Pimms on the coffee table next to the tortilla chips. “Now who are we talking about here?”

“Her and Matt,” Holly clarified, putting her hands on her hips.

“And who’s the one that’s coming this evening?”

“Alex,” Nadia supplied.

“Okay. And which one is she dating again?” Caro asked Holly.

“Both!” Holly answered, raising her arms in a wide, sarcastic shrug.

“No! I’m seeing Matt –
casually
.” Nadia shot Holly a warning look. “And Alex and I are just friends.”

Alex

“I really feel like I’m intruding,” Lila was saying for the third time as they got to street level at Clapham Common and began the short walk to Nadia and Holly’s flat. “I mean, the invitation was initially for you and Rory. I was already just tagging along, and without Rory it’s even more like I’m interloping…”

“Lils, don’t worry about it,” Alex reassured her – again, for the third time – as they moved through the muggy, still-bright streets. It had finally rained earlier that day, a short; sharp burst of a shower, with the heat evaporating the puddles off the pavements only minutes later. “Nadia is cool. She doesn’t have it in her to make a guest feel uncomfortable, so don’t stress.”

Lila gave Alex a sideways look. Since Nadia began uploading photos from their random adventures onto Facebook she’d been questioning him regularly about exactly what was going on between them. She and Rory just couldn’t get their heads around the fact that even though they were seeing each other three or four times a week now – sometimes for adventures, but sometimes just for a little stroll and chat in the evening cool – it was completely platonic.

“That Russian chick really is a stone-cold fox,” had been Rory’s verdict after he’d flicked through Nadia’s Facebook album with interest. Alex had shrugged. “Oh come on! You can’t tell me that you don’t secretly want to pork her!”

Alex had just winced. “How poetic.” He’d looked across at Rory, who was grinning suggestively. “Yes, she’s a very pretty girl!” he accepted. “But we really are just friends. She’s got a boyfriend.”

“A boyfriend?” Rory had repeated, looking back at the Facebook photo album open on his laptop screen. “Well, I don’t know when she finds the time to see him then, being as she’s always with you. Not porking.”

“I feel almost like I’m meeting a celebrity,” Lila said airily as they moved through the quiet residential streets. “You talk about her all the time…”

Alex laughed. “You’ve met her before Lils. You met her when I did.”

“I know. But it’s you she decided to keep for a pet.”

Alex slowed. Lila’s tone was perfectly casual and carefree, but he didn’t like the edge to it. That was the best word to describe how she’d been in recent weeks – ‘edgy’ in herself and full of edges when it came to him. He supposed he had to cut the girl some slack. Rory had been around less and less lately and sometimes at night Alex could hear the two of them arguing, voices pitched low and angry. And once again Rory had begged off at the last minute and Lila was embarrassed and floundering and alone.

Well, not alone. Alex reached to give Lila a consolatory shoulder-squeeze, which she returned with a half-hearted smile.

“It’s here on this side,” Alex said after a moment, gesturing at the three-storey townhouse conversion a little further down the road. “Number 14.”

Alex rang the flat using the bulky silver intercom and was buzzed in immediately. He and Lila navigated past the piles of junk mail, bicycles and prams, a feature of communal hallways, and climbed the steps to the first floor. Nadia was waiting for them, lounging against the doorframe to Flat D. Her face lit up when she saw him and Alex felt his own lift in response.

“Hey,” Alex grinned as he made his way up the final few steps to the landing. “I bring supplies!” he cheered, holding aloft the two plastic bags from the off license that he’d been carrying. Nadia moved towards him and he went to hand her one of the bags on reflex, only to succeed in swinging it clear into her stomach – she hadn’t gone to take one of the bags, she’d gone to kiss him hello. “Oh shit!”

Alex immediately dropped both bags to the floor and grabbed her hands with his. “Shit,” he repeated, “Nadia, I’m so sorry!” Nadia just laughed and assured him that she was fine, waving him and Lila on into the bright flat behind her.

Alex was mildly mortified. And all he could suddenly think about was the fact that Nadia had never kissed him hello before, so how had he been expected to know…?

Nadia

It was funny, but if you’d asked her two months ago whether she thought her friends would get on with Alex, she wouldn’t have been sure. Alex had been a little too hesitant, too vanilla, a certified background character; she would have thought that people like Ledge and Caro would have been impatient with him.

But tonight he was a different person than he’d been all those weeks ago at the Bellevue pub quiz. Everyone was charmed by this funny, cool guy who kept their glasses topped up and won most rounds of Cards Against Humanity hands down.

“You’ve worked a transformation,” Holly told her as they hurriedly replenished the jug of Pimms together, grabbing handfuls of pre-cut fruit from the chopping board and throwing it in.

“You make it sound like he was made of wallpaper before,” Nadia admonished, rolling her eyes.

“That first night, in the Bellevue, and Bison? It was like being trapped in a terrible Hugh Grant movie from the nineties. I stepped on his foot on the dance floor and
he
apologised to
me
– twice.”

“You can’t possibly moan that someone is too polite!” Nadia defended Alex, ignoring the fact that she’d just been thinking about how awkward he used to seem.

“He was a drip,” was Holly’s blunt assessment. “But now he’s a laugh. You’ve worked wonders with your weird Bucket List activity thing. You should patent it as some sort of lifestyle.”

“Alex was always a laugh,” Nadia said quietly, “he just doesn’t always like to be.” She didn’t appreciate the truth in that sentence until she’d actually said it and found herself wondering just how many masks Alex had on, how many walls he’d put up, how many bad clichés she could apply here…

Holly arched an eyebrow. “Right. Because that’s not at all creepy or weird.” She moved across to the sink to rinse the stickiness of fruit juice from her palms.

“It’s not creepy or weird,” Nadia insisted, again slightly surprised by the force of her defensiveness. “He’s just had some shitty times and known some shitty people.”

Holly just rolled her eyes again as she shut off the tap. “Jeez, haven’t we all?” And before Nadia could stick up for Alex again, Holly had hoisted the refilled pitcher off the kitchen side and moved back through into the living room.