Somewhere Only We Know (25 page)

Caro looked doubtful. “A friendly thing?” she echoed. “This was a proper kiss, yeah?”

Nadia waved it off, as though it wasn’t actually the huge deal it was. “No tongue. Barely five seconds, I reckon. It was nothing.”

Caro arched an eyebrow. “Nothing,” she echoed. “Five seconds?” She paused. “Sweetie, it sounds like you didn’t really give him much of a chance to, you know,
react
all that much, did you?”

“Well…“

“And did you say he’s sort of going out with that Lila girl now?” Caro insisted. “I don’t think Alex is the sort of guy to really kiss one woman whilst he’s involved with another.”

“Yes, but…"

“It’s like when you were worried because you were seeing Matt but you had feelings for Alex,” Caro continued to argue. “It might be the same sort of thing.”

“Caro!” The rise in volume of Nadia’s voice caused the adjacent tables to turn around again. Caro fell silent. “It was a huge mistake, okay? I’m a bad, bad person. He’s been in love with Lila for months and months and he finally gets somewhere with her and then I come along and try and throw a spanner in the works. Some friend I am.” She pushed her hair back from her face impatiently, pressing the heels of her palms into her temples as she did so. She felt vaguely panicked, as though everything was starting to spiral out of control.

Caro just looked at her pityingly. “I don’t think that the fact you kissed him is the huge mistake at play here,” she muttered, stirring her unwanted coffee distractedly once again. “And for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure it was probably you who pulled away first…”

Alex

After dropping Nadia a text to tell her they’d gone down to the sea, Alex and Rory headed out, stopping at the off-licence en route. They sat with their backs to the damp sea wall, where nobody could see that they were illegally drinking on the beach and sat in a thoughtful, companionable silence with each other and their beers.

Alex wasn’t sure what Rory had going on to be so thoughtful about, but to be honest he didn’t really have the head space to spare on his mate that afternoon. His mind was still firmly tethered to last night, and to the pier, which loomed dowdy and innocuous off to their left, shabby in the sunlight. In his head he stretched out that brief brush of lips to last for years, searching for the meaning in it, for what had triggered it, and what had stopped it.

He was pathetic. One casual, friendly peck on the lips and he was in sudden freefall, raking back over months of simple friendship looking for something more. All night he’d replayed the moment over and over, and in all his variations he kissed Nadia back, pulling her closer, closer still, burying his fingers in the pale mass of her hair. And all that imagining had started up an ache in his jaw, in his chest and a hunger so persistent that it was only sheer, shameful cowardice that had stopped him from crossing the yawning space between their twin beds.

And he knew, with a sick sort of certainty, that this was what he’d expected from Lila’s kisses.

We’ll be friends forever,
Nadia had laughed, dancing away from him as the bomb went off and the ache started up and friendship was forced completely out of Alex’s mind.

“It’s not a good idea, you know,” Rory said gently, as if he’d been quietly following Alex’s chain of silent thought to its end.

Alex didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what Rory was on about. “Why not?”

“Why not?” Rory echoed. “It would be quicker to give you the reasons for it, to be honest.” When Alex didn’t make a move either to argue or to agree, Rory sighed. “Well, just to start with… Look, I like the girl – you know I do – but she’s a complete flaky mess right now. And you know it. She’s about to be deported.” At this Alex opened his mouth to protest, but Rory barrelled onwards. “You know it’s the truth,” he insisted. “And she’s all over the damn place about it. She’s with Matt, then she’s not, then she’s kissing you, then she’s bullshitting about how you guys are BFFs forever? She’s hot and cold and she doesn’t know what she wants and she’s in a panic and she’s all over-emotional and stuff, yeah?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Could you be any more patronising? In a minute you’ll suppose it was her time of the month.”

Rory shrugged. “The truth hurts. Essentially, that girl is one giant hot mess right now and you need to steer clear. Worst-case scenario, you sleep together and it gets mega awkward and you lose your friendship.
Best case
scenario, you guys fall madly in love and she gets banished from the damn country. Not exactly win-win here.”

“Rory, she’s my friend! I can’t just randomly kick her out of my life!”

“Why not? It was pretty ‘random’ the way she entered it in the first place, wasn’t it?”

Alex thought about that afternoon all those months ago, when he’d held the application form of Nadezhda Osipova in his hands and hadn’t really cared – not about the faceless Russian girl, not about his job, not really about anything. He’d never told Rory about it – and knew he could now never tell Nadia – and so that fateful little moment would probably always remain a cold little secret in his core.

“And also, of course, there’s Lila.” Rory swiped at Alex’s shin with the hand that wasn’t holding his can of beer. “What’s the deal with that? I put all my personal shit aside and practically delivered her gift-wrapped for you because I
thought
you were madly in love with her.”

“I am,” Alex protested. “I mean, I genuinely thought I was, at least.”

“Those are two different answers,” Rory pointed out with a knowing quirk of his eyebrow.

Alex buried his head in his hands. “I know,” was his muffled answer.

“If you want my advice,” Rory continued.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Only bad things will come from you forcing this kiss thing with Nadia. You’ll ruin your friendship, and you’ll ruin things with Lila. And I really think you guys could have a shot of being good together, you and Lila. She’s a really great girlfriend.”

Alex raised his head to shoot his friend a look. “This coming from the guy who unceremoniously dumped her.”

Rory shrugged, unconcerned. “She wasn’t right for me. She’s much better suited to you. She was a bit too… high maintenance for me, I think. But that would be okay with you. You wouldn’t mind, you know, putting in the hours.”

Alex stared at Rory as he described his relationship with his ex like some sort of job, or duty. And there was a little worming of guilt as he realised that he sort of knew where Rory was coming from. With Lila there was always the inescapable sense of obligation: to flatter and entertain, to be bright and funny and fill all the silences. It was the polar opposite of how yesterday had been, on that bright, smooth beach with Nadia, of how all their days together had been. Nadia brought out the chatty, witty colour that had always been the bedrock of his personality, so it wasn’t very often that they sat in silence – but when they did it was as natural as the talking.

No wonder the sense that something was missing with Lila had left him muddled and wanting. His heart had been looking for the same kind of comfort it had found with Nadia.

And Alex’s stomach crunched in on itself as he realised with dismay just how much he could come to regret not kissing his friend back.

Chapter 20

Alex

Alex watched from his place in the bar queue as his friends dominated the dance floor of Lola Lo, acting like the teenagers they hadn’t been for years. Nadia, holding aloft what was left of her tropical cocktail, was wearing her hair loose and it span round her like a cape as she danced. She was fresh and casual in a strapless lilac tunic paired with her usual denim shorts, a complete contrast to the prowling Caro, who was certainly getting her fair share of attention in her leopard-print mini- dress. Rory held guard, scowling down any opportunist men who looked as though they might be thinking of coming over.

“Now, don’t think you’re going to get drunk and shag Nadia tonight,” had been Rory’s doleful warning as the two boys were getting ready to go out. “Because I’m not letting you guys have this room. In protest I will remain, even after things get squelchy, even after –” Alex hadn’t heard the full extent of how far Rory was willing to go, as he’d thrown a pillow at him to make him shut up.

Potential shagging aside, Alex wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to get through the evening thus far. He just wanted to grab Nadia and shout at her, or shake her, or kiss her, or something; anything that would quiet the appetite his lips suddenly had for hers, or sate the quaking cowardice that was holding him hostage. He risked another painful glance over at the still-dancing Nadia, pale under the strobe lights, tilting her body back in his direction like a challenge, her neck taut and long and immediately bringing to mind all of the places other than lips a person could be kissed…

An impatient woman with a mildly terrifying afro pushed past Alex with a huff; he’d missed his cue with the bartender. Bodies surged to fill the space behind him that the woman had vacated, pressing in close, trying to get in front of someone they clearly thought was a vague idiot – pushing, pushing.

And Alex felt the warm snap that was his patience coming to an end. He drew himself up to his full height and brought his arm down like a crashing tree between the woman with the afro and the man next to her, using his forearm to physically claim his little piece of the sticky bar, using the rest of his body to block the pressing mass of bodies behind him. He’d been queuing for over ten minutes already, for crying out loud, and he
wasn’t having it
. For once he wasn’t going to be the guy who was pushed around.

Rather anticlimactically, Afro Woman barely seemed to register Alex or appreciate that he was having some sort of epiphany. She just scooted up slightly to allow for the presence of his arm and continued half-shouting, half-mouthing her order at the bartender over the thump of the music. And Alex decided that those last ten minutes were wasted, as he actually didn’t want the drinks any more.

The mass of bodies on the dance floor even seemed to part for him as he made his way back across to his friends. Nadia had since finished the dregs of her cocktail and got rid of the glass somewhere – he hoped she wasn’t too thirsty; she looked at him quizzically as if to ask where the promised round of drinks was. He didn’t answer her silent question. He just took her elbow and lightly moved her arm out of the way so that he could get his around her waist. He didn’t know the song that was playing, but it was about friendship and being strong and being there when it counted, and he took it as a sign.

Nadia didn’t even look startled as he pressed her body closer to his, using his free hand at the base of her spine. She just closed her eyes and let him spin her away and in again in time with the music, her cheek colliding softly with his collarbone, her hand sliding up to rest there. And Alex remembered the way they’d danced together on the night they met – on that tiny, sticky dance floor in Bison & Bird – like this, but not. And he thought about that initial little bit of daring – the first he’d had in so long – that had pushed him to follow her into the night; and the second, where they’d sat together on the swings and he’d decided he’d quite like to know this girl – even if it meant eating questionable meat. What was one more little nudge of courage?

Nadia had opened her eyes again and was looking up at him expectantly, still pressed close, dancing with him on instinct, even through the track change. The flashing lights shot colour across her face. Alex moved his hand up and along her neck, feeling where her skin was flushed and heated, and slipped it around the back of her head, moving his thumb from the corner of her mouth to her earlobe in one stroke. Nadia closed her eyes again, and Alex took it as the invitation it undoubtedly was. He could smell the pineapple and citrus on her from the cocktail she’d just finished as he moved the inch that was all there was between them.

He always moved his mobile phone from his back trouser pocket to the front one when he was in places like this, believing it would be harder to pickpocket from there. And so the text, when it came, vibrated as much against Nadia’s hip as it did his thigh. Nadia’s eyes snapped open and met his, and he saw immediately that she assumed – as he did – that it was a message from Lila. He saw the bobbing at her throat as she swallowed, once, and slipped away from his hold unfathomably fast, stepping away towards Caro – had the other two really been so close that entire time? – picking up dancing with her where she’d left off, as if the last two minutes had never happened.

Nadia

Caro was so desperate to get to the ladies to digest what had just happened – or at least what had very nearly happened – but Nadia felt cemented in place. Even when Caro walked off the dance floor towards the toilets, Nadia didn’t follow, couldn’t follow. Alex was standing off to one side, offensively still amongst the whirling dancers around him, replying to his text message. The uplight from the phone’s screen showing that his face was flushed and the twist of his mouth a guilty one; that mouth that had so almost been upon hers…

Alex looked up as he finished with his phone and slid it back into his pocket. Nadia wasn’t quick enough in looking away to avoid the eye contact. And for a moment he looked for all the world as if he was about to move to take her up in his arms again and Nadia felt that by-now habitual weakness for him urging her to let him.

A box of brightness flared through the fabric of his jeans as his phone screen lit up with Lila’s reply; Nadia grit down against her instincts and turned away.

And then later, back at the B&B, when Alex, wearing a hopeful expression, had asked if she fancied a midnight walk along the seafront, Nadia just said she was too tired and went to bed.

Alex

He had to hand it to Rory and Caro; they had taken it upon themselves to make sure that there were no awkward silences on the journey home and were performing their task admirably. They never shut up. Somewhere around the rolling countryside of Haywards Heath Rory even tried to strike up a game of I-Spy.