Soulmates (28 page)

“Aww, you wimp. Just bowl.”

Noah really concentrated on his swing this time. He flung his arm back, bent forward, and released the ball. It smashed its way down the aisle, obliterating the pins.

He jumped into the air. “Woohoo! Wembley, here I come!”

He picked me up, swung me round, and planted a dizzying kiss on my mouth.

“You happy?”

“Happy? I’m playing Wembley! The bowling ball said so!”

“Well done. I’m glad for you.”

“Right. Now your turn.”

We found out quite a lot about our future in the following half-hour. I was going to pass all my A levels, but still only end up at my second-choice university. Noah discovered he would end up obese (gutter ball). I was going to beat Ruth in our who-ends-up-with-the-better-life competition. And Cosmic Bowling also revealed I would have two children, a boy and a girl.

Noah took my hand and squeezed it tight. “Imagine how gorgeous our kids will be,” he said.

And I almost passed out, delirious with the promise that thought held.

“Wow,” I said. “Our lives are pretty much decided. I don’t think there’s going to be any surprises now.”

Noah pointed to the scoreboard. “Well, it’s even-stevens. And you’re the last one to bowl, so make it a good one.”

“Okay.” I picked up a ball. “This last one’s about us. If I get a strike, we run off into the sunset and live happily ever after like in a fairy tale.”

“You’d better get a strike.”

“Oh, I will, don’t worry. But, in any case, if I get a half-strike we still end up together but it takes work. We both have a wobble in middle age but eventually we get through it with a lot of marriage counselling.”

“Hmm. Not perfect. But I like that we get to stay together. What if you don’t knock any pins down?”

I sighed and thought of my appointment with Dr. Ashley.

“Well, that means we don’t make it. We end up just being each other’s ‘first loves’, downgraded to conversation fodder at drunken dinner parties. We move on, meet other people, lead separate lives.”

The words caught in my throat. Noah, too, looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Well then,” he said, trying to make light of it. “You’d better get bowling and decide this future of ours.”

I’d never cared about a competitive sport before in my whole life. But right then, I wanted a strike more than anything. I squinted at the set of pins and they seemed further away. I took a breath and lined the shot up in my head. I lifted the ball and ran towards the aisle…but just as I was about to let go, I slipped on something. I wobbled for a second, trying to regain my centre of gravity, but couldn’t. I plummeted to the floor. The bowling ball flew out of my hand and backwards into the air, almost hitting the family playing next to us. I landed on my bottom with a massive “Oooph”.

There was laughter. Most of it was coming from Noah, some from the near-miss family.

He stood behind me, applauding. “That. Was. Classic,” he said, through hiccups of laughter. “If only you could’ve seen the look on your face! Though I dread to think what that means for our future together. I don’t think we made a rule in Cosmic Bowling for hurtling the ball backwards.”

I began to laugh too, yet stopped abruptly when I realized that grumpy bowling-shoe lady had stormed over.

Her face was red, her piggy eyes bulging.

“I thought I told you,” she said, panting with rage, “not to cause any more disruption.”

I looked down at my clown shoes and saw my shoelace had come undone. That was what must’ve caused my fall.

“It was only an accident,” I said. “These aisles are slippery.”

“I don’t care. I want you both to leave.”

I opened my mouth to protest but Noah, sensing trouble, steered me away.

“But it was an ACCIDENT,” I said loudly as we swapped our shoes back.

“Shh. Come on. I’ll buy us something to eat.”

Grumpy lady followed us through the bowling alley, making sure we were leaving.

It was cold outside.

“Did that just happen?” I asked.

Noah put his arm around me. “Yes.”

“Seriously? Did I just get chucked out of a…bowling alley?”

“You sure did.”

And then we laughed. A lot. Until Noah pulled me further into him.

“I love you so much, Poppy Lawson,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “You make me sublimely happy.”

I wanted to smile, but also knew I needed to speak up.

“If I make you so happy, then how come you won’t see me alone?”

Noah turned me to him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Poppy?”

I looked back down at my feet. “Well, it’s just…I’m not stupid, you know. I’ve not been to your flat for ages. In fact, we’ve not been alone together since London, and it’s like you’ve planned this huge itinerary of non-sexy activities for us. And I know why.”

Noah scratched his ear and looked uncomfortable. “What do you mean ‘I know why’?”

“Sex. You’ve been trying to avoid us being alone.”

Noah sighed. “I just thought it would be easier if we kept away from anywhere private. Anywhere with a bed.”

“So we’ve come to bowling alleys and pancake houses?”

Noah pointed at me. “Hey. You can’t deny it’s been fun.”

“Yes. But still…Noah, I don’t think it’s fair that I don’t get a say in all this.”

“In all what?”

I gestured to the gap between us. “This. Us. Sex. I don’t like the fact you’re in charge of deciding when we’re ready.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s my choice too, you know? I’m not some emotionally deficient minor you’re taking advantage of. I’m your girlfriend.”

“I just don’t want to rush you.”

“You’re not.”

“But I’m scared I would if we were alone.”

I smiled. “Do you not think when and when
not
to control our impulses should be a shared decision?”

And he smiled too. “I suppose you’re right.”

“If I can beat you that easily at bowling, I’m sure I can handle myself in the bedroom.”

“You’re right.”

“How many times do I have to say it, Noah? I’m
always
right.”

And then he squeezed me tight and we went to get some food.

Rain had just about perfected the art of concentrating and sleeping simultaneously. In fact, if there’d been an Olympic sport called concensleeping, he would have won the gold medal. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in the ordinary sense of the word. Sleep conjured images of bed, pyjamas, eight hours, alarm clocks. Whereas he hadn’t seen his bed in weeks. Clothes and food were delivered to the lab, showers were in the high-tech toilet facilities and socializing was, of course, off the cards until the situation was dealt with. Not that he had any friends left anyway. Most of them had drifted away during his intense training. It turned out that people didn’t have a lot of patience when it came to you frequently missing events but being unable to tell them why. The truth was, they wouldn’t have been able to handle the truth. It destroyed everything. Everyone. He wished he didn’t know the truth. They were encouraged to make friends and date within the company, like some kind of scientific ultra-restrictive dating agency. It made sense in some ways. Rain couldn’t imagine finding a girlfriend and not being able to tell them. To hear them say they loved him and not be able to say it back. What was the point? It didn’t mean anything.

He was barely computing what he saw on the monitor. His eyes had grown so used to it, he could pick up a reading almost subconsciously. It was almost an instinct now. Dr. Beaumont had said that would happen.

As if she could hear his thoughts, she appeared next to him.

“Rain?” she asked, her voice commanding his attention.

He jolted back to full consciousness and straightened his body in shock.

“Dr. Beaumont?”

He began tapping his keys to cover the fact he hadn’t been concentrating properly.

But the keyboard was suddenly obscured by a large backpack. It landed in front of him with a thump, shaking off the last of his dreamlike state.

“Get packing.”

“Packing?” Had he just been fired?

“There are clothes for you in your locker. You’ll probably need at least enough to last you two weeks.”

He turned to look at her. She looked a mess. Her hair, normally so immaculate, was all over the place, her glasses tangled up in it. And her face was blotchy, almost like she’d been crying…if she was the sort of person capable of crying.

“I don’t understand—” he began, but she cut him off.

“We’re going to England. The private plane leaves in half an hour.”

Rain looked in confusion from the bag to her face and back to the bag again.

“England?”

“Yes.”

“We’re actually going?”

“Yes. Now. You need to pack. Fast.”

He half-shook his head. “I still don’t understand.”

A flicker of impatience crossed her face. “What don’t you understand, Rain?”

He jabbed towards the monitors with his thumb. “The readings, there’ve barely been any. It’s been really calm.”

“Rain, Rain, Rain, have I taught you nothing?” She ran her hands through her hair. “Have you been watching the data?”

“Yes. It’s all been fine. That tolerance you keep going on about seems to be holding up.”

She looked at his screen and sneered. “You’ve only been watching the data that comes from when they’re together. You’ve not been reading their energy levels separately?”

He shook his head. “No. Why should I? It’s only when they’re together that we have to worry.”

“You stupid idiot.” She leaned over and pulled up the matches’ separate data for the past twenty-four hours. Rain immediately saw the massive spike in their individual energy readings, almost at exactly the same time.

He gasped. “What does that mean?”

“It means they’ve just decided to sleep together.”

His heart plummeted and dread crept through his body. “What? How? They’re not even in the same place.”

“They’re soulmates, Rain. They don’t have to be in the same room to make those sorts of decisions – they pick up on each other, remember?”

He stood up, urgency suddenly coursing through him. “We have to get to them.”

Anita nodded frantically. “I know. Pack. Now!”

He grabbed his bag and dashed away from his desk, but just as he got to the door he stopped and turned round.

“Anita? It’s an eight-hour flight. What if we don’t reach them in time?”

Any colour left in her face drained out of it. She barely whispered her reply.

“Then I’ve made a huge mistake.”

And so soon it was the day of the gig.

“You’re going to sleep with him tonight, aren’t you?” Lizzie said. She was hogging my dressing table while applying layer after layer of mascara.

“What? Don’t be silly. Of course I’m not.”

“You blatantly are.” Ruth was in the process of hogging my hair straighteners and had spent the best part of an hour flicking her red hair outwards. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have painted your toenails.”

I looked down at my perfectly pedicured feet that I’d spent all morning polishing. “Can’t a girl just want to have nice toenails?”

“You’ve never cared about your toenails much before,” Amanda said. She was hogging my other mirror and applying lip gloss. “You barely even bother painting them in summer when you’re wearing flip-flops.”

The girls had come round mine to get ready and have a few drinks before the gig. I’d been looking forward to it. Usually getting ready with the girls was the best part of any night but not this time. No. They were interrogating me for all I was worth.

I took a sip of my rosé wine and sat on the bed.

“I really don’t think my toenails have anything to do with whether or not I plan to sleep with my boyfriend.”

“You may think that,” said Lizzie, putting her mascara wand back in the tube and whipping out her eyeliner. “But subconsciously you’re considering it. That’s why you’re so obsessed with your appearance today.”

“I’m not obsessed with my appearance. I would just like to get ready in my own house without having all of you – ” I gestured towards them – “hogging all my reflective surfaces and belongings.”

Ruth turned off the straighteners and put them, still hot, smack down in the middle of my carpet. I winced but didn’t say anything.

“Oh chill out, Lawson,” she said. “We’re going to make you look beautiful. Don’t you worry.”

I took another sip of wine. “Yeah. About that…” I examined my un-made-up face in the mirror over Amanda’s head. “I think I’m fine to do my own hair and make-up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lizzie said. “Trust us. You’re going to look remarkable.”

“Remarkable doesn’t always mean good. Sometimes you remark on someone’s appearance because they look AWFUL.”

“Seriously, chill. You’ll look gorgeous. Trust us. We were right about the dress, weren’t we?”

I looked down at the beautiful green dress they’d convinced me to buy. It looked just as perfect as it had in the shop. In fact it looked so good I had to actively stop myself from checking out my reflection every two seconds.

Lizzie finished smearing kohl around her eyes and plonked everything back into her make-up bag.

“Voilà.” She pouted at her reflection. “All done.” She turned to me. “Right. Your turn.”

Ruth spritzed her hair with about a gallon of hairspray. “I’m done too. I can help.”

Oh dear God.

“Don’t look so scared.” Lizzie walked towards me with an evil glint in her eye, clutching her make-up bag like it was a dangerous weapon. “You’re going to look amazing. Noah’s going to think he’s won the lottery.”

I downed the rest of the rosé and closed my eyes.

“Go on then. Do your worst.”

I was scared to open my eyes again. Especially after hearing my friends mutter things like “Oops”, “Eww, not that colour” and “We should clean that up a bit”. So when Lizzie announced I was all done, I kept them shut.

“Thanks, guys. It looks great.”

“Poppy. You’re not looking at what we’ve done. Open your bloody eyes.”

I nervously opened one eye, then the other and slowly let myself look in the mirror.

I gasped.

The girl looking back didn’t look like me at all. She’d been replaced by some stunning sophisticated woman. Yes, woman. They’d done something to my eyes, kind of smokey, with green eyeshadow that perfectly matched the dress. Cheekbones I didn’t know existed had been sculpted using some kind of miracle-working blusher. My lips were a neutral colour, but a gloss had been added to them which tingled and gave me a bee-stung pout. And my usually drab hair was pinned back haphazardly, with a few stray ringlets framing my face.

“Do you like it?” Amanda asked, a make-up brush still in her hand. “Are the eyes too much?”

“I love them,” I said, unable to tear my gaze away from my own reflection.

“I did the hair,” Lizzie said. “Do you like your hair?”

“It’s gorgeous,” I admitted. “I don’t know how you did it but you have magical powers. I’ve never worked out how to use a kirby grip properly.”

“You’re definitely going to sleep with him now.” Ruth’s eyes were gleaming. “When Noah sees you like this he’s not going to be able to help himself.”

“Wow, Ruth,” I said. “Was that an actual compliment?”

She stuck her tongue out. “You know what? I hate to admit it but you’re looking good, girl. I just wish I’d let Lizzie do my hair now. I wanted to see what state she made of yours first though.”

“And that,” I said, “is what you call karma.”

I picked up the wine and divided the rest of it between our glasses. We’d only shared one bottle. None of us wanted to get wasted and ruin the evening.

“I propose a toast, girlies. To having a most excellent evening.”

“I’ll toast to that,” Lizzie said.

“Me too,” said Amanda.

Ruth put her glass in to chink. “And here’s to Poppy finally getting it on.”

I turned to her in mock anger. “I. Am. Not. Going. To. Sleep. With. Him. The toenails mean nothing.”

Ruth took a sip of her drink.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “Just wait until you see him onstage.”

We caught the bus to the arena in a blaze of girly spirits. The wine had made us more giggly and annoying than ever, and OAPs innocently trying to get their groceries home were getting increasingly vexed by our bad behaviour.

It started harmlessly enough with Ruth singing a Ponyboys song. This got us excited and soon we were all joining in. Then, when we’d exhausted all of their playlist, we moved onto Queen, our personal favourite. The problem was, when you’re slightly tipsy, you forget that other people aren’t tipsy too and our demands to get the bus driver to sing the Galileo bits of “Bohemian Rhapsody” weren’t met with a positive response. I don’t think it was the wine behind our annoying young-people-these-days-have-no-respect behaviour so much as the nervous excitement. The anticipation of what the evening held pulsed through our blood. The memories lay out before us, waiting to be made, and then called upon in decades’ time when we were old and boring.

When the relieved bus driver eventually dropped us off, the sun had set. Only a red streak from the day was left scorched across the sky, making the arena glow in an eerie light. Teenagers had already formed a queue of quivering underdressed bodies at the entrance. Girls stood with their arms pressed against their chests, tossing their hair back and laughing joyfully despite their lips turning blue and their bare tummies erupting in goose pimples. The boys were dressed in standard gig-going male attire – jeans and a band T-shirt. They were also pretending not to be cold, but they did this by puffing out their chests and distracting themselves by competing to see who could drink the most cans of bargain booze.

We stood looking at the crowd.

“There are a lot of people here already,” Amanda said, her teeth chattering and her arms crossed over her black dress. “The doors don’t even open for another hour.”

Ruth shrugged. “Ponyboys are a big band. People want the best view.”

Lizzie was jumping from one foot to another like a child needing a wee.

It was freezing. I could feel my skin pimple under the thin silk of my dress. “I’m just glad we can get inside straight away.”

Lizzie nodded. “Me too. Where do we need to go?”

I scanned the walls of the imposing arena. “I’m not sure. The stage door, I think. But I don’t know where it is.”

“Well, it won’t be at the front, will it?” Ruth said. “Let’s walk round the side. At least we’ll stay warm-ish if we’re walking.”

We began walking round the massive building. It seemed like the entire country could have fitted snugly inside, with room for houses as well.

“I can’t believe my boyfriend is playing a venue this big,” I muttered, almost to myself.

“Mine too!” Ruth interjected. “Don’t forget about Will.”

Lizzie rolled her eyes. “How could we?” she whispered, and I giggled under my breath.

After clopping along for a while in our high heels, an area full of white vans and a gigantic tour bus came into view.

“I think this is it,” Ruth said. “Wow. That must be the Ponyboys’ tour bus.”

“It’s huge,” said Amanda.

There was a bustle of activity around a pair of doors guarded by two morbidly-obese and scary-looking bouncers. They were wearing
Men In Black
-style suits and sunglasses, despite it being fully dark by now. They nodded as streams of stocky men carrying sound equipment trickled past them.

“I suppose they’re the guys who have our passes,” I said, gulping. I hoped Noah had remembered to put them at the door.

We clattered over, our giddy spirits well and truly concealed, knowing that any bad behaviour would end the evening early. The bouncers turned their heads towards us.

“Groupies have to queue like everyone else,” the bigger one said in a booming voice. “I don’t care which member of the band you’ve arranged to sleep with later, go back to the front entrance.”

Well, that pissed me off.

“We’re not fans,” I said curtly. “We’re close friends of the band—”

The slightly-less-fat one interrupted. “That’s what all fans say. Close friends, my arse. Round the front, girls. Come on.”

I bristled inside. “You’re not listening to me. We’re not silly fans. We’re here with the support band—”

The fat guy opened his mouth.

“—and before you interrupt me and insult us further, I suggest you actually check the list, where you’ll find our names printed.”

“Very well…” the thinner one said, looking angry. “What are your names?”

“Poppy Lawson, Elizabeth Heeley, Amanda Price and Ruth Cosmos.”

The man shuffled in his suit and pulled out a battered piece of paper.

“If you girls aren’t down here I’m not sure I can let you into the gig at all after that cheek.”

“Our names are there,” I said, crossing my fingers and praying like mad that Noah had remembered.

The bouncer’s eyebrows furrowed as he reached the bottom of the list. “Ahh. Here you are.”

I had such a strong desire to say “I told you so” but swallowed it down.

“Will you let us in now?” Ruth asked.

“Yeah.” He reluctantly stood to one side. “Through here and to the left.”

Once we were safely inside, our spirits recharged and we whooped with excitement.

“Bloody hell,” Amanda said. “I really didn’t think we were going to get in then.”

“Where the hell did that assertiveness come from, Poppy?” Lizzie asked. “Normally you’re too scared to send cold food back in restaurants, even if there’s still ice on it.”

I laughed. “I hate bouncers. They’re just bullies on a power-trip. They bring out the warrior in me.”

We wandered down the corridor, taking in the buzz around us. There were wires everywhere, miles and miles of them, and everyone we passed appeared to be carrying a clipboard. The corridor seemed to go on for ever. I had no sense of my bearings and hoped a left turn would materialize soon – my heels were killing me already.

Then, as if from nowhere, Noah and his band appeared.

He spotted us and smiled – a huge grin beamed directly at me.

“You made it!”

He looked AMAZING. My knees went weak just watching him walk towards me. He was wearing a ripped pair of dark jeans and a simple black T-shirt, but the shirt hugged every ripple of his chest and showcased the bulge of his arms. He was also wearing a necklace, a tribal-looking beaded thing I would normally mock, yet on Noah it looked casual and brilliant. He’d actually bothered to gel his hair into a slightly messy fifties-style sweep. I wanted to run my hands through it. I wanted to touch his face. My heart started thumping madly through the silk of my dress and it took all my self-control not to launch myself at him.

Then his arms were around me, giving me a hug, and I felt the wetness of him kissing my cheek and smelled his incredible scent.

“We almost didn’t get in,” I said, mid-hug. “The bouncers were horrible.”

“They’ve been a nightmare,” he said. “One called Brian’s wife a groupie and made her queue outside. She rang him in a right rage, demanding to know if he really had groupies.”

I pulled away from the hug. “Brian? As in Brian from Ponyboys? You’ve been chatting to him?”

Noah nodded. “Yeah. We’ve been hanging out all afternoon. They’re really cool.”

“Well, don’t you have friends in all the right places?”

He laughed. “I suppose I do.”

The others were all joking together behind us. Ruth had already given Will a massive public snog to “calm his nerves” and everyone was getting on well. Lizzie was telling them all about the bouncers and how fat they were and everyone laughed appreciatively.

It was much warmer inside and I shrugged off my coat.

“Is there anywhere I can put this?” I asked Noah. I held up my coat but he was just looking at me, transfixed. “What is it?”