‘And now in English?’ Hannah demanded from the bedroom doorway, a withering expression on her lovely face.
‘We’ve already been trying to forget each other for four years – and from opposite ends of the planet,’ Jude said. ‘Based on tonight, I’d say it’s fair to conclude we’ve failed pretty dismally. Put simply: in my opinion, we’d be idiots to think now might be the moment we finally manage it.’
18
‘And he wasgonewhen you got up the next morning?’ Charlie asked, her pistachio biscotti paused an inch or so from her mouth. She’d dipped it in her cappuccino a while ago but kept asking questions instead of eating it. Hannah predicted it was just seconds away from disintegrating, then splatting into the coffee cup below.
‘Yep. Gone,’ Hannah confirmed, with a deliberate shrug.
‘And .?.?.?’ Charlie made spirals in the air with her index finger, expecting Hannah to say more.
‘And, nothing. If you’re asking how I felt about it, it’s not like I was sat there crying into my Weetabix when Ed and Joe got up. It was probably the right call for Jude to just .?.?. disappear.’
Objectively, this was true – and at this moment Hannah was determined to appear as objective as possible. The problem was, it didn’tfeeltrue. It actually felt .?.?. awful.
Which was ridiculous, because it wasn’t like he’d bolted after a one-night stand. She’d told him it was a terrible idea for them to even kiss; she’d essentially started an argument with him, then stomped off when she couldn’t think of a way to claim the last word. It made no sense that her reaction, upon discovering the sitting room empty and his blankets carefully folded, could best be described asbereft.
Neither Joe nor Ed had said anything that implied they knew more than they should that morning, but Hannah would have bet every penny in her business account that they at least had suspicions. Ed was especially gentle with her – sensitive, like he thought she might break if he said the wrong thing. Joe had reined in his usual sarcasm and refrained from making any pointed remarks about Jude’s abrupt departure. Yeah. The more she thought about it, the clearer it was that they’d both been worried about her.
‘I don’t think you mean that,’ Charlie said. They were at their usual table at Space, not even pretending to work. There was too much to discuss; they’d both been insanely busy over the past fortnight, and Hannah had held off telling Charlie anything about what had happened until they could meet up.
‘Of course I mean it,’ Hannah argued. ‘We were idiots to lose control of ourselves like that, which is exactly what I told him. It’ll not happen again. Mainly because I willnotbe drinking shots around him in future.’
‘To be clear, you’re blaming this on the tequila, rather than the – and I quote – abs you could grate cheddar on?’ Charlie asked, one eyebrow raised.
‘Jesus, are you takingnotesor something?’ Hannah complained. Then she pointed at the biscotti. ‘For god’s sake, eat that thing! It’s seconds away from total collapse.’
Charlie glanced at it, then bit off the coffee-soaked end, chewing thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been out with you plenty of times,’ she said a moment later, ‘and when so minded, you can drink like a sailor on shore leave. I’ve seen you the worse for wear on numerous occasions, but I’ve never known you end the night perched on a kitchen worktop, dry-humping a man you claim to have zero interest in.’
‘That isnotwhat I said happened,’ Hannah cried, wishing she’d omitted the ‘sitting on the countertop’ detail from her story. Charlie wasn’t much wide of the mark, of course. Colour rose in Hannah’s cheeks as she remembered how Jude had lifted her as if she weighed nothing, placing her on the edge of the granite surface so they could get closer – so she could keep kissing him without standing on tiptoe.
‘My point,’ Charlie said, dipping what was left of her biscotti, ‘is that you’d had one shot, plus a couple of drinks over several hours.With a meal. You kissed him because you wanted to, not because you were wasted.’
Hannah let out a forceful sigh. ‘Fine. You win. It was me, not the Patrón. You know, if you hadn’t become a chef, you could have had a glittering career with the Crown Prosecution Service.’
‘On which note,’ Charlie said, affecting the deep, serious tone of a TV show lawyer, ‘I refer you to your earlier claim that you won’t be kissing him again, or getting drunk in his general vicinity. I put it to you that the aptly namedshagpartymight test your resolve on those points.’
‘I won’t let it,’ Hannah said. ‘Ican’t.’ She was unable to stop a measure of misery from creeping into her voice. She’d been in a state of almost constant frustration since the end of last month; it was like she’d finally acknowledged an itch she’d been ignoring, and now might actually die if she didn’t scratch it.
It didn’t help that kissing Jude had been everything and nothing like she’d remembered. She was shocked to discover how effectively she’d repressed the truth of it – the agonising, all-consuminggorgeousnessof it. She was amazed by how much better the kissing was in real life than it had been in even her most illicit memories. Hannah had been seeing through a glass, darkly, and now everything was painfully clear again: she’d never wanted anyone the way she wanted him. She knew she never would.
‘Hannah,’ Charlie said, firm but sympathetic, ‘you are visiblydrowningin lust.’
‘I am not,’ Hannah protested. Then she sighed again, defeated, and leaned down to rest her head on her arms, on the tabletop.
Charlie bent over to ruffle her hair. ‘I do get it,’ she assured her. ‘It’s the Mark Darcy effect, like I said before. The “geeky in the streets, hot between the sheets” thing. It’s potent.’
‘Stop. Seriously,’ Hannah moaned, not bothering to look up. Damn Charlie for being entirely right again.
During their teenage years, Hannah had done everything she could to tune out her growing awareness of how attracted she was to Jude. She’d dated people completely unlike him – diametrically opposite to him in every conceivable way. Now she looked back, she could see she’d been trying to prove something .?.?. mainly to herself. But such efforts were essential because, the older they became, the more frequently Hannah caught clear flashes of that ‘hotness’ Charlie had just referenced. She developed a quiet certainty that, if Jude ever touched her in the way she longed for him to, she might never get over it. She sensed there was a flipside to him; a sexual intensity that simmered beneath the well-mannered surface.
Years later, when they slept together for the first time in his draughty bedroom in Sheffield, that suspicion had been confirmed. She’d discovered her mum had it right: itwasalways the quiet ones. Jude had completely unravelled her – taken her apart without even trying, like it was what he’d been born for. He’d understood what her body needed, and how to give it to her, in the way he understood complex mathematical equations: perfectly, instinctively, immediately. In ordinary social situations, he was nervous. Awkward and messy. With Hannah, he’d always been easier – and with the last barrier between them broken down, he was all assurance; all determined, passionate precision.
She felt heat flash through her as she remembered how wild she’d been in Joe and Ed’s kitchen; how frantic she’d become, and how fast. Since, she’d tried – god knew she’d tried – to stop thinking about how Jude had made her ask for things; driven her to make demands on him. She’d never been a needy person – she was the one thatothersneeded – but in that moment she’d been desperate, and it had somehow felt freeing to admit it. More than once in the past two weeks, she’d wondered how far he could have pushed her; whether he could have teased her until she pleaded for him, until she cracked open entirely and he could see inside her, into every secret, shadowy corner she kept hidden, even from him.
This made Hannah remember what Marc had said after Ella and James’s wedding: that she wanted things for herself she’d never admit to. Marc was wrong about a lot, but not about that. The thought hit her like a surge of icy water, and uncomfortable though it was, it doused the fire inside her, at least for now.
As Hannah had already explained to Charlie, Marc had been quiet since the last time she saw him. She was close to hoping he’d taken her at her word when she’d said she’d lawyer up if he continued harassing her, but she didn’t quite dare believe it. He’d posted only two music videos since she’d ordered him to stop playing his silly game. While both the songs he’d shared could be interpreted as part of the same, self-pitying narrative as before, he hadn’t added any inflammatory captions or comments – nor clues to her identity. With any luck, the Marc Problem was going to fade away .?.?. just as the Jude Problem threatened to dominate her every waking second.