Page 120 of Cover Story
‘In theory, yes, but in practice we’ll feel strange about it andnever know what the subtext is if we get in touch, and therefore won’t get in touch.’
‘Yeah, I see your point.’
No no no, you don’t ‘see my point’.
‘We don’t want to be sharing smash burgers and a beer and getting involuntary flashbacks to the sight of each other writhing around naked. Like prisoners of war with PTSD,’ Bel said.
It would be absolutely fine if the burgers and beer was a date,were the words that wouldn’t leave his mouth. In that context, my memory could play any X-rated highlights reel it liked. But the fact it hasn’t crossed your mind it could be a date, is a massive clue.
‘Bel, this is because I want to stay in touch so much. I haven’t said it before because I worried I was being … what do the kids call it …extra.But I’m really going to miss you. Some serious attachment has been created.’
‘Sure! I get it,’ she said, with a robust indifference, with no: ‘I will miss you too.’ Bel pulled her dress back up and Connor inwardly winced. To call declining her offercounter intuitivewas a hilarious understatement.
But in her uncomplicated eagerness to shed their clothing, she’d been offering all and nothing, Connor felt sure of it. He sensed the limits of her feelings for him and faced the extent of his own.
He’d handled that with effortful restraint and qualified honesty, so he didn’t wake the next morning to the sound of a shower and lingerie strewn on the floor and the sensation that he’d gambled any future away to have her one time.
Why then did it feel like he’d handled it really badly?
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It was an irony that Bel couldn’t share with Connor, that only once the fake dating was over, did their interacting feel fake.
They patched up the aborted sex with a lot of suddenly forced buoyant normalcy and humour and the end ofPoint Break.
They discussed anything and everything, like old friends, while YOU MADE AN ABSOLUTE SHIT SHOW OF YOURSELF thundered in Bel’s mind.
Bel skipped the hotel breakfast– all things considered, she couldn’t face it.
‘I don’t think I want to run the gamut of the Hornbys enough for Eggs Benedict.’
‘Mind if I go?’
‘Not at all.’
He left Bel listlessly playing with her phone in its charger.
Shilpa
Reviews are in! I’ve had a message from Rufus saying you are insensitive to ‘flaunt’ new man in front of Tim without ‘doing him courtesy of warning you were seeing someone’ and ‘it was really unnecessary, Tim says they were all over each other.’
Bel thought of Tim’s swipes at Shilpa yesterday. A lot of wing-manning advocacy going on.
Bel
WHAT?! I thought me and Connor ‘weren’t real’? If I’d told him I had a plus one I guarantee I’d have got rank-pulling ‘it’s my sister’s wedding so please leave the piece of boy ass at home,’ I couldn’t win and unlike him I’m not allowed to move on. My two options: pitiable, or a bitch.
Shilpa
One hundred per cent. I told Rufus they’ve turned into the Brewdog Andrew Tates.
Connor returned, reporting her mum had said, in full hearing of the Tim-Rhiannon table, that she couldn’t wait for Connor to visit. ‘And Miles is in London soon for a party and we’ve swapped numbers to go for a pint, hope that’s OK?’
‘Of course,’ Bel said, bloodlessly.
‘I honestly don’t think the fauxmance charges are sticking, at all.’
Bel smiled and saidbrilliant.Shame she’d had to be told it was one, too.
