‘Oh, no.’
‘We were engaged at the time. Although things hadn’t been right for a while, I’d been dealing with it badly, by spending more and more time doing my own thing. The day it happened, I was supposed to be meeting her for a run.’ He paused, taking a couple of deep breaths before carrying on. ‘I tried to keep things going, afterwards, pull myself together and be the man she deserved. But it turned out that instead of deserving a man who stayed with her out of guilt – and bystayed with her, I mean, literally, too terrified to leave her alone for five minutes – she deserved a man who loved and respected her.’
‘Chris?’ I remembered Nathan telling me his friend who’d been attacked had married Chris, who ran the Cup and Saucer. Knowing she’d been engaged to Nathan first shed a whole new light on things.
‘She married him less than a year after we’d split up. Turned out he’d been in love with her for ages and was just hoping I’d do the right thing and find the courage to end it before the wedding.’
‘Wow.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’ve made sure there’s no room for dating on your weekly activity spreadsheet since.’
Nathan shook his head, offended. ‘Not because of that! Spending my time doing things I enjoy rather than giving in to the must-be-in-a-relationship propaganda is a positive lifestyle choice. If the right woman happened to move next door or something, then fair enough, but I’m not wasting my time hunting for something I’m perfectly happy without, just because it’s popular opinion.’
‘Good to know. And according to rom-com scriptwriters everywhere, that’s exactly the way it’s meant to happen. As demonstrated in our next instalment of Christmas feel-good joy.’
‘There’s another one?’ he groaned.
‘This is a marathon, Nathan. You should know better than most that there’s hours to go yet.’
‘My marathons last well under four hours.’
‘Well, what kind of challenge would that be?’
Nathan sank back into the sofa and stuffed a cushion over his face. I smiled, grabbed a handful of popcorn and pressed play.
* * *
Halfway through the third film, at the point where I wondered if I would start amalgamating with the cushions if I didn’t move soon, I heard a gentle whiffle. Surreptitiously swivelling my eyes across, I found Nathan, eyes closed,slumpinginto the squishy old sofa, head back, mouth slightly open, crumbs from his tipped-up plate sprinkled across his lap.
I distracted myself from the sudden rush of longing to shuffle up, snuggle into his chest and drape his arm around me by picking up my phone instead. Incriminating photos taken, plate transferred to a more stable surface, the urge to rest my head on his shoulder and pretend for a few seconds that I had someone to curl up on the sofa with had refused to abate. I left Sandra Bullock gazing doe-eyed at a far less lovely sleeping man and went to heat up a lasagne.
Nathan found me twenty minutes later, hair comically fluffed up and pyjamas rumpled. I concentrated hard on chopping up a yellow pepper, hoping the word ‘adorable’might have stopped crashing about inside my brain before I needed to look up again.
‘I think I might have dozed off for a moment.’ Nathan sounded bewildered.
‘The snoring would indicate that, yes.’
‘Snoring?’He tried in vain to smooth down the feral tufts of hair. ‘I do not snore.’
‘I bet you don’t sleep in the afternoon, either.’ I took a garlic and rosemary focaccia out of the oven and dropped it onto a bread board.
‘Once. After a twenty-four-hour race.’
‘Coach Gallagher, I think you might be getting the hang of this relaxing thing.’ Scooping two slices of lasagne onto plates, I carried them over to the table. ‘Either that or you’re getting old.’
* * *
After our very late lunch/early dinner, even I had to agree that we were Christmas rom-comed out, so we switched to Scrabble. And while, yes, the professional writer in the room may have had a slight advantage, Coach Gallagher could hardly object to his clients exhibiting some competitive spirit. After losing twice, and nearly losing more than just the game over a decidedly dodgy use of a triple word score, he concluded that for the sake of our client-coach relationship we should probably stick to playing on the same team, and moved on to general lolling.
We checked into the PoolPalforPiper JustGiving page. Donations were steadily creeping up, but there was a huge way to go before the target would look achievable.
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘We’ll make most of the money on the day.’
‘Maybe Amelia should get publicly involved with the campaign before the day, get her official endorsement behind it.’
‘That might well have the opposite effect.’ I pulled my blanket up around my ears, burrowing deeper into the armchair. ‘Being that Amelia Piper is a national loser.’
