‘Calloway.’
‘Sounds like a film star,’ Haf says, taking two mugs from the kitchen cupboard for their Prosecco. She wants something stable to hold on to. Who needs to get out the fancy glasses when you just want to cosily sip fizz?
‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a mug of Prosecco before,’ he says as she pours him a healthy serving.
‘It’s a night of new experiences! What shall we toast to? To... our two-month anniversary?’ Haf holds out her mug to cheers, and Christopher clinks his gently against hers. ‘I’ve got one stipulation for all this though, and you can tell I’m being serious because I’m bringing out the big words.’
‘Go on,’ he says.
‘Just give me a really good backstory and dumping, will you? Come up with a fatal incompatibility so you can edit me out easily, but make me sound good, yeah? Else I’m worried Laurel the Giantess will hunt me down like a fox. She gives me those vibes. She’s a horse girl, isn’t she?’
‘That she is.’
‘Knew it. Do you still have feelings for her?’ Haf asks, stretching her legs out so her heels rest on the edge of the coffee table.
Christopher sighs a deep, weary sigh.
‘You don’t have to answer,’ Haf says, realising it was probably too big a tonal shift for someone unused to her style of hopping around topics in conversation.
‘No, it’s fine. I don’t think so, no, but... I’m just in the middle of figuring things out. Not just relationship things. I mean, big things. Life things. And Laurel, she knows me so well, and she’s like a bloodhound for this stuff. We’ve known each other since we were children, and we got together when I was fifteen and were together all through university. She always knows when something is off with me. Hopefully, your little performancehelped her think it was just the whole break-up mess that’s causing it.’
Haf takes a sip and the bubbles of Prosecco fizz in her nose.
‘You know, Laurel’s kind of terrifying in a way I deeply admire.’
‘She’d love to hear that.’
‘What about the square man?’
‘Thesquare man?’ Christopher buckles with laughter.
‘Don’t even pretend that you don’t see it.’
‘Well, I try not to see much of Mark at all any more if I can help it,’ he says, recovering.
‘Wait, were you friends?’
He leans back against the couch and sighs another bone-weary sigh. ‘Yes, we were at school together, and university too. We’ve known each other almost as long as I’ve known Laurel.’
‘Oh God, he’s not the chicken-sushi guy, is he?’
‘I don’t think Mark has cooked anything for himself in his life, so no.’
‘Did he steal her off you?’
‘Christ, you get to the point, don’t you?’
‘Side effect of living with the bluntest person in the world.’ She shrugs apologetically. ‘It’s rubbed off.’
‘He didn’t steal her... necessarily.’ He takes a sip from his mug. ‘The first thing you need to know is that we started dating as teenagers. There was an attraction between us, obviously, and our parents were very pleased about it. But in the last few years, we were arguing a lot, mostly over pointless stuff. Miscommunications, mostly. Over the ten years we’d been together, we changed a lot as people, and I think the weight of who we used to be and what we were expecting us to become was too much. So we broke up, and then she started dating Mark. But I suppose I can’t say that his constant obvious interest in her didn’t expedite the process.’
‘You mean he was after her when you were together?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Sneaky fucker.’
‘Quite.’
