Page 82 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

He saw the ring. I’m sure he saw the ring.

‘I’m not superstitious.’ I blush. ‘Also me, not stepping over three drains on the way here.’

‘I still do that too. And I have to get to the bottom of the stairs before the toilet stops flushing or something bad will happen.’

‘Like what?’

He looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t. We’ve spent so much of our relationship not saying things, it just seems normal to us now.

Lowe gives himself into the chair. I catch the elasticated waistband of his Calvin Klein boxers and nod to myself like I’ve seen too much. I realize I’ve been gazing.

‘I like your chain.’ CRINGE.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘It was my mum’s.’

I nod. ‘It’s really beautiful.’

So are you.

And the coffee is done.

‘I’m just gonna wee and then … ’ I excuse myself.

I wonder if he’s watching me walk away? What do I even look like walking away? Then I remember that what I look like from behind is none of my business. Is that it? Ten years of waiting for that, throwing out stagnant small talk, tepid touch. Was that the very best we could do? I don’t know what I was hoping for, expecting, but it’s sad that he’ll go back to his life and I’ll go back to mine.

Good, I think. Good. That’s where I belong. With Jackson.

So why do I want to cry? The toilet mirrors are unflattering in this horrible bright-red light and they ping everywhere like a house of mirrors. And when I sit down I notice that I’ve sat on my hand for the entire time. My engagement ring has crushed a red crimped line into my small finger and it’s actually quite painful. It serves me right. Poor Jackson. How would I like it if he avoided talking about me? I love him – why would I do this to him? To us.

Just go home, love.

By the basin I check my eyes to make sure there’s no reveal of regret. Or pain. Or longing. Or clear as daylight desperation. I head back upstairs where Lowe is leaning against the bar how only pro models lean. I suppose he has done a lot of those photo shoots. He’s waiting for me. I almost can’t believe that for this one sweet second, Lowe Archer is waiting for me. How right that feels. He’s chatting to the waiter, nothing too much but it already feels like an in-joke. He gets on with everyone. He always has a cheeky face like he’s up to something. But he never is; he’s too honest.

‘What?’

‘What?’ Lowe says back, smiling.

‘What?’

His face spills into a massive laugh. He tunes into the music faintly pattering away in the background, his head bouncing from side to side mockingly. I bashfully reach for my card to pay, shyly, as the waiter hands Lowe his receipt, smoothly, like he’s in on some gag. Lowe slides it into the back pocket of his jeans. The younger me would have scrapbooked the hell out of that receipt.

‘I wanted to get it,’ I offer.

‘You can get the next one.’

The next one. And there it is, the chink in his armour: he wants to make sure I want to see him again. He bites his bottom lip. It’s a plump lip. Succulent. And I’m slung back. Years of loving somebody isn’t just going to evaporate because of one frothy coffee.

We walk towards the station, the voltage between us sparking. Walking by his side feels normal. Like being next to him is always a touchstone, a place to start. I begin making a case in my head now, gathering the evidence up nice and neat into a big stack of why we would never work, even though absolutely nobody asked. He walks so close he almost bumps into me. See? It will never work. If our walking is like this just imagine the clunky sex we’d have. We should go back to being old friends and me secretly but not secretly at all just being in love with him. It’s so much easier this way. Or going forward, we can be like brothers? Two brothers who go on fishing trips and wear plaid shirts and sit in silence.

At the tall steps of the station, we hug. He squeezes me so wholly he’s saying it all. He smells like washing powder, the air outside, the coffee he’s just been drinking. I smell weed somewhere and this only compounds the memories. Until he brings out his vape, which is as big and as heavy as how I imagine a gun to be, and chemical sour-sweet exhalation is blasted over us.

‘Oh no, no, no.’ I blow the smoke away.

‘Sorry,’ he apologizes, fanning the air. ‘I’ve quit so – I’m addicted to this thing now.’

‘That’s good you quit, but this?’

Our eyes lock in. WE STARE. Does he have a girlfriend at home? What’s his life? How is he so mysterious? Somehow I’ve revealed all my cards and his cards are held so close.

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