Page 109 of One Summer

I don’t believe in soulmates. My parents always told me that some people are just intensely compatible and if you’re lucky, you’ll run into one of them at some point. If you’re both single and into it, magic happens, and sometimes you don’t even have to be single. My mother was seeing another guy when she met my father. She gave up everything to run away into the woods and be with him. They took a tent into the forest and lived there together for two weeks of the summer. It’s how they got to know each other – truly, without any distractions, both distilled into the essence of themselves.

He pulls away. ‘Do you still love your ex? It’s his videos you watch, right?’

‘I stopped,’ I say quietly. ‘I was just so used to obsessing about him that it became a habit.’

He pushes me up against one of the fruit machines and kisses me deeply. My skin is alive now, not with fizzing frustration but with desire. I unbutton his shirt, my hands shaking, and he unzips my dress and pushes his body against mine.

He’s unhooking my bra, and his hands pause at my lace shorts.

‘Don’t stop,’ I say.

There are no more words to say to each other. We speak in a different language; one we’re learning together. This is what my body has been trying to tell me all along. This is what the quiet signals meant.

Ninety-One

Games

When it’s over, when I am out of my body and trapped back in my head, both of us are silent. The floor is sticky with the spilled fizzy drinks of countless holidaymakers and there’s a row of perforated prize tickets stuck to my lower back.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks me, and I genuinely don’t know. Whatever it is I’m feeling, I can’t put a name to.

He helps me to my feet and accidentally knocks me against the grabber machine. Someone must have walked away without using their last credit, because as my leg grazes the joystick, the grappling hook starts to move.

‘Oh,’ I say, still breathless. The machine is beeping, waiting to be given a new direction. I freeze and Caleb takes the joystick in his hand. He’s naked. I’m naked.

He reaches over to grab a breadstick from the white-covered table and takes a bite.

‘Press the button when I’m lined up,’ he says.

The hook swings to the bottom and clamps around a plastic box containing a twenty-pound note. The hook rises, still holding the plastic box, and deposits it neatly in the collection bin.

‘This has to be a sign,’ I say, laughing as I put my underwear back on. ‘Betty would have things to say.’

‘Come on, let’s cash it in,’ he says.

‘What do you mean? It already is cash.’

He puts on his boxers, pours me a glass of wine and fixes me a plate of cheese, then walks straight to the change machine. He breaks the note into small denomination coins, and we spend the next three hours in the arcade on our own, losing every penny we won.

I haven’t really looked around in here before, but now I look at everything, giddy with the urge to try it all. Pac-Man. Dancing Stage Supernova. Mortal Kombat. Street Fighter. Mario Kart. When was the last time I just played? When was the last time I did anything just for the hell of it?

Caleb wanders from the giant hot dog two-pence machines to the driving games and over to the basketball hoop with a look of wonder on his face.

Eventually, when he’s played on almost half of the machines in this place, he reaches the air hockey and looks at me.

‘You in?’ he says, and I nod. We go at it, leaving everything on the table, and I can’t tell which of us wants it more, but both of us are determined not to lose. It’s all happening so fast that goals are scored before we’ve even processed the disc whizzing towards us.

The exhilaration is written all over Caleb’s face, and when I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirrored side panels of the fruit machines, I look the same: sparkling eyes, flushed cheeks and a smile of pure joy.

Ninety-Two

Human

I wake up the next morning in Caleb’s bed, flooded with happiness when I roll over to find him sleeping next to me. Sliding quietly out of bed, I get up to make tea for us both – and a snack for Ted, who I collected after we got back from the arcade once Caleb had shut Maurice safely in the biggest guest bedroom – still smiling to myself, when I’m interrupted by knocking at the front door.

I open the door to a woman, dressed in a cashmere sweater, skinny jeans and red ankle boots.

‘Can I help you?’ I ask.

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