Page 49 of Textbook Romance

She smiles because she knows that much to be true. There were moments where I glided my body over hers, the way we fit, a moment when I was behind her, an arm across her breasts and she interrupted the sex with a tender kiss, slowing down the action so we could both take it in. It was some sort of synergy laced with laughter, passion, a sensuality I don’t think I’ve felt for the longest time, if ever.

‘What’s your favourite colour?’ I ask her, an immediacy within me to know much more about her than I do already.

‘Yellow. Yours?’

‘Green.’

She nods. ‘Is this what we’re doing now? Is it question time?’

‘Why not? We’re both naked with nowhere to go. Ask me something.’

She pauses for a moment. ‘OK. I’ve not dug too much but Ed filled me in about you and what happened after you graduated from university.’

I smile, instinctively grabbing at a pillow under me to get comfortable. ‘And there was me asking about your favourite colour.’

‘We can do that. What’s your favourite chocolate bar?’

‘I’m partial to a Snickers but no, we can go deeper. I don’t mind. What did Ed say?’ I ask, curious at the information that’s been traded around the staff room.

‘Just that you put your life on hold to help out your brother. He mentioned nephews.’

I shrug my shoulders and scrunch up my face. ‘They’re Barney and George – they’re both nearly ten. And yeah, I had a sister-in-law, Amy, and she died when the twins were literally babies, so I moved in with Dom and helped him out for a bit. I actually saw them tonight before I came here.’

I look across at her. I can’t tell if that’s her eyes welling up but she’s silent, studying my face.

‘You lived with them? Do you have any other siblings? Your parents?’

‘Just Dom. Parents sadly both deceased.’

She squeezes my hand at that point. ‘I hope someone has told you that you did a really wonderful thing there… for your brother.’

It’s my turn to be silent. I guess, in a way, the boys did, though everyone these days seems to be more preoccupied by the fact I’ve never moved on from it. However, I saw how much Amy’s death devastated my brother. I heard his tears, loud, raw, pained. Plus, those kids are still kids. It always seemed a safer option to stay close if they still needed me. There were times I went further afield but I always gravitated back to them.

‘I’m just thinking back to when we first had that Nando’s and you never mentioned it. You alluded to family, but you gave off more of an impression that you just bounced from one thing to another. You didn’t say why…’

‘I never did what I did for the glory. He’s my brother. It was the right thing to do.’

She continues to study my face.

‘Plus, we’d only just met, we were eating wings, I didn’t want to talk about anything sad like that to someone I just met. And you were going through your own things,’ I say.

‘Or maybe you’re just modest. You love your family. You also experienced their grief and trauma; you prioritised them over yourself, and that speaks volumes about you, Jack.’

I take a deep breath that someone I barely know just summarised it all, and I don’t quite know how to take it, to have someone read you and elevate you like that. And strangely, I think back to other women who I’ve shared similar pillow talk with. Times when we’ve just chatted shit. I once had a woman lie next to me and list out everything she’d eaten that day. She couldn’t believe she’d eaten three bags of crisps.

‘You’ve gone quiet,’ she tells me, concern etched in her face.

I shake my head. ‘Can I go deep then?’ She furrows her brow and I laugh. ‘In conversation…’

She nods.

‘You need to promise me something next time?’ I ask her.

‘Presumptuous,’ she says, narrowing her eyes.

‘Are you trying to tell me, you were just using me? Like a one-night stand? I am devastated. I thought you were different,’ I say, kissing the side of her exposed neck.

‘You had a request,’ she asks, a little nervous laugh telling me I may be asking for something beyond her sexual prowess and knowledge.

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