Page 13 of The World Outside My Window

‘You silly sausage,’ he said, pulling away and smiling at me. ‘I knew you weren’t listening.’

I frowned. I was certain I would have remembered if Jim had told me he was going to be here for another night, but I let it go.

‘So what is this work thing?’ I asked, hauling myself up to sitting. He ran his fingers down my shoulder and towards my breast and I shivered. ‘Jim, stop it,’ I said, giggling as I pushed him away. He grinned, and turned to tighten his tie.

‘It’s just a dinner, you know, boring work talk.’

‘Oh, right.’ I swallowed. ‘No partners?’

He tipped his head to the side quizzically. ‘I don’t know whether some people are inviting other halves. Why?’

I shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. Why did I think he’d want to invite me along to a work thing when we’d only been together for six months? Just because it felt as though we knew each other inside out already, it didn’t mean other people would understand how things were between us. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said.

‘Oh, darling,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be at work, to be honest. But believe me, you really don’t want to come to this. It will be boring as hell, and even the wives and girlfriends aren’t your cup of tea.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said, trying not to sound sulky and childish. Even though I was twenty-six and at the beginning of what I hoped would be a successful career as a chef, I still felt immature around Jim sometimes, even if he didn’t mean to make me feel that way.

I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether Jim had ever taken another girlfriend along with him to dos like this before. He hadn’t told me much about any of his exes, preferring to keep them well in the past, which made sense, but he had told me that, although he’d never been married, he had been in a few serious relationships before. Maybe that was one of the reasons he didn’t want to introduce me to his colleagues yet – perhaps they’d loved his exes and he wanted to wait a bit longer before bringing me into the picture. I hated the idea of him with someone else, so quickly pushed it out of my mind.

‘Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I just thought it would be nice to see you for an extra night, that’s all. I get lonely here all by myself.’

‘I know, and I am sorry I have to work away so much, I hate being apart too. It’s not ideal but at the moment there’s so much going on with work it’s impossible to change it.’

‘Maybe I could come with you up to Leeds one day? Just for a few days.’

‘But what about your work?’

‘I could take a few days off.’ I shrugged, suddenly shy again. ‘I don’t know, I just thought it would be nice to see where you spend half of your life.’

He smiled and took hold of my hands. ‘I’d love that, darling. Honestly. But I’ll warn you, it’s pretty tedious. I spend most of the day in the office and when I’m not there I’m schmoozing clients. You’d be just as lonely as you are here but without all your friends around you.’

‘Maybe you’re right. Never mind.’

He kissed my fingers one by one. ‘But I tell you what. As I’m going out tonight and leaving you here all by yourself, how about you go out with your friends? My treat.’

‘But I—’ I stopped. I’d been about to object to him giving me money when I earned my own, but we both knew he earned a lot more than me and he’d told me several times I had to think of it as our money, not mine and his.

‘Please, Lola? Let me treat you?’

‘Okay,’ I relented. ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

He leapt up from the bed then and disappeared. I stayed where I was for a few moments, enjoying the lie-in. It had been a late shift last night and had been almost 1 a.m. by the time I’d climbed into bed. I listened to Jim shuffling around in the kitchen, and then I heard his voice, muffled. Who was he talking to? I strained to hear but he was too far away and the bedroom door was half closed.

As I waited for him I thought about how much had changed for me in the last six months. I’d gone from being single and living in a grotty flatshare, to living with a man I adored and who made me feel special every single day. Even though we were apart half the time, when we were together, we spent every minute talking and the more I got to know him, the more I loved everything about him.

One fly in the ointment had been when he’d confessed he didn’t think he was able to have children. ‘It was one of the reasons me and my ex split up, because she couldn’t cope with the fact I wasn’t able to give her what she needed,’ he told me one night. He’d looked heartbroken and my heart had melted for him. He’d looked at me, his eyes wide. ‘I’m telling you this now so you can still walk away,’ he’d said. And even though I had always imagined a future with children in it, now I’d met Jim I couldn’t imagine a future without him in it. ‘I don’t want to walk away,’ I’d assured him.

While he didn’t like to talk about his exes any more than that, he told me everything else. I learned how his parents had both died in a car accident when he was twelve, and how he’d been brought up by his aunt, who died a few years ago, which meant he had no other family. At least it explained why making a new family with me was so important to him.

He told me how he’d worked hard to get where he was, determined to make something of himself. I was discovering all the little things too: how he only liked cream in his coffee not milk, how he preferred black and white horror films to the modern-day ones with their special effects, how he’d once tried rowing but found the competitive side of it so awful he’d quit after a month. How he liked shepherd’s pie for dinner at home but would always go for rare steak when we ate out, and preferred drinking wine but usually went for Scotch when entertaining clients. He had a small group of friends but I hadn’t met any of them yet, Jim claiming that the time we had together was too precious to spend with other people. I couldn’t argue because I agreed.

What it did mean, though, was that I was seeing my own friends less and less. Debbie was still a regular fixture in my diary, especially on the days when Jim was out of town, but I only ever really saw the others – Sammy, Sarah and Miranda – when Debbie organised it and made me come out. I hoped they would be free this evening for a catch-up.

‘All sorted,’ Jim said, interrupting my thoughts as he came back into the room. I was struck once more by how handsome he looked in his suit, how grown up and important, and I tried to imagine him being bossy and authoritative at work. I smiled.

‘What’s all sorted?’ I said, gratefully accepting the cup of strong tea he handed me.

‘Tonight.’

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