Page 53 of You Belong With Me

‘Uhm … Anto! Full name Anthony of Stevenage.’

‘Edie, I have no idea who this guy was, but he was probably hitting on you.’

‘Hitting on me?’

‘That’s the only reason I can think he’d be lying to you? Destabilise your prey with undermining bullshit and then go in with the feelings repair kit. Let me guess, you got compliments, too?’

Edie opened her mouth and closed it and said: ‘Hitting on me, when I’m here with you, though?’

‘The audacity of hope.’

Edie was at a loss to understand why anyone would do this, which was no doubt what Anto relied on.

‘… That is so casually monstrous.’

Edie had been briefly in the company of a supervillain and had no idea. That was sociopathic straight after a ‘hello’? He knew who she was from the start. He’d pulled a string, and her eyes had changed colour.

‘My friends will love you. I hope it’s very clear from that – those weren’t my friends. Could you eat? I say we get room service.’

Edie beamed.

‘Oh God, I could murder a burger and chips, actually. Is that possible, when it’s this late?’

As the words left her mouth, Edie thought:You’re probably in a £1.5k a night suite.

Elliot paused, and she could see him calculate this wasn’t the time to ridicule her naiveté. ‘Reckon it is.’

They pulled nightclothes on and ordered a decadent amount of food, putting it on the bed and eating it sat cross-legged.

‘About your feeling out of place,’ Elliot said, in a differentregister to his joking, as he brushed his hands of chip salt, ‘the secret truth of my life, one that I’ve never told a living soul, is that I’m homesick as a permanent way of being. I’ve been homesick so long now I’ve almost forgotten how it feels to not be homesick. Worst of all, I don’t even know what I’m homesickfor.’

‘Saudade,’ Edie said, a Portuguese word she’d introduced Elliot to when they were falling for each other. ‘…A profound longing for something or someone absent, that may never return.’

‘Exactly that. The only time I don’t feel that way is when I’m with you. Before you came along, it was as if I was shut in a room no one else could get into. You came in and sat beside me. Not asking for anything, not with any agenda. Nobody had ever done that, and it was such a powerful feeling, not being alone. You do belong here, Edie, because you belong with me. And I belong with you.’

He looked up, and tears were running down Edie’s face, tears that she didn’t wipe away.

28

Edie awoke to the minor confusion of blackout curtains plunging the room into a permanent midnight, and no one else in the bed. She sat up. No sounds of a shower running?

The mystery of Elliot’s whereabouts lasted under a minute before he reappeared through the door, fully dressed, brandishing the ubiquitous phone, and looking like he’d had a day of meetings already.

‘Morning. Brace yourself,’ Elliot said, seeing she was awake and switching a lamp on. ‘Someone sold pictures of us last night, and they’re running already.’

‘Fuck! What?! Who did that?’

‘No idea. My galaxy-brained brother failed to tell us that, though it looked like a private party, it wasn’t. I quote: “We’d maxed the limit for how many people were allowed up there with our guest list, so I thought that’d do it.” They were doing one in, one out, so there were members of Joe Public present throughout. Or we could be tidy and blame it on Anto of Stevenage.’

‘Oh … shit …’

‘The other Chuckle brother here had his phone on silent,so no one could get hold of me. I’d already told Lillian that, if she was asked to confirm we were together, she should say yes. She went with that. She used it as barter to stop them putting a “Do you know Edie?” number to call at the end of it, too. I hope that’s all right. I didn’t see the mileage in lying?’

‘Sure, yes.’

Oh God, the hotline tip: she’d been through that mill. It felt like she was on Morrisons CCTV with a frozen chicken up her rain poncho and had made Crimestoppers.

A quietness fell as Edie digested the news that she was, at this present moment, naked in a four-poster bed and simultaneously exposed in unknown ways on another platform.

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