Lovestruck, p.17
Lovestruck, page 17
‘Apparently it’s treatable,’ she says. ‘But obviously everyone is worried sick. And nobody even wanted to tell Mike because he’s had his own stuff going on. So he’s sort of being the perfect son right now, proving everybody wrong.’
‘In what way?’
‘In a nice way, I suppose,’ she says. ‘Asking questions, going over possible treatment plans, just being there.’
Carlos nods. ‘My older brother had prostate cancer,’ he says. ‘Well, my half-brother from Dad’s first marriage, you know, Gio?’
‘Yeah.’ Becca nods. ‘I didn’t know he’s had prostate cancer though. Is he OK now?’
‘Can’t get a stiffy any more,’ Carlos says with a wince. ‘And dribbles so has to wear a nappy-type thing in his pants to soak it up. I know what I’m telling you is personal, but he’d want me to share. He didn’t know about any of this when he was diagnosed. But he’s alive and very grateful to be so. Do you know if Mike’s dad is getting surgery, or radiotherapy … ?’
‘Mike said he’s leaning towards radiotherapy, exactly because of what you said. I think it’s something about the surgery being near to the nerves that help sexual function and continence – he doesn’t want to be an old man who smells like piss, apparently. Paul’s words.’
‘I can understand that,’ says Carlos. ‘I remember from when Gio was choosing, his doctor said the younger the patient the more likely they are to have surgery – get the damned thing out, even if it costs them in other ways. Gio has three kids, he just wanted to make sure he saw them get to secondary school, lived to see them graduate and get married, all that stuff. He didn’t care about the––’ Carlos makes a whistling sound as he raises his hand in the air, which Becca assumes means sexual function. ‘Or about the adult nappies. He just wanted to be cancer-free and alive. Not that every surgery ends up that way – but for Gio it did, unfortunately.’
‘I never knew any of this, Carlos. When did this happen?’
Carlos waves a hand. ‘Before I met you,’ he says. ‘He’s older than me, isn’t he, so yeah, when he was fifty?’
‘I’m glad he’s OK,’ Becca tells him. ‘I like a nice hopeful story like that.’
‘I’m sure Paul will be OK. It’s assumed that when you’re diagnosed with prostate cancer now you’ll survive, I think. It’s like ninety-eight per cent survival or something crazy like that. I know the journey is rough though. And hey, I know Gio benefited from talking to other dudes about it all when it was happening. Even if you have family, it’s all the … equipment, isn’t it? Sometimes you need another man to talk to about it all. If he wants Gio’s number, I’m sure Gio will happily chat to him.’
‘That’s really kind.’ Becca smiles. ‘Thank you. I’ll pass that along.’
‘Sure,’ he says, clicking his pen a couple of times and, apparently deciding he has nothing further to add, spinning back around on his chair to get back to balancing the books.
‘But things with Mike,’ Carlos says, after a few minutes of working in companionable silence. ‘All that’s good?’
Becca swivels back around on her chair to face him. ‘Um,’ she says. ‘Yes? At least, I think so.’
‘You think so.’
‘Well, he’s really making the effort, and he’s been super forthcoming with his feelings and stuff, which is nice. It’s reassuring.’
‘Sure,’ Carlos says. ‘You want a ring on your finger and so no time-wasters allowed, correct?’
‘You make it sound like I’d marry the next person that asks!’ Becca squeals. ‘I just want to be happy, is all. And partnership makes me happy. Did you ever see that TV show Love Life?’
‘With Anna Kendrick?’
‘No. The second season, when it was William Jackson Harper? He was this divorcé and the arc of the show was how he got over divorce in his thirties to end up where he should have been all along?’
Carlos nods. ‘Yup, I’m with you. If you remember, we actually watched that series together?’
Becca narrows her eyes. ‘On a hangover, in a day,’ she nods. ‘Yes. I remember.’
‘And now I know exactly which bit you’re going to quote to me.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘I do! Because you talked about it for weeks afterwards. There’s a bit where the voiceover says that being a man isn’t just stepping up to the plate, but stepping up to the plate in perpetuity. And then the guy says that actually, the meaning of life is having a plate to step up to at all.’
‘OK, fine.’ Becca laughs. ‘That is what I was going to quote. I’ve just been thinking about that again lately, you know? That’s not even what a man is, that’s all humans to me. I want a plate to step up to – a family who are going to be a pain in my arse but the loves of my life.’
‘As long as he’s treating you right.’
Becca hesitates.
‘Becca? Is he treating you right?’
She sighs. ‘Technically, yes,’ she says. ‘But right before he got the call about his dad and left the pub, he told me he’s talking about maybe taking a two-month contract in London doing some consultancy work. And that didn’t feel great. It brought back all those memories of being left. And two months isn’t forever, but at the moment he’s here, and I like it, but then he’s going to be gone again, and it gives me … feelings.’
Carlos closes the binder they’ve been working from, which Becca takes to mean they’re finished.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asks her.
Becca nods. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Now you mention it.’
‘Pizzeria Giacomo? My treat?’
Becca whistles through her teeth. ‘Christ,’ she teases. ‘You must be about to really give me a talking-to if you’re paying.’
He narrows his eyes. ‘I could withdraw the offer,’ he says, and Becca pouts.
‘Little Carlos can’t take a jokey-wokey?’ she says in a baby voice. ‘Awwwww!’
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Before I change my mind.’
It’s chilly outside, the air heavy with the threat of rain.
‘I can’t believe I ever complained about the heat this summer,’ Becca says as Carlos locks up. She looks at the ominous clouds despondently. ‘It’s going to chuck it down.’
‘Best walk fast, then,’ Carlos says, tapping her on the stomach as though they’re in a game of tag and sprinting halfway down the road.
‘Are you joking?’ she squeals to the back of his head. ‘Carlos! CARLOS!’
He disappears around the corner and Becca waits for him to reappear, expecting him to stick his head back around or something. When he doesn’t, she walks a bit faster, and when she turns the same corner and doesn’t see him, gets confused.
‘Carlos?’ she says to the air. He’s gone. He’s bloody well gone! What an idiot! She looks at her watch. It’s only 6 p.m. She could loop back around and see if there’s anyone at the pub, or stop by at her mum and Betty’s. Plodding on, unsure of why Carlos would disappear, she considers going to the pizza place alone. She is hungry now the promise of food has been dangled.
‘STICK ’EM UP!’ a voice booms into her face, so loud and out of nowhere that she squeals, high-pitched and dramatic, at the intrusion of it. Her phone clatters to the floor.
‘Ah!’ she yells, stepping back and scrunching up her eyes.
And then: laughter.
‘Oh! My! God! It’s just me, you daft cow!’
Becca opens her eyes. ‘Carlos! What the hell, dude? That scared me!’
But he isn’t looking at her, he’s got his eyes closed now too, bent over double, laughing and clutching his sides.
‘You pig!’
‘I’m sorry,’ he wheezes. ‘I didn’t know you’d actually be afraid.’ He straightens up and looks at her, still at the edge of his laughter. ‘Really,’ he says, seeming to note her furious expression. What is he, twelve? ‘I’m sorry, OK?’
Carlos reaches down to get her phone; mercifully it hasn’t cracked. Becca takes it and slips it into her bag and, dropping her bag to the floor, play-slaps Carlos on the arm.
‘THAT is for being a grade-A arsehole,’ she tells him with a thwack, and he nurses the site of impact and says, ‘Hey!’
She looks at him. She feels better now. Carlos holds her gaze. For some reason, she reaches out and hits him again.
‘Ow.’
She gets closer and hits him once more, but before she can make contact he grabs her hand, pulls her towards him, and goes right for her Achilles heel: he tickles her.
‘No!’ she squeals from the alleyway they’ve ended up down. She feels a fat splosh of something wet hit her neck, and then again. ‘Carlos!’ she screeches, gaining purchase to tickle him back, two grown adults behaving like schoolkids.
Another splosh of water hits her. Rain.
‘Carlos!’
He tugs at her arm as she tries to reach around to his back, attempting a wedgie. God, she hasn’t given somebody a wedgie in years.
‘I don’t think so,’ Carlos grunts, nimbly side-stepping her so she is forced to spin around, lest he give her a wedgie. She lunges again, and he grabs her arms, and then somehow she’s not only got her arms pinned by her sides, but she’s pinned up against the brick wall, too, and now it’s raining properly: big heavy drops of water that she only notices because of the way they fall on Carlos’s face, which she appears to be staring at, and breathing heavily into.
Neither of them speak, but his grip on her doesn’t lessen. It’s then that Becca realises what she’s holding on to: the muscle of Carlos’s thick, manly arms. Her grip is just as firm as his is, if not more so.
Time stops.
Becca would like some answers. She’d like answers to questions such as: why is he looking at me this way? Why is nobody speaking? Why does this feel like … something? He looks at her, and she looks at him, and she couldn’t open her mouth and form the words even if she wanted to. This is Carlos! This all feels so weird for Carlos.
She can’t be enjoying the way Carlos’s bicep feels under her hand, or how his pupils have dilated that way. The rain has made the front of his hair slick, so it flops into his face. Becca resists the urge to wipe it away for him, to smooth it back like a lover. This is Carlos. The salon is the very best thing in her life; it stands for so much. He’s her business partner. She releases her grip.
The spell is broken. Their breathing is shallow. Carlos searches her face, his own full of questions, but before they can get into it Becca grabs her bag from the ground.
‘Race you there,’ she says, sprinting back around the corner, away from the alleyway and him and everything, and she runs the whole way to the restaurant, so fast that she gets a stitch.
19
She Doesn’t Text Back
‘It’s not that I’m not grateful,’ Carlos effuses, smoothing down the fabric of his shirt across his taut stomach as he sits in the cab, chest pushed forward in his peacocking way. ‘But doesn’t this feel like introducing your in-laws? You bring your best friends, he brings his best friends … it’s all very the merging of two dynasties.’
‘No it’s not,’ Becca says with an eye-roll. ‘It’s two people dating who want to know as much as possible about each other, which is very romantic and normal. And everyone is so busy that instead of me meeting Sarah and Nate one night, and then Noah meeting you and Jia Li another, it seemed fun to just hang out together. It’s been two months already and we’re together almost every night of the week. I love him! I want you to know him properly!’
‘Hmmm,’ says Jia Li as their cab pulls up on Warstone Lane. The sleek red-brick entrance to the restaurant is flanked by leafy branches festooned with lights and two plaques: one with the restaurant’s name, the Wilderness, the other with its Michelin-star status.
Carlos looks around at the chicness of their location. ‘I suppose when a man says he wants to pick up the tab on a hundred-quid-a-head meal to celebrate his sales in China or wherever it was, who am I to turn him down?’
‘Sweden bought his backlist all at once,’ Becca corrects Carlos, before leaning towards the cab to help pull out Jia Li. ‘You OK, Mama?’
‘Grand,’ Jia Li says, resplendent in a black robe she bought from the Buddhist temple in town, with a flower crown for added festive effect. At nearly six months pregnant now, she’s displaying quite the bump – and quite the cleavage.
Inside is exquisite. The charcoal-black interior and gentle rock music make it cool and relaxed, not the uptight dining room Becca was expecting from a place with tables more in demand than Beyoncé tickets. There are exposed black brick and loft lights, huge banquette seats running the length of either side of the room with mid-century black leather and walnut-legged chairs opposite, making walking through to the table at the back a catwalk-like experience. Noah is waiting, flanked by his best friend and his wife, who beam when they clock Becca and her entourage. She can’t wait to spend proper time with them. It sounds like Nate and Sarah are the exact kind of best friends a person could want for their partner: they’ve been together forever, but they’re honest about the work a marriage takes and not arseholes about getting everybody else married off. Noah says that they laugh a lot, and are clearly in love even after a decade. Noah and Becca have been in their own little love bubble, but they’re finally ready to come up for air and invite other people into their love affair.
‘Hello!’ Becca says, opening her arms out first for a hug from Sarah, then Nate. ‘These are my friends, both of whom you’ve heard terrible things about, of course.’
Carlos rolls his eyes. ‘Ha, ha,’ he says, extending a hand.
‘You must be Carlos,’ Sarah says.
Becca is only half listening as she searches for Jia Li’s elbow to steer her towards the group. ‘And this is Jia Li, my ride or die.’
Once everyone has been introduced, Becca finally turns her attention to Noah, all bright eyes and wide smile and a particularly amorous kiss hello.
‘Mmmmm,’ he says into her mouth as he greets her, and it’s sensual enough that Becca bats his hand away from her arse and says, ‘Hey, where’s the foreplay,’ which makes him laugh harder than the joke warrants and makes some of the other diners turn to stare.
‘Are you OK?’ Becca asks, crinkling her brow. ‘You seem … I dunno. Everything all right with work?’
‘Work?’ he repeats, as if he’s confused for a moment, before he nods and says, ‘Oh, work. No, everything’s fine. I suppose I’m just a bit keen that we have a nice night, you know? That everyone gets on.’
Becca looks pointedly towards Carlos and Sarah, who appear to be bonding over a recipe she’s showing him on her phone, and then at Nate with Jia Li, saying something about the books Killing Eve was based on.
‘I think we’re good. And look! This place!’ she gestures around at the low lighting and glossy interior. ‘You’re so sweet to treat us when it’s your work win. This is amazing. You are amazing.’
They kiss again, and this time Becca embraces the booty squeeze.
Noah issues instruction to the waiter that they’ll take whatever wine pairing the barperson suggests for each course, except Jia Li, who chugs orange-lemonades like a kid out at the pub with her dad. It’s nice being fancy in a fancy place, and tonight it gives her a thrill as Noah commands the room in a way she hasn’t seen before. He is kind but precise with what he orders for the table and how he does it. It makes her a little horny, really, three glasses of wine in.
They eat shrimp doughnuts and celeriac tart, crab and cod and a smoked salad with caviar. There’s pigeon, too, which Becca likes less, but there’s so much ceremony to the evening, to the food, that she rolls with the punches. Everyone is on great form, sharing stories and laughing and toasting. It’s exactly as she’d hoped it would be.
‘This is nice,’ Becca whispers into Noah’s ear as their last savoury plate is cleared away and the waiter announces a short break before dessert.
‘I’m just going to pop out for a smoke if there’s a natural pause,’ announces Carlos. He looks at Noah. ‘I think this has been the best dining experience of my life, and it’s not even over yet.’ He wags a finger. He’s a little buzzed on the booze and the company. ‘I wasn’t sure about you, dude, but this …’ He points his finger at Becca. ‘You’re in good hands,’ he says to her, and Becca has a rush of triumph. She knew Carlos would overlook the polo shirts in the end.
As Carlos pushes back his chair to stand up, Noah interrupts him to ask if he doesn’t mind waiting a moment.
‘It’s just …’ Noah adds, and there’s something to the way he addresses the table that makes everyone immediately hush. Is he going to cry? Becca wonders. He looks emotional. Oh God. Men who get their friends together to celebrate a ‘work thing’ invariably have news about work that means travel, or time apart, or relocation. Becca can feel the other shoe about to drop.
‘I’ve got something to say,’ he settles on, and he holds Carlos’s eye until Carlos is back in his seat, his face quizzical, his arm draped over Jia Li’s chair. Becca looks at Jia Li, who is looking at Noah. Sarah is looking at Becca, though. Her eyes are misty, confusingly, as if she knows what’s coming.
Noah stands. ‘I wanted you all here tonight because there is something I would like to celebrate. I’ve led you up the garden path a bit with all the job stuff – there’s no Swedish book deal. Well, there is, but that’s not why we’re here. We’re here because … Becca – I love you, and I wanted the people closest to us here for this.’
And then he pulls out a ring box from his jacket pocket.
‘Oh my God,’ Jia Li says. Becca’s jaw drops.
‘Becca.’ She sits, gazing up at him. ‘I’ve been lonely my whole life. And then I met you. You’re the MJ to my Peter Parker – you just get me. And I just get you. Loving you is something that happened so quickly and naturally, and it’s something I feel sure I will do for the rest of my life, because we’re perfect together, you and me. And it may not have been long since I met you but, like Jay-Z allegedly said: when you’ve got a queen, you don’t reshuffle the deck.’
