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“Oh,” I stutter, momentarily unable to summon anything more. “I… I see.”
Immediately, I curse myself. Because I really don’t see. What is he talking about?
“Actually,” I blurt out. “It might be quite useful if you would… you know, elucidate.”
“Of course.” He takes a formal breath. “I’m trying to ask you out. On a date,” he adds, deliberately. “Just so there can be no more ambiguity.”
The sense of surprise hits me square in the chest, blooming outwards. I can feel my lips parting, my eyes widening. I’ve never been able to stop my inner workings from playing out across my face.
He’s watching me silently. He’s better than me; he doesn’t give much away, but there’s a flicker of trepidation in his eyes, and with a jolt, I realise that what I say next matters. It matters a lot.
The realisation that behind all of his confidence, his insouciance, lies someone fallible, forces me to look at him in a whole new way. This is a man who could have anyone he wanted. Someone like Freya, who’s glamorous, accomplished… the kind of woman who has it all together. Who doesn’t spill tea over herself every other day of the week, for starters.
And yet, it’s me he’s standing here in front of, looking earnest, and, dare I say it, even a little nervous? Not words I would ever have dreamed of matching to Nate before this moment. Can it really be me who’s done this?
I can’t deny it; it’s an intoxicating thought. It makes me stall, the automatic rebuttal which was hovering on my lips dissolving. Because of course I was about to turn him down. I always turn them down. It’s as natural now as breathing.
But then I remember what I promised myself last night. What I promised Rosie and Tess. If ever there was such a thing as a celestial shove in the shoulder blades, this would be it.
And there’s something else, too. Something I never expected. A sort of sparkling interest in this new version of Nate. The truth is that if he’d asked me in another way – his usual way, all smiles and charm and effortless confidence – then I might feel very differently about the whole thing. But watching him bungle it so hopelessly… well, it’s refreshing. It kind of makes me want to give him a chance.
“Look, can we just forget I ever said anything?” He scrubs a hand through his hair, his jaw tight. “This is why I was afraid to ask you. I never wanted to make things awkward between us.”
“What? No!” I blurt out, slightly taken aback by my own vehemence. Suddenly, I find that forgetting it is the last thing I want. “You took me by surprise, that’s all.”
He looks at me, and his gaze is searching.
“You’ve never thought about it, then?”
“Er, well,” I hedge, all the while wondering why I can’t just tell him the truth. That I haven’t allowed myself to think about anyone in that way for a long time. “It’s not really been… I mean, we’re friends – sort of – and you… well, you’re so…” I trail off, suddenly not sure I want to go there.
“So what?”
Damn. He’s actually expecting an answer. I was hoping to just leave it hanging. There’s no polite way to tell someone that you’ve always thought of them as an arrogant, superficial inveigler.
“So… impossible!” I fling my hands up in exasperation. “You’re so self-possessed, and charming…” I can feel myself starting to redden and his answering grin tells me he’s seen it too.
“You think I’m charming, then?”
He would have picked up on that part, wouldn’t he? I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t been so tactful.
“Now we’ve sorted that out,” he steps closer, until I’m looking deep into his brandy-coloured eyes. And he’s back again, the shiny veneer in place. But it doesn’t bother me so much now, I find. “Shall we go?”
I tilt my chin defiantly. I’m not going to fall that easily. Someone has to make it difficult for him every once in a while.
“I’ve already had lunch.”
“There’s lunch and there’s lunch,” he offers his arm and we begin to walk again. “We’ve been over this, remember? Chocolate cake doesn’t count.”
“I know, I know, it offends your Italian sensibilities,” I roll my eyes, but already I’m smiling. He has a way of putting me at ease no matter the situation. I wish I knew how he does it.
“Food is a serious business in my family.”
“Nothing is a serious business in mine. We’re all equally ridiculous.”
He laughs, and the sound seems to tingle through me, right to the tips of my toes. Immediately, I want to make him laugh again. The thought is so unexpected, so startling, that it almost makes me falter.
“Come on. I know somewhere that does great pasta. I see it as my mission to convert you to proper sustenance. I won’t rest until I’ve succeeded.”
And as we set off into the sunshine together, it occurs to me that, against all the odds, I actually can’t think of a nicer proposition.
Chapter Six
“Well, it might have been a somewhat unorthodox beginning to a first date,” Nate remarks, as we stroll back through the streets of Edinburgh. “But it didn’t turn out so badly, did it?”
“Not at all,” I say softly. In fact, if anything, it’s only left me feeling more confused than ever.
I didn’t expect any trouble when we walked into the restaurant. Actually, I was congratulating myself on my mature, worldly approach to the whole thing. All right, so maybe I was panicking a little bit. After all, it was my first date in six years. My first date as a proper, fully fledged adult. Ed and I just happened; we never had any formal dates. In fact, the last time I did this, it was all sharing a tub of popcorn in the back row of the cinema before getting the last bus home.
So I could admit it was probably past time I had a practice date. Just so I didn’t forget how to do the whole thing. Follow the formula… order food, trying to avoid anything which had the potential to fly off the plate like a missile, or anything with rivers of bright red sauce; chat about uncontentious, superficial subjects… I mean, if anyone’s a perfect candidate for that sort of thing, it’s Nate. He’s practically at professional competition level when it comes to light banter.
Except, somehow, it didn’t go quite how I’d planned. Somehow, I found that we were talking about all sorts of things… or at least, he was. He told me about his father’s cancer diagnosis, the reason he came back to Edinburgh and took the job at the Illuminator. He told me about the editor at the broadsheet he’d been working for in London who threatened that if he left, he’d never get back into serious journalism. He told me about the girlfriend he’d been living with, who wasn’t prepared to do long distance. He told me all of it with such simple openness, and I…
Well, I talked too. I told him about my crazy family, about my salt-of-the-earth Scottish grandmother, who practically had to drag Rosie and me – and Tess, when she was there – up into some sort of respectable adulthood while my mother swanned in and out like a diva at the opera. I told him about how Rosie and I spent the first summer trying to learn the accent so we’d fit in better at school, except we ended up sounding more Russian than anything and our teacher put us both in detention for being ‘disruptive’.
But I glossed over it all, playing it for laughs. I didn’t talk about how I really felt. I didn’t stray towards anything too meaningful. Even after everything, I still can’t bring myself to do that, not with anyone. The impenetrable wall of my armour is rusted into place. Because I told someone else all of these things once before. I handed my heart to him, and he ran away with it.
Deflection is nothing new for me; I’ve spent most of my life doing it. But today it bothers me. I feel… guilty. Like I’ve cheated Nate, somehow, by not returning his honesty. And it’s not just that; I’m painfully aware the whole time of the person hovering just beyond the edge of my vision. It’s like I can feel Ed watching us, like he’s a physical presence, taunting me with the knowledge that I’m not free. That, fundamentally, I still belong to him.
I’m so lost in my introspection that I follow Nate without thinking and it takes me a moment to realise we’re standing outside the gates to Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh’s most famous cemetery. I falter in my step and he looks askance at me.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.” My voice sounds strained; I swallow and try again. “Just… I haven’t been through here in a while, that’s all.”
“Does it bother you? We can go around it if you like.”
“What? No. That’ll take ages. It’s fine, honestly. It’s just… been a weird day, that’s all.” First the inexplicable sighting outside the café, then Frou Frou growling at nothing in the alleyway, and now this. I’m beginning to feel pretty shaken. “I had a… um, strange experience here once, when I was in my teens,” I explain. “Rosie and I were walking through late one night, and we…” I hesitate at this part. I’ve never told anyone about this before. “Well, we saw something.”
Or at least, I did. Rosie’s never spoken about it; I don’t know if she even remembers. We’d been to a party; no doubt there had been several cans of lurid mixed drinks involved.
“A ghost?” He raises an eyebrow, but not unkindly. Even so, I feel myself flushing.
“I don’t know what it was. It was so quick. More like a shape than anything.”
I look over towards the spot where I saw it all those years ago. In the bright sunshine, on a glorious spring day like this, it suddenly seems very foolish. It’s hard to reconcile this peaceful place with the infamous tales of ghost attacks and body snatching which have become so synonymous with its name.
“I’m sure we imagined it, anyway,” I say briskly. “We were young, impressionable.” A bit drunk, too, although I don’t say that part aloud. “It was dark. There are a lot of stories associated with this place. You can see how it happened.”
He’s watching me carefully. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“And yet you’ve avoided coming back for all this time? It must have had quite an impact.”
I look away, pretending to admire a sarcophagus.
“I think that’s more out of habit than anything.”
More lies, I think, with a flash of guilt. How many am I going to stack up?
Because he’s right; it did shake me. To the core. And I’ve never been able to convince myself that it was a flight of imagination. I know what I saw. I pushed it to the back of my mind but the truth is, the way I look at the world changed that day. Irrevocably. My faith in a steady, explicable universe was shattered forever.
He doesn’t question me any further, and we walk the rest of the way back in companionable silence. Or at least, he seems comfortable with it. My thoughts are churning.
“I have a small confession,” I blurt out, as we reach the front of the Illuminator building. I really don’t want to tell him this, but I feel I owe him one small truth, at the very least. “I was supposed to be asking you out today. You kind of… beat me to it.”
“Supposed to be asking me out?” He looks quizzical. “That sounds ominous. Did Rosie have anything to do with it, by chance?”
He knows my sister far too well. You know, come to think of it, it’s amazing that Nate and I never crossed paths before serendipity brought us together at the Illuminator. There must have been countless parties where we were orbiting the same room and yet somehow never managed to meet. I knew that he existed, of course. I’d heard about him from Rosie and Leo, but even after we finally met I never dared to ask them too much about him. The last thing I wanted was for Rosie’s antenna to start twitching.
“She might have been the… er… catalyst,” I admit reluctantly. Since when isn’t she?
He pauses at the top of the stairs, turning inwards to face me. For an instant, I wonder if he’s going to kiss me, and I freeze. I can feel my heart rate kicking upwards, the blood pounding in my ears.
“We should probably go in separately,” Nate murmurs, and I start, the spell popping around me like a burst balloon.
With an effort, I try to focus on the practicalities. It’s almost four o’clock; we’ve been gone for hours.
“You’re right.” I find myself nodding a bit too fervently, trying to cover my confusion and embarrassment. What the hell was that? Of course he wasn’t about to kiss me, not right here. Not after one sort-of-date. “Even Steve will probably have begun to wonder where we’ve got to by now.”
It’s not even like I wanted him to kiss me, I remind myself feverishly. It was just… a moment of madness. It didn’t mean anything. Immediately, Ed’s face swims into my mind, and I force it away as I’m overwhelmed by a sudden, sharp kick of guilt, followed immediately by self-directed shame and anger. Why, after all this time, after everything he’s done, do I still feel like I owe him fidelity?
“I’ll go first, I think.” Nate smiles down at me. “Your face will give us away in a second. You certainly don’t look like you’ve just spent a tedious afternoon gathering witness statements. You look far too perky.”
Do I? My hand automatically flies to my face, as though I’ll be able to feel the evidence there. That can’t be good.
I would give anything in this moment to rewind a couple of hours, to change the course of events. I wish I’d never seen the moment of vulnerability in his eyes when he asked me out. I wish I didn’t know anything about his life. That he’s a good son, that he’s capable of a long-term relationship, that he values family over career. I wish I could still look at him and see a one-dimensional player, intent only on flirting his way around the office.
“I’m glad we finally did this.” He runs his hand through his hair, tousling his espresso-coloured curls. “I should never have waited so long.”
“Why did you?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them and I curse myself, but at the same time I wouldn’t take them back even if I could. I want to know.
He smiles ruefully.
“Belle, I don’t think you realise… you’re kind of intimidating, you know.”
I’m stunned into speechlessness. Of all the words I might have associated with myself, intimidating is not one of them. Rosie is intimidating. My grandmother is definitely intimidating, especially when she starts waving her walking stick around after a few glasses of sherry. Even my mother is at a stretch, in an alarming, what-will-she-do-next sort of way. But I… well, I fall over my own feet, for Christ’s sake. I’m about as intimidating as a new-born kitten.
And yet he said it so earnestly. He wasn’t joking. Nate D’Angelo genuinely finds me intimidating.
I’ll have to tell Rosie about this. She’ll be thrilled.
Before I can summon up a reply, a door bangs further down the corridor. It seems to refocus Nate’s attention.
“I’ll see you in a minute. Try to look a little less cheery when you walk in, if you can manage it.”
“I’ll think of Darren,” I choke out, forcing myself to joke, to act normally. “That ought to do it.”
He grins and squeezes my hand briefly before releasing it and walking away.
I lean back against the wall, waiting until he’s out of earshot before letting the breath whistle out from between my lips.
I can’t afford to like him. Not even a little bit. I’m not ready; I can see that now. When Ed walked away like that, he left so many unanswered questions, so many trailing threads. If we’d just broken up, it might have been different. There would have been an ending, a sense of closure. But this way… Perhaps I’m cursed never to have that.
I’ve pushed myself away from the wall and am sloping along the corridor, disconsolately pondering the notion, when suddenly, from nowhere, there’s the most almighty crash from somewhere behind me.
I all but screech to a halt. What was that? It sounded like the whole building’s in the process of falling down.
Although, that may not be so surprising. It’s hardly state of the art. There’s a ceiling tile above my desk that’s been looking decidedly precarious ever since I started here. Every day, I’m half waiting for it to fall on my head. A part of me almost wishes it would, just to end to suspense.
There’s another crash, of slightly lesser magnitude than the first, although this time it’s accompanied by the addition of a rather choice expletive.
Avidly curious now, I find myself turning despite myself, retracing my steps back along the corridor.
It seems to be coming from the stationery cupboard, although of course, it can’t possibly be. Who would be flailing around in there?
It’s all gone quiet. Suddenly, I’m very aware of my heartbeat, of how alone I feel out here in this dark, empty corner of the building. If I were to scream, would anyone in the office even hear me? The sound would have to travel along rambling corridors, through stone walls probably metres thick in places. The thought gives me a shiver.
The temptation to back away is overwhelming. Every sense in my body is firing, my muscles aching to move. But I don’t. Telling myself I’m being ridiculous, I edge towards the door warily. At least if I open it, I can prove to myself there’s nothing…
The door bursts open. I leap backwards with a piercing scream.
“Surprise!” A very familiar figure looms in the doorway.
For a long moment, I just stare. The world has begun to blur around the edges. It takes everything I have to gasp out the single syllable on which my world once turned.
“Ed?”
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