crime not to act on it, but I had an early shift and no time to relieve the building pressure. I’d set off to work extremely frustrated, and hoped that the first person I encountered wasn’t Tom. That same evening, I’d attended the Mews midweek weekly BBQ and this one had been an extra special celebration – Carl’s one-year sober birthday, so he had hosted. In honour of it, there had been non-alcoholic cocktails and drinks, a completely teetotal affair.
I’d arrived on time with my contribution of Waitrose sausages and a bottle of posh Dandelion and Burdock. Ali and Grace had baked Carl a chocolate cake with a gold number one candle perched in the centre of the thick glossy icing. Carl had given a lovely speech, thanking the Mews for being his guiding light, supporting him, with special mentions for Jo, who had popped in for the occasion, and Ali. It had been a lovely party; no one’d got drunk or fallen over and no one had said anything they shouldn’t have.
At the end of the night when my housemates had returned over the road, and everyone else had retired to their own houses, I’d stayed and chatted with Carl while we cleared away glasses and plates. I didn’t know him as well as everyone else and it had been a good opportunity to catch up.
‘How long were you and Tom together for?’ he asked me in the kitchen after we’d finished discussing the different areas in London we’d lived. I hadn’t lived anywhere other than Peckham, Camberwell and East Dulwich. But Carl had been all over.
‘Eleven years; it felt like a marriage, though I obviously have nothing to compare that to as we weren’t married.’ In the next year I half expected Tom to announce he was getting married and about to have a baby. I had no right to feel anything other than happy for him.
‘Well, that’s longer than Janey and I managed.’ I’d studied him as he stacked the dishwasher and had been hit head-on by how sexy he was – Idris Elba in the flesh. Ali had admitted when drunk that she had had a huge crush on him before she got together with Nick. How had I not noticed his handsomeness before? Well, I knew why, I’d been in a post-break-up fog. However, that morning’s rising of the sap had proved that maybe it was ready to lift.
He’d glanced up from his task; his eyes had darted swiftly towards mine. The light caught his eyelashes. His biceps flexed as he’d slammed the dishwasher door shut. The earlier yearning had resumed its throbbing in my crotch and a faint gasp escaped from between my barely parted lips.
‘You OK?’ he’d asked as his voice caught in his throat.
I’d nodded, unable to speak.
4
Carl
Carl watched Christa let herself into the house before he disappeared behind his own identikit black front door. She was avoiding him. He’d been on a regular shooting schedule for the last few months with Tesco’s Florence and Fred clothing line. It wasn’t high fashion and not as bling as his previous clients, but he couldn’t complain after he’d rubbished his reliable reputation with drink. Work had finally executed a U-turn and this dependable slot was something he held on to. It meant leaving the house at a regular time every morning three times a week, and for those three mornings, he’d noticed Christa left her house precisely half an hour before he did, thus avoiding having to interact with him on her driveway should they, God forbid, walk out of their doors at exactly the same time.
It felt incredibly school playground, just like in the fourth year when he’d snogged Samantha Ellis at a party and she’d ignored him for the rest of term, dramatically diving into the girls’ toilets to avoid him or abruptly leaving the dining hall, making a point of publicly shunning him. She’d been a crap kisser anyway – all waggly tongue and she’d licked his mouth too. He gagged thinking of it now. It should have been him eschewing her! At least when he and Ali had had their unfortunate clandestine fumble at last year’s summer party, they’d both managed to claw it back to an even footing pretty sharpish. Initially it had been extremely awkward, but that had been for entirely different reasons.
Carl dutifully washed up his frying pan from dinner (fried egg on toast, Gordon Ramsay’s career was safe), and plonked it on the draining rack. He