Our Stop - Laura Jane Williams Page 0,89

it. This was the gateway she’d been grappling for. He was laughing too. Nadia could feel the rise and fall of her breath in her chest, and bit at her bottom lip anxiously.

‘Nadia?’

It was a voice Nadia recognized. She turned around.

‘Eddie!’ she said, shocked but happy.

‘How are you?’ Eddie said, opening up his arms for a hug. He’d been like that from the night she’d met him: open, warm, loving, affectionate.

Nadia turned to Naomi, ‘Naomi, this is the guy I was just telling you about. Eddie – this is my friend Naomi.’ She paused for a second, to where the guys in front had been stood not ten seconds ago. She may as well introduce them too. But they were ahead now, at the booth, ordering their food. Nadia hadn’t realized they’d made it to the front of the line.

‘How’ve you been?’ Eddie said. ‘This is Alya, my girlfriend. Alya, baby, this is Nadia.’

Alya stuck out a hand. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she said, smiling.

‘You have?’ Nadia said.

Eddie laughed, ‘All good, Nadia, don’t worry.’ He turned to Naomi. ‘Your friend broke my heart a little,’ he said. ‘But then I met Alya, and realized why it had never worked out with anybody else.’

Eddie smiled at his girlfriend and put his arm around her again, pulling her in close. He was reassuring her. Marking his territory. Making his allegiances clear. Nadia was genuinely thrilled he seemed so happy, and told him so. It was easier to see him with somebody else than to think that in any way she’d hurt him and that he still hurt. It let her off the hook.

‘Thanks, Nadia,’ he said. And then: ‘Anyway, we should probably get going. I think the movie is about to start.’

Nadia nodded.

‘Nice to meet you,’ Naomi said. As Eddie and Alya walked away, she asked, ‘The not-quite-enough guy?’

Nadia nodded. ‘Yup.’

She turned to locate Waistcoat Guy again, but when she searched for him by the food stand, where he’d been seconds ago, he wasn’t there.

‘Ah!’ she said to Naomi. ‘That guy! Where did he go?’

Naomi followed Nadia’s line of sight and shrugged. ‘Oh shit, I don’t know!’ she said. ‘He was so into you!’

‘I was so into him!’

‘I could tell. It was like you were having sex with him with your eyes.’

Nadia hit her friend’s arm.

‘We’ll find him. It’s not that big here. Maybe he’ll come back.’

Nadia looked around the area again.

‘I hope so,’ she said, and Naomi pulled on her arm so that she’d step forward to the food counter. ‘He was … wow.’

42

Daniel

‘Well,’ Romeo was saying. ‘You’ve got absolutely no choice. You’ve got to write to her again. You’ve used up your nine lives, man – if you were to see her by chance ever again, I’d be shocked. Like, seeing her last night was your last chance. You’ve got to write to her again! It’s not like another chance meeting will ever, ever happen.’

Romeo had come upstairs to Daniel’s desk on his break, after Daniel had sent him a series of texts telling him what happened at the screening the night before.

‘You can’t send me a text like that and not have me stage an intervention, friend,’ he’d said, appearing by his side. ‘What do you mean you lost her? How many opportunities are you willing to blow?!’

‘You weren’t in the lobby when I needed you!’ Daniel said, by way of response.

‘I had to go pee! Even security men get bathroom breaks!’ Romeo had said, exasperated. Then: ‘I can’t believe you wandered off because her ex-boyfriend was there. You coward! You’re better than that, man! You said yourself he was with somebody else.’

‘Nah man, she didn’t need an audience for that, did she?’ Daniel said, still trying to unravel why he’d bolted that way. Romeo was right, though: how many chances did he want to blow? Maybe it was panic. He’d once heard that the only thing worse than harbouring a dream was having that dream come true, because then, what was left to want?

He simply couldn’t explain why he hadn’t loitered and waited for the guy to leave. Nadia was interested. He could tell. They hadn’t been able to look away from each other – at least not until they were interrupted. His heart had quickened, his brain had gone blank, he’d not done much other than grin like an idiot at her, but she had grinned back, letting whatever energy between them exist to do just that. Exist. He hadn’t held his breath in front