Still Me (Me Before You #3) - Jojo Moyes Page 0,124

and Manhattan hotels are a little out of my price range …’ I had looked online in the diner at local rentals and nearly spat out my coffee. The tiny room I had felt so ambivalent about when I had first arrived with the Gopniks turned out to be affordable only with an executive salary. No wonder that cockroach hadn’t wanted to move.

‘Would it help you to stay at mine?’

I looked up from my taco.

‘Just temporarily. It doesn’t have to mean a whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. I have a sofa-bed in the front room. You probably don’t remember.’ He gave me a small smile. I had forgotten how Americans actually genuinely invited people into their homes. Unlike English people, who would issue an invitation but emigrate at short notice if you said you were going to take them up on it.

‘That’s really kind. But, Josh, it would complicate things. I think I might have to go home, for now at least. Just till another position comes up.’

Josh stared at his plate. ‘Timing sucks, huh?’

‘Yup.’

‘I was looking forward to more of those dances.’

I pulled a face. ‘Oh, God. The dance thing. I … Do I … want to ask you what happened the other night?’

‘You really don’t remember?’

‘Only the Times Square bits. Maybe getting into a taxi.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Oho! Oh, Louisa Clark. It’s pretty tempting to start teasing you here, but nothing happened. Like that, anyway. Unless licking my neck is really your thing.’

‘But I wasn’t wearing my clothes when I woke up.’

‘That’s because you insisted on removing them during your dance. You announced, once we got to my building, that you would like to express your last few days through the medium of freeform dance, and while I followed on behind, you shed items of clothing from the lobby to the living room.’

‘I took my own clothes off?’

‘And very charmingly too. There were … flourishes.’

I had a sudden image of myself twirling, a coy leg thrust out from behind a curtain, the feel of cool window glass on my backside. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. My cheeks a furious red, I covered my face with my hands.

‘I have to say, as a drunk you make a highly entertaining one.’

‘And … when we got into your bedroom?’

‘Oh, by that stage you were down to your underwear. And then you sang a crazy song – something about a monkey, or a molahonkey or something? Then you fell asleep very abruptly in a little heap on the floor. So I put a T-shirt on you and put you in my bed. And I slept on the sofa-bed.’

‘I’m so sorry. And thank you.’

‘My pleasure.’ He smiled, and his eyes twinkled. ‘Most of my dates are not half that entertaining.’

I dipped my head over my mug. ‘You know, these last few days I’ve felt like I’m permanently about two degrees from either laughing or crying and right now I slightly want to do both.’

‘Are you staying at Nathan’s tonight?’

‘I think so.’

‘Okay. Well, don’t do anything hasty. Let me put a few calls in before you book that ticket. See if there are any openings anywhere.’

‘You really think there might be?’ He was always so confident. It was one of the things that most reminded me of Will.

‘There’s always something. I’ll call you later.’

And then he kissed me. He did it so casually that I almost didn’t register what he was doing. He leant forward and kissed me on the lips, like it was something he’d done a million times before, like it was the natural end to all our lunch dates. And then, before I had time to be startled, he let go of my fingers and wound his scarf around his neck. ‘Okay. I gotta go. Couple of big meetings this afternoon. Keep your chin up.’ He smiled, his high-wattage perfect smile, and headed back to his office, leaving me on my high plastic stool, my mouth hanging open.

I didn’t tell Nathan what had happened. I checked in with him by text that it was okay to come home, and he told me the Gopniks were headed out again at seven so I should probably leave it till a quarter past. I walked in the cold and sat in the diner and finally returned home to find Ilaria had left me some soup in a Thermos and two of the soft scones they called biscuits. Nathan was out on a date that evening and gone in the morning when I