Still Me (Me Before You #3) - Jojo Moyes Page 0,50

you?’

‘He did. She’s really happy. Thank you so much for organizing it. Listen, I’m in the middle of something right now, but thank you. It really was incredibly kind of you.’

‘Glad it worked out. Listen, give me a call, yeah? Let’s grab a coffee sometime.’

‘Sure!’ I ended the call to find Sam watching me.

‘Josh,’ he said.

I put the phone back into my pocket.

‘The guy you met at the ball.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Okay.’

‘He helped me sort this drawing for Agnes today. I was desperate.’

‘So you had his number.’

‘It’s New York. Everyone has everyone’s number.’

He dragged his hand over the top of his head and turned away.

‘It’s nothing. Really.’ I took a step towards him, pulled him by his belt buckle. I could feel the weekend sliding away from me again. ‘Sam … Sam …’

He deflated, put his arms around me. He rested his chin on the top of my head and moved his from side to side. ‘This is …’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know it is. But I love you and you love me and at least we managed to do a bit of the getting-naked thing. And it was great, wasn’t it? The getting-naked thing?’

‘For, like, five minutes.’

‘Best five minutes of the last four weeks. Five minutes that will keep me going for the next four.’

‘Except it’s seven.’

I slid my hands into his back pockets. ‘Don’t let’s end this badly. Please. I don’t want you to go away angry because of some stupid call from someone who is literally nothing to me.’

His face softened when he held my gaze, as it always did. It was one of the things I loved about him, the way his features, so brutal in repose, melted when he looked at me. ‘I’m not pissed off at you. I’m pissed off at myself. And airline food or burritos or whatever it was. And your woman there who can’t apparently put on a dress by herself.’

‘I’ll be back for Christmas. For a whole week.’

Sam frowned. He took my face in his hands. They were warm and slightly rough. We stood there for a moment, and then we kissed, and some decades later he straightened up and glanced at the board.

‘And now you have to go.’

‘And now I have to go.’

I swallowed the lump that had risen in my throat. He kissed me once more, then swung his bag over his shoulder. I stood on the concourse, watching the space where he had been for a full minute after security had swallowed him.

In general, I’m not a moody person. I’m not very good at the whole door-slamming, scowling, eye-rolling thing. But that evening I made my way back to the city, pushed my way through the crowds on the subway platform, elbows out, and scowled like a native. Throughout the journey I found myself checking the time. He’s in the departure lounge. He’ll be boarding. And … he’s gone. The moment his plane was due to take off I felt something sink inside me and my mood darkened even further. I picked up some takeout sushi and walked from the subway station to the Gopniks’ building. When I got to my little room I sat and stared at the container, then at the wall, and knew I couldn’t stay there alone with my thoughts so I knocked on Nathan’s door.

‘C’min!’

Nathan was watching American football, holding a beer. He was wearing a pair of surfer shorts and a T-shirt. He looked up at me expectantly, and with the faintest of delays, in the way people do when they’re letting you know that they’re really locked into something else.

‘Can I eat my dinner in here with you?’

He tore his gaze away from the screen again. ‘Bad day?’

I nodded.

‘Need a hug?’

I shook my head. ‘Just a virtual one. If you’re nice to me I’ll probably cry.’

‘Ah. Your man gone home, has he?’

‘It was a disaster, Nathan. He was sick for pretty much the whole thing and then Agnes wouldn’t let me have the time off she promised me today so I barely got to see him and when I did it kept getting … awkward between us.’

Nathan turned down the television with a sigh, and patted the side of the bed. I climbed up, and placed my takeout bag on my lap where, later, I would discover soy sauce had leaked through onto my work trousers. I rested my head on his shoulder.

‘Long-distance relationships are tough,’ Nathan pronounced, as if he was the first person to have considered such