of spirituality, intuition, creativity, idealism and vision. I’m Gemini. Outgoing, intelligent, optimistic, passionate and dynamic. Name’s Jude. Oh, and Geminis are also highly impulsive, and highly compatible with Aquarius. Just saying.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘why don’t you come back to mine?’
Twelve
It may feel as if your dreams are slipping through your fingers today. But maybe you’ve just been dreaming of the wrong things?
‘Right, our lamb’s ready for the oven.’ Robbie gave one of the garlic-and-rosemary-studded legs a fond pat. ‘How’s that nut roast looking?’
I poked at the mass of pulverised nuts, herbs, onion and breadcrumbs in the roasting dish. To be honest, it looked like a dog’s dinner.
‘It’ll be grand once it’s cooked and covered in gravy,’ I said. ‘I’m all over the place this morning. And you’re not looking too sharp yourself. You almost put the crumble topping on the broccoli. You thought I didn’t notice, didn’t you?’
‘But I have an excuse.’
‘You do? What’s that?’
‘Oh, Zoë.’ Theatrically, Robbie wrapped his arms around his thin shoulders. ‘I’m smitten. Properly smitten, with a bloke who came round mine last night. He’s called Rex. Isn’t that just the most amazing name ever? He’s older than me, right up against the upper limit, a whole thirty-two. But when has age ever been a barrier to true love?’
I could have pointed out several situations in which it would be just that, but I didn’t want to dim his enthusiasm – and besides, I found I was dying to hear more. Not least to deflect Robbie’s thoughts away from the fact that I was, indeed, all over the place.
‘Steady on. You can’t be in love when you’ve only seen him once.’
‘But I can! You just know, don’t you, when you just click with somebody.’
Did I know, now? I wasn’t sure I knew anything; my heart and my mind felt like they’d been put through a mixer on high speed.
‘Go on then. Tell me all about sex with Rex.’
Robbie giggled. ‘I know, right? How could someone called that be anything other than hot AF in the sack? But there’s so much more to it. It was like we really connected. He…’
He carried on, and I listened, peeling potatoes and trying not to allow my gaze to stray upwards, beyond the extractor fan to the ceiling, wishing it was made of glass so I could see through it, into my flat.
When I’d left it that morning, Jude had been in the shower.
We’d walked to the station together – or rather, he’d walked and I’d hobbled, declining his kind offer of a piggyback because, well, I wanted to salvage what scraps of dignity I could – and boarded a train together. After I’d texted Dani to check she was okay, we’d shared the rest of the water from his water bottle and the rest of a pack of nuts and raisins he’d found in his backpack, and we’d talked.
He told me he was a vegan, just like me. His parents were divorced, just like mine. He’d even grown up in a nondescript small town about forty miles from the nondescript small town where I grew up. He’d travelled around Europe after dropping out of uni, just like me.
It was the weirdest thing, like meeting my own shadow. We got back to the flat, stopping on the way at Craft Fever to buy some beers (he liked cucumber saison, obviously, because it was my favourite), and after I’d cleaned up my knees we decided we were both starving, so I made us beans on toast, explaining that all the proper cooking I did was in the pub downstairs, and my kitchen wasn’t equipped with much more than a microwave and a toaster.
The flat felt even smaller than usual with him there. It wasn’t that he was particularly big – he wasn’t; he was lean and graceful, and only a bit above average height. It was more that moving around the flat, and around him, made me super-conscious of not wanting to touch him accidentally but very much wanting to touch him on purpose. Also, the bed seemed to have increased in size so it loomed hugely, there whenever I turned my head like it was following me around the place saying, ‘Come on. You’re going to end up here, you know. Get on with it.’
‘Beans on toast is my fave,’ Jude said. ‘So long as you’ve got chilli sauce to put on it. And you do, don’t you?’