‘It’s terrible fuel.’
‘Don’t judge me please.’
‘I’m not judging, I’m…’ He paused. ‘I’m speaking from experience. When I first started trading, I used to eat terribly. Picking up burgers on my way home before I fell into bed and then a muffin on the way to work. It feels easier but it leaves you sluggish and you don’t work as efficiently.’
I nodded, a little too freaked out by the way he was comparing the demands of my career to his, like it was of equal importance – not just a hobby. I couldn’t think what to say in response, so I picked up the sandwich and took a massive bite. Cheese and tomato. My favourite. Was I dreaming?
‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you come over to my place for the day?’
‘Why?’ I mumbled around a mouthful of food.
He folded his arms and sat on the arm of my sofa. ‘It’s ridiculously hot in here, Noelle. If you’re not eating and drinking properly and you’re sitting in this heat, you’re going to get ill. Come and work in my air-conditioned apartment. I have work of my own to do too. I’ll make sure you are fed and watered. You’re making your brain work twice as hard this way.’
Good Lord, the thought of being ten degrees cooler was very tempting. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course. I hate to think of you sweating yourself into dehydration over here, existing on nothing but Hershey kisses and coffee, whilst your perverted neighbour leers at you. Beth would kill me if she knew I’d left you here like this. What do you say?’
‘I don’t know.’ Beth was the reason again. He just wanted to keep his soon-to-be-sister-in-law happy.
The smile slipped from his face as though he was reading my mind. ‘See it as a sign of appreciation for how much you’ve helped me. I swear I won’t bother you.’
I tugged the crust free from my sandwich. He was pretty good at keeping to the rules and he seemed to get how important it was for me to get back to work. If he started distracting me, I could always come back home again. It would be so amazing to get out of this heat; now I wasn’t concentrating on my writing, I felt so tired. I had to keep going and a change of scenery would really help.
‘Okay.’
I knew burnout. I’d suffered it on occasion and so did many people I worked with. I was thankful that Noelle wasn’t ill, but this was hardly better. In some ways it was worse, because despite being exhausted, she would keep going until the work was done, and suffer the consequences later.
I carried her bag with her laptop and notebooks and folder as we walked through the busy streets. I would have grabbed a taxi, but I thought she could do with the fresh air – I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been at home working since I walked her to her door on Saturday night.
The streets were even more crowded than when I walked over to her apartment earlier. There were flags hanging out of windows, people walking around with faces painted red, white and blue, and when we neared my place, streams of people were camping out on cordoned-off roads facing the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Noelle was uncharacteristically quiet in the face of all this excitement. Ordinarily I would have expected her to be insisting I took part in some food-related ritual but there was a glazed look to her eyes, her mind whirring, a million miles away. I took her arm because I was concerned she was going to step out on the road without checking both ways.
‘Here, you can set yourself up at the table,’ I told her when we arrived at my apartment. I put her bag down and went to fetch some iced water for her as well. Her place had been sweltering – it couldn’t be healthy. I knew the rent in New York was high and living alone meant she had no help with the bills, so I was wondering if she couldn’t afford to fix her air conditioner and if I should offer to pay for it for her. Just as a thank-you present for helping me out. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything.’
She was standing in the middle of the lounge turning slowly, examining the space. She shook her head and focused her eyes back on me. ‘What? You don’t want to chat or something? Show me around?’
I tilted my head. ‘I thought you needed to get on?’
‘I do…’ she said slowly. ‘Most people hear that and still talk to me for half an hour though.’
‘I’m not most people.’ I winked at her.
‘No. You’re not.’ She gave me a small smile, her eyes warm and wondering, and I thought there was a possibility she meant it in a good way.
‘Go on then. That book won’t write itself.’ I hesitated, wondering if I should bring up my concerns about her spilling the beans to Beth but…no. Even if she had been going to do that, she wasn’t going to be calling her anytime soon. I could wait until she’d finished her work and her mind was clearer. There was no guarantee she’d even remember the conversation if I spoke to her about it while she was in this state of intense single-mindedness.
She sat down at the table, started pulling out her laptop and notebooks. I went into the kitchen to make sure I had enough food in for us both or if I needed to pop out to the shops. When I looked over, she was opening her laptop, chugging back the glass of water like she hadn’t realised how thirsty she was, her eyes already darting over the screen before her, and I felt intense relief that she’d agreed to come back here, where I could look after her.
As the afternoon progressed into evening, the noise level outside of Stephen’s apartment rose. I continued working even when the music began, the pounding beats of the live show that preceded Macy’s epic fireworks display carrying to us in the quiet living room.
Stephen had been as good as his word and not bothered me at all, silently depositing cups of coffee, glasses of water, healthy snacks and dinner within reach before I even thought about the fact I was hungry. A pressing deadline of this kind was frankly the only thing that could have kept my attention away from him as he moved around his apartment, reading, cooking, sorting laundry. He was being completely normal, boring and domesticated and, somehow, utterly, fascinatingly attractive.
Someone was singing the ‘Stars and Stripes’ when I realised I had done all the structural manoeuvring for the plot and needed to step away from it now before I did a final read-through and tidied up some of the most offensive typos. My mission was kind of accomplished and I…didn’t feel as awful as I thought I would. I was brain dead, yes, and tired but not to the point where I thought I was going to need a fluid drip and a week in bed. And that was thanks to Stephen.
I looked over to the sofa where he was quietly working on his laptop, the glow from the screen making the lines on his face sharper than ever. Inside his apartment it was all shadows of varying shades of grey as neither of us had bothered to turn on a light.
‘Hey, this song usually means the fireworks are about to start,’ I said.
