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? Had I actually passed out in the middle of writing? I hoped I hadn’t accidentally deleted all my progress if that was the case.
‘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 sat on the arm of my sofa. ‘It’s ridiculously hot in here, Elle. If you’re not eating and drinking properly and you’re sitting in this heat, you’re going to get ill. My air-con is fully functioning and I have work of my own to do, too. I’ll make sure you are fed and watered while you write. 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?’
So Beth was the reason again. He just wanted to keep his soon-to-be-sister-in-law happy. ‘I don’t know.’
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 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.
A few weeks ago I’d never contemplated a situation where saying “yes” to an invite back to his place would be a sensible decision, but bizarrely, here we were. ‘OK.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Stephen
Iknew burnout. I’d suffered it on occasion and so did many of the people I worked with. I was glad that Elle 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, 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 last Saturday night.
The streets were even more crowded than when I’d practically sprinted 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.
Elle 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 or dragging me off to watch a re-enactment of the British being defeated, but there was a glazed look to her eyes, her mind whirring, a million miles away. I hooked her arm through mine 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. Putting her bag down, I fetched her some iced water 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 waswondering if she couldn’t afford to fix her air conditioning unit 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 else.’
She was standing in the middle of the lounge turning slowly, examining the space. Shaking her head, she focused her eyes back on me. ‘What? You don’t want to chat or something? Show me around?’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘I thought you needed to get on?’
‘I do…’ she said slowly. ‘Most people hear that and still talk to me 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 actually 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 that had been her intention, 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.
While she settled herself at the table, pulling out her laptop and notebooks, I went into the kitchen to see if 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.
Relief flooded me that she’d agreed to come back here, where I could look after her.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Elle
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 over 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, working, cooking, sorting laundry, watching some British TV show with his earphones in and messaging people on his cell. He was being completely normal, attending to the boring and domesticated, and yet 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 partly in thanks to Stephen.
