He launched into a story about how he’d been standing looking into the wind for most of one of his dates yesterday – ‘You wouldn’t believe how dry my eyes were this morning, Cece, they felt like someone had sandpapered them’ – while I drained my glass of champagne, poured another one and reminded myself again that he’d been on that date with one of his seven girlfriends who wasn’t me.
‘You’re a bit quiet,’ he said, nudging me with his knee. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m good,’ I said, busying myself with the cheeseboard.
He nudged me with his knee again. When I looked at him, he let his eyes flicker sideways to the cameras and then raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
It was the biggest lie I’d ever told in my life.
Why did you pick me for this date?I wanted to scream.Why are you doing this to me, Dylan?
But even if I could ask that question, there wasn’t a single answer to it that wasn’t terrifying.
Because I’m into you, would be great for a moment, but then it would be terrifying, because even though we were close, there was no way I could compete with a human rights lawyer, or a hero nurse, or a scientist, or any of the women Dylan was constantly telling me were so great.
Eh, I just wanted to eat cheese with my pal, because I’m having a bit of a freak-out about my feelings again, would be worse.
Or he’d lie.Oh, getting my heart brokenisone of my greatest fears, he’d say airily, like the past few weeks hadn’t even happened, and all those conversations we’d had meant nothing to him, and that would be the worst of all.
‘It was interesting to meet all your girlfriends today,’ I said. ‘Properly, I mean. I only really talked to a few of them that one night I was here.’
‘They’re not my girlfriends,’ he said.
‘Yet.’
He took a swig of his champagne.
‘One of them will be, I mean,’ I said. ‘Not, like, all seven. I don’t think you could get them to agree to that.’
‘I am definitely not emotionally prepared for seven girlfriends,’ he said, picking up a bunch of grapes from the cheeseboard and plucking them off the stems, one by one. ‘Even the thought of one girlfriend is…’
‘Is what?’
‘It’s a lot,’ he said, casting the naked grape stem aside. ‘It’s just… a lot.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Suzette whisper something to the cameraman. That familiar dryness started to creep up my throat.
I took a long sip of champagne. ‘Personally, I’d love to have seven boyfriends,’ I said, trying to keep my tone light. ‘One for each day of the week, you know? So if I got sick of one, I wouldn’t have to see him for a week, and then I might have forgotten why I was sick of him and be happy to see him again.’
‘Is that something that happens to you a lot?’
‘Having seven boyfriends? No. I did once date two guys at the same time, but it was such an early stage I don’t think that really—’
‘No,’ he said, dropping his handful of grapes back onto the cheeseboard. ‘Getting sick of men.’
‘I mean, it has,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know if you’ve met men, Dylan, but a lot of them are very annoying.’
‘Are you sick of me?’
I made a terrible mistake.
I looked at him.
His eyes were dark, liquid, serious. He’d been fiddling with things all night – cheese, crackers, grapes – but now he was completely still, except for the faintest breeze gently ruffling his hair.
Reclined there next to me, balanced on his elbow, in the warm glow of the fairy lights, he was perfect.
