Page 45 of People Skills

‘You’re still an editor.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘I read the notes you wrote in my book.’

I had left it out around the house because I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist peeking at my notes, and anything that gets him interested in his work again could only be a good thing.

‘They were just scribbles.’

‘No, they were you figuring out what kind of writer I am.’

‘That’s true. The quickest way to know you is to know you on the page.’

‘Taking away my phone and luring me to a wine bar and getting me drunk is also a good plan.’

‘Ha. Are you drunk?’

‘Yeah, a bit. You?’

‘A bit,’ I say. Enough to make a bad decision, so I need to keep a clear head. It’s hard now with it full of stars.

‘Why are you really helping me?’ he says.

‘Because I…’ I trail off. The answer is, because I wanted to impress Hillary. I want to be good at my job. I need to be good at my job. But I don’t want to say that right now. ‘Because I want to,’ I say instead.

We lie in silence for a moment, looking at the stars.

‘I could sleep here,’ he says.

‘Me too. If it was a touch warmer.’

He shuffles closer to me. ‘I don’t have a jacket or I would offer it to you.’

‘I can give you chivalrous points for the intention.’

‘Thank you.’

He moves closer still, until our bare arms are ever so lightly touching.

‘Do you want to go home?’ he says.

‘Not yet,’ I say.

He smells like the beach. Which is a ridiculous thought, because we’re on the beach, so the salty ocean smell is definitely coming from the salty ocean, but now he’s this close to me, I can smell another smell, beachy but human. I haven’t been this close to man in a long time, and Caleb never smelt this good. Xavier smells like the beach, like the night air, like the wine, and something else, his own smell, earthy, clean. I should move away from him. But my body wants to be closer. It’s because I’m cold, that’s all.

I shuffle a tiny bit closer and now our arms are touching more overtly, pressed together.

‘I can’t believe I told you all my secrets,’ I say.

‘Oh, I think you still have plenty of secrets,’ he says.

‘Well, all my humiliations.’

‘So we’re even, because you must know all my humiliations.’

‘You? You have no humiliations.’

‘A reviewer said The Deep was “so pretentious and unfunny, you’ll hate yourself for bothering to finish it”. That line will be stuck in my head forever.’