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It was London on Pride weekend, and the city was packed. I usually didn’t mind it, but for the first time ever, I didn’t want to be here.
I wanted to be where Con was, and it was doing my head in. I’d quite happily survived two weeks without him, yet it had been just a few hours and I was having a breakdown.
“You’re away with the fairies again, Matthew.” Sadie was always blunt. “I don’t know what’s up with you, but the last couple of weeks you’ve been all off. You meet a bloke and suddenly you’ve completely gone gaga.”
“I’ve not gone gaga,” I protested, and she just laughed.
I would have laughed too, apart from that my entire work team was nodding in agreement.
“We need to meet him. Why isn’t he here?”
“Yeah! Where is he?”
“He’s busy!” I tried, but they were having none of that.
“You said he’s here. At Pride. On his company float.”
“Then you refused to tell us who he worked for.”
“Is he ugly or something?”
“Ooh, I smell drama!”
“He’s probably a straight, married dude and Matt is his bit on the side!”
Otis needed to stop drinking because now he was being downright rude.
I decided to give them something, hoping it would shut them up. “He works forWhite Noise.You know? The TV show?”
“God, that Cass Powell is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen!”
Grunts of agreement came from several people as someone loaded up a dirty picture of a half-naked Con and passed it around.
“He’s a nice bloke and just like us. We’re all with our work colleagues. He’s probably out with his mates.”
I was digging myself into a hole.
“So, there’s aWhite Noisefloat? They should join us! They might even bring Cass Powell,” someone shouted at the end of the table.
“Ugh. I’d die. Can’t stand him.”
No, Sadie wouldn’t die. She would hug him and say something deeply inappropriate, and Con would walk out in embarrassment. I needed to direct the attention away from myself. My colleagues were brilliant human beings, and normally I would have laughed along, but there was no way I was subjecting Con to this.
I got up and excused myself to a corner and tried Con’s number. I didn’t expect him to answer, but surprise, surprise, he did.
“Where are you?” he asked, clearly sat in a car. I could hear the engine running in the background.
“Say hello to Dave!” I said, hoping he would offer to pick me up and I would have a valid excuse to slide out the door.
“We’re stuck in traffic somewhere in Soho. Where are you? Can we come to where you are? Dave will know how to find you.”
Very Con. As always, Dave knew everything. I’d learnt that bit.
“We’re in a Korean dive called Kimchi. Chinatown?”
There was silence, then Con’s voice blending with someone else’s.
“We’ll be there in a minute.”
