You Had Me at Hello (33 page)

I physically started at this, a whole body twitch, my heart going at a woodpecker-on-speed bpm. Did he say fancy? No – he couldn't have. I'd misheard.

‘… Was Pippa nice? Yes, she was, she wasn't the problem. You were the problem. I split up with her for the same reason I have with everyone in the last three years. Men who are hopelessly hung up on someone else tend to make crap boyfriends …'

I was in a cold sweat. ‘I couldn't believe what I was hearing' is usually hyperbole, yet here it was entirely apt. My ears took delivery but my brain wouldn't sign for the parcel. I kept thinking he'd drop a hot girl name in like Beth or Freya and I'd go ‘Ohhhh I thought,' and then have to kill myself when he realised what I'd thought.

‘… Will you be OK finding someone else? You're the cleverest, funniest, nicest, most beautiful, if occasionally most infuriating, woman I've ever met, so, yes, I'm sure you'll have tons of blokes after you. But given I'm in love with you, the thought of you with anyone else makes me want to kill, so forgive me for not encouraging you with handy hints and tips on how to take men home who
aren't me
.'

My chest rose and fell with shock. I couldn't speak. And if I had been able to speak, I wouldn't have known what to say.
Love.
He said love.

‘What was the last one? “Do you have any off-putting habits?” Being with someone else was the only one that bothered me. However, it at least allowed me the fantasy that was why you weren't with me. Now that's gone too. There. We're done.'

My fingers were grasping the bed as if the furniture was suddenly tilting at an angle.

Ben added: ‘I'm sorry if you now feel massively weird. Tell me if you'd rather I went. I'd understand.'

‘It's OK,' I said in a strangled voice.

Pause.

‘Fuck, great timing, Ben, staying in her bedroom,' he said, with a rueful, humourless laugh. ‘And look, you don't have to break it to me that you don't see me that way. I know you don't, trust me. This is my problem. We'll just have one helluva awkward cup of tea in the morning and say our farewells.'

Tomorrow morning. I was having trouble imagining a world beyond this bedroom, one that would keep turning and bring daylight and other days. And
farewells
?

‘Did you really not know?' he asked.

‘Nope,' I squeaked.

‘Oh God. I always thought you had some clue, even if you didn't know how much.'

He tailed off, waited for more, and when I didn't say anything, continued: ‘Christ, please at least say “Ewww, gross”. The silence is killing me.'

‘It's not gross,' I said, trying to find words in the psychological tumult.

Where were the words I needed? Ben's words had made me to face up to feelings I'd been ignoring, twisting out of shape and denying for the last three years. It was like not giving a plant enough light to grow properly, only very rarely watering it, but the seed in the soil still being there.

He felt and thought those incredible things about me? ‘Likewise' ‘Why' or ‘Good God Merciful Jesus Hooray!' didn't do the moment justice.

Uncharacteristically, I made a snap decision. I pulled my voluminous pyjama top off over my head. I wriggled the trousers down, kicking them off my feet with a swimmer's paddling motion. I balled up the body-heat-warm nest of fabric and threw it out of the bed. I thought this would be enough to make my intentions clear, but Ben didn't react at all.

‘Ben.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Do you want to get into bed?'

‘Floor's not that bad, thanks. And also – no.'

‘No.
Into
bed.
With
me.' Then I added, like the silver-tongued, erotic adventuress of the age: ‘I took my pyjamas off.'

A stunned pause.

‘… Are you sure?' he said, quietly, into the crimson gloom.

‘Very sure.'

This was when the scene should've rippled into a woozy sexy slo-mo with a boom-chicka-wah-wah bassy soundtrack. Instead what actually happened is, Ben got caught in the sleeping bag, needing less haste and more speed to achieve a t-shirt-less exit from a well-made camping accessory my dad got from Millets.

‘Bollocks,' he muttered, trying to push it down and getting caught.

‘Unzip it,' I giggled. ‘I'd help you, but I'm nekkid.'

‘You don't need to mention that again, I'm on my way,' Ben said, and I giggled some more.

There was something absolutely brilliant about being in this situation and being friends already. Suddenly it wasn't:
how strange to be doing this
, it was
how strange we've never done this before
.

Ben wriggled free, climbed into bed. When we'd successfully grappled with his boxers (Rachel starts, makes a poor effort, Ben takes over, result still delightful) suddenly there was skin on skin, all over the place, all of Ben and all of Rachel pressed against each other. It felt strange, but very-very-good-strange. Rhys was solid but reassuringly soft round the edges, and hairy; Ben was a lean, football-playing, smooth and muscled contrast. I didn't know bodies could have that little fat on them and still function. I thought a physique like his might make me feel like a chonker but it actually made me feel womanly, even more like myself, somehow.

We got tangled in the sheet and it was soon thrown aside completely. While admittedly he was seeing me by a light that could've probably made the elderly dean of the university look fairly sexy, Ben evidently had no issue with the full unedited version of my appearance. He was confident, and I understood why. It was obvious it wasn't his first rodeo and I very much hoped I was meeting and/or exceeding expectations – my experience no more than a string of times with a clumsy sixth-form boyfriend, and Rhys.

Only now I discovered there was a kind of intense desire that bordered on nausea. I finally understood what everyone was going on about. Who knew that the outer frontier of lust was the urge to regurg?

And although I was outclassed in the company, I didn't fret it might not be mutual: when I murmured a sweet nothing along those lines, minus any implication I might actually vomit on him, Ben replied forcefully: ‘I've never wanted
anyone or anything
like I want you', proceeding to kiss me so hard I thought my mouth might suffer minor lacerations.
Nnnngggg
.

Then, at the point where it went from something we were about to do to something we were definitely doing, he gasped, buried his face in my neck and said my name. My real, actual name. Another first.

The first words afterwards, when our breathing returned to something like normal. They mattered. They should come from me.

‘I love you,' I said. I knew this to be fact and yet there it was, a surprise to hear it spoken. The process of falling in love had been gradual but the realisation that's where I was arrived fully formed. While I was avoiding it, it felt complex. Once confronted, it was extremely simple.

‘
Do
you?' Ben said, moving onto his side to look at me intently.

‘Absolutely.'

‘God, I can't believe it.'

How can you not believe anyone loving you
, I thought. Ben seemed custom-designed to be loved. We were glazed with sweat and I felt almost narcotically elated. The noise of some late-night drunks coming home drifted in through the partially open window. I belatedly remembered Derek, and discovered I didn't care if he was squatting down there in a tin foil hat, with recording equipment and a broadcasting licence.

‘Of course I do,' I said.

‘Uhm, Rachel …'

‘Yes?' It was still so oddly thrilling to hear my name in his mouth. I propped myself up on my elbow and kissed his cheek. He moved my arm and placed it over his bare, taut middle. I lay back down against his shoulder.

‘It's not exactly an
of course
? I mean, it's taken us a while to get here.'

‘Yeah, it has.'

‘Did nothing in my love-struck dipshit devotion find me out, then?'

I laughed and squeezed him.

‘No. Though I was pleased you hit someone for me.'

‘Ohhh, don't mention that …' Ben put a palm to his forehead.

‘Why? It was ace.'

‘I felt like I'd tapped a glass with a fork and gone “Excuse me everyone, announcement, I've got a thing for this girl the size of Old Trafford. Everyone clear on that? OK, good, carry on with your evenings, and it's advisable for all patrons not to approach her rack.”'

‘I didn't think that.'

‘Well, Emily did. She said, that night: “I'm not finishing with you because you hit someone for her, I'm finishing with you because of the look I caught on your face when she was getting molested.”'

‘Really? God. Sorry.'

‘Not your fault. I'd have beaten him to the ground if he'd been holding newborn twins. She knew it. I thought everyone knew it. Incredible you didn't.'

‘Hah. I was stood further away. And being molested. Sorry again.'

He ran his hand up and down my arm.

‘I've been dreading saying goodbye.'

‘Me too.'

‘I was going to say something to you tomorrow. At the ball.'

‘You were?' I looked up at him. ‘What were you going to say?'

‘Just, this is how I feel, you should know in case it makes any difference. Script by Jack Daniel's. Shame by Calvin Klein.'

‘Shame?'

‘I didn't know you'd be single, did I? The fact you weren't is all that's held me back from making a fool of myself for three years. It was my last chance and I was going to make an exception.'

I squeezed him again.

‘I had no idea. Your fantastical carousel of gorgeous girlfriends looked nothing like me. Mostly blondes.
Confident
blondes at that.'

‘Why the hell would I want to be with girls that reminded me of you if I couldn't have you?'

He said this so starkly that I got a guilt pang greater than the ego boost. Ennui outside curry houses aside, I hadn't sensed our relationship causing him any pain.

‘Sorry if I'm being a bit full on,' he said. ‘I've been hoping against hope for three years. I don't quite believe this is real.'

‘That felt pretty real to me.' For once, Ben didn't laugh at my flippancy.

We lay in silence. I wanted to say extravagant things about how great I thought Ben was, how great
that
was, but while my mind was flooded, it was also blank. I was still busy feeling rather than thinking. Ben loved me. I loved him. We'd made love. Paradigms had shifted and my pyjamas were on the floor.

‘What now?' Ben asked.

‘How d'you mean?'

‘Do you want to keep seeing each other?'

‘Are you kidding? Of course I do,' I said.

‘You're going back to Sheffield to do this journalism course.'

‘Yes.'

‘And I'm out of the country for six months.'

‘Yes.'

‘You could fly out and meet us? In the holidays or whatever?' Ben asked.

‘That sounds great. My local says they'll give me the job back though. I kind of need the money.'

‘Your local? Rhys's regular?'

‘Yes. But that doesn't matter.'

‘I don't like the thought of it.'

Ben frowned. I could virtually hear his brow knit.

‘Do you think I'm so easily swayed that if I pull his Stella from time to time, I'll end up going back out with him?' I said. ‘Salted, dry roasted, or me?'

Ben didn't laugh.

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,' I said, mock-offended.

Joking aside, I felt us running at two different speeds. I was content to lie there in the post-coital haze and enjoy being close. He needed some answers, I hadn't started thinking about the questions.

‘I can't cancel my travelling. The tickets are booked. I can't let Mark down, he'd be gutted.'

‘I know. And you've wanted to go for so long, you have to go. I'm not asking you not to go.'

‘I know,' Ben said, but rather darkly.

I lay there and tried to work out where we stood. He had a point. The next year or so was going to be tricky to navigate. It didn't seem as insurmountable to me as it did to him. The main thing was, we both knew how each other felt now. The miracle had happened. The rest was admin.

Ben reached down and touched my hand.

‘Come away with me. Just do it. Delay your place on the course. Book the tickets.'

‘I can't. For one thing, I can't afford it.'

‘I'll pay. I've got savings.'

‘I couldn't let you do that.'

‘Yes, you can. What's mine is yours. A lend, if you'd feel better.'

‘I bet Mark would love being gooseberry on his trip of a lifetime!' I laughed.

‘Is that what you're bothered about? Mark's feelings? Or is this about yours?'

‘Eh?'

‘You're going to be doing lock-ins in the Piss Up & Parrot with Rhys while I'm in Kanchanaburi. When I get back, you'll be in college in the week and working at the weekends. How are we going to see each other?'

‘I know it's going to be difficult – but we'll get through it. Even if I had to wait a year to be with you properly, I'd do it.'

There was a long, long pause where I nearly checked to see he was still alive. I hoped he was absorbing the size of the intended compliment. He sat up.

‘A year? You're honestly saying it's OK if we don't see each other much for the next year?'

‘I didn't say it's OK, I said I'd wait. If that was what it took.'

‘Do you really feel the same way about me as I do about you?'

‘Yes, I do!'

‘I've got to be honest, I don't even think you and Rhys are over. Sounded more like a lovers' tiff than a break-up.'