The Single Girl's To-Do List (20 page)

‘Amazing.’ His fingertips grazed the lace trim of my underwear before he went back to relieving himself of his own clothes. The sound of a fly being unzipped was apparently what it was going to take to bring me to my senses. Dan was my friend. I was very recently single. But his strong hands on my soft skin felt so amazing. I was upset about Simon’s phone call. This wasn’t real. My legs slid up around his waist while his jeans slid down towards the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so wanted. The last time I’d wanted someone just as much. But this really was just about the stupidest thing I could do, besides going outside and dragging a stranger in from the street. I couldn’t do this.

‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to do this at work,’ he said. ‘Just drop my camera and push you up against the wall and just … for years …’ Dan’s words trailed off into low moans and I felt teeth on my earlobe. Rowr.

‘Really?’ I heard myself. I sounded surprised. Back in the bathroom, my brain acknowledged that yes, this was in fact a surprise. It also wanted to come back into the living room but I wasn’t ready to let it in yet.

‘Really.’ He pushed himself up on one elbow and looked down at me with dark, heavy, dilated eyes. I pressed one hand across his chest, feeling his heart beating hard. This was it, last chance to be sensible. ‘I’ve wanted to be with you for so long. I’ve waited for so long.’

Everything was just starting to get hot and loud and blurred when I heard my phone trilling loudly in the bedroom.

‘Ignore it,’ Dan murmured, pinning my wrists above my head.

‘It’s Emelie’s ring.’ I arched my back and felt a shudder run all the way down from the top of my head to my toes. ‘I should answer it.’

‘She’ll get the hint.’ He buried his face in my neck and oh, there was the earlobe thing again. This was wildly unfair. ‘Please.’

But I knew Emelie wouldn’t give in. And if I didn’t tell her I was OK, she’d only come home to check what was going on. And that was the last thing I needed because, quite honestly, I had no idea myself. ‘One second.’ I reluctantly pushed his hands away and found the floor with my feet. ‘Just one second.’

I picked the jumper up off the floor and pulled it on, readjusting my bra strap as I went. Worth every bloody penny, I thought as I dashed into the bedroom as fast as my wobbly knees would let me. My iPhone glowed in the darkness with three missed calls, all in the last five minutes, all from Emelie. As I picked it up, the phone buzzed into life.

‘Hey,’ I answered quickly. ‘I’m fine, I just really can’t talk right now, I—’

‘Rachel, that cheesecake you made, did it have walnuts in it?’ Emelie cut me off. ‘Matthew’s face is like, fifteen times bigger than it should be.’

‘Oh, fuck.’ I pressed my hand to my mouth. ‘I didn’t check the biscuits. I totally forgot about his nut thing.’

‘He’s going to be OK, we’re on our way to the hospital,’ she replied. ‘I just need to know what to tell the doctor.’

‘Hasn’t he got his shot thing with him?’ I ran past a semi-naked Dan and into the kitchen, looking for the spare epi-pen I kept in case of emergencies. Of which we’d already had two this year. Matthew wasn’t nearly as careful as he should be, but I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid.

‘He didn’t bring it; he said his jeans were too tight and it made him look like he had a permanent skinny hard-on.’

‘Of course he did. I’m on my way.’

‘You don’t have to come,’ Em said. ‘We’re almost there.’

‘Yeth thee doth,’ I heard Matthew lisp in the background. ‘I’m goin’ to thlap her.’

‘I’m on my way.’ And back through the living room, ignoring the beautiful man on the sofa and into the bedroom. Jeans. I needed jeans. I’d poisoned my best friend on his birthday. This was a new level of fail.

‘Hey, I – oh my.’

On my third trip back to the living room, I was greeted with the sight of Dan, stretched out on the sofa, shirt fully unfastened and revealing the previously unexpected chest hair scattered across. His jeans were gone, boxers on, but failing to completely conceal something else previously unexpected but hotly anticipated. Gosh.

‘Everything OK?’ he asked. He was obviously a comfortable semi-naked person. But, to be fair, he had good reason to be. ‘Come here.’

‘This is not good timing, I realize.’ I was well aware that I was to go nowhere near the sofa. Instead, I clung to the doorframe, keeping a good and safe few feet between us. I must have picked my brain up somewhere en route. ‘But I have to go. Matthew has this nut allergy and he was allergic to the cheesecake and he’s on his way to hospital. I’m so sorry.’

I really, really was.

‘Isn’t Emelie with him?’ Dan sat up and reached for my hand, pulling me back down towards him. My safety range was nearly safe enough. ‘You look adorable in that jumper, by the way. Now take it off.’

‘Dan, I really have to go, it’s serious,’ I sighed, weaving my hands into his hair. The theory was to stop him from moving his kisses anywhere more persuasive, but it just seemed to encourage him. I felt his breath on my neck and almost melted away altogether. ‘Really, I have to go to the hospital.’

When I failed to reciprocate, he pulled away, the glazed glittering fading from his eyes.

‘Seriously? You have to go right now?’

At last.

‘I have to go right now.’ I nodded, thankful I’d put jeans on before I came back into the living room. The more layers of fabric between us, the better.

‘Fine, give me a minute and I’ll go with you.’ He started buttoning up his shirt.

‘No, don’t worry. You can let yourself out.’ My handbag sat on the floor beside the sofa in its usual hiding spot. I picked it up, slung it across myself and quickly checked my cash situation. Just enough to get a taxi. If I could get a taxi. ‘Um, I’ll talk to you later?’

‘Rachel, I want to come,’ Dan said, shuffling into his jeans. ‘My car is outside, I’ll drive.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ I already had a hand on the door. This was getting more awkward by the second. I obviously wasn’t made for one-night stands, friends with benefits, or whatever the hell this would have become. ‘Really, it’s OK.’

‘Will you just stop for a second.’ He raised his voice just enough for me to notice. ‘I want to drive you to the hospital. I want to come with you.’

I stopped for a moment. This was just too much. I needed to get outside, clear my head.

‘You don’t have to be all – like – decent.’ As soon as the word was out of my mouth, I knew it was a mistake. ‘This was, whatever, but I have to go.’

‘I don’t have to be decent?’

He grabbed his tie from the floor and shoved it into his pocket. I stared awkwardly at my tattoo. I would never regret getting it: what an amazing lifelong distraction.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ he demanded. ‘Am I not decent? Do you think I have to try to behave like a decent human being?’

‘No, it’s just that you don’t have to do that,’ I said to the floor. ‘It’s not like you’re my boyfriend or anything. I can get to the hospital on my own.’

‘What am I, Rachel?’ he asked quietly. ‘Tell me what I am to you exactly. What you think this is?’

‘You’re Dan,’ I replied with a heavy sigh. ‘And this is what you do. And we’re friends and it was stupid of me to let it go this far.
Because
we’re friends.’

‘I’m Dan?’ he laughed. ‘I’m your dickhead mate, Dan. Good enough for a fumble on the sofa but not good enough to drive you to the hospital when you need someone. Not good enough to be your boyfriend because nothing means anything to Dan.’

‘Don’t.’ I was itching to leave. And to stop feeling so incredibly horrible. ‘I know you think—’

‘How do you know what I think?’ He forced his feet into his trainers. ‘You haven’t got a fucking clue what I think.’

‘I need to go.’

That much was true. In the space of five minutes I’d gone from wanting to be as close as physically possible to this man, right through to as far away as human endeavour would allow. That and Matthew could be dead for all I knew. It was more likely that his tongue had swollen to the size of a double-decker bus and he was cursing my name, but still.

‘Fine, but let me get this straight.’ He pushed his hair back out of his face and came closer. ‘So that, just then, it was just what – a quick shag?’

‘Dan, don’t.’

‘Something to cross off the list?’

Had I missed something? Had it gone in?

This time my silence was not a positive.

‘Wow. Thanks Rachel.’ He pushed past me and headed straight for the front door. ‘I really did not think you were like this.’

‘I’m not like this!’ I threw my hands in the air. ‘I don’t even know what this is. You’re the one that’s like this!’

‘Like what exactly?’ he said, opening the door. ‘All I know is I’m an idiot.’

‘Look. This isn’t making a lot of sense. I need to leave. You obviously want to leave. Can we just pretend this never happened?’

‘Maybe we should just pretend I don’t even know you.’ He gave me a filthy look from the doorway. ‘Because, apparently, I don’t.’

The door slammed behind him, making me jump. He got the last word as always. I didn’t have time to try to work out what had just happened. Or almost happened. I had a fun Saturday night in A&E to look forward to.

Between the events on the sofa, the row, and a variety of drunken dickheads jumping in front of my taxi at every given opportunity, it took me the best part of an hour to get to the hospital after Emelie called. And by the time I’d convinced the receptionist to tell me where they had stashed Matthew (I wasn’t family and, she’d met him, he blatantly didn’t have a girlfriend) he was already in a bed, wearing an attractive green smock and with a face like swollen thunder.

‘Hi,’ I said cautiously, holding out the epi-pen. It was not going to be sufficient defence if he decided to beat the crap out of me. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Ike I migh’ die,’ he lisped. His light blue eyes were red and puffy and his tongue was huge. If I hadn’t been directly responsible, it would have been quite funny.

‘He’s exaggerating,’ Em said. She sat on the other side of him, her legs stretched out along the bed. ‘The doctor said it was a minor reaction, like the factory that made the biscuits processed nuts rather than that the cake had nuts in it. He’s not going to die. He didn’t even have to stay in overnight, but he reckons A&E gets a lot of hotties at this time of night.’

‘Gay danthing injurieth,’ Matthew confirmed. His face was already starting to calm down. Disappointing, since I hadn’t even taken a photo yet.

I settled into the hard plastic chair beside the bed and tipped my head back, eyes closed. ‘Thank god. Honestly, I spent the entire taxi ride convincing myself you were going to die. All the way here, all I could think about was how I was going to explain to your mum that you died because I can’t cook.’

‘Are you all right?’ Emelie asked, dropping her head on Matthew’s shoulder, only to have it unceremoniously shoved away when a beautiful boy in skinny yellow jeans and a neon pink T-shirt was wheeled onto the ward, one leg propped up, the other clad in a matching pink Converse. ‘I was worried you might have gone to find another supermodel to punch.’

‘That was you,’ I reminded her. ‘No, tonight I settled for nearly giving Dan a quickie on the settee.’

Silence.

‘Thpill,’ Matthew demanded.

‘He came back to get …’ Bag? Keys? Couldn’t quite remember. ‘… something and he sort of kissed me and then you called so I said I had to leave and he kicked off.’

‘Because you had to come and visit your friend in the hospital?’ I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Emelie so excited. ‘What a knob. But more importantly, how was it?’

‘Weird, he was totally pissed off.’ I frowned. ‘Like, mad that I wasn’t totally in love with him or something.’

‘Not the argument,’ she whined impatiently. ‘The kissing? Was it just kissing?
Do
you love him?’

Matthew stopped checking out the neon fittie across the ward just long enough to raise his eyebrows at me. At least, I was fairly certain he was raising his eyebrows: it was hard to tell.

‘Of course not. It’s Dan. Remember, very tight jeans? Shags models? Is a dick?’

‘Dumps supermodels for you? Turns up on your doorstep out of the blue? Snogs your face off?’

‘Oh shut up,’ I said. ‘It’s still Dan. He’s hardly the father of my children, is he? He’s the bloke you call after you’ve been to the doctor to ask if he’s the reason you’re itching.’

‘Thath dithguthin,’ Matthew lisped. ‘Buh tru.’

‘I can’t believe I let it go as far as I did.’ I tried not to think about just how far. Or how good. ‘I can’t believe I did it.’

‘Were you wearing the underwear?’ Em asked. ‘You were, weren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ I peered down the front of Dan’s sweater. Thankfully I was still wearing it now. Just. ‘How did you know?’

‘That explains it.’ She held her hands out, as though whatever she was getting at was obvious. ‘It’s the underwear’s fault. Men think with their dicks because they’re outside their body, leading them around all day long. They can’t not think about them.’

‘S’troo,’ Matthew nodded fervently. ‘S’juss there.’

‘We don’t because we’re all neatly tucked away. It means we can get on with things without constantly thinking about sticking our genitals into something. But once you’re wearing expensive, sexy lingerie? Game over.’

I liked this theory. It absolved me of all responsibility and explained why I couldn’t shake the memory of Dan’s warm, strong hands around my waist. We were past stomach flips. We were onto double somersaults from the top diving board, right off into a swimming pool full of you-bloody-idiot.

‘That said, is he unbearably beautiful with his clothes off?’ Em, as usual, completely ignored my request. ‘Are his arms like little tiny barrels?’

‘He’s not Popeye,’ I sighed. ‘But yes, basically yes. I don’t know, I just cocked up. He kept going on about how he didn’t think I was “that kind of girl”, and I was like, but you’re that kind of boy! And then he got all defensive and angry and now I’m probably not going to Sydney.’

‘I’m not entirely sure where Australia came into this.’ Em tied her massive hair up in a high ponytail. ‘And I know this is all new to you, but, honestly, when you’re going to use someone for sex, you don’t actually tell them you’re going to use them for sex.’

‘I wasn’t going to use him for sex,’ I replied, wildly offended.

‘He’ll get over it,’ she tried to reassure me. ‘I bet he’s already called you.’

Ever the conscientious hospital visitor, I peeked at the iPhone I blatantly hadn’t turned off when the nurse on reception had loudly reminded me I had to. No missed calls, but there was a Facebook message.

‘No calls, new message from Ethan though.’

Lovely, uncomplicated, thousands-of-miles-away Ethan. Ahh, he said he’d be having a much better weekend if I was there. As long as he didn’t have a nut allergy, maybe.

‘Rach.’ Em gave me her best serious look. ‘This Dan thing. Are you sure there’s nothing to it? You’ve been friends for years, after all, and he does seem to be making an awful lot of effort just to get into your pants.’

I considered her point for a moment. We were friends, to a degree, and it was true, things had been different since I’d told him about Simon and me. And it wasn’t as though I didn’t think he was hot: getting up off that sofa had been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do in my life. But he could be as funny and sweet and attentive as he liked – he was still Dan.

‘You thud go and get thum theep,’ Matthew lisped while I read. ‘You muth be knackered.’

Realizing his attention was elsewhere, namely on the hot boy in the opposite bed, I accepted he wasn’t just being kind and grabbed Emelie’s hand. Time to leave.

‘Home, James. Let’s leave the invalid to it.’ I gave Matthew a gentle hug goodbye. ‘Talk tomorrow.’

Em patted him on the head. ‘If you can talk tomorrow.’ She turned to me with a wicked grin. ‘Seriously, tell me
everything
.’

After giving Em, half the lower deck of the number 205 and anyone we happened to pass on Amwell Road a PG version of my assignation with Dan, I was incredibly happy to collapse on my sofa alone. Em had gone straight to the bathroom to brush her teeth for bed, the excitement of my evening altogether too much for her. Lying on the sofa alone, still wearing Dan’s jumper, wasn’t nearly as exciting as lying on the sofa wearing Dan. More so than lying there with Simon, but Simon wasn’t exciting, he was Simon. He was sweet and clever and wonderful and funny and he’d dumped me on my arse because I ‘wasn’t the one’. A statement roughly translated from boy into English to mean ‘I want to sleep around for a bit’ or, at least, ‘I want to sleep with someone else and I’m using this ridiculous terminology to absolve myself of blame. It’s not my fault, it’s yours for not being the one.’

I had been a brilliant girlfriend. I reminded him of his mother’s birthday every year. I always made the bed. I shaved my legs every day. I dressed up in nothing but stockings and a Liverpool shirt on his birthday, even though my Man United-supporting dad would have spun in his grave if a) he’d found out and b) he had been dead. What was his problem?

And what was Dan’s problem? He’d made all the moves. Surely he should be happy that I hadn’t kicked him in the nuts and thrown him out the door. And even Ethan, what was he playing at? All these flirty emails that had no real intentions. Maybe I should invest my energies into something more potentially productive, like inventing a time machine to go back to the nineteenth century where I’d be married with four kids by now. Four kids and cholera, maybe – but still. Eurgh. Boys.

‘Rach?’ Em poked me in the shoulder. ‘You’ve gone all quiet on me. You’re not going to get hammered and start singing “
All By Myself
”, are you?’

‘I’m not drunk and I don’t sing,’ I replied. ‘I’m just trying to work out how all of this happened.’

‘Well, if you come up with an answer, remember to show the working out.’

‘I think it’s more of an essay question.’ Ooh. I had an idea. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Night, beauty.’ She kissed me on the top of the head and vanished into her room. She was ridiculously good to me. There was a perfectly wonderful one-bedroom flat in West Hampstead with a giant king-sized bed that had sat empty for a week now because she’d been sleeping on Ikea’s second cheapest sofa bed just to make sure I didn’t top myself. Now that was love.

Despite the fact that we were closing in on three a.m., I was wide awake. I pulled my writing set from the drawer underneath the coffee table. When my mum had bought me this two years ago, I’d responded by teaching her how to use Facebook. I don’t know which of us was the stupid one. I hadn’t written a letter since my Year Nine French pen pal decided to post me pictures of his penis, but she couldn’t leave Facebook alone. And you can’t defriend your mother. They get very, very upset about it. But this was a genuine pen on paper situation, the full Basildon Bond.

I shuffled into a sitting position and held my favourite turquoise pen over the paper. How to begin?

I paused for a moment to breathe. This was coming out far too easily. Writing angry letters was fun. Especially when you’d had a couple of drinks earlier in the evening but definitely were not drunk. Definitely. I put the pen back to the paper.

Break for a quick fact check. Yep, all OK so far.

I reread the last sentence. There was a slight chance I’d gone off topic, but I didn’t have any Tipp-Ex so it was staying in. Did people still use Tipp-Ex? Had the Conservatives looked into this? Was there a think tank on how we could get people from Tipp-Ex factories back to work? Anyway …

It was even better than my A level General Studies essay and that was amazing. I folded the letter up neatly and slipped it into a corresponding envelope, writing Simon’s name on the front and adding a flourish before setting it on the coffee table. Before putting the pen away, I took the napkin out of my handbag and crossed off ‘write a letter’. All that was left on the list was to bungee jump, travel to a new country and find a date for my dad’s wedding. It was like getting down to the toffee pennies and coffee creams in a tin of Quality Street.

Definitely time for bed.

When my phone buzzed into life the next morning, I was still unconscious and tangled in dreams involving chasing weasels through the woods near my mother’s house while Dan followed, half-naked, waving a Canadian flag. Understandably, it took me a couple of seconds to work out what was going on when I opened my eyes.