This is a Love Story (24 page)

‘Hi. My name’s Naomi,’ came a concerned female voice. ‘I’m one of the personal trainers here and my colleague Ben asked me to check if you were OK. You haven’t been sick, have you?’ she asked timidly.

Of course I’ve been bloody sick. The whole of London probably heard me. Most of the women in the changing room had probably run out screaming in their bras and knickers and promptly cancelled their direct debits. I cleared my throat and whispered through tears, still able to deny the obvious, ‘No, no. I’m OK, thanks. Sorry. I’ll be fine.’

‘All right. Well, if you need anything I’ll be near the reception desk, OK?’

I grunted in response. Eventually, when I had composed myself, I found the strength to stand up and peeked my head around the door. Two ladies quickly turned around and fiddled with their lockers.

After I’d showered away my humiliation and sat on the bench for a while, I realised the only way out of this building was to go past Ben. There was no secret exit for people who threw up and were too humiliated to face the world again. If I ever end up owning a gym I will make sure there is at least one of those emergency exits in the floor plan. They should become a mandatory government requirement.

I sheepishly darted out of the door and kept my head down all the way past the weights guys, past Britney and the water machine, and out into the humid summer air. It looked like it had been raining, heavily.

Escape. Maybe I would just never go back. That sounded like a great idea. What a fantastic excuse.

‘Hello!’ Suddenly I heard the distant shouting of a familiar male voice. Oh bugger.

‘Hey, are you OK?’ It was Ben. Why on earth was he bothered enough to follow me out here? It could be some kind of fever-induced vision, but he looked gorgeous.

‘Look, I feel really bad about what happened back there. I shouldn’t have just stopped you like that,’ he said, running his hands awkwardly down his navy tracksuit bottoms. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Sienna,’ I answered, wishing I could be someone else. Someone who hadn’t just made an arse out of themselves. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m so embarrassed,’ I added, waving one of my hands in the air and blushing.

‘Look, will you please take this?’ he asked. As if from nowhere he pulled a banana from behind his back and flashed me a very convincing guilty look. He didn’t seem at all mortified by this evening’s events, just really understanding.

‘Oh no, Ben. I can’t take that. And honestly, I can’t face eating anything right now. It’s very kind, though.’ I yanked my black chunky-knit cardigan around my stomach as if to protect it from any incoming food advances. I glanced down at my baggy jeans and trainers, realising what a mess I looked.

‘Well, if you won’t take that, then you must take this.’ He pushed a crumpled piece of paper into my hand, smiled, then ran back to his gym.

Nice bum, I thought. When he was out of sight I carefully opened up the note. The short but sweet message was penned in blobby blue ink, like the biro had been chewed on and was on the verge of exploding all over some poor person’s mouth. It was a simple sentiment, paired with an eleven-digit phone number: ‘CALL ME’.

I’ve always been a bit funny about texting a man first and this occasion was no different. In fact, it was worse. It was a situation so difficult that it required dinner and a chat with Elouise. Plus I needed her to take away the pain of the evening’s unfortunate vomiting incident.

‘Text him, Si,’ came her playful response from the open-plan kitchen.

I sank back into the leather of her sofa and sighed. A plastic sword jabbed my ribs so I threw it into the toy box. ‘I . . . I . . . I can’t, really, El,’ I muttered, scrunching up the piece of paper in my fist and shoving it into my bag.

‘And why on earth can’t you? He owns a gym, for goodness’ sake – how cool is that?’ she scolded, approaching me with a wooden spoon piled high with the most beautiful-looking paella, a fleshy prawn balanced on top of the orange rice. Now El really knows how to make this dish, but I had thrown up just a few hours earlier so I was feeling more than a little delicate.

‘No, El, please,’ I protested, but it was too late – the spoon was wedged into my mouth, filling it with a delicious explosion of flavours. She must have managed to find an opening during the ‘e’ and ‘a’ vowels of ‘please’. Elouise’s face lit up and she danced back towards the pan. Suddenly my hunger returned. ‘Wow! That’s even better than the last one you made,’ I said, putting both thumbs up.

‘So anyway, what’s the problem with you texting this bloke?’ she persisted.

I looked over to her and as she sashayed around the room in a pair of skinny jeans and a vest top, I wished I had just a little bit of her confidence. Elouise is a heartbreaker, but not in an evil-on-purpose, bitchy kind of way. It’s just part and parcel of being Elouise Dalton. If she needs a marquee for a party, ten will arrive the next day complete with musclebound men to put them up. If she needs a lamp fixing, there will be electricians queuing out of the door. If there’s a leak, all of a sudden every bloke including the town vicar will fancy himself a fully qualified plumber . . . You get the gist. She is adored, a sweetheart – and great to talk to about men.

‘Well, I don’t like chasing men, really, El. Plus, if it goes wrong I’ll have to go to a different gym.’ I slipped my boots off and put my feet up on her sofa.

‘You need to think a little more romantically, my lovely. Just go for it. You’re gorgeous, he’ll be bowled over,’ she said, dishing up the dinner.

My mouth started watering. ‘So what do I put?’ I asked, gratefully accepting my bowl full of heaven and starting to chow down.

‘Just say hi, and ask him on a date.’

‘A what?’ I shrieked, a tiny shrimp falling from my spoon and into my lap. I quickly picked it up and dropped it back into my bowl before she noticed.

‘Yes, Sienna – a date. Are you sure you’re over Nick?’ She looked at me doubtfully.

‘Of course, El. Yes I am. In fact, I’m going to text Ben right now.’ I put down my fork and fished in my bag for my BlackBerry and the piece of paper with Ben’s number. I drafted the message. ‘How does this sound? “Hi there, this is Sienna, from the gym. Do you fancy a drink sometime? S x”’ I considered putting a joke in there about my loving embrace with the toilet pan, but felt it was maybe best to let that one go.

‘Yeah, that’ll be just fine, Si,’ replied Elouise, that sparkle in her eye making me even more excited.

‘OK – I’m sending it now,’ I said, suddenly wussing out at the last minute and saving the message to drafts. God, I was pathetic. ‘Done!’ I looked at Elouise and did my best ‘I just sent that text’ smile.

‘Fab. See – it wasn’t that hard, was it?’

After dinner, I dashed up to the bathroom and brushed my teeth with the toothbrush I have at El’s for those drunken, sleepy nights when I can’t face the walk home. I looked a lot better now, I thought, as I pushed my face towards the mirror above the sink. The colour was returning to my skin. God knows what had happened at the gym earlier.

El and I talked for a few minutes before I walked out into the sticky summer evening to get back to Dad. As I made my way towards the flat I felt a vibration in my bag and pulled my phone out, half expecting it to be my father. Instead, it was from a number I didn’t recognise . . .

‘Hi, Sienna. Lovely to hear from you. Of course I want to go for a drink. How does Thursday night sound? Ben xx’

What a sneaky girl. And how could she tell I was lying? Some people would be very angry about this, but I was glad she’d done it, really.

A smile spread across my face. It was so big, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. What on earth was I going to wear?

16 months later . . .

Nick

‘Let’s take it slow, Nick.’

That’s what she’d said less than a year ago as she slurped on a milkshake by the sea. It was a conversation right at the beginning of our relationship. Sometime after the kiss ambush in the pub, and sometime before I felt it appropriate to take her to weddings and let her use my toothbrush. Round about the period when we were doing posh dinners and cocktails on a Friday night, rather than bickering over plughole hair.

But you see, that phrase is a bad sign – it means the opposite. People are generally quite bad at taking things slow, unless of course it involves paying invoices or walking right in the middle of Oxford Street when you’re trying to dash from shop to shop. And they are
particularly
bad at taking relationships slowly.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that as soon as you hear the phrase ‘Let’s take it slow,’ then you should know that things are about to get a lot speedier.

And that’s exactly what has happened. She is all over my house. There are pots of Chanel nail varnish on the living-room table, a ladies’ razor in the bathroom, unexplained cushions on the sofa and carefully placed lingerie in my bedroom. And it’s all a strategic Chloe move to make me feel like I can’t live without her.

To be honest, she’s doing a pretty good job. She does not live with me. She does not have a key cut. She certainly isn’t insured on my car. But she is creeping into my world. It’s like a slow infiltration of pink things that smell nice and almost every day I find something new. It always makes my heart race a little bit, but I do think I need to grow up a little. I turn thirty this year, for God’s sake. I really need to be able to cope with this, and if I can’t cope with a creature as beautiful as Chloe sharing my living quarters, then I’m screwed, really.

She likes to come and stay most nights, which I found quite difficult at first, but I love it now. I think having been single for so long, I became a little bit selfish. You want to be able to do what you want, when you want, and just how you want it.

I love having the warmth of her next to me all night long, and waking up to her nuzzling against my chest. She’s gorgeous and I only hope we can go the distance. Plus I fancy the pants off her.

But there’s been one major problem in all of this. Sienna. Lately, she has been the subject of quite a few rows. She doesn’t have a clue this has been going on. The most spectacular firework finale of them all happened this evening, and it went a little like this:

‘Sienna and I were thinking of going to this street art exhibition next Saturday, Chloe, I can’t wait. Are you still away with the girls that weekend?’ I said innocently as we were driving through Balham.

She had some spa break planned with her mates, most of whom I can’t stand. I quietly hoped some of them would get stuck in a steam room and come out much smaller and quieter than they had been before. Though not Chloe, of course . . .

The clouds instantly moved over my girlfriend’s face, giving her this angry expression that she adopts whenever Sienna’s name is mentioned. And there really is no need for it. I am well and truly over Sienna – and besides, nothing ever actually happened between us.

‘Yes I am, Nick,’ she said abruptly, looking out of the window and craning her neck so far round it was pretty obvious she was trying to hide something. She was fiddling with a ring on her finger, too; that was never a good sign. She tended to do that when she was really pissed off.

There was cold silence as we drove further away from Balham and out into west London.

‘Chloe, come on. You know we love that kind of thing. What’s the problem?’ I responded, noting how her feet were pushed hard against the footwell in what looked like unexpressed frustration.

Silence. More silence.

I pulled over and stopped the car. This had to be sorted out once and for all. I was getting a little tired of her silent protests every time I mentioned my best friend’s name.

‘Chloe, I think we need to talk about this,’ I began, taking a deep breath and fiddling with a pear-shaped air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she replied. It sounded like she was gritting her teeth.

‘Please, Chloe, just look at me. What’s the problem?’ I leaned over and touched her arm; she pulled it away sharply and tucked it inside the Zara cardigan that I’d bought her for her birthday. I didn’t buy it so she could hide bits of her in it when she was in a mood with me, though.

‘Well, we aren’t going anywhere until we talk about this,’ I declared, putting my hands on the steering wheel and pushing my seat back so I was a bit more comfortable. We could be here a while, I thought.

Drizzle started to hit the windows; I watched as the droplets raced each other to the bottom of the glass. It was captivating. Seconds went by, then minutes . . .

Bang. The passenger door had been slammed hard; the pear wobbled in fear. I turned to see that the seat Chloe had been occupying was empty. There was a small dent in the leather and you could still feel the heat from her body on the surface. She had got out of the car and stormed off into the street, and I could only spot a flash of her blonde hair in the distance. Shit.

I scrambled to my feet and started to run, slamming the door behind me, locking it remotely and chasing her down the street. The rain was really falling now, I could feel the dampness of it through my jeans. My trainers slapped hard against the shiny concrete and my shirt stuck to my stomach. Chloe was walking very fast despite the heels she was wearing. She didn’t even look back. Not once.

‘Chloe!’ I yelled, through the passing pedestrians, dodging children and ducking under spiky umbrellas. I even pushed into one woman by accident, shouting my apologies as I ran backwards and then into a newsstand and its disgruntled owner. Jesus, this was annoying.

When I finally caught up with her she was in a bit of a state, black mascara running down her cheeks. I grabbed her hand and hoped that she would just come to a halt so I didn’t have to keep running in this horrible weather.

‘Stop, Chloe, please. For God’s sake, what is wrong with you?’ My tone was angrier than I’d intended but I was getting very frustrated by all this.

‘Me? Me, Nick? Are you serious?’ She turned away again, storming down the steps to the underground.

Here we go again . . . I ran fast down the stairs, my legs moving so quickly the upper part of my body wasn’t quite keeping up and I feared I would slip over and land in a heap at the bottom. I managed to catch up with her. In the small space of the ticket hall, everyone could hear our argument. Bloody marvellous.