‘I suppose I’d better say goodnight,’ I say, feeling abrupt, but the longer I hang on to this call, the more real it seems, and this … whatever this is … how can it be real? Life doesn’t happen like this. You don’t smile at a stranger on a train and then they turn out to be the perfect match.
‘Yeah, me too,’ he says. Am I imagining how sad he sounds?
I could so easily ask him something else, anything else, just to stay chatting to him a bit longer, but I give myself a shake. ‘Goodnight, Nathan. It was nice talking to you.’
Nice? It’s the best evening I’ve spent in months. Years, maybe. Nice is how you describe the questionable jumper your nan knitted you for Christmas when she asks if you’ve worn it, not a warm, funny conversation with a gorgeous, sweet guy.
Even though I’m not interested in guys, no matter how gorgeous or sweet they are.
‘Night, Ness,’ he says. ‘And thanks again. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.’
‘Don’t let the sand fleas bite in that gorgeous cottage of yours.’
I can hear his laughter fading as he hangs up, and it makes me smile. Again. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s made me smile tonight. He’s better than anything I could’ve chosen on Netflix.
And no matter how not-interested I am in men and relationships, I grab my charger and breathe a sigh of relief when it fits his phone. I don’t even know why I’m so relieved, but I know I want to keep it charged in case he phones again.
* * *
About an hour later, after I’ve warmed up my microwave meal – living on the edge because the packet said ‘do not reheat’ – Nathan’s phone jingles again. I trip over my own feet as I rush embarrassingly fast to get the message, still convinced it will be his girlfriend wondering where he is.
It’s him again, a picture this time. I smile as I open it. He must be standing on the beach, and he’s taken a photo of the sun setting over the ocean, almost pink sky and darkening clouds as the sun sinks into the sea, a jagged cliff to one side.
It’s the most perfect view I’ve ever seen.
The phone jingles with another text message, and I smile again as I read it.
This is my office. Not a drawing pin scar in sight.
Two seconds later, it jingles yet again.
And yes, that was taken with the bona fide VGA camera on this awful flip phone. That should go some way towards showing how beautiful it is here – it even looks good in 0.03 megapixels.
What is it about this guy? Everything about him makes me smile.
And everything about him makes me want to throw caution to the wind and go to Pearlholme. But that would be stupid, right? I mean, it does look like a gorgeous place, maybe I really will add it to my list of potential holiday destinations, and Mum and Dad aren’t too far from there; maybe I’ll pop by next time I go up to visit them, see the carousel after it’s restored and Nathan’s long gone.
I couldn’t go up there now, while he’s still there. That’s another thing that would only happen in one of Daph’s beloved romantic comedies. Not in real life.
‘Gimme that.’ Daphne whips Nathan’s phone from my hand before I’ve fully pulled it out of my trouser pocket.
‘He texted you goodnight at half past ten last night and he put two kisses. If that’s not a sign that he’s into you then I don’t know what is. Do you know how hard it is to get a goodnight text from a guy? Gavin doesn’t even text me goodnight when he’s away and we’ve been married for three years.’
‘Everyone puts kisses these days. It’s habit. It’s a nightmare when you send a professional email and accidentally sign off with a couple of x’s. I’ve done it loads of times.’
‘I see you did it last night too.’ She raises an eyebrow.
‘Well, he texted me goodnight – it would’ve been rude to ignore him, wouldn’t it?’
‘And he put kisses so you just had to put them back, right?’
‘You’re reading way too much into—’
‘And how long did you talk to him for last night?’
‘About half an hour—’
She’s into the call log before I can finish the sentence. ‘An hour and thirty-one minutes! Ness, you’ve never talked to a guy for that long before! You dated “poor Andrew” for three years and you probably didn’t talk to him for that long over the whole course of your relationship combined.’
‘Which is a great clue to why it went wrong. And I didn’t talk to Nathan for that long. It was nowhere near that.’
‘It says it here in black and white.’ She taps a nail on the screen. ‘And it’s Nathan now, is it? Not Nathaniel?’
‘He doesn’t go by Nathaniel. He prefers—’
‘And this is where he wants you to go.’ She zooms in on the beach photo and stares at it longingly, while I wonder why I’m bothering to tell her anything when she’s going to draw her own conclusions from the phone anyway. ‘It’s beautiful. I’d be there in a heartbeat.’
‘He doesn’t want me to go there. It was a joke. I mean, he seems lovely and everything, but it’s just so—’
‘I know you, Ness. You only make those kinds of excuses when you really want to do something but you think you can’t. Like that guy from Gavin’s work I tried to set you up with last year. He friended you on Facebook and you liked the look of him but you found a snake-length list of excuses not to go on a date, even though there was a very good chance that you’d have had a good time.’
‘This is not like that. There’s no dating. The only thing he wants is his phone back. He’s probably married anyway,’ I say, even though I know Daph’s right. It’s just another excuse. No part of our conversation last night made me think he’s married.
Daphne snorts. ‘No way is the guy on the other end of that flirty, adorable conversation anything but single. He furtively wheedled husband info out of you, Ness. And he didn’t even try to arrange any other way of getting his phone back. Assuming he assumes you aren’t going to Pearlholme, he’s got an excuse to call you again, hasn’t he? You talked for hours with the intention of giving his phone back but you seem to have talked about everything other than giving his phone back; therefore you’ll just have to talk again, won’t you?’
My mind drifts at the thought of talking to him again and I don’t realise I’m smiling until Daphne smacks the desk.
‘Oh my God, you actually like this guy, don’t you? Like, really like like?’
‘No! And that’s far too many likes for one sentence. I don’t even know him, he’s a total stranger, and it’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s the love story you’ve always wanted.’ She clasps her hands together and holds them to her chest.
‘It’s not what I’ve always wanted—’
‘It’s just like Sliding Doors but with hopefully less dying. It’s why you broke up with “poor Andrew” for no good reason—’
‘It wasn’t for no good reason.’
‘It’s why you refuse every date I find for