to my sanctum where I could throw on PJs and just enjoy the peace, it seemed that he perhaps didn’t feel quite the same. Ella and I met up with him a couple of times for drinks, dinner and cinema trips, but with Ella and I both working weekend shifts and Ella living considerably further away from him than I did, eventually we started meeting for cheap midweek films, just the two of us. He was a thoughtful person; he asked a lot of questions about me and remembered the answers, and I found myself confiding in him about my life. My instinct when something funny or interesting happened at work became to email or text him. We might have become friends out of a shared loneliness, but the more we got to know each other the more we had in common. I liked having a male friend who was straightforward and honest. This translated as bluntness sometimes, leaving me spluttering out my tea a couple of times when he was discussing women he fancied and how he was angling to ask them out, but I admired how articulate he was, and he made me laugh like few people I’d ever met. We quoted from the same films,liked the same bands, and soon I was spending a lot of time at his.
Why his, you ask? Well, winter had come. I earned enough to just about manage life in a tiny flat alone, but the lack of central heating became an issue very quickly. One weekend when he sent me a text asking me what I was doing and I told him I was hanging out in Starbucks to keep warm he suggested I just come round to his and stay in his spare room for the night. So I did. The next weekend I was working, but the weekend after that he suggested it again. I popped round on Saturday afternoon and left the next day after cooking Sunday lunch – thanks, Mum, your roast potato recipe does wonders. It was comfortable, lazy, fun. We walked his dog, I brought my laptop and hooked it up to his Wi-Fi so we could play co-op computer games, and we watched DVD box sets and films aplenty, all in the warmth. Simple pleasures, but it was wonderful and, as Christmas came and went and spring blossomed, I found myself going round to his more and more often, despite the weather no longer being an issue. Ella would come down too if she was free, but if she wasn’t then we’d happily hang out alone.
It probably sounds naive now, but I didn’t really think about having sex with him. He was a good looking guy, with dirty blond hair, glasses and a laid-back style that I approved of, but as he’d been keen to point out during that first invite, my visits were platonic with no expectations of sex on his side. I was fairly pragmatic about such things and just assumed he didn’t fancy me, and I had nointention of scuppering our friendship by pushing things, not least because I knew he was still thinking about his ex. It was OK. I enjoyed his friendship without feeling the urge to jump him.
But then one night things changed. It all started pretty innocently. Thomas, Ella and I had booked tickets and hotel rooms to see a band together. But the week before the gig Ella suggested a change of plans. Another friend had got a ticket, so if I moved in with Thomas for the night this fourth person could join Ella, thus reducing all of our hotel costs. Practicality won out and, since we’d been seeing each other alone anyway for months by this point, why did it matter? It didn’t really, and we had a fantastic night, enjoying the gig, giddy and excitable and a little hoarse by the time we got back to the hotel room, on an adrenaline high from the energy of the music.
We took turns in the bathroom, got changed and then climbed into bed. We lay talking in the darkness for a while, still too awake to sleep, talking about the night, the music, our weeks, life in general. And then, quietly in the darkness, he spoke.
‘Sophie, have you ever thought of us sleeping together?’
Taken aback, the silence lengthened as I tried to formulate a reply. I decided to fudge it rather than inadvertently putting my
Why his, you ask? Well, winter had come. I earned enough to just about manage life in a tiny flat alone, but the lack of central heating became an issue very quickly. One weekend when he sent me a text asking me what I was doing and I told him I was hanging out in Starbucks to keep warm he suggested I just come round to his and stay in his spare room for the night. So I did. The next weekend I was working, but the weekend after that he suggested it again. I popped round on Saturday afternoon and left the next day after cooking Sunday lunch – thanks, Mum, your roast potato recipe does wonders. It was comfortable, lazy, fun. We walked his dog, I brought my laptop and hooked it up to his Wi-Fi so we could play co-op computer games, and we watched DVD box sets and films aplenty, all in the warmth. Simple pleasures, but it was wonderful and, as Christmas came and went and spring blossomed, I found myself going round to his more and more often, despite the weather no longer being an issue. Ella would come down too if she was free, but if she wasn’t then we’d happily hang out alone.
It probably sounds naive now, but I didn’t really think about having sex with him. He was a good looking guy, with dirty blond hair, glasses and a laid-back style that I approved of, but as he’d been keen to point out during that first invite, my visits were platonic with no expectations of sex on his side. I was fairly pragmatic about such things and just assumed he didn’t fancy me, and I had nointention of scuppering our friendship by pushing things, not least because I knew he was still thinking about his ex. It was OK. I enjoyed his friendship without feeling the urge to jump him.
But then one night things changed. It all started pretty innocently. Thomas, Ella and I had booked tickets and hotel rooms to see a band together. But the week before the gig Ella suggested a change of plans. Another friend had got a ticket, so if I moved in with Thomas for the night this fourth person could join Ella, thus reducing all of our hotel costs. Practicality won out and, since we’d been seeing each other alone anyway for months by this point, why did it matter? It didn’t really, and we had a fantastic night, enjoying the gig, giddy and excitable and a little hoarse by the time we got back to the hotel room, on an adrenaline high from the energy of the music.
We took turns in the bathroom, got changed and then climbed into bed. We lay talking in the darkness for a while, still too awake to sleep, talking about the night, the music, our weeks, life in general. And then, quietly in the darkness, he spoke.
‘Sophie, have you ever thought of us sleeping together?’
Taken aback, the silence lengthened as I tried to formulate a reply. I decided to fudge it rather than inadvertently putting my
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