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‘I did. I also met his mum, she’s invited us all out there. Maybe we could do a weekend away? Team retreat?’ The words catch in my throat to say them out loud, knowing what may become of our team in the new year but I still stick with denial that that’s happening at all. ‘Maybe you could bring Norah?’ I suggest, nudging him in the ribs as my arms dangle from the carriage rails. ‘Your turn, now. Tell me what happened after the wedding.’
I see his shoulders relax to recall the events, a glow beam across his face. ‘Well, we’re chatting. We chatted at the wedding. It was nice. We share a lot of history so we spoke about that. We talked about maths.’ I try to stiflemy giggles mainly because that’s adorable he’s found a person to chat about his numbers with. ‘Do you know that in MIT, she was legendary for how she transformed arithmetic algebraic geometry over p-adic fields. She can also solve a Rubik’s Cube in ten seconds,’ he tells me proudly.
‘That is indeed a feat,’ I tell him as the Tube rolls to a stop and a large number of people exit the train. Frank stays close to me so we don’t get caught in the number of last-minute shoppers headed in the same direction, linking his arm through mine.
‘And she graduated in the top two per cent of her class,’ he tells me adoringly. ‘She got scouted by NASA.’ I nod to keep up, charmed by his enthusiasm. ‘But she didn’t think that was her thing, she’s a bit more low-key. So she’s come back to London and she thinks she might do a doctorate.’
We board the escalators to the surface, me turning to face him and take in the details of this friendship, burgeoning and renewed but taking in all the people around me, people all on a similar panic-buying mission. I’m not entirely sure why I’ve volunteered for this complete assault on the senses. Obviously, my good nature and constant concern for Frank led me here to help him shop for a gift for Norah but, in some ways, this break away from Leo was also possibly needed. Since the kiss in the station, everything has felt intense, beyond my control. I’ve felt such attraction to him I can hardly see straight. He’s met Gemma and her family, he’s now held my breasts in his hand, and we will soon spend the next few days together with his family. So maybe a pause is a good idea, and I can pick Frank’s brains about everything that’s happening behind the scenes of us getting together.
There is no quiet pause as we make our way into the mighty Westfield though, stepping through into the main thoroughfare of the mall, every floor gold and sparkling, candy canes hanging from the ceilings and the sound of some Salvation Army brassband playing carols echoing through the many floors of this place. Weaving through the floors are shoppers, mostly male and wide-eyed, who’ve all obviously left things until the last minute. There are queues outside the Pandora shop, men squinting to read bottles in Sephora and a desperate few holding up lingerie in Ann Summers trying to ensure they’ve purchased the right size. I keep myself attached to Frank, desperately trying to traverse the hordes of people. His head twitches as he walks past Ann Summers and he nearly trips over a lady with a pram.
‘Don’t worry, I think lingerie’s a big step,’ I laugh, pulling him past. Christ, I don’t think I could walk in there with Frank, he’d faint. ‘There’s a Tesla shop. Maybe just go for the very big gesture…’ I tell him, trying to regain his focus. He giggles and we stand there at the window of the place watching the screens and peering inside. I like how you can buy so many things under one very shiny roof – from a phone case to a pretzel to an electric car.
‘Did you know that Leo interviewed at Tesla at the same time he interviewed for us?’ Frank informs me casually. I side-eye him, pretending to be taken with a short film playing in front of me. Since we left his place, we’ve not really spoken about what he’s seen and what he knows about myself and Leo.
‘And Leo chose to come and work for us in our basement?’ I joke.
‘The way I saw it, I think he had a crush on you at the interview, which at least should let you know that you’re more attractive than Elon Musk,’ Frank tells me. I laugh heartily at that, nudging him in the side. ‘So you and Leo…’
‘I can’t believe you and Jasper never let on. I’m disappointed in both of you.’
‘Leo told us he’d kill us. I took that threat literally,’ Frank informs me as we edge away from that window, amblingthrough the shopping centre. ‘I mean, I always thought you’d make a good couple though. You match in lots of ways.’
‘How so?’ I ask.
‘You take your tea the same way? You both like ergonomic keyboards and London pubs in the summer…’ he continues as we walk past a man carrying three bags laden with toiletry gift sets.
‘Frank, you’ve described a lot of people there,’ I jest.
‘I’m just glad that you worked it out after that kiss.’
‘The one at the station?’ I ask him. His face goes blank and I make him stop next to an animatronic singing penguin. ‘Frank…’
His face scrunches up as he knows that he’s alluded to something else, something I might not know about and he’s really very bad at lying. ‘That night after we went to the Mexican.’
‘Our Christmas party?’ I ask him curiously.
‘If you can call it that. Well, you were really drunk. Like you told us you loved us all many times and we may have lied over what happened when you came back to ours…’
I sit Frank down on a bench, the penguin near us still dancing, his eyes flashing like lasers to some jingly jangly Christmas tune. I am curious if a little terrified. ‘Frank…’ I say, widening my eyes at him.
‘I didn’t help carry you in the house. You literally fell out of the taxi on to the road which is why you bruised yourself but after that Leo carried you in and up the stairs. I followed with your handbag. I have very weak arms, Maggie – you know this.’
I do know. He takes a trolley with him everywhere in our building in case he needs to transport a hard drive. ‘And then…?’
‘Well, he put you down on the bed and you took your bra off to throw at me,’ he says, shuddering at the memory. ‘But then you pulled him in and kissed him. I was there so it was slightlyweird.’ As he recalls events, he pushes the glasses up the bridge of his nose, blushing. ‘I think it wigged Leo out a bit. It was like everything he’d ever wanted but it would have been wrong to let it go any further. Anyway, you passed out after that. He was worried about you choking on your vomit so he slept on the floor and then I had to sort Jasper out who was incapacitated in our hallway. It was an eventful evening all round.’
‘I kissed him?’ I say slowly.
‘It was less of a kiss…It reminded me of the way a sea lion attacks fish,’ he tells me and I hit him across the arm. ‘You seemed to have no recollection of it and Leo didn’t want to shame you with the information, I guess, or make things awkward.’
I sit there quietly realising what that all means. Perhaps my subconscious was calling out to him, maybe there was something there that was attracted to him, but which I kept under the surface.
‘Wait, you both told me I farted,’ I remind him.
‘Oh, that bit was true. I was stood downwind of you on the stairs, so that bit is very true.’
I bend over, my head in my hands, half-laughing, half-mortified. I remember him sitting there at the foot of his bed the following morning, not even letting on. But even then I knew that something had changed between us. That maybe we’d both thought there was a line and for the first time, curiosity saw us walk up to it. We sit there on that bench, crowds of people walking past us. ‘Oh, Frank…I don’t know what’s happening. It’s Leo…From work…’ I moan, exasperated by how quickly this has all moved in the space of days.
