Page 45 of Love Unlocked

The first time was hungry, eyes on the prize. The second time was exploratory. This time is more sensual, he takes his time, feels more meaningful. She feels as though she’s melting into the bed, with every touch and kiss. As though everything is disappearing beneath her.

They’re both finally sleepy now. He sleeps on his right side, the enormous size of him, he’s like a boat in the bed. He takes her arm and pulls it around him, hugging her arm under his as though it’s a comfort blanket. She feels like a koala hugging a tree. Her nose touches the smooth skin on his back, her lips graze his skin. The smell of him, the salty taste of him. She kisses him. He laces his fingers with hers in response.

There’s no point in her going to sleep now. She’ll have to leave soon anyway. Should she book a taxi now on her app? It could be awkward in the morning, the dynamic could change after he wakes. This comfort could melt away as the dawn breaks. The light of day can often shine truth on the night’s lies. She could order the taxi while walking down the sixteen flights of stairs and it would be right outside by the time she reaches the bottom.

She retraces her journey up the stairs in her mind. She hadn’t been entirely honest with Al. She’d stopped on the tenth floor and retreated three floors, yes that much is true, but she had halted again on the fifteenth and a half floor and considered going back down again, when she heard his apartment door open. The music drifted out, music she likes, and she’d been reminded of the person who was waiting there for her. It wasn’t just an idea, it wasn’t just an act. He was a person, it’s Al, and she wanted to go towards him, not away.

And she’s glad.

She starts to drift away but just as she’s falling asleep, her heart starts hammering in her chest, the same way it would if the doors closed on her in a lift, the same way it would if the door closed in a room, trapping her inside. Suddenly her nose is too close to Al’s skin and she can’t breathe. Her arm is sore from being wrapped around his enormous body, being held against its will in his arms, and her fingers stretched from being laced with his shovel-sized hands. She starts to squirm. She straightens her fingers in his clasp, she moves her head away from his back. She tries to breathe but feels trapped. She tries not to make a commotion, tries not to hurt his feelings. This feeling of claustrophobia overcomes her at the most surprising times.

Suddenly he lets go of her hand and she takes it back, free again, panic over. She can leave if she wants. This is just for tonight. He’s heartbroken and in love with another woman. This situation couldn’t be any better. For her obviously. It’s awful for him.

‘It’s RPP, recycled polypropylene, by the way,’ he says sleepily, taking her by surprise. She thought he was asleep.

‘What is?’

‘The I USED TO BE A FRIDGE totes,’ he says groggily, as if talking in his sleep. ‘Seventy-five per cent of the waste from electrical goods, including fridges, ends up in landfill or incinerated, so the totes are manufactured entirely from discarded appliances.’

‘Did you look into it?’

‘After you left, yes.’

She smiles into the dark. He was thinking of her today, as she had been thinking of him.

‘I wonder if they could do the same with the freshwater pearl mussels that are dying in the River Shannon.’ He’d ranted a little earlier, about Walter’s job that he’d got for him. ‘Could you imagine a tote bag that reads I USED TO BE A FRESHWATER PEARL MUSSEL.’

Al’s laugh starts low, a sleepy chuckle, then it bubbles up, until he is laughing hysterically. She’s forced to move away from him, giggling herself while he laughs in the dark. His uncontrollable laughter turns to wheezing and when he stops, he starts again, even harder. They laugh, until they finally settle down again in the dark. Then he chuckles again for a moment. Then stops. Then he starts again, unable to stop. She laughs her anxiety away.

‘Come here you,’ he says, moving towards her and kissing her deeply. ‘You make me laugh so much.’

She grins, then kisses him back. She really likes making him laugh too. It transforms him. Maybe he has transformed her, because she doesn’t want to leave. She likes the feeling of his skin on her skin, regardless of whether the panicky voice inside her keeps telling her to move away.

‘Goodnight,’ he whispers, kissing her lips, her chin, her neck, and rolls back on his side again, leaving her smiling into the darkness.

17

AL

For the first few weeks after breaking up with Tara, Al would feel around in the bed for her in his sleep, and wake up when he couldn’t find her, when his hand was moving around the cold empty space. He tried sleeping on the other side of the bed, her side, to confuse his mind. Then as time moved on he became more used to the emptiness, the fact that he didn’t have to choose a side. He could sleep in the middle.

And now. He moves his leg and it hits flesh.

He opens his eyes and sees a shape. The time on the clock reads five fifteen a.m. It’s past her safe time of five a.m. and yet Melody stayed. He smiles and goes back to sleep.

18

MELODY

‘What’s she like?’ Al asks about Prunella.

They’re standing at the high counter in the kitchen. She’s eating granola and yoghurt. He’s having porridge and blueberries.

‘She’s nice,’ Melody says, giving the standard response. Everyone wants to know what Prunella Maguire is like in real life. But this is not just another person. It’s Al, and she can’t seem to be anything but honest with him. ‘At least I thought she was. Until she tried to steal you away from me.’ She still can’t shake the irritation of Prunella calling Al’s office yesterday for an interview when they’d agreed it was Melody’s story. ‘I should give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was trying to help.’

‘Don’t,’ Al says to her surprise. ‘That’s what the old me would have done. And the old me got screwed. She’s competitive, don’t trust her.’

Melody sees the hurt in him, the crack of anger, the tightening of his jaw as he eats thinking about what happened to him. It transforms him. He puts the bowl down and makes coffee, shoulders up, tense. She gives him a moment to compose himself.