Present

“I thought we were going to the pub, you boring bastards.”

Adam was on one of his increasingly regular rants. Everyone reacted to the Big Three-O differently. Apparently, Adam was going to party as hard as possible and reject any evidence that he wasn’t a kid anymore.

“We’re going when this is over, so shut the fuck up.” The six of us—even Matt and Daniel—were engrossed in sequin-covered, ballroom-dancing celebrities, but Adam was restless. He paced up and down behind us all. He’d been in a bad mood all day.

“Ava, I’m surprised at you, liking this glitter and sequins and dancing shit. You’re such a girl.”

“IQ points are wasted on you, aren’t they? Get lost so we can watch this in peace.” I hated to humor him when he acted like this, but reacting was wasted energy.

“Thank god I’m getting my wingman back for good. I’m going to nail a different girl every day this summer.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Daniel said as he headed to the bar. “... won’t mind you picking up his leftovers.”

What did he say?

“No one says 'nail' anymore, Adam.” Leah said. “This isn’t 1996.”

Jules turned to raise her glass to get a top-up from Daniel, the perfect man he was, who had brought the half-empty wine bottle over from the bar. “Has someone not snapped that delicious man up yet?”

Who? What delicious man?

“Nope. And I don’t need his leftovers, so fuck off, Daniel. We’re going to tag team it all across Londontown this summer.”

“Not if I snap him up first!” Jules jiggled on the sofa.

Adam’s mood was not improving. “And you can fuck off, Jules. Don’t go near him when he gets back.”

Joel.

They were talking about Joel. Joel was coming back.

Fuck.

***

It was so hot in the pub that I couldn’t breathe. The sweaters I had on weren’t helping. Nor was the open fire. Nor was the mention of Joel. The conversation had moved on to other things, but I was desperate to know more. When was he coming back? Why was he coming back?

I hadn’t seen him for so long—years. Not since July 10, 2006, if we wanted to be exact.

“You ok, Ava?” Jules asked.

My grin was too wide. “Of course. Just hot.” I was going to have to work on my poker face. And my hearing: I couldn’t hear anything. We were in a little local pub in the middle of nowhere, but it was so loud. Everyone’s voices came out as incomprehensible vowel sounds. Maybe I was coming down with something. I just wanted to get back to the house and crawl into bed, but I was designated driver. Thank god we were all going home soon. I needed some space, some time to think.

Tomorrow was the end of our annual weekend away. Since University, we all got together every Easter. It had started as just a Sunday lunch and, over the years, had morphed into a weekend in the country. Daniel had become the richest man in England—technically, I think he was the third richest man under 40 in England, but whatever he was, he was far richer than the rest of us. He found us increasingly glamorous places to stay, which he insisted on paying for. At first we resisted, but it had been futile and we had all long since given in. He was just ridiculously rich. This year we were in a beautiful old castle in Scotland that had turrets and sweeping driveways and staff. It felt like a hotel, but with only us as guests. I’m not sure why we’d even come to the pub—we had a cook back at our castle.

It was a comforting ritual. Various girlfriends and boyfriends came and went, but the six of us were together every year. This year Daniel brought Leah; I wondered if by this time next year they would be married. They hadn’t been together long but they were perfect together.

Neither Jules nor Adam had significant others this year. Jules had disposed of her latest victim last month, and Adam, for all his talk, was still licking his wounds over his girlfriend of five years rejecting his proposal this time last year. I’m not sure if he really was out “nailing” half of London, but I doubted it. He had never been good at casual sex. He was far too needy—one of several reasons there would never be anything romantic between us. We were teased about it from time to time. Matt and Hanna were convinced Adam and I would end up together, but Matt and Hanna wanted everyone paired off as soon as possible. They had been together since the first term at University and married just after graduation. They wanted everyone to be as settled as them, in the nicest possible way. They were so happy and wished that for everyone in their orbit. They had been the constant in our group—like the patient parents of four unruly children.

I’d never brought anyone along to our annual weekend in the country, but I’d never liked anyone enough to let him into this private world. Not since Joel.

Joel. God, I had to get out of there. My head was full of him. Over the past eight years, I’d pushed him to the very corners of my memory. Within weeks of his leaving, I had started my training for one of the best law firms in the country, first at law school and then on the job. I had loved the long hours, the lack of sleep, the mostly unspoken competition between the junior lawyers, the whole brutality of the culture. It was my punishment. In those first few years I didn’t see much of our little group; I deliberately kept my distance. I’d joined in on the odd night out, and of course we did our annual Easter thing, but generally it was all too painful. It reminded me too much of our shared history and of what was missing, who was missing. Work was the perfect excuse, and nobody questioned my absence, really. After a couple of years I had bought my first flat in Clapham, which was where Hanna and Matt lived, and slowly I began seeing more of them and then more of Adam and then everyone. I restarted my life outside work.

Of course, I didn’t date. Not even a little. There were times that my lack of sex life was questioned. Jules regularly asked me if I was shagging my boss and Adam occasionally enquired whether I was a closeted lesbian. But eventually my singledom stopped being a topic of conversation. Hanna and Matt were married; Daniel had been in New York, married to his now ex-wife, George; Jules was a serial monogamist; Adam was a pretend serial shagger either side of a long-term girlfriend. And I was single. That’s just how we were. That’s how we saw each other and ourselves.

Joel’s return threatened to put a proverbial cat among the Clapham pigeons.

Past

Joel was Adam’s friend, initially. They were classmates—both economists—while the rest of us were thrown together in the same block of bedrooms in the dorm. Joel lived on his own off campus, so I’d only see fleeting glimpses of him when he came to visit Adam. On nights out, he would sometimes be there, but he seemed always slightly at arm’s length from the rest of us. He and Adam were kind of a package deal. Whereas the rest of us were all firsthand friends, Joel was a secondhand friend—we knew him only through Adam. This thought only struck me when I saw him for the first time without Adam.

It was midmorning in the library at the beginning of our final year, it was packed, and I was desperately trying to find a desk. I had two or three secret spots on the first floor that were so tucked away that I could always guarantee one of them would be empty, but not that day. I’d been forced off the first floor that held the law library to the third floor when I spotted him. That was when I realized I didn’t really know Joel. He was just familiar. I stood, half-concealed by a bookshelf, and watched him, his head bowed and his forehead creased, flicking between two books as if they were saying completely opposing things and he was trying to make sense of it. There was a space open opposite him; I wanted to grab it before anyone else did, but I felt awkward, shy almost. Looking—no staring—at him from this distance, I took him in. I usually avoided looking at him, desperate to ensure I didn’t become one of the quivering women that seemed to be constantly buzzing around him. He had developed a bit of a half-beard, which made him look even more masculine than usual. He still had his summer tan, and his shirt clung to his broad chest. His sleeves were pushed up, emphasizing his strong arms and his very capable-looking hands. Had he always been this handsome? Totally out of my league.

As if he could feel someone watching him he raised his head, and I knew I should look away and busy myself with the bookshelf in front of me, but I couldn’t. His eyes found mine and he broke into a grin. I forced a goofy smile back, did a stupid half-wave, and walked toward him. Jesus, I was pathetic.

And that’s how it started; Joel became my firsthand friend.

“Hey, Ava. You studying or picking up books?”

“I’m trying to find a spare desk to start my thesis but the world’s conspiring against me. This library’s packed!” My voice was a least half an octave higher than any sane person. Calm the hell down, Ava.

“What bad luck. And that free desk in front of you right now is completely useless? Anyone who sits there will be infected by a curse which will cause them to fail their finals?”

“You heard that, too? Well, coming from an economist, I suppose I have to believe it—I thought it was just a rumor. See you around.” I pulled my eyes away from his and turned to leave.

“Sit, Ava.”

I said nothing, avoiding his eyes, and I set out my books and papers and opened my laptop.

I’d always recognized Joel as being attractive. That was just an indisputable fact; acknowledged by men and women alike. He was well over six feet tall, had a swimmer’s body and that slightly longer, messy hair that just begged to be tousled. The boys would tease him about being pretty and the girls would flirt with him as a matter of course. It was his confidence that sealed the deal. I’m not sure if he was confident because he was so gorgeous or gorgeous because he was so confident. He wasn’t cocky or arrogant, and he didn’t enjoy other people’s misery or disaster. He was just very comfortable with who he was—or so it seemed.

The world Joel inhabited wasn’t like most people’s: It was a privileged existence. He was served at the bar before others, strangers smiled at him in the street, and shop assistants were at his beck and call. From the outside, the sun just seemed to shine a bit brighter in his world. I had never resented his smoother path in life, never thought it was unfair. I just knew it to be different from the world I lived in, and I understood that our worlds wouldn’t collide. But sitting opposite him did bring our worlds into convergence, just a little. I watched from behind my hair as people stopped by his desk to do that weird boy handshake stuff, bat their eyelashes (women mainly, but not exclusively) and even library staff acknowledged him with an air of deference. None of his visitors gave me a second look. To my embarrassment, every now and again Joel caught me distractedly looking at his interactions with his numerous admirers. He said not a word when he caught me; he just offered the occasional smirk.

Despite the floorshow right in front of me, I managed to achieve more than I expected. Joel always had good grades; I’d assumed these always came easily to him, like the rest of his life, but it seemed that, like the rest of us, he had to work hard to do well in class. So when his admirers weren’t looking, Joel worked hard—really hard. Now, I wasn’t competitive, but I wasn’t letting a pretty boy like Joel out-study me. I took fewer breaks than usual, which may have had something to do with my view, but more than that, I wanted him to know I worked hard, too.

At lunchtime, one of his almost equally attractive friends came to over to ask him to grab a snack. Unexpectedly, he asked me to join them and I hastily refused. I needed a break from study, but I also needed a break from being so close to him.

At just after seven I was ready to throw in the towel. Joel looked totally consumed by what he was doing—it looked complicated with graphs and numbers stuff. Without saying anything, I started packing up my stuff. As I closed my laptop, he looked up.

“Hey, are you going? I’ll come with you.” He looked exhausted.

“You stay. You look engrossed.”

“No, I’m done. I’ll walk you back.” He collapsed back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair.

“Adam will be around, I imagine.” Joel just looked at me and frowned.

Silently we gathered our stuff and headed out.

Following the pedestrian path back to the dorms, neither of us had uttered a word.

“So, you work hard?” I blurted. I wasn’t as comfortable with the silence as Joel seemed to be.

Joel threw his head back and laughed. “Yes, I work hard. You sound shocked. Did you think I had my work done by someone else?”

“No. Sorry. No, I just thought it would have come easily to you or something.”

He bent his head to my ear. “Nothing worth having comes easy, Ava.”

I could feel the warmth in my cheeks. Was he flirting with me? I kept my eyes fixed on the path in front of me. I heard him laugh again. He was making fun of me. Great.

“Maybe that’s true for most of us,” I said.

“Who’s that not true of?”

“All I’m saying is that life is easier for some people. The planets align for some but not others.”

“Oh wow, you’re one of those.” He was laughing again.

“One of what? Don’t laugh at me!” I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Come on,” he said. He pulled my backpack off me and tossed it over his shoulder. “It’s just girls have this fascination with astrology that I’ve never quite understood.”

I could feel my temperature rising and my face contorted into a scowl.

“I’m not ’one of those,’ as you put it.” I could tell by his face that he knew I was mad as hell. “I wasn’t talking about fucking astrology, about whether you’ll get a better job because you are a Leo and not a fucking Virgo; I was talking about some people’s lot in life being easier than others. It’s a fact. Attractive people are more likely to be promoted at work, less likely to get depression, etc. etc. There have been scientific studies about it. I’m not talking about fucking astrology.”

Joel had stopped laughing but his smile was still there. He had a strange look on his face, as if he was saying something to me in his head but the words weren’t coming out.

“What?!” I started walking.

In two of his very long strides he had caught up with me “Well, I ... It’s just. You’re right. I’m sorry. I misunderstood you.”

“Ok.”

“Ok.”

“Ok.” I giggled at our to and fro.

“Oh, and you’re cute when you swear.”

I swatted him on the arm.

“And you think I’m attractive. Nice.”

I swatted him twice on the arm.

Back at the dorm, we bumped into Adam coming out of the block door.

“Hey, I just called you. We’re off to the pub. Are you coming, Joel? Where have you two been? Come on, let’s go.”

I walked straight past them both and toward my room.

“Let me drop off Ava’s bag and I’ll follow you up.” I heard Joel say as I kicked off my shoes and collapsed on my bed.

Joel knocked on the open door. “Are you decent or shall I come back later?”

“Thanks for carrying my books back.”

“It was my pleasure. You’re a great study partner, and you’re very easy to wind up. It’s a winning combination. Let’s do it again sometime.”

Anytime, I thought. I could be top of the class if I studied as intently as I did when Joel was around.

“Sure. I’m going to have to live in the library this term if I’m going to get my thesis done.”

“Ok, I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”

Was he serious? “Ok.”

“Ok.” He grinned.

“Get out of here, loser.” I giggled. He was pretty and funny. Bloody hell. He should share some of it with others. Why did it end up concentrated in just one guy?

True to his word, Joel picked me up and walked me to the library the next morning, and then walked me home that evening. The next day was the same. And just like that we were in each other’s lives.

Our conversation was restricted to the walks to and from the library at first, but then we started to take lunch together and then the odd break. Pretty quickly, Joel was the person I spent the most time with out of all the friends I had at University, including the roommates I lived with. More than that, he was the one I wanted to spend every waking moment with. As well as being great eye candy and making me laugh all the time, he was kind and thoughtful. Not just to me, but also to everyone he came across.

After that second day together in the library, I never bothered pretending to look for a desk on the first floor. I just went to our desk on the third floor. Of course, library study was interrupted by lectures and tutorials, but the first day that Joel and I went to the library separately, I wandered up to our desk and found a jacket on the chair opposite and a couple of books on the desk. My heart sank. He had a new desk mate.

“Hey, Ava,” Joel said in a loud whisper.

“Hey.” I faked a smile.

“How were lectures?”

“Good. Hard but good.”

“Ok. You’d better sit down and study, then.” God, I was interrupting him. How embarrassing.

“Yes, thanks Dad. I’m going to find a free desk.”

“But I saved your spot.” He’d saved me a seat. He’d saved me a seat! I really shouldn’t have been so excited.

“Ok, thanks.”

“Ok, you’re welcome.” He grinned his gorgeous grin at me.

“Ok, you loser.” I couldn’t help but grin back.

I pulled out my papers and laptop and got to work. About an hour into things, my concentration was beginning to waver and my imagination started to wander across the desk. I wondered what he was like in lectures. Did he sit at the front with his hand up all the time, or was he at the back ignoring the lecturer and flirting with whatever girl was next to him? A scrunched up ball of paper hitting my keyboard pulled me back into reality. I looked up and Joel was grinning at me. He nodded his head in the direction of the bookshelves next to him.

“What?” I mouthed. Joel just nodded his head more vigorously. I strained my head but I could see anything. “What?” I mouthed again. “Come here,” he mouthed back. I pushed my chair away from my desk and walked around our table toward him with my back to where he was nodding. What was he pointing to? Why was he being so cagey? He patted his desk and I leaned against his desk, my fingers gripping the wood either side of me. “What?” I mouthed again. He made a come here motion with his finger so I bent forward. Wow, he smelled good.

“Some people have more of a physical approach to studying than we do. Look to your right,” Joel whispered.

As subtly as I could I turned my head and through the books I saw a very amorous couple who clearly thought they were better hidden than they were. They were kissing fervently, as if any moment they would be pulled apart and would never see each other again, their hands desperately running across each other’s bodies, feeling each other’s contours through their clothes. I couldn’t pull my eyes away.

“You like to watch,” Joel whispered. It wasn’t a question.

He was so close to me that my skin prickled at his breath on my neck. In that moment, all I wanted was for Joel to kiss me like the guy I was watching was kissing his girl. My heart pounded and I was conscious of my skin tightening across my body.

“Oh my,” I finally managed. “I guess it’s a good way to blow off steam for them. Like, stress relief or something.” I was scrambling for words.

“Wanna give it a try?” My head flicked back to Joel, whose eyes were twinkling at me.

“Don’t you twinkle at me, Joel Wentworth.” I faked a dose of haughtiness and went back to my seat.

“What? I’m just thinking about your stress levels.”

“Ok, well thanks for the offer.”

“Ok, well anytime.” He raised his eyebrows and gave me that ridiculously handsome grin.

Oh my was right. I put my head down and did a great impression of someone studying extraordinarily hard. There was no ambiguity. Joel was flirting with me, and furthermore, I was enjoying him flirting with me. I had to remind myself that Joel couldn’t help but flirt. He was genetically programmed to spread his charm and good looks around. I had to become impervious to his charms. It wasn’t personal; it was just Joel.

Present

Now Joel was coming back. No doubt he hadn’t lost any of his charm or good looks. I had spent the last eight years working hard to put my career front and center in my life, dodging any personal complications. I could control my career—the harder I worked, the more success I had. It balanced out the fact that I didn’t have anyone special in my life. Of course, I’d tried; in the beginning, I’d been on a few dates. But my heart wasn’t in it. I wanted Joel; I was in love with Joel, and no one else quite measured up. Adam provided my male company and came along to black tie events and dinners when I needed a plus one. I managed to piece together a reality that worked for me. It wasn’t that I wasn’t in love—I was. It was just that my love just wasn’t in my life. Love hadn’t been enough.

The thought of coming face to face with Joel brought the realization that my reality was twisted. It was eight years since I had had any contact with him, but I still thought of Joel as being with me because he was with me in my head and in my heart. I still had conversations with him in my head. I still smiled when I saw people PDAing because I knew it would make Joel smile. I still followed his progress avidly, either from snippets from Adam or Matt or whatever my Google alert threw out. It was as if we were having a long distance relationship, but I was the only participant.

On July 10, 2006, Joel left for New York and I’d never seen him again. Never even spoken to him. I don’t know if I’d expected him to come back before now. I suppose I had. I had assumed there would be some sort of resolution between us. Either he would come back, forgive me, declare that he couldn’t be without me, and we would live happily ever after—or I would fall out of love with him. Neither happened, but I still kept waiting.

Of course, he had come back to London to visit, on work trips from what I could make out, but I’d always managed to be busy or away, and because no one knew about Joel and me, no one said anything. Now he would be back for good and I wouldn’t be able to dodge him. My brain, which I’d managed to trick into thinking I was happy, thinking I could live with a one-sided long-distance relationship, was faced with reality. Shit. I needed Jules’s help. I needed to date, get a boyfriend. Something.

Panic flooded through me, and when I was panicked, there was only one thing to do. Take positive action. I was good in a crisis and I was going to have to be.

“Jules, hi. So, I need your help.”

“Anything. What I can do for you?”

“So, you know you’re on those Internet dating sites.”

“Oh. My. God. I’ve finally broken you, haven’t I?” Jules screamed. She was always begging me to start Internet dating. “You know it’s the only way to meet someone in London. This is going to be great.”

“I haven’t even said anything yet.”

“I can hear the resignation in your voice.”

“Ok, so will you help me put myself online, or whatever I have to do?”

“I so will. Tomorrow night. You bring the wine, I’ll bring my laptop. This is going to be so much fun.”

“Fine, whatever. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell Adam.” I didn’t want Adam to know because I didn’t want him to tell Joel. I didn’t want Joel to think that I was some sad spinster that couldn’t get a date.

“Because you two are having a secret affair?”

“Because he will tease the shit out of me. Please Jules.” I was whining. I irritated myself when I whined.

“Fine. Whatever. No need to get your knickers in a twist.”

I put down the phone and immediately felt sick. Christ. I was going to have to get over him before he got over here.