I Heart New York (17 page)

He looked so sweet, so earnest and held out his hands, palm up. How could someone who had crashed up and down the stage, writhing around a guitar and thrashing into his microphone stand so many times I was sure he’d have bruises, become this tender, soft guy in just a couple of hours? Was this all part of the act? There’s only one way to find out, I thought, taking one of the hands in mine.

‘You’re going to have to do most of the talking,’ I said, lurching backwards and leaning on an elbow. ‘I’m actually shattered.’

‘Not a problem,’ he smiled, giving my hand a squeeze and then rolling over onto his side. ‘I can go all night.’

I burst out laughing. ‘Did you really just say that?’ I asked, punching him in the shoulder.

‘You know what I mean.’ He laughed, rubbing his shoulder with a hurt expression. ‘You punch pretty hard for a girl.’

‘You’ve got to be able to defend yourself if you’re going to go into cheesy boys’ bedrooms and sit through their terrible chat-up lines.’ I smiled, relaxing a little bit. ‘That was awful.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ Alex pulled a face. ‘You know what, I really stink. Do you mind if I take a quick shower?’

I shook my head. ‘Not at all but don’t expect me to be awake when you’re done.’

‘I won’t wake you,’ he rolled towards me and kissed me gently, ‘unless you want me to.’

Before I could work out what I wanted, he pushed up off the bed and disappeared through the door.

‘Not looking, guys,’ I heard him call out into the darkness. ‘You just keep on desecrating my couch.’

I smiled and dropped backwards. Now all I had to do was work out what I was going to do when Alex came out of the shower, all clean and fresh and wet and…I closed my eyes for just a second, the candlelight blurring at the edge of my vision.

‘Someone should blow them out…’ I muttered to the empty room.

By the time I opened my eyes, someone had. I felt a body above me, breathing softly and stroking my hair back off my face, gently bringing me round.

‘Alex?’ I murmured as soft, hot lips pressed against my bare neck and a damp hand trailed along my collarbone. My eyes flickered open but it was pitch black in the room, the only light coming from the city, a world away in the window.

‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I know I said I wouldn’t wake you, but…’

‘S’ OK,’ I said sleepily, shifting slightly, accepting the weight of his body. His damp hair fell against my face as we kissed lazily, our hands entwined above my head. Slowly, I began to wake up, and steadily, the kisses grew stronger and more urgent. I pulled my legs up, accidentally pulling his towel away as we slid up the bed, and felt his soft skin all around me, warm from the shower. In the dark, without visuals, it seemed his skinny boy act was entirely illusory, the muscles in his back moving under his skin as lowered himself onto me. Just as our legs began to wind themselves around each other and my hands lost themselves in his thick black hair, the bedroom door was flung open, spilling light all over the bed.

‘Shit, sorry,’ Jeff said, purposefully looking away. ‘Alex, man, Jenny threw up on your rug. Do you have cleaning stuff anywhere?’

I covered my face with my hands, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Even if she didn’t know it, Jenny had implemented her chaperone role just in time.

‘Is she OK?’ Alex rolled off the bed, wrapping his towel around his waist as he went. ‘Is she in the bathroom?’

I loved that he asked if she was OK before he had even put his boxers on. Which tragically, he did next.

‘Not tonight, huh?’ He gave me a lopsided smile from the doorway. I shook my head and smiled back. Damn it, Jenny, I thought, why did you have to make me stick to my word? Tiptoeing through the big, stinky mess in the living room, I found Jenny had taken up residency in the bathroom face down in the toilet, kneeling on top of Alex’s sweaty T-shirt.

‘Oh, Jenny,’ I sighed and knelt down beside her, scraping her hair back from her face in an entirely unromantic gesture. ‘Are you going to be OK?’

Words were still a way off, but she managed to nod before she started retching again. Once she had calmed down to one dry heave every three minutes, I left to get some water and find the bottom half of her outfit. Apparently things had got fairly far with Jeff before all her beers made a break for freedom, and, as close as we now were, I would have been much happier if she had some pants on. American usage or English.

Back in the living room, Alex and Jeff, both half naked, were scrubbing away at a big watery stain with spray-on cleaners and makeshift cloths. I knew it would be a bad time to laugh out loud, but I couldn’t help a bit of a smile.

‘You two all right?’ I asked, filling up an empty, cleanish-looking glass I found on the kitchen top.

‘Uh-huh,’ Alex grunted from the floor. He didn’t look all right. Jeff looked as if he’d been all right until about ten minutes ago when things had gone horribly wrong. His T-shirt was stained and his trousers, like Jenny’s were MIA. I sidled over with my glass and gingerly picked up Jenny’s jeans. Giving them a quick once-over, I was satisfied that they had come off pre-puke and took them into the bathroom. Jenny was trying to prop herself up against the shower stall and wash her face, but without much luck.

‘Hey you,’ I said, giving her the water, which she sipped delicately. ‘You feel any better?’

‘I am so fucking embarrassed,’ she groaned, passing me the glass back and holding her hands under the running cold tap, then pressing them to her face. ‘I threw up on Jeff.’

‘That’s not all you did on Jeff, now is it?’ I said, taking a tissue and wiping a tiny bit of sick off her shoulder. ‘What’s going on there then?’

She gave me a weak, pale smile. ‘We’re going to try again. He says he missed me.’ She rubbed under her eyes, magnifying an attractive panda effect. ‘He says there hasn’t been anyone else since me.’

‘Wow,’ I said, passing her the glass back and forcing her to drink more water. ‘That’s brilliant. I’m really pleased for you.’

‘And just think, if we hadn’t come to Brooklyn, I might never have bumped into him again,’ she sighed, her back, thankfully, to the bathroom mirror. ‘And how weird would it have been if you had seen him when you were here and not known it was my Jeff? Too weird. It’s all fate.’

‘Maybe it is,’ I said, sitting on the closed toilet seat and flushing just to make sure. ‘There’s definitely something at work stopping me and Alex doing any more than getting me really, really worked up.’

‘Oh shit, sorry babe,’ Jenny tried another weak smile.

‘But it’s OK,’ I told myself, ‘it’s for the best. We said we were going to go slow and I think it was speeding up a bit too fast. Besides, I have a date with Tyler tomorrow afternoon and I don’t think I could go through with it if anything more serious had happened with Alex.’

‘See, this doesn’t sound like fun. I thought you were just supposed to be having fun,’ Jenny groaned. ‘Why do they have to make everything so damned tricky?’

‘Are you two having some sort of secret meeting in there or can I please pee?’ Alex called through the door. Helping Jenny find her balance, I emerged blinking into the now lit up living room.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said quietly as Alex passed into the bathroom.

‘Harsh lighting, not cool.’ Jenny stumbled, holding her hands over her eyes. I looked from her to Jeff to Alex. It was weird being the only person in a group of four who was dressed.

‘We should go,’ I said, scanning the room for my bag and passing custody of Jenny over to Jeff, who took her happily. It must have been love if he could smile at her in that state. ‘Can we get a taxi from here?’

‘Not easily at this time,’ Alex yelled from the bathroom, mid-pee. ‘It’s cool, you can stay here if you want.’

I looked at Jenny, bracing herself against the sofa while Jeff tentatively patted her shoulder, and gratefully nodded in agreement. God knows I didn’t feel great about getting in a taxi with vom-stained Jenny, and it was after two. I was completely knackered. Alex reappeared and gave me two T-shirts. ‘You two take my room, I’ll be on the couch,’ he said, kissing me on the cheek and motioning to Jeff that it was time to leave.

‘Yeah, of course,’ Jeff said, passing Jenny back to me. ‘So sorry about the rug, man, I’ll get a cleaner in or something. Bye,’ he said to Jenny mooning in the doorway. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow?’

Before Jenny could answer, Alex had shut the door, arms folding, foot tapping.

‘Bed then,’ I said. Jenny had gone right through the drunken spectrum and crashed somewhere around comatose. I guided her into the bedroom and pulled off her strappy black top, replacing it with Alex’s Ramones T-shirt. She crawled up the bed until her head was almost on the pillows and passed out.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again to Alex. ‘This isn’t really how I imagined tonight would go.’

‘Another time,’ he said, pulling a spare pillow out from under the couch. ‘You know what they say about the best laid plans.’

I just want to get laid, I thought.

‘You going to be OK in there with her?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll shout if she tries anything.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The next morning, Jenny woke early, still half drunk and craving something sweet. I tried to convince her the best thing for everyone in these circumstances is a bacon sandwich, but she wasn’t convinced. In so far as she retched at the suggestion. I tried not to catch sight of myself in the mirror as I slipped out of bed but I accidentally caught a quick glimpse and couldn’t tear my eyes away. It wasn’t pretty. Post-gig, my hair was greasy and huge, having backcombed itself into a sweaty bouffant during last night’s fumblings. My melted make-up had managed to lodge itself into every burgeoning wrinkle and pillow crease, making me look ten years older, and, best of all, I had badger’s arse breath. This was not a good look for mine and Alex’s first morning-after-the-nothing-before.

‘At least you don’t look like this,’ Jenny grumbled, joining me in an unhappy stare before she retched suddenly and (thankfully) dry heaved over the bed.

‘That’s true,’ I said, half carrying her to the bathroom. ‘That is true.’

‘Thanks,’ she stared daggers at me, curled around the base of the toilet while trying to pull her hair into something resembling a style. There really was no use.

Despite Jenny’s best efforts to convince me otherwise, I couldn’t just slip out without waking Alex, so I went first and tiptoed across the still damp rug to where he was quietly dozing on the sofa. He looked exactly as we’d left him, apart from one noticeable addition in his boxers.

‘Nice!’ Jenny mouthed giving me a double OK sign by the door and stifling giggles. I replied with my middle finger. Plus, I couldn’t help but notice it was nothing to laugh at.

‘Alex,’ I said softly, keeping enough of a distance between us for my dog breath not to be too much of a problem. I’d swilled quickly in the bathroom and tried the old toothpaste on the finger trick, but it hadn’t had nearly enough of an effect.

‘Huh?’ He opened one eye, looking confused. ‘Angela?’

‘We’re going to get off now,’ I whispered, my hand lightly on his shoulder, eyes well away from the below the waist area. ‘Me and Jenny, we’re going to go.’

‘OK,’ he mumbled, rolling over onto his front.

‘That’s going to hurt,’ Jenny called lightly across the room. Another middle finger for her as we made our way out of the flat.

With only a couple of hours before I was supposed to meet Tyler at the park, I had some serious damage control to deal with. I packed Jenny off to bed with two Advil, a large bottle of water and half the pastry counter of the deli on the corner, then took up residency in the bathroom. For the first time in for ever, I ran a bath and got ready to soak. I needed to get all thoughts of Alex out of my head and all of Jenny’s drool out of my hair. If I’d had longer, I’d cancel, I thought, stepping into the tiny tub and relaxing. I didn’t think I was the kind of girl who thrived on drama, but then my life had been so boring for so long, maybe a bit of drama would do me good. And at least it made for a more interesting blog entry than my old life would have: got up, wrote a thirty-two-page book about a talking bee, ate some calorie-controlled rice cakes, waited around for my boyfriend to come home from shagging his tennis partner, went to bed in button-up old man’s pyjamas.

Eventually, I forced myself out of the bath and smothered myself in body lotion, sure I could still smell post-gig mustiness on me. Hopefully, a nice walk in the park would sort that right out. I picked out a shorts and shirt combo and accessorized with my beautiful Tiffany necklace, which I still hadn’t worn yet, and started to look forward to the fresh air, if not trying to talk to Tyler without mentioning any of my adventures with Alex.

As Tyler had predicted, Central Park was busy, but it was also incredible.

‘How can this exist in the middle of the city?’ I marvelled. As we ventured further and further into the greenery, the city seemed to fade away, leaving a complete oasis, packed with joggers, families, couples, groups of friends. Just about every sort of person you could imagine was in that park.

‘Would you like the history lesson or was that a rhetorical question?’ Tyler offered. He was carrying a large rucksack that I prayed was packed with food. I’d spent so long getting ready, applying de-puffing eye gel and checking Jenny was still breathing, I hadn’t even eaten. ‘It’s great though. They call it the lungs of the city.’

‘I can see that,’ I nodded as we veered off the path and over to a sunny, relatively unoccupied spot by a beautiful large lake. ‘It’s just madness to me that all this is man-made.’

‘You don’t have parks like this in London?’ he asked, spreading a blanket before he let me sit down.

‘We have parks,’ I nodded, ‘loads of parks, but this is so impressive. London is so higgledy-piggledy, which I love, but the idea that someone sat down and said, we’ve got to have a massive park in the middle of this planned, organized city, that’s ace. And even more I love that no one has been allowed to build on it when they started running out of space–not the case in London.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ Tyler smiled, unzipping the rucksack and producing a bottle of red wine. ‘I lost you at “higgledy piggledy”.’

‘Ha ha!’ I accepted a wineglass and let him pour. Please let there be some food in there too? ‘You make me feel so English.’

‘Is that a bad thing?’ He poured himself a glass and pushed the cork back in the bottle. ‘I love it when you say things like that.’

‘No, of course it’s not a bad thing.’ Why was there still no food? ‘It just reminds me I can’t stay here for ever. Which sucks.’

‘They won’t take you back if you start saying thinks like “sucks”,’ he scolded lightly.

‘Sorry,’ I smiled, holding my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun. ‘One thinks it’s a terrible shame that those dreadful builders should be allowed to build on such marvellous greenery.’

‘More like it,’ Tyler smiled, planting a tiny kiss on the end of my nose.

I lay back on the blanket and stared up at the cloudless sky. This must be the only place on the whole of Manhattan where I could look upwards and not see skyscrapers. It felt so far away from the real world.

‘And besides, you never know what’s going to happen.’ I felt Tyler lie down next to me, he was so solid and reassuring. ‘Who knows where you’ll be in six months?’

‘Bizarrely, you’re not the first person to say exactly that,’ I smiled, remembering what Alex had told me, hundreds of feet up in the air. Tyler leaned over and kissed me softly, bringing me back down to earth with a bump.

‘I guess you have to go back sometime,’ he said, producing a bag of crisps from the rucksack. Really? Crisps? ‘Cheeto?’

‘Thanks.’ Quite frankly, I’d have eaten anything at that second, but I had sort of been expecting something a little bit classier. He was such a smoothie. ‘Tyler,’ I rolled onto my belly and looked at him happily munching away, ‘have you ever had your heart broken?’

‘There’s nothing I love more than hiding in the park with a bag of Cheetos,’ he replied. ‘Is that really bad?’

‘No, but it is avoiding my question,’ I said, throwing a couple of cheesy crisps at him. Impressively he caught them in his mouth. ‘Have you?’

‘I’ve had girls break up with me, sure,’ he said, thoughtfully sipping his wine, ‘but I’m not sure I could honestly say I’ve had my heart broken.’

‘Wow, really?’ I tried to drink my wine, but it did not go well with the Cheetos. This slightly tarnished his sheen of sophistication, but it did prove he was human. ‘I suppose some people are just lucky.’

‘Maybe,’ Tyler went back into the bag and produced a beautifully wrapped gold box and handed it to me, ‘or maybe I’ve been unlucky. It’s hard to get your heart broken if your heart’s never really in it.’

I took the box and unfastened the ribbon. Oh thank God. It was chocolate. Glossy, handmade truffles. And lots of them. Sophistication regained, superhuman status restored.

‘You’ve never been in love?’ I asked, taking one of the chocolates and placing it in his mouth. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I don’t know, maybe,’ he said, catching my hand and kissing the tips of my fingers. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever fallen apart when a relationship ended. I’ve never left the country anyway.’

‘I’m fairly sure if you don’t know whether or not you’ve been in love then you probably haven’t.’ I happily accepted the chocolate he held to my lips and nipped at his fingers. ‘I just can’t believe you haven’t had women falling all over themselves to be in love with you.’

‘Maybe they have been in love with me,’ he shrugged. ‘I just haven’t met anyone I feel that strongly about.’

‘So you’re the heartbreaker,’ I laughed. It hardly seemed likely, he was so lovely. ‘Those poor girls.’

‘Maybe I’m just waiting for the right girl?’

‘And who would that girl be?’ I went back to my wine. It was starting to slip down far better with the chocolate than the Cheetos, so much so, I had almost forgotten how hungry I’d been. I rolled over to lean backwards against Tyler’s broad chest.

‘I don’t know yet,’ he replied, stroking my hair. ‘I suppose she would be smart and interesting, so we would have a lot to talk about. I don’t want to come across as shallow, but she would have to be pretty. And she should make me smile all the time.’

I tilted my head back and smiled at him. ‘She sounds nice.’ I hadn’t even realized I’d got to the bottom of my glass already. Tyler topped me up.

‘And I should want to kiss her every time I see her,’ he said, stretching across for another kiss. ‘Like that.’

‘I think you’ve got good criteria,’ I said, rolling back onto the blanket and avoiding too many kisses.

After the frenzy of last night’s gig, of dealing with Jenny, of getting so near and yet so far with Alex, this was so serene. Glorious weather, the smell of fresh grass and an attentive, sweet man hand-feeding me chocolates and soft warm kisses. I loved the way Tyler made me feel, as if I were something to be treated delicately and protected. It made me almost believe it myself. We lay together, talking about our weeks, drinking the wine, me eating chocolates and Tyler munching away on his disgusting Cheetos until we ran dry.

‘I knew I should have bought two bottles,’ Tyler said, shaking the last drops into my glass. ‘What with you being such an old lush.’

‘I hardly ever drink,’ I defended myself without much credibility. ‘Honestly, I normally go months without a drop, let alone knock back the best part of two bottles before three in the afternoon. I think that’s why I’m such a lightweight.’

And is was true, my head was pleasantly fuzzy and full of the cotton wool that Tyler seemed intent on wrapping me in.

‘You’re just making up for lost time then,’ he grinned, putting the empty bottle, glasses and empty packets back in the rucksack. No littering here, what a lovely, lovely man.

‘I’m just tired,’ I yawned for effect. ‘I had a bit of a late night.’

‘Anything fun?’ he asked.

‘Alex’s gig in Brooklyn,’ I said, without thinking.

‘Alex?’ It wasn’t accusatory, but it was definitely inquisitive.

‘Oh, one of Jenny’s boyfriend’s friends,’ I said quickly. It wasn’t strictly a lie. ‘And you know, it took for ever to get home.’

‘I just don’t get the whole Brooklyn thing,’ Tyler shook his head, not pursuing the Alex thing. Phew. ‘Sure, Park Slope is nice, Peter Luger is great, but why everyone thinks it’s so hip to travel all the way over to Williamsburg for a beer? No thanks.’

‘It was nice over there,’ I felt as though I ought at least to try and defend it, but too much red wine was starting to weaken my thought process. ‘Everyone was really cool.’

‘Exactly,’ Tyler screwed up his face. ‘Someone needs to remind those rich kid hipsters that college was a long time ago. It’s time to get over your ironic T-shirts and stop getting stoned. And how tight are those guys’ jeans? Do they realize they will never have children?’

I thought of Alex in his skinny jeans and his little T-shirts and had to smile. Or possibly, the half-bottle of red wine had to smile, I wasn’t entirely sure. I was however, entirely drunk.

‘Are you a secret hipster? I don’t remember seeing any piercings.’

‘I’m more of a tattoo girl,’ I laughed as he tried to pull up my T-shirt. ‘Stop it, everyone can see!’

‘I’ve got to find these tattoos,’ he said, holding my wrists above my head with one hand and searching with the other. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see them the other night.’

‘I don’t really have tattoos,’ I said breathlessly, half from the laughing, half from the way he was pinning me down. A familiar feeling started to build up in my stomach, surging through my body.

‘I think you do,’ he said, staring me into submission. ‘Maybe I just didn’t see them because it was so dark.’

‘Maybe,’ I whispered, willing him to scoop me up and take me home. I reckoned he had approximately ten seconds to suggest it before I made a public spectacle of myself. And potentially got us both arrested.

‘Shall we just go?’ he asked, his eyes glowing and his voice gruff. I nodded and let him pull me roughly to my feet. His hand burned into the small of my back as we wandered out across the park. I didn’t want to drag him, but it almost felt as though he was walking extra slowly, dragging it out, making me wait. But I couldn’t wait. I squeezed his hand gently, but he just squeezed back and gave me a promising smile.

‘You’re in a rush?’ Tyler held me back as I made for the gate at something between a canter and a gallop.

I didn’t have a response that didn’t make me sound like a massive slag, so I went with the truth ‘Aren’t you?’ I asked.

‘Good point,’ he replied, pulling my chin upwards and kissing me hard. I felt my legs completely melt away, there was nothing else in the world apart from me and Tyler and, fingers bloody crossed, his apartment in less than ten minutes.

My second visit to Tyler’s was just as educational as the first. More than anything else, as I lay in his huge, soft bed, watching him doze, it was a complete wakeup call as to how long mine and Mark’s relationship had been dead. I couldn’t actually remember the last time we’d had sex in the daytime, but it really was like riding a bike. Not that I ride a bike. And it was remarkable just how bendy you can really be if you put your mind to it. I slipped silently out of the bedroom and recovered my knickers and top for a trip to the bathroom. After some quick reparatory work to my mascara and a cold flannel pressed to my stubble-grazed chin, I did the obligatory ‘check out the bathroom cabinet’ thing.