Cover Story - 62

‘You know our prior deal about not taking things the wrong way?’ Connor said.

‘Oh God WHAT?’ Bel said, barefoot in her dress and having only lip-linered her lips, stopping still in the middle of the room. ‘We established that only ever means: bullshit incoming.’

‘You look incredibly nice but also not you-ish, somehow?’

‘Because I look incredibly nice??!’

‘NO, oh God, I knew I shouldn’t have tried “nuance”,’ Connor said, and their warm bickering felt coupleish as hell.

Bel had tried to stifle the up-down swoop of her heart at the sight of Connor in a dark, ink-blue suit: the man was custom-designed to suit tailoring.

Bel was in a dress with a black bodice and matching tulle skirt. It had reminded her of ballet lessons as a kid.

‘You look absolutely lovely, OK? Just not as “Bel” as Bel usually does.’

‘Hmmm …’ Bel hooked a black suede peep toe over her foot. ‘I admit it was an Undercover Bella purchase.’

He could never know this but she had started to worry she was sub-consciously dressing for his gaze.

‘See! I could tell! I am fully exonerated.’

‘I’m not sure about “fully”. I still recall the recoiling from me you did on your first day.’

‘Hahahaha. You have to admit your look that morning was very “Helena Bonham Carter via the police cell drunk tank”.’

Bel mimed throwing her other shoe at him and he ducked.

The peach-themed ceremony took place in a plush drawing room with a solo violinist, the reception moving to the ballroom for a wedding breakfast of pie and mash because the groom, David, loved pies and hated fuss and it was one of those weddings where it was a series of bride vs groom trade-offs. Such as speeches, but no first dance.

During the groom’s ode to his new bride, Bel saw Tim giving her a steady poison glare, pointedly holding it for several seconds when she met his eyes. Rhiannon had seemed embarrassed around her, not surprising when they’d spent villa holidays and Christmases together and Bel had a few years ago coached her through a break-up with a man they came to call Snide Clyde. Bel didn’t resent Rhiannon whatsoever, but given she’d be entitled to feel very strange about it, she wanted to know why she was the only bad guy in it all.

And, suck it, Tim, the ‘social North Pole’ table was great. They had nice dinner conversations with an assortment of people attending solo and making an effort. Now that the dance floor was thronged to Spiller, ‘Groovejet,’ she and Connor could sit chatting among the detritus, surveying the whole room, with no fear of being overheard.

‘Connor. I’ve got a proposal. It’s confrontational but I think, workable,’ Bel said, in a rush of unchecked goodwill. He was so easy to be with, so grounded, so trustworthy. The cheekbones no longer made her think otherwise. ‘Accept what’s happening – we’ve actually become friends. Would you like to stay friends?’

Connor leaned back, elbows resting on the table behind him. Bel had a moment of thinking about his body underneath the shirt, how his bare skin and muscles had felt as she’d sobbed on him. A bit lecherous, Macauley, she thought. Time to face the apps and find a boyfriend.

‘What would that entail?’

‘WhatsApps. Emails. Story tips. Drinks when I roll into Euston. You’re welcome to come stay here from time to time, though I know that’s like being offered detainment in Abu Ghraib to Adams. Let’s stay accomplices.’

‘That’s a lovely thought. Yes, I would like that a lot.’

Bel leaned over and proffered her hand to shake. Connor smiled his beautiful smile, and shook it.

‘It’s been quite the distance travelled, you and I, hasn’t it?’ Bel said. ‘Who’d have thought we’d end up here?’

‘It feels like a small lifetime,’ Connor said. ‘Guess what, after all my homesickness about the north, I’m dreading London. Jen’s not found a new place yet. She’s in the flat’s spare room, but still … Could do without it. And I can’t get my croissants from that bakery anymore.’

‘Could a reconciliation be on the cards?’ Bel said, teasing, and as she did, she heard herself. No, worse, she knew herself.

Her voice, taut as a drum, straining for casual, when in fact she’d experienced an acute and unmistakeable stab of destabilising jealousy.

It’s what I’d have done if it was Jen. Bel discovered she had even noted and filed the fact he said ‘photo of my girlfriend on my phone’ last week, not his ex.

She wasn’t OK with Connor moving back in with Jennifer, not at all … Woah, what was going on? It was akin to feeling a little off and peaky, suddenly a wave of unnatural warmth coming over you, and realising you’d definitely caught a flu bug. Except the flu was Connor Adams.

Weddings could send the sternest happily single a little forlorn, Bel knew this. Connor had dug her out of a mess of her own making – for the fourth or fifth bloody time, no less – by attending, and he was very easy on the eyes.

Some sentimentality was to be expected.

Yet it didn’t feel like that. If that was all it was, Bel could imagine herself calibrating it differently on Monday, having washed the mood of the occasion out of her hair. Instead the only thing she forecast feeling, seeing the new girl at Connor’s desk, was bereft.

Did she … ? Was she …? Bel swallowed hard. Had she fallen for Connor?

The answer came back at her without hesitation. All she’d needed to do was ask the question. Heavily, thoroughly, ardently and completely.

What the fuck.

‘Uhm no, not in a million years, I thought I’d been clear on that,’ Connor said. He seemed a little put out that she’d said it and Bel wasn’t immediately sure why. ‘This sounds like the Undercover Connor you constructed.’

‘He was only out of order because he was with me while keeping the door ajar with his ex. You’re free to do that,’ Bel wittered.

‘You’ve heard enough about how Jen’s behaved – would you not think that was weak and two-faced of me?’

‘Erm … I don’t think she sounds your equal but also I’d reason it was your choice and not for me to judge.’

Connor frowned.

In painting herself as angelically tolerant, Bel had a distinct sense of own goal.

You’re the fakest person I’ve ever met.

Oh God, Bel, she thought, dispense with this teenage tic of trying to act cool, like he doesn’t matter to you. She’d thought the worst thing in the world would be if he could read her mind. Perhaps it was significantly worse if he couldn’t.