Cover Story - 64

‘Are you off the fake boyfriend clock?’ Bel said, trying to dispel any awkwardness, as she kicked her shoes off in the room.

She’d hoped the fading inebriation would carry her through the awkwardness of the Post Kiss hours without a hitch, yet it being the two of them alone already felt intimate.

They’d left the reception’s fading hours for television, caffeine and complimentary biscuits, to underline the fact they were unbothered jocular pals, yet now it felt like the opposite statement.

She’d never been in Lure Mode with Connor in all the time she’d known him. Now Bel knew what she wanted – him, in every way and at all costs – and had the forced proximity of their king-size bed and no idea if she should use it. It felt like an opportunity – but equally she was scared stiff of misreading. The stakes were suddenly Burj Khalifa high.

‘Depends. Am I still being paid or not?’ Connor said.

‘You’re getting paid?’ Bel said.

‘As it’s no longer possible to pay me in bylines I was assuming I could invoice, yes,’ Connor said, frowning. ‘I hope you don’t think this sort of service is free ?’

‘Mmm,’ Bel said, regarding him, and a distinct tension, that might be of a sexual nature, joined them in the room. ‘In that case, keep the tab open and bill me for “watching television together”.’

‘Netflix and chill, is it? You are a predator.’

Bel chortled, positioning herself against many pillows and commenced channel surfing. She lucked out with the opening sequence of Point Break.

‘What a film! And about going undercover! This is fate,’ she said to Connor, who joined her on the bed.

Bel leaned against his chest, her head under his chin, saying: ‘Charge for whatever this is.’

She had to safety-proof him flinching away, yet it didn’t feel as if he would. Instead, Connor slid his arm round her middle. The hair at the nape of Bel’s neck prickled: it felt as though they might be playing a game. One person pushed their luck a little, and the other responded.

‘Nice watch,’ she said, looking down at his rolled-up shirt sleeve.

‘Thanks. Gift from Shaun.’

‘I liked Shaun.’

‘He liked you, I’m dismayed to say.’

Keanu Reeves was learning Bodhi’s stoner philosophies and Bel impulsively put her arm over his arm, her hand over his. No doubt their not looking at each other was emboldening her.

Connor interlocked their fingers so they were holding hands. He’d done that, hadn’t he? That wasn’t her. That was definitely him.

Bel’s heart was pounding now because it had to be a game of copping-off chicken . Had to be. There were no witnesses and here they were, in loving and wholly voluntary embrace.

What did she do to signal she wanted more still? Did he want that?

‘If it’s useful information, you kiss really well, by the way,’ Bel said. Sod it. Subtle was for people with more than twelve hours left, and he could hardly object to a compliment. It felt as if his embrace got tighter, after she spoke.

‘Thanks, so do you.’

‘You have to say that.’

Honestly Bel, teenagers would think this was embarrassingly clumsy.

‘I probably would have to say that, but it’s true anyway.’

This was as easy as it was going to get. Bel took a deep breath, turned her head and kissed him. There was an agonising split second where Connor seemed unresponsive, and then the message got through to Bel: he’s kissing you back. It was more tentative than before yet still felt like all her birthdays come at once.

As it progressed, she pulled the strap on her dress down her shoulder, proving she was right to wear one of her nicest balcony bras for this event. She moved his hand onto her breast because her nerves couldn’t cope with any more ambiguity, she had to know this was reciprocal. Connor didn’t move his hand away, under hers, and they carried on kissing. He didn’t move it either and she didn’t know what to make of that. She was kind of hoping to be seized. She’d have to do the seizing: Bel squirmed against him. Her hands went to the waistband on his trousers as she fumbled with the buttons, without his help.

‘Bel,’ Connor whispered, staying her hand, ‘I’ve really liked fake dating you. You’ve been the greatest girlfriend I’ve never had. But I draw the line at fake sleeping with you.’

Bel stopped, nonplussed-stupid: ‘Given no one knows, I was thinking that we were real sleeping with each other?’

Connor let go and moved back.

‘But we’re only here because of all the pretending today. I don’t think it’s enough reason to trash a great friendship with a one-night stand.’

Great friendship. One-night stand.

Bel knew ‘I do not want to do this because I am not sufficiently attracted to you’ reworded when she heard it.

Why kiss her like that?! She’d never have been this foolhardy if she’d not thought that two incredible kisses, one entirely by choice, indicated some willingness.

She must’ve pounced, and thus British-embarrassed and stunned him into auto-responding before sanity reasserted itself. It felt incredibly like that, in fact. Connor thinking, woah there, I thought that was a moment of wine-fuelled silliness, but you really mean this?

The only way to make this rejection a notch less excruciating was to act as if she was all, ‘OK, thought this was casual, NBD, I do this all the time’, sex person.

‘Would it ruin it?’ Bel said, aiming for a throwaway inflection.

‘Are you in touch with any of your past one-night stands?’

It was on the tip of her tongue to say: ‘no idea, I’m a serial monogamist’, except that might scare the living shit out of Connor. She hastily redrafted: ‘Honestly, I’ve never actually had one before. Unless you count … that incident, which I don’t. Are there rules?’

Superb smokescreen that she was an experienced, do this all the time sex person. 5/5, no notes. Idiot.

‘Not exactly … but weren’t we staying friends?’

‘Friends can’t ever have done this?’

This sounds hideously like pleading, Bel.

‘In theory, yes, but in practice we’ll feel strange about it and never know what the subtext is if we get in touch, and therefore won’t get in touch.’

Translation: my next girlfriend will do thorough background checks and you won’t survive the cull.

‘Yeah, I see your point. We don’t want to be sharing smash burgers and a beer and getting involuntary flashbacks to the sight of each other writhing around naked. Like prisoners of war with PTSD.’

Irreverent humour was full masking. When their being this close felt narcotic to Bel, when she’d discovered he held her heart like a newly hatched bird in his hand, it was weird indeed to be chatting potential intercourse through like it was whether they took the A640 or A642 tomorrow. But Connor was making his disinclination clear in very feeling-sparing terms, for her sake. It was ungrateful and self-sabotaging to insist he outright said: look you’re not really my type. The gig was ‘pretending’.

‘Bel, this is because I want to stay in touch so much. I haven’t said it before because I worried I was being …what do the kids call it … extra. But I’m really going to miss you. Some serious attachment has been created.’

‘Sure! I get it,’ she said, thinking there was no way of making And I Don’t Want To Do It Enough not hurt. She thought it might be time to stop having her chest hanging out as untaken bait, and humiliatingly pulled her dress back up and into place.

Later, after lights out, while wondering if Connor was also wide awake in the dark, Bel tried very hard to see positives. You couldn’t lose what you’d never had.

If he didn’t want to sleep with her, that was a pretty conclusive answer to the question: ‘Do I tell him I’ve fallen head over heels in love with him?’

She’d got an answer – the answer she fully expected – without the agony of ever baring her soul, or her body.

Why then, was this such agony?