We walk for another ten minutes or so, and the conversation between us continues to easily spill. We talk about some of the bands we have seen, the music we listen to, and the books that we have read.
We finish our walk outside of a two-storey, U-shaped apartment building built around a central open communal garden, which has a fountain at its centre. It meets the street with a wrought-iron fence and gate. Lauren is telling me this is where she lives. It takes me a moment or two to realise that this isn’t another pit stop. This is goodnight.
I’m struck by the thought that up until now, tonight has been so surprising, so unexpected, and perfect in the way it has unfolded. It has been like few nights in life are, without the aid of shades of memory and rose-tinted glasses. I don’t want to ruin or lose that. I’m wondering how life managed to do this. How it conjured up such a night out of the ruins of today. I’m wondering what is possible now when Lauren breaks our silence.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ Lauren says, and looks away for a second.
‘It’s my thing,’ I say, my hands stuffed deep into my pockets. ‘I go quiet at crucial moments. I feign deepness; hope it doesn’t get mistaken for confusion or fear. I keep my fingers mentally crossed and hope for the best.’
‘What’s your average?’
I draw my lips in and purse them, shake my head, ‘These things can go either way.’
‘You’re no help at all, are you?’
‘That has been said.’
‘This is your cue, by the way,’ Lauren says.
‘Yeah, I thought it might be.’
I take a half-step forward and pause, and I look at Lauren, and she smiles, amused. She blows very gently so that I can feel her breath on my lips, and she tilts her head forward, and we kiss. My hands are still buried deep in my back pockets, and I am transported. It is one of those kisses that is like a sunrise, full of hope and promise, and feels like everything. Lauren places her palms flat on my shirt and chest. She looks up at me, tips her head slightly, and sucks her bottom lip in for a moment.
‘This is the part where I tell you that I don’t do this kind of thing all that often but…’ Lauren says, and she trails off, smiling.
That smile is something. I know that I’ll remember this moment for a long time to come. I’m swept away by her words as they take me by surprise. I’m at a loss and not sure how to respond. Tomorrow I am not going to be here, and as much as I want this to happen, want more of Lauren, tonight more than anything I want to be honest. I want to be the best of myself. I know from experience that I am not always that person, and tonight it does not seem fair to be anything less.
‘I don’t know where I’m going, after tonight,’ I say.
Lauren nods, ‘I don’t either,’ she says.
‘I don’t want to…’ And it’s my turn to trail off, to not finish, to end with a small shrug.
‘I know you don’t, and that’s okay,’ she says.
I nod at this. ‘I would like to hear you play something,’ I say.
Lauren leans in again, and we kiss. We kiss for much longer this time, our arms enfolding each other, and then she takes my hand.
‘Come on then,’ she says.
We walk through the gate and into the garden, past the empty fountain, and take a stairwell up to an apartment on the first floor. There’s a wooden balcony that looks out onto the garden. We enter a small kitchen, and from the big fridge, Lauren takes a couple of bottles of Coors Light. She twists off the caps and hands one to me. We tap our bottles together, and I follow her into a lounge. She points to a small hallway on the left and says ‘bathroom’, ‘Josie’s bedroom’ and then pointing says ‘mine’. We walk across the room, and Lauren pauses before opening the door.
‘I should warn you. It might be a mess,’ Lauren says and turns her eyes to the top of her head for a second and looks back at me, smiling, as she steps into her bedroom, and I follow behind her.
Lauren clicks on the lamp by the bedside table, which gives off a soft light. She asks me to turn off the ceiling light as she puts her beer down on the desk and scoops a couple of things from the floor. There are no heaps of clothes piled in a corner, which is what you’ll always find in my room. I sit down on the edge of the bed and pick up the acoustic guitar, which is standing in an open, hard, black case, leaning against the wall by the door. Lauren sips from her beer as she perches on the chest of drawers and sits back. I rest the guitar on my lap, run my fingers over the fretboard, and let my thumb drift over the strings.
‘Now’s your chance to impress me with something you wrote, but not love being torn apart; I think you might kill the moment,’ Lauren says.
‘Okay, so this feels like the song for the moment,’ I say, and I start to strum a C chord softly and, looking up at her, ‘It’s been a while.’
It’s getting late, the pubs are closed,
I walk you home, you keep really close.
Now is the time, when things go right,
Be my North Star, I’ll follow you tonight.
In Fahrenheit…
When I’ve finished, Lauren sits down next to me. She puts a hand on my shoulder and holds it there.
‘I loved that, thank you,’ she says.
‘Your turn,’
