I’m laughing now too, and despite the bitter cold, I can feel a warm glow spreading gradually through my body. ‘So that’s why you were late that night?’ I say. ‘You told me your washing machine flooded!’
‘Well, what was I supposed to say? “Sorry I’m late for our first date; it’s just that I was thinking so hard about you I ended up in a different town.” I didn’t want to come across as a total psychopath.’
I shake my head. ‘I remember getting so stressed in that pub, waiting for you. I genuinely thought you weren’t going to show. The barman even gave me a free half-pint because he assumed I’d been stood up.’
‘What?’ She nudges my elbow with hers. ‘You told me you’d arrived late as well! You said, and I quote: “Don’t worry, I’ve only just got here myself.”’
‘I was trying to play it cool! I got there bang on time. I think I was even early.’
She laughs and takes a sip of mulled wine. ‘Well. It’s all coming out now. What a revelation.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘and here’s another one for you: I’d already seen the film. My mum dragged me along over the Christmas holidays.’
‘You’re joking?’ She purses her lips in mock-outrage. ‘So why did you pretend you hadn’t seen it?’
‘Because you wanted to see it. And I wanted to see you.’
She sighs and leans into me, linking her arm through mine. ‘So underhanded. So deceitful.’
‘So romantic would be another way of looking at it.’
‘True,’ she says. ‘True.’
We sit for a while in silence, watching the boats drift by lazily on the river. And even though I’m not speaking, my heart is galloping like mad, because that first-date story has set something running, and my mind is suddenly alive with memories of all these fun, silly, happy times in our relationship that I honestly haven’t thought about in years. Ever since Mum died, it’s like all these moments have wilted away, as if they never even existed. And now, sitting here on this bench – feeling that strange warm glow spread right to the tips of my fingers – it’s like a door reopening. It’s like light flooding back in.
Daphne tucks a stray curl behind her ear and smiles up at me. Without thinking, I say: ‘I love you, Daff.’
Because here, in this moment, it feels true. It is true. I love her so much. But what am I supposed to do? I know how we’ll be ten years from now – bitter, unhappy, arguing the whole time. So how can we be right for each other? When it comes down to it, aren’t we just as wrong as Harv and Liv?
‘I love you too,’ she says, nuzzling into my shoulder.
‘Daff, can I ask you something?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Why do you put up with me?’ She laughs at that, but I keep going. ‘No, I mean, seriously. I’ve been such a dick lately, about all the book stuff. Or maybe I’ve been a dick the whole time we’ve known each other. But either way—’
She tilts her chin up and kisses me gently on the mouth. ‘You haven’t been a dick …’ she kisses me again, ‘the whole time.’ She tastes of cranberries and chocolate and cinnamon, and it’s a delicious combination. ‘The thing is, Ben,’ she says, ‘I’m in love with you. And don’t get me wrong: I’m not happy about it. I’d rather be in love with someone who was less of a twat. But unfortunately I don’t have much choice in the matter. I fell in love with you, and now you’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.’
Later – much later – we’re lying in bed, in Daff’s tiny shared flat in Balham.
She’s on her side, snoring lightly, and I’m snuggled right up against her warm bare back, my naked body curved neatly around hers.
And still that sentence keeps running over and over in my brain. I fell in love with you, and now you’re stuck with me whether you like it or not. I can’t get it out of my head. The firework of happiness that shot through me when she said it. I remember something else, too; something Mum said during that Monopoly game yesterday. All that matters right now is: do you make each other happy?
Right now, I feel the happiest I’ve felt in a very, very long time. I honestly think Daff does, too.
All I wanted to do tonight was to make up for what happened on this evening first time around. To change my memory of it from a grim, shameful one to a good one. And I think I’ve done that. But I never planned to end the day like this.
I never imagined that after the long, rumbling Tube journey south, Daff would close her bedroom door and kiss me so passionately, so hungrily. And that I would feel my whole body pulse with excitement because I knew exactly what was going to happen next …
I can’t even remember the last time we had sex back in 2020. And whenever it was, it definitely wasn’t like this. I forgot we could be like this together. I forgot that we fit so perfectly, that I can lose myself so completely in the moment with her.
And now she’s lying fast asleep beside me, and I can feel exhaustion weighing down on me too. There’s no clock on her wall, and my phone is somewhere in the jumble of clothes on the floor, so I have no idea how much longer I have here. But it must be nearly midnight by now.
At any second I’ll find myself somewhere else, on some other date. Maybe I’ll even be back in 2020.
But God, I wish I could stay here. Just for one more day.
I nuzzle further into Daff’s neck, and she murmurs softly. For her, it will be like this night never happened.
But as I lie here next to her, I know that I’ll never forget it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dear Ben,
(That felt quite
