“Oh my.” He takes a deep breath, and finally turns to me. He picks up his glass, and raises it in a toast.
“I knew it. I knew it.”
“But I don’t want anyone to know.” Lily goes on, hurriedly. “Not my family, not James. Especially not James.”
I want to ask why not. But I don’t, and Eric just nods, like this makes perfect sense.
“I don’t want to spoil – what we have. All of us.”
Eric keeps his glass raised, and holds it out towards Lily. Eventually she picks hers up as well, and they clink them together.
And for a second it’s like both of them have forgotten I’m here at all.
After dinner we play cards. Still in the kitchen. It’s a game I don’t know, but apparently they all played it a lot when they were in Europe, on trains and waiting around in airports and hotels. You have three packs of cards, and you have to get rid of all your cards, but if you don’t remember the rules correctly you end up with whole handfuls of them. It takes me a while to learn the rules, but when I do I start to quite enjoy it. But then Lily says to Eric he should probably call a cab, because she’s tired. Then he gives her a look and asks if it’s for one, or for two, and he means whether I’m going with him. And I don’t know at all. But she tells him I’ve got my bike here, so I’d be able to make my own way home. After that we all go out into the hallway, because we can see on Eric’s cell phone that the Uber is here already, and I start to get my bike ready too, though there isn’t much to do – it kind of is ready, just by being there.
Then Eric gives Lily a hug. A proper one, that goes on for ages, and says something to her that I can’t hear. Then he surprises me by giving me one too. And just as he lets me go, he whispers something into my ear too.
“We should talk. I’ll call.”
Then, without pausing at all, he goes on, much louder. “Well I shall be off. Alone. Be careful cycling home young Billy, the night may hide many dangers.” And he pulls open the door, and walks through, leaving it open for me. I hesitate a second, and then pick my bike up, to take it outside as well. But Lily puts her hand on it and presses it back against the wall. She doesn’t say anything, she just shakes her head, then goes to shut the front door again.
So I stay again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I don’t exactly know why Lily doesn’t want anyone to know about us, but I’m not going to risk ruining it by telling anyone. And I do sort of understand. I mean, take Guy and Jimbo, in my apartment. They go on and on about sex all the time, but for them it’s almost – I don’t know – it’s almost like a competition, or like they’re stealing something. They want to have sex with girls and then pretend it didn’t mean anything to them. Then they can run away, laughing, and try and have sex with another girl, and the more hurt the first girl feels about what happened, the better. Not that I think they actually get much sex. Not as much as they brag about, anyway.
But what me and Lily have is nothing like that. Nothing at all, so I don’t want to tell them either.
And if I’m not telling the boys, then I can’t tell the girls either. I’m not quite sure what their attitude to sex is, because I don’t speak to them very much, but I do know that if I told any of them, then Laura would probably find out, and she’d tell Jimbo, and then they’d all know.
And I suppose there’s one other reason that I don’t want the girls to know, and that’s Sarah, the quiet, dark haired girl in my house. And that’s because I quite like her. Not in the same way as Lily, or not as much as Lily anyway, but I just like that she’s different to the others, and I don’t want to disappoint her. Not that it would, of course.
Then there’s Amber. I’d really like to tell her – because I do kind of want to tell someone – I guess that’s why I keep going on about it with you, because a bit of me really wants to tell the whole world, just because of how incredible it is, how incredible it feels. But I can’t tell Amber, because it really didn’t go well when she met Lily, and she really didn’t like her. So I don’t know what her reaction would be.
So I just keep pretending that nothing’s happening at all. I go to my classes and tutorials – most of them – and I do my essays, either in the library or in my room with the door shut. And I’m kind of present in college life, but at the same time, I’m not really present, because in my head I can’t stop thinking about Lily, and wondering when she’s next going to call or text me saying I can come round.
Eric calls, like he said he would. He wants to meet and discuss ‘the situation’ whatever that means. I suggest we go to the coffee place where we first met – the one with the banana daiquiris – but he says it’s the wrong time of year, and that he’ll come to me. In the end we meet up in the cafeteria on the top floor of the Marine Biology building. When he turns up I ask if he wants a drink but he insists on getting it, and has to wait in a line until he orders.
“Ahhhhh – Mr Wheatley.” He sits in the booth
