strings and worn T-shirts strewn everywhere. Luckily, the beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the East River to Manhattan made up for the disgusting kitchen. Lying full stretch on the sofa while Alex strummed something new on his acoustic guitar (and I pretended not to be watching Gossip Girl with the subtitles on) was officially my new favourite way to spend a Monday night. I yawned, gazing out at the skyline. When you weren’t outside, New York was gorgeous in the snow. The sun, sea and sand could never compete.
The apartment was also about twenty degrees hotter than mine and now, thoroughly warmed up, I was perfectly happy wearing nothing but Alex’s T-shirt and my pants, moulding myself against his slowly rising and falling chest on the sofa, my bare legs tangled in his long, warm limbs. We hadn’t quite made it into the bedroom, something I was always proud of. I’d come a long way from the Angela Clark who spent five or so years tucked up in her winceyette PJs before her ex came home so she wouldn’t have to endure his huffing, puffing and generally uncomfortable fumblings.
‘So, any reason in particular I should be trying to talk you out of going to LA on Saturday?’ Alex asked, combing his fingers through my mussed-up hair. Between getting back together with Alex and the terrible weather, my do was very much a constant don’t. ‘That was a pretty random request, even for you.’
‘The magazine wants me to go and interview this actor.’ I waved a hand around, working very hard to come across as very casual about the whole thing. ‘But they want me to go on Saturday and I’ve never really interviewed anyone before so I don’t know. I’m sort of in two minds about it.’
‘Sounds like a great opportunity,’ he offered diplomatically. ‘LA’ll be warmer than New York.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, twisting my neck around to get a better look at him. ‘I know, it could be amazing. It’s just a long way and stuff.’
‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘But you never know, you might like it?’
‘Do you?’ I asked. ‘Like LA, I mean.’
‘Mehh,’ he held his hand up to mine. My small pale hands, with the nibbled-at fingernails filed down, palm to palm with his long, calloused, guitar-playing fingers. ‘I don’t love it.’
‘So you wouldn’t want to come with me?’ I asked, only briefly considering Jenny’s wrath. ‘It’ll only be for a week or something.’
‘However will I survive without you?’ Alex kissed my hand.
I paused for a moment to feel his heartbeat. Perfectly even. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know if I should do it. Even if it could be incredible.’
‘Then don’t go.’ Alex’s heartbeat started to slow, I could tell he was about to drop off. That was my only bedroom-based problem with the boy. He always needed a post-shag nap whereas sex left me wide-awake. And since I overthought every situation at the best of times, his post-coital narcolepsy wasn’t ideal for me. Depending on how the day had gone, I was either planning our wedding (I thought barefoot on the beach in Mexico; I’d never been but it sounded sort of fabulous) or panicking that the whole relationship was about to fall apart again.
I tried to toss and turn quietly, torn between running off to LA with Jenny and staying exactly where I was for ever and ever when my phone starting buzzing inside my beautiful bag. Slipping out of Alex’s arms, I shuffled down the sofa and answered.
‘Hello?’ I whispered, creeping into the bathroom.
‘Angela, it’s me,’ a voice crackled from a long way away. ‘Are you there? You’re so faint?’
‘Louisa! How are you? Is everything OK? You never call my mobile.’ Louisa was my best friend from for ever. We’d grown up together, gone to the same university, moved to London at the same time, basically done everything together – right up until I broke her husband’s hand at their wedding. But since we had resolved that tiny issue, our regular weekly phone calls could go on for hours. She wouldn’t mind if I had a wee while we chatted. I hoped.
‘I know, but you weren’t home and I couldn’t wait, it’s too exciting.’ I hadn’t heard her so giddy since she’d told me about her engagement. ‘Tim’s bank got taken over by some American bank this morning, did you see it on the news?’
‘Louisa, given that I was engaged to a banker for five years and couldn’t even tell you what his job title was, I think you’re probably going to have to fill me in on the details. Is Tim’s job OK?’
‘Yes, better than OK!’ Louisa was still gushing. ‘They’ve asked him and his team to go meet the US operation. We’re coming to New York for a week. Next week!’
I snapped upwards so quickly I almost toppled off the loo seat. ‘Louisa, that’s amazing! When do you get here? Do you know where you’re staying? God, there are so many places I’m going to take you!’
‘Angela, are you on the toilet?’
Yes. ‘No?’
‘Good, because that would be disgusting,’ she said sternly. ‘Anyway, we’re all flying out on Friday night, I’m not sure where we’re staying, Tim literally just called me to tell me. Oh, Angela, I can’t wait to see you.’
‘Oh I know, you too,’ I said, trying to wash my hands and flush super quietly. ‘And Tim. Oh, I can’t believe it!’
‘There’s just one thing that might be … but well, it’s nothing really,’ Louisa’s excitement faltered slightly. ‘I mean, New York is a big city and everything, isn’t it?’
‘Louisa …?’
‘It’s just, well, like I say, nothing. Forget I said it. I’m coming to New York!’
‘Louisa Price!’
‘Fine, well, it’s not just Tim coming out.’ Louisa finally sighed. ‘It’s his whole team.’
‘So … Mark?’
‘Erm, yes, and … well.’
‘Mark and … her?’
Even six months after finding out my boyfriend had been cheating on me, I still couldn’t actually say her name. As happy as I was with Alex, as pleased as I was to be out of that relationship, girl logic prevailed – he was an evil cheating scumbag and she was a nasty skank.
‘Oh, Lou,’ I massaged my temples. ‘Seriously?’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Louisa insisted. ‘You won’t have to see him, will you? Unless, I mean, unless you want to?’
‘That’s not even funny.’ My brain was spinning. ‘Why would I want to even see him?’
‘Well, it has been ages and you two were together a long time,’ Louisa said slowly. ‘Maybe you’d feel better if you did see him?’
‘Do you remember what happened the last time I saw him?’ I could feel myself getting angry, and angry was not my best look. Hence the hand-breaking incident at Louisa’s wedding. ‘And what happened the last time you didn’t tell me something? What’s going on, since when were you Mark’s biggest fan again?’
‘All right, yes, Mark asked Tim to ask me if I would get you to meet him,’ Louisa rushed. ‘But I said he had to get in touch himself if he wanted to see you. Because if you don’t want to see him then you don’t have to and I said I wasn’t going to try and trick you or guilt-trip you or anything. He’s a tit.’
I stared at Alex’s bathroom ceiling, feeling the entire last six months slip away. Of course it would make sense to meet with Mark. We had been together for ten years, grown up together really. And it would make me the bigger person; help prove to everyone that I had really changed in the last six months. And it would all be on my terms: New York was my home now, after all, and he’d never even been to America. And of course I really wouldn’t want to but, if forced, I would be able to flaunt my beautiful new super-cool boyfriend. Nothing