a long time,’ I confess, ‘but eventually I copped on that it was more or less a closed subject. I’ve a feeling he doesn’t like to talk about you guys very much any more. Sorry.’
Tom bites his lip and looks away.
‘It really all did turn out so terribly wrong,’ he says, his face scrunching into a puzzle as he looks up to the snow-filled sky, giving me an opportunity to drink him in. He still looks like he could be a real rock star in his biker jacket, his dogtooth black and white scarf and his faded blue jeans. He still smells like I want to pull him closer to me. He still sounds like the man who speaks right to my soul and the one who I never could get off my mind, no matter where in the world I’ve been after meeting him for just a few hours some five years ago.
‘So where have you been?’ I ask him, pain leaching into my voice. For so many years I’ve longed for him, pined for him. I travelled the world to try and shake him off, eventually laying his ghost to rest easy in my mind, but he never really ever left my heart. I know that now more than ever.
‘I’ve been …’ he laughs and scratches his head. ‘I’ve been everywhere trying to recreate what Matt and I tried to do all those years ago, ironically. I’ve been trying to make it big in music but every time a door opened for me, another one shut in my face. Maybe you were right to ignore me and my big dreams of music, but I’m happy for you, Charlie. You look happy. You look just as gorgeous as you did that first time I saw you with your guitar, your beautiful songs, your silly pyjamas and DM boots that matched mine.’
He remembers it all. My God, he actually remembers it all, but if only he knew how much it was killing me to see him again. He hasn’t changed a bit and yet he looks so different at the same time. His eyes are a little more tired but still dreamy enough to wash me away. His lips still catch my breath as I watch them move as he speaks. His hair is shorter now but still magnetic enough to make me want to reach out and touch it, and his arms still look like they were meant to hold only me. I’ve so many questions I want to ask him. Did he ever think of me like I did of him? Did he feel what I felt that day in my humble living room five years ago or was it all in my loved-up imagination?
‘What on earth are you doing here, Tom?’ I ask him. It’s the bravest question I can ask him out loud. ‘Like, seriously, how did you even find this place?’
He laughs at my bewilderment at finding him here.
‘No one our age ever goes to Pip’s Bar,’ I emphasize, ‘especially not in the run-up to Christmas when there’s so much fun to be had closer to town. This is really, really strange to bump into you here of all places.’
My cigarette isn’t as appealing as I thought and I want to stub it out already, but that would be very uncool.
‘True. I suppose it’s hardly Vegas, is it?’ he laughs.
He looks back at me with dreamy, sparkling eyes that crinkle at the sides. They don’t dance and flirt at me as much as they did before, but there still is something that makes my head spin a little more than the buzz of the beers I’ve been on. There’s still chemistry between us. I knew I wasn’t imagining it all those years ago.
He takes a deep breath.
‘It’s a long story why I’m here,’ he tells me, blowing a long line of smoke out in my direction. ‘Maybe I was looking for someone.’
I should have known.
‘Maybe I was looking for you?’ he says.
My eyes widen. I take a step backwards. I can’t tell if he’s joking or serious but I’m too afraid to ask.
‘I never thought I’d be so lucky, but lo and behold, here I am, talking to you, you’re talking to me, and we’re freezing our asses off at the same time on possibly the coldest night of the year,’ he says. ‘Plus, you’ve locked us out. It could be serendipity after all?’
His voice is deeper now, like it’s been well-lived-in, making him sound a lot older than he looks, which I reckon must be a few years over thirty since I’m now the grand age of twenty-seven.
‘I love that,’ I tell him.
‘What? Being locked out in the cold?’
‘Very funny,’ I say with a nervous giggle. ‘I mean, I love serendipity.’
‘Me too.’
‘You know, fate … going with your gut instinct … believing that things are meant to be. In fact, you’ve just reminded me of my third resolution for next year, which is a pretty good one.’
‘And that is?’ he asks me.
I stand in just a little bit closer to him for effect, urging myself not to make it so obvious I’m still mad about him and have been for all this time. I so want to touch him, just his jacket would be enough. The attraction I have for him is intensifying more than I ever knew could happen and I’ve all sorts of emotions clogging up my head.
‘My resolution is to take more chances in life,’ I explain, my eyes widening at the thought, even though if my mother heard me, she’d go mental. In her eyes I’ve always been one to live life close to the edge. ‘I’m going to put things in the hands of chance and fate, you know. Take more risks in life. Go with the flow. Be true to myself and not suppress the real me to please others.’
He glances towards the door, and then looks behind him. There’s a gate at the back of the small yard we’re standing in but, apart from that, it’s just us, some bins, some steel barrels and a very snowy sky.
‘Would you like to go somewhere else to talk more?’ he asks, looking around him, as if for inspiration. ‘Like you said, it’s hardly our type of place, is it? Plus, we mightn’t get back inside again since the door is well shut.’
Oh my good Lord … did I just hear him correctly? He wants us to go somewhere to talk? Just the two of us? This must be a dream.
I can’t think of anyone else I’d like to talk to right now but then my heart sinks. I can’t really just abandon Emily, Kevin and Kirsty inside even if I do want to run away with him more than anything in the whole world. Could I? And what if I don’t go? Will it be something I’ll regret the rest of my life? Will I never see him again?
‘We could walk around to the front and knock the door to get back in?’ I suggest as a compromise. ‘I really should go back in to my friends. They’ll be wondering where I am.’
He looks deflated now. He licks his lips lightly in defeat.
‘No problem, Charlie. Respect to that. I’ll walk you round to the door.’
I so want to change my mind. What the hell am I thinking? Maybe I’m becoming sensible at long last.
‘Thank you,’ I say to him, but I don’t make a move to go. Maybe I’m not so sensible after all.
He is looking at my lips now, then my chest, then my hair. He is looking at me like he did that day in our student living room in our matching boots when the air was filled with awe and song and music. I feel the blood fizz through my veins, warming me up.
I can almost read his mind through the hunger in his eyes, and my stomach has now joined in on the ‘Boom Boom Pow’ dance. In fact, everything is a little bit dizzy on the inside when I’m standing so close to him.
I gulp. I don’t want him to go. I don’t want to miss this ‘one in a million’ chance again.
‘I’d like to get to know you better this time, Charlie,’ he says. ‘If tonight won’t work, could we meet up some time soon? No pressure, but just see what happens? See if it really is serendipity that we met again tonight?’
The dancing inside me comes to an almighty stop. My heart is thumping. I look up at him. He’s very sexy, especially up this close. He’s Tom Farley. I’ve spent so much time for the past few years fantasizing about this very moment and putting him in my songs.
I breathe.