Page 73 of Darling

“Well, I think you’d have found your way to him eventually with or without me; he was quite determined, and he practically fell into your lap. He’s rather perfect for you, Felix.”

“He is perfect for me. Ugh.”

I’m reminded of something I said to Asher in the hotel in NewJersey, something he’d rightly called me out on.Rather perfect for you, he’d parroted.You know, for someone constantly warning me off, you sure give mixed signals.

“Is there any point in my even asking about you?” Felix interrupts, as though he has a direct line to my thoughts. “Or are you doing your best monk impersonation over there?”

Well, it’s now or never. If I’m going to talk to Felix about Asher, then now would be the moment. The slight delay in my response has Felix on high alert, gaze sharpening to the point of a pin.

“What aren’t you saying right now?” he asks suspiciously.

“I… well… it’s very… I’ve met someone. Sort of. He’s… well… it’s… I’m not sure.”

Felix’s mouth drops open. “What in the lovestruck Hugh Grant was that?” He waves his fork in my direction.

“Pardon?”

“Oh, my god.” His fork clatters to his plate as he turns all the way around in his chair to face me fully. “You’re fucking smitten! What is going on??Whois he?”

My cheeks catch fire as I look away from him, which I’m aware only makes this much, much worse. I say: “Don’t be absurd. Smitten.” I scoff at the word.

“Your neck is red.”

I place my palm on it, partly to cover it, partly to check the temperature. It is rather hot.

“I amnotsmitten,” I insist, lifting my wine to take a good slug.

“Okay, well, whatever this is. Enamoured. Bewitched. Beguiled.Besotted.”

“Are you reading these from a thesaurus?”

“I don’t understand why you’re avoiding my questions.” There’s a slight pout to his lower lip.

“Because it’s… absurd.” I close my eyes at the guilt I feel about saying that. “He’s younger. We’re… It’s silly.”

“I was younger,” he says. “Were we ‘silly’?”

“Yes. We were. Extremely. It’s why your father just about destroyed my career when he found out.”

Felix’s expression turns to guilt and sadness.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” I put a hand on his arm. “That was cruel. I didn’t mean that.Weweren’t silly. I was. I was a stupid man, and I did a stupid thing, and I paid the price for it. And it seems I’ve not learned my lesson because I appear to be doing it all over again.” But far more emphatically.

Felix pouts. “Well, my dad only has one of us, so how can you be doing it again?”

I want desperately to open up to someone about Asher. Before tonight, I’d wondered what it would be like to have Felix’s thoughts on this. Though I can guess what his advice will be: throw myself at it with all four limbs. I still very much want to say it out loud to someone, a friend—to give it a voice and form and to see how his name feels spoken on my lips in that very specific context. His name, which feels like a caress on bare skin. His name, which feels like a balm over my splintered heart. Asher. Asher.

“That’s his name?”

I nod, realising I’d spoken it aloud. “Yes. His name’s Asher.”

“And howmuchyounger are we talking?” he asks tentatively.

“He’s twenty-five.”

Felix frowns. “So then what the fuck is the problem here?”

“It’s about the optics of the thing, Felix.”