Page 9 of Falling for You

Nate

I zoom in on my laptop screen, the patches of green stretching apart to reveal road names and buildings.

Aunt Tell lives in Epping, which is about an hour on the train from here.

We could go by this weekend, just pop in and see her.

All I have to do is persuade Stevie to come with me, without telling him my reason.

If I tell Stevie it’s because I want to persuade Aunt Tell to come back to New York with me, he’ll get all weird and closed off like he always does when I bring up Mom.

You don’t have to be a psychologist to work out why – you can see the guilt painted across his face at being on the other side of the world while I’ll have to deal with Mom being sick.

But you would have to be a psychologist to get him to talk about it, or even acknowledge a single feeling exists inside his eccentric, defensive mind.

I’ve given up trying. He’ll come to me eventually, and if he doesn’t, I’ll just buy him a pint.

‘All right?’

I look up and double-take Stevie as he walks into the living room. He’s wearing a tank top, which is tight against his lean body, baggy joggers and a single hoop earring. None of this is out of the ordinary; it’s his full face of make-up that nearly makes me fall off my seat.

‘Is this your new act?’ I ask, trying not to laugh at his exaggerated lips, fan-like eyelashes and painted-on eyebrows which arch up the side of his face.

Stevie clicks his tongue at me, opening his bag and throwing his water bottle inside.

‘I’m getting a cab and I hate the dressing room at this place,’ he snaps. ‘It’s easier if I do my make-up here and then get changed once I’m there.’

I nod, taking a sip from my cold bottle of Corona.

Stevie created Stevie Trixx, his drag persona, a few years after he finished dance school. It made total sense, Stevie’s a fantastic dancer … but he’s also a performer. He loves making people laugh and gasp on stage and he’s always been so creative.

‘What time is your cab?’ I ask, moving my bag so he can slump onto the sofa next to me. He closes his eyes, pushing a thumb and forefinger against his temple, the long, glittery nail catching the light and sparkling.

‘In about ten minutes,’ he says.

‘Hey!’ I say, sitting up as the thought drops into my mind. ‘You might have my new mate, Remy, as your driver. He’s a cabbie!’

‘Is he a homophobe?’

I pause. I’m not stupid enough to believe that just because someone is nice to me means that they wouldn’t act vile towards someone from another walk of life. But I do like to think I’m a good judge of character.

‘No,’ I say eventually. ‘I don’t think so. He’s a nice guy.’

Stevie begins to heave himself off the sofa and I sit up straight. I need to grab him and lock down this weekend before he goes out. God knows what time he’ll get back from his gig tonight.

‘Stevie, are you around on Sunday?’

He clambers to his feet, walking over to the mirror and peering at his cheek. ‘Don’t know. Maybe. Why?’

‘I thought we could go and visit Aunt Tell.’

I try to say it lightly, like I’d suggested catching a movie or going to watch a game, but Stevie knows me too well. He turns to face me, his inexplicable eyebrows raised.

‘Aunt Tell? Why?’

‘Because it would be nice to catch up with family,’ I say, inwardly cringing as the forced words come out of my mouth. It sounds so fake. ‘I haven’t seen her for years, and as I’m in London it would be rude not to.’

Stevie peers at me for a second, then whips back round to the mirror.

‘Cool, well, have fun. But I’m not going.’ He snatches up his bag and blows me a kiss.

‘Stevie!’ I gabble, getting to my feet. ‘Why not? It’ll be nice! I really think—’

‘Byeeeeeeee!’

And with that, the door swings shut.

Great.

‘Right, I’ll take this one slow, mate.’

‘Thanks, man, I just …’

All the words leave my body as the ball smacks against the wall and shoots past my left ear before I’d even taken an intake of breath.

I stare at Remy open-mouthed as he chortles to himself.

‘God, you’re worse than I thought you’d be.’

It’s Saturday, and after a week of going into the office every day and trying to befriend my new colleagues, I was ready to spend the day locked in my bedroom with the lights off, scraping any remnants of social energy off the floor and putting them back in my body, ready to do it all again on Monday.

Stevie was gigging all day, and apart from a call with Mom I was fairly content at the idea of hibernating. And then I got a message from Remy.

What are your plans tomorrow, lad?

We’d exchanged numbers after spending the majority of the evening chatting at the pub, but I wasn’t expecting to actually hear from him.

I certainly wasn’t expecting him to ask me to play squash with him. A sport which, up until about forty minutes ago, I’d never even heard of.

‘I told you, I’m not a sports guy!’ I say, leaning my back against the wall as Remy retrieves the ball.

He’s wearing loose shorts and a white T-shirt, with matching sweatband across his forehead.

His eyes glint every time he picks up the ball and it’s making me wonder whether he only invited me along for an ego boost.

‘Right,’ Remy bounces the ball a few times on the floor. ‘Ready?’

We’re at a leisure centre in Primrose Hill. It’s a characterless building with a strong smell of chlorine and several retired people milling around with towels round their necks.

Although I shouldn’t underestimate them. Remy’s in his late fifties and is absolutely caning me.

I bend my knees, my fingers clasped around my racket as I lock eyes onto the ball.

Right, I can hit one. It’s not that hard.

Remy flicks the ball into the air and taps it with his racket.

A surge of adrenaline rushes through me as I lurch forward, thwacking the ball with all my might.

It ricochets off the wall and I turn towards Remy to celebrate, while he immediately hits it back and it sails past me. I may as well not even be there.

‘I was about to say that was pretty good,’ Remy grins at me, flicking open the top of his Lucozade Sport and tipping the orange liquid down his throat.

‘I’ll take that,’ I laugh, rolling my eyes.

‘So,’ he says, bouncing the ball against his racket. ‘How’s all that family stuff going then?’

I snort. ‘Still pretty shit!’ I say.

He gives me a questioning look but doesn’t say any more. Usually at this point I’d change the subject, but there is something about Remy that feels so far removed from my ordinary life that it feels all right to talk to him.

‘My mom isn’t well,’ I say, dropping onto the bench as Remy starts tapping the ball to himself against the floor (much lighter than he was hammering it to me).

‘Oh?’

I bend down and lean my elbows on my knees. ‘Early onset dementia.’

God, I hate saying that. Every time I say those words they fly out of my mouth like they don’t belong there. I want to wrestle that horrible phrase down and launch it out the window.

Remy catches the ball and turns to me. ‘I’m sorry, lad. That’s fucking horrible.’

I shrug. ‘My brother lives over here but he hardly ever comes home, and she has a sister who lives in London.’

‘Oh yeah? Whereabouts?’

‘Epping,’ I say, and Remy nods. ‘Mom has started talking about her, and I tried calling and writing to my aunt to see if she’d come home for a while and see Mom, but she ignored me.’

‘Right.’ Remy starts tapping the ball up and down on the floor.

‘So I thought I’d come here to persuade her myself.’

It’s the first time I’ve said my plan out loud, and as I say it, I suddenly feel like an overly optimistic Dickens character, arriving in London with only the clothes on my back and a heart full of dreams.

Remy turns to me. ‘That’s very optimistic.’

I shrug. ‘I am American.’

‘Well, that can’t be all you do here,’ he says. ‘What are your other plans?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Work, explore London. See the sights and all that.’

He bounces the ball in my direction. ‘I host a speed-dating night once a month, you could come along to that.’

‘Speed dating?’ I say, dodging out of the way as the ball rockets towards the wall behind my face. ‘You old dog, Remy.’

He gives a sheepish smile. ‘No, no, I just help run it. It helps raise money for the pub. I’ll sign you up.’

‘Like you signed me up for squash?’ I say, getting to my feet and picking up my racket.

Remy chuckles. ‘Well, with any luck you’ll be better at dating than you are at sport.’

I’m about to say something cutting back, when Remy hits the ball against the wall and it immediately flies past my poised racket.

Remy raises his eyebrows at me, grinning. ‘Even if that’s quite a low bar.’

‘Hello?’

I step out of the shower and tuck a towel around my hips as Stevie’s voice booms through the flat.

After a few more games of squash with Remy (if you can call it that), we went to a pub round the corner for a beer and a sandwich before parting ways.

I decided to stroll back through Primrose Hill park, as the crisp autumn air was refreshing against my warm, post-exercise face.

But then the clouds gathered and it started to rain, and of course I had no umbrella or coat with me.

My legs would not have complied if I’d tried to break into a run after the hour or so of forced fun Remy had tricked me into.

So I strolled through the rain, letting the beads of water hit my face and drip down my neck.

There is something quite freeing about turning your face to the sky and letting the rain come down on you, ignoring the natural instinct to race under the nearest shelter or duck your head under your arms. By the time I got back to our flat, my skin was pale and prunish and my hair was dripping wet.

Two small puddles surrounded my shoes when I took them off by the front door.

‘Hi, buddy,’ I say, pushing the bathroom door open, which nearly takes Stevie out as he tries to slip into the kitchen whilst walking down our impressively narrow hallway.

He dodges the door expertly. ‘All right?’

I grab another towel and give my hair a rough rub.

Stevie picked up this odd expression almost as soon as he moved to London.

I tried to ignore it at first, but when he started answering almost every phone call with an ‘all right?’ I had to stand my ground.

Was he asking me a question? Or telling me he was okay?

Commanding the conversation? I couldn’t tell and it was driving me mad.

Anyway, I told him how ridiculous it was, but he was having none of it. Now I think he says it more on purpose just to annoy me. A rookie error on my part. Never tell Stevie that something he’s doing annoys you unless you’re willing for him to start doing it tenfold.

‘Yeah,’ I say, choosing to believe that on this occasion, it is meant as a question about my wellbeing. ‘Good, you?’

Stevie nods and I hear the kettle start to bubble. Stevie also adopted the addiction to tea when he landed in the UK ten years ago. I head into my boxroom and pull a sweatshirt and pants on, then follow him into the kitchen.

‘All good,’ he says, peering inside the cupboards. ‘Although we have no food in.’

‘I can get us take-out,’ I say, pulling out my phone. ‘Oh, while you’re here, shall we call Mom?’

Stevie keeps his eyes fixed on the cupboard. ‘What, now?’

‘Yeah. We keep missing each other all day and I know she’d like to hear from us both.’

Stevie closes the cupboard door and turns his back to me, now facing the sink. ‘I can’t, I’ve got some stuff I need to do.’

I pull a face at the back of his head. ‘Like what?’

‘Also,’ he turns to me and walks out of the kitchen, ‘I’ve done you a favour.’

I look up from the reams of delivery options on my phone.

Burger, Chinese, Indian … it’s just like New York.

‘I’ve got us invited to a party.’

‘No thanks,’ I say, looking back at my phone as I follow him into the living room. ‘I’m good.’

‘It’s tonight,’ Stevie is saying, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘A masquerade ball.’

‘Sounds horrible.’

God, that looks like a good burger. Twenty pounds, though, including delivery – that feels like a lot.

I really need to get to grips with how much things are supposed to cost here. I feel like I’m walking around with ‘Hey buddy, I’m a friendly American, scam me!’ stapled to my forehead.

‘It’s basically like black tie and dresses and then we wear a mask. Or, like, fancy dress.’

‘Right.’

‘It’s a PR event for a huge perfume or something. They’ve hired performers and everything.’

I look up at Stevie, leaning against the doorframe. ‘Are you performing?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, not my kind of performing. But I know one of the girls who has been booked and she was given a load of tickets to, like, fill up the event.’

Okay, I think I’m going to have to get this burger. I don’t care if it’s twenty pounds and I’m being ripped off; I’m starving and it looks great.

‘Well, have fun,’ I say, plucking my bank card from the coffee table.

Stevie raises his eyebrows at me. ‘You’re coming, Nathaniel. This wasn’t a question.’

I smirk. I know Stevie is serious when he full-names me.

‘Why?’ I say. ‘You know I’ll hate it. Just leave me here, I’ll be fine. I’ll watch sport or something.’

‘You hate sport.’

‘I also hate going to fancy parties in fancy dress,’ I quip, pointing my bank card at him.

‘I can’t leave you by yourself on a Saturday night.’

‘I’m a big boy,’ I say, giving a fist pump as my order goes through. ‘Oh shit!’ I look up at Stevie desperately. ‘It’s not going to be here for an hour. Are you kidding me?’

Stevie rolls his eyes. ‘Look, I’ll sort your outfit. It’ll be fun. You’re not spending your second Saturday night in London sitting in this flat by yourself.’

‘Fine,’ I mutter, all defiant energy having left my body the moment my burger slipped out of my fingers and into standstill traffic.

‘Great.’ Stevie punches my arm. ‘I’ll be back later with your outfit. Enjoy your burger. We need to leave here at nine.’

I go to reply when Mom’s name flashes on my screen.

‘Wait, Stevie, Mom is calling now!’ I call after him. ‘Can’t you just …’

But my words are lost as I hear the door slam and I sigh, pushing my fingers through my damp hair and answering the call.

‘Hi Mom, how’s it going?’